IGDcast – It's Going Down

On today’s episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we sit down with labor historian Peter Cole, who speaks on how the state in the midst of World War I, used a variety of tactics, which came to be known as the ‘Red Scare,’ to attack and smash the ascendant Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), an anti-capitalist labor union organized around syndicalist lines.

Cole maps out the variety of forces which attacked the union, ranging from coordinated government raids on IWW union halls, attacks from far-Right vigilantes in the the Ku-Klux-Klan and the American Legion, and the assassination of organizers by local police. We look at how the American state utilized the courts against the IWW through things like the the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act and the Criminal Syndicalism laws, which criminalized membership within the union. Finally, we unpack the role of early nationalist disinformation, which attempted to paint the IWW as agents of the German state in the midst of the the war, especially at a time when the IWW was organizing heavily in industries which were crucial to the war effort.

In closing, we compare this history of the Red Scare with the ongoing wave of repression happening in Atlanta today, as the state attempts to break the movement against Cop City. We also look at recent attempts by the US government to demonize membership in the IWW, such as in the J20 trials and the assassination of forest defender Tortuguita in Atlanta.

The history of the Red Scare is a dire warning about the ability of the democratic State to smash by any means necessary radical working-class organizing from below, utilizing a wide range of repressive tactics. Just as today, the state is ready to criminalize ideology and participation in social movements in an effort to safeguard its interests.

More Info: Peter Cole interview on IWW.org. Check out Peter Cole on the IGD podcast here, here, and here.

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with members of Safe Redlands Schools (SRS), a group of antifascist moms who have come together to push back against far-Right and fascist groups attempting to advance an authoritarian agenda in the Southern California area, specifically in local school districts.

During our discussion, we talk about how these groups, which include far-Right street gangs like the Proud Boys, grew out of far-Right conspiracy theories and reaction to COVID-19 lockdowns, pivoting quickly to opposing “Critical Race Theory” and embracing a politics of gender fascism. As far-Right militants set their sites on the schools boards as a new terrain of confrontation, violence erupted at various meetings, with parents and their children often caught in the middle between politicians, out of town grifters, and their followers in violent far-Right organizations.

Members of SRS map out how they have built a network of concerned parents across their region, the wide variety of organizing that they engage in within their communities against the far-Right, and why they made the important decision to openly label themselves as “anti-fascist.”

More Info: Safe Redlands Schools (SRS) on Instagram, homepage, and beyond.

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with someone involved in Nor Cal Resist, a group based out of Sacramento, California organizing around mutual aid, community solidarity, and building movement infrastructure. During our discussion, we talk about how the group has begun to organize and work with asylum seekers, mainly from Venezuela, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine, and the struggles that they have faced along way and the economic and imperial forces which pushed them to carry out such dangerous journeys. We talk about how Republican governors have shipped asylum seekers into “blue cities” including Sacramento, and how mutual aid groups like Nor Cal Resist has mobilized to provide support and direct aid in the face of increasing racist conspiracy theories and State repression.

As Truthout reported:

The recent rise in refugees attempting to enter the U.S. — reaching a high point of 2.5 million by 2023 — is a result of displacing factors in which U.S. government policy has played a role.

For instance, the largest percentage (53 percent) of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. since 2020 have come from Venezuela — where the U.S. government has maintained a suffocating regime of economic sanctions since 2014.

There has also been an increase in state repression and restrictive changes in policy that have reduced how many migrants attain refugee status after entering the country. For instance, while there is a recent increase in people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border — a process rooted in long-standing U.S. policy — Trump largely dismantled the practice, instead automatically expelling migrants at the border. Biden continued Trump’s policy until May 2023, deporting even more than Trump.

While 2.3 million migrants and refugees have been temporarily “paroled” into the U.S. under Biden, nearly 4 million have been denied entry or deported. Most paroled individuals are in active removal proceedings, and only a small percentage are likely to attain refugee status as Biden has capped asylum cases at 125,000 per year. So no, migrants are not “the problem.” And the U.S. has sufficient resources to settle migrants and refugees — if that were a priority.

The real threat at the border is the far right, which has fueled a civil war-like showdown between the federal government and the Texas state government by weaponizing anti-immigration politics.

As both corporate political parties push to manufacture a crisis at the border over asylum seekers and refugees, social movements must work to show that the capitalist system which is attacking workers and the poor across the world is our common enemy, along with the racists and white supremacists attempting to divide us.

More Info: Nor Cal Resist on Instagram and Link Tree.

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we host a discussion on lessons learned from the support campaign to defend J20 defendants, who faced up to 80 years in prison due to conspiracy charges steaming from a march that took place during Trump’s inauguration in 2017. Our guests include one person who was arrested in DC that day and another who was involved in the support campaign to defend the over 200 arrestees.

During our discussion, we talk about the case, how the prosecution utilized and weaponized far-Right media, the attempt by the State to demonize anarchism, and the way that people mobilized to stand in solidarity with defendants.

We end by mapping out the lessons learned from the work that went into supporting those targeted on J20 and especially the ways this can inform the struggle against RICO charges and beyond in Atlanta, Georgia.

More Info: #DefendJ20 podcast series on It’s Going Down 

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we present an interview with former anarchist political prisoner Eric King along with Josh from the Certain Days calendar collective. During our interview, we speak with Eric about the impact and importance of prisoner support during his nearly 10 years of incarceration and his thoughts about building large-scale prisoner support and a robust abolitionist movement.

We also touch upon the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it spread inside the prison walls, and the racial dynamics that played out between prisoners and guards during the rise of Trumpism.

Eric and Josh argue that anti-repression organizing and support for political prisoners cannot remain sidelined within social movements, but must be something that we center within the wider abolitionist struggle.

More Info: Eric King interview on the Final Straw, Rosenberg Fund for Children, Eric King on Instagram, Certain Days calendar collective, Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners

Music: Dawn Ray’d, “Freedom in Retrograde”

Listen and Download HERE

On this special episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we feature an audio recording from a presentation in the bay area this summer on July 18th by the Black Rose Anarchist Federation  / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation’s Bay Area local and AK Press hosted historian Troy Araiza Kokinis to discuss his new book Anarchist Popular Power: Dissident Labor and Armed Struggle in Uruguay, 1956-76.

Anarchist Popular Power is the first-ever full-length English-language history of the Anarchist Federation of Uruguay. As Araiza Kokinis explains, the FAU organized students and workers to directly confront international and domestic capitalists, far-Right violence, and state repression amidst rising IMF-mandated austerity and declining living standards during the 1960s and 1970s. Pushed underground and into exile by governmental ban and a decade of US-backed military dictatorship, the organization has spread its model for revolutionary change around the world since it resurfaced in the mid-1980s.

The FAU‘s innovative engagement with, disciplined commitment to, and steadfast confidence in everyday people’s capacities to control their shop floors, classrooms, neighborhoods, and lives offers important lessons for revolutionaries today. If you are inspired to adapt these and other lessons for the so-called United States, reach out to Black Rose / Rosa Negra at blackrosefed.org.

Due to some technical issues during the event, the following combines portions of live audio with recreations of the author’s talk. We hope you enjoy the conversation!

Produced and edited by Kenny Donovan.

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with Adi Callai of the Rev and Reve channel about the unfolding genocide playing out in the occupied Palestinian territories. Callai speaks about the context of the uprising that exploded on October 7th, the Israeli state’s use of technology, drones, and beyond, the combating visions of counter-insurgency between states, and the role of Western governments in backing the ongoing bloodshed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MVIh6Rnzog

This interview is the third in a series about the unfolding war in occupied Palestine that has raged in the aftermath of October 7th. The first featured an interview with Scott Campbell on the history of the state of Israel and its settler colonial project and the second featured an interview with a Palestinian living in the occupied West Bank.

More Info: Rev and Reve on YouTube

Image by hosny salah from Pixabay

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, IGD contributor Scott Campbell speaks with a Palestinian comrade based in Ramallah, which is located in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. The West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. For a deeper dive on the history of the occupation of Palestine by the state of Israel and how it is propped up by the US government, go here.

The interview covers the current unfolding situation on the ground in the various parts of Palestine, the role of the Palestinian Authority during Israel’s current war on Gaza, the place (or lack thereof) of anarchism in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, how international solidarity can best manifest itself, and much more.

photo: Miami Antifascist Newsletter

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we host a discussion with IGD contributor Scott Campbell, as we cover the current situation on the ground in Palestine, the Netanyahu government in Israel and its links to the global far-Right, the role of the US in the conflict, and what possible avenues social movements could take in the fight against apartheid and occupation.

During our discussion, Scott gives us a short history of the occupation of Palestine by the state of Israel, the political players on the ground, the role of the United States, and how Israel has worked to export its brand of ethno-nationalism and counter-insurgency around the world.

Over the course of our talk, we touch on the connections between settler-colonial regimes around the world, how we can use history as a tool to inform our struggles, and how we might go about building our capacity to act in solidarity.

More Info: Scott Campbell on Mastodon, Decolonization is Not a Metaphor, Movement Memos podcast, and Behind the 21st Century Intifada

photo: Ahmed Abu Hameeda via Unsplash

music: “Real Gaza Me Seh!” by Hanouneh ft. Promoe

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we again speak with anarchist historian, YouTuber, and libertarian socialist philosopher Zoe Baker about her new book, Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in Europe and the United States, published by AK Press.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79ExsrkIMYQ

In many ways, the book takes off from our previous discussion on anarchist history, and talks about how anarchism became a mass movement in the late 1800s, faced repression from the State, and worked to participate in social movements and struggles that reflected its anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist principles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JofDhVPShVg

During our discussion we talk about how the historical anarchist movement approached questions of organization, action, reform, movement building, distributing ideas, State socialism, trade unions, and beyond. Note, the scope of this historical overview is limited, and we encourage readers to check out Non-Western Anarchisms: Rethinking the Global Context.

More Info: Zoe Baker on Youtube, Means and Ends on AK Press, “Lessons from Anarchist History” podcast with IGD.

Music: Lee Brickley, Anna’s Song