IGDCAST: Building Community Self-Defense in the Twin Cities

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Recorded at the ROAR Conference in the bay area, this podcast features two members of the General Defense Committee (GDC) of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis – St. Paul). These two organizers discuss how their group has grown from around 20 members to 130 over the course of several months.

Discussing broadly how people can organize for community self-defense in various capacities, the GDC members talk about how they are putting this into practice in various ways ranging from antifascism, harm reduction, training together, to supporting survivors of sexual assault.

They then switch gears, and spend a long time talking about the uprising in Minneapolis that took place in 2015 in the wake of the police murder of Jamar Clark. They offer a critique of activists and non-profits, stating that these groups came from outside of the community and sought to put a wet blanket on people from the neighborhood defending themselves from the police. The standard trope of ‘white anarchists,’ used first by non-profits and then the police, is also discussed.

More Info: Twin Cities General Defense Committee (GDC) Local 14

Music: Flatliners covering Dillinger Four and Temple of the Dog.

This post was written by It's Going Down