99 – Personal experiences of State Repression

In this second episode of a series about Herbal Support Through Repression, Nicole (she/her) shares her personal experiences of state repression.

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Transcript
Nicole:

Welcome to the Frontline Herbalism Podcast with your host, Nicole Rose, from the

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Solidarity Apothecary.

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This is your place for all things plants and

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liberation.

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Let's get started.

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Hello.

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Welcome back to the Frontline Herbalism

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Podcast.

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So this episode today is a kind of introduction to state repression from my own

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experiences and sharing my story of repression from.

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Which is, like, written in the Herbalism and State Violence book.

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And, you know, I say this at the end of the episode, but I just want to say it at

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beginning that, like, this is,

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you know, my own unique context in the sense of, like, being a white person in England and

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Wales and being a CIS woman and, yeah, being active in a kind of, like, social movement.

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It's not talking about repression in terms of, like, daily state violence, like the,

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you know, classism and racism and the border regime and like, all the other things that I

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talk about.

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Anna, in the Herbalism and State Violence

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book, like, this sort of section focuses specifically on repression as, like, a tactic

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to stop movements achieving, you know,

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kind of liberatory goals.

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And. Yeah, so I just want to premise that.

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That it's my own experience.

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And I know that might be, like, alienating to some people.

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Well, I'm sure to lots of people, but I know that other people,

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like, from,

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you know, maybe who are from the UK for example, or have a similar background to me,

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might find it kind of.

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Yeah. Validating, or you might feel some resonance.

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And. Yeah, just that, like, the state is violent in all forms, like, all over the

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world, whether that's torturing prisoners in Belarus or sexually assaulting prisoners in

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Palestine.

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You know, like, there is just, like, no end to

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the violence of the state and like, multiple different forms of repression.

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And. Yeah, this is just like one.

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One context, which.

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Yeah,

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anyway, that's.

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That's my disclaimer.

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And, yeah, just, I guess, like, content warning.

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I do talk about all the things.

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Well, I kind of briefly touch on all the

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things, but I don't explicitly go into prison very much, but I talk about,

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you know, arrests and raids and things like that.

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So, anyway, thank you for listening.

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Please don't forget to check out the Hawthorne

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offering that is open for application for another week.

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Actually, check that before you, because I'm not 100% sure when I can publish this, but

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it's open from the 6th of the applications, close from the 6th of August.

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So please get your applications in before then.

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And I can see my baby coming up the path, so I better go.

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But, yeah, thank you for listening.

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Hello.

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Okay, so this is the introduction to State Repression from the Herbalism and State

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Violence Book and it starts with a quote from the book Nietzsche and Anarchy Psychology for

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Free,

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Ontology for Social War by Shahin and it says whenever we seriously threaten the state and

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capital, they will turn on us with extreme force.

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From the outset, we need to build the capacity and skills for combat to support our struggle

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and to support life.

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We need to create our networks of care.

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In this section of the book I give some insight into some of the tactics of state

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repression and where herbal solidarity is an option to support people's bodies and nervous

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systems as they endure and try to resist resist whatever the state has in store for

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them.

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One definition of repression is that it is the process by which,

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and this isn't quotes, the dominant hegemonic order attempts to maintain power by

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destroying, rendering harmless or appeasing those organizations,

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people, groups or ideologies that potentially threaten their position of power or privilege.

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Hegemonic, in simple terms means the powers that have dominance.

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For anyone involved in any kind of social struggle, you will see state repression in

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practice,

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heavy policing on demonstrations, character assassination in the media,

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lengthy court cases and prison sentences, new laws and legislation to criminalize whatever

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campaign is in the headlines.

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As with all subjects covered in this book, how this violence is distributed is racialized,

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classed and gendered, and intersects with all other forms of oppression.

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State repression also operates to different extents and with different state tactics

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around the world.

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In Russia, political dissidents may be hung upside down and tortured with cattle prods.

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In Iran, women organizers may be raped and burned by police and their proxies.

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In Mexico, people may be murdered and disappeared.

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In Spain, people may be imprisoned far from their families for decades.

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Wherever there is a state or a group of people trying to maintain power through force, they

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will respond with violence and repression whenever that power is threatened.

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Unfortunately, many social movements commonly have a kind of amnesia, not learning from

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history or remembering the generations before them that suffered repression at the hands of

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the state.

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Anyone organizing for social change needs to be versed in the tactics of repression in

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whatever territory they live and organize in.

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For someone involved in anti repression work, I regularly see groups and campaigns fall by

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the wayside,

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almost shocked that they've been arrested or that the state have been planning operations

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against them.

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Even if you use quote unquote legal tactics or quote unquote peaceful protests, if you

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threaten power in any way you will attract repression.

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Therefore, developing infrastructure is vital.

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Whether this is a local anarchist Black Cross

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chapter that can support people in prison,

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or groups offering know your rights training for street actions, security, culture

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guidance, computer security or media training.

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Anti repression action comes in many forms and can build movements with greater resilience to

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inevitable state repression.

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Okay, so my experiences of repression.

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Growing up in a very macho animal liberation movement, it was extremely taboo to talk about

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the social, emotional or bodily impacts of repression.

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Whatever we were going through was nothing compared to the animals.

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And showing we were somehow being harmed was like awarding the state with a victory.

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Yet over the years, I saw the shock and impact of years of ongoing repression take its toll

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on even the most dedicated and defiant of organizers.

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The state effectively crushed our campaign to close down Europe's largest animal testing

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company.

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I learned that a small group of people can achieve a lot, but ultimately we will always

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come up against the power of the state.

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This is why I'm an anarchist.

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I know that it will take an entire social

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revolution to challenge that kind of state power.

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Individuals, targeted campaigns and collectives can be crushed, but whole

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movements or entire populations of resistance are harder to break.

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Likewise, the commitment and vision of liberation remains strong in people's hearts

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despite many decades of state repression.

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My own experiences would have been radically different with organized political and social

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support.

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Now that I'm organizing support for others, it amazes me that I went through most of the

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repression I experienced alone, especially before prison.

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No one collected me at the police station, no one organized a support group, no fundraising

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or donations.

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After my livelihood and home was smashed to

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bits.

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No help with understanding all the legal paperwork, no political solidarity.

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Instead, the opposite.

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A lot of hostility.

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That our campaign had attracted the repression and we were, through our militancy, to blame.

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Lack of support is a common dynamic that makes experiences more traumatizing.

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animal liberation movement in the UK was thriving.

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Breeders of laboratory animals were being shut down left, right and centre.

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Through grassroots campaigns and direct action.

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People were sabotaging fox hunts en masse.

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The fur industry was destroyed through raids.

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The Animal Liberation Front was in full effect.

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It was accepted that prison was inevitable for people in the movement.

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And many people moved in and out of prison on generally shorter, although sometimes longer,

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sentences.

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It felt like power was on our side.

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Somehow the police and the state couldn't keep

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up with this wild grassroots movement and the phenomenal public support behind it.

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I started my first animal rights group when I was 10 years old.

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@ school,

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I spent my weekends scrambling my bus fare together from my paper round to get to

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Bristol, the nearest city, and get a lift to local and national demonstrations.

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I saw people tear down fences on demos, police charge at us on horses, and friends have their

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ribs cracked by police attacks right in front of my eyes.

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As I grew up and policing became heavier, I saw tactics change to shorter and faster

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mobile demos and more covering up of faces and anonymity.

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Above ground actions were being pushed into a more underground style and the security risks

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blurred between them.

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By the time I was 16 years old, my first

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boyfriend went to prison after a home demonstration.

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At 17 years old, my next boyfriend was sentenced to a year for a fray.

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After an altercation with and fox hunters.

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It became absolute normality for friends and loved ones to be in prison and prison visits,

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calls and letter writing became a regular part of my week.

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I got my own house raided for the first time at 17, laughing it off as part of the macho

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environment the movement raised me in.

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When I was just 19 years old, the police smashed through my door on the quote unquote

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big charge.

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Huntington Animal Cruelty, the grassroots campaign to close down Huntington Life

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Sciences.

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This is Europe's largest animal testing company that murdered over 200,000 animals

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every year.

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This was one chapter in a wave of organized state repression that lasted over 10 years.

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The charge was conspiracy to blackmail, which means making unwarranted demands with the

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threat of menaces.

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The premise of the charge was that because HLS

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is a legal company,

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our demands for people to cease trading with them were quote unquote unwarranted.

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And the menaces were the tactics we were using that included phone calls and emails to

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demonstrations to property damage.

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On a personal level, the police destroyed the

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house my ex and I were renting in the valleys of South Wales.

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Smashing up the banister, breaking the bath, pulling up the carpets.

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The landlord saw us on TV and kicked us out.

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I came out of the police station alone while my ex was held for longer and found that our

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foster dog hadn't been taken into kennels like the police said they would do.

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And instead he was left alone in the kitchen with no food or water,

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shaking when I found him.

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His response to loud noises, his changed

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temperament and tendency to cower and shake for months afterwards, taught me a lesson in

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traumatic stress and how non human animals can show us the impact of an experience more

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obviously than we can observe it in ourselves.

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Three others were directly reminded to prison, while the rest of the group had strict bowel

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conditions, not allowing us to speak to our friends, publish content on the Internet and

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all kinds of other legalistic restrictions.

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Court dates were constantly pushed back over and over again,

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leading to constant uncertainty and stress.

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Two years of court hearings ensued, then finally a major trial where everyone was found

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guilty of conspiracy to blackmail.

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The state got what they wanted eventually.

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12 of us were in prison, with the longest

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sentence being 11 years.

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I received three and a half.

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As I share more in the prison section of this book, I went to prison as a 21 year old and

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served just under two years in total.

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Despite many people in the movement saying we should quote, unquote, treat prison like a

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holiday.

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In all honesty, it was violent and traumatizing and one of the most dehumanising

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experiences of my life.

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But the repression was not over.

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On release from prison in England, you have a

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license, which means if you are released early from prison, generally kind of halfway through

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your sentence, but it's not guaranteed and it depends on the length and type of your

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sentence,

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you will have a set of conditions you have to adhere to,

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otherwise you will get recalled back to prison.

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These conditions vary from living at a certain address to not having intimate relationships

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without permission.

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Due to the political nature of our case, I had a ream of conditions about not interacting

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with anyone concerned with animal welfare overnight.

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I was not allowed to speak to nearly all of my friends for fear of going back to prison and

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this lasted for nearly two years.

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The loneliness was designed to make us pro social again and disconnect us from political

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struggles.

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It was incredibly effective at ensuring most

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people in the case did not return to grassroots organising.

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We were also given ASBOs antisocial behaviour orders.

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A repressive mechanism developed to target working class communities to restrict their

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antisocial behaviour, such as drinking in parks.

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In our case, if we campaigned around vivisection again, we would face up to five

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years in prison and three people from the campaign were given lifelong ASBOs.

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This ASBO was triggered when we were released from prison, which meant by the time it was

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over,

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we had been living with these restrictions for over a decade, where returning to prison had

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been constantly over our heads.

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The many tactics of state repression.

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It wasn't until somehow we emerged from the personal fallout of repression that it became

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possible to really grasp the bigger picture of what had been happening in the movement.

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We were on the crest of a wave of intensified repression.

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It wasn't just the mass arrests, house raids,

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prison sentences or physical violence on demonstrations and mass policing efforts.

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We'd learned that the State had spent 2.1 million on the operation to end the campaign,

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including putting 12 of us under surveillance for nearly two years beforehand.

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The murky world of undercover informants, relationship sabotage and media slander also

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came to light.

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New legislation specifically targeting campaigns against animal testing had been

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enacted in Luo, which would be used to later target groups that dared to still challenge

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vivisection.

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An entire police unit, the National Extremism

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Tactical Coordination Unit,

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had been developed specifically to influence the media, with press releases documenting the

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campaign in an effort to persuade the public that our actions were rooted in quote,

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unquote, extremism and terrorism.

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The personal impacts of repression and this is from a book called OS A Crime Called Freedom.

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Sorry if I've pronounced that wrong.

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It's a really amazing book, by the way.

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The state treats delinquents en masse as a social danger, but demolishes them one by one.

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In my herbalism, PTSD and traumatic stress course, there is a module all about trauma and

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common trauma dynamics.

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These explore what can make an experience particularly traumatizing or more

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traumatizing.

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Loneliness, isolation and lack of support are some of the largest factors through

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repression.

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It was the lack of support that carried the

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biggest weight for me.

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I felt betrayed, lost and alone.

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There was no one at the police station waiting for me on release.

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There was no organised support group that could help with fundraising or actions outside

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the court.

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Living on benefits without a safety net or a family with money meant that every time there

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was a court appearance, it was literally a choice between travel expenses and eating that

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week.

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It was enormously stressful to manage the fear and anxiety of thinking I was going to get 12

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years in prison, which was the sentence others had received in a previous blackmail case.

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I left home at 16 and didn't finish formal education or A levels at college.

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I'm also dyslexic, and legal work feels incredibly intimidating.

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I had no idea how to approach the folders and boxes worth of case papers and legal

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paperwork.

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I didn't know what to advocate for with the

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solicitors or how the whole thing worked.

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People told us they were scared to be associated with us.

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They were afraid to be pulled into the web of repression.

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This is why no one called to check if my partner or I were okay.

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The feeling of betrayal still flows through me, and it's hard to feel any political

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affinity with the animal liberation movement after these experiences.

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People blamed us for bringing the repression on ourselves, that we went too far,

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that it was our fault, that the whole movement had been impacted.

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Even within the group of defendants, we were legally disallowed from communicating with

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each other,

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which compounded the isolation and led to dirty tactics like defendants distancing

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themselves from you to achieve shorter sentences.

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Overall, it was a **** show.

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And what did this all create? It led to the destruction of many

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relationships.

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It highly impacted my nervous system,

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leading to years of constant fight or flight and activation that was hard to unravel.

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Prison itself caused me to develop PTSD and being haunted by nightmares and intrusive

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thoughts and flashbacks for many years before being able to access treatment and support.

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I developed chronic health issues and a vivid understanding of how trauma shapes the body.

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These experiences were all on top of a very challenging childhood with many of the trauma

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dynamics repeating themselves.

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Ultimately, it created a feeling of loneliness and alienation socially, emotionally and

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politically for many years before I was able to process, integrate and heal from these

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experiences,

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mostly by throwing myself into anti repression efforts to make sure no one felt alone like I

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and others had at the time.

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The Movement Effects of Repression While I often speak about the importance of anti

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repression work because of the traumatic impacts of repression and on the individual,

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a bigger purpose to it all is because repression takes its toll on what we are

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trying to achieve as movements.

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In our case it meant that the murderous vicinity that was HLS remained open and the

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animals continued to be tortured for other campaigns.

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It may mean that sacred mountains get destroyed, prisons get built or people get

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deported.

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Whatever we are fighting for, repression aims to render us ineffective.

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It aims to not only prevent groups from achieving their goals, but commonly carries

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the aim to completely destroy or end groups, campaigns and movements.

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In our case, we later learned the police called it leadership decapitation.

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They wanted to cut the head off our movement, which tells you something about the violence

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of their actions.

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Repression creates a broad culture of fear and can commonly lead to the pacification of

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movement tactics.

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For example, this may involve the co option of militant tactics and radical visions for

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change into more legalistic forms of organizing.

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This may involve funneling energy into parliamentary quote unquote democracy and

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lobbying,

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or even the focus on consumer choices and corporate relationships as happened with

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radical veganism which was once very intersectional and focused on direct action

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and eventually evolved into green capitalism whereby the focus is less on what we do and

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more on what we buy.

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Energies may also be co opted into what is known as the not for profit industrial

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Complex.

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The group Incite Women of Color Against Violence published the book the Revolution

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political goals are often co opted to serve government grant making and foundation

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interests.

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Instead of building movements, the focus shifts to building NGOs.

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I'd highly encourage anyone involved in social change work of different kinds to read the

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book and explore these tensions.

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Likewise, repression leads to the destruction of relationships and loss of comrades.

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People step back from organizing either through fear or lack of support.

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They burn out and drop out, disappearing from movements due to trauma and chronic health

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issues and a general lack of collective care.

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We can never build powerful movements for change if we fail to take care of each other

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and leave people behind.

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Herbalism is a beautiful offering to help tend to people's frightened hearts, exhausted

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bodies, and fractured spirits when they are enduring repression.

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This is what this part of the book explores and this is what this podcast series explores.

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So yeah, that's just like a general little introduction to my experiences of repression.

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And you know, I put in a lot of disclaimers at the beginning of the Herbalism and State

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Violence book about privilege and class and whiteness and how I'm operating in like a very

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specific context which,

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you know, is still valid and will resonate with a lot of people like from England and

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Wales, for example, the so called us.

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But yeah, I just.

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This repression is really talking about like movements for liberation and it's not talking

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about just like the unrelenting violence right in the world where that is inflicted by the

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state.

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So anyway, I just wanted to give that little extra disclaimer.

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Thank you so much for listening.

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Thanks so much for listening to the Frontline Herbalism podcast.

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You can find the transcript, the links, all the resources from the

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show@solidarityapothecary.org podcast.