Announcing The Beautiful Idea: A New Anarchist Podcast on Front-line Struggles
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Announcing a new anarchist podcast, The Beautiful Idea. Follow them on Mastodon here.
We are happy to announce the first episode of 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. We plan to put out about two episodes a month; one will be more focused on action news and include shorter interviews with front-line activists and organizers, and the other will feature longer, more deep-dive interviews on specific topics, including theoretical and historical analysis.
On today’s show we feature our Behind the Barricades roundup of movement news, events, and updates, along with a look at the recent explosion following the shooting of a United Healthcare CEO in New York. We then speak with someone involved in a new campaign to support Stop Cop City defendants facing both RICO and domestic terrorism charges. Finally, we speak with a long-time anarchist to look back on the historic mobilization against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999.
Music: Seaside Tryst, Gary Lamaar, and Breakaway
Transcript
Behind the Barricades News Roundup
Welcome to Behind the Barricades on The Beautiful Idea, a roundup of action news and upcoming events across so-called North America.
In October in Austin, TX, anarchists and pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied and marched against tech giants and their role in facilitating the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Counter-info site Autonomedia reported:
Such an escalation sets the stage for a real confrontation and challenge to the most important local ties to the genocide. This also forces the local movement into a confrontation with the economic forces that dominate the city and its economic interests–themselves aligned with a domestic project of displacement, development, and dispossession.
In Chicago, Unsalted reported on a mobilization against the Mid-Continent Gas Conference. A report-back wrote:
A group of people entered the hotel hosting the conference and crashed the attendee’s welcome reception of the 2024 Mid-Continent Gas Conference. A banner with the words, “Enbridge Out of the Great Lakes, Shut Down Line 5 Now!” on one side and, “Evil Enbridge, Fuck Off!” on the other side was unfurled at the cocktail hour reception. People sang, and chanted with a bullhorn, played instruments, and left messages for Enbridge and other gas companies inside the hotel. After causing a ruckus inside, the group walked outside to the bar’s patio overlooking the Chicago River, and less than one mile from Lake Michigan, to “greet” more LDC conference attendees with noise, banners, and rowdy jeers. One person was arrested by the pigs for allegedly trespassing and released onsite.
In Ypsilanti, MI, on Halloween night, a rowdy crowd held a “spooky” demonstration outside of a slumlord’s home. A report-back posted to Unsalted wrote:
Hark! Let it be known that on this 31st of October – Devil’s Night – we, the peasants of so-called Ypsilanti, have declared that we have HAD ENOUGH of landlords!…You have left us serfs with garbage, so we left you with our garbage. Eggs on your stupid giant windows, rotten tomatoes all over your door and porch, and remnants of our chamber pots in the form of toilet paper all over your trees.
The Ghosts of Christmas Past gave Scrooge a second chance, but the Ghosts of Devil’s Night and Halloween do not. [This slumlord] will know no comfort until he abandons his properties and makes reparations for his crimes…We do not need them. Until they are thrown off and everything they have stolen has been reclaimed… Every night can be Devil’s Night.
In November in Boston, clashes broke out when hundreds of pro-choice counter-demonstrators faced off against riot police and far-Right gender fascists holding a “Men’s March to Abolish Abortion.” Police made several arrests of counter-demonstrators, who attempted to block streets in the face of the far-Right procession. Check out a report back, here.
Clashes broke out today in #Boston, as a large pro-choice counter-demonstration faced off with police and gender fascists at anti-abortion "Men’s March to Abolish Abortion." Police made several arrests of counter-demonstrators.
— It's Going Down (@igd.bsky.social) 2024-11-17T05:29:03 .370Z
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Anger is rising in so-called British Columbia against the PRGT pipeline. An anonymous report on BC Counter-Info claimed credit for spiking “thousands of trees along the PRGT pipeline [route]…” It went on to state, “Its up to each of us to combat this project, we hope this effort poses one more obstacle.” Indigenous people are also currently fighting the project in a variety of ways.
In Cleveland, OH, around 100 people rallied outside of a jail in support of several people arrested for supposedly writing graffiti slogans in support of Palestine on a college campus. Also in Claremont, CA, over 100 people rallied in support of students being targeted for repression over ongoing actions in support of the anti-war struggle.
Hundreds protested in solidarity with Palestine at UT Austin against an appearance by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. In 2013, Bennett claimed, “I have killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there is no problem with that.”
In antifascist news, a small protest was held outside of the yearly white supremacist ‘American Renaissance’ conference in Tennessee.
The community was able to surround and force the people at table to leave, while filling the air with chants of solidarity and love. Drowning out their mic and speaker.We saw many people along the outskirts of this crowd breaking in to tears as they felt the community stand together.
— SpicyCapybara (@spicycapybara.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:02:53 .304Z
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In Albuquerque, NM, hundreds mobilized in support of the LGBTQ+ community and against proposed book bans by gender fascists. Demonstrators also rallied against attempts by MAGA grifters to speak before the local school board. A post to <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/spicyca
United States
