The Ex-Worker – Details, episodes & analysis

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.

At first, it appeared to be an ordinary forest defense campaign aimed at discouraging Atlanta city government from pouring money into an unpopular police training facility. But over the past two years, the fight against Cop City has escalated into one of the fiercest struggles of the Biden era, pitting a wide range of courageous people against a united front of politicians, prosecutors, and police. In their desperate efforts to deflect popular resistance and force through the project, police and prosecutors have pressed trumped-up domestic terrorism charges against almost every defendant arrested since last December; they have killed one forest defender; they have charged those engaged in legal support for the arrestees. In the following account and analysis, published on June 21st as "Living in an Earthquake: The Fight against Cop City Confronts Unprecedented Repression," participants in the movement in Atlanta trace its trajectory from the fifth Week of Action that began on March 4, 2023 through the City Council vote of June 5. {December 28, 2023}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:37}
  • Preface {2:21}
  • Living in an Earthquake {3:28}
  • February 2023 {5:59}
  • The Fifth Week of Action {8:33}
  • Retaking Weelaunee People's Park {9:19}
  • The South River Music Festival: A Flower Between Two Abysses {11:49}
  • The March on the Cop City Construction {16:01}
  • Role Reversal {20:15}
  • The Raid on the South River Music Festival {22:12}
  • The Defense of the Music Festival {26:19}
  • A Pyrrhic Victory? {32:31}
  • Jumping to Conclusions {33:20}
  • Defense {36:25}
  • Urban Encampments {38:54}
  • The Limits of Deterrence {43:51}
  • Time and Space {46:14}
  • Controlling Risk {48:21}
  • The Aftermath {52:45}
  • The Week of Action Continues {55:09}
  • Without a Shadow of Doubt {57:07}
  • The Conclusion of the Fifth Week of Action {1:03:14}
  • Clearing Out {1:08:10}
  • Deforestation and Its Consequences {1:14:20}
  • Earth Day Weekend of Resilience {1:15:59}
  • Campus Actions {1:16:50}
  • War by Other Means {1:19:03}
  • The Attack on the Solidarity Fund {1:25:21}
  • The Centrists versus Everyone {1:27:43}
  • However They Vote, We Must Be Ungovernable {1:30:39}
  • The Theory of Failure and Disappointment {1:40:07}
  • Making a Virtue of Necessity {1:42:50}

• This episode offers an audio version of "Living in an Earthquake: The Fight against Cop City Confronts Unprecedented Repression," published by CrimethInc. on June 21st.

• For background on the first two and a half years of the movement, see the following articles and podcast episodes: "The City in the Forest," (audio version) – chronicles the first year of the movement "The Forest in the City" (audio version) – chronicles the second year of the movement "Beneath the Concrete, the Forest" (audio version) – collects first-person accounts from the occupation of Weelaunee forest through the first half of 2022 "Balance Sheet" – explores and evaluates the strategies that different currents in the movement have employed "Defending Abundance Everywhere" – essays on the webs of relationships linking all creatures and underlying the struggle to defend the forest "The Atlanta Police and Georgia State Patrol Are Guilty of Murder" – analysis of the assassination of Manuel "Tortuguita" Terán "Understanding the RICO Charges in Atlanta" (audio version) – analysis of the new wave of legal repression launched in September 2023

• For our most recent coverage, see "Don't Stop: Continuing the Fight Against Cop City", published by CrimethInc. on December 12th; stay tuned for the audio version, soon to be released as Ex-Worker Episode #105.

• You can find texts, posters, graphics, and more materials about the movement online through Defend the Atlanta Forest: Library. Check out the Atlanta Community Press Collective for ongoing coverage.

Today is the beginning of the J20 inauguration protester trials in DC. There are some important developments in the case, so we interview Sam from DC Legal Posse about what's going on and how to support the defendants. We also interview a Polish anti-fascist from Warsaw about this weekend's 60,000 person far-right march that was littered with Nazi slogans. The folks at the IRL squat in Chicago called us to talk about resisting their eviction and squatting as a window to a world outside of capitalism. Stay tuned until the end for exciting calls for upcoming action camps and decentralized days of action. {November 15th, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {1:45}
  • Ultranationalist march in Poland {9:50}
  • IRL squat in Chicago {18:00}
  • J20 updates{25:50}
  • Next Week's News {30:50}
• J20 support resources:
  • J20 Legal Defense Fund
  • Sub.media's Defend J20 Resistance info video
  • Twitter
  • Fed book
  • Agency: The J20 Case, What You Need to Know
  • The Nation published a really good article, found here, on the importance of supporting the J20 inauguration day defendants.
  • The Intercept: Group Investigating Police Conduct On Inauguration Day Has History Of Siding With Police
• Anti-capitalists in Montreal are holding an anti-G7 organizing assembly on November 18 at …
  
  1PM to 5PM
  Comité social Centre-Sud
  1710 Beaudry
  Near the Beaudry metro station. The room is wheelchair accessible.
• On November 21 at 8 PM EST, tune into CrimethInc.com for a live video presentation in which an experienced legal support worker will explain what grand juries are, how they work, and how to resist them.
• Donate here to support the Rojinegro anarchist infoshop in Bogotá, Colombia.
• Call in to Wabash Valley Correctional Facility and the Indiana Department of Corrections to demand that prisoners on strike stop being harassed by guards, be removed from camera cells, and that guards stop tampering with prisoner mail.

  Wabash Valley Warden Richard Brown: (812) 398–5050
  IDOC Commissioner Robert E. Carter Jr.: (317) 232–5711
  IDOC Chief of Staff Randy Koester: (317) 232–5711

• Here is the Facebook page for Northwest Detention Center Resistance in Tacoma, WA.
• The Cascadia Forest Defenders are fighting against the Goose Timber Sale of 2,500 acres of the Willamette National Forest in Oregon. Go here to donate to their struggle or find out how to get involved.
• Anti-fascist organizing resources:
  • This Is Not A Dialogue
  • The Anti-Fascist Action chapter of Recipes for Disaster
  • Episodes 11 and 12 of The Ex-Worker podcast
  • Torch Anti-Fascist Network, the IWW's General Defense Committee, Antifa International
  • Notes on Anti-Fascist Self-Defense Training: 10 Lessons from the Russian Anti-Fascist Experience
• Tour dates for Mark Bray speaking on his new book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook:
  • 11/15 Davis, CA: University of California, Davis- Voorhies Hall 126 7PM
  • 11/16 Stanford University: 3:30- Building 320, Room 105, Braun Corner (Geology Corner)
  • 11/16 San Francisco: City Lights (at night)
  • 11/17 LA: Skylight Books
  • 11/18 Berkeley: South Berkeley Senior Center (2939 Ellis St) 7PM 11/19 San Francisco: Howard Zinn Bookfair

  Full event details, including specific locations and times, can be found here.

• Writings by Greek anarchist political prisoners Pola Roupa and Nikos Maziotis:
  • Their most recent statement
  • Oral declaration to the court – Pola Roupa
  • Political Letter to Society – Kostas Gournas, Nikos Maziotis, Pola Roupa
  • Statement to the Athens Criminal Court – Nikos Maziotis
• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • The latest IGDcast has an interview with Indiana Department of Corrections Watch, who are organizing support for the hunger strike at Wabash Valley Correctional.
  • This episode of The Final Straw has interviews with two latinx organizers about DACA and the DREAM act.
  • The brand new episode 59 of The Ex-Worker podcast has first-hand stories and lessons from anarchists who resisted grand juries.
  • This episode of The Final Straw has interviews with Cascadia Forest Defenders about their anti-logging occupation in the Willamette National Forest.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Make Your Own Effigies: A Tactic for Delegitimizing Authority and Rendering Dissent Visible
• Videos & Pictures
  • Anarchists in Moscow commemorating the centennial of the Russian Revolution
  • Why to support the J20 defendants
  • The captured white nationalist banner which was corrected to now say "It's Ok To Be… Antifascist Action."
  • The older women who sat and blocked the nationalist march in Warsaw, Poland on November 11
  • The Mi'kmaq blockade of the Alton Gas Project in Nova Scotia
  • The flyer handed out in the neighborhood of the IRL squat in Chicago
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available! Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • California: Sonoma County IWW wildfire rebuilding fund
  • Puerto Rico: Submedia's grassroots disaster relief support, Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here. Also, check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief's website for on-the-ground reports from Puerto Rico.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign
• Corrections & Clarifications
  Last Hotwire we repeated an uncredible claim that the Department of Homeland security considers Antifa a terrorist group. For a thorough debunking of that claim, check out Taking Out the Trash: Fact Checking Politico's "Antifa Attacks". Now, it is true that New Jersey's Department of Homeland Security has written up a profile of anti-fascists, but they don't explicitly call Antifa a terrorist group.

In this episode, we share the first-person stories of three comrades on the frontlines of grand jury resistance. As the state escalates repression through a new grand jury investigation in North Carolina against longtime anarchist Katie Yow, this episode offers perspectives from those who have successfully fought a grand jury summons. Tune in to demystify the process of how and why to resist testifying at a grand jury. For more information on her case and to support Katie, check out https://ncresiststhegrandjury.com/ and to learn more about resources available for those resisting and their supporters, check out https://saynothing.noblogs.org/grand-jury-resources/.

For more information on how to stay strong during state repression, see our article How to Survive a Felony Trial.

To hear more about North Carolina Grand Jury Resistance and other cases of ongoing state repression, listen to this episode of The Hotwire. {November 13th, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: Grand Jury Resisters Past and Present {00:00}
  • What is a Grand Jury {01:17}
  • A Knock on the Door {4:51}
  • Breathing Fire {19:35}
  • Facing the State {24:19}
  • Life on the Run {35:11}
  • Trees and Mirrors—Surviving Solitary {38:31}
  • Release {45:53}
  • Back from the Underground {50:47}
  • Conclusion: We Can Survive This {54:45}
  • Support NC Grand Jury Resister Katie Yow {56:16}
  • Statement from Katie Yow {57:17}
• On November 21, at 8 pm Eastern Time, we will broadcast our third live video presentation, in which an experienced legal support worker will explain what grand juries are, how they work, and how to resist them—then answer any questions you have. View the video here on this page or via facebook.com/CrimethIncDotCom.
  
  Tune in to learn about the grand jury process, its legacy of repression, and how you can support resistance to grand juries.
• List of resources:
  • https://ncresiststhegrandjury.com/
  • https://saynothing.noblogs.org/grand-jury-resources/

This week we have a greater amount of animal liberation actions to report on than usual. We interview Sam from DC Legal Posse about the first J20 trials beginning next week, and what people can do to support the defendants. After the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas on Sunday, we explore whether it makes sense to designate white men as the "real terrorists." We also interview an anarchist in Brazil about the Operation Érebo repression campaign against anarchists there. Anarchists from throughout history travel forward in time to warn us about the horrors of state socialism and about the dangers of standardized time itself!. {November 8th, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {1:40}
  • Texas Shooting and White Masculinity {6:15}
  • Daylight Saving {9:30}
  • Anarchist Media Jingles {16:40}
  • Repression Roundup {18:00}
  • Next Week's News {27:38}
• Upcoming anarchist book fairs:

  Boston Anarchist Book Fair November 11–12 775 Commonwealth Ave Boston, MA

• The Cascadia Forest Defenders are fighting against the Goose Timber Sale of 2,500 acres of the Willamette National Forest in Oregon. Go here to donate to their struggle or find out how to get involved.
• J20 support resources:
  • J20 Legal Defense Fund
  • Thunderclap social media campaign
  • Sub.media's Defend J20 Resistance info video
  • Twitter
  • Fed book
  • Agency: The J20 Case, What You Need to Know
  • The Nation published a really good article, found here, on the importance of supporting the J20 inauguration day defendants.
• Look at this insane picture of a protest against mining in the Hambach Forest, Germany.
• Anti-capitalists in Montreal are holding an anti-G7 organizing assembly on November 18 at …
  1PM to 5PM
  Comité social Centre-Sud
  1710 Beaudry
  Near the Beaudry metro station. The room is wheelchair accessible.
• Bail and legal support fundraiser for anti-pipeline Camp White Pine in Pennsylvania.
• Donate here to support the Rojinegro anarchist infoshop in Bogotá, Colombia.
• Full report on the ongoing anti-Wells Fargo occupation going on at Reed College in Portland, OR.
• Here in the Facebook page for Northwest Detention Center Resistance in Tacoma, WA.
• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • The latest episode of The Final Straw has interviews with Cascadia Forest Defenders about their anti-logging occupation in the Willamette National Forest.
  • Hotwire 7 has a fleshed out anarchist critique of the use of the word "terrorism".
  • Hotwire 11 introduces the zombie anarchists on Twitter rising from the grave to set the record straight on state communism.
  • Episode 54 of The Ex-Worker details an anarchist response to the election of Donald Trump.
  • Ex-Worker episode 55 is all about the J20 inauguration protests in DC. The giant German coal mine we mentioned is in the middle of the Hambacher Forest, which was covered in Episode 37 of The Ex-Worker.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy
  • AlieNation: The Map of Despair
  • One Hundred Years after the Bolshevik Counterrevolution
  • Weathering Jail and Prison: Tips from Anarchist Prisoners Dane Powell and Joseph Buddenburg
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available! Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • California: Sonoma County IWW wildfire rebuilding fund
  • Puerto Rico: Submedia's grassroots disaster relief support, Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here. Also, check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief's website for on-the-ground reports from Puerto Rico.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign

This week we bring you two interviews: one with a southern anarchist who went to Tennessee to oppose the failed "white lives matter" rally on Saturday, and another with an anarchist in Catalonia about developments and reflections on the independence process there. Our headlines and repression roundup take us around the world, from anti-capitalist queer and trans action in DC to general revolt in Haiti to sweeping anti-anarchist repression in Brazil and even back in time to the Russian Revolution! Listen until the end for announcements of upcoming anarchist book fairs and calls to action. {November 1st, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {2:00}
  • Fascists fail in Tennessee {9:35}
  • Catalonia {14:25}
  • Repression Roundup {23:00}
  • Welcome home Dane Powell {24:18}
  • Anti-anarchist Operation Érebo in Brazil {25:55}
  • Next Week's News {27:15}
• Upcoming anarchist book fairs:
  Boston Anarchist Book Fair
  November 11–12
  775 Commonwealth Ave
  Boston, MA
• Click on the following links to support two active logging blockages happening in the Pacific Northwest. The Cascadia Forest Defenders are fighting against the Goose Timber Sale of 2,500 acres of the Willamette National Forest, while the Save the Mattole's Ancient Forest campaign in Humboldt County, California have maintained occupations and blockades of the forest since June!
• Check out this full report on the bungled neo-Nazi rally in Tennessee this past Saturday.
• As police and FBI ramp up their investigations related to August's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, we recommend acquainting yourself with this useful guide to understanding investigations and repression as related to anti-fascism.
• Go here to donate to J20 political prisoner Dane Powell's release fund. You can find the DropJ20 drop-the-charges call-in campaign here. The Nation published a really good article, found here, on the importance of supporting the J20 inauguration day defendants.
• The CNI Revolutionary Cooperative for social libertarian revolution has issued an open call for anarchist tech guerrillas over the next three years.
• An overview of Colombia's indigenous, land-based resistance
• Video of feisty demonstrations in Santiago, Chile in memory of disappeared, dead anarchist comrade Santiago Maldonado.
• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire: We say we reported on the burning cop car case in France last Hotwire, but it was actually on October 18. Our bad. In October 11's Hotwire, we reported on the prison uprising in McCormick, South Carolina after prisoners were rationed down to one cup of water per day.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Restless Specters of the Anarchist Dead: A Few Words from the Undead of 1917
  • Make Your Own Effigies: A Tactic for Delegitimizing Authority and Rendering Dissent Visible
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available! Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • California: Sonoma County IWW wildfire rebuilding fund
  • Puerto Rico: Submedia's grassroots disaster relief support, Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here. Also, check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief's website for on-the-ground reports from Puerto Rico.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign
• Here is the sample script and instructions for the call-in campaign to support McCormick prison rebels in South Carolina. Call Bryan P. Stirling, Director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections at 803–896–8555 or fax 803–896–3972. You can also e-mail stirling.bryan@doc.sc.gov, corrections.info@doc.state.sc.us, mkeel@sled.sc.gov, dhamilton@sled.sc.gov, bolchoz.brian@doc.sc.gov, Leggings.maria@doc.sc.gov
• Political prisoner birthdays:
  Ed Poindexter #27767
  Nebraska State Penitentiary
  Post Office Box 2500
  Lincoln, Nebraska 68542
• For a good introduction to writing prisoners, check out this guide from New York City Anarchist Black Cross.

In this Hotwire we have three different interviews about the alt-right's defeat in Gainesville. As democratic confederalist Kurdish forces in Rojava are beating back ISIS, the nationalist, capitalist Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq is threatening civil war with the Iraqi military. In response, Kurdish anarchists speak out against war and the state. The discovery of Santiago Maldonado's body in Argentina has sparked the fiercest clashes with police that the South American country has seen in years. Some good news: the first J20 political prisoner is about to be released; but hundreds more are awaiting trial and facing years in prison. Listen until the end for announcements of anarchist bookfairs, anti-fascist action, and east coast CrimethInc. speaking events this week. {October 25, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {2:10}
  • Anarchists in Kurdistan {7:10}
  • Catalonia {10:05}
  • Anti-fascists win the day in Gainesville {11:55}
  • Jingles {24:55}
  • Repression Roundup {25:55}
  • Next Week's News {28:30}
• Alerta! This Saturday, October 28, anti-fascists are mobilizing against white supremacists in Murfreesboro, TN.
• Upcoming anarchist book fairs:
  • The Los Angeles Anarchist Book Fair takes place October 28 and 29 at Leimert Park Plaza.
  • The London Anarchist Book Fair also takes place on Saturday, October 28 at Park View School.
• Support the folks arrested protesting the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philly this weekend by donating here or here.
• Go here to support the Makwa Frontline Camp.. They're in need of towtrucks, carpenters, firewood, and people experienced in direct action training.
• This damning leak from Atlanta Anti-Fascists shows how the involvement of the would-be murderers arrested after Richard Spencer's talk in Gainesville was planned and sanctioned by Spencer's National Police Institute.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • California: Sonoma County IWW wildfire rebuilding fund
  • Puerto Rico: Submedia's grassroots disaster relief support, Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here. Also, check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief's website for on-the-ground reports from Puerto Rico.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign
• Support the Cascadia Forest Defenders website who are fighting against the Goose Timber Sale of 2,500 acres of the Willamette National Forest.
• Go here to donate to J20 political prisoner Dane Powell's release fund. You can find the DropJ20 drop-the-charges call-in campaign here. The Nation published a really good article on the importance of supporting the J20 inauguration day defendants.
• For current information on how to support folks still facing charges from No Dakota Access Pipeline actions at Standing Rock, visit FreshetCollective.org.
• CrimethInc. "From Democracy to Freedom" presentations this week:
  • Friday, October 27, 7 PM
    Wooden Shoe Books
    704 South Street
    Philadelphia, PA
  • Monday, October 30, 7 PM
    Lamplighter Coffee Roasters
    26 N. Morris Street
    Richmond, VA 23220

  To bring a CrimethInc. speaking event to your town, just email rollingthunder@crimethinc.com.

• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Episodes 36 and 39 of The Ex-Worker delve deep into the revolution in Rojava.
  • Episodes 47 and 48 introduce the anarchist critique of democracy. The latest IGD Cast from ItsGoingDown.org has an interview with members of the CNT on the question of Catalan independence.
  • Resonance audio-distro have an audiozine version of This Is Not A Dialogue. Not Just Free Speech but Freedom Itself.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Catalunya: Facing Two Bad Options, Choose the Third. On the Showdown between Spain and Catalunya.
  • This Is Not A Dialogue. Not Just Free Speech but Freedom Itself.
  • To Change Everything
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available! Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Here is the October 2017 Political Prisoner Birthday Poster, which you can use to organize a letter writing night. For a good introduction to writing prisoners, check out this guide from New York City Anarchist Black Cross.
• Political prisoner birthdays:
  • Edward Goodman Africa #AM–4974
    SCI Mahonoy 301 Morea Road
    Frackville, Pennsylvania 17932
    {October 31}

In this Hotwire we share the anti-fascist call from Florida to oppose Richard Spencer in Gainesville on October 19. We discuss the upcoming J20 trials in which nearly 200 protesters are charged with conspiracy for protesting the inauguration, as well as the outcome of the burning cop car case that just concluded in Paris. Considering the bullshit repression and liberal lawsuits in the wake of #Charlottesville, we make the case about why anti-fascism must mean anti-statism. We also borrow part of a great interview with Puerto Rican anarchist Frank Lopez on mutual relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Stay tuned until the end because we have some important calls to support political prisoners, calls to support forest defenders in Oregon, political prisoner birthdays, announcements for upcoming anarchist book fairs, and the repression roundup. {October 18, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {1:42}
  • Puerto Rico: Mutual Aid vs. the State {11:35}
  • Anti-Fascism means Anti-Statism {18:40}
  • J20 Trials Start Soon {23:32}
  • Next Week's News {27:30}
• TOMORROW: Anti-fascists in Florida are calling for anti-racists to oppose Richard Spencer, who will speak at the University of Florida in Gainesville on Thursday, October 19.
• Check out this call to mobilize against white supremacists in Shelbyville, TN on October 28.
• If you're in the Pacific Northwest, check out this tour of pipeline saboteurs coming to a city near you:
  • October 18th – Phoenix, OR
    Phoenix Branch Library
    510 W 1st St, Phoenix, OR 97535
    6:30 – 9:30 pm
  • October 20th – Portland, OR
    First Congregational Church
    1126 SW Park Ave, Portland, OR 97205
    7:00 – 9:00 pm
  • Olympia, WA
    Date and Location TBD
  • October 25th – Seattle, WA
    Pipsqueak Gallery
    173 16th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122
    6:30 – 8:30 PM
• Upcoming anarchist book fairs:
  • The Los Angeles Anarchist Book Fair takes place October 28 and 29 at Leimert Park Plaza.
  • The London Anarchist Book Fair also takes place on Saturday, October 28 at Park View School.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • California: Sonoma County IWW wildfire rebuilding fund
  • Puerto Rico: Submedia's grassroots disaster relief support, Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here. Also, check out Mutual Aid Disaster Relief's website for on-the-ground reports from Puerto Rico.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign
• There's a call to disrupt the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia from October 21 to 24, including a march starting at Thomas Paine Plaza at 10 AM on October 21. Read the call to action here.. They also have set up a bail fund that you can donate to for anyone who gets arrested protesting the IACP.
• The Unist'ot'en camp in so-called British Columbia could use your help building houses in the path of planned pipelines.
• Support the Cascadia Forest Defenders website who are fighting against the logging of 2,500 acres of the Willamette National Forest.
• Fund an internationalist anti-fascist's return from fighting in Rojava.
• You can find the DropJ20 drop-the-charges call-in campaign here.
• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Episodes 36 and 39 of The Ex-Worker delve deep into the revolution in Rojava.
  • Hotwire #8 describes the police-facilitated photo-op that fascists enjoyed in Charlottesville last week.
  • IGDcast's interview with Frank Lopez about Mutual Aid Disaster Relief and Puerto Rico.
  • While not anarchist by any stretch of the imagination, The Gun Show episode of More Perfect has some good history on the origins of gun control as a tool for controlling black rebellion.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • The Poetry of Flames: French Tales of Arson
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available! Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Corrections & clarifications: In Hotwire #7 we stated that the Las Vegas shooting was the deadliest mass-shooting since the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. However, we discovered at least one other in the time since then. In 1898, white supremacists seized the city of Wilmington, North Carolina and massacred at least 60 black folks.
• Political prisoner support:
  • Supporters of the anti-police brutality activist Reverend Joy Powell have organized a phone blast in support.
  • Political Prisoner Seth Hayes is in urgent need of medical attention. His supporters are asking people to call the supervisor at Sullivan Correctional to demand that he be taken to Albany Medical Center as soon as possible.
  • You can write Reverend Joy Powell at…

    Reverend Joy Powell 07G0632
    Bedford Hills Correctional Facility
    P.O. Box 1000
    Bedford Hills, NY 10507–2499

• Here is the October 2017 Political Prisoner Birthday Poster, which you can use to organize a letter writing night. For a good introduction to writing prisoners, check out this guide from New York City Anarchist Black Cross.
• Political prisoner birthdays:

  Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Jalil Bottom) #77-A–4283
  Sullivan Correctional Facility
  Post Office Box 116
  Fallsburg, New York 12733–0116
  Address envelope to Anthony Bottom, address card to Jalil
  {October 18}

This week we bring you a slew of reports from anti-Columbus Day actions across so-called North America. We also fill you in on an inspiring prison uprising that took over McCormick prison in South Carolina. Prisoners even got on the roof! The political crisis in Catalonia continues, this week with violent fascist and pro-Spanish reaction. White supremacists descended on Charlottesville again this weekend, and there are some upcoming calls to anti-fascist action in the south, so listen until the end. Plus, we got all of our regular features like political prisoner birthdays, announcements for upcoming anarchist book fairs, and the repression roundup. {October 11, 2017}

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

• Table of Contents:
  • Introduction {0:00}
  • Headlines {1:53}
  • #FuckColumbusDay {6:40}
  • Charlottesville Anti-Fascism Interview {12:20}
  • The Opioid Crisis and White Despair {15:58}
  • Repression Roundup {20:55}
  • Prisoner Birthdays {24:55}
  • Next Week's News {25:47}
• Upcoming anarchist book fairs:
  • The sixth annual anarchist book and propaganda gathering in Santiago, Chile will take place on October 14 and 15.
  • The Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair takes place October 28 and 29 at Leimert Park Plaza.
  • The London Anarchist Bookfair also takes place on Saturday, October 28 at Park View School.
• Alerta! Alerta! Anti-fascists in Florida are calling for anti-racists to oppose Richard Spencer, who will speak at the University of Florida in Gainesville on October 19. Unicorn Riot reports that up to half a million dollars may be spent on security for Spencer's event, even though no one at the University of Florida has invited him to speak.
• Ongoing grassroots disaster relief efforts:
  • Florida: Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
  • Texas: Bayou Action Street Health, Greater Houston Grassroots Relief, World on My Shoulders, Austin Common Ground, the Black Women's Defense League, Redneck Revolt Houston, West Street Response Team, Houston Food Not Bombs
  • Puerto Rico: Hurricane Maria Community Recovery Fund, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: here and here.
  • Mexico: Oaxaca Earthquake Autonomous Solidarity Campaign
• #FuckColumbusDay actions reportback found here. A must-read for this year's Columbus Day is this article by Indigenous Action Media about the limitations of Indigenous People's Day. Also check out the essay Resistance is Disaster Relief, published on Columbus Day by Mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
• Action items and reportback from the anti-fascists who opposed the white nationalist photo-op in Charlottesville, VA this weekend.
• Go here to donate to the bail and legal fund for those arrested in St. Louis after the no-guilty verdict for killer cop Jason Stockley.
• Go here for the bail fund for those arrested protesting the murder of queer anarchist Scout Schultz.
• We mention the new episode of Submedia's excellent show Trouble. This month's episode is on counter-insurgency. Submedia does great work, so throw them some taco money while they are fundraising this month.
• There's a call to disrupt the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia from October 21 to 24, including a march starting at Thomas Paine Plaza at 10 AM on October 21. Read the call to action here..
• You can find the DropJ20 drop-the-charges call-in campaign here.
• Freshet Collective is organizing legal support for the nearly 400 cases are still pending from Standing Rock. Natasha Lennard covers how 6 of the cases are nearly unprecedented federal charges faced by native activists.
• Other anarchist podcast episodes mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • Episode 32 of The Ex-Worker, titled "White Supremacy and Capitalism, From 1492 to Ferguson."
  • Ex-Worker episode #56 about Charlottesville.
  • Hotwire #4 has an interview with an anarchist DREAMer about how to support undocumented folks.
  • Hotwire #5 covers the fatal police shooting of Scout Schultz, a queer anarchist Georgia Tech student.
  • IGDcast's Audio Report From CVille: Media & Police Facilitate Nazi Photo Op.
• CrimethInc. essays mentioned in this Hotwire:
  • How and Why to Organize Your Own Copwatch Group
  • Green Scared? Preliminary Lessons of the Green Scare
  • Catalunya: Facing Two Bad Options, Choose the Third. On the Showdown between Spain and Catalunya
  • Democracy, Red in Tooth and Claw. On the Catalan Referendum: The Old State, a New State, or No State at All?
  • From 15M to Podemos: The Regeneration of Spanish Democracy and the Maligned Promise of Chaos
  • The Opioid Crisis: White Despair and the Scapegoating of People of Color
  • Scout Schultz: Remembering Means Fighting. Mourning a Queer Activist and Anarchist Murdered by the Police
• The 2018 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar is now available for bulk pre-orders. Your group can buy 10 or more at the rate of $10 each. Single issues are available from LeftWingBooks.net and AK Press. This year's theme is "Awakening Resistance," and features art and writings by Jesus Barraza, Fight Toxic Prisons, Serena Tang, Andrea Ritchie, Roger Peet, Sophia Dawson, Rasmea Support Committee, EE Vera, Herman Bell, Fernando Marti, Alexandra Valiente, Billie Belo, Arlene Gallone Support Committee, Marius Mason, David Gilbert, UB Topia, April Rosenblum, Design Action Collective, Sundiata Acoli, CrimethInc, Annie Banks, Mutope Duguma, Xinachtli, Zola and more. You can sponsor copies for prisoners for only $8, postage included! Just be sure to specify their full legal name and prisoner number. Any questions can be sent to info@certaindays.org.
• Video of the two baby piglets freed by Direct Action Everywhere this past summer.
• Corrections & clarifications: In our reporting on the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement's march in Gothenburg last week, we were ignorant of some pretty important details. Namely, the fact that they specifically chose to march on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur and that their originally proposed march route was chosen to pass by a synagogue, a clear act of intimidation, if not staging for an outright attack. Anti-Semitism is growing along with right-wing nationalism, and the targeting of Jewish sites and symbols is something anarchists should not ignore—not in the least because of the rich history of Jewish anarchism and anti-fascism! Check out this delightfully cheeky book review for a brief introduction to the history of Jewish anarchism.
• Here is the October 2017 Political Prisoner Birthday Poster, which you can use to organize a letter writing night. For a good introduction to writing prisoners, check out this guide from New York City Anarchist Black Cross.
• Political prisoner birthdays:
  Robert Seth Hayes #74-A–2280
  Sullivan Correctional Facility
  Post Office Box 116
  Fallsburg, New York 12733–0116
  {October 15}

  Jermaine Parker #1185800
  MECC
  18701 Old Highway 66
  Pacific, MO 63069
  {October 15}