The Ex-Worker

This episode offers an audio version of "Iran: An Uprising Besieged from Within and Without," discussing the uprising that broke out across Iran on December 28, 2025, triggered by economic distress and escalating to call for the toppling of the government. It includes three analyses exploring the tensions within the uprising between grassroots movements and monarchist groups courting the support of the United States and Israel.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction {0:41}
• Report on the Current Wave of Protests in Iran {2:57}
• Iran Protests Amid a Siege by Internal and External Enemies: A Report on the Recent Mass Uprising {6:53}
• I. The Fifth Uprising since 2017 {8:11}
• II. An Uprising Besieged by External and Internal Threats {10:51}
• III. The Spread of the Revolt {16:52}
• IV. The Geography of the Revolt {19:06}
• V. The Impact of the Twelve-Day War {22:46}
• VI. The Contradictions {28:11}
• VII. The Horizon {32:52}

• The View from Syria {38:45}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Iran: An Uprising Besieged from Within and Without," published by CrimethInc. on January 7, 2026. The online version includes footnotes and hyperlinks offering more information.

• Thanks to Ayman Makarem of From The Periphery media collective for reading and recording this episode.

• To learn more about previous waves of resistance in Iran, you could start with "Revolt in Iran," discussing the revolt that began on September 16, 2022, and "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom)—The Genealogy of a Slogan," exploring the background of that movement.

• For deeper background, you could read "There Is an Infinite Amount of Hope… but Not for Us," an interview publishing in 2020 discussing the pandemic, economic crisis, repression, and resistance in Iran.

• To learn more about the conditions that ethnic minorities experience in Iran, read Precarious Work Means Precarious Life, discussing the Rajaee Port Disaster and what it shoes about the situation confronting Baluch ethnic minorities.

• To understand how Iranians who oppose both the Islamic Republic government of Iran and the genocidal project represented by Israeli Zionism and US foreign policy in the region, read "Women, Life, Freedom" against the War and Against Apartheid and Tyranny.

This episode offers an audio version of "Make Ready: Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression," exploring the implications of Donald Trump's executive order designating "Antifa" as "a major terrorist organization" and how we can prepare our communities to endure whatever comes next. It also includes an audio version of "When the Police Knock on Your Door: Your Rights and Options."

• Introduction {0:40}
• Don't be intimidated {5:53}
• Make the most of your strengths {7:42}
• Prepare for federal visits and raids {9:12}
• Be transparent about repression {10:33}
• Redundancy means resilience {11:18}
• Coordinate to support each other {12:26}
• Discredit the police and courts {13:28}
• Fracture the political class {15:05}
• Take the offensive{17:02}
• Refuse to divide {17:47}
• When the police knock on your door {18:40}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Make Ready: Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression," published by CrimethInc. on September 18, 2025, and "When the Police Knock on Your Door: Your Rights and Options," published by CrimethInc. on August 24, 2017. The online versions include a variety of footnotes and hyperlinks offering more information.

• Thanks to Margaret Killjoy of Strangers in a Tangled Wildnernessfor reading this episode.

• To learn more about why avoiding confrontation is rarely the best way to deal with rising authoritarianism, read "It's Safer in the Front: Taking the Offensive against Tyranny." You could also listen to it here.

• To learn more about security culture, consult our classic guide on the subject. You can download and print out an introductory poster about security culture here.

• To learn more about your rights in interactions with law enforcement officials, read "If an Agent Knocks" by the Center for Constitutional Rights, "You Have the Right to Remain Silent" by the National Lawyers Guild, and "If the FBI Approaches You to Become an Informant" by CrimethInc. You can read narratives from activists who endured grand jury subpoenas in a variety of ways here.

• For more background on the use of racketeering charges against defendants in the Stop Cop City RICO case, you could read this introduction and this update. You can learn about how the J20 defendants beat their charges here.

• To learn about how to strategize for and carry out direct action, begin with this step-by-step guide. You can also read "A Demonstrator's Guide to Operational Security."

This episode offers an audio version of "Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism," exploring why the best way to understand mutual aid as an effort to create participatory commons in which everyone can contribute and there is no fundamental division between organizers and beneficiaries.

Table of Contents

• Introduction {0:30}
• Is It Mutual Enough? {1:34}
• Beyond Individualism {5:13}
• The Ones with the Problem Are Themselves the Solution {9:18}
• The Social Is the Material {13:14}
• Change from Below {15:17}

• Mutual Aid Means Resistance {19:33}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism," published by CrimethInc. on June 6, 2025. The article version includes a variety of hyperlinks offering more documentation about the events referred.

• To keep abreast of the prevailing discourse about the difference between mutual aid and charity, you could begin with Dean Spade's "Solidarity Not Charity." By contrast, this text presents some of the criticisms of the ways that the framework of mutual aid is used and misused.

• You can read read Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution here. You can read about Peter Kropotkin's influence of the origins of Alcoholics Anonymous here. You can read AA founder Bill Wilson's text "Benign Anarchy and Democracy," which is quoted in this episode, here.

• You can read read Errico Malatesta's "Mutual Aid" here. The allusion to "relations without measure" in this episode is a reference to the journal Killing King Abacus.

• For more perspective on how the non-profit industrial complex foreshortens the potential of movements for social change, read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded.

• You can read about mutual aid projects in Brazil, Puerto Rico, Poland, New York City, and many other places on our website. You can also learn about mutual aid projects like the Really Really Free Market.

• Finally, for a deeper dive into the background of revolutionary discourse about the commons in English-language traditions, you could read The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men published by Gerrard Winstanley in 1649.

This episode offers audio versions of "Minneapolis to Feds: 'Get the Fuck Out'" and "Los Angeles Stands up to ICE: A Firsthand Report on the Clashes of June 6," which trace the origins of the angry response to federal raids that spread across the United States in early June 2025.

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:34}
  • Minneapolis to Feds: "Get the Fuck Out" {0:41}
  • Account I: The Raid {8:11}
  • Account II: The Response {11:51}
  • Los Angeles Stands up to ICE {17:58}
  • First Action, High Noon {19:48}
  • Second Action, 4 pm {22:59}
  • Third Action, 10 pm {24:35}

• This episode offers audio versions of "Minneapolis to Feds: 'Get the Fuck Out'" and "Los Angeles Stands up to ICE: A Firsthand Report on the Clashes of June 6," published by CrimethInc. on June 4, 2025 and June 6, 2025, respectively. The articles include a variety of hyperlinks offering further documentation of the events.

• The clash in Minneapolis came on the heels of a raid in San Diego in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Homeland Security Investigations agents shot flash-bang grenades at an angry crowd. You can read more about the response to the federal raid in Minneapolis here.

• After the uprising in Los Angeles, fierce protests followed elsewhere around the country. We published reports from Austin, Texas and Chicago, Illinois. We have also published a readercollecting many reports and analyses covering the events of the first half of June 2025.

• Many ICE operations have obviously been calculated to be as brutal as possible, targeting documented as well as undocumented people with the intention of terrorizing the general public. This gratuitous cruelty is fundamental to Donald Trump's governing strategy, as explained here.

• A large number of employees at other federal agencies have been reassigned to assist in the assaults on communities that ICE is carrying out. You can read about that here.

• To learn more about what you can do to resist ICE assaults on your community, you could begin with this guide. You can also educate yourself about rapid response networks. In 2018, demonstrators established blockades at ICE facilities, demonstrating how to take the initiative in the fight against ICE.

• The movement against white supremacy and police that culminated in 2020 with the George Floyd uprising offers an important reference point for any struggle against federal forces.

• This short guide has been circulating in the wake of the uprising in Los Angeles; it covers street safety and other important factors to consider in the midst of the resistance to ICE and Donald Trump's attempt to impose fascism via military occupation.

• If it is possible that you will be in an environment in which chemical weapons are deployed, it is possible to extinguish tear gas canisters—consult this tutorial. You can find a wealth of similar information about how to stay safe in demonstrations here.

This episode offers an audio version of "Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace," arguing that neither courts nor laws will halt the descent into autocracy. Massive numbers of people will have to take it upon themselves to organize concrete acts of resistance, to take direct action on a horizontal and participatory basis—in other words, to become anarchists.

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:36}
  • Tyranny Is the Opposite of Anarchism {1:12}
  • A Three-Sided Conflict {3:45}
  • No Law Will Give You Freedom {8:32}
  • Remember How We Got Here {12:02}
  • Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace {15:50}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace," published by CrimethInc. on February 21, 2025. The article version includes a variety of hyperlinks offering documentation confirming the claims therein.

• If you're interested in learning more about anarchist ideas, you could start with To Change Everything, our introduction to anarchism, or with "The Secret Is to Begin," which offers further points of departure. To learn about direct action, start with this guide.

• You can read our argument that it was naïve for Democrats to invest so much hope in Robert Mueller's investigation of Donald Trump here. We published it well before that investigation ended in a complete washout. Along similar lines, our text "Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom" has proved prescient, accurately predicting some of the quandaries that fetishizing legality has created for Democrats as Donald Trump and his cronies gain control of more and more aspects of the government and judicial system.

• You can read our critical analysis of democracy in full in our book From Democracy to Freedom. We offer it in print or as a free PDF.

• For more background on the neoliberal nightmare that has unfolded in Argentina since the victory of Javier Milei, read this.

• For background on the damage that the Trump regime is doing to public health, consult this text. For background on the damage that the Trump regime is doing to medical research, consult this one. You can learn about how the cuts to USAID have impacted people around the world here. Elon Musk is even trying to make it impossible to keep up with the weather. Whatever you're imagining, what's happening is worse.

• For further discussion of how to resist rising authoritarianism, you could start with "The Case for Resistance: What We're Up Against—and What It Could Look Like to Fight," also available in audio form here. You could also listen to the previous episode of this podcast, "It's Safer in the Front," which picks up some of the same themes.

This episode offers an audio version of "It's Safer in the Front," making the case that seeking safety by avoiding confrontation is not likely to be an effective strategy in a time of escalating political conflict. {February 25, 2025}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:30}
  • My Friend's Grandfather {1:11}
  • "Summit of the Americas," Québec City, April 20, 2001 {3:41}
  • George W. Bush's Second Inauguration, Washington, DC, January 20, 2005 {5:10}
  • Democratic National Convention, Denver, August 25, 2008 {6:34}
  • Donald Trump's First Inauguration, Washington, DC, January 20, 2017 {8:59}
  • Block Cop City, Atlanta, November 13, 2023 {13:11}
  • Conclusion {18:33}

• This episode offers an audio version of "It's Safer in the Front," published by CrimethInc. on January 28, 2025. The article version includes a variety of hyperlinks offering more documentation about the events referred.

• To learn more about the mobilization against the "Summit of the Americas" in Québec City in 2001, read this. To learn more about the movement against capitalist globalization, of which it was a part, you could start here. You could also read David Graeber's reflections on the movement.

• To learn more about the demonstrations against George W. Bush's second inauguration, read this. For more background on the history of anarchist protest activity against presidential inaugurations across the decades, you could start here.

• To learn more about the mobilization against the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2008, read this.

• To learn more about the anarchist demonstration against Donald Trump's first inauguration, read this. To learn about how the arrestees used solidarity to win a historic victory over the charges brought against them, start here. You could also read this text about what to do when kettled. And to get a sense of what it was like on the streets that day, don't miss the J20 protest simulator!

• For background on the movement to stop Cop City in Atlanta, start here; to learn about the Block Cop City mobilization, read this. Finally, this article explores the trumped up charges brought against arrestees in the movement.

• For background on the anti-fascist resistance to the "Unite the Right" rally, read these reflections. To learn about the Kronstadt revolt, you could start here.

• Finally, for further reading in this category, try "We Fight because We Like It: Maintaining Our Morale against Seemingly Insurmountable Odds."

This episode offers an audio version of "Sacrificial Violence and Retribution," exploring the responses to two different extrajudicial killings as a way to understand the different forms of violence that are contending in our society today. {November 22, 2024}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:30}
  • Sacrificial Violence {3:18}
  • Retribution? {8:35}
  • Beyond Martyrdom {14:11}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Sacrificial Violence and Retribution," published by CrimethInc. on December 23, 2024. The article version includes a variety of hyperlinks providing citations for the claims made herein.

• To get deeper into René Girard's analysis of sacrificial violence, you can read the first chapter of his book Violence and the Sacred here.

• You can read an incomplete roundup of various responses to the shooting of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, here. In this news clip, you can see a representative speaking on CNN on behalf of a fundraising campaign in support of Luigi Mangione's legal defense. You can read a discussion of the causes of the anger directed at insurance executives here. You can read some statistics about gun violence in the United States in general here.

• For information about how much damage mass deportations are likely to inflict on the United States economy—not to mention the lives of millions of families—start here. To learn more about why people travel to the United States without documents and what role they play in the United States economy, read our book, No Wall They Can Build.

• Finally, for a further discussion of revenge and political violence, you could read an earlier article of ours, "Against the Logic of the Guillotine."

This episode offers an audio version of "The Case for Resistance," laying out an analysis of what we can expect from Donald Trump's second term and how we can prepare to confront it. "This is a pivotal moment, and everyone who isn't cynically detached is sounding the alarm. Those of us who recognize the necessity of fighting had better find each other, identify the strengths and weaknesses of all the parties involved, recall the lessons of the past eight years, and strategize." {November 22, 2024}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:30}
  • The Balance of Forces {2:44}
  • How Popular Is Trump? {5:36}
  • Billionaire Supervillains {8:47}
  • Know Your Enemy {10:29}
  • Breaking the Spell {12:57}
  • Exerting Leverage {15:10}
  • Refine Our Strategies {17:51}
  • Fight Smart {19:17}
  • How Can We Resist? {20:27}
  • Strategizing to Stop Mass Deportations {33:08}

• This episode offers an audio version of "The Case for Resistance," published by CrimethInc. on November 20, 2024. The article version includes a variety of hyperlinks providing citations for the claims made herein.

• For background, you could start by listening to episode #106 of the Ex-Worker, which explores the various ways that the Democratic Party is responsible for creating the situation in which Donald Trump can return to power. It is also available as the article "History Repeats Itself: First as Farce, Then as Tragedy." Unfortunately, we predicted this dire turn of events in "Why Stop at Removing Biden?", published by CrimethInc. in July 2024.

• For information about how to organize an assembly, you could read the article "How to Organize an Assembly," which details the steps in organizing a successful assembly and presents some sample discussion questions you could use to discuss how to prepare for the second Donald Trump administration.

• For access to a wide array of materials about security culture, digital security, phone safety, protective gear, direct action strategy, street tactics, jail support, and first aid, you could consult "EVERYBODY OUT!," the resource list we published ahead of the 2020 elections. To get some historical context and refine your sense of strategy ahead of the second Trump era, read The Trump Years," a chronology of resistance and direct action under the first Trump administration.

At a time when misinformation, rising authoritarianism, and disasters exacerbated by industrially-produced climate change are creating a feedback loop of escalating crisis, it's crucial to understand disaster response as an integral part of community defense and strategize about how this can play a part in movements for liberation. In this reflection, a local anarchist involved in longstanding disaster response efforts in Appalachia recounts the lessons that they have learned in the course of dealing with the consequences of Hurricane Helene over the past six weeks and offers advice about how to prepare for the disasters to come. {November 18, 2024}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:37}
  • Start Preparing Now {3:59}
  • Communications {5:35}
  • Supply Chain Logistics {7:23}
  • Heavy Machinery {9:06}
  • Breaking the Spell {10:29}
  • Rumors and Misinformation {12:04}
  • Vultures {14:19}
  • Engaging with the State {16:28}
  • Finances {18:42}
  • Getting Organized {20:35}

• This episode offers an audio version of The Eye of Every Storm: Anarchist Response to Hurricane Helene, published by CrimethInc. on November 13. We present this in collaboration with Audible Anarchist, another collective producing audio content.

• For related content, you can listen to an interview with an anarchist involved in Mutual Aid Disaster Relief organizing in the wake of Hurricane Irma in 2017 in the fourth episode of The Hotwire. You can also read these accounts of anarchist relief efforts in North Carolina following Hurricane Florence in 2018. Finally, this analysis written in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida explores the colonial roots of the disasters that a series of hurricanes has inflicted upon New Orleans.

• You can read about how people responded to the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico here. Anarchists in Brasil have made the case that capitalism is one of the chief causes of the suffering inflicted by the floods of May 2024. In episode 95 of the Ex-Worker Podcast, you can hear two perspectives on the responsibility of the Turkish and Syrian governments for the suffering caused by the earthquakes of February 6, 2023.

• For more information about how capitalism is implicated in the sort of industrially produced climate change that is exacerbating hurricanes and other "natural" disasters around the world, you could consult this short text by Peter Gelderloos.

• Finally, if you are looking to get connected to anarchist disaster relief efforts, you could start by learning more about Mutual Aid Disaster Relief.

Donald Trump has won the 2024 election. In order to understand what we're up against, let's look at how we got here. In many ways, the Democrats are responsible for Donald Trump's return to power. Over the past four years, the Democrats have beefed up the institutions through which the fascists will enact their policies, normalized violence against the people that the fascists intend to target, turned over the communications platforms via which people share information, and discouraged people from the kind of tactics one needs to fight against a fascist regime is complicity. {November 6, 2024}

-------SHOW NOTES------

• Table of Contents
  • Introduction {0:37}
  • The Hot Potato Changes Hands Again {1:12}
  • The Party of Complicity {3:03}
  • The Road to Fascism {5:07}
  • The Police {5:15}
  • The Law {6:17}
  • The Media {8:05}
  • Emptying the Streets {9:28}
  • The Political Rachet {11:56}
  • Desensitizing the Public {14:04}
  • The Road Ahead {15:10}

• This episode offers an audio version of History Repeats Itself: First as Farce, Then as Tragedy in Argentina, published by CrimethInc. on November 6th. The article makes the case that, in many ways, the policies of the Democratic Party are responsible for Donald Trump's return to power.

• For background on the events described in this article, consult The Billionaire and the Anarchists, which traces Twitter from its roots as a protest tool to Elon Musk's acquisition of the platform; Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom, which explores how the slogan "Nobody Is Above the Law" actually paved the way for tyranny; The Trump Years, a chronology of grassroots resistance from January 20, 2017 to January 20, 2021; and Why Stop at Removing Biden, an analysis of why it took the Democratic Party so long to remove Joe Biden and what the consequences were bound to be—a forecast borne out by the results of the 2024 election.

• Regarding the argument that state power has become a "hot potato" that burns whatever party holds it, consult this article and Chile and this earlier article about Ukraine.

• For a point of departure regarding how people can organize ahead of a second Trump administration, consult Don't Doom Scroll, Organize: How to Get Active in the Current Terrain.