What separates conservatives from reactionaries, and where do they converge? What are the politics inherent to counterinsurgency strategy? What does the popularity of counter-insurgency in the 21st century say about Democratic Party politics? How does small-war thinking unify counter-revolutionary monarchies with Edwardian imperialism with anti-communism? And where does David Petraeus fit into these questions?

All that and more in this wide-ranging conversation with Joseph Mackay, anchored in his award-winning book, The Counter-Insurgent Imagination: A New Intellectual History.

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In this episode we welcome an organizer who goes by Grandma to talk about the campaign to Stop Camp Grayling.

Encompassing roughly 150,000 acres of land, Camp Grayling is already the largest National Guard training facility in the United States. For about a year now there has been a concerted effort to expand it to an even larger area. In this conversation we talk to Grandma about the campaign to fight its expansion, about the environmental impacts of the current facility and the further devastation that could be generated by its expansion. We also talk about the relationship between the National Guard and settler colonialism, imperialism, and the fascistic management of human populations impacted by the worst impacts of climate change. 

Of course, many around the country have also become more familiar with the national guard’s role in domestic counterinsurgency and pacification during times of social unrest such as the rebellions in 2020 in the wake of the extrajudicial killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.

Understanding these roles of the National Guard and also Camp Grayling’s utility to the testing and development of new technologies of warfare and to the training of military and police forces domestically and internationally, Grandma also situates this intended expansion within various attempts to build new “cop cities” including but not limited to the struggle in Atlanta.

We also discuss some of the actions that folks in the movement have taken, some of the repression they have faced, and some of the contradictions of local politics that create different spheres of opposition to the project than for instance the cop city project in Atlanta.

I apologize that I did not get this episode out in time for the week of action, as I recently took a short vacation from production work, but hopefully there will be more of those coming in the future. You can follow them at @GraylingCamp on the website formerly known as twitter or email them at stopcampgrayling at proton dot me.

This is our first episode of August, our goal for the month is get 50 people to either become patrons of the show or increase their pledge to the show. We’ll be looking to publish at least 6 episodes this month. So if you’ve been thinking about either increasing your pledge or becoming a patron you can do so for as little as $1 a month at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism.

Links:

Follow them on X/Twitter or instagram

The Base Among the Jack Pine: notes on the Camp Grayling Expansion on Anishnabewaki (zine we discuss in the podcast)

In this episode we welcome Orisanmi Burton back to the podcast.

For this conversation, we discuss Dr. Burton’s latest article, “Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970 – 1978.” Which he describes as a supplement to his forthcoming book, Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. This piece was recently published in the May issue of Radical History Review which is on Political Imprisonment and Confinement.

In this discussion we pick up on our previous episode with Orisanmi Burton on carceral warfare. Here Burton talks about the role of Black Panther and Black Liberation Army veteran and former political prisoner Dhoruba bin Wahad’s role in illuminating and analyzing the FBI’s little known Prison Activists Surveillance Program (PRISACTS). Burton situates this program amid a broad set of counterinsurgency programs which operated in multiple theaters of war both internationally and domestically. Burton illustrates how within this international terrain of counterrevolutionary war, figures slipped between various programs, moving between military, intelligence, private defense contract, and domestic law enforcement and prison systems. Importantly, Burton reminds us that many state actors, including congressional bodies, presidents and governors recognized a threat of revolutionary activity in the streets in the 1960’s and by the late 60’s and early 70’s they understood there to be a threat of revolutionary activity behind prison walls as well. To respond, they sought to use programs like PRISACTS to specifically undermine incarcerated revolutionaries. The legacy of this struggle offers a great deal to help us understand the role of US prisons today as sites of domestic warfare.

Just a note that there is a second portion of this conversation which we hope to release at a later date. It is briefly referenced in the opening question. Currently we are just waiting for the publication of that second article.  

Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt is available for pre-order you can find a link for that in the show notes. And the publisher does have a 40% off sale that goes through the end of May. I can’t wait to have more discussion on that book upon its release.

This is our 7th episode of the month of May. We are still behind on our goal for the month. As of publication today we need 7 more patrons to hit that goal. You can become a patron of the show for as little as $1 a month or $10.80 per year at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. 

Links to references from the episode:

“Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970 – 1978.”

Previous MAKC interview with Orisanmi Burton 

Previous MAKC interview with Dhoruba bin Wahad 

Our Interview with Damien Sojoyner 

Interview with Orisanmi Burton and Dhoruba on BPM

“Resisting Living Death at Marion Federal Penitentiary, 1972" by Alan Eladio Gómez

You can pre-order Tip of the Spear at UC Press. It is 40% off through the end of May (with the promo code May40)

In this conversation we welcome Dr. Nazia Kazi to the podcast.

Dr. Nazia Kazi is an anthropologist and educator based in Philadelphia. Her work explores the role of Islamophobia and racism in the context of global politics. 

She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stockton University in New Jersey, where she teaches courses on race, ethnicity, immigration, and Islam in the U.S. She is the author of Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics. Kazi is also a faculty affiliate of the Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights. 

This episode came about in response to the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, which should be widely understood as a crime against humanity and an egregious violation of even the most basic application of international and human rights law.

We invited Dr. Kazi on the show to discuss how US media continues to cover this war, and the broader so-called “War on Terror” over 20 years later. Kazi demystifies some of the liberal multicultural discussion of Islamophobia and examines a more complex history of the US’s relationship to Islam specifically by looking at CIA operations. She also examines the impact of post-9/11 policy making on government surveillance, the political expressions of Muslims in the US, inclusionary nonprofit politics, and extrajudicial political repression. 

We also discuss what it is that we are to #neverforget when it comes to 9/11 and how mainstream media and K-12 education have been a part of a political assault on both historical and political analysis around that day and around the impacts of the “war on terror” on politics and state repression both domestically and internationally.

And if you like what we do bringing you conversations like this every week then please become a patron of the show. Our show is 100% funded by our patrons and you can become one for as little as $1 a month. We’re just 8 patrons away from hitting our goal for the month. So sign up and become a patron at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism 

Links:

How the 'war on terror' obscures America's alliance with right-wing Islam

What We Forget by Nazia Kazi and Anuj Shrestha

Dr. Nazia Kazi's website

Islamophobia, Race, and Global Politics (Updated) By Nazia Kazi