On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump descended an
escalator into the gilded lobby of Trump Tower

in downtown Manhattan, to officially announce

his candidacy for President of the United States.

That is some group of people. Thousands!

The idea that Trump
could actually win the US Presidential election

didn’t occur to many people at the time.

Certainly not to American liberals,
who viewed his campaign

as an irrelevant publicity stunt, and a way
to score some easy laughs.

Donald Trump just last week, he confirmed
to the National Review

that he is again considering a run in 2016

Do it!

(Laughter)

Do it! Look at me. Do it!

As the months dragged on, this laughter became
tinged by a growing sense of unease,

as Trump steadily rose to
the head of the Republican pack.

Donald Trump is America’s back mole. It
may have seemed harmless a year ago.

But now that it’s gotten frighteningly bigger,
it is no longer wise to ignore it.

Yet even as he ascended the stage
of the Republican National Convention

to accept his party’s nomination in July of 2016,

many people still refused to believe

what was happening right before their eyes.

We’re back with David Hundo P Plouffe,
the man who says Hillary Clinton

has a 100 percent chance of winning

I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president

So you think this presidential race is just
about over?

Virtually over, the only thing that could
save Donald Trump now is frankly,

some type of external intervention

This came to an abrupt end on election night,
as stunned pundits soberly announced

that Donald J Trump would be sworn in as the 45th
President of the United States.

(sighs)

You’re awake by the way… You are not
having a terrible, terrible dream,

also you’re not dead and you haven’t gone to hell…

This is your life now, this is our election now

this is us, this is our country, It's real

USA!! USA!!

Thank you!

The Democratic Party,
and its various corporate media appendages,

had grossly underestimated the anti-establishment backlash,

that decades of neoliberal
pcapitalist policies had fostered

among broad swathes of the American population.

Trump’s campaign had effectively tapped

this deep reservoir of seething anger,

and poured gasoline on the flames by appealing

to the patriarchal and nationalist impulses
of white America.

Get the fuck out of here! Our country motherfucker!
Our country! A proud fuckin American!

Made in USA bitch! Trump! Donald Trump! Fuck you!

On election night, as 4Chan trolls and alt-right
figures celebrated,

and liberals sank into paralysis and fatalistic despair...

anarchists, anti-authoritarians and crowds of angry youth

took to the streets.

In cities across the country, large, spontaneous
demonstrations broke out

before the votes were even finished being tallied.

Many of these protests were militant,

with participants burning effigies, clashing with police

and shutting down major highways.

In Oakland, two police cars were smashed up and burned,

and several cops were sent to the hospital with injuries.

Within this charged political atmosphere,
a multi-city network

of anarchists stepped up
to begin planning a massive demonstration

aimed to coincide with Trump’s inauguration
on January 20th.

Within days, a website was
calling on people to hashtag Disrupt J20.

Over the next thirty minutes, we will take
a look at the historic protests

that rocked the streets of DC that day,

as well as the unprecedented wave of mass repression that followed.

Along the way, we will speak with
a number of defendants and their supporters

as they share their experiences
of running riot in Washington,

taking on the Department of Justice in court...

and ultimately... staying
OUT of Trouble.

We need somebody, that literally will take
this country and make it great again.

News: Donald Trump wins the presidency!

The next day, we’re just like, now what?

Days later, we had a website up, put together
a video, a facebook event, and all this.

Folks got a spokescouncil together. It was
probably one of the best mobilizations

of coalitions that I’ve ever been a part of.

The spokescouncils were according to the principles
of consensus and according to also

the Saint-Paul Principles of organizing.

It’s a great way to organize
a massive number of people according

to basic anarchist principles.

Our solidarity will be based on respect for
a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.

The actions and tactics used will be organized
to maintain a separation of time or space.

Any debates or criticisms
will stay internal to the movement,

avoiding any public or media
denunciations of fellow activists and events.

We oppose any state repression of dissent, including
surveillance,infiltration, disruption and violence.

We agree not to assist law enforcement
actions against activists and others.

Different assemblies organized different aspects
and there was about nine different blockades

that were organized in those assemblies as
well as, like, a permitted march,

J19 which was kind of like, a protest against Deploraball,

as well as the anti-capitalist and anti-fascist march

So we were able to convene broader mass meetings
that drew four to six hundred people

in some cases. Break down into smaller working groups
around the specific direct-action blockades,

the unpermitted march, the permitted festival
of resistance, art, housing, medics, legal

like, we had a whole array of things.

No one wanted to just show up and just show
out. Like there was a definite message about

disrupting the inauguration.

News 1: Burning cars and smashed windows!

The protesters dressed in black

their faces covered, armed with hammers and bricks.

News 2: Bricks and rocks being thrown right here at the police!

News 3: Six officers reportedly injured.

This thing’s crazy.

Black Lives! Matter!

Make nazis afraid again!

So that day our goal was to shut down a checkpoint.

We started with a rally in front of the MPD offices

Obviously one of the things we continue
to fight is the police brutality and murder

here in DC.

The first thing we did was lock
up in chains to what would have been the checkpoint

entrances to the actual parade route.
We got there before it opened.

Nobody ever got through that checkpoint for the entire day.

We certainly attended with an obvious attempt

to disrupt the inauguration specifically because
of the rising fascism of Trump.

There was a little speech,
and then we just started marching.

In the beginning it was just like any normal march.

People chanting, y’know, down the street.

And then slowly I noticed people pulling trash cans
and newspaper bins into the street.

And then there was fireworks.

And then finally like, i started seeing windows
broken. I remember seeing the Bank of America.

All of their windows were completely gone.

So this is what happens in the rest of the world

when people fight against a fascist government.

Levels of seriousness that are
not like our protests here

where we yell and scream and then go home.

That people start
realizing like, this is a little more serious

than just “I’m mad today” or “our
president is going to be terrible”

Yeah pand looking back as a participant that day
cemented what solidarity looks like.

But then all of a sudden, everyone just started running.

The cops would come and corner us one way

making us go another way. And then
they’d corner us this way.

So while we’re running away eventually we notice
there’s a whole bunch of cops in front of us.

We were eventually kettled on a corner of
12th and L Street in downtown DC.

The bravery and the spirit that people maintained during
a very long period of being held outside

on the corner and so we were held from about
10am until well after nightfall.

And people were very good about sharing food and sharing
water and medical supplies and cigarettes

or whatever else people needed to kind of
keep their state of normal.

And so the actual arrest was a very interesting time where people
were sharing tactical advice and strategic advice.

And then eventually we were just arrested one by one

and spent the night in jail and were
released the next evening.

For years now, cops in DC have had a reputation
for being relatively restrained when it comes

to dealing with public protests. But while
it’s therefore understandable that the indiscriminate

use of flash bangs, pepper spray and mass
arrest that occurred at the J20 protests caught

many participants by surprise... these actions
weren’t without historical precedent.

Hey hey! Ho ho! The IMF has got to go!
Hey hey! Ho ho!

Back in the heyday of the anti-globalization
movement, Washington was ground zero for two

major protests against the World Bank and
IMF, where similarly heavy-handed crowd control

tactics were employed by DC’s Metropolitan
Police Department, or MPD, as part an official

policy of preemptive mass arrest,
dubbed ‘trap and detain’.

At the so-called A16 anti-capitalist demonstrations of April, 2000,

the MPD arrested over 1300 people

including a sweeping round-up of
648 protesters on the eve of the weekend’s

major demonstration.

Two years later, at a similar protest in September
of 2002, the MPD and federal US Parks Police

encircled and mass-arrested around 400 people
in Pershing Park,

one block away from the White House.

Detainees were hog tied and left
in stress positions for more than 24 hours

before ultimately being released.

Civil rights lawyers, led by the Partnership
for Civil Justice, responded to these two

mass arrests by suing the MPD and the federal
government. The resulting lawsuits cost DC

taxpayers over $20 million dollars in damages,
embarrassed city politicians and the police

top brass, and ultimately led to legislation
that placed new controls on police activity,

including guidelines explicitly outlawing
the use of arbitrary mass detention.

But it’s a well-known fact that police don’t
exactly appreciate checks on their authority...

and the cops in DC are no exception.

On the day of the Disrupt J20 protests,
Interim Police Chief, Peter Newsham,

who 16 years earlier
had personally ordered the mass arrest of

protesters in Pershing Park, had been on the
job for just over four months.

And no doubt emboldened
by Trump’s campaign promises

to give cops free reign to brutalize people

however they saw fit, he decided that the
era of playing nice was over.

On January 21st over 230 people had spent
the night in lock-up,

but we didn't know what the charges were going to be.

When we were first arrested I assumed that
it would just be a $50 fine.

The day of our court date I realized that
we were all actually being charged with

a felony, and I was like 'woah, this is big.'

There was a solid amount of people that were
just, frankly, scared.

And for, like, good reason.

Fuck your dreams.

Fuck your aspirations.

Y'know... you're gonna be in jail.

That's another world you have to process and
readjust yourself to.

And we were not about to go there.

So we were initially each charged with one
count of felony riot.

Three months later, while I was at an anarchist
gathering in Mexico, I received an email from

a comrade, which informed me that the superceding
indictment had been issued.

And in that superceding indictment we were
given numerous additional charges.

This includes felony riot,

conspiracy to riot,

several counts of destruction of property,

inciting a riot,

several counts of assault and several counts
of assault on an officer with a deadly weapon.

It was insane... y'know, facing 80 years in
prison was very nerve-wracking.

The idea is to charge people with far more
crimes than you could possibly convict on.

And though you realize that this is probably
just a scare tactic to get people to accept

pleas... you're still facing 80 years in prison.

In Washington DC, prosecutors have filed a
slew of additional felony and misdemeanor

charges against more than 200 people who were
arrested at protests during President Trump's

inauguration January 20th.

The new charges mean protesters are now facing
up to 75 years in prison.

After the mobilization, Washington DC was
fairly spent.

So as we were kind of developing the legal
collective and legal framework, particularly

MACC, the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating
Council and Richmond folks kind of, like,

stepped up.

I became more involved in providing legal
support on January 21st, sort of directly

in the aftermath.

There were multiple different sort of hubs
of people providing different kinds of support,

and the place that I was most active was in
the DC Legal Posse - the collective that sort

of sprung up specifically to provide support.

MACC helped bottom-line the initial assemblies
of the defendants that allowed for folks to

draw together four different points of unity
to sign onto.

People would break off, come up with ideas
and then we would discuss them.

Like 'I don't like this point, but I do like
this point... let's expand a bit on this point.'

Everything was hinging on having to make this
shit work.

This was very much a multi-city, decentralized
effort.

Multi-city for us meant Movement for Black
Lives more locally,

but in contacting the Movement for Black Lives nationally

which is made up of about 75 different national organizations.

And really coordinating with them to talk
about what this meant.

And to make sure that when we talked about
it, that we always incorporated places like

Ferguson, where there are political prisoners
from the Ferguson uprising.

So the coordination were essentially weekly
meetings and different calls where people

did legal research and kind of, like, formed
working groups.

And those working-groups did various tasks.

I was able to help with a lot of the media
work.

Y'know, the defendants wanted to do their
own media.

And, like... that's the best kind of media
there is anyway.

I gave a bunch of interviews.

We did a lot of off-the-record background
for reporters to explain how this case fits

into a larger context.

There was a very robust campaign.

We had yard signs, it was very grassroots.

It was very professional.

So I was really proud of
the work that everyone did.

We used a lot of decentralized tactics to
approach it.

One of the things which is really quite amazing,
with the large and diverse group of people

who faced federal prosecution, was the ability
of people to act collectively and to resist

this kind of knee-jerk reaction to take some
sort of plea bargain.

Before J20, there had been folks charged with
rioting at Standing Rock.

I think that there was a charge in Minneapolis.

There was a charge brought the same day in
New Orleans.

I think that there were similar charges brought
against activists in Sacramento.

And so people were worried that this was going
to be part of a wave.

I would say that the charges are designed
to criminalize certain forms of dissent.

They're designed certainly to criminalize
tactics and strategies.

Specifically the use of public mass assemblies
and specifically the use of black bloc tactics.

The US Justice Department actually tried to
say that participating in a black bloc was

a conspiracy to riot.

Very early on it became clear that the state
had taken the 230 people and broken them up

into categories.

And it seemed to be that the categories were
meant to show a continuum of culpability.

There was 'movers', which were like... allowed
for reabsorbtion.

There was alleged 'breakers', which were people
who did an alleged act, such as break a window

or throw a newspaper box into the street.

The third category, which I was accused of,
was an alleged 'organizer'.

People who allegedly made the black bloc on
J20 happen.

The fact that there had been these changes
to police procedure... these limitations to

police tactics that had been won after some
pretty brutal clashes in the early 2000s,

had sort of established the tone in DC.

And I think that a lot of people in DC had
gotten used to the police handling people

with kid gloves.

And I think the police had gotten used to
a lot of permitted marches.

I've grown up here.
I've lived here my whole life.

We thought that there wouldn't be mass arrests
on J20 because there hadn't been mass arrests

in something like the decade prior.

One of the reasons that it caught everyone
off guard in DC is that the law that was used

to prosecute people hadn't actually been used
to prosecute anyone since the early 70s.

And it was passed by congress in the wake
of the uprisings in Newark and Detroit, basically

because they were afraid about the prospect
of Black people rising up in DC.

There was a definite need
to say why we support J20.

Y'know, lotta times folks were like 'that's
just them skinny white folks with masks on...

and we don't have anything to do with that.'

When the truth is...
they are us, and we are them.

And so it could have been us on J20, but it's
always us as Black liberation fighters.

The potential threat for becoming political
prisoners or political casualties

is high in this game, and we know that.

Federal prosecutors in the United States have
become quite fond

of grossly overcharging defendants
in hopes of scaring them into taking plea deals.

It’s a big reason why more than 90% of criminal
offences in the US never make it to trial.

This was the same tried and tested strategy,
that US Assistant Prosecutor and Deputy Chief

of DC’s Felony Major Crimes Division, Jennifer
Kerkhoff, tried to use on the J20 co-defendants,

by slapping a staggering list of felonies
on nearly 200 individuals connected only by

the dubious assertion that everyone arrested
on the streets of DC that day was part of

a conspiracy to riot.

Kerkhoff no doubt expected those on the receiving
end of these charges to freak out and start

flipping on one another... thereby setting
the stage for a series of easy convictions

for lesser charges.

Unfortunately for her, the J20 defendants
refused to roll over.

Early on in their legal process, many of them
signed onto a shared statement of principles,

in which they made it clear that they would
refuse to cooperate with the state’s efforts

to prosecute them, and pledged to coordinate
legal defence and support efforts.

Faced with this firm resolve and collective
solidarity, the US Department of Justice had

no choice but to try and make their outlandish
case stick.

In a desperate attempt to do just this, they
subpoenaed California-based hosting provider,

Dreamhost, to try and force them to turn over the IP addresses

of everyone who visited the website DisruptJ20.org

They also sought access to suspected organizers’
personal facebook accounts, in an attempt

to dig up dirt that might help prove the existence
of a conspiracy.

These efforts largely failed, and they were
forced to rely heavily on evidence provided

by discredited far-right news outlets.

The ensuing trials were
a massive humiliation for Kerkhoff

and the entire American justice system.

Conspiracies are essentially a thought crime,
A conspiracy to riot is essentially

three people getting together and saying

"there should be a riot."

What conspiracy law basically says is, that
anyone who's convicted of or can be

found liable for any particular crime, in
this case the criminal conspiracy is

thus responsible for all the crimes that stem
from that.

Essentially saying if you were out on the
streets on, you know, inauguration day and

you were dressed a certain way

Chanting the same chants

AK47, put the cops in piggie heaven!

Espousing certain messages

Like bringing a medic

You are presumptively part of a plot hundreds
of people deep to riot in the streets

The state asserted in a rather untraditional
way that the conspiracy itself can be spontaneous.

In other words if two people are walking by
a store and they say “hey that store looks

unlocked let's go rob it” that a conspiracy
is actually derived in that moment.

So the state argued that during the the J20
actions that people conspired in the streets.

It means that they have a much lower bar to
clear in terms of what they need to prove,

that gives prosecutors an incredible amount
of leeway in terms of who they can charge.

The state would consistently assert that defendant
“A” did not assault

anyone nor did they break any windows, but
by being present at an assembly they

have thus conspired to facilitate others to
break windows and to carry out assault.

Hey there everyone this is James O'Keefe
with project Veritas after we released these

few videos exposing Disrupt J20 we have a
couple updates for you.

Project Veritas is an organization that has
made their mark sending these individuals

into organizations and
planning meetings who are

pretending to just be another left-wing participant
just another lefty but actually they're wired

up with secret cameras and try to find things
that they think they can use as dirt against

the organization to try these organizations
in the court of public opinion and either

bring down their funding or bring down their
support and give them a bad name

our attorney met with the Terrorism Task
Force detective this morning the representative

from the US Attorney's Office was also going
to be attending and our attorney reports to

us that they are looking at the full footage
they are investigating they're analyzing the

tapes and the batches of emails we sent them
so they contacted us last night looks like

there's been some legal developments

the prosecution was convinced that this one
video that they had of an open public meeting

where the the anti-capitalist anti-fascist march was discussed

was like a really important part of their case

I made an offhanded comment that became kind
of like a center for why I got indicted

Just remember when we go to the festival
of resistance, that’s like a space that’s

supposed to be family friendly, so, don’t
break a window at, the festival of resistance

You know in hindsight I made a dumb comment.

Project Veritas was not actually the only
sort of ultra right-wing organization, that

the US Attorney's Office and the Metropolitan
Police Department collaborated with and used

footage from in this prosecution

I think Alex Jones and various other far right-wing
outlets actually infiltrated the mass meetings

They also got independent footage and reports
from the Oathkeepers which is a right-wing

militia from rebel media,
and which is an alt right

white nationalist media outlet from Canada

Hammers holy crap!

This is not peaceful protest this is anarchy!

At the end of the last of those video files,
the Project Veritas operative is chatting

with a few people and they you see at the
end of the video, the initial one that we

got the operative and this guy he was talking to
walk out of the doors

in the building they're in and the video just stops.

Go back out there…

A year plus later after some litigation about,
you know very generally speaking, the completeness

of the Project Veritas cache that the defense
had been given, the government made a second

disclosure of the four video files we got,
plus some additional video files we had never

been given access to.

The fourth video file of that initial four

that was disclosed,
when we get to the end scene

when the Veritas operative and the other

gentlemen are walking out it doesn't abruptly end.

The US Attorney's Office protested that the
reason they cut that off is because there

was nothing on-screen, and so people think
that maybe like the person who was wearing

the button cam put on a jacket, so they were
still audio but there was no video.

And in that audio the person who was recording
the video called Veritas and said:

Yeah I was talking with one of the organizers
from the IWW, I don't think they know anything

about like the upper echelon stuff

That led obviously do a whole bunch of uproar
and more litigation

They withheld like 69 videos, but they also withheld

the identity of the person who filmed the videos

a week before trial
my lawyer was actually able to interview them

and all of a sudden they also
became a star witness in my case.

They actually undermined the narrative that
Kerkhoff was putting out there by saying like

I didn't believe anyone was planning violence
that day

And that ultimately led to the chief judge
finding a Brady violation

Brady V Maryland was a Supreme Court case
from the 1960s that basically said that prosecutors

have the obligation and the duty to turn over
any evidence that could that even has the

possibility of being exculpatory basically
helping to demonstrate the innocence of the

defendant to the defense
and as a part of discovery

And as a result of all of that he dismissed
certain charges with prejudice against certain

defendants barred the introduction of any
Project Veritas videos and any evidence of

a conspiracy effectively wiped out
the government's conspiracy case

And from that moment forward the dominoes

just started falling
and there were no more prosecutions after that

In a blow to the Trump administration's
efforts to silence dissent the first trial

of people arrested at inauguration day
Disrupt J20 protests ended Thursday

In December, six of those people were acquitted,
and the government dropped charges against

149 others.

However fifty-nine protesters are still facing
multiple felony charges

The government in a statement said that it
would now focus its efforts on a smaller core

group that we believe is most responsible
for the destucion

Prosecutors have dropped felony charges against
several people, who faced possible decades

long prison terms,

Dozens of protesters arrested at president
Trump's inauguration are now off the hook

and some of them could get paid.

What?

On July 6th, 2018, the state quietly dropped
its charges against the final 39 J20 defendants,

bringing the drawn out legal saga to a stunning
conclusion.

In the final tally, out of the 226 individuals
eventually prosecuted for their participation

in J20 protests, 205 cases were dismissed,
with 21 individuals taking plea deals – most

under youth statues that saw the bulk of their
charges dropped.

The state wasn’t able to secure a single
jury conviction.

Throughout the course of these proceedings,
J20 defendants received an outpouring of solidarity,

with comrades around the world taking part
in coordinated days of actions, dropping banners,

throwing up graffiti and dedicating militant
direct actions to their cause.

These comrades knew that the stakes of this
case were high... which only made the victory

so much sweeter.

And to top things off, class action lawsuits
have been filed against the Metro PD, which

will almost certainly translate into a nice
little payday for co-defendants, thanks to

the cops’ inability to follow their own rules.

Additional proceedings have also begun against
Kerkhoff herself, stemming from her botched

attempts to secure decades-long prison sentences
through a desperate campaign of lies and misinformation.

I think one of the most important things we
can do is to create a culture, a normative

culture in which we do not cooperate with
police, we do not answer questions, we do

not appear in federal grand juries, we do
not accept to plea bargains that incriminate

others, we do not consent to searches.

And creating these as practices which are
just the norm, allows us to act collectively

in a way that protects the most vulnerable.

It would have been good for the unpermitted
march to have broadened the core of people

who were part of the organic planning of it.

So there could have been a more disciplined
approach to how to respond as the police aggression

intensified.

There was a core of people who had been involved
and tons more people who hadn't been involved

who just heard show up with a mask and there
wasn't a process of like engaging folks around

like how to approach that
all as strategically as possible.

we may have missed a little bit of an opportunity
to understand the bigger context of like,

what we were going into and what these things
look like.

Like when else in history did a dictator start
doing certain things with the news media?

What other times in history and how did the
criminalization of dissent look like?

Like what is it, first of all, do we all understand
what repression is, what it's used for and

how it's used and who uses it
and who benefits from it?

It's incredibly important for us to do political
education, I think we've gotta understand

the things that we're saying and understand
the things that we're seeing in a way that

we can talk about, we can talk about like
in everyday language

I think that it's important for folks to understand
more and for folks to read more about how

the state uses conspiracy laws.

And hopefully in the coming months people
who are involved in this case and other conspiracy

cases over the past couple years will keep
writing about this and will keep helping us

collectively to understand as a movement

against capitalism against white supremacy
against nationalism

So a couple months after we were all arrested,
I was at home

and I get a frantic call from my co-worker.

So I go on Facebook and I see that my personal
facebook has been attacked,

my address has been given out,
they obviously know where I work…

And it was clear that I was doxxed
by the far right.

A list of everyone arrested during the J20
was released and I believe and what most people

believe is that the cops actually provided
this list to the far right.

We fought the Feds subpoenaing our facebook,
then they wound up actually getting access

to all of our data with names redacted except
for our own names.

That, so far has not gone anywhere…

And that's why you practice
good security culture!

During the J20 prosecution, there was a lot
of discussion about you know points of unity

and people agreeing to certain points of unity
and in a sense I'd like us as a movement to

move beyond that where when people are arrested,
when people are in custody, they presume that

already there's going to be mass defense,
there's going to be collective defense there's

going to be non cooperation with with plea
agreements there's going to be non-cooperation

with federal grand juries

If you have deep rooted trust you can navigate
political and tactical and strategic disagreements

without like never speaking to people again
who you used to work with really closely.

The major victory apart from you know, two
hundred plus people having their lives back,

is hopefully that there was a little bit of
a road block put in place to what I saw as

a really massive erosion to the ability to
go out and be an opposing voice

In terms of social precedent in terms of you
know the ways that people treat this case

in and might react to similar things in the
future, having this as one of the examples

to sort of draw on I think that was really
important and a big win for the left and for

for the grassroots.

I think this is a true test case and I think
it's it's very clear that we rose above that

and that people were able to act collectively
in a time when the state was doing all it

could to split us apart and pit you know,
so called "good protester" against "bad protester"

against those of us who are quote "just there"
to those of us who are quote "breaking things".

And so I think that that really is an example
of solidarity and action and a real true strength

of our collective abilities

J20 may have been the first mass prosecution
of political dissidents in the Trump era,

but it hasn’t been the last... and you can
bet that there’s more to come.

Since taking office, Trump has presided over
a sharp escalation in state repression, a

trend that has coincided with a surge in paramilitary
white nationalist and fascist violence.

So far, migrants, refugees and muslims have
borne the worst of this reactionary wave..

but they are not the only groups in the crosshairs.

As women and trans folks brace themselves
for expected roll-backs of gender identity

and reproductive rights emanating from the
Supreme Court, new federal and state legislation

has already been introduced to criminalize
numerous different forms of political protest,

with laws specifically targeting land defenders
and anti-fascist protesters for enhanced sentencing.

Meanwhile, the FBI has adapted its COINTELPRO
playbook for crushing Black Liberation struggles,

this time under the guise of fighting so-called
“Black Identity Extremists.”

These continue to be dangerous times, and
while we can and should celebrate the J20

victory, it’s also important to not allow
it to lull us into a false sense of security.

So at this point, we’d like to remind you
that Trouble is intended to be watched in

groups, and to be used as a resource to promote
discussion and collective organizing.

Are you interested in starting a local legal
support collective, or just seeking to increase

your crew’s knowledge of how to navigate
the court system?

Consider getting together with some comrades,
organizing a screening of this film, and discussing

where to get started.

Interested in running regular screenings of
Trouble at your campus, infoshop, community

center, or even just at home with friends?

Become a Trouble-Maker!

For 10 bucks a month, we’ll hook you up

with an advanced copy of the show, and a screening kit

kit featuring additional resources and some

questions you can use to get a discussion going.

If you can’t afford to support us financially,
no worries!

You can stream and/or download all our content
for free off our website: sub.media/trouble.

If you’ve got any suggestions for show topics,
or just want to get in touch, drop us a line

at trouble@sub.media.

Just a heads up that we’ve decided to hold
off on our fundraiser drive until the new

year, but we’re going to be stocking up
on swag, so be sure and check out sub.media/gear

for all the subMedia fans
on your christmas list.

This episode would not have been possible
without the generous support of Robbt, and

the excellent footage shot by Wes, Brandon,
Ross Domoney

and the good folks at Unicorn Riot.

Stay tuned next month for Trouble # 17, as
we take a look at our society’s current

mental health crisis, from an anti-capitalist,
anti-colonial and anti-state perspective.

Never try to simplify or put etiquettes
on people, put labels on people: “This person

is traumatized” or “This person, she’s
gonna be ok, she’s resilient” right?

We simply situations that are very complex.

Now get out there…. and make some trouble!