We are pleased to release our latest work, Epstein, AirBNB, ICE, and Antifascism: An Anarchist Newsreel, covering the last month of intense struggle. Beyond some of the major events in the United States, we touch on the anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia in Athens, the recent jail sentences of anarchists in Firenze, and the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Italy’s fascist Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini. Our film is meant to reveal the international scope of our current struggle, the similarities between Trump and Salvini, and the total depravity of the US ruling class.
The film begins with the recent arrest and death of Jeffrey Epstein, friend to both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump. Both presidents were undoubtedly involved in some of Epstein’s activities, although Trump was quick to point the finger at Clinton. Epstein’s underage sex-trafficking ring was partially organized by a woman named Ghislaine Maxwell, an individual who was the intimate acquaintance of many powerful, ruling class men. While Epstein’s alleged suicide might have foreclosed certain details from the public, Ghislaine Maxwell still knows the truth of this ruling class sex ring, and she’s still very much alive. In no uncertain terms, the information Maxwell carries in her memory is nothing less than the mythical “Pee-Pee Tape,” the ultimate weapon against Donald Trump. Few could have imagined this legendary “tape” had the potential to implicate the entire US ruling class.
For the first time in many years, the public is now free to observe that there’s little difference between Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, given both were part of this depraved circle. Just like the Democratic and Republican parties, these men are just two representatives of the same corrupt system. We’ve attempted to simply document the known facts of the Epstein trafficking ring and leave the conclusions up to the viewer. To make the matter more bizarre, Ghislaine Maxwell organized the release of a photoshopped picture of her eating at an In-N-Out burger in Los Angeles, an effort meant to obscure her true location. In this fake picture, Maxwell is reading a copy of The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of CIA Operatives. We can only hope that Maxwell survives long enough to spill the beans on all the powerful men who still control the planet. While there’s no redemption for what she did to an unknown number of women, it would at least be a step in the proper direction.
Changing direction, the film then focuses on the recent riots in Exarchia against the release of the cop who murdered Alexandros Grigoropoulos in 2008. Just as Ghislaine Maxwell called the 16 year-old victims of her sex ring “trash,” the cop who shot 15 year-old Alexandros felt much the same way about his victim. As the film documents, eleven years after this murder, the police are now poised to attack Exarchia and cleanse the neighborhood of everyone that capitalism considers “trash.” Part of this assault is being lead by AirBNB, a company based in San Francisco, California which now has over 15,000 units in Athens, the majority centered around the Acropolis. According to data visualizations, the clustering of AirBNB units thins out around the Exarchia neighborhood, although a few have crept into this anarchist enclave. Like in every other city, AirBNB removes housing from the market, jacks up real estate prices, and is usually accompanied by heavy police repression. Coincidentally, AirBNB has clear and open connections to the CIA, a fact detailed in our film.
And in the darkness bind them