Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea! We’re excited to bring you a jam-packed show today and we have some amazing content planned, so be sure to subscribe to the show and follow us on Mastodon and BlueSky.

In today’s episode, we feature:

But first, let’s get to the news.

We are now over two months into the second Trump administration, and already the regime has created a constitutional crisis and has begun to defy some court orders, openly calling for judges to be impeached, and issuing executive orders against law firms, while Trump moves to enrich himself and his cohorts, even performing a grotesque infomercial on the White House lawn for Tesla. This has been coupled with a sweeping ramping up mass deportations, slashing safety-net programs, re-organizing cultural and educational institutions across the country, firing swaths of federal workers, and attacking labor unions and collective bargaining.

Vicky Osterweil made some important observations recently, writing:

If we look at the current state of the fascist coup in the US, it is clear that they are making significant material progress while simultaneously losing more and more political and popular ground. The tariffs are a particularly extreme example of this contradiction: Trump has successfully claimed economic power over the entire globe exclusively to his person – let congress, the people, his allies, even his cabinet be damned – but stock markets are in freefall, he’s hemorrhaging support from the capitalist class and even his own people have started briefing against him. But this contradiction has been visible in almost all of his moves, as he successfully wields powers constitutionally and legally “unavailable” to the executive, but all the while popular discontent, protest and fury build at a rapid pace.

This contradiction will only lead to accelerating confrontations until it is resolved.

They really only had this two-pronged strategy – control the media and purge the government while robbing the till as fast as possible – but they attacked everywhere at once, as though they had much broader control of the situation. This blitz maximized popular resistance while actively demoralizing their base and their street forces.

In Congress, Republicans push forward on their proposed budget package, which would mean drastic tax-cuts for billionaires and corporations, $1 trillion for the Pentagon, $45 billion to expand ICE detention centers, while also cutting much needed medical and food programs and throwing basic social safety net programs like Social Security into chaos.

Meanwhile, the economy stands on the verge of a possible recession, as uncertainty in the market grows, and Trump continues to push through with tariffs, escalating a growing trade war – especially with China. How this will play out for poor and working people in the US remains to be seen, so be sure to listen later in this episode for more discussion on where this is all heading and the dystopian project underlying this push.

And as a recession lies on the horizon, the Trump administration continues to push for increased repression and authoritarian attacks on growing segments of society. Multiple international students living inside the US legally have been abducted from their homes and disappeared, as the state has moved to revoke the visas of international students across the US.

Even more horrifically, the Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act from the late 1700s, as justification for sending several hundred Venezuelan migrants to a super-max “anti-terrorist” prison in El Salvador, in an exchange for several million with the far-Right dictator of that country. Those sent to the prison, which is known for human rights abuses, will be used as slave labor. Recent investigations have found that the vast majority of those sent there have no criminal records, including a man who the only “evidence” of his membership in a gang turned out to be a tattoo that celebrated Autism Awareness. Another person sent to El Salvador, Kilmar Garcia, a union member living in Maryland that even the Trump administration admits was deported due a administrative error, has sparked widespread anger, protests, and calls for his release.

As It’s Going Down reported in its column In Contempt:

Protests and demonstrations in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and others targeted by the Trump administration are spreading. Labor unions which several targeted students belong to have launched campaigns and organized rallies in solidarity. Trump Tower in New York was flooded by demonstrators with Jewish Voice for Peace, who shut down the lobby of the building, demanding freedom for Khalil and denouncing fascist attacks on Palestinian solidarity activists.

Demonstrations in solidarity with targeted students have been organized across the country, mobilizing thousands in rallies and marches on campuses and in city centers. Students have organized walkouts on campus and at Columbia university in New York, Jewish students carried out a lockdown and rally to demand freedom for Khalil.

Demonstrations and protests continue across the US against ICE. Students continue to organize walkouts against attacks on migrants, communities are banding together to denounce ICE raids, and rallies call for the closure of ICE prisons and to denounce collaboration with law enforcement.

In Tacoma, WA, hundreds turned out to demonstrate against ICE and to call for the release of union organizer picked up by DHS and held in detention. The Tacoma branch of the Industrial Workers of the World reported:

Today, we attended the rally at the Northwest Detention Center right here in Tacoma to support all immigrants detained in immigration detention. The labor movement showed up in force, multiple labor unions, community members and organizations demanding the release of immigrant union members and leaders, Lewelyn Dixon member of SEIU Local 925 and union leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez of Familias Unidas por la Justicia.

We know that these attacks against immigrant and undocumented communities as well as labor unions by the capitalist class have been happening for decades, even centuries at this point. They are systemic and structural, and are part of the root causes; capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. We continue the fight!

Most recently, in New York:

A mother and her three children who were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as part of a sweep in the tiny home town of the Trump administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, have been released following days of outcry from community figures, advocates and protesters calling for their freedom.

Over the weekend, about a thousand protesters marched outside Homan’s home in a small New York village, calling for the release of the family after they were detained last month.

Resistance is bubbling across the social terrain, with literally millions of people across the US taking part in mass demonstrations over the past month against both Elon Musk and the Trump regime. One of the largest popular expressions of popular outrage at Elon Musk and the Trump administration, has been the explosion of the Tesla Takedown movement, which has held demonstrations and rallies outside of Tesla showrooms across the country since Trump came to power. On March 29th, thousands of people rallied outside of Telsa showrooms across the US in a day of action.

As It’s Going Down reported:

Over the past two months, Tesla stock has tanked, costing Musk billions of dollars, trade-ins of Tesla vehicles have skyrocketed, and boycotts in places like Germany, where Musk came out in support of the neo-fascist AfD party, has led to a mass decline in sales. Despite politicians and influencers rushing to encourage the MAGA faithful to buy Tesla vehicles, as Business Insider reported, “Tesla has lost so much value in such a short period of time that JPMorgan analysts said they couldn’t think of another comparable moment in automotive history.”

Trump officials have also pushed to demonize a growing chorus of sabotage, graffiti, and property destruction against Tesla vehicles, labeling it “domestic terrorism,” while predictably echoing far-Right conspiracies that such acts are being “funded,” as Trump has even floated the idea that anti-Tesla protesters would be sent to prisons in El Salvador, and Musk has claimed that the Trump administration would “go after” vocal critics of his company.

Increased authoritarian rhetoric from Trump, Musk, and pundits on Fox News, has galvanized a small segment of far-Right, neo-Nazi, and Republican groups to mobilize in public support of Musk and his increasingly unpopular attacks on working-class Americans, in an attempt to intimidate anti-Musk protesters. Already in Florida, a Trump supporter was arrested last week, after driving his car onto the sidewalk in an apparent attempt to injure anti-Tesla protesters, and in Berkeley, CA, a far-Right influencer clashed with demonstrators after he pulled a weapon on the crowd.

Despite the far-Right coming out in support of Musk, the number of anti-Tesla demonstrations only continues to increase, with protests taking place at hundreds of locations on March 29th. Calls for counter-protests by Trump supporters, neo-Nazis, and Proud Boys also failed to stop or intimidate anti-Tesla demonstrators, and generally, far-Right rally goers were vastly outnumbered when counter-protests did take place.

More anti-Tesla demonstrations are planned in the coming weeks, as Tesla stock continues to tank. Meanwhile, acts of targeted vandalism against Tesla show no signs of slowing down, as Tesla cars in various cities have been set on fire and damaged in a growing number of incidents. The state is also ramping up calls to charge those arrested for vandalism with “domestic terrorism.”

On April 5th, various progressive organizations, largely aligned with the Democratic Party, held massive “Hands Off!” demonstrations in over a thousand cities and towns across the US, mobilizing upwards of millions of people. While the protests are certainly a temperature check that Trump’s policies are largely unpopular, as many have pointed out, the attempt to herd us back into the Democratic Party is a dead end. As anarchist author Peter Gelderloos wrote:

It is insanely delusional to believe that the Democrat[ic Party is] capable of changing in a meaningful way, and it is insanely delusional to trust them. They are guilty of genocide, mass murder, mass incarceration, impoverishment, bloody wars, and oppressive politics. The system they uphold, the system they promise can be reformed if we just trust them one more time, has condemned this generation and the next one and the next one to a future of unimaginable suffering, danger, and poverty.

Occupations of campus buildings to demand divestment from Israel took place in Maine and at Columbia university, students occupied a building to protest the expulsion of pro-Palestinian students. At UCLA, hundreds of students rallied and took over a building and dropped banners during a demonstration against the UC board of regents.

In antifascist news, Proud Boys were confronted in the Pacific Northwest and neo-Nazis with Patriot Front were chased away by anti-Trump protesters in Rhode Island when they tried to hold a counter-rally. Demonstrations against MAGA fascists with Turning Point USA continue across the country, with communities holding counter-demonstrations in Memphis, TN against Kyle Rittenhouse and anti-trans grifter Riley Gaines in various cities. In Davis, CA, over 30 masked demonstrators confronted and tore down a Turning Point USA booth at UC Davis. In the bay area, residents organized a protest following a far-Right rally on a freeway overpass. In Colorado Springs, demonstrators rallied against a speaking event featuring MAGA fascist Steve Bannon. Also in Colorado, hundreds rallied and protested against white supremacist Jared Taylor, who was invited to speak on a local campus by a Turning Point USA activist. Finally in Green Bay, WI, hundreds rallied against an appearance by Elon Musk.

In repression news, in California, several protesters who occupied a building at Stanford in solidarity with Palestine last year, have now been charged with felonies. There’s also an update on political prisoner Casey Goonan, which you can read here.

Write to Casey here:

Casey Goonan #UMF227

Sam Beard, an activist in the movement to Stop Cop City, a host of the Party Girls Podcast, and also spokesperson for the defense fund for Luigi Mangione, issued a statement that they were visited by two FBI agents that were part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), hours before Beard appeared on NewsNation, speaking about the ongoing case of Luigi Mangione, who is accused of assassinating the CEO of United Healthcare. In a statement posted to social media, Beard stated: “This task force targeted me, not because of anything I’ve done, but for what I’ve said.”

A few shout-out and updates:

Upcoming Events:

That’s gonna do it for us, enjoy the interviews and we’ll see you soon!

Music Notes:

On September 6th of last year, 26 year old University of Washington graduate Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was shot and killed by IDF soldiers while doing accompaniment in the West Bank of Palestine with International Solidarity Movement (ISM). In this episode, we speak with a friend of Ayşenur’s who had travelled to the West Bank to do accompaniment with ISM alongside her, and was present during the days leading up to and immediately after her murder.

We discuss what happened to Ayşenur, settler violence against Palestinians and IDF complicity, grief, remembrance, and ways in which anarchist movements internationally can effectively support people facing violence from the state and occupying forces.

During the discussion a number of pieces are referenced:

For more information about Ayşenur and her murder at the hands of the IDF, please go here and here. The speaker interviewed on this episode does not represent the views of International Solidarity Movement. For more about the work of ISM, visit their website here. This interview was originally conducted immediately following the agreement to a ceasefire between the IDF and Hamas, on January 16th, 2025. We apologize for the delayed release.

In this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we present an interview with author Jamie Merchant, author of Engame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline and numerous articles at The Brooklyn Rail. Merchant argues that we have entered a post-neoliberal age, with both Trump and Biden abandoning many of the touch-stones of corporate globalization that defined the past several decades.

But what comes next? During our discussion we talk about how and why Bidenism failed following the upheavals of 2020 and the rise of the Tech-Right as a bloc within the Trump administration. We map out what this formation wants and how it connects to the State’s push to expand the American tech industry and in particular, Artificial Intelligence (AI).

We also unpack what it would mean to create new forms of autonomous class based street politics, as demonstrations against ICE and Tesla continue to grow.

cover photo via Marc Fischer

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.

In this episode we sit down with Adam Greenfield, author of the book Lifehouse, out on Verso. In this discussion we talk about technology and the internet, the occurrence of disaster, the long emergency, the concept of lifehouses, prepperism, and the complexities of organizing in communities.

You can find Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves In a World on Fire here.

Photo by Caleb Cook on Unsplash

In our following episode, we speak with folks around the country about this unfolding reality. First, we catch up with Mia Wong, a journalist at It Could Happen Here, a daily podcast on Cool Zone Media about everyday resistance and the current crisis, then we speak with a participant in the publishing collective CrimethInc, about the emerging cracks in the current crisis and what this means about how we can respond, and finally we speak to folks in Olympia, WA and North Carolina about recent “Festival of Resistance” events that were organized in the lead up to Trump’s inauguration.

We are currently in the midst of a constitutional crisis. As we speak, the Trump administration is less than a month into its second term, and already the courts are running into roadblocks in their meager attempts to contain Trump’s blatant calls to disregard basic constitutional guard rails. As this is being recorded, multiple rulings by judges to stop the Trump administration freezing federal funds to basic government programs continue to be ignored. We are in the middle of the Rubicon being crossed: the executive branch is defying the orders of its own courts. What happens now is both determined by what people do and how the state responds to its own internal contradictions. Will the supreme court step in and side with Trump, or will the administration simply ignore any and all rulings, turning the state into a mechanism to carry out any and all of Trump’s dictatorial demands: as the US slips into an all out dictatorship with billionaires at the helm.

"Hundreds of Bakersfield area students walked out of classes Wednesday in protest of the Trump administration's policies on education and immigration, taking their flags, signs and shouts outside Kern County Superior Court on Truxtun Avenue." www.bakersfield.com/news/bakersf…

— It's Going Down (@igd.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T07:37:48.397Z

But resistance is building, and developing at various points of contestation. Across the country, as ICE ramps up deportations and is pushing to begin again deporting entire families and has begun setting up camps at Guantanamo bay, organizers are stepping up their organizing, forming Rapid Response Networks, organizing protests, and educating people about their rights. “Border Czar” Tom Homan even went on CNN recently to complain about people in Chicago being “too educated” about their rights, throwing a wrench into the gears of the deportation machine, as Trump demands increased numbers of removals. Communities in Colorado mobilized when ICE went door to door in an apartment complex at the center of far-Right conspiracies about “Venezuela gangs taking over” Aurora, CO, working to support working-class people targeted and documenting ICE abuses.

Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICEcrimethinc.com/StopICEWe've produced a guide detailing many different ways you can act to prevent ICE from tearing families apart and terrorizing your community.This is also available as a PDF for printing. Please circulate these widely!

— CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (@crimethinc.com) 2025-02-11T23:18:51.336Z

Meanwhile, thousands of people are taking to the streets against ICE, demanding an end to the raids, a strengthening of sanctuary city laws, and calling for solidarity with those targeted by the deportation machine. Most impressively, we’ve also seen weeks of student walkouts, most notably in Los Angeles, where hundreds of students across multiple schools have continued to carry out walkouts and rallies, writing anti-ICE slogans throughout the city. Mass protests have also led to clashes with police in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, and beyond.

In multiple cities, thousands have also taken to the streets against Trump’s attacks on trans people, in an effort to call on hospitals to protect access to gender affirming care and resist the administrations draconian executive orders. Mass mobilizations have already taken place in Chicago, Los Angeles, Charlottesville, New York, and beyond.

Students Walk Out in Los Angeles: A Report from the Streetscrimethinc.com/2025LosAngelesAs Trump’s second term begins, some of the fiercest resistance is coming from the communities that Trump is threatening. In Los Angeles, students have engaged in weeks of walkouts against mass deportations.

— CrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective (@crimethinc.com) 2025-02-13T09:01:26.705Z

Communities have also been pushing back against attempts by the far-Right to test these new waters. This past week, we saw folks in the historically Black neighborhood in Lincoln Heights, OH, arm themselves and push through a line of police to attack neo-Nazis who were being protected by law enforcement on a freeway overpass, holding automatic weapons and swastika flags. Community members burned one of their flags, wrecked one of their cars, and even left behind bullets spelling out the letters “LH” for Lincoln Heights.

Protests have also been taking place non-stop in Washington DC against Elon Musk and his team of far-Right minions, leading to some early attempts to blockade them from entering buildings and near constant rallies and protests by workers and their supporters.

Finally, demonstrations and acts of vandalism have also broken out against Tesla, with people calling for boycotts following Musk’s Nazi salute and move to dismantle and privatize social safety net programs. Several Tesla dealerships have been hit with graffiti and other forms of sabotage and there is currently a call for continued protests against Tesla on Saturday, February 15th.

With Trump back in power, neo-Nazi groups have been testing the waters, hoping to push communities they want to target into submission – instead people have been fighting back. Check out our roundup here: itsgoingdown.org/this-week-in…

— It's Going Down (@igd.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T10:11:36.105Z

We’re in scary territory, but also fertile grounds to organize in. People everywhere can see how the Democrats helped get us here and how their refusal to respond to demands from social movements and instead doubling down on expanding and militarizing the repressive functions of the state – who is now coming for everyone.

Music: 

Intros: Breakaway and Seaside Tryst

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with former political prisoner Eric King and Josh Davidson from the Certain Days political prisoner calendar project. Eric and Josh discuss their recent round of discussions with Firestorm Books around their recent collection, Rattling the Cages, featuring former political prisoners and abolitionist organizers. These discussions have also been recently formatted into a new zine series, found here.

During our discussion we cover the shifting terrain of anti-repression and prison support organizing, how things swill change under Trump, and the need for building a broad abolitionist movement that can win campaigns and shift public perception.

Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.

On today’s show we have a conversation with Xander Dunlap, author of the recent book The System Is Killing Us: Land Grabbing, the Green Economy, and Ecological Conflict, out with Pluto Press. In this conversation we discuss the current state of ecological resistance movements, the problems introduced by eco-Leninism, the concept of permanent ecological conflict, and the notion of home and connection to place in land struggles.

You can find Xander on Twitter and Bluesky.

Xander is also involved in a new and exciting publishing project called Rupture Press, check it out here.

photo via Pixabay

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.

On today’s show we feature our Behind the Barricades roundup of movement news, events, and updates. We then speak with Autumn from Nor Cal Resist, about the looming threat of mass deportations and then look at the attempt by the incoming Trump administration to consolidate executive power. We then sit down with a member of the Black Rose Anarchist Federation in Los Angeles, to talk about the unfolding ecological disaster in Southern California and how mutual aid groups are mobilizing.

Music: Seaside Tryst, Breakaway, Evolve “Reality Guerilla” and “Nightmares/Dreams,” and David Sandström “1968.”

In Smyrna, GA, “A small but dedicated group of protestors rallied [outside] the headquarters of Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor responsible for [building] #CopCity,” demanding that they drop the contract.

The Seattle Solidarity Network continues to hold demonstrations outside of a local restaurant in protest of wage theft and to demand back wages.

The Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union reported on a recent action outside a landlord’s home, reporting “On Friday December 6th, the Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union (SLAM) came together in the north of Montreal to pay a collective visit to a landlord’s extravagant water front property. We gathered in support of a fellow tenant who [became] unhoused after the city condemned her apartment.

The wealth of landlords is built with the wages we are forced to give up to remain housed. This wealth was on full display as SLAM members set up our banners in front of the landlord’s home, and took to singing and chanting.

Picket lines like these are a demonstration of power, tidings to the landlord’s neighbourhood, and a message that this tenant isn’t in this fight alone anymore. Power needs to change hands. Protests at our landlords’ homes – especially if they become common and second nature – go a long way in cementing the beginning of a shift in power.”

In Tacoma, WA, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined La Resistencia as part of a “Car brigade action at the Northwest Detention Center…in support of the Abolish Prison Slavery week of Solidarity called on… by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.” Hunger strike actions remain ongoing inside the facility.

In Montreal, The Anti-Eviction Brigade…carried out a leaflet display in front of [a real estate speculator’s] office…[who is]…famous for his eviction practices…he has made a specialty of targeting homes inhabited by vulnerable people, pushing them to leave through harrassment and threats, then renovating and drastically increasing prices. “The homelessness, the broken lives, the suicides. All these slices of life that are just stories for some. For us, communists, anarchists, inhabitants of the working class neighborhoods, we experience the sufferering of our class, brothers and sisters in our flesh. Anyone capable of the minumum of empathy should do the same. Owners, even the worst of you are covered by the political system that absolves itself of all responsibility. You are protected by the bourgeois justice of the TAL and the cops are your armed wing. We will not beg anymore, we will do everything possible to prevent you from harming ours at 4750 Ontario or elsewhere. War on landlords!”

Also in Montreal, the IWW mobilized to support postal workers on strike. Local Wobblies reported, “IWW members [gathered to] help our striking comrades from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to blockade [a] sorting plant… The line of stalled trucks was impressive!…inter-union solidarity is one of the best weapons of the workers’ movement.”

Pro-choice activists in Florida are dealing with repression after facing charges for writing graffiti on an anti-choice center.

As the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) wrote:

Florida politicians, federal prosecutors, and anti-choice religious extremists… sought to use the FACE Act for the first time against pro-choice activists for very minor criminal mischief (graffiti).

The FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) was enacted in 1994 to protect doctors and patients from the upwelling of murder, fire-bombings, and violent assaults perpetrated by the violent anti-choice/religious extremist movement during the 80’s and 90’s. The four reproductive rights activists in the Florida case were federally prosecuted for spray-painting the outside of three “crisis pregnancy centers” (fake “clinics”) in Florida in June 2022, following the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Florida Attorney General and one of the fake clinics also filed separate federal civil lawsuits against the four, alleging civil RICO and FACE Act violations; fortunately, we were able to get those two civil lawsuits dismissed.

Amber Smith-Stewart and Annarella Rivera were both sentenced to 30 days in federal custody and 60 days of house arrest; Caleb Freestone was sentenced to a year and a day in prison; and Gabriela Oropesa was just convicted after going to trial and will be sentenced in March 2025. The four remained steadfast to their political ideologies, non-cooperation, and solidarity with each other and their communities, despite the fact that their extreme prosecutions were unexpected in severity.

Follow South Florida Anarchist Black Cross and Ft. Lauderdale Food not Bombs for more updates and ways to support prisoners.

In New York, on December 12th, “NYU students and professors were arrested after they bound themselves together and blocked the school’s library in Lower Manhattan during a pro-Palestine protest,” demanding divestment from Israel.

In New Jersey, on December 14th, “Protestors [marched] on…City Hall following revelations that the logistics giant Maersk has been shipping thousands of tons of military cargo to the Israeli regime from the Port of Elizabeth, NJ.

Pro-Palestinian protesters wrote, “The people will forever stand against war profiteering, we have the power to take action and enforce a people’s arms embargo against war mongers and weapons companies. Join us in the streets of Jersey City to send a clear message to Maersk that the mask is off, they have been exposed, and we will not stand for it!”

In Emeryville, CA in the bay area of California, a communique claimed responsibility for vandalizing an office belonging to Maersk over it’s role in helping to carry out the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

An anonymous report posted to Indybay stated:

The night of December 8th, we attacked Maersk’s Emeryville office because they are merchants of death…They ship military cargo for the Zionist entity to use in their genocide of Palestinians. This includes parts for the F-35 jets bombing Gaza right now. We did this autonomously, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance…Workers like us have no military to defend our interests or stop this genocide. This is because the merchants of death, like Maersk and United Healthcare, control the state. They grow rich on our taxes and suffering, while we fight to pay for basic needs. Every bomb dropped makes them richer, and us poorer.

If the government will not stop arming Israel, then regular working people will…We call on you to join us. The veins of imperial capitalism are open, fragile, and poorly guarded. Their supply lines of death can be choked.

As Unicorn Riot reported:

The parents of slain forest defender Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Paez Terán [have] filed a civil rights lawsuit against three Georgia law enforcement officers they say are most responsible for the death of their child in January 2023.

Nearly two years after police killed Terán, and a year after the state refused to bring charges against any of the state troopers responsible, Tortuguita’s parents are still seeking answers and accountability for the death of their 26-year-old child.

Tortuguita’s mother and father, are suing Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Ryan Long as well as Georgia State Patrol troopers Mark Lamb and Bryland Myers in federal court claiming that the raid that led to their child’s killing violated Tortuguita’s civil rights.

Tortuguita’s family still hasn’t gotten clarity on the circumstances surrounding their child’s death nearly two years after the fatal shooting.

Lawyers…representing the family, hope that the civil suit will uncover some of the yet unknown details of the raid that ended in police killing the forest defender. Calls for an independent investigation into the shooting rose in the immediate aftermath of the killing. While the family was able to secure an independent autopsy, to date there hasn’t been an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding Tort’s killing.

In Pittsburgh, “protesters gathered in front of Mayor Ed Gainey’s home…demonstrating against an increased crackdown on homeless encampments…Over the course of about an hour, protesters chanted “No housing, no peace!” and banged on drums and noisemakers in the street in front of the home. They bore signs that read “Sweeps Solve Nothing” while denouncing Gainey’s “war on the poor.”

Workers at Starbucks and Amazon carried out strikes during the holiday season, facing arrests from police outside of Amazon facilities in New York.

In Chicago, “Organizers outraged by the recent decision to drop charges brought against a…police officer accused of beating…a 17-year-old in 2022 picketed the Cook County state attorney’s office in downtown Chicago…”

On New Year’s Eve, noise demos outside of jails and prisons were held across the US and beyond in several dozen cities. For a full roundup, check out It’s Going Down.

In Knoxville, TN, high school students protested the police killing of their 18 year-old classmate by three sheriff deputies. Protesters demanded the “release of any police videos of the encounter… and demonstrated outside a Knoxville City Council meeting. Councilmembers voted to approve an expansion of police surveillance cameras and monitoring in the city, part of a $27.5 million dollar contract with Axon Enterprises.”

In San Francisco, CA, BDS and queer activists held a demonstration which shut down part of Market Street and held a picket outside of a Chevron gas station. According to Indybay.org, “The rally for Palestine and BDS began at the intersection of Market and Castro Streets. After some speeches and slogans the crowd crossed the street to the Chevron Station. Chevron Oil maintains an oil platform off the Gaza cost and supplies oil to Israel’s military as it perpetrates the Gaza genocide.”

Pittsburgh activists Peppy and Krystal, who faced charges stemming from a protest against a far-Right anti queer speaker on a college campus, have been sentenced, with Peppy receiving 5 years in prison and Krystal three years probation.

When a married couple, Krystal and Brian “Peppy” DiPippa, amongst an estimated 250 community members, protested the transphobes on the Pitt campus, the State alleged that one of them had lit two homemade smoke devices and a commercially available firework…what would normally have been a State misdemeanor charge became a major federal investigation, under the pretense that a “civil disorder” had occurred. The investigation included a raid of the defendants’ home by the ATF, FBI, and state and local police, resulting in a large seizure of computer equipment.

Peppy…has remained incarcerated without bail to this day, and faced a sentence of over a decade in federal custody. Krystal, although not charged with the explosives felony, could have received an equal sentence to Peppy based on the conspiracy…The police had previously executed a warrantless search of the couple’s garbage, where they found printed information discussing the Atlanta “Stop Cop City” campaign, as well as other “anarchist” zines. The seizure of these items as “evidence” points to an overtly politically motivated use of the “civil disorder” statute, in an attempt to not only scare rank and file activists into submission by fear of spending decades in prison, but also to send a clear message that prosecutors and judges are willing to highlight political beliefs to keep activists confined pre-trial without options for bail. The judge in this case cited “sentiments supporting anarchism” as his justification for keeping Mr. DiPippa locked up.

Check out show notes for more info on how to support Peppy and Krystal.

As this episode was being recorded, horrific fires, fueled by climate change, broke-out in Southern California, with tens of thousands of people being forced to evacuate. Please listen to our interview later in the show for more info and check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief and local groups like the Mutual Aid Los Angeles Network and the LA Tenants Union for ways to plug into local mutual aid responses.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode of The Beautiful Idea, news and analysis from the front-lines of anarchist and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.

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Contact us at: [email protected]

Photo by Brian Wangenheim on Unsplash

Welcome, to This Is America, December 31st, 2024.

Order and Download Here

In this episode, first we speak with Mutt a contributor to Muntjac Magazine, Organize!, and also the editor of A Black Autonomy Reader. From Seditionist Distro:

Black Autonomism developed in American prisons within the conversations, letters and zines shared between imprisoned militants of the 70s Black power movement and their comrades on the outside. Dissatisfied with the lack of support they were offered by their waning organisations under the thumb of a brutal counter insurgency. Influenced by prisoner support organisations such as the Anarchist Black Cross and the tradition of stateless resistance in the colonial era such as the maroon societies in the americans and the Caribbean.

This reader is just one attempt to stitch together the ideas, individuals & organisations that both influenced and sprung fourth from these realisations and realities. This was put together explicitly using texts that are already available in print and online just to illustrate how much knowledge has already been made available once you scratch the surface.

Ranging from Black anarchic radicals within the British squatter movement, witnesses to the anti-police rebellion in Ferguson to critical analysis of the failures of State Socialism in continental Africa written by black anarchists who’ve experienced it first hand.

The reader also features an appendix of Black led anti state organisations and the biographies of several black anarchists. At the same time, not everyone in this reader is an anarchist but the relevance of these experiences have much to offer anarchists and anti-authoritarians of all stripes.

We speak with Mutt about the Black Autonomy Reader, as well as anarchist print culture in the UK, the status of the antifascist movement following far-Right riots earlier this year, the state of squatting currently, and much more.

We then turn towards our discussion, where we unpack the recent election cycle in the US and look at the shape of the incoming Trump presidency.

Music: Nabath

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, with the second Trump administration only weeks away, we sit down to speak with two anarchist authors and thinkers, Peter Gelderloos and Prince Shakur.

Peter is the author of such classics as How Non-Violence Protects the State and Worshiping Power, and has recently published two new books, They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us and Organization, Continuity, Community. Peter is also currently publishing on substack.

Prince Shakur is an organizer, author, and one of two hosts who run The Dugout, a Black anarchist podcast which you can check out here and follow on Instagram. Shakur is also the author of When They Tell You To Be Good.

During our episode we speak with both Peter and Prince about their thoughts on the coming Trump administration and how people involved in social movements and struggles should ready themselves and their communities. Is it fair to call Trump a fascist and what can we expect from the incoming administration? What cracks can we see forming within the ruling order going forward, and what opportunities and challenges do autonomous rebels face in this new terrain?

Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash