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This episode of "It's The End Of The[br]World As We Know It And I Feel Fine",

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was made possible by contributions[br]from slaves like you!

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Spank you very much!

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A lot of people involved in the black bloc[br]on saturday

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and many of them 6 months ago were members of the labor party,

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working for the democrat party and people who really believed back then

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that parliamentary democracy could work[br]for them

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and now they believe it's not gonna work[br]for them.

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It's the end of the world as we know it[br]and I feel fine.

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Gooooooooood morning slaves and[br]welcome to another sedition of

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"It's The End Of The World As We Know It[br]And I Feel Fine",

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the show where all our heroes were masked!

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I'm your host the stimulator,

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and with global may day protests and[br]the occupy wave of actions coming up

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I thought it would be nice to do a little[br]segment about the tactic of tactcs.

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The cancer in Chris Hedge's colon.

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Too big to fail, big enough to fall!

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The most widespread and mimicked[br]street formation of the last 6,000 years.

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And the craze has police departments[br]and politicians wetting their dockers.

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Yep.

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The black bloc - But what about madrid?

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You are right, agitator.

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I must first pay my respects to the[br]lion-hearted peeps in madrid

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who daringly attacked the fuzz during[br]anti-austerity protests last month.

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The underpinnings of this movement[br]are confrontational and radical.

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Many people out there think[br]that the black bloc

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is a gang or a crew that one can join.

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The radical group called the black bloc[br]anarchists

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openly brag about using terrorist-type[br]tactics.

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There are no black bloc anarchists[br]you thick-nost shit rocket.

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The black bloc is simply a fucking tactic!

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Black bloc is not a group[br]or social movement,

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it's simply a tactic used by protesters to[br]protect themselves from police agression

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and express a complete[br]rejection of capitalism.

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Like the tactic of blockading a street.

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The blockade is used with the objective[br]of stopping police or industry traffic

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into an area you're trying to hold[br]or protect

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and it could be part of an overall strategy[br]to protect that forest

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or autonomous zone, for example.

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The black bloc tactic can be used for[br]the purpose of securing streets

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with the strategic goal of creating[br]autonomous spaces for discent

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within a context of[br]intense police repression.

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It can also be used to attack corporate[br]and state infrastructure

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allowing the saboteurs[br]to remain anonymous.

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This tactic has spread around the world[br]like wildfire

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and we have witnessed its power[br]in places such as turkey,

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egypt, brazil and colombia.

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So, to find out more about the history[br]of the black bloc,

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I bring you francis dupuis-déri,[br]a motherfucking anarchist

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and author of[br]Who's Afraid Of The Black Blocs?

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Hey francis, how the fuck are you?

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Huuuuuuuuh I don't know!

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When was the tactic of black bloc[br]first deployed?

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The black bloc the way we know it[br]appeared the first time in germany

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in west berlin, at the end of the 70s,[br]beginning of the 80s.

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The first time the term "black bloc"[br]was coined in germany was in 1980

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and it was called at the time the[br]autonomen movemen,

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movement mainly of political sqatters[br]who were involved

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in the protest agains the nuclear industries[br]and nuclear weapons

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and the neofascist movement in germany.

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So at the time in germany they were[br]wearing leather jackets,

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that was fashionable at the time,[br]so black leather jacket,

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black motorcycle helmet and they were[br]merging in black bloc to get a mass of

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anonymous people, because you can't[br]recognize people in a homogeneous

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mass of people wearing black and[br]masks and they were using this tactic

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to confront and fight the police, which was[br]coming to expulse them from their squats,

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for instance, or to fight agains neo-nazis[br]in the streets.

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In the description of your book,[br]"Who's afraid of the black blocs",

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it states that the image of the window-smashing thugs hides a complex reality.

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Can you fucking explain?

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Too often the black bloc is described by[br]politicians, by police officers, by journalists,

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by scholars, even, as something really not[br]interesting from a political point of view.

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They're described as a bunch of[br]hooligans and as apolitical individuals

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who just like to riot, like to smash things[br]without any political rationale.

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The black bloc, which are primarily white,[br]sort of nihilistic, destructive...

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embracing confusing, petty vandalism[br]in this repellent sort of cynicism with revolution...

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And of course when you listen to them,[br]when you watch them in action,

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when you look at them, when you[br]follow them

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and when you try to understand[br]what they do in germany, in france,

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in great-britain, in greece, in brazil,

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you rapidly understand that[br]it's only about politics.

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There are 50 thousand other people[br]that are gonna be here

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and I figured even if they are here[br]protesting in a way that I don't like,

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advocating a reform or abolishing[br]some particular institution

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at leat there's 50,000 people that really[br]care and are worked up about something

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and hopefully we can come out here and[br]give them a show

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of a little more radical direction.

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About politics, about the economics, of course, also about power relationships,

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about domination, and it's a way to[br]express a radical criticism of

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these systems: the state system,[br]the capital system, the bank system,

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and their targets is the message.[br]It's what they target that give us

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the meaning of their action.

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Thanks francis.

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Stay tuned after the break for an[br]interview with a montreal streetfighter.

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Viewers of this fucking show know that[br]in 2012, thousands of people took part

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in the 6 months insurrection in montreal.

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What is popularly known as[br]the maple spring

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began as a student strike but evolved[br]into a popular revolt that included

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many sectors of society.

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The sheer fucking number of protester[br]and the non-stop use of militant

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street tactics exhausted non only the cops[br]but also their budget.

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Since-then the montreal po-po have[br]smarten up and have consistently

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cattled anticapitalist demonstrations[br]as a way to avoid a repeat of 2012.

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This year, comrades have been having[br]conversations as to how to regain

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the street power that was obtained[br]on that insurrectionary moment.

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So to review some of their tactics used[br]in the balance of that year,

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I bring you nick, a university student[br]involved in much of

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the street fighting of 2012.[br]But first, a fucking disclaimer.

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So enough of that noise.

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Hey nick, how the fuck are you?

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I'm feeling great.

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So, how the fuck the street fighting[br]progress in montreal?

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From the beginning of the strike,[br]We saw the use of masks

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go from being an isolated practice[br]to something that became normal

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for hundreds of people to do.

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This explosion in the use of masks[br]wasn't magical.

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It took anarchists consistently masking up[br]and explaning why they mask up

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in flyers and in conversations.

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The same can be said for attacks[br]agains police.

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As the strike progressed, the isolated[br]attacks on police that characterized

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the demos during the beginning[br]of the strike, so does a couple of rocks

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thrown in their direction eventually[br]became more popular to do

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up to the point where demos sometimes[br]became very uncontrollable for hours.

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This is simply a matter of persistence.

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Fuck! Holy shit!

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As people continue to see massed up[br]street fighters getting away

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with attacking the pigs we'd been[br]clubbing them for weeks.

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They start to see themselves as capable[br]as acting conflictually as well.

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I imagine that this involved many different[br]groups of friends in the students milieu

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making plans to come to demos[br]with these intentions for the first time

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but also probably involved many people[br]coming back themselves.

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The tension that can be felt against the[br]police during strike initially mostly only

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manifested itself in chance. But over time[br]this transformed into the more

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empowering practice of attacking police[br]directly.

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And as more and more people took this[br]up it snowballed into being normalized.

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And what are some of the tactical lessons[br]learned from that period?

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When you look at the confrontation with[br]police that we've seen here,

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it can basically be broken down[br]into two things:

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confrontation that frees up[br]space in the police, and

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confrontation that doesn't have the force[br]to make police retreat

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but is still valuable obviously. From what[br]I've seen the factor that make

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projectile attacks, for instance,[br]capable of winning the space

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are coordination and[br]widespread participation.

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With an offensive mentality that doesn't[br]wait for police to attack us first.

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This is how fear changes camp, severing[br]the cycle of police inevitably attacking

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the demo and dispersing it as everyone[br]runs from police charges.

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In montreal the courage to confront police[br]is already held by many people,

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while often the level of self-organization[br]is not quite developed enough

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to make these confrontation long-lasting.

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Something that some anarchists[br]quickly realized

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was that if we want to hold the streets[br]after things start to get wild,

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projectiles must be collected[br]as soon as possible.

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During the demos with more militant tone,[br]like march 15th, the night demos,

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the book fair weekend, april 25th,[br]may day and others,

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whithin the first 10 minutes you would see[br]crews running to houses and gardens

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to collect rocks inside bags, using[br]hammers to pry rocks up from the street,

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or thrashing the larger pieces into[br]throwable sizes on the sidewalk.

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People who collected rocks[br]would then distribute them amongst

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the masked portion of the demo.

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Something that also started to happen[br]more often with people counting down

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for throwing, so that instead of just one or[br]two rocks actually connecting with police,

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there were volleys that could[br]make police retreat.

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Another tactic to accompany[br]rock-throwing that has been used

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pretty extensively is throwing paintballs.[br]These often have a limited effect

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unless aimed well enough to hit a visor.[br]I've seen this happen only once.

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Fire extinguishers filled with paint,[br]on the other hand, as seen in oakland

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during the general strike,[br]are the perfect weapon agains police.

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With one swoosh you can blind[br]an entire riot cop line

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and take them out for as long as it takes[br]them to clear their visors.

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The same goes for police vehicle's[br]front windshileds.

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Fireworks are also often shot[br]at police lines, but the few times

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road flares have been used, they've been[br]far more effective than fireworks.

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It's also really important for undercovers[br]and corporate media to be fought

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out of the demo as soon as things start[br]to get rowdy,

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to make it safe or to eventually disperse[br]and demask.

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And finally, wearing black socks[br]over shoes and ditching them

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with everything else can save you[br]a lot of trouble.

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So can wearing cotton gloves.

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Yep, that's about it.

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Thanks, nick!

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And that's about it for this sedition of

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"It's The End Of The World As We Know It[br]And I Feel Fine".

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As always, this here labor of love[br]and rage is brought to you by slaves

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who shared their fiat currency so that[br]we can keep the lights on.

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So muchas motherfucking gracias to...[br]jason, samantha, katie, kylon, fiona,

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rahina, daniel, patrick, miguel, gavon,[br]adrian, tim, angela, thomas,

0:12:57.705,0:13:02.587
preston's production, rosemary,[br]tom, alexander, gregory, jimmy,

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dylan, christian, kyle, valentine, françois,[br]alyssa, jennifer, liam, richard, justin,

0:13:07.963,0:13:13.888
james, robin, chris, aaron, mika, steven,[br]shawn, serena, patrick, (inaudible), F.G.,

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bruce and... steven. (inaudible).

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Also I wanna give a warm welcome to the[br]newest members of the taconspiracy:

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ashley, emilia and... justine.

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Bienvenidas!

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For links to information about militant[br]street tactics, just visit my fucking website:

0:13:31.373,0:13:34.666
And to quote from sun tzu's[br]The Art Of War:

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The ultimate skill is to take up a position[br]where you are formless.

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If you are formless, then most penetrating[br]spies will not be able to discern you,

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or the wisest counsels will not be able[br]to do calculations against you.

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See you in the streets...