Call to Action and Solidarity

You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with prorogressives save over nine hundred dollars on average. pop over to progressive dot com commot answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, ninety nine percent of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive. com and see if you can enjoy a little cash backack Progressive casualty inssurance company affiliates, National average twelve month savings of nine hundred forty six dollars by new customers surveyed who save with prorogressive between june twenty twenty four and may twenty twenty five. potential savings will vary Tonight protesters labeled domestic terrorists by federal prosecutors are heading to prison for a very long time. The group of eight were part of a disruption outside of a federal Iice detention center nearly a year ago, and they claimed they were just there as a protest on the night of the july fourth. NBC five Shannon Miller has details on hundreds of years of punishment handed down by two Federal judges in Fort Worth state H son read before a federal judge Tuesday in F birth This is raong This is mass punishment. This is collective punishment This is guilt by association This is injustice. Song and seven other defendants were sentenced to a combined four hundred and fifty years behind bars in connection with the shooting. The defendants maintained they came to the detention center last july fourth to peacefully protest IC In March, a jury convicted nine defendants for their roles as part of a North Texas AntifA cell. The U. S A atttorne's offffice for the Northern District of Texas, saying today's sentencings are the first affiliated with AntifFA. after President Trump designated the group as a domestic terrorist organization in September of last year I know that America's history has so many cases like this throughout America here at the two hundred fiftieth birthday, a nation founded on centuries of slavery And also centuries of a Native American genocide that was so vast it literally changed the temperature, the climate of this planet. So I'm not surprised at all by the standards of this nation when it comes to the horrific story of the prairieland defendants and what is being done to them down in Texas And I know all of us are busy. It's the holidays, we have a lot going on, but you really do need to sit with this story. and I put together some resources for you to read in the show notes Please please make some time for this. and I want you to all understand, eight defendants on july fourth, twenty twenty five a year ago showed up in the rural area of Dallas, Fort Worth, Northern Texas. Not a lot going on there It's very hard for people to build. It takes thirty minutes by car to get anywhere. If you are a quote unquote freak someomebody who's a bit of a misfit, you've got some piercings, tattoos, mayaybe you're trans, you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb Very rual Ver MGa And despite all of that You show up with your moral force, your moral courage to protest a concentration camp like Americans are doing across the country, but for you it's much greater risk because you're basically an authoritarian state of Texas And so these protesestters on july fourth setting off fireworks, noise blasters because remember Making noise being disruptive, that is a strategy of nonviolent resistance and you're making that noise, setting off those fireworks to raaise awareness of your presence to the immigrants kept inside this prison Remember, this is a time like today. People are being kidnapped off the street, they're being denied their rights Trump, Stephven Miller. pushed an extremely severe quota to try to round up as many immigrants, non white people, even U. S. citizens as they can, theseese IC agents, poor training, they're getting paid salaries they haven't seen before Camo gear they haven't seen before, feeling like tough guy Robo cops to go round up pooor people And Palestinian college students off the street, anybody who's written in m bed, you know it's like this is a time of great terror like today, it's still ongoing, by the way But obviously when Trump first comes back into power andleashes this terror. people of moral courage got into formation and they ran protests. they organized protests And they showed up for each other. And they did what we all like to think we would have done if we were there in France and occupied France. if we were there in the time of the Holocaust, if we were there in the time of abolition They did what all of us like to think. in our best moments that we would do. We would show up for the vulnerable. We would put it all on the line to fight for what was right That is the story of the Prairieand defendants And so what happens They were obviously You know, there is a group of people loosely affiliated if that and They show up making noise. you know putting on a protest and The guards, the police theain and said you have to go. A police officer pointed his gun protester thenen goes by champagne You heard from Champagne's Mother? the start of this episode in that clip. Champagne. song They training they served as a U. S. Army reservist They have training They had a gun. on them and picked it up, fired it in the air Like a warning shot reportedly Ricocheted and hit police officer in the shoulder, the police officer then got treated and released the same day And yeah Champagne was sentenced to a hundred years in prison prairie land offendants who have faced trial have received a combined sentence, prison sentence hundred and fifty years Some of them were not even at the protest And you might think, how is that possible if they were not the protests that they're being sentenced decades in prison significantly longer sentences by far any of the maga douche bags that tried to violently overthrow our democracy on january sixth, twenty twenty one, following Trump's orders Not only that Trump had a war room in the Willard Hotel stuck from the White House led by his lawyer at the time, Giuliani And Roger Stone, they're doing pre coup rallies, getting their stormtroopers fired up. brothhing them out Steve Bannon on his influential Mga podcast said everyveryone be there. It's time to fight for our country And that is what they did. violently to over to try to overthrow the will of the people And we witnessed that, we witnessed that terrorism, how they ripped open our paid for with our tax dollars, you had members of Congress and their staff sheltering thinking they're going to die They were chanting hang, Mike Pence, and they did this before the eyes of the world This was not just national trauma international trauma. People are watching this thinking America is now a country of lawless Nazis. And those Criminals. Got a slap on their wrist, all of them Even the head of the proud booys Enrquo Toro got a slap on the wrist compared to what being done to the prairieand defendants down in Texas What is being done to them I'm going to play this clip a guardian reporter who covers movements here in the U. S, Lexi McMeniman. The evidence in the case isn't just about what happened that night. In fact, it's mostly about ines and left his books. I traveled to Fort Worth, Texas to interview some of the nine people convicted of domestic terrorism after an ice protest in part for their zines Last july fourth, a small group of protesters held a noise demo in the form of launching fireworks outside of the Prairie land Iice detention facility in Alvorado, Texas. During that noise demo, the ice facility called the police who then arrived at the scene. Most of the protesterors dispersed before the police even fully arrived. When a cop got there, he exited his car and pointed his gun prot In the skirmish, that police officer was shot in the shoulder. The government says that protest was an attempt to ambush and assassinate a law enforcement officer. The federal judge in this case refused to allow any of the defense attorneys to enter a self defense plea. This past Tuesday, Champagne Song was sentenced to one hundred years in federal prison The other defendants received sentences ranging from thirty years to seventy years in federal prison. Two of my sources, Elizabeth Soto and Savannah Battten both were sentenced to fifty years in federal prison on Tuesday. In large part, this was on the basis of their participation in the Emma Goldman Book Club, which was a book cllub in which they gathered to read left toazines and books the Sootos, Elizabeth and her husband Inez, who's another defendant, owned a printing press, quote unquote, in their home. The FBI returned to take the printing press as part of the exhibit files for this case One defendant, Daniel Sante Estrada, better known as Dz, who is a very popular use maker and tattoo artist, was sentenced to thirty years on Tuesday, even though he was never at the protest and was only found guilty of concealing evidence by moving a box of his own scenes and being stopped by the police while doing so. Other defendants who have not yet been tried Also were not even present at the protest. The government used the fact that these protesters were members of the Socialist Rifle Association and broadly affiliated with left wing groups in the Dallas Fort Worth area as evidence that they were a part of a quote unquote AntifA terror cell. You probably know that AntifA itself is just short for anti fascists. It's not actually an organization or a specific group How is this possible? The Trump administration has had it out for AntifA as a quote unquote radical left wing group since its first administration. and after the killing of Charlie Kirk last fall, in which the right wing became really attached to the idea that Kirk's killer was not only trans but a que unquote left wing extremist, shortly after his administration issued a counterterrorism directive in the form of the NSPM seven, in which they identified Antifa, anarchists and trans people as among the highest domestic terror threats in the United States. in May They issued a similar directive that was a more official policy that reiterated that quote unquote pro trans extremist and AntIifA are, again, the highest counter terror threats in the United States. The majority of the evidence that the FBI collected was in the form of left wing books, zenes, posters, and stickers Emma Goldman, who is the namesake of the lefteft Sook Club for which the folks in this case were found These folks have been incarcerated essentially since the time of this protest, which was last july fourth. And many of them report essentially abuse within the facilities in which they've been held. In particular, when the defendants were held in Johnson County jail, they allegge weeks of solitary confinement, repeated strip searches And in the case of One of the defendants who was a trans woman. name is Meghan Morris being denied access to her hormones while being held in Johnson County. I amm nonbinary, trans masculine for context and through my reporting, I've come to understand that a little less than a third of those twenty two prairieand defendants are trans. The two out trans women in this case, Meghan Morris and Autumn Hill, both were he have been held in men's facilities for the last year, which is a violation federal policy in and of itself have been referred to using their den names by the federal government in their legal filings. This is not the only example of trans people being pulled into this dragnet. In the case of the Spokane three, which is the second guilty conviction under the Trump administration. anI AntIFA directives. two thirds of the defendants in that case were also trans. I keep getting asked if this is a crisis for the First Amendment and if people should be scared own political literature The Trump administration has launched several attempts at federal prosecution of protesterors since retaking office in january twenty twenty five. The other cases that they've brought such as the Broadview case, the Broadview S in Chicago have fallen apart. But those of you who have paid attention to this stuff for longer will know that they also attempted stuff like this during his first term during the Biden administration A very similar attempt was laid out against protesters with the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta, Georgia. The charges in the Stop Cop City case largely fell apart And similarly, it was because there is not a lot of evidence to support the idea that folks who engage in mutual aid, otherwise F Amendment protected practices of protest and organizing criminal conspiracy. In this case, the government was able to successfully convince a jury of that narrative, and now these folks have effectively life sentences. evenven though the government has gone after zes, the Dallas Fort Worth supportupport Committee that has formed around these folks has not stopped producing zines, including about the defendants. They've made zines, stickers, they've even made catches are sold for the purposes of fundraising for bail money on behalf of the defendants The defense attorneys in this case are committed to appealing the decision, but after this court, because this was a federal trial, it goes to the fififth Circuit, which is a very conservative court. and after the fifth circuit, it would go to the Supreme Court. The likeliest chance that these folks have of getting released from prison is through a possible presidential pardon under a future administration. The Dallas Fort Worth Support Committee, which is a group that has formed around these defendants is organizing on behalf of some of the other twenty two defendants who have not yet had their trials scheduled and attempting to fundraise for their bail. For context, the bail for convicted nine prairieland protesters was set anywhere from two point five to ten million dollars As someone who has studied authoritarian states so to focus on Ukraine and Russia I have to tell you, again, I know America has its own dark history of what has being done to the prairieand defendants. And let me just tell you those people They end up in the history books to inspire the next generations of AOC and M Dnies to rise up. They're going to be on t shirts. They're going to be on posters in college dorms They're going to be lionized. they're going to be immortalized on the streets of telegraph, and you see Berkeley and elsewhere. That is what happens to people like the heroes of the Prairieland defendants and all those helping them and their families History is one hundred percent on their side and I can tell you that as a historian What Trump is doing here. What his DOJ doing The collective punishment of sentencing. F hundred and fifty years to these eight people for a protest, sure it was on the aggressive side. Sure there was a gun that was fired off in the air by the way as a warning shot Okay? because the police you know are known to just casually execute people on the street. We've seen that again and again in these videos George Floyd is just one famous example. Would itt you carry a gun at that point Kning how the police operate above the law, casually executing people like it's their right Anywways, so protests, let's just say it was on the aggressive side. And you're going to hear in the mainstream media They call it a riot, they call it an ambush. They have all of these Gossy gaslighting terms for it But what it was was protest standing up to Lawlessness, we all see what IC has been doing. The murder of Renneee Good and Alex Preredty, by the way and how Minnesota was under siege by all these ice agents. So we know how lawless and chaotic Iice has been. and Again, when this is all happening, twenty twenty five is the deadliest year immigrants to the United States in decades, not since George W. Bush the other massively corrupt war criminal president Right? If it wasn't for Trump Bush, George L.. Bush might be like the most corrupt president we've had So Obviously, what these protesters did, if people are feeling squeamish about it because there was a gun involved, they were right. At the end of the day, they were right in standing up to what IS is doing. That's all you need to know. And again, if you want to get deep in the weeds of the recording, go to the show notes But here's where this concerns you, whether you choose to Go and just let this be another story in the noise of stories up there. This is This is an indictment on you on all of us Read this case read this case or somebody who has spent decades studying the machinery of authoritarianism. how it works. What they are doing, ultimately, the Trump regime, what his DOJ is doing those federal prosecutors down in Texas are doing with the state police that work hand in hand with them in this good old boys club basically the plan but with badges and law degrees instead of white robes, what they are doing down there? in that Classic classic old boy you know, old and betteredate style The reason why we Have Juneteenth becausecause Texas waited two years after the slaves were free to bother to tell them, right? That Texas, what they're ultimately doing is collective punishment which is illegal and they're attacking The very fiber of our social networks. Trust successful resistance movements, are our networks, our social networks, It's building trusts Prairie land defendants someome of them were sentenced to thirty or so years for simply being in a book club together Kids. prison being part of a book club This is what is done in the Soviet Union They're doing this. to imprison you to mentally imprison you They want to make all of us legally liable anything That should happen at a protest. We show up at a protest and suddenly it becomes aggressive and someone fires off a gun They want to make everyone who was there or in a chat group related to any of the organizers a criminal And you know what, regimes in Russia and Russian back regimes in countries like Ukraine do When there's a protest going on They'll send in the provocateurs to create the violence so that they have a pretense to come in with their riot police and start beating everyone and arresting them So They get away with this. They can't. they absolutely can't. That's where Jaakquim Jeffys comes in There he is just Thinking that APAC is going to save him when it's not, by the way. You're going to be a husband if you don't find your backbone, your some moral fiber inside you. something to stand for other than your own personal ambition Hakim Jeffrees, if you want to regain An relevancy here. If you want to unite this extraordinary energy of resistance that is rising across this country in grassroots communities like ours in every corner of this country right now You need to stand up and stand tall and demand Freedom. Prairie land defendants They are political prisoners Stand up and demand freedom for the prairie land defendants This is authoritarian This is a case that is meant to erode the trust that we all depend on for our very lives cannot resist effectively without our trust networks, without our neighborhoods, without our chat groups. without our friendship circles, without our giving circles. Tust is everything ators. The first thing they go after is trust. They divide and conquer. They dangle cooperation, like hey, if you snitch on your friend, you'll get to live,'ll advance your career Remember the Sovet Union was full of stitches And that erosion of trust is deeply psychological and it has lasting Affects, you didn't know who to trust. That is what Trump wants here in America He thinks it's going to protect him from the people because the courts Yes, they are trying to do what they can, but law enforcement and the courts largely failed us, the American people. We have a serial predator convicted felon. traiter. massively corrupt conman. running the country now and unleashing an insane amount Grift. In twenty twenty five alone, Trump made one point five billion just on crypto. And he's expanded his businesses, selling our national security AI chips to Saudi Arabia, enriching himself and his family too the point where his daughter, Ivanka think she can just waltz right into Albania and seize a protected island for herself What justice does he face now? It's we the people. That's who he's afraid of just like Putin is afraid of the people. Trump is afraid of the people And so What he's doing against the political prisoners prairieand defendants is prison for all of us Because if you can get sentenced to decades in prison for transporting a box of zines, for producing a zine, for being in a chat group and somebody in that chat group gets arrested somewhere at a protest Maybe even because the police made it violent, the police took out their guns, paid provocateurs were in the crowd roughing up people inciting violence and you're in that shot group and you're getting arrested too. That is what is happening with the Prairie land defendants So I want all of us this fourth of July to understand that what is being done Prairland defendants has been done to all of us An aspiring public servant, anyone running for office Once our trust, once our vote They would speak in a loud voice demanding freedom for therairie land defendants When we have the Democratic Party primary, which we absolutely will have, because this country is desperate for change. They're desperate to be free of this madness. We the people during this election We need to demand that the Democratic primary get them on record which candidates are willing to Pardon, the Prairieland defendants. Yes, there's still going to be state crimes, but at least the federal charges will be dropped In rebuilding our country from the ashes of this MGa dumpster fire, we need to speak in one unified voice What was done to the prairieand defendants was inhumane illegal, highly illegal collective punishment. where you punish several people just because one raaised up a gun, fired a gun in self defense because a police officer looked like he was about to shoot someone after two protesters murdered by police Champagne songs friends . weren't even at the protest. Some of the people that weren't even at the protests We're hit with decades charges Because one police officer had his shoulder grazed by a bullet. That's collective punishment And collective punishment is illegal The U. S. Constitution protects us. There's a Fourth Aendment the US Constitution that protects our right to privacy against search and seizure. Those rights are violated here everythingvery being done. against the prairie land deffendants is illegal. and that is how we all have to think about it. That is how we all have to treat it And again, any politician who is serious about leading this country and getting us back on life support with a loud voice and demanding freedom for the Prairieland defendants orr why would we trust you with our future, with our children's future. How can we feel safe with you This is an attack on all of us And the final thing I want to add Think about the heat wave right down in America, booiling hot out there Think about the conditions of those prisons in Texas There's no AC for them in this swaltering heat It's inhumane The sadism is part of their culture in the hard right Cervative world Proud of being top and sadistic Christy Nome shot her puppy in the face And she put it in a book That is who the Republican Party is She knew that would score points with them and it did, it got her a cabinet position and like her own makeup crew And so Imagine what it's like for them in that Texas prison and this heat So the whole story is Every which way disturbing. It demands far more attention than it's getting. And if you want ways to help, go to the show notes. We have a website there. that amplifies the voices of the Prairieland defendants and their supporters And one thing that we're going to do here in Gasolt Nation, we're going to host a letter writing campaign for them becausecause it breaks my heart sharing this, but it's like I remember when Olleg Senssov, a Ukrainian filmmaker who was kidnapped for his activism by Russia when Russia invaded Crimea. Ollek Senssov was an organizer. One of the many activists the grassroots activists, people like you and me just stood up and joined protests and helped drive people to protest, help put up signs. Oig Senssov was One of those for the for Ukraine's Zero Maidon Revolution And because he had been pro Ukraine, pro Euroa Don The Russians arrested him and transported him to Russia where he was sentenced to twenty years or so in prison in Siberia where it was a freezing negative Arctic chill temperatures. He's basically sentenced sent there to die And Oleig Sensab's family and friends had to go through great pains and surveillance just to send him an email. Everything they sent him was monitored closely watched The same is being done. against the prairie land defendants It is Russian oligarchy through and through. Remember all those years are screaming about Russia and Trump and people thought I was just a hysterical conspiracy theorist? This is what I was warning about I know America has its demons But what the Russians have done through Trump is poured gasoline on our demons And so now you have Russian style dictatorship taking root in this country. and that is why we need to speak about this case educate ourselves about the facts, not the gloss over lazy versions of the story being being bannered around in the mainstream press, actually sit with this story and what it means for you and your family and your children's future And as part of that I'm going to read The post sentencing statement from Benjamin Champagne Song And again to help the Prairie land defendants to support them, go to the show notes. We're not powerless in the situation crereate change and create justice by refusing the mental slavery that disgusting Donald Trump wants to impose on you. That's ultimately what this is about. It's mental slavery Go out and do something G out and write a letter to the prairieland defendants. Go out and help organize a protest, show up to a protest Go get out the vote for a candidate who's going to speak about the real issues that we all face, like demanding that the U. S. Constitution be protected demanding freedom for Prairerand defendants and all political prisoners. Go out and do something to exercise your constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. That is how. you avenge what was done of them is you refuse to be small and intimidated. inststead, you stretch your wings and fly. That is how we ultimately win So go out and do something. I promise you when bullies try to bully you They're trying to take away your power. They don't want you to know how powerful you are and accept it and use that power. The best way to standw a bully is to use your power. So go and use your power this July fourth every day after And that is how we protect each other and that is how we preserve the most important power we have So we don't become Russia. So we don't become impotent and scared and weak likeike so many beaten down Russians is You protect your trust You trust yourself, you trust each other You surround yourself with people you can't trust You don't let them turn us against each other. You stand in solidarity with each other And that's why we're doing this episode to standay in Solidarity with the Prairie land defendants demand their freedom and demand freedom for all political prisoners and say we're not going to let this stand This is such a grotesque Carnival of a fascism fever dream. That's what this is And now Here is once again The post sentencing statement from Benjamin Champane Song I don't hate I don't hate anyone. I don't hate cops. I don't hate Trump. I don't hate Nazis. My beliefs are composed thus first that we should help each other And second, that we should protect one another. I never want to see anyone get hurt I never want to see good people standing up for what they believe in, gunned down in the street. What we all saw happen to Renee Good and Alex Prety is my worst nightmare It was the kind of thing I had feared for a long time after dealing with officers who could be reckless, who could be bullies, who could be violent but fear is not hate Sadness is not hate. Wing people to live is not hate So when I was standing in the street on july fourth, twenty twenty five in plain view with reflective safety strips and high visibility clothing What I saw right in front of my eyes was my worst nightmare When I saw Lieutenant Thomas Gse stop pursuing and point his gun at the back of a running unarmed protester, like he testified, I was terrified firearms instructor and a United States Marine Corps veteran I understood what I was seeing. I knew what it meant for someone to lean forward into a gun, like he testified prepare for recoil As the evidence shows, I did not want to hurt anyone I never had the intent to hurt anyone. I tried my best to avoid hurting anyone. It is impossible to say that I was trying to ambush anyone or planning any violence I was shocked and surprised and saddened. I am so grateful for what didn't happen I am so grateful that we are not here mourning another death and tragedy, anotherother Alex Pty, another Renee Good another Botham John, another Emanuel Taron, another at Tiana Jefferson, another philandro Castile Now twenty two people have been arrested, have been persecuted, have been tortured for what? for nothing None of these people really did anything. And none of these people have anything to do with what happened with me This is wrong. this is mass punishment. This is collective punishment. This is guilt by association. This is injustice In nineteen ninety five, the white supremacist and U.S. Senator pitchfork Ben Tillman gave a speech to the Constitutional Convention of South Carolina. to use injustice to take power He said How did we recover our liberty? By fraud and violence? We tried to overcome the thirty thousand majority by honest means, which was a mathematical impossibility After bearing these indignities for eight years, life became worthless This is how men take power over others by injustice, by fraud and violence. That history matters because injustice has always been dangerous. It does not only harm the person standing in court, it spreads. It teaches people to be afraid. It teaches people that the government can decide who is guilty first and look for reasons afterward t first, they covered it up and hid evidence. Second, they banned every black juror so that no one would question the police Third, they told me I had no right to protect myself or anyone else, and they told me I wasn't even allowed to say the word self defense As you heard at the trial, they tortured their own witnesses. American citizens were tortured and terrorized and medically neglected. Three men died in jail last week, by the way, and now a twenty four year old has had a heart attack. fifty eight year old woman said she would die in this case. Mothers, fathers, teachers, students, package workers, programmers, and engineers persecuted and tortured in this case People are being treated as if their lives do not matter All of this is bigger than me. I know I am the person standing here. I know I am the person being judged, but I also know that a case like this can become a warning to everyone else that if you speak, if you protest, if you try to protect someone you are associated with the wrong idea You can be turned into a symbol instead of treated like a human being hing saddens me more than when I think about all of these different people and their different families and communities and how they have suffered and how unfairly they have been treated just like me Whatever is taken from me is taken from you. It may be these twenty two strangers now but it'll be you tomorrow On june ninth of this year, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center testified that hate has migrated into the government. The hate is right here The government and its secret motion to give me a life sentence calls me the embodiment of Antifa. What does I even mean? I'm not a member of a group called AntifA. I am not part of any terrorist organization. There's no group called AntIifA. Everyone knows that, but this government is so blinded by hate, they've arrested twenty two good people for nothing They want to bury me with an idea This idea that they hate is the very idea of being against fascism. What kind of people are not against fascism? What kind of people are not against the hate and war and genocide in concentration camps the Nazis brought upon the world What kind of people would not agree to no kings and no fears He has migrated into the government. That hate is taking power over me It is taking power over you over your words and your ideas When will you be called a domestic terrorist to When they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretty, they went on TV and they called them domestic terrorists the same day within the hour. When will that happen to you? When I was staying in my home city of Dallas for eleven days, I did fear then I might die at any moment from a government that I think is hateful and vindictive. I did not run because I wanted to escape responsibility I stayed because I wanted to survive long enough to do the right thing I don't fear for myself. I fear for all of you What will you do in this time of great failures and great injustices? What will you do How will you help each other How will you help yourselves How will you help yourselves My grandfather, who inspired my film Mr. Jones, he spent about a year or so in a prison being tortured during Stalin's terr arbitrarily arrested inhumane conditions, prisons filling up Didn't matter any association you had. I think his crime was he made a he was an artist and he made a typo and a banner for a state rally and that was enough to get him arrested That's the kind of arbitrary terror that Trump is carrying out here with our tax dollars with our DOJ.