Episode 18: "A People's History of Halloween" feat. Nestor of Black Banner Magic

Oct 30, 2018

Get ready for a spooky, jam-packed episode of Coffee with Comrades. Bree is back! What’s more, we have our comrade Nestor on the show from Black Banner Magic to talk about witchcraft, the devil’s night, and the secret history of Halloween. But first, some current events:

• The so-called “MAGA Bomber” is Florida man Cesar Sayoc, who sent a total of 14 mail bombs to the Clintons, Obamas, CNN, and event Robert De Niro.
• Meanwhile, a white supremacist opened fire at a Kroger store in Kentucky this week.
• White supremacist Robert Bowers walked into a synagogue in Philadelphia and opened fire, killing eleven people.
• Over the propaganda of “migrant caravans,” Trump is ratcheting up his attempts to “secure the border” by sending the literal fucking U.S. military to border states.
• History shows us the violence Central Americans are fleeing was stoked by the U.S.
• Jair Bolsonaro, the out-and-out, bona fide fascist, is President-elect of Brazil.
• One in six Americans are far-right. But white supremacy is a structural, systemic flaw of the United States.

Nestor from the Black Banner Magic podcast joins us on the show to talk about Halloween’s roots in Gaelic paganism, the rebellious mischief that the holiday foments, the Great Rebellion of Detroit and the ensuing string of Devil’s Night arsons, and American capitalists’ taming of the festivities into a tepid celebration of consumerism and excess. To find out more about the Devil's Night, read this stellar essay on the subject from Mask magazine. Please consider supporting Black Banner Magic on Patreon, where ⅔ of every dollar raised goes to the Omaha Freedom Fund!

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Intro: “I Ain’t Got no Home in this World” by Woody Guthrie

Outro: “Devil’s Night” by Motionless in White