We are pleased to release our latest work, Epstein, AirBNB, ICE, and Antifascism: An Anarchist Newsreel, covering the last month of intense struggle. Beyond some of the major events in the United States, we touch on the anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens, the recent jail sentences of anarchists in Firenze, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Italy’s fascist Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini. Our film is meant to reveal the international scope of our current struggle, the similarities between Trump and Salvini, and the total depravity of the US ruling class.

One ring to rule them all

The film begins with the recent arrest and death of Jeffrey Epstein, friend to both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Both presidents were undoubtedly involved in some of Epstein’s activities, although Trump was quick to point the finger at Clinton. Epstein’s underage sex-trafficking ring was partially organized by a woman named Ghislaine Maxwell, an individual who was the intimate acquaintance of many powerful, ruling class men. While Epstein’s alleged suicide might have foreclosed certain details from the public, Ghislaine Maxwell still knows the truth of this ruling class sex ring, and she’s still very much alive. In no uncertain terms, the information Maxwell carries in her memory is nothing less than the mythical “Pee-Pee Tape,” the ultimate weapon against Donald Trump. Few could have imagined this legendary “tape” had the potential to implicate the entire US ruling class.

One ring to find them

For the first time in many years, the public is now free to observe that there’s little difference between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, given both were part of this depraved circle. Just like the Democratic and Republican parties, these men are just two representatives of the same corrupt system. We’ve attempted to simply document the known facts of the Epstein trafficking ring and leave the conclusions up to the viewer. To make the matter more bizarre, Ghislaine Maxwell organized the release of a photoshopped picture of her eating at an In-N-Out burger in Los Angeles, an effort meant to obscure her true location. In this fake picture, Maxwell is reading a copy of The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives. We can only hope that Maxwell survives long enough to spill the beans on all the powerful men who still control the planet. While there’s no redemption for what she did to an unknown number of women, it would at least be a step in the proper direction.

One ring to bring them all

Changing direction, the film then focuses on the recent riots in Exarchia against the release of the cop who murdered Alexandros Grigoropoulos in 2008. Just as Ghislaine Maxwell called the 16 year-old victims of her sex ring “trash,” the cop who shot 15 year-old Alexandros felt much the same way about his victim. As the film documents, eleven years after this murder, the police are now poised to attack Exarchia and cleanse the neighborhood of everyone that capitalism considers “trash.” Part of this assault is being lead by AirBNB, a company based in San Francisco, California which now has over 15,000 units in Athens, the majority centered around the Acropolis. According to data visualizations, the clustering of AirBNB units thins out around the Exarchia neighborhood, although a few have crept into this anarchist enclave. Like in every other city, AirBNB removes housing from the market, jacks up real estate prices, and is usually accompanied by heavy police repression. Coincidentally, AirBNB has clear and open connections to the CIA, a fact detailed in our film.

And in the darkness bind them

It’s a similar situation in the Italian city of Firenze where over 20% of the housing has been converted to AirBNB units. Starting in late 2016, the authorities began a repressive campaign against the local anarchists, ultimately evicting the long-standing Villa Panico squat and arresting dozens of people across Firenze. The justification for this raid was the bombing of a fascist bookstore on January 1, 2017, and a molotov attack on a police barracks. While several anarchists remained in jail, the fascist far-right began to rise across Italy, culminating in the election of the current government. Thanks to the media and the state, anarchists were successfully made into the ultimate boogie-man while the fascists were allowed to freely attack Roma people and immigrants. If this seems similar to the United States, it’s because it’s the same operation.

The raid of Villa Panico, 2017

After almost three full years of challenging the state and the rising fascists, anarchists in the US have finally emerged into a new era of resistance, a transition that began with Willem van Spronsen’s attack on the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington. This attack not only stopped the impending ICE raid scheduled for that morning, it forced people to take a side in the emerging conflict. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz soon launched their media campaign to label the anti-fascist movement a terrorist organization, an assertion that was directly challenged when two fascists engaged in genuine terrorism, one in Gilroy, California, the other in El Paso, Texas.

Once again, people were forced to take sides after these events and many could plainly see that a White House-inspired terrorist movement was engaged in indiscriminate murder. Just days after the El Paso attack, a Mississippi factory was raided by ICE and resulted in the arrest of almost seven hundred immigrant workers, although over half were quickly released. As it turned out, they’d only been picked up for having brown skin. Less than a week later, exactly one month after Willen van Spronsen’s attack, unidentified sniper/s shot out the windows of two ICE offices in San Antonio, Texas. Our video culminates with this incident, although we finish with a brief study of a glorious, fiery sideshow staged in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California on April 14, 2019.

Oakland, April 14, 2019

Since finishing this video, a massive victory against the fascists took place in Portland, an event which continued the pattern of making people choose which side they were on: the side of the fascists, or the side of the anti-fascists. The coming months will reveal an increasingly wide horizon of action and ultimately lead us towards our once inconceivable triumph. For the first time in decades, we are finally on the cusp of great change. Keep your eyes open, stay safe, stay lit, and never stop fighting.

Long Live The Black International!

Long Live Anarchy!