Latest / The Real News Podcast / FBI Raids Homes of Michigan Students and Workers for Palestine Activism
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ah I Got Work. Oh. Welcome every one to Working People,
- 0:09Speaker 1: a podcast about the lives, jobs, dreams and struggles of
- 0:12Speaker 1: the working class today. Working People is a proud member
- 0:15Speaker 1: of the Labor Radio Podcast Network and has brought to
- 0:18Speaker 1: you in partnership within These Times magazine and the Real
- 0:22Speaker 1: News Network. This show is produced by Jules Taylor and
- 0:25Speaker 1: made possible by the support of listeners like you. My
- 0:28Speaker 1: name is Maximilian Alvarez, and today we are bringing you
- 0:32Speaker 1: another urgent addition to our ongoing series, Police State University,
- 0:37Speaker 1: where we've been speaking with graduate workers, faculty, and students
- 0:40Speaker 1: at different colleges and universities about the federal assault on
- 0:44Speaker 1: our institutions of higher education and the people who live,
- 0:48Speaker 1: learn and work there. And over the course of the
- 0:50Speaker 1: past year and a half, we've spoken a number of
- 0:53Speaker 1: times with graduate student workers, with Student Workers of Columbia University,
- 0:58Speaker 1: United Auto Workers, and with workers and union members with
- 1:01Speaker 1: the Graduate Employees Organization at the University of Michigan, my
- 1:05Speaker 1: Old University and mild Union. We've spoken about federal abductions
- 1:10Speaker 1: of pro Palestine student protesters like Mahmoud Khalil, Trump's gangster
- 1:15Speaker 1: style shakedown of Columbia University and other universities involving massive
- 1:20Speaker 1: funding cuts and withholding of federal grants. We've talked about
- 1:25Speaker 1: Columbia firing and expelling Grant Minor, the president of the
- 1:29Speaker 1: Student Workers of Columbia, just before bargaining sessions with the
- 1:32Speaker 1: union and the administration were set to begin. And we
- 1:35Speaker 1: got an on the ground account last April of law
- 1:39Speaker 1: enforcement officers, including FBI agents, raiding the homes of multiple
- 1:43Speaker 1: student organizers connected to Palestine's solidarity protests at the University
- 1:48Speaker 1: of Michigan, and all at the direction of Michigan Attorney
- 1:51Speaker 1: General Dana Nessel, by the way, and now we have
- 1:54Speaker 1: another really grim and urgent update for y'all, and I'm
- 1:57Speaker 1: going to give you as much context as I can
- 2:00Speaker 1: by reading from a really essential piece that was published
- 2:03Speaker 1: in Mandweis and was written by Yarden Katz and Stephen M.
- 2:06Speaker 2: Ward.
- 2:07Speaker 1: We're going to link to it in the show notes,
- 2:08Speaker 1: but cats in Ward write in this piece, in the
- 2:12Speaker 1: early morning hours of June tenth, twenty twenty six, the
- 2:15Speaker 1: FBI conducted raids against individuals involved in Palestine solidarity activism
- 2:20Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan with help from local and
- 2:23Speaker 1: state police departments, including the University of Michigan police. The
- 2:27Speaker 1: raids unfolded simultaneously in Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. In Ipsilanti,
- 2:32Speaker 1: Michigan agents and military gear rolled into a neighborhood in
- 2:36Speaker 1: an armored vehicle with guns drawn, terrorizing families and neighbors.
- 2:41Speaker 1: A similar raid took place in Chicago. In total, seven
- 2:44Speaker 1: of the eight accused individuals were arrested. One was out
- 2:48Speaker 1: of the country. The case is now known as the
- 2:50Speaker 1: Michigan Eight. The Justice Department indicted the eight defendants, five
- 2:54Speaker 1: of whom are current or former students at the University
- 2:57Speaker 1: of Michigan, and one of whom was a university employee,
- 3:00Speaker 1: on multiple counts of severe charges, including conspiracy to transmit
- 3:05Speaker 1: threats in interstate and foreign commerce. The defendants, all in
- 3:09Speaker 1: their twenties, now potentially faced decades in prison. The main
- 3:13Speaker 1: actions described in the indictment boiled down to property damage
- 3:17Speaker 1: directed against the offices or homes of University of Michigan officials,
- 3:21Speaker 1: the facilities of Rolls Royce, which makes parts for Israeli
- 3:25Speaker 1: army tanks, and Mersk, which ships military equipment to Israel,
- 3:29Speaker 1: and the building of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, a
- 3:33Speaker 1: major pro Israel organization. No person has been physically harmed
- 3:37Speaker 1: by these actions, yet the indictment paints these actions as
- 3:41Speaker 1: a form of anti Semitic terrorism, drawing on the FBI's
- 3:44Speaker 1: extensive digital surveillance of the defendants. This narrative was crafted
- 3:49Speaker 1: by the masters of deception Trump's Justice Department, and it
- 3:52Speaker 1: does not stand up to scrutiny. While we do not
- 3:55Speaker 1: know who was behind the actions, because the defendants have
- 3:58Speaker 1: pleaded not guilty, it is clear the actions have nothing
- 4:02Speaker 1: to do with anti Jewish racism or terrorism. So that's
- 4:06Speaker 1: what we're dealing with right now, and to talk about
- 4:10Speaker 1: all of this. I am very grateful to be joined
- 4:12Speaker 1: on the show by two guests. First, we've got Kevin Zang,
- 4:15Speaker 1: a member organizer and the secretary of the Graduate Employees Organization,
- 4:20Speaker 1: a labor union that represents thousands of graduate workers at
- 4:23Speaker 1: the University of Michigan. And we are also joined by
- 4:26Speaker 1: Grace Vesito, a restaurant worker and former grad student at
- 4:30Speaker 1: the University of Michigan. Kevin, Grace, thank you both so
- 4:34Speaker 1: much for joining me today, especially with all of this
- 4:37Speaker 1: craziness going on. I wanted to just turn things over
- 4:40Speaker 1: to you and ask if you could, you know, lay
- 4:43Speaker 1: everything out for our listeners, like what do we know
- 4:46Speaker 1: as of right now, and could you like give us
- 4:48Speaker 1: a sort of on the ground view of like what
- 4:51Speaker 1: this has all looked and felt like for y'all back
- 4:54Speaker 1: there in ann Arbor and Ipsilani, like over these past
- 4:57Speaker 1: two crazy weeks, Yeah.
- 5:00Speaker 3: Thanks for having us. These raids have been like really shocking,
- 5:03Speaker 3: I would say for folks in Ourbury and Upsilanty and
- 5:06Speaker 3: across the Midwest, it felt like the bit like they
- 5:09Speaker 3: came out of nowhere last I guess a week and
- 5:12Speaker 3: a half ago, you know, I think most of us
- 5:15Speaker 3: woke up to just a lot of like really startling
- 5:19Speaker 3: like scenes and we weren't sure where our friends were.
- 5:23Speaker 3: For myself, like, I live in Ipsilante. I live in
- 5:26Speaker 3: neighbors with one of the houses that was raided, the
- 5:29Speaker 3: one in Nipsilante. I was there and like the the
- 5:36Speaker 3: FBI showed up. They threw flash bangs into the upstairs bedrooms.
- 5:40Speaker 3: They used the battering rams attached to vehicles to break
- 5:43Speaker 3: down the doors, and then they made the people inside
- 5:47Speaker 3: the house walk across the broken glass to get to
- 5:50Speaker 3: the street. And so these raids were very shocking, like
- 5:53Speaker 3: very violent. There was definitely like a shock and offe
- 5:57Speaker 3: element to how they went in and arrested these people
- 6:01Speaker 3: in a way that seems totally dispportunate to sort of
- 6:03Speaker 3: like what's being alleged in the indictment. Since then, seven
- 6:08Speaker 3: people were initially detained, as you said, they've all been
- 6:11Speaker 3: released on bond over the last week or so, so
- 6:15Speaker 3: no one is currently detained, but they're facing these really
- 6:19Speaker 3: serious charges that Carrie, as he said, between five and
- 6:22Speaker 3: twenty years in prison, which is a really intimidating prospect
- 6:29Speaker 3: to be looking at. And notably, you know, they're not
- 6:31Speaker 3: being charged with vandalism or with anything relating to sort
- 6:35Speaker 3: of like the underlying acts alleged in the indictment. They're
- 6:39Speaker 3: being charged with conspiracy to transmit a threat. And so yeah,
- 6:47Speaker 3: like a very very intimidating charge or really scary prospect
- 6:50Speaker 3: to be facing down and definitely like an escalation by
- 6:55Speaker 3: the federal government in their sort of ongoing repression of
- 6:59Speaker 3: the movement for Palestine here in Michigan and across the country.
- 7:04Speaker 4: The defendants were released on bond a few days after
- 7:08Speaker 4: their initial arrests, and this is actually after the prosecution
- 7:13Speaker 4: claimed that they would be a danger to the community,
- 7:15Speaker 4: claim that they were dangerous terrorists, they had kind of
- 7:19Speaker 4: quite sensationalized, vitriolic language to describe like these young activists,
- 7:26Speaker 4: and the judge didn't buy it. Ultimately they were released
- 7:29Speaker 4: on bond, right, and ultimately they are able to you know,
- 7:33Speaker 4: return home and sleep in their own beds, albeit with
- 7:36Speaker 4: a number of conditions to uphold. But yeah, it's it's
- 7:40Speaker 4: just kind of another sign that like this is seems
- 7:44Speaker 4: to be quite a politically motivated process that they're trying
- 7:49Speaker 4: to put these people through.
- 7:51Speaker 1: Well, and of course, you know, we are seeing you know,
- 7:54Speaker 1: these kinds of targeted attacks on Palestine solid you know,
- 8:01Speaker 1: protesters at different campuses and different parts of the country.
- 8:05Speaker 1: But you know, we're also seeing, you know, between the
- 8:08Speaker 1: time this story broke and I heard about it from
- 8:11Speaker 1: you know y'all, you know, to the time that we
- 8:14Speaker 1: started recording about it, like that, we also had you know,
- 8:18Speaker 1: fifteen people in Minnesota who you know, are being like
- 8:21Speaker 1: hunted down, arrested and charged with like all these crazy
- 8:25Speaker 1: charges from the federal government for you know, like observing ice,
- 8:29Speaker 1: you know, and like you know, exercising their constitutional rights
- 8:33Speaker 1: in the midst of a federal invasion of the state
- 8:36Speaker 1: of Minnesota. So like, this is this is so dark
- 8:40Speaker 1: and so heavy and also so normalized at this point.
- 8:45Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of hover on that if it's okay,
- 8:48Speaker 1: and because I wanted to ask you guys, like, what
- 8:50Speaker 1: is it felt like on and around campus?
- 8:54Speaker 4: Yeah, I would. I would say on campus, the climate
- 8:57Speaker 4: is tough. You know, you mentioned private, secure, private surveillance,
- 9:01Speaker 4: Like the university was trailing my coworkers with private security
- 9:09Speaker 4: simply because they chose to speak out against the genocide,
- 9:14Speaker 4: Like that was threatening enough to the university that they
- 9:17Speaker 4: felt the need to hire all of these private contractors
- 9:20Speaker 4: to spy. We've also seen the university kind of use
- 9:23Speaker 4: these anachronistic internal judicial processes that are non transparent, that
- 9:30Speaker 4: basically have guaranteed outcomes of convictions, let's call them. That
- 9:36Speaker 4: just sucked up time and energy from these students that
- 9:40Speaker 4: were simply exercising their right to speech on campus. So yeah,
- 9:45Speaker 4: I would say that the climate, the energy here on
- 9:47Speaker 4: campus is not one that's not one that's supportive of Yeah,
- 9:56Speaker 4: speaking out this latest round of races, we just needed
- 10:01Speaker 4: to respond as we have always responded to any any
- 10:08Speaker 4: challenges that get thrown at us. This is yeah, yet another,
- 10:12Speaker 4: yet another moment, and yet it's it's hard to forget
- 10:15Speaker 4: that like this is in this case the federal government
- 10:18Speaker 4: going after these students and workers, not just the university,
- 10:22Speaker 4: not just the state, but now the federal government is involved.
- 10:26Speaker 4: So it is a significant escalation, and I think for
- 10:31Speaker 4: a lot of the activists in this area like that
- 10:35Speaker 4: that escalation is felt, like we see that clearly and
- 10:39Speaker 4: know that this fight is going to be a long,
- 10:42Speaker 4: long and hard fight ahead.
- 10:44Speaker 3: At the same time, it seems, particularly with you know,
- 10:47Speaker 3: these braids in Minneapolis and across the Midwest, that the
- 10:51Speaker 3: federal government is really just starting to throw anything at
- 10:53Speaker 3: the wall to see what sticks. And you know, for us,
- 10:57Speaker 3: it really seems like a time to can to new
- 11:00Speaker 3: to double down, to organize for Palestine, to keep ice
- 11:04Speaker 3: out of our communities, because like at this point, like
- 11:07Speaker 3: these charges are so ridiculous, Like all of these sort
- 11:11Speaker 3: of attwns at the federal repression have become so ridiculous
- 11:14Speaker 3: at this point that like it's clear that there's nothing
- 11:17Speaker 3: else for us to do then to continue.
- 11:21Speaker 1: So what can you guys tell us about like, you know,
- 11:23Speaker 1: the charges themselves, Like what's at the center here, you know,
- 11:27Speaker 1: the the property damage that you know is being cited,
- 11:30Speaker 1: you know, in these charges, and like could you say
- 11:34Speaker 1: more about what exactly is the government trying to claim
- 11:37Speaker 1: about the Michigan eight.
- 11:38Speaker 3: I mean, fundamentally, like these charges are an attack on
- 11:41Speaker 3: political speech, right because no one is being charged with
- 11:44Speaker 3: property damage, no one's being charged with vandalism. The government
- 11:47Speaker 3: is trying to criminalize like phrases of the movement for Palestine,
- 11:52Speaker 3: like like free Palestine, like long lived the Intafada, like
- 11:55Speaker 3: these these phrases in this language that has been used
- 11:58Speaker 3: by the movement for decades, and they're trying to argue
- 12:02Speaker 3: that these things constitute a criminal act and to personalize
- 12:08Speaker 3: you know, these demands for divestment and an end to
- 12:11Speaker 3: the complicity and the genocide and gaza, which has again
- 12:15Speaker 3: long been a demand of the movement. And so you know,
- 12:19Speaker 3: essentially these charges are they're trying to criminalize this speech
- 12:23Speaker 3: and remove it from the political context that it exists within.
- 12:29Speaker 3: I think it's also important to remember that like the
- 12:31Speaker 3: indictment from which all of this is drawn is is
- 12:34Speaker 3: just that it's an indictment. It's basically a fresh release
- 12:38Speaker 3: of the department from the Department of Justice. It's not
- 12:42Speaker 3: a statement of facts or like objective truth. So all
- 12:46Speaker 3: of the information that we've been working with thus far
- 12:50Speaker 3: is basically like the state's version of what happened in
- 12:54Speaker 3: the story that they want to tell. I think that's
- 12:56Speaker 3: also an important piece of context to keep in mind here.
- 13:00Speaker 4: Yeah, and a similarity in the Michigan eight case as
- 13:04Speaker 4: well as the recent raids in Minnesota. One of the
- 13:08Speaker 4: similarities here is that in both indictments, the defendants are
- 13:14Speaker 4: accused of using encrypted messaging services like Signal.
- 13:17Speaker 3: So part of.
- 13:20Speaker 4: Part of these indictments is also like drawing from evidence
- 13:24Speaker 4: retrieved from encrypted messaging apps, and that like the use
- 13:28Speaker 4: of these apps is essentially a conspiracy to commit something
- 13:33Speaker 4: is also part of the framing that the government is
- 13:36Speaker 4: trying to put forward, which, as as a digital scholar
- 13:40Speaker 4: like I strongly I don't I don't buy and I
- 13:44Speaker 4: like would I'm worried about that kind of path.
- 13:48Speaker 1: And you know, I think in the country that we
- 13:51Speaker 1: live in now, sadly we all need to be worried
- 13:54Speaker 1: about that, right, I mean, but it's it's not new,
- 13:59Speaker 1: they're but they're trying, they're they're developing new ways to
- 14:02Speaker 1: try to make it stick, right, because I think back
- 14:06Speaker 1: to when I was there living in ann Arbor, reporting
- 14:09Speaker 1: on people who lived in ipsil Ani who were part
- 14:12Speaker 1: of the j twenty group that protested Trump's first inauguration,
- 14:16Speaker 1: you know, like back in twenty sixteen, and because they
- 14:19Speaker 1: wore like black block attire, you know, masked black sweaters
- 14:24Speaker 1: and stuff like that, they tried to argue then that
- 14:28Speaker 1: anyone who was wearing black was like conspiring to commit
- 14:31Speaker 1: federal felony crimes. Right, And so you got a similar
- 14:35Speaker 1: thing here where it's like, yeah, just by using signal
- 14:38Speaker 1: app which everyone fucking uses, pardon my French, you know,
- 14:41Speaker 1: that's somehow you know, indicative of your like criminal complicity
- 14:44Speaker 1: in some grand conspiracy. But I guess I wanted to
- 14:47Speaker 1: really underline for folks you know, who are listening. And
- 14:50Speaker 1: again we're not hiding anything here. You can go look
- 14:53Speaker 1: at like the sort of visual evidence in that Mandowei's
- 14:56Speaker 1: piece and other pieces we'll link to, Like you can
- 14:59Speaker 1: see the you know, quote unquote property damage of you know,
- 15:03Speaker 1: like long Live the Antifada written on the sidewalk in
- 15:06Speaker 1: front of like the Rolls Royce facility in Nova, Michigan,
- 15:10Speaker 1: a facility that you know produces parts for the Israeli
- 15:14Speaker 1: military vehicles.
- 15:15Speaker 3: Right.
- 15:16Speaker 1: And you also had you know, like you know Maersk
- 15:18Speaker 1: as we said, you know, they they ship military equipment
- 15:21Speaker 1: to Israel. And you know, the Jewish Federation of Detroit,
- 15:24Speaker 1: you know, like has on their website and their social
- 15:26Speaker 1: media like a lot of pro Israel, pro Zionist you
- 15:30Speaker 1: know kind of stuff. So it's not like these are
- 15:33Speaker 1: you know, just synagogues and Jewish homes being targeted at random.
- 15:38Speaker 1: You know, these are you know sites that like are
- 15:41Speaker 1: clearly being targeted because of their connection to the you know,
- 15:44Speaker 1: war crimes happening in Israel. But as I understand it,
- 15:47Speaker 1: the government you know, is trying to sort of use
- 15:50Speaker 1: those you know, demonstrations that property damage to tie you know,
- 15:57Speaker 1: any of these activists to like basically to paint them
- 16:01Speaker 1: as terrorists, right, to say that like they are Hamas
- 16:03Speaker 1: loving Hamas, supporting Hamas like ideology, adopting radicals in our
- 16:10Speaker 1: midst and that's why they need to you know, like
- 16:13Speaker 1: have the hammer come down on them. So like, you know,
- 16:16Speaker 1: again that's that's as I understand it, kind of where
- 16:19Speaker 1: things stand right now, but I wanted to sort of
- 16:21Speaker 1: ask you guys if you could help us fill that in,
- 16:24Speaker 1: Like where do things stand right now?
- 16:26Speaker 3: Fundamentally? I feel like, I mean, the raids, these indictments
- 16:31Speaker 3: have like rocked our communities, and they've been very scary,
- 16:35Speaker 3: particularly for those who are directly targeted. At the same time,
- 16:39Speaker 3: they're just they're a distraction from like the very real
- 16:44Speaker 3: violence of the ongoing genocide and gaza in the ethnic
- 16:48Speaker 3: cleansing in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. Like this
- 16:52Speaker 3: contest continued for years and it is like ongoing as
- 16:55Speaker 3: we speak. And so I mean, I think what can
- 17:00Speaker 3: be done is, you know, to continue to organize as
- 17:03Speaker 3: we have been, to continue to organize for divestment and
- 17:06Speaker 3: for boycotts within the institutions that we're a part of,
- 17:10Speaker 3: be it like the unions that we're in, or like
- 17:13Speaker 3: whatever other institution we happen to be a part of.
- 17:16Speaker 3: Like these are strategies that work and that we have
- 17:20Speaker 3: to continue to push forward. At the same time, like,
- 17:25Speaker 3: the repression is a very serious thing, and it does
- 17:29Speaker 3: like warrant like a very serious you know, defense campaign
- 17:32Speaker 3: to keep folks safe, and there are like some more
- 17:35Speaker 3: immediate steps we can take that maybe Kevin can speak to.
- 17:40Speaker 4: Yeah, these defendants are facing a pretty long drawn out
- 17:45Speaker 4: legal process and that's not going to be cheap. We
- 17:49Speaker 4: have an ongoing legal fundraiser a going on dot l
- 17:54Speaker 4: y slash you M legal fund you know, good lilokayers
- 18:00Speaker 4: are not cheap, and we're up against a pretty pretty
- 18:03Speaker 4: big foe here, and it's the federal government. They're not
- 18:07Speaker 4: gonna I think they're not going to stop until until
- 18:11Speaker 4: it's over. So yeah, and so that's that's kind of
- 18:16Speaker 4: an a media ask. We're also as union members trying
- 18:21Speaker 4: to develop strategies around like writing and releasing solidarity statements.
- 18:28Speaker 4: I know that a number of Palestine advocacy organs have
- 18:31Speaker 4: released a number of statements recently and those have been
- 18:34Speaker 4: really awesome. We're working, you know, within our union and
- 18:37Speaker 4: with other unions to try to figure out, like how
- 18:39Speaker 4: might we mount a pressure campaign at our own institutions
- 18:45Speaker 4: on on these issues. And the other thing is that
- 18:49Speaker 4: you know, our union here on campus right now is
- 18:52Speaker 4: actively in bargaining in negotiations with our employer, with the
- 18:56Speaker 4: University of Michigan, and we had a number of demands
- 19:00Speaker 4: that we passed over to our employer, things like anti repression,
- 19:07Speaker 4: getting ice off campus, getting the you know, campus police
- 19:11Speaker 4: off campus, stopping cooperation with ice, non disclosure of felony
- 19:17Speaker 4: charges like these are all kind of things that were
- 19:20Speaker 4: basically immediately rejected by the university for not being workplace issues.
- 19:24Speaker 4: But these are very clearly like affecting my workplace here
- 19:28Speaker 4: at the university, right, these are my you know, friends,
- 19:32Speaker 4: my community members that are facing these these charges and
- 19:37Speaker 4: as a result of their speech on campus. So yeah,
- 19:42Speaker 4: continuing to put pressure within our own Indians at our
- 19:46Speaker 4: own workplaces, I think that's going to be a long
- 19:49Speaker 4: term fight that it's going to be really important to fight.
- 19:53Speaker 1: You know, this is a show called Working People. You know,
- 19:55Speaker 1: I've been interviewing union members, non union members, but workers
- 19:58Speaker 1: of all stripes about their life, their jobs, the things
- 20:02Speaker 1: that impact us as working class people, you know, and
- 20:06Speaker 1: this is one of them. But I wanted to sort
- 20:08Speaker 1: of give y' all the last word on that front,
- 20:11Speaker 1: if you had anything you wanted to share with listeners
- 20:13Speaker 1: out there who maybe are still like, well, you know, yeah,
- 20:16Speaker 1: this is important, but this isn't a worker issue, right,
- 20:19Speaker 1: This isn't a labor issue? Or how is this a
- 20:21Speaker 1: working class issue? Like anything that you wanted to like
- 20:25Speaker 1: share with you know, fellow working class folks or union
- 20:29Speaker 1: members out there who may be listening to this.
- 20:31Speaker 4: I think as workers, we have and you know, our
- 20:35Speaker 4: employer doesn't want this to be known, but we have
- 20:38Speaker 4: a lot of leverage, right, We have a lot of
- 20:40Speaker 4: leverage at the bargaining table. We have a lot of
- 20:43Speaker 4: leverage you know when we go into a grievance meeting
- 20:47Speaker 4: with our with our coworkers by their side, Like, we
- 20:50Speaker 4: have these kind of pressure points that we're able to
- 20:55Speaker 4: press on because we provide essential labor to our workplaces
- 21:01Speaker 4: and to society. It is in some ways our our duty,
- 21:06Speaker 4: our responsibility to make sure that our work doesn't further genocide,
- 21:10Speaker 4: that doesn't further fascism. And I would say that this
- 21:16Speaker 4: is a working class issue because no one should have
- 21:20Speaker 4: to live in fear, right, no one should have to
- 21:23Speaker 4: live in this this kind of world. We have to
- 21:25Speaker 4: imagine something and build something bigger and better than what
- 21:30Speaker 4: we have right now. And one way that we can
- 21:33Speaker 4: do that do that is you know, through our power
- 21:36Speaker 4: as workers.
- 21:37Speaker 3: I mean, I think as workers in the United States,
- 21:39Speaker 3: we have more in common with workers in Palestine than
- 21:42Speaker 3: we do with you know, the administrators of the university.
- 21:46Speaker 3: We're exploited by the same forces. And so, like Kevin said, like,
- 21:50Speaker 3: we have a duty to keep organizing for liberation for
- 21:53Speaker 3: all of us. I think, like also, it's important to
- 21:58Speaker 3: think about these this repression in contexts like the charges
- 22:03Speaker 3: against these eight people are an attack on an entire movement,
- 22:07Speaker 3: like the entire movement for Palestine. The federal government doesn't
- 22:11Speaker 3: want to stop with just these eight people. If they're
- 22:14Speaker 3: able to secure charges against them, they want to continue,
- 22:17Speaker 3: and they want they will not hesitate to turn these
- 22:19Speaker 3: same tools against the labor movement, against you know, any
- 22:23Speaker 3: other movement for liberation here in the United States. And
- 22:26Speaker 3: so it's really important to remember that these this attack
- 22:32Speaker 3: on our comrades is not limited to just a small
- 22:34Speaker 3: group of people in Michigan. It's just you know, one
- 22:39Speaker 3: attempt to repress the movement.
- 22:40Speaker 1: And oh, right, gang, that's going to wrap things up
- 22:47Speaker 1: for us today. I want to thank our guests, Kevin saying,
- 22:51Speaker 1: a member organizer and the secretary of the Graduate Employees
- 22:54Speaker 1: Organization a labor union that represents thousands of graduate workers
- 22:58Speaker 1: at the University of Michigan, and also Grace Vescito, a
- 23:02Speaker 1: restaurant worker and a former grad student at the University
- 23:05Speaker 1: of Michigan. And of course I want to thank you
- 23:07Speaker 1: all for listening, and I want to thank you for
- 23:09Speaker 1: caring about this. We'll see y'all back here next time
- 23:12Speaker 1: for another episode of Working People, And in the meantime,
- 23:16Speaker 1: go explore all the great work that we're doing at
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- 23:24Speaker 1: of struggle. Check us out across our YouTube channel, our
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- 23:31Speaker 1: and help us do more work like this by going
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- 23:37Speaker 1: a supporter today. I promise you guys, it really makes
- 23:40Speaker 1: a difference. I'm Maximilian Alvarez. Take care of yourselves, take
- 23:45Speaker 1: care of each other, solidarity forever.
- 23:51Speaker 2: In my fash you no longer see I live on Yes,
- 23:55Speaker 2: I live on wherever we go. We are going to
- 23:59Speaker 2: rule the union. On the song I Live on Yes,
- 24:03Speaker 2: I'll live on wherever Hungry hungry are we just as
- 24:08Speaker 2: hungress hungry can be the song I live on, Yes,
- 24:13Speaker 2: I live on. Well, mean things are happening in this land.
- 24:17Speaker 2: Just read a song. I live on. Yes, I live on.
- 24:21Speaker 2: Wherever the book mean things are happening in this land
- 24:25Speaker 2: is read. I'll live on. Yes, I'll live on wherever
- 24:30Speaker 2: the video tay A Meia showing I live on. Yes,
- 24:35Speaker 2: I live on. If I have help make this a
- 24:38Speaker 2: better word to live here, I'll live on. Yes, I'll
- 24:42Speaker 2: live on when my body is solid and in some
- 24:46Speaker 2: longs a grade, I'll live on. Yes, I'll live on.
- 24:52Speaker 2: When my songs and forms are read, I'll live on. Yes,
- 24:57Speaker 2: I'll live on.