Portland-based musician and vlogger David Rovics interviews CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg for Fifth Estate Live. The two discuss Weinberg’s upcoming story for the anarchist journal Fifth Estate on the “two faces of fascism” the US confronts at this moment—a Trumpian dictatorship or a post-pandemic “new normality” of complete surveillance and social control. But the moment is also pregnant with possibility, witnessing the mainstreaming of anarchist ideas such as abolishing the police. Initiatives such as cannabis legalization as a first step toward this aim are gaining ground nationally. Looking back, they draw lessons for the current revolutionary moment from the Tompkins Square Park uprising on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s, and the rebellion of the Zapatistas in Mexico in the 1990s—who continue to hold liberated territory in the southern state of Chiapas even today. Watch the video archive on YouTube or listen to the audio version on SoundCloud.
Erratum: The book Three Faces of Fascism is by Ernst Nolte (not “Eric”)
Repudiate David Rovics
Some time after doing this interview with David Rovics it came to my attention that his vlog has also platformed actual fascists—whether crypto or blatant. Falling into the (just barely) crypto category is Gilad Atzmon, professional peddler of the most rank anti-Semitism, who I had to protest (along with my local antifa crew) when he spoke at Theater 80 in the East Village in April 2017. Falling into the more blatant category is Matthew Heimbach, one of the foremost white nationalists in the United States. Heimbach is portrayed in the interview as a “former” white nationalist, but that’s rather dubious.
When I called Rovics out on this, he blocked me on social media, and I have had no interactions with him since. He attempts to defend himself against such criticisms on (of course) CounterPunch.
It now comes to my attention that he is going to be playing at a Brooklyn benefit for Gaza relief, with proceeds going to the American Friends Service Committee, this coming Tuesday, Oct. 21. And he will be sharing a bill with two of my longtime comrades, radical artist Seth Tobocman and “anti-folk” icon Roger Manning. The gig appears to have been organized by Sander Hicks, the notorious conspiracy guru (who I have mixed it up with before.)
I assume Seth, Roger and AFSCÂ alike were unaware of the problematic nature of Rovics when they organized this gig, and I certainly wish it had come to my attention sooner. But I must register my protest to his participation.