My thoughts on the HBO series "The Anarchists" for those who may be interested, with 2 episodes left to air, and as an outside observer and 6 times speaker and attendee at the conference.
For all the bad press this series seems to be attempting to bring to the Anarchist movement by the focus it brings onto particular individuals that support the narrative it wishes to construct, there is an awful lot that has not been covered. But still in many ways the entire Anarchist series has so far been very revealing, although not particularly honest in its approach... The Freemans very much seem to be being portrayed as the hard suffering hero's in this series, which was certainly not my experience with them at all. Nathan made many speakers and attendees very much feel like second class citizens and was not particularly honest in his motivations. Lisa Freeman is presented as being very righteous, and the series certainly doesn't give any attention at all to Nathan Freeman attempting to lure young anarchist women in to certain dependencies in return for sexual favors as being one of the possible reasons for him being sidelined. Perhaps that detail would not have suited them. But the fact is Anarchapulco was never the Freemans event. They simply managed it in 2017 and 2018.
Their first attempt at The Mundo Imperial was a logistics disaster and an extremely dysfunctional event. It simply didn't work at all. The speakers, the attendees, pretty much everyone, hated the venue, it was about ten times too large. The second at the Princess Palace in 2018 was big and it was successful, but pretty much a roughly run clusterfuck behind the scenes. In 2019 I know for a fact that Jeff Berwick had personally made a huge financial commitment to the event and needed it run properly so he hired a seasoned event manager for it in the hope of at least breaking even. She turned out to be associated with Joby Weeks but who knew at the time... And sure, she was a good organizer, but she had no real clue regarding the nature of the event. That issue maybe could have been fixed if people had been able to put down their egos and work together, but such is never the way with people. Then came the murder and people began cancelling. And then the Freemans started Anarchawakening and deliberately held it at the same time as Anarchapulco purely from spite and in an attempt to divide and undermine the event. That should be obvious to everyone despite Lisa's fluffiness in discussing it as something to "bring healing". Joby Weeks and BitClub has also been presented as one of the main event sponsors, when he was simply one of many. It is very telling that such focus has been placed on him in particular and yes, we can all see where they will likely take that... after all, it makes for good drama TV, and isn't that what our world craves most?
And God love them, but to be honest, throughout the entire period, Lily and John were pretty much a walking clusterfuck who ultimately brought down and ruined everything around them via Johns misguided perception of his own self importance. If they had not believed their own press and thought they were actually special because they were on the run and had gained 6000 subscribers to their story, they never would have given Anarchapulco the negative press they did; they never would have created such a stigma and attempted to showcase themselves as being part of a conference they really had nothing whatsoever to do with by creating the fork; and had they not done so, Johns murder would never have been associated so heavily with Anarchapulco. In reality, Johns death had absolutely nothing to do with Anarchapulco or with the Anarchist movement at all. John was killed because he was dealing drugs in Cartel country. He was warned many times that Acapulco is a Cartel town. You can come here and claim you are an anarchist and sure that's fine, do what you can to get by. But when all is said and done you need to remember you are on owned turf and there are some things you simply do NOT do in Acapulco. One of them is sell drugs.
As far as the conference goes, John and Lily were never part of the event and were never associated with it until they tried to be by creating Anarchaforko. They were complete outsiders who had zero to do with the event. They were only there because Jeff had helped them with advice on how to enter Mexico and had given them a ticket to the conference. But it becomes very obvious they felt that, because of their story, they really should have been one the main events. A common folly of believing ones own press...
Something in episode 4 that I found quite revealing was - and, well, I like Lily and i can appreciate she has had a hard life and been through some bad shit - but i find it interesting and somewhat revealing that she had said a lot of stuff right throughout the series to that point about them not being involved with selling drugs or working with the local competition, and yet then right at the end of episode 4 she readily admits that She and John were fighting a lot, he would often go out for extended periods and the true reality is that she actually had zero clue whether john was selling the oppositions coke or not... wtf??? (quick blame shift... er, dunno... wasn't me... maybe someone in my office)
Despite any suspicions that have been directed at Paul Propert, Johns death was absolutely a Cartel hit. I live in Acapulco and I have first hand accounts from reliable sources who often visited them that yes, they were dealing cocaine. Even Lily herself said it was a Mexican kid doing the shooting. If Paul had really wanted to shoot John he would have done it himself and if he tried to 'hire a hit man' they would have asked him for USD20k simply because he was a gringo. Gringos don't employ kids looking to get made to go and kill people for them. The Cartel does. And Johns death was 100% a Cartel hit. Period.
And again, I like Lily, I can appreciate her circumstances, and I love the growth she has made through all this, but in an honest appraisal I have to say that in this instance her story has more holes in it than the covid narrative. In fact When putting their actions and John's subsequent murder into perspective in regard to the conference it can be said that Lily and John's involvement, or rather their would be, and perceived involvement in Anarchapulco through their own actions and the extremely bad choices they made, only ultimately served to undermine and cast a very bad light on a fledging movement and fast growing event that they actually had zero association with at all.
Jeff Berwick, who actually helped the producers of this documentary series with fund raisers so the film could be completed, has been backstabbed and portrayed in the most unfavorable and dishonest of ways; The Freemans are seen as the hero's when nothing could be further from reality. Lily has been portrayed as the poor downtrodden heroine and the entire series seems to have actually been created to not only shine a bad light on Mexico and destroy any true concept of the Anarchist movement, but to also pull at enough heart-strings to hopefully get Lily a pardon so the producers can make a part 2 series on "Lily's path back to life" - and maybe grab a couple more million from HBO for a follow up in the process. And don't get me wrong here. I hope Lily does get a pardon. She deserves it. But I think the producers' motivations in possibly helping her get one are somewhat less than honorable.
By it's omission of so much vital and relevant data, all in all, this documentary has been a dismally biased and factually dishonest hit piece against the freedom movement and has been produced in such a way as to portray anyone questioning the system as a fool. It appears to have also been created in a manner so as to deliberately make Acapulco, and Mexico in general, appear far more dangerous than it is. With two episodes left to go, will this series finish on a positive note? I'd say it's very doubtful...
Always remember that no matter how genuine they may appear to be, under no circumstances should anyone ever trust or expect honesty from a film maker with ties to the mainstream.
my two cents...