This episode of
It's the End of the World
as we Know it and I Feel Fine
was made possible by contributions
from slaves like you.
Spank you very much!
I-I am paying you.
You-you work for me--
You're trying to run my life here!
Wallace, Wallace, Wallace...
You are paying me to make you a new life!
Politics! And in order for me to do that,
I gotta be in charge of all the elements
that go into it.
It's the only way I work.
That means, framing the overall strategy
as well as deciding all the specifics.
The look of the campaign
the look of the billboards.
Bumper stickers
what colors they're going to be?
It means the polling, it means the ads,
radio, TV, newspapers.
It means coordinating every piece
of information out of this office
to make sure it fits
with what our polling tells us
the people out there
are worrying about.
Or what they're feeling good about!
Goooooooooood morning slaves,
and welcome to another sedition of
It's the End of the World as we Know it
and I Feel Fine
the show where the only peeps
“feelin' the Bern”
are the motherfuckin pigs.
I'm Bernie Sanders
and I approve this message.
I am your host the Stimulator,
and despite what your racist uncle says,
I know he's crazy,
but Donald Trump sure makes a lot of sense
about those immigrants.
being a so-called "illegal immigrant"
isn't all it’s cracked up to be.
While the right-wing media often depicts
undocumented migrants as lazy free-loaders
in the real fucking world, they make up
some of the hardest working,
and most ruthlessly exploited
members of society.
Many have risked their fucking lives
to cross heavily militarized,
yet entirely make-believe fucking borders,
all in an attempt to escape horrific wars,
or just provide a slightly more secure
and dignified life for their families
and loved ones back home.
And even if they manage
to cross the border,
land a job that pays
less than minimum wage,
and stay two steps ahead of
the immigration officials
looking to deport their ass...
We're here today because
we're going to take you into custody
and put you into deportation proceedings.
These people still have to deal
with being yelled at, spat on,
and violently attacked
by racist fucking dipshits,
who are too fucking ignorant to realize
it’s their own government,
and their rich corporate backers
that are ultimately to blame
for the fact that they’re broke,
scared and confused.
First the money started goin'...
and now everyone's gettin laid off work!
They took our joooobs!
For months now,
a toxic fucking brew of Islamophobia,
and generalized anti-immigrant sentiment
has been boiling over in Europe
and in the United Snakes.
They're bringing drugs...
they're bringing crime...
they're rapists.
Last summer there was
a brief moment of collective reflection
and human fucking decency in the west,
as millions of people were genuinely moved
upon seeing the heart-wrenching photos
of 3 year old Alan Kurdi's drowned body,
washed up on a Turkish beach.
Buuuuuuuuuuuuuut
it seems like that moment has passed.
Mass shootings in Paris
and San Bernadino California,
combined with state mismanagement
of the refugee crisis and
mutual distrust between European nations
have helped create a self-perpetuating
cycle of human misery,
and reactionary racist violence.
Refugees are not animals.
We are people... we are Muslim.
We want to go to the UK...
... not live in Calais Jungle.
Just outside the French port city Calais
a sprawling makeshift refugee camp
known as the Jungle,
has become one of the flashpoints
for this growing unrest.
The camp, largely populated by migrants
from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,
Sudan and Eritrea,
has now swelled to around 6,000 peeps,
with similar camps popping up
along France's northern coast.
Many of these residents have endured
months of traveling
through numerous European cities,
in hopes of reaching the UK.
Now, with their long awaited
destination finally in view,
they find themselves blocked
by French riot cops.
The UK's prim and proper PM,
David Cameron, for his part,
has made it clear that
his government will do everything
it can to keep migrants
from reaching Britain.
We need to protect our borders
by working hand in glove
with our neighbours, the French.
"Yo Stim…
isn't that the guy who once
skull-fucked a dead pig?"
Indeed he is, Agitator.
Indeed he is.
That's exactly the point...
to make love to a pig.
The French government's solution
to this clusterfuck has been
to announce the construction of
temporary housing for 1,500 people
made out of re-purposed
shipping containers
and the eviction and destruction
of the current camp.
Migrants seeking to access
these glorified garbage bins,
will first need to submit
to biometric testing and fingerprinting,
and many are wary to go live
in something that they say
looks and feels like a prison.
The razing of the Jungle
has been proceeding apace for weeks now,
and has produced a barren security zone
ringed with mounds of dirt
and razor wire fencing,
that looks like something out of a
dystopian science fiction movie.
On January 23rd
residents of the Calais Jungle
were joined by hundreds of anarchists
and other shit-disturbers from Britain
and other surrounding countries
who heeded the call to support residents
resisting the eviction.
A demonstration of 2000 peeps
quickly escalated into a riot,
and around 1000 migrants and supporters
rushed the nearby port,
and occupied a ferry,
aptly named “the spirit of Britain”.
During the fracas, a statue of
France's venerated war criminal
Charles De Gaulle
was vandalized, causing an uproar
in the right-wing UK and French press.
SAY IT LOUD... SAY IT CLEAR
REFUGEES ARE WELCOME HERE!
Meanwhile,
on the other side of the Channel
in the English port city of Dover,
violent street clashes broke out
on January 30th
when British anti-fascists
attacked an anti-immigrant demo
organized by a the resurgent fascist group
National Front.
These ugly scenes,
reminiscent of the social turbulence
of the 1920s and 1930s,
are going to become
much more common occurrence
in the coming months and years.
And if we're going to avoid a recap
of what happened last time around,
the motherfuckin' resistance
is gonna have to up our game.
As the media-fueled spectacle
of election season heats up
in the United Snakes
many anarchist
and anti-authoritarian comrades
are experiencing a serious case
of deja-fucking-vu.
We're gonna start with that upset...
that took place in Iowa.
Donald Trump losing to Ted Cruz
in this year's caucuses.
With presumptives showing...
Hillary Clinton in a deadlock
with Bernie Sanders.
Once again, we find ourselves engaging
in the same stupid fucking debates
with liberals,
so-called “progressives”
and other fair-weather radicals
about the pitfalls of electoral politics
all while being talked down to
as though we're just naive
contrarian ideologues,
who don't know what the fuck
we're talking about.
What you're describing is anarchy.
Are you an anarchist?
If I can be real with y'all…
this is seriously fucking annoying
to keep having to do
despite being repeatedly proven right.
Time and time again
once politicians get into office,
they inevitably reveal themselves
to be the capitalist meat-puppets
they truly are.
When the money's coming your way
you don't ask any questions.
Buuuuuuuut
rather than learn their fucking lesson,
the cheerleaders of
revolution by the ballot box
always manage to find
a new leftist rockstar to root for,
I love being a part of this.
This is what it's all about...
the political revolution.
It's a trap!
And the whole fucking cycle begins again.
But that Bernie Sanders
was able to tie Clinton...
So…
despite the fact that it pains me to do so
I'm gonna have to break it down for y'all
one more time.
Anarchists are against the state,
and elections are intentionally designed
by the powers that be
to channel peeps' anger
into reinforcing state power.
What makes representative democracy
such an efficient system of social control
is the fact that it’s highly dynamic
meaning that it allows the state
to constantly reinvent itself
Fuck Ronald Reagan!
in order to adjust to changes
in the political environment.
Under capitalism,
this is generally a euphemism
for class war
and other associated tensions,
such as nationalism,
anti-colonial resistance,
religious and ethnic sectarianism,
and struggles against patriarchy,
heterosexism
and white fucking supremacy.
Basically
representative democracy works
like a complex system of pressure valves.
When shit is popping off
calling an election is often the easiest,
and most effective way
of chilling peeps the fuck out.
Often, those in power
will just roll out a shiny new puppet,
or pick a leader from the social movements
who can be counted on to do their dirt.
This new puppet can then claim that
if elected, they will use political power
to fight on behalf of
the peeps in the street.
I will introduce legislation
that will make every public college
and public university
tuition free.
There is something so familiar about this
This moves struggles out of the real world
and into the realm of electoral politics,
which can then be more easily managed
by corporate and state media outlets,
PR firms,
and greasy fucking campaign managers.
"But, aside from the campaign themes
I want to address
some of my long-term plans!"
"Yes, I'm sure they're great...
but they're not important.
See, my job is to get you in.
Once you're there,
you do whatever your conscience
tells you to do."
Elections give peeps the illusion
of control over the direction of society
Because I'm voting for pizza too!
It's unanimous!
When in fact
the whole fucking system is rigged.
The B-52 bomber has a piece of it
made in every single state
to make sure that if you ever tried
to phase that project out
you will get howls from among
the most liberal members of congress.
No matter who wins an election
the real winner is the state.
And individual states exist within
the incredibly powerful
and all-consuming matrix
of globalized capitalism.
The United Snakes is the world leader
in running this con…
which shouldn't be a surprise,
since they fucking invented it.
Despite American politicians
constantly preaching democracy abroad
state institutions like the CIA,
the NSA, and the US fucking military
are always ready to intervene
anywhere in the world
to make sure that said democracy
doesn't threaten the interests
of the multinational corporations
who fund their campaigns.
Gangsta-capitalists
use their political pets to launch wars
trade embargoes, assassinations,
and coup d'etats abroad
and yet peeps still cling to the belief
that these same evil fucks
would ever allow their control
over the state apparatus that they use
to maintain their domination,
to be challenged
by something as random as a vote?
Who's fucking naive now?
Anyway…
to get a bit more perspective
on why peeps keep falling for this shit,
I recently caught up with scott crow,
an American anarchist from Austin, Texas,
and author of
Emergency Hearts, Molotov Dreams.
Hey scot, how the fuck are ya?
Man, I'm actually really good.
The 2016 election is starting to heat up.
So… are you voting for Bernie, or Hillary?
I'm actually voting for us - the people.
Because electoral politics is just a bunch
of pomp and circumstance.
It always has been....
and I've been within the system
and outside of the system
for many decades.
And it really is just a pageantry
that distracts us from the real work
and the real problems and real solutions
that we might come up with
in the United States
for at least two years
before an election happens.
Up here in Klanada, electoral politics
are a serious fucking problem
for radical movements,
but elections themselves
only last a few weeks.
In the United Snakes,
y'all spend motherfuckin years
on picking a new president.
What's up with that?
Well, because it's just spectacle, right?
It's like watching reality TV.
The Kardashians... it's the Clintons,
it's the Bushes...
It's like these dynasty things.
It's all spectacle, right?
And I think we actually try to take it
seriously,
just like people take seriously
the Bachelor TV show,
or that stupid show that Trump was on.
And I think that it gives us a distraction
from really dealing with the things...
the fact that we have drones
that are killing children and families
all around the world,
the fact that immigrants are being
denied access... that... you know,
that are fleeing war-torn countries,
the fact that schools are crumbling
in this country.
Because it's a spectacle,
and everybody wants to be a part of it.
It's like sports teams, where everybody
gets to vote on something.
So their team can win:
blue team, red team...
But there's a lot of it for those who
hold power, right?
The culture makers,
the media... the politicos.
Lots of peeps
have been following the elections
because of Donald Trump.
Are you worried about what
a Trump presidency would look like?
And why do you think it is that
he's been doing so well in the polls?
Well I think that Trump is doing so well
because he has hit a nerve.
You know, racism, misogyny..
all of these things run undercurrents
in the United States, all the time.
But what he's done, is
he's just pieced the veil.
I think having a Black president
for 8 years, even if he is totally
part of the establishment,
to many white men in this country,
Trump and Obama represent
two polar opposites to them
even if they are more on the same page
than they realize in some ways.
I think that he's just really
struck a nerve with a lot of people.
There's a lot of discontent,
and just like in Germany in the 20s
and 30s, when fascism was rising,
he is tapping into something...
this anger and resentment
of failures of electoral systems,
failures of cultural systems
and political and economic systems
of many people
- not just in the United States
but around the world.
But he's tapping it
in this reactionary way
instead of a way of, like,
"how can we solve these problems together"
because he wants to be a dictator.
After Syriza pissed in the face
of leftists worldwide,
siding with the so-called Troika
over the clear demands of peeps in Greece,
you'd think that those calling for an
an electoral solution
to neoliberal capitalism
would have learned their fucking lesson.
Yet lots of these same people
have just moved on to supporting
Syriza-like parties
such as Podemos in Spain, and candidates
like Jeremy Corbyn in the UK
and Bernie Sanders in the US.
What the fuck?
I don't fault people for that.
The truth is, it's familiar.
It's what we're all raised in.
It's what we are known.
It's like, indoctrination to a degree.
And I don't even like to use that word,
because I think it's more cultural.
It's in there.
And familiarity is the place we jump from.
When we start talking about ideas
of anarchy and collective liberation,
these are abstracts to many people
because they don't even know what it is.
We have to realize our own powers
as individuals first,
then our regional power
- our collective power
like in our neighbourhood,
and our communities
... and then begin to build from that.
But electoral politics is easy to fall in.
In the past, you have talked about
how radicals need to
focus on building dual power.
What exactly do you mean by that?
I mean an anarchist interpretation
of dual power - which is that we resist
on one hand.
We resist exploitation on one hand,
which is what we do in radical,
anarchist, and leftist communities a lot.
But at the same time, we must build
our own power, from below.
My individual power...
our collective power...
our organizational power....
and recognize that we have it.
We have to do these both at the same time.
So, to me it's irrelevant who get elected
or if there's policing, or police systems
and things like that...
except in the way
that we want to resist them.
At the same time, we need to open spaces
and like the Zapatistas say,
we need to open the crack in history
to ask "what is it that we can do
to build our power from below?"
And I think dual power is a framework
to think about that.
And so, any action that we would engage in
should not be taken, unless it has
this framework of resisting and building
and creating at the same time.
Thanks scot, and that about does it
for this sedition of It's the End of
the World as we Know it and I Feel Fine.
To hear my entire interview with scot crow
or for your chance to win a subMedia.tv
T-shirt, just visit my fuckin website:
I also wanna give a quick shout-out to
a good friend and comrade of the show.
An antifa troublemaker who's set
to be released from the clink
any fuckin day now.
Welcome back Kimbo...
No Pasaran mothafucka.
With that said, this show is made entirely
from small donations from slaves like you.
This month, the following workers shared
the fruits of the labour with me,
to keep shitting on elections.
So, merci beaucoup to Jonathan, Etienne,
Max, Martin, John, Chris, Jennifer,
Gregory, Sarah, Primadasi, Scott,
Joseph, Mason, Chris, Andrew, Ricky,
Tavish, Alexandria, Yvan, Sebastien,
Treto, Dylan, Jeremy, Thomas, Renzo,
Gerrard, Willy, Gavin, Kirk, Michael,
Phillip, Joseph, Marisol, Lauren,
and Andrew.
Nopales!
I also would like to welcome the newest
members of the Taconspiracy:
Jack Squat and Sebastien.
Guajalotes!
And finally, a quote from American
anarchist Emma Goldman:
If voting changed anything....
they'd make it illegal.
See you next time suckers!