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Alright, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Antiwar Radio.
I'm Scott Wharton.
I'm joined on the phone by Pete Ayer and Adam, I'm not sure if it's Miller or Mueller, people say it different ways when you spell it like that.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having us.
Yeah, I appreciate it, and for the record, it's Miller, but I wouldn't take any offense.
Okay, no problem.
Yeah, I had a teacher spell it like that, and it was Miller, but I had an airport spell it like that, and it was Mueller when I was a kid.
They moved it, though.
Yeah, just trying to keep everybody on their toes, you know, us Germans.
Oh, okay, there you go.
Yeah, a lot of that in Texas.
Alright, so here we go.
You guys are from, what's it called again, Liberty on Tour, right?
That's correct.
And tell us about Liberty on Tour.
We'll get to move in a minute here.
Well, Liberty on Tour is Pete Ayer and myself.
We did a project last year called Motorhome Diaries, and this year we're doing Liberty on Tour.
Differences, we're taking to the streets.
We want to embed ourselves as activists.
You know, our whole schedule, the logistics, the things are all hashed out.
Motorhome Diaries is more flying by the seat of our pants, and that's what's going on.
So right now it's 13 cities in 13 weeks, 7,500 miles.
And, you know, we want to see what folks are doing out there.
We want to put our cameras on the people that are, you know, actively trying to scale back the oppressive government.
Right on.
And so this time you guys are a bit more organized and got some sponsors together, including Antiwar.com, I'm told, by Angela.
And so what are the differences between this tour and the last one then, Pete?
Yeah, last time around we called it Motorhome Diaries again.
We said we were searching for freedom in America, so we pointed our cameras at people we thought were advancing the broad freedom movement.
So some activists, some policy scholars, but also we interviewed, like, just a few politicians, Adam Kokash, Ron Paul.
But this time, like Adam said, we want to take it to the streets.
And essentially we both self-describe as voluntarists, so we want to advance the volunteer society.
So we go around and we try to engage people.
We're doing a lot more outreach to people not yet exposed to the idea, you know, whether that's in-person stuff or whatever.
But we shoot a lot of video, and we have a YouTube channel.
We pull that up.
We'll probably hope to do a documentary at the end.
But like we're saying, we're just going around trying to advance the volunteer society.
We're trying to be more experimental this time.
We have meetups in each city.
We're really dependent on people for tips and leads and contacts in each city.
We're just two guys in an RV.
So if you or any of your listeners have any suggestions for us, there's a contact form on our website.
They can let us know what they think we should check out.
Yeah, I'd just like to add, too, that, you know, the freedom and stuff that we need to mix it up.
It doesn't have to be all sit-down interviews.
You know, we're out on the street.
We got this idea going with these Uncle Sam videos and some other ones that we just shot yesterday that would be really funny.
And interject the message of, you know, complete liberty to folks.
So which one of you is the expert in MOVE?
That's Pete.
All right.
So I think probably most people in the audience, if they've ever heard of it, they really still don't know anything about it.
I saw a great little video you guys put together explaining the history of this story and what happened there.
I've always called it.
I guess I learned about it after WACO.
And it was, oh, don't you know there was a WACO massacre in Philadelphia just a few years back, you know, right around the time of WACO is when I first learned of MOVE.
But it's a bit of a different story.
So why don't you go ahead and break it down for us.
Philadelphia, the city that bombed itself was the title of your videos that I saw.
And, by the way, everybody, you can find that on my YouTube page.
Yeah, it's a pretty ridiculous story.
My Facebook page, I meant to say, sir.
Yeah, I appreciate you plugging it.
But it's a pretty ridiculous story.
I actually heard about it.
I went to school for law enforcement, so I heard about it, like how heavy-handed some police departments had been.
And when we rolled into Philly, you know, I think one thing it's good to do is showcase the violence that the system uses and then their lack of accountability.
So, you know, you talked about WACO last year.
We did a story on WACO and Ruby Ridge, Indianapolis Baptist Temple that the feds went after.
But in Philadelphia what happened, there was a group of people that got together around an individual who took the surname Africa.
His first name was John.
So John Africa was like this charismatic leader.
He was functional or literate, they said, but, like, still he was somebody who just wanted to create a community for some people that had similar ideas.
I guess I could call them like anarcho-primitivists.
They kind of shunned technology, but they valued human life, animal life, going back to nature type stuff.
They also spoke out against police brutality, which was pretty prevalent at that time.
The mayor of Philadelphia, Mayor Rizzo, this was all in the early 70s they formed.
And then towards the later 70s, Mayor Rizzo, who had been a previous police commissioner, prided himself on essentially using heavy-handed tactics to try to keep the crime rate down and just intimidate gang-versus-individuals, I should say.
So these folks were speaking out against police brutality.
It drew the attention of the state.
Initially a judge issued a warrant for the arrest of some folks.
Moves spoke out.
Mayor Rizzo implemented essentially a starvation blockade of their property.
It was a three-story Victorian house in West Philadelphia where Drexler is today.
So there were thousands of people in Philly protesting this blockade.
They shut off their water.
They blocked food from going in and out.
They checked people going in and out.
It was just very oppressive.
So there was this big rally in favor of moves, and it kind of made the political climate such that the government said, all right, let's make a deal.
We'll release all the people in our captivity now from jail.
We'll drop all the charges we have against you guys.
And you guys, if you allow us to search your residence.
And so they did that, and move agreed.
And then after they searched the residence, they really didn't find anything.
So then move said that the city had agreed after the search that they would provide them a new property within 90 days, while the city said that move had told them that they would find a new property on their own.
So it was just a way, I think, probably the city of Philadelphia was a little pissed that they had put all these resources into it.
Didn't really get the return on their investment they thought.
They got kind of thrown in the bus.
So they went in there, and they issued more arrest warrants.
Cite on scene for all move members.
Move didn't leave the property.
And they were asked by reporters.
The media up there was very pro the city of Philadelphia and was panning move to be this terrible organization or whatever that was neglecting children and doing all these things.
So the media asked move.
They said, hey, why don't you guys just move?
And they said, this is where we want to live.
Why don't you ask the city government why they don't move?
They don't leave us alone.
And they even had to support the Amish up in Lancaster County, offered them a place up there.
But eventually it turned out.
You know what?
Hold it right there, because I just want to let you expand just on that one little point and get back to the story.
But if the Amish were willing to accept these people, then the Amish weren't scared of them.
Right?
I mean, that means something.
They were not seen by the Amish as being a criminal, dangerous element to them.
Right.
I'm sorry.
I misspoke.
Actually, it was the Quakers up there.
Well, still, same difference.
Yeah, the group that advocates peace and voluntary interaction.
So, yeah, you're correct.
You're right on when you say that.
It's sort of like with Waco, where they go, oh, this guy was about to assemble his army and march on downtown Waco and take it over or something.
Well, that's funny, because he shot guns with the sheriff's department.
The sheriff's department didn't think of him as an evil criminal conspiracy preparing to march on downtown Waco.
So it makes the narrative incongruent with the facts a little bit.
I like to focus on things like that.
Definitely.
So, eventually, the city, when they moved the property at their command, they surrounded it.
They had a lot of officers on the ground in riot gear.
They had fire department came out.
They started blasting water into the basement.
There ended up being a shootout.
First, the people in the move house, some of the police officers on the scene that day, some of the media there and eyewitnesses said that the first shot came from behind a police line.
So some people associated with the move believe, you know, maybe there was some...
All right, well, I'm sorry.
We're going to have to hold it right there.
Let's get back at gunshots is where we're leaving off here.
We'll be back with Pete Ayer and Adam Miller from Liberty on Tour right after this.
What's up next?
Visit the Liberty Radio Network program guide to find out at shows.lrn.fm.
That's shows.lrn.fm.
All right, y'all.
Welcome back to the show.
It's Anti-War Radio.
I'm Scott Horton and I'm talking with Pete Ayer and Adam Miller from LibertyOnTour.com.
There are a couple anarchists driving around in an RV trying to teach people about why they ought to be free instead of the slaves of the cops or the dead burning bodies of the cops.
Like in this case, May 13th, 1985, 11 people burned alive.
Just Google up Philadelphia, the city that bombed itself, if you want to watch the great video that they put together explaining this.
And now when we're going out to the story here, Pete, I think we're at the part where there's some black radicals in a house.
The police have laid siege to them.
The police finally had access to the house.
They searched it, found nothing, but then they were mad since they had all their weapons around.
And I think at some point here people started shooting each other.
You were saying it was in dispute who fired first or what.
So I'd like to know the particulars of that.
And then hopefully we can get to the part where they go to the FBI and say, hey, can we borrow a bomb from you guys?
I don't know how they're going to give it back later.
And the FBI said, sure, here.
Right, yeah.
So this was in the first stop we were talking about was in late 1978 that it went down.
And, again, they were holed up in the house.
There was a police line outside.
There was a shot fired.
The state says it was the MOVE folks.
MOVE and some eyewitnesses and some media says it was from the police line.
But there was an exchange of firefight.
A police officer was killed.
Eventually the MOVE folks came out.
A number of them were arrested.
And nine of them were later convicted of conspiracy and third-degree murder.
They were tried as a group, not as individuals.
And they're still in prison today.
They were given sentences between 30 and 100 years.
And it's really ridiculous.
The judge who oversaw the case a couple days after the conclusion of it was on a talk show in Philly, and he was asked point blank who was the person who killed the police officer.
And he said, you know, he said, I don't know.
And so that's pretty damning evidence that even these state actors that purport to uphold justice, you know, aren't doing anything but.
So, anyway, so that property, just like Waco, just like what happened in Waco, the state moved in right away, destroyed the building.
They destroyed the evidence.
So they weren't able to do conclusive, you know, evidence, findings for the trial.
The MOVE folks later relocated to a few miles west in West Philly again.
And they worked for the release of their family in prison.
And then in 1983 they broke their radio silence, their media blackout, by essentially just getting their PAs, getting back outside and talking about the abuses that they suffered at the hands of the state.
That drew some complaints from the neighbors because they were on it overnight, you know, it was Christmas Day.
But even so, it still did not at all justify what happened to them.
What happened in the city, as you said, involved the FBI.
The MOVE folks are saying, why are these issues, their composting in their yard and things like that, why does this draw the attention of the FBI?
You know, obviously these guys had an incentive.
Philadelphia had an incentive to try to quiet these people up because they were speaking out against the tyrannies that the Philadelphia cops were dishing out.
But eventually they showed up, surrounded the house, the Philly cops showed up.
And again, all this, if you go to LibertyOnTour.com slash MOVE, we have some more details about this and links in the video.
But the cops showed up, they started by robbing tear gas into the house.
They eventually shot over 10,000 rounds into this row house where it was known that there were children in there.
The mayor declared everybody an enemy combatant, even the children.
Well, pardon me, wait, what was the term they made up?
Because it couldn't have been that.
Is that what they said, they're enemy combatants?
Yeah, as far as I know, that's what they were labeled as.
The order was given to secure the building, essentially.
And like I was saying, they fired over 10,000 rounds in there.
They had an M60 machine gun out there.
Yeah, that's kind of a funny part of this, right, is that the locals can go to the FBI and go, hey, we need an M60 and a bomb.
And the FBI has an M60 and a bomb.
I mean, why does the FBI have this stuff if the local cops don't?
They're not soldiers, are they?
Yep, yep.
And obviously they have a pretty terrible track record.
So I don't know why folks believe that people with badges have a right to own this stuff but nobody else.
But anyway, so there was a firefight.
The cops, as I was saying, were lobbing tear gas in there.
They were using the water cannons to poke holes in the building.
Eventually the people in the house went to the basement to kind of escape that.
Again, they started trying to flood the basement.
Eventually they got approval to drop a four-pound bomb, a T4, on top of the house, even though it was known that there was a gas can on the top of the residence.
So they went by in a helicopter, dropped a bomb on this residence, in the middle of a Philadelphia neighborhood.
It caught fire.
The police commissioner said, hey, let's let this fire burn.
And the fire commissioner agreed, so they let this thing burn for 45 minutes before they even turned on the water to try to put it out.
By that time it had caught a number of other residents in the area on fire.
When it was all said and done, there were 250 homeless people, over 60 residences burned to the ground, and there were 11 dead people in the move house, including five children.
So it was ridiculous.
There were two survivors, Ramona Africa and her son, and she was later put in prison for seven years for a riot.
It's just ridiculous.
So when she got out, her and two of the other relatives of people who had been killed in the household sued the city in federal court, and they won, and they were awarded $1.5 billion, and all the other people in the neighborhood whose houses were burned.
The government initially went in there, and just like we saw after Katrina, the government went in there, rebuilt houses, but they were shoddy construction, and they kept having to dump millions of dollars into upkeep.
Eventually they just said, we can't do this anymore, so they bought everybody out.
They paid about two-thirds of the families, got about $150,000 each, and then the remaining third that held out, they got a little bit more.
But again, the big thing is there's no accountability for this.
The people who shot the guns, the people who dropped the bombs, the people who issued the orders, no one was ever held responsible.
Well, this is exactly the heart of the point.
This is the entire thing, no accountability.
And that's really what it means to have a monopoly.
That's why we reject monopolies, is because a monopoly means no accountability.
If there's a monopoly on bananas, they'll all be rotten and cost a lot.
And because there's competition, you can get a decent banana to eat for your potassium or whatever.
And it's the same thing with the cops, no accountability.
I really didn't know very much about this story.
I've learned a lot here.
And I'm sorry that we're right up here gaining on the time wall.
But to hear you tell this story, Pete, it sounds just like the Waco massacre, even to the point of going in and putting a bomb on the roof.
At Waco, of course, they told the people, you're not allowed to come out.
If you do come out, we'll shoot a flashbang grenade at you.
Everybody's forced to stay inside, destroy all the exits and staircases and everything.
And then they went in there, at least in the case of Waco, they hired it out to the Delta Force to actually bomb the people to death.
But anyway, they drove the tanks, the FBI agents drove the tanks there.
This is just amazing again.
I'm sorry, I'm going on.
It's libertyontour.com, Pete Ayer and Adam Miller.
Thank you both so much for your time.
I'm sorry, Adam, you didn't get a chance to say too much.
We'll be back.
