The Ex-Worker

This episode offers an audio version of " Iran: An Uprising Besieged from Within and Without ," discussing the uprising that broke out across Iran on December 28, 2025, triggered by economic distress and escalating to call for the toppling of the government. It includes three analyses exploring the tensions within the uprising between grassroots movements and monarchist groups courting the support...

This episode offers an audio version of " Make Ready: Safeguarding Our Movements against Repression ," exploring the implications of Donald Trump's executive order designating "Antifa" as "a major terrorist organization" and how we can prepare our communities to endure whatever comes next. It also includes an audio version of " When the Police Knock on Your Door: Your Rights and Options ."   -----...

This episode offers an audio version of " Mutual Aid, the Commons, and the Revolutionary Abolition of Capitalism ," exploring why the best way to understand mutual aid as an effort to create participatory commons in which everyone can contribute and there is no fundamental division between organizers and beneficiaries. -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents Introduction {0:30} Is It Mutual En...

This episode offers audio versions of " Minneapolis to Feds: 'Get the Fuck Out '" and " Los Angeles Stands up to ICE: A Firsthand Report on the Clashes of June 6 ," which trace the origins of the angry response to federal raids that spread across the United States in early June 2025. -------SHOW NOTES------ Table of Contents Introduction {0:34} Minneapolis to Feds: "Get the Fuck Out" {0:41} Accoun...

This episode offers an audio version of " Become an Anarchist or Forever Hold Your Peace ," arguing that neither courts nor laws will halt the descent into autocracy. Massive numbers of people will have to take it upon themselves to organize concrete acts of resistance, to take direct action on a horizontal and participatory basis—in other words, to become anarchists. -------SHOW NOTES------   Tab...

This episode offers an audio version of " It's Safer in the Front ," making the case that seeking safety by avoiding confrontation is not likely to be an effective strategy in a time of escalating political conflict. {February 25, 2025} -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents Introduction {0:30} My Friend's Grandfather {1:11} "Summit of the Americas," Québec City, April 20, 2001 {3:41} George...

This episode offers an audio version of " Sacrificial Violence and Retribution ," exploring the responses to two different extrajudicial killings as a way to understand the different forms of violence that are contending in our society today. {November 22, 2024} -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents Introduction {0:30} Sacrificial Violence {3:18} Retribution? {8:35} Beyond Martyrdom {14:11}...

This episode offers an audio version of " The Case for Resistance ," laying out an analysis of what we can expect from Donald Trump's second term and how we can prepare to confront it. "This is a pivotal moment, and everyone who isn't cynically detached is sounding the alarm. Those of us who recognize the necessity of fighting had better find each other, identify the strengths and weaknesses of al...

At a time when misinformation, rising authoritarianism, and disasters exacerbated by industrially-produced climate change are creating a feedback loop of escalating crisis, it's crucial to understand disaster response as an integral part of community defense and strategize about how this can play a part in movements for liberation. In this reflection, a local anarchist involved in longstanding dis...

Donald Trump has won the 2024 election. In order to understand what we're up against, let's look at how we got here. In many ways, the Democrats are responsible for Donald Trump's return to power. Over the past four years, the Democrats have beefed up the institutions through which the fascists will enact their policies, normalized violence against the people that the fascists intend to target, tu...

This episode offers an audio version of " Don't Stop: Continuing the Fight Against Cop City ", published on December 12th. It traces the activities of the movement to Stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest from June through December 2023, including accounts of the campaign for an Atlanta voter's referendum on Cop City, the Sixth Week of Action, the relationship between clandestine direct ac...

At first, it appeared to be an ordinary forest defense campaign aimed at discouraging Atlanta city government from pouring money into an unpopular police training facility. But over the past two years, the fight against Cop City has escalated into one of the fiercest struggles of the Biden era, pitting a wide range of courageous people against a united front of politicians, prosecutors, and police...

A so-called " anarcho-capitalist " has just been elected president in Argentina. What does this mean for anarchists and the prospects for revolutionary change in South America? Spoiler alert: it's not looking good. In this episode, we share an account from an Argentinian anarchist analyzing the recent rise to power of Javier Milei, an extreme neoliberal economist, in the context of the global turn...

On November 13, 2023, demonstrators in southern California blockaded a facility of Raytheon, a defense contractor, in solidarity with the Palestinians on the receiving end of the bombs that it produces. They managed to block the facility for more than seven hours, supported by waves of hundreds of activists joining the action, and succeeded in shutting down operations for the day. This episode off...

On November 6, 2023, several hundred people showed up at the Port of Tacoma in Washington State to block access to a shipping vessel that was scheduled to deliver equipment to the Israeli military. This episode shares an account and analysis of the action published on November 10th as " Shutting Down the Port of Tacoma: Reflections from the Salish Sea ." Participants review the history of port blo...

On April 19, 2023, a Russian anarchist named Dmitry Petrov was killed in battle near Bakhmut, Ukraine. In this episode, we offer a eulogy remembering Dmitry as an uncompromising anarchist fighter who participated in an unbelievable amount of radical activity around the region. His extraordinary life spanned anarchist organizing as a teenager in Moscow; environmental defense, radical unionism, and...

As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza intensifies, with over 10,000 deaths recorded to date, it is more urgent than ever for people everywhere to take decisive action to stop the war machine. In this episode, we share the strategic reflections of a collective of Jewish anarchists based in the US on Palestinian solidarity. The authors propose a shift from making demands to taking direct action, relyin...

As the Israeli military escalates its slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and societies around the world fracture and clash over the conflict, we want to amplify anti-authoritarian voices from within the territory to share their experiences and analysis. In this short but moving account, we present the perspective of a Palestinian living in the north of Palestine, who speaks about different aspects...

Prosecutors in Georgia have charged activists protesting against a planned police militarization facility known as "Cop City" with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has indicted 61 people on RICO charges. In this episode, we explore the ramifications of this more or less unprecedented stage of repression. {Oct 6, 2023} ----...

This episode continues the Ex-Worker Podcast's coverage of the movement to Stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta, Georgia. In this episode, we present an audio version of The Forest In The City: Two Years Of Forest Defense In Atlanta, Georgia , originally published February 22, 2023, which continues the chronology of the movement whose origins we reported in episodes 85 and 86 ....

On February 6, 2023, two powerful earthquakes hit southern Turkey and Northern and Western Syria, inflicting tremendous damage and killing tens of thousands of people. But there was nothing "natural" about this disaster: the lethal combination of negligence and repression imposed on the people of the region by the authoritarian regimes of the Turkish and Syrian states is directly responsible for t...

In December 2022, a wave of popular protests led by campesino and Indigenous movements swept across Peru, including a nationwide mobilization in the capital. In response, the government has decreed a state of emergency, and the police have killed more than 60 people and injured thousands. For a direct view of these events, we spoke with Peruvian anarchists, hoping to get perspective on the aspects...

In France, a powerful protest movement has erupted against the government in response to an attempt to raise the retirement age. Millions have gone on strike and poured into the streets in the most substantial unrest in France since the Yellow Vest movement. President Emmanuel Macron and his henchmen have attempted to crush this movement by escalating police violence to lethal extremes. In this ep...

In this episode, the Ex-Worker presents an audio version of A Coup D'Etat In Israel? The Bitter Harvest Of Colonialism , originally published on March 27th. The article assesses the recent attempts by Israeli President Benjamin Netanhayu to strip power away from the judiciary, a power grab that has precipitated the largest protest movement in modern Israeli history. As our correspondent from the r...

In Brazil, a three-way contest is unfolding between the far right in the streets, the institutional electoral left in the halls of power, and autonomous radical movements caught between them. When authoritarian president Jair Bolsonaro was narrowly defeated at the polls in October, a popular right-wing movement emerged to contest the election results, culminating in a protest in which Bolsonaro su...