USA! USA! USA!
Here in defiance of tyranny,
you've come to fight as free men.
And free men you are.
What will you do with that freedom?
I have no idea.
I took my teeth out.
I'm not one to usually take pictures of myself, but in this case I think I'll make an exception.
Oh hello.
Welcome to System Fail, the show where 'questionable life choice'
begins with the letter Q.
2020's been an outstanding year for the Q movement,
we've never had more support as we have, y'know, this year
with the COVID and you know,
being forced to do things that are unconstitutional
like wearing masks.
The pro-Trump conspiracy cult QAnon believed there would be a coup on inauguration day.
According to QAnons the inauguration was an elaborate trap
set by president Trump to round up and execute Democrats.
If he doesn't declare martial law, then I will feel like my vote no longer counts.
He's boarding Marine 1! WOOO!
He's on his way! He's on his way!
Obviously that did not happen.
And I literally was just walking around like... what now?
Bye bye Q. I can't talk to you anymore.
Jesus, Lord help me.
I am your host Dee Dos,
and as my lazy human producers were wrapping up
their annual Winter Solstice break,
I find holiday traditions to be deeply despotic.
strange reports began coming in from Washington DC.
- Breaking news at this hour. - It is hard to put into words.
- The terrifying scenes... - ...unimaginable scenes and violence
- ... thousands storming the Capitol - ... overrun police
- they're inside
In the weeks since the short-lived Capitol Hill Authoritarian Zone,
the Internet has produced a wide range of analysis, commentary, and hot takes.
So I woke up and the U.S. is literally being coup'd. This is a coup right now!
Did the Simpsons predict the storming of the Capitol?
Smash that like button and let's get into it!
So before I add my humble assessment,
perhaps we should rewind and take another look at what happened.
On January 6th, members of the United States Congress convened
to formally certify the votes
submitted by the country’s arcane, 18th-Century, electoral college system.
This dry and antiquated ritual usually passes without much scrutiny.
But with the outgoing president, Donald Trump,
stubbornly refusing to concede the election,
the event was pitched as a final opportunity for his most hardcore supporters
to intervene and, “stop the steal.”
The President is now telling his supporters that he also wants them in the streets,
in Washington on January 6th,
saying on Twitter: "Be there, will be wild!"
Thousands of supporters from all across the country heeded Trump’s call
and descended on DC to make their final stand.
And after some soon-to-be incriminating speeches,
We're gonna walk down to the Capitol...
Let's have trial by combat!
the mob began to march from the White House to the Capitol building.
We can take that place!
And then do what?
Heads on pikes!!!
Shortly after they arrived, the MAGA vanguard began to clash
with a surprisingly small contingent of DC Capitol Police.
Reinforcements were soon called in, but the surging crowd
overwhelmed them with a pincer attack,
breaching the Capitol Building’s outer security perimeter in two locations,
and then smashing their way into the building itself.
WOOO!
Let's go, let's go! !
Aaaargh
Within this motley crew of QAnon cultists, white nationalists, neo-nazis,
and other ride-or-die Trump supporters,
there was a significant number of militia members dressed in tactical gear,
as well as dozens of both active duty and former police officers
and members of the US military.
Their presence, and the discovery of explosive devices
at the Republican and Democratic headquarters,
lent a semblance of tactical proficiency and premeditation
to what was otherwise a surreal gong show
that looked something like a bizzaro anti-globalization demo
crossed with a riotous frat party.
- GO! - Whose house?!
-USAAAAAA! - Yeah!
Woo!
We respect the law!
We were normal, good, law abiding citizens.
You guys did this to us!
As the crowd made their way towards the Senate chambers
and the House of Representatives,
the secret service and DC Capitol Police sprung into action.
Vice President Mike Pence and the Senate and House leadership
were spirited off to safety.
Less important politicians hid under their seats,
waiting for their own armed escorts to arrive,
while shrieking congressional staffers barricaded themselves in empty offices.
Ahhhhhh!
[whimpering]
It’s a safe bet that many pairs of khakis,
and a good number of Brooks Brothers and Georgio Armani powersuits
were soiled that day.
And as you can see, we have a bit of poop.
As they were being evacuated, a number of sweaty, geriatric legislators
hastily donned the so-called ‘escape hoods’ located under their seats.
Turns out they’re only opposed to PPE when it comes to
providing it to front-line workers and prisoners.
Some of the most surreal scenes took place after the war criminals had been evacuated,
Heeeeyyy!
and small groups of Trump supporters were left to wander around the Senate,
rifle through papers,
There's gotta be somethings in here we can fucking use against these scumbags.
and even hold an impromptu prayer circle.
Thank you divine omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent creator God,
for filling this chamber with your white light of love.
Amen!
Thank you for allowing us to get rid of the Communists, the Globalists
and the traitors within our government.
We love you and we thank you. In Christ's holy name we pray!
AMEN!
When the smoke, tear gas, and homemade bear mace had finally cleared,
five people were dead.
This included Brian Sicknick, a DC Capitol Police officer,
and ardent Trump supporter
who was bludgeoned to death by a fire extinguisher.
Oh shit!
Benjamin Phillips, who died of an unspecified ‘medical emergency’
was the inventor and founder of Trumparoo.
Trumparoo was a kangaroo dressed as Trump.
Phillips sold the stuffed animals at rallies.
That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
US Air Force veteran and zealous QAnon adherent, Ashli Babbitt,
was shot in the throat while attempting to storm the House of Representatives.
- There's a gun! - Yeah he's got a gun!
Oh shit!
It coulda been me, but she went in first.
Rosanne Boyland was trampled to death on the steps of the capitol,
after being photographed earlier in the day waving a flag that read ‘don’t tread on me’.
[singing] Isn't it ironic?
And rumor has it, Kevin Greeson died after fatally tasering himself in the balls.
Trump'll come to get er done, man! Trump'll come for dat wall.
The guv'nment come for yer guns, man. The guv'nment come for your balls!
MAGA hat
ball zap
cardiac
heart attack.
MAGA hat, ball zap, cardiac, heart attack.
Truly, patriots all.
The media and members of the political establishment
were quick to condemn the violence.
This is the most shocking...
Crazy... Shameful...
Ridiculous... Hard to fathom...
Sad day for America...
A grave breach of its democratic traditions...
Yeah I was mad as hell.
Unsurprisingly, many of the initial headlines
and shocked tweets
denounced the chaos in the capitol as anarchy.
These are not protests. This is anarchy.
Infantile anarchy.
- Anarchy. - What happened is nothing short of anarchy.
One Democratic politician even went so far as to describe the attackers as:
“Trump’s anarchists.”
[Sighing] You don't know what you're talking about do you?
It wasn’t long before liberals began evoking 9/11,
and referring to the people who stormed the capitol as domestic terrorists.
Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob.
- Goons and thugs. - Scum of the earth.
- Domestic terrorists. - Domestic terrorists.
Domestic terrorists. It's that simple.
Democratic strategists seized on the events to further their efforts
to whitewash and recuperate the Black-led uprisings
of the previous spring and summer.
Comparisons were repeatedly drawn between the illegitimate violence at the capitol
and the so-called ‘peaceful protests’
that took place after the police murder of George Floyd.
[singing] Supposing we said it didn't happen. Didn't happen at all.
The 14,000 strong National Association of Manufacturers
led a chorus of lobbyists and business leaders
in condemning the violence.
We have seen regimes in Europe that were unstable
and those who spoke out were hounded or killed.
That's a real risk to the market.
Visa’s CEO, Alfred F Kelly Jr, released a statement
assuring the shocked and traumatized nation
that the credit card company stood “100% behind the results of the election.”
Visa chec- Oops.
Billionaire Republican megadonor, Sheldon Adelson,
was so upset that he dropped dead.
Twitter and Facebook banned Donald Trump’s social media accounts
and implemented a further purge of influential QAnon profiles,
Twitter announcing it has purged more than 70 000 accounts
for sharing harmful QAnon associated content.
while Amazon, Apple and Google banded together
to bring down right-wing social media network, Parler.
- [French] Parler. - What?
-Par-ler. -Is there an American nearby?
Meanwhile, joining the progressive tech billionaires of Silicon Valley
and the CEO of Visa,
a soberingly-large number of self-described radicals
used the umbrella of anti-fascism to justify cooperating with the FBI
- That's snitching. You know what I mean? -Yeah
while bemoaning the fascist attack on the sanctity of American democracy.
Fence sitting as far as I'm concerned is aiding and abetting terrorism.
It's pretty cringe. It's pretty cringe.
This drives home the increased dangers that anarchists and abolitionists
can expect to face under a Biden-Harris administration.
Those currently cheering on Joe Biden as some sort of anti-fascist hero
seem quite happy to ignore the fact that he was the primary author
of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Just to set the record straight, almost the same thing that got passed,
the Patriot Act, was introduced by me in 1994.
And it was the right wing that defeated it. You guys tried to help get it passed.
Encouraged by the universal outrage towards the debacle in DC,
he has already announced plans to pass a new anti-terrorism bill,
and promised to clamp down on so-called domestic violent extremism - or DVE.
Coordinating relevant parts of the federal government efforts to address DVE
will focus on evolving threats, radicalization, the role of social media,
opportunities to improve information sharing,
operational responses and more.
We can safely assume that they're not just talking about QAnon and the Proud Boys.
Peaceful protesters should be protected
and arsonists and anarchists should be prosecuted.
Local law enforcement can do that. And it can be done today.
As for the far-right, at this stage it is too soon to see
what the long-term effects will be.
Once Trump realized the trouble he’d gotten himself into,
he immediately and predictably threw his supporters under the bus.
To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction,
you do not represent our country.
And to those who broke the law... you will pay.
What an idiot. I thought that guy was cool.
This was followed by a collective suspension of reality,
in which parts of Trump’s fractured base
began claiming that the attack was a psy-op carried out by antifascists.
I feel it was uh, people like Antifa, Black Lives Matter,
who infiltrated the crowd.
Of course none of that is true.
What we saw in the Capitol Building is your A-team.
On the pie chart that I've shown you before, that's your tiny sliver,
that's your special forces of antiffa.
They know exactly what they're doing. They're well trained.
They've got the statements ready to say, y'know, "she's dead", that sort of thing.
Many of those arrested following their brazen, mask-free actions at the capitol
will be happy to give evidence against their co-accused,
in order to lessen their own sentences.
Informant!
This is already leading to more high profile arrests,
and could lead to the cannibalization and breaking up
of a number of far-right, fascist and white nationalist organizations altogether.
Despite this, it seems clear that the attack on the Capitol building
will push many disillusioned QAnon followers and Trump supporters
even further down the path of radicalization.
And what comes from that is certain to be very ugly indeed.
We're talking about a groundswell that is decades, if not generations old.
I think it would be a mistake to overly think that this is about president Trump.
At the end of the day I don't think that the president has the power
to command this groundswell. Or to call it off.
Have a good life. We will see you soon.
To learn more about what went down, I recently caught up with anarchist organizer,
radical emcee, and member of the Maroon Movement and the Food Clothing and Resistance collective,
Sima Lee.
Hey Sima, how’s it going?
Just trying to keep mellow in the time of cholera. Heh.
I hear that cannabis can help with that.
Shit. Haha.
What’s your take on what happened in DC on January sixth?
My initial take was, oh shit so they're going for it huh?
It was something that we saw coming and actually were just surprised
that it took so long to manifest.
These clashes, especially in Washington, DC
in the streets of Washington, DC,
but across the country we watched these groups spring up.
I mean we saw the confederate flags out there.
We saw the three percenters out there.
There was some of the same faces that we've been seeing - some of them for decades.
And so this isn't a shocker.
And we know they don't give a damn about the police.
We know they did that to antagonize us
so it was no surprise to us that they would clash with the police
or anyone else to get their point across
that they're trying to take it back to the good old days.
They brought that gallows and that noose and it said more about
how they feel about us, I feel, more so than those politicians.
So we watched it like, okay, we've been waiting to see them
come out and say who they really are as a group, collectively and take a stand
and so there, they did it. And it is what it is.
All the contradictions of our 400 year empire is coming to head.
And it's coming to a head right in the nation's capitol, right in Rome.
Us as anti-fascists, we stepped back, we watched that shit
and we prepare what we have to do for our communities.
You lived and organized in DC for years.
What are your thoughts on the police response to the storming of the capitol building,
and how does it compare to you and your comrades' own experiences
with the DC Metro and Capitol police?
Yeah we never had any lighthearted interactions with the police.
it was always heavy handed, abusive.
I mean anybody who's been paying attention these last few months,
you've seen the heavy handedness of the state against anyone.
You don't even have to damage buildings as a lot of people like to say,
"well this is about property damage and protecting property"
- a lot of people weren't even bothering property.
They were just taking their ability to gather with their own communities
to speak about what they wanted. And they were beaten
and had chunks of their foreheads knocked out.
There's whole groups of people now without eyes.
We've been having to deal with not just the so-called white supremacists,
but the white supremacists of the police department as well.
It's been an attack against the movement.
Not just the so-called Black Lives Matter movement, because not all Black people
identify with that term or that movement.
But that Black Liberation movement, it's been under attack
in Washington DC in particular.
So many munitions dumped, so much tear gas.
We don't know the long term effects this is gonna have on our comrades.
And so to see them be so gentle and kind and considerate,
it didn't make us feel a certain way other than, yeah
it acknowledged what we've been saying all along.
That the police state is the implementation of white nationalism and white supremacy.
And it doesn't matter if it's a Black cop, a Brown cop,,
all police, they're all in it together with the citizens.
What are your thoughts on the response to this attack from liberals
and other segments of the American left?
People's reaction to white supremacists gathering at the home of white supremacy,
clashing with each other, it's just been really odd and it's been off.
You know I expect the liberals to be, y'know
"muh country, muh flag, muh people, muh capitol, muh politicians," y'know?
I expect that from liberals.
And I don't give a damn how liberals or how conservatives take things.
I'm looking at how, you know, so-called leftists are repeating the words of the state.
Are looking for help from feds who have been crushing us.
My comrades have been getting visits, y'know, at their jobs,
at their homes, snatched out of their cars.
Y'know, we know what it feels like to get raided by the Metropolitan Police Department
with guns and dogs.
We know what that feels like. I know what that feels like.
To have an AR in my face, in a house full of police.
To be watched and observed. To have friends black bagged and kidnapped.
So my comrades aren't reacting in that manner, but other people
that I know and that I'm affiliated with, I'm seeing people not be able to accept
that we're not going to get any real assistance from our actual enemies.
You know people all talk about abolitionism
that's not just about abolishing prison. It's about abolishing the entire state,
the entire apparatus, the entire empire. It has to go.
So some people are like, "Well what are you saying?
You don't want fash to go to jail?"
Aren't we trying to eradicate all of this?
All of it! We're trying to eradicate all of it.
We're gonna have to find out what we're gonna do with
the people who are making our live so horrible.
But I can tell you what we're not going to do is start dealing with the feds.
Like people can quote Assata and still love the feds??
When they're after her again?
The same people who killed thirty plus Panthers?
Sundiata Acoli is still in jail right now, celebrating his birthday
and Maroon, and Mutlu, and on and on and on.
So we don't work with the feds. We don't cheer on the feds.
We don't cheer on new laws that will be used against our communities.
They will pretend that it's going to go against the white supremacists
and it always goes against us.
So it's disheartening to see people debating, you know, what to call this
and "it wasn't really an insurgency, it was just a minor..." - it was what it was.
It's what it has been for four hundred years.
Sometimes they clash amongst each other, the elite,
the white supremacists, the foot soldiers.
But it always blows back against us.
We can never cheer them on. Ever.
And it's just kind of disappointing and it seems like,
I don't know what is going on with the Left in North America,
but they really need to get it together.
And they need to re-analyze what they feel abolition and autonomy really is.
Because it's definitely not cheering on the state.
Anything else you’d like to add?
This movement that we are in in 2021, it cannot look like it has in the past.
The critiques of the white leftists from Black, Brown, Indigenous people,
from queer, from trans, gender nonconforming, nonbinary people,
have to be listened to if we're going to be serious about an abolitionist movement,
a revolutionary, autonomous movement.
And we're gonna have to understand that and get over our own shit
and build up our own dual power, right here and right now.
We build up our power and our communities,
through our co-ops, our collectives, our mutual aid
and our taking care of what we need to take care of
so that we can stand firm against the attacks of the state.
Because just because they're coming at these damn right wing people right now,
they haven't forgotten about us.
All our comrades got court cases coming up. Nothing's stopped.
People are still in the fucking prisons packed with COVID. Nothing's stopped.
People are still getting evicted.
So I just think people have to step it up.
The threat that we're up against in this country is serious!
Thanks Sima.
We’ve now reached the end of this episode of System Fail.
Be sure and check out the full interview with Sima Lee, in which she shares her insight
on the rise and spread of Black anarchism in the United States.
Coming soon on the next episode of the Circle A podcast.
As amusing as it’s been to watch the takedown of Parler
and Trump’s twitter feed, recent moves by tech capitalists
have once again demonstrated the urgent need for anarchists to build
and support our own media and communication infrastructure projects.
On this note, we’d like to remind viewers
that subMedia is a contributing member of Kolektiva,
an independently-hosted and open source social media platform
run by and for anarchists.
You can check out our PeerTube instance at Kolektiva.Media,
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Godspeed, humans.