Episode Notes

Trigger Warning for those ahead: discussions will include the violence experienced by victims of the anticommunist crusade that American empire waged against the Global South and "Third World" which may be graphic and disturbing.

Indonesia, a country that today has in the realm of 270 million inhabitants, is a large island chain to the south of mainland Asia. A long and diverse history precedes the story we retell today, one of kingdoms and conflict and community formation. For us, however, we will focus on the mid twentieth century and the violent military coup (supported by the U.S. State Department and the CIA) which overthrew the elected government. Given lists of people to be eliminated for the rewards of bribes and aid from the capitalist powerhouse across the pacific, the Suharto military regime instituted a bloody terror that killed over 1 million people: targeting communists specifically but also sweeping up ethnic Chinese, feminists (declared as castrating witches), and workers in unions. The tactics developed in Indonesia - disappearances, torture and propoganda - would be copied in many other countries allied with the United States in the Cold War.

Information discussed in this episode is largely drawn from Vincent Bevins' book Jakarta Method as well as the documentary The Act of Killing.

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Phil and Kyle would also like to give a shout out to those of us still in the streets fighting for the rights of Palestinians and those fighting for justice and abolition of the American police state. The best way to show solidarity with those struggling against the American empire is to struggle against the empire at home.

https://free-palestine.carrd.co/#donations

https://www.phillybailfund.org/

https://bailproject.org/