D1. Anarchism

Report from recent demonstration and action outside of BAE Systems in so-called Sterling Heights, Michigan.

From Sterling Heights to Palestine, occupation is a crime. Early on Wednesday morning, January 17th, 45 anti-imperialist, pro–Palestine activists blockaded the only two entrances to BAE Systems manufacturing and testing center in Sterling Heights, Michigan during peak workday start time, preventing staff and clients from entering the building.

BAE Systems Land and Armaments L.P. is a wholly owned subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc, responsible for the design, development, and production of combat vehicles, ammunition, artillery systems, naval guns, and missile launchers. BAE Systems supplies the Israeli military with a wide variety of weapons, including components for combat aircraft, munitions, missile launching kits, and armored vehicles. BAE technologies are also integrated into Israel’s main weapon systems, including fighter jets, drones, and warships. These weapons are often gifted to Israel through the U.S. government’s Foreign Military Financing program.

BAE’s profits come from making weapons that are being used against international law, for the genocide of the Palestinian people, and maintaining a system of Zionist apartheid laws. This system is enforced by militarized zones, checkpoints, mass arrests, surveillance, torture, and a brutal, 17-year long land, air and sea blockade against Gaza, which prevents food, medical supplies, fuel and water from entering or leaving without Zionist control.

Stopping — and even delaying — the work that creates these profits was the goal of the January 17th action. Preventing staff from starting their workdays disrupts the supply chain of the war machine. The expected expenses — of time and money — to reinforce security and surveillance all accrued extra costs to BAE Systems.

Shutting down business as usual — causing car back-ups and general confusion — on Van Dyke Highway, the main road of the Defense Corridor — and publicly demonstrating in keffiyehs and with Palestinian flags and banners, chanting “GAZA GAZA YOU WILL RISE, YEMEN IS BY YOUR SIDE” to passersby, was the cherry on top.

Shut it down, freeze it out.

The activists turned away cars for 45 minutes at both the north and south entrances before any Sterling Heights PD car showed up. Upon arrival at 7:45am, the cops just sat in their vehicles. Ten minutes later, two cops came out without any winter gear to address the blockade, but lasted less than a minute in the single digit temperatures.

Another 20 minutes later, more officers had arrived and attempted to communicate with the blockade once again, asking to speak with ”the person in charge.”

They did not find one.

Protestors at the north entrance marched to the south entrance to strengthen numbers. The blockade and chants continued.

They outnumbered and outlasted the cops with their dedication to Palestinian liberation. On their terms, at 9AM, all 45 protestors marched together from BAE Systems, across Van Dyke Highway, with no arrests or immediate repression.

Two hours in the freezing cold. Two hours of frozen profits for BAE.

This action occurred two days after Martin Luther King Day, with the primary purpose being disrupting profits of the war machine by any means necessary. Martin Luther King, often lauded for solely his civil rights activism, was a militant anti-war leader. His calls for disobedient resistance to the war machine were centered in this action for Palestine and Yemen. ”A nation that spends more on its military than on programs of social uplift is approaching its social death.” — MLK.

Death to U.S. Imperialism! Long live Palestine and Yemen!

– Michigan General Defense Committee (GDC)

Call for a phone zap in support of the ongoing hunger-strike at Red Onion prison in Virginia from Oakland Abolition and Solidarity. For tips on carrying out a phone-zap campaign, go here.

Since December 26th, 2023, up to 30 prisoners in solitary confinement at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison have been on hunger strike to protest the continued use of torturous long-term solitary confinement. Despite critical concern, outcry from the public and prisoner populations in the state, incarcerated people are still subjected to this brutal practice which has been renamed “restorative housing” since July 1st, 2023 when measures were passed to limit its use in the state.

Leading these prisoners in this effort is longtime prison activist, revolutionary writer and artist, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. Rashid has stated that no one will take any food at all until demands are met. As of the last update from nearly a week ago, Rashid has been taken to the medical wing having refused over 63 meals and lost over 30 lbs. Furthermore, Red Onion prisoncrats have formed a hunger-strike committee that is cutting off all communications possible including phone access, emails, visitation, and even legal calls.

“We have to protect Rashid because he fights for all of us,” said Shupavu wa Kirima, a leader of Rashid’s outside support, on January 18th. Rashid has reported on conditions at Red Onion for over a decade. Rashid and his comrades, several of whom also have chronic health conditions, are putting their health at risk to demand an end to sensory deprivation and torture.

Gather your people!
Boost this call for support.
Call and email all day Tuesday!

Virginia Department of Corrections: Chadwick S. Dotson, Director

• Phone: (804) 674-3000 (then hit “0” for staff, ask for assistant)
• Email: chadwick.dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov

Virginia Department of Corrections: Kyle Rosch, Interstate Compact Liaison
(responsible for Rashid’s transfers)

• Phone: (804) 887-8404
• Email: kyle.rosch@vadoc.virginia.gov

Glenn Youngkin, Virginia State Governor

• Phone (804) 786-2211.
• Email: glenn.youngkin@governor.virginia.gov

Sample script:

Hello, I am calling in support of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson and the hunger strikers at Red Onion State Prison. I am deeply concerned about the continuing brutality and use of long-term solitary that people inside and outside have been protesting.  I am also deeply concerned to hear that Rashid is not receiving appropriate care for his prostate cancer and congestive heart failure. Please transfer Rashid to a facility with a medical center that can address his conditions. Thank you.

We will be sharing updates during the day.
Hit us up with reports of how your calls went!
admin@oaklandabosol.org or DM us on insta @oaklandabosol

To connect with Rashid’s ongoing support campaign:
Email Shupavu wa Kirima – shupavu.wa.kirima[at]gmail.com
Rashid’s writings and support website: rashidmod.com

Articles and media

• WVTF Public Radio, “Virginia prisoners stage a hunger strike to protest solitary confinement” https://www.wvtf.org/news/2024-01-18/virginia-prisoners-stage-a-hunger-strike-to-protest-solitary-confinement
• Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Abu Ghraib Comes to Amerika: Torture Unit under Construction at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison” (October 30, 2010) https://rashidmod.com/?p=119
• Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Virginia Prisoners Hunger Strike at Red Onion State Prison” (December 28, 2023) https://rashidmod.com/?p=3539
• Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Beating Time: Racist Abuse Continues at Red Onion State Prison” https://rashidmod.com/?p=3534

Anarchist prisoner Sean Swain reflects on his ten year radio anniversary as part of the Final Straw.

Listen and Download HERE

Sean Swain is an anarchist prisoner who’s serving an indeterminate sentence in Ohio for an act of self-defense. Sean has authored 3 books (one co-authored with Travis Washington) and released an album of his music (with collaboration of a number of artists) while behind bars. Sean is also a dear friend and collaborator on The Final Straw for 10 years, now. We’re sharing here a conversation Bursts had with Sean Swain to mark the 10th anniversary of Sean’s (mostly) regular segments on the show, You Are The Resistance.

The show notes will be chock full of links to segments and articles worth checking out, but you can find a full rundown of Sean’s audios on the first link labeled “You Are The Resistance”, our first interview with him about the Army of the 12 Monkeys linked in the first paragraph and a whole bunch more writings and audio at SeanSwain.Org and at our website. You can find contact info there to reach out to Sean if you want to strike up a conversation.

Links to materials as they come up in the conversation:

• You Are The Resistance Archive
• Sean’s first segment
• an interview with Ben Turk
• Sean’s writeup about the attempted cell extraction during A12M situation
• A12M inerview, Sean’s first appearance on TFSR
• A12M writeup on Sean’s blog (some broken links)
• Sean Swain Run for Governor 2014
• A statement on 2014 segment by Sean about his Presidential run for 2016
• Sean’s OSP hungerstrike, one segment
• The FBI Can Go Fuck Itself
• Ohio: The Truth Behind Bob’s Lanes online book
  LBC isn’t online right now, but apparently a fuller version is in the published edition
• Ihsan reading a statement by Sean when Sean was incommunicado
• Some background on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (per A12M as Animal Enterprise) and the Green Scare, our interview with Will Potter
• Sean Swain’s folk punk album, Burning Down
• Sean Swain’s finger getting cut off
• UNHCR testimony information
• Swain 2020 election discussion on AnarchistNews.Org
• Sean’s post on losing his father
• Kevin Rashid Johnson’s website
• Our interview with Rashid in 2018
• A more recent interview with a comrade of Rashid about his medical neglect
• Sean’s Opposing Torture book

Other Interviews with Sean Swain

• Political Prisoners channel on YouTube
• Sean’s Guerrilla Litigation and Re-Imagining Outside Support
• PrisonsKill interview with Sean on 12 Monkeys

Celebrities reading Sean Swain’s segments:

• John Zerzan
• The Stimulator

In today’s column, we have a roundup of Palestine solidarity actions from the last month and a half, news from land defense struggles in so-called B.C., and international student and tenant solidarity actions.

2024 started on the right foot with noise demonstrations for prisoners in Hamilton and Montreal. A report back from Hamilton read:

…we made our annual stop at the Barton Jail, the monument to misery that looms over downtown Hamilton. We came prepared with fireworks, smoke, and paint, and nicely decorated the jail while providing a show for folks inside. There’s a distinct feeling watching every window for three stories fill with silouettes waving and banging on their windows, while you and your crew shout and wave back, filling the night air with as much noise and light as you can. Despite the heavy force of oppression that pushes down on all of us every day, we’ll continue to push back, to fight the fear and isolation, and dream of a free world.

On January 12th, three Indigenous land defenders were found guilty of criminal contempt in a B.C. Court for  breach and prior knowledge of an injunction. The alleged breach occurred while defending Wet’suwet’en territory and the Wedzin Kwa from Coastal GasLink’s pipeline construction in 2021. The three land defenders were arrested during the raids of Gidimt’en Checkpoint and Coyote Camp. This week, the court will consider an application to stay the charges based on Charter of Rights violations and use of force during the arrests.

Palestine Solidarity

As Israel’s siege on Gaza passed the 100-day mark this week, protests and actions across the country have continued to call for a ceasefire and end to the occupation.

Office occupations continued, including the targetting of Israel shipping company Zim in Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa. Rail blockades, also targetting Zim, took place in London and Halifax.

Blockade at CN rail in Halifax. SOURCE: @WBWCanada

Blockades of weapons and ‘security systems’ manufacturers took place in Waterloo and Mississauga.

Protests took on a new angle as Christmas holidays and consumerism came into sharp contrast with the ongoing genocide. Many protests targeted shops and malls, especially those with direct ties to Israel. People also took to the streets in downtown Vancouver and Montreal to disrupt New Years Eve celebrations in solidarity with Palestine.

In Vancouver, Indigo stores were shut down on multiple occasions.

In Toronto, protesters filled the downtown Eaton Centre to sing songs for a ceasefire. The gathering was quickly and aggressively broken up by police.

On another occasion, people protested outside a Zara, also in the Eaton Centre.

In Montreal, some anarchists took a clandestine approach, using the cover of darkness to attack a Indigo store:

In the early morning of January 13th, we took an action in solidarity with the arrestees of November 23rd, 2023, in Toronto. The Toronto police poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into breaking into homes, handcuffing the elderly, sacking personal belongings, and terrorizing families. Parents were handcuffed in front of their children. One person arrived home to find their door broken down and a patio chair throw into the front garden. Another family was told not to speak in their mother tongue. The arrestees had allegedly taken a normal action of postering an Indigo bookstore and splashing paint on its facade. The action targeted Indigo founder and CEO Heather Reisman, who funnels Indigo profits into the HESEG Foundation, which provides education grants to individuals who emigrate to Israel to enlist in the IDF, aiding and abetting international recruitment for the Israeli military. Reisman is a core proponent of Canadian support for Israeli settlement and military operations. To further punish the activists, to terrorize others in the Palestinian solidarity movement, and legitimate their persecution, the police encouraged a media narrative that these were antisemitic hate crimes. As the vileness of these raids illustrates, if the police were actually interested in stopping hate-motivated attacks, they would have only to simply not go into work.

The police are not able to protect the advocates and accomplices of genocide everywhere or at all times. We used a fire extinguisher filled with red paint to redecorate the interior of the Indigo store in downtown Montreal, after breaking the windows. No one was arrested.

Politicians were targeted at their fundraisers, homes, and offices.

Rally at home of Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly to demand Canadian state end support of Israel. SOURCE: @hussansk

At the same time, thousands continue to show up in the streets for Palestine.

Toronto Tenants Occupy Landlord Office For Three Days

In Toronto, members of the York Southwest Tenants’ Union staged a successful three-day occupation of their landlord’s office to protest the eviction of one of their neighbours. The resident of 1440 Lawrence Avenue West had been facing eviction over rent arrears, but told she would be allowed to stay if she paid. Then, when she went to the landlord’s office to make the payment, she was told she was being evicted immediately and was locked out of her apartment. Her neighbours swiftly came to her defense, occupying the landlord’s office and demanding she be allowed back in.

The sit-in lasted 74 hours in total, with some visits from police but no escalation. Finally, the tenant was given back her keys and able to access her apartment. The tenant has now been granted an expedited hearing at the landlord tenant board, to investigate her eviction order and to determine if the lockout was illegal. Meanwhile, the tenant union says other residents of the building are being evicted in similar circumstances. Many residents of the apartment complex (though not the one evicted in this case) are part of an ongoing rent strike to protest above the guideline rent increases in their building.

In other militant tenant news, Parkdale Organize is raising money for a free food program organized by tenants out of an occupied apartment unit. The group writes:

In December 2020, Parkdale tenants occupied a vacant unit at the West Lodge towers to distribute food to their neighbours. Tenants continue to occupy a vacant unit for this end to this day. And throughout this December, three years later, the West Lodge tenant committee is asking for support so they can continue this important project. The organizing that you see on social media or in the news is the organizing that occurs in moments of crisis: evictions, rent increases or dire disrepair. And these actions are important.

Behind that, often unseen, lies even more critical organizing work. When we sustain building committees outside of moments of crisis, we are part of building the meaningful connections between neighbours that are necessary for effective actions when crisis does come. But more than that, we fundamentally change the way that we live in our buildings. And we build the collective power to intervene on both the small and large attacks that we, as working class people, face everyday. Neighbourhood organizing is about so much more than rent increases and disrepair. It’s about changing the way we all live together. And supporting the working class initiatives that emerge from that: https://westlodgefoodbank.com

Finally, tenant unions in the US and across so-called Canada recently held a week of action in solidarity with the Montreal Autonomous Tenant’s Union, which for the past few months, has been attacked by landlords in the streets and in the courts. Various tenant unions dropped banners, held benefit events, and participated in a phone-zap campaign. From a report on social media:

Over the course of the week, we organized a Klezmer Benefit Night with Yenne Velt, a phone blast to speak to contractors doing renovations for the Cucurulls (Atwill Morin and MAD Construction), and tabling outside the Cucurulls’ buildings. We also paid a couple of visits to the landlords’ offices: our Tenant Power Choir came by to sing some of their classic solidarity ballads, and a debate (should landlords be abolished?) was held between a few tenants and a mystery landlord.

Thank you to all who participated in the week of action and helped make it clear that corporate and state repression will not stop us from organizing.

Thank you as well to the Los Angeles, Tucson, Madison, and Eugene tenants’ unions for their solidarity across borders. Thank you to the Vancouver tenants’ union and the Comité logement du Plateau Mont-Royal for similar solidarity.

We could use help to cover our extensive legal fees in criminal and civil court, donate a few bucks here.

Follow the Montreal Autonomous Tenant’s Union on social media here.

International Students Stage Multi-day Protest of Algoma University

On January 7th, Indian International students launched an indefinite protest outside Algoma University’s Brampton campus. The protest was started after the group says over 100 international students were failed by a white professor, some for the second time, in a course that is mandatory to graduate. The professor would not provide any explanation or justification for the failing grades. The students would need to pay $3,500 to retake the course, a steep price on top of the already exploitative $22,000 per year tuition fees. Instead, they banded together to demand that the university review the exams to verify whether the failing grades are correct. For three days, they maintained the protest and held marches through downtown Brampton.

In response to the public attention and pressure, Algoma administration reviewed the grades for the course and found them to be ‘abnormally low.’ They applied a bell curve to the grades, increasing the number of passing students. The remaining 32 students were offered study support and a makeup exam that would be marked by a different professor.

By the weekend of January 13th, international students from two other programs at Algoma joined the protest with similar concerns. The students are calling for greater transparency and fairness in assessments from the university.

TMX Construction Disrupted

According to reporting by Ricochet, on December 10th, two land defenders and allies of the Secwépemc people disrupted work at a site along the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion. With the guidance and blessing of a Secwépemc elder, a Cree land defender and a white ecological scientist broke into the site of a bore hole along the expansion route, with the goal of dropping tobacco to the bottom of the hole, and chaining themselves to the site, disrupting work. They were successful on both counts. The two women were eventually discovered by workers and threatened with arrest. After two hours, they left before RCMP arrived.

Construction at this particular site is the result of an adjustment made to construction plans in September 2023. Originally, Secwépemc people were promised that the sacred site, called Pípsell, would be avoided, and that less-disruptive “micro-tunneling” would be used in the area. However, after encountering issues with micro-tunneling, the Trans Mountain Corporation sought and was granted approval from the Canada Energy Regulator to adjust the route into the area and use an more disruptive open trench approach.

On January 12th, the Canada Energy Regulator commission approved a further variance in Trans Mountain’s plans, allowing them to use a different pipe thickness, diameter and coating than was originally approved, as well as granting relief from the requirement to adhere to their “Quality Management Plan”. The hearing was not open to the public.

The Trans Mountain expansion is expected to be completed in early 2024.

Follow Canadian Tire Fire on Mastodon!

Hunger strike at Red Onion prison in so-called Virginia continues. For more information, go here.

Update from Rashid’s support committee, dated January 16th:

I was able to speak to Rashid and actually hear his voice today. There are roughly thirty or more prisoners who are striking now.  He’s missed 63 meals and lost close to 30 lbs since 12/26/2023 when the strike began but he’s determined to keep this up until he is released from solitary and transferred out of Red Onion. He was happy and encouraged to hear about all of the support he and the other strikers are receiving out here.

He needs to be moved somewhere near a major medical facility so that he can resume treatment for his health conditions. He is asking that calls and emails continue to be made to the VADOC and to Gov. Youngkin’s office. If you could make calls on Thursday that would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps, we could all really push to make a deluge of calls on that day as well to overwhelm VADOC and show them just how many people are paying attention to what they are allowing to take place there at ROSP.

Update from Rashid’s support committee, dated January 15th:

I heard from Rashid this afternoon and he has asked me to pass along this info. He was rushed to the emergency room on 01/04/2024 and is still in the medical wing of Red Onion. It is unclear what occurred prior to his being taken out to the hospital or what treatment he may have received while there. He was shouting all of this information through a vent while a third party relayed it into the phone to me. He asks that calls and emails continue to happen to the VADOC and Governer’s office pushing for a transfer back to anywhere that has a medical center that can address his health concerns.

I actually called Red Onion today to check to see what they would tell me about his current condition since Rashid has signed a release of information listing me as his point of contact. I spoke with an Officer Vilbrandt who pretended that he did not know of Rashid or that he is currently on a hunger strike. He then told me that he would not tell me anything about Rashid or his condition. When I gave him my name and told him that Rashid had signed paperwork granting ROSP to release information to me, he told me that I would need to speak with the warden’s secretary who would not be back in the office until Wednesday, 01.17.2024. I plan to call back on this date and will update everyone then.

Please keep calling and emailing the VA Department of Corrections and the governor’s office. I can’t stress enough how important this is. Thank you all!

During the strike, it is being asked that supporters contact the Virginia Department of Corrections as well as the governor of VA to demand an end to this controversial practice. We also need to let them know that the hunger strikers have our full support. The contact info is as follows:

VADOC: Central Administration; USPS P.O. Box 26963; Richmond, VA 23261

David Robinson Phone: 804-887-8078, Email: david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov

Virginia DOC Director, Chadwick S Dotson, Phone: (804) 674-3081 Email: Chadwick.Dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov

VADOC Central Administration

Rose L. Durbin, Phone: 804-887-7921, Email: Rose.Durbin@vadoc.virgina.gov

Beth Cabell, Division of Institutions

Phone: 804-834-9967 Email: beth.cabell@vadoc.virginia.gov

Gov. Glenn Youngkin

Phone: 804-786-2211 Email:glenn.youngkin@governor.virginia.gov

Photo by Lars Dunker on Unsplash

For over six years, Appalachian people have been waging a non-stop campaign of direct action to stop the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), causing the project to be “six years behind schedule, [and] about half a billion dollars over budget.” Locals and their supporters are fighting the MVP for a variety of reasons: threats to their land, to stop the pollution of watersheds and eco-systems, and to block the “90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide” that will be pumped into the air over the next few decades the pipeline is expect to be operational. The corporate giants behind the MVP have amassed hundreds of violations of environmental laws and forced land owners to sell their properties in the path of the pipeline. Up until recently, the project was thought to be dead in the water, until it was resurrected by Joe Manchin, through the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and with the help the Biden administration, was fast tracked through the permit process.

But while legal avenues to stop the project have dissipated, the fight to stop the pipeline through direct action has continued full steam ahead in the hollers of Appalachia. Since 2018, It’s Going Down has spoken with folks about their fight against the MVP, and in early 2024 we reached out again to ask how the campaign has managed to continue to both take action, build community support on the ground, and also deal with a new flood of legal repression from State and corporate threats: ranging from felony charges, injunctions, and SLAPP suits.

As Prism reported:

The protests at the center of [a recent] injunction took place in July, August, and early September and involved people locking themselves to equipment or otherwise blocking construction, creating work stoppages, and preventing further damage to the land. The lawsuit claimed that these work stoppages, the longest lasting seven hours, violated the company’s property rights. Additionally, the lawsuit cited Virginia’s right-to-work law guaranteeing a workplace without “interference or threats” and a state code that prohibits picketing that impedes free entrance into “any premises.”

The lawsuit asked the judge to award compensatory and punitive damages of more than $1.3 million, as well as additional damages of $3 million levied against individual protesters and the grassroots organizations Appalachians Against Pipelines and Rising Tide North America, which facilitated bail fund donations. Activists say the pipeline is halfway complete, though the company claims construction is 94% complete and that protests are preventing the final pipe sections from going into the ground for the pipeline to be complete by early 2024.

With protesters potentially on the hook for millions of dollars, the lawsuit is the company’s most ardent escalation to stop direct actions against the project. Legal scholars are concerned that lawsuits like these are a blatant attempt to “chill” protest activity and dissent against climate harm. As Prism previously reported, fossil fuel companies, police, and state governments collaborate on legislation that effectively muzzles those who disagree with extractive projects.

What follows is a written interview with anonymous members of Appalachians Against Pipelines, conducted over email, about the campaign, why people continue to fight, and the group’s upcoming call for ‘days of action’ (January 29th – 31th) against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. For more voices on the ground fighting the MVP, check out our recent podcast interview with folks, here.

It’s Going Down (IGD): Where does the campaign against the MVP sit right now?

Appalachians Against Pipelines (AAP): In the summer of 2023, the MVP got the green light to finish all remaining construction; this includes over 1,000 water ways, Poor Mountain which was home to the Yellow Finch Treesits, and through the Jefferson National Forest, where the direct action movement against the MVP began. This means that pipeline construction has been going full force since then – there is work happening everywhere. You can’t go anywhere in the area without seeing evidence of the destruction caused by the pipeline. They are currently drilling underneath the Appalachian Trail on Peters Mountain, which is where the first treesits in 2018 happened, and is a place a lot of people in this community deeply care about.

Treesitter fights the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in 2021.

Since the summer, people have been throwing down to stop this newest wave of construction. When Joe Manchin and Biden leveraged an entire global socio-economic crisis to get MVP its permits in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the new law stated that those permits and the pipeline could not be challenged in court. This means that an entire avenue of fighting the MVP through lawsuits has been erased, which really only leaves one way to stop construction: direct action. Since the summer, people have stopped work with everything from blockading access roads and construction sites to people locking themselves to drills to dance parties on the pipeline easement that caused short work stoppages. The resistance here in Appalachia is made up of people of all ages from all different backgrounds. There has been an open call for folks to come to the region since July.

“When Joe Manchin leveraged an entire global socio-economic crisis to get MVP its permits in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the new law stated that those permits and the pipeline could not be challenged in court. This means that an entire avenue of fighting the MVP through lawsuits has been erased, which really only leaves one way to stop construction: direct action.”

Not only has resistance to the pipeline ramped up, but so has state and company repression against pipeline opponents and people who have taken direct action. The state has been using trumped up felonies and threats of serious jail time to try and scare people away from fighting the pipeline. People have been arrested, bailed out, and re-arrested on new charges.

There is a series of SLAPP suits targeting land defenders filed in West Virginia, Virginia, and in federal court. The largest of these SLAPP suits is seeking damages of over $4 million, all because people are resisting this pipeline and against what it stands for. These SLAPP suits have historically been used by corporations to punish and threaten people who have been fighting against these types of projects. They are scare tactics designed to quash dissent.

We are calling for solidarity days of action at the end of January to push back against this wave of repression. When our fights are targeted with repression and scare tactics, it’s time to ramp up resistance, fight harder, be louder.

IGD: Tell us about the upcoming call for solidarity. What’s the goal?

AAP: Appalachians Against Pipelines is calling for a wave of solidarity actions January 29th – 31st. A lot of the companies, banks, and investors behind the MVP have offices and headquarters across the country; they are not faced with the daily destruction that they are causing. AAP is calling for people across the country to bring the fight against the MVP to the doors of all those who are profiting off of this project by organizing actions in their own communities.

Obviously, our fight is much bigger than ourselves and just this pipeline. The banks that fund the MVP are the same banks that are funding the genocidal Zionist apartheid. Since October, Israel has murdered over 20,000 Palestinians, fully supported and supplied by our own government and our banks. These are also the same banks that are funding Cop City in Georgia. We are approaching one year since the police murdered Tortuguita in Atlanta during the Weelaunee forest occupation. Now, people are facing domestic terrorism and RICO charges for taking a stand against Cop City. Wherever there is violence targeting our communities, either through environmental destruction or bombs falling or police violence, there are banks and investors ensuring it all happens, profiting off the death and pain and devastation.

Lockdown to construction equipment in 2019.

We also want No MVP actions across the country to stand in solidarity with the No DAPL fight. People are currently facing civil RICO charges, subpoenas, and increased political repression for their ongoing resistance to DAPL. When calling for solidarity actions to fight the MVP, we hope to draw attention to these critical connections, and we want folks to connect all of these struggles when planning actions.

IGD: There’s been a lot of attempts by the company and state to attack the movement. Talk about the ongoing repression and the SLAPP suits. How have people been dealing with that?

APP: Right now, there is a wave of repression targeting the direct action movement against the MVP. This past summer, when pipeline construction first started, there was a series of community walk-ons that resulted in work stoppages. From there, the resistance to the pipeline has grown over the past months, as has retaliatory repression being thrown at people from both the state and the corporation.

At least 50 land defenders are facing SLAPP suits from the company in multiple state and federal jurisdictions. The largest of these suits is seeking damages of over $4 million from pipeline opponents. MVP (really Equitrans Midstream) is suing anybody who is putting their body on the line to stop this project, as well as people offering support to the movement. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, and they are nothing new. The treesitters at the Yellowfinch treesits (a blockade on the pipeline route that lasted an incredible 932 days) also faced SLAPP suits that were used to try and scare people off from defending some of the last remaining trees on the pipeline route.  They have been used to target land defense activists and water protectors, union organizers, people fighting logging projects . . . really anyone who is standing up to corporate greed, destruction, and oppression.

“Resistance to the pipeline has grown over the past months, as has retaliatory repression being thrown at people from both the state and the corporation.”

Not only have people been facing civil litigation, we’ve also seen prosecutors and judges throw trumped up felonies at people, deny bail, set ridiculously high bails, re-arrest people at their court dates for new charges, and seek serious jail time for misdemeanor charges. Someone was recently sentenced to 3 months in jail for misdemeanor charges in Montgomery County, VA.  Meanwhile, in Giles County, VA, people are facing bullshit felony abduction and theft charges for a lock down during a mass action in October. It’s important to note that this level of retaliation and repercussions has escalated compared to what this campaign has historically seen for folks taking action to stop construction over the years.

Mass action shuts down pipeline construction in early 2024.

Much of this repression is being fought in court by lawyers (if you’re able please do donate to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund: https://bit.ly/APPLegalDefense). But a lot of how folks are dealing with this wave of repression is having each others backs in and out of the court system. And part of this call for solidarity actions is to show how the wider movement supports us. A big part of this is recognizing that when our movements are being attacked, it’s not the time to back down, but instead of fight harder, be louder, and do more. That feels tough on the ground right now. That’s why we’re asking folks to join this struggle by organizing their own actions to support.

IGD: How has the campaign sustained itself after all this time and also after facing so much resistance from the state?

APP: The direct action campaign has been going on since 2018 and the broader fight against the MVP has been going on for much longer than that, since this pipeline was first proposed. This movement has always been a mix of folks who have lived in this region their whole lives, as well as people from across the country who have come in solidarity to take action against the MVP. This means there has consistently been new energy and continuous community building in the fight. Direct action resistance here is grounded in local ties to people who are directly impacted by the pipeline, as well as the rad history of this region. Appalachia has always been a place of resistance – resistance to colonization, extraction, destruction, you name it. And this movement really draws off of the history of the movement against Mountaintop Removal in the coalfields. When your movement is based in a long line of struggles in a region, it becomes stronger and lasts longer.

“This fight is also not solely about this pipeline. It’s not solely about how many trees they cut, or streams they poison, or cubic feet of gas they will transport. It’s a fight against what the pipeline represents and for a better world. And a lot of things, like judges and lawsuits, really pale in comparison to that.”

To be honest, a large part of why this struggle continues is simply because there continues to be active pipeline construction after all these years. The original proposed end date for the MVP was 2018. Direct action tactics have effectively played a huge role in the delay overall. We’re here to stop the pipeline and want to stop it the best we can every step of the way. When you see what the companies are doing the mountains around you it’s hard to quit fighting, even with the increased state repression. This fight is also not solely about this pipeline. It’s not solely about how many trees they cut, or streams they poison, or cubic feet of gas they will transport. It’s a fight against what the pipeline represents and for a better world. And a lot of things, like judges and lawsuits, really pale in comparison to that.

Treesit blocks the path of pipeline construction in 2018.

This movement also dedicates itself to supporting folks who take action and risk their safety and freedom when fighting the pipeline. And that focus on building relationships and making sure people have the information and legal support they need really builds trust. We are a community that always has each others’ backs in a real way – in the trees and in the courts. So many people come back time and time again to be a part of this struggle, and a large part of that is they know there is such community support behind this fight.

IGD: Where can people go to learn more about the week of action?

APP: People can check out Appalachians Against Pipelines on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  A lot of the information for the call for solidarity actions is on there as well as a lot of updates as to what’s been going on.

People can also check out our solidarity website that has a lot of information about secondary and tertiary targets in the fight against the MVP.  You can check out maps, find targets by state, and just in general more about the who, what, and where of the companies and banks behind the pipeline. So that’s: https://bit.ly/NOMVPTARGETS

Also on our solidarity website you can find resources to help share the call to action (https://www.aapsolidarity.org/plan-solidarity-actions) and the action toolkit if you are organizing a solidarity action and want to know how to plug in to the days of action (https://www.aapsolidarity.org/sm-toolkit)

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we present an interview with former anarchist political prisoner Eric King along with Josh from the Certain Days calendar collective. During our interview, we speak with Eric about the impact and importance of prisoner support during his nearly 10 years of incarceration and his thoughts about building large-scale prisoner support and a robust abolitionist movement.

We also touch upon the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it spread inside the prison walls, and the racial dynamics that played out between prisoners and guards during the rise of Trumpism.

Eric and Josh argue that anti-repression organizing and support for political prisoners cannot remain sidelined within social movements, but must be something that we center within the wider abolitionist struggle.

More Info: Eric King interview on the Final Straw, Rosenberg Fund for Children, Eric King on Instagram, Certain Days calendar collective, Rattling the Cages: Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners

Music: Dawn Ray’d, “Freedom in Retrograde”

Welcome, to This Is America, January 13th, 2024.

In this episode, as we get back into the grove of a new year, we bring you a variety of voices from across the so-called United States.

From Seattle, we speak with one person about the recent destruction of the Black Lives Matter memorial garden by the police. We discuss how the garden and various mutual aid programs grew out of the 2020 rebellion, and how its destruction is linked with increasing calls by city officials to attack the houseless and poor.

We then speak with two folks involved in Appalachians Against Pipelines, about how the campaign has maintained momentum since 2018, while also facing down SLAPP suits and increasing repression. We then talk about their call for an upcoming week of action against the MVP and how people can get involved.

Finally, we present an interview with Eleanor Goldfield about their new film, To the Trees, about ongoing forest defense in so-called Northern California. We talk about making the film, various forest defense campaigns, and creating radical content in an age of corporate social media.

We then switch to our discussion, where we talk the misinformation around retail crime, the attack on People’s Park in Berkeley, and how the city of Seattle weaponized “activist” language to attack the Black Lives Matter memorial garden.

We will be back soon with more news, interviews and events next time!

MUSIC: Ash Bricky, No$hu, and GLOSS.

Long running anarchist publication Anathema out of so-called Philadelphia returns for a new issue.

Volume 10 Issue 1 (PDF for reading 8.5×11)

Volume 10 Issue 1 (PDF for printing 11×17)

In This Issue:

• What Went Down
• Fashion
• Things Are Getting Weirder
• Shifts In The Philadelphia Anarchist Space
• World War III?
• What The Fuck Does Reconstruction Even Mean To Y’all?

Photo by Victor Behrens on Unsplash

On the morning of January 12th, 2024, anti-fascists in the Inland Empire in Southern California responded to some Proud Boy graffiti on a billboard in Colton, California. The message said “Fuck Joe Biden, Free the Proud Boys,” accompanied with the gold laurel wreath logo used by the hate group.

https://itsgoingdown.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/inlandvid1.mp4

An artistic decision was made and within a few hours the message read, “Fuck Joe Biden AND the Proud Boys,” along with a few other embellishments.

Proud boys in the area have been experimenting with new tactics for displaying their messages after local activists started capturing their banners and modifying them into community art projects.

Solidarity forever,
-anonymous anti-fascists

A look at the rise of labor action and wildcat strikes in the face of climate change. Originally published in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review and LibCom.

Green syndicalism puts the connectedness of ecological crises and crises of working-class life at the center of analysis—as outcomes of capitalism. It emphasizes ways in which exploitation of labor and the exploitation of nature go hand in hand and develop together. It also centers the importance of working-class resistance in ending the capitalist social system that causes, and thrives on, both.

Climate crises, which have moved beyond crisis to pose an existential threat to numerous life forms on the planet, disproportionately impact the working class—especially the poorest, most precarious, racialized sectors of the working class globally. Appropriately, heat waves have become a focus of labor action in a range of industries.

According to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 53 workers died in the US due to temperature extremes in 2019, and the climate crisis is creating more, and new, hazardous conditions for workers, as heat waves, heat domes, and extreme heat become more regular and extensive. Between 1992 and 2017, heat stress killed 815 US workers while seriously injuring more than 70,000. Extreme heat kills more people each year than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, all of which are also becoming more frequent, in the US, according to the National Weather Service. On the whole, about 700 people die from heat-related illnesses each year. And the situation is only getting worse.

The number of “hot days” recorded in the United States has been increasing over decades. The 2018 National Climate Assessment, a major scientific report by 13 federal agencies, found that the frequency of heat waves increased from an average of two per year in the 1960s to six per year by the 2010s. It is not only the frequency of heat waves that is increasing, but the duration of each heat wave. The National Climate Assessment concluded that the season for heat waves is now a full 45 days longer than it was in the 1960s.

The impacts of capitalist climate crises, which disproportionately harm working class people, impel new strategies and tactics for working class organizing, as well as novel deployments of tried-and-true actions—such as wildcat strikes. Notably, we are seeing a revival of walkouts and wildcats against unsafe and unhealthy working conditions in the context of heat waves and heat domes, especially as these become more intense and more frequent.

Fast Food Worker Wildcats

Fast-food workers face awful heat conditions, struggling in hot kitchens as some of the largest multinational corporations on the planet refuse to provide even basic air conditioning or ventilation infrastructure. In response workers have turned to spontaneous walkouts or longer wildcat strikes to protect themselves and make demands on employers for health and safety protections.

The heat wave of June and July 2023, sparked several walkouts by fast food workers across the US West Coast—suggesting possibilities for heat wave wildcats as rank-and-file, autonomous, workers’ direct actions against capitalist death conditions. A McDonald’s near Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles walked out and staged a protest in June to demand the company repair its air-conditioning unit.

Workers at a Sacramento, California, Jack in the Box went on strike when temperatures inside the restaurant hit as high as 109 degrees Farenheit. In a complaint filed with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Sacramento County Public Health, the workers reported that the air conditioning at the store was frequently broken, and that management had not put in place any plans to keep workers safe from excessive heat exposure.

That same week, workers at a Voodoo Doughnut store in Portland, Oregon, staged a walkout over heat conditions. Through the Doughnut Workers United union, they said that temperatures were so high that doughnuts were melting and the frosting would not dry.

On August 18, workers at the Wendy’s at 4770 Convoy Street in San Diego went on strike over extreme heat and wage theft. They reported dangerous temperatures inside the store as well as workers not being given mandated breaks. Breaks become even more essential during extreme heat conditions, not only so workers can seek cooler conditions but because bodies can become overheated and stressed to levels threatening health. Striking workers claimed that with the air conditioner not working properly management told them to drink water to cool down in 92-degree heat.

Hooters workers in Houston had earlier held a walkout, saying the location went a month without air conditioning. A waitress reported that the store was so hot that the workers would gather in the ice cooler.

Owners and managers in each workplace have, predictably, denied the claims, offering a range of excuses to the media. While some said that measures taken inside the stores showed lower temperatures than workers claimed, others, while admitting that air conditioners were broken claimed they were quickly repaired. Jack in the Box and Hooters notably refused comment.

The 2023 wildcats are not new—fast food workers at McDonald’s in Manhattan and a Dunkin’ Donuts in Chicago went on strike in 2013 against being forced to work in stifling conditions with no air conditioning—though they may be increasing in frequency as word of the tactic circulates, and as heat waves become hotter and longer. In 2021 a full shift of McDonald’s workers in Detroit walked out of their store. They took the step of documenting the action on TikTok. In a video they posted a group of workers leave the store, explaining on camera that the temperature inside is unbearable due to the lack of air conditioning: “It is burning up in there; it is hot like an oven. We decided to not come back till the air comes back.”

Delivery Workers

In 2023, heat waves became a central issue in bargaining for workers at several delivery companies. On June 24, 84 Amazon delivery drivers, members of the Teamsters, in Palmdale, California, went on an indefinite strike over heat conditions. They pointed to Amazon’s requirement that drivers make up to 400 stops per day, even when temperatures exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit, an extremely dangerous situation. Workers reported temperatures as high as 135 degrees in the rear of the truck. They note too that there are no cooling systems in those tight spaces. In addition to a $30 hourly wage, their demands include health and vehicle safety standards, and the right to refuse unsafe deliveries.

Logistics capital has structured itself to avoid accountability and to diminish workers’ capacities. Amazon’s 275,000 drivers are hired through 3,000 third-party subcontractors and Amazon can cancel contracts with little explanation or warning. This makes it especially difficult for workers to organize within traditional union frameworks. The 84 striking drivers in Palmdale legally work for Battle Tested Strategies, which operates out of an Amazon warehouse.

Of course, capital will always be vicious in its pursuit of profit. In response to the strike Amazon immediately announced that the subcontractor “had a track record of failing to perform and had been notified of its termination for poor performance well before today’s announcement.” Amazon also said their contract would expire on June 24 and that morning the 84 drivers found they had no assigned routes.

On 16 June 2023, 340,000 Teamsters union members, UPS workers, declared that they would strike if their demands for improved working conditions–including heat protections–were not included in their new contract with UPS. This would have been one of the largest single-employer strikes in US history.

Between 2015 and 2022, at least 143 UPS employees were hospitalized for heat injuries, according to the company’s own Occupational Safety and Health Administration records, as accessed by the Washington Post. The problem is widespread across the delivery industry. According to government records, since 2015, at least 270 UPS and United States Postal Service drivers have been made sick, and in numerous cases hospitalized, due to heat exposure.

Logistics workers are under intense pressure to speed up and move things quickly. Companies like UPS have implemented a range of technologies to measure “efficiency” (surplus value extraction), including surveillance cameras and sensors inside trucks. They use a computer program to calculate how long a route should take optimally for profitability. These speed-up pressures, and surveillance and recording mechanisms intensify pressures on workers, making unsafe conditions even more dangerous. Workers’ health and safety advocates point out these forms of surveillance and regulation of workers can impel them to refrain from or reduce taking bathroom breaks, which leads them to drink less water. This adds the danger of dehydration in conditions of heat stress, posing a substantial threat to workers’ health.

Unfortunately, if predictably, Teamsters leadership recommended a deal with UPS that did not address these non-wage issues adequately and left many members frustrated. The tentative deal will only put air-conditioning in one-third of the delivery fleet by the end of five years. These will be rolled out first in the hottest parts of the country. Existing trucks will only be retrofitted with two new fans in the cab, induction vents that will pull hot air out of the cargo area, and heat shields that will cool the cab floor by insulating it from the engine. Prior to the strike notice the company had already tentatively agreed to equip all new delivery trucks in its fleet with air conditioners starting in 2024, as well as installing new heat shields and fans. So, what might a strike have gained beyond this?

Clearly organizing is needed outside of and beyond traditional union structures that are loathe to strike and structured in a bureaucratic top-down fashion. It remains to be seen if workers’ frustrations with the UPS deal will see an upswing in rank-and-file actions, whether rank-and-file committees or environmental working groups. These demands could inspire other workers to push for climate-emergency protections. Of course, these are purely defensive, and will not actually stop the underlying causes of climate crises or their effects.

Heat Strikes in “Charon”

The heat strikes, wildcats, and walkouts have not been restricted to US workers. In Europe they have named this year’s heatwave, ominously as “Charon,” in reference to the mythical ferryman who transported souls to Hades.

McDonald’s workers at two locations in Bari, in southern Italy, declared a strike at the end of July after temperatures hit 104 degrees Fahrenheit. They said that they were being forced to work in boiling temperatures alongside intensely hot kitchen equipment, including hot fryers. The strikers reported that at least two of their fellow workers had fallen ill due to the heat. When the company responded only with ineffectual portable air coolers, one hundred and forty workers got ready to picket at the two locations in question. The strike declaration got the company to agree to close one branch and operate only the drive-in and delivery services in another during those heat conditions, with workers maintaining their pay.

This came as workers in other industries were planning strikes in the face of extreme heat. In Rome, when temperatures hit a record high of 107.2 degrees Fahrenheit (41.8 Celsius), garbage collectors threatened to walk off their jobs if they were forced to work during the hottest part of the day. Bus drivers in Rome and Naples have also threatened to bring transportation to a halt in those cities, emphasizing the lack of air conditioning in their vehicles and the furnace-like conditions that result.

In Greece, where climate crises have seen communities devastated by wildfires in addition to the extreme heat, workers at the Acropolis in Athens, one of the major tourist attractions in the country, have walked off their jobs in protest over the atrocious working conditions there. Unionized workers, staff working at archaeological sites including the Acropolis, announced a daily four-hour strike every day from Thursday until Sunday each week. They reported that at the Acropolis alone 20 visitors had fainted due to heat in the days prior to the strikes.

Greek authorities closed the Acropolis for large parts of the day due to the heat, reopening as temperatures came down slightly. This prompted strike calls. The government then announced that visiting hours for the Acropolis and other archaeological sites would be revised again, in the face of another heat wave. The tourism industry in Greece accounts for 20 percent of the country’s GDP so tourism industry workers can flex some power.

Almost 62,000 people died heat-related deaths in Europe’s heat wave of 2022. The highest death toll was in Italy, with more than 18,000 deaths.

Class Solidarity and Mutual Aid

There are real possibilities for heat strike actions to provide opportunities for working class solidarity on a rank-and-file basis. With workers across numerous industries struggling under shared conditions of extreme heat—and taking often spontaneous direct actions to combat it—there is hope that they will recognize their shared conditions and tactics in struggle. This will, as always, be necessary to effectively address the real issues at play—capital once again putting workers’ lives at risk for profit.

In all of these cases capital still controls working conditions, and workers are subjected to the whims of bosses—whether one boss will choose to put in air conditioning while another chooses not to. Organizing on an industrial basis—confronting employers on an industry-wide, rather than workplace, basis, is essential. Solidarity strikes or boycotts, where called by the workers, could play parts.

One could also see opportunities for class-wide organizing. Fast food workers taking the food out with them, or the food being taken by solidarity groups when workers leave, to give to unhoused neighbors, and other workers, as one example.

These are actions for which syndicalist direct action tactics could be useful. And could connect ongoing community organizing with workplace organizing to boot. For example, flying squads, rapid response networks, with coolers, drinks, and food, pop up tents for shelter, portable fans, could provide solidarity and add to picket strength outside struck workplaces. These could bring in, and build upon, mutual aid groups already working to provide water, hats, fans, etc. to working class folks—while also widening the web of participants in those actions. Putting the mutual in mutual aid.

As the capitalist climate emergency proceeds, with heat waves, heat domes, and extreme heat events, the problem for workers will likely intensify. And the need for increasingly militant direct action and organizing will intensify as well. Perhaps we are seeing the emergence of mobilizations that will give “hot labor summer” a whole new meaning.

Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

On January 18th, cities across the so-called US and beyond will hold events honoring the life and legacy of Tortuguita, responding to a call to declare January 18th “Day of the Forest Defender.” According to a call posted to the counter-info site Scenes from the Atlanta Forest:

On January 18, 2023, Georgia State Patrol officers entered the Weelaunee Forest alongside police from other agencies in the region. They sought to clear the encampments re-established there in the weeks prior. A month earlier, on December 13, a similar operation cleared encampments after a year of struggle, and culminated in the arrest of 6 forest defenders on obscene and fraudulent charges of Domestic Terrorism.

When Patrolmen entered the forest in January, they entered into a long confrontation they had little or no experience with, a confrontation pitting free people, local residents, environmentalists, aspiring revolutionaries, and itinerant insurrectionalists against the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and his submissive City Council, Michael Thurmond and the Dekalb County government, Ryan Millsap and Shadowbox Studios, and all of the contractors hoping to devastate the land, displace its life forms, and replace them with a police training facility and soundstage complex.

This struggle has been something of a burning torch for class confrontation and subversive cultural innovation in the United States for nearly 3 years. It would not be an exaggeration to say this has been the sharpest struggle in North America during the entirety of the Biden-Harris administration.

The nature of this confrontation was altered permanently by the hasty and poorly-made decisions of Jerry Parrish, Bryland Myers, Jonathan Salcedo,  Ronaldo Kegel, Royce Zah, and Mark Jonathan Lamb. These officers ambushed and killed Tortuguita, the nom de guerre with which we knew a 26 year old anarchist living in the forest.

***

In November 2023, the killers working from prosecutor John Fowler’s office coordinated a public leak of Tortuguita’s diary. This diary belongs with the family of the deceased, but is still in the hands of the executioners. Fowler, who is obsessed with the political dynamics of the movement and has worked hard to introduce terms and frameworks which appear nowhere in the penal code (including his inane commentary on anarchism in the indictment), initiated a motion to include scans of the diary into evidence. He pretends to believe that the document contains incriminating information for other defendants still among the living. His actual motivation is clear enough for those who study him: John Fowler is a right wing fanatic who believes that the contents of the diary will somehow demoralize the movement, or deprive it of a martyr. The motion his office filed made the document public record just long enough for reactionary thugs and brainless rightist commentators to publish a rash of hyperbolic and stupefying articles.

MEMORY IS OUR WEAPON

If the authorities can deny the public the right to remember the brutality and cruelty they unleash on those who take action, they can erode the coherence of our theories of struggle. They can lead us to wrong conclusions, by providing us with wrong histories. If they can induce a mindset of amnesia, they can disconnect serious militancy from intermediate struggles, thus depriving subversive groups of a medium for their interventions, and oppressed classes of combative methods. If they can keep us in a state of generalized forgetting, they can abuse communities and groups one after another without ever confronting a unified and sophisticated oppositional movement in turn.

This is why they compell us to move from one “emergency” to the next, scandal to scandal, always forgetting, never developing the power necessary to actually alter the course of events or to wreck the system for good.

In order to build forces capable of doing so, we need time. In order to seize the time, we need the focus and thus the memory.

***

Do not hesitate to organize media, to coordinate speaking events, film screenings, prayer circles, concerts, dinners, or community events in memory of the fallen defenders of the Earth, and of Tortuguita in particular.

For ideas about how to better organize and promote events, check out our Getting Organized column here.

DOWNLOAD POSTER HERE

Upcoming Events Pacific Northwest

Seattle, WA: Vigil in Cal Anderson Park. January 18th.

Portland, OR: Vigil at Grant Park on January 18th.

Corvallis, OR: Westminster House in Corvallis at 6pm on January 18th. For more info see.

Boise, ID: Celebration in Albertson Park, January 18th.

Pacific

Arcata, CA: Vigil on January 18th, Arcata Plaza.

San Francisco, CA: January 20th, Enzyme Cultural Center.

Berkeley, CA: January 18th, Haste and Telegraph.

Oakland, CA: Event TBA

San Pablo, CA: January 18th, vigil at Kennedy Plaza.

Stanford, CA: Report back, White Plaza, January 15th.

Sacramento, CA: Community gathering, Southside Park, January 18th.

Long Beach, CA:  Community gathering, teach-in and vigil, January 18th, Wells Fargo across from Lincoln Park.

Los Angeles, CA: Community vigil and potluck, January 18th, North Hollywood Rec Center.

Southwest

Tucson, AZ: January 18th, memorial and community gathering, 101 E Ventura Street.

Central

Lincoln, NB: January 18th, vigil and rally, Nebraska capitol building, northside.

Denver, CO: January 21st, D3 arts.

Austin, TX: Community vigil on January 18th and benefit show on January 24th.

Houston, TX: Vigil and community gathering, Eastwood Park, January 18th.

San Antonio, TX: January 18th, Brackenridge Park, vigil and gathering.

Midwest

Columbus, OH: January 18th, Coffee Underground, community gathering.

Chicago, IL: January 18th, Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. January 19th, film screening, Pilsen Community Books.

Carbondale, IL: January 18th, Commune community center, potluck and gathering.

Minneapolis, MN: January 18th, community gathering and mutual aid event, New City Center, 3104 16th Ave S.

Lansing, MI: January 18th, community gathering, Wentworth Park.

Southeast

Richmond, VA: January 18th, Shields Lake Theater, community gathering.

New Orleans, LA: January 18th, community gathering, 2111 Dumaine St. Another event taking place at Louis Armstrong Park.

Chattanooga, TN: January 20th, Renaissance Park, community gathering.

Savannah, GA: January 18th, vigil, Forsyth Fountain.

Atlanta, GA: Slow roll for Tort and community gathering. Gresham Park.

Tallahassee, FL: Vigil on January 18th, the Plant.

Asheville, NC: January 18th, Craven and Riverside, community gathering.

Chapel Hill, NC: January 18th, the Forest Theater, community gathering.

Washington DC: January 18th, Malcolm X park, vigil and community gathering.

Northeast

Boston, MA: January 20th, Lucy Parsons Center, community gathering and presentation.

Baltimore, MD: January 21st, Red Emma’s, community gathering.

Pittsburgh, PA: Film showing and benefit, Irma Freeman Center, January 18th.

Philadelphia, PA: January 18th, Clark Park, community gathering.

Binghamton, NY: January 25th, Riot Act Books, Binghamton, NY.

NYC, NY: January 17th, memorial and teach-in, Earthchxrch, 26 Avenue C.

Nationwide Summit in Tucson, AZ February 23rd – 26th:

From February 23rd – 26th, there will be a convergence in so-called Tucson, Arizona against Cop City:

Cop City, the $90M police training facility slated to be built in south Atlanta, would drastically increase police militarization and the spread of violent policing tactics across the world, from Atlanta and the US borderlands to Palestine. The contractors building Cop City are not bound by the geographic limits of one city or state. The movement to Stop Cop City cannot be, either.

From February 23-26th, hundreds of people across the country will converge in Tucson for four days of protests, panels and workshops, live music, and strategy discussions.

To submit an event for the Summit in Tucson, send a social media graphic with the date, time, and location to nationwidesummitarizona@riseup.net

Begin making plans to travel to Tucson with your friends in February, and stay tuned in the coming weeks for more information!

STOP COP CITY EVERYWHERE.

Check out updates here.

Event going down near you that we missed? Contact us at info at itsgoingdown dot org to let us know!

Call to support long-time antifascist organizer Daryle Lamont Jenkins. Originally posted here.

Donate HERE

On New Years Day 2024 Daryle Lamont Jenkins was admitted to a hospital in the New Jersey area, three days later and he is still there. Doctors have removed several blood clots and are now concerned with his kidneys.

Daryle has been fighting for the cause of civil rights in the United States for well over a quarter of a century, traveling over the country at his own expense, giving help to all of us whenever we needed it- he now needs our help to heal.

I am writing this asking for your help. Daryle is going to need time to heal and get well, not get out of the hospital and get back to work- that may cause damage that there is no coming back from, so we are asking for funds that will help with rent and bills and food while he recuperates.

Your generosity is appreciated it will allow him to continue this important work that too few people are willing to do on all of our behalf.

Update

A quick update- first of all we are at 25 percent of our goal ( as of writing this ) and Daryle would like to thank everyone for sharing and giving to this fund raiser.

Daryle is continuing his rehabilitation and going to Doctor appointments, and is getting healthier every day. He is looking forward to getting back to the work he was born to do.

With that said we would ask that you continue to share this go fund me to your social networks and helps get to 100 percent filled.

Report on recent demonstration in so-called Bloomington, IN calling on Nationwide to drop support of Cop City. Originally posted to Bloomington Weelaunee Defense Society. 

10 members of Bloomington Weelaunee Defense Society held a protest this past Friday at First Insurance Group (FIG) in Bloomington, Indiana. This is just the latest in an ongoing series of protests in Bloomington and around the country intended to pressure Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company to drop its complicity in the Cop City project.

FIG, among its other providers, sells insurance by Nationwide, whose subsidiary Scottsdale Insurance Co. is the primary insurer of Cop City.

Our protest brought the attention of passers-by to the harmfulness of Nationwide’s partner choice, and called on employees of First Insurance Group to internally communicate their opposition to Nationwide’s support of Cop City and the Atlanta Police Foundation.

We showed up with posters, a beautiful banner honoring Tortuguita (murdered almost a year ago by police in the Weelaunee Forest) and flyers, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. After delivering FIG employees a flyer and explaining our demonstration, they agreed to take the issue to their Human Resources department. We were glad to receive encouraging waves from employees in the building, who seemed interested in the demonstration. We also handed out flyers to people passing by on the sidewalk, inviting them to join in our collective responsibility to end our community’s ties to the project.

We invite all opponents of Cop City to join us in regularly organizing these small and simple yet effective protests—which can be planned on short notice to great success—to tell your local businesses and their clients that it’s time to break off their complicity in the Cop City project.

We won’t stop till they stop – cop city will never be built!

Statement of solidarity from the Blue Ridge Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) with ongoing hunger strike in so-called Virginia at the Red Onion State Prison.

Since December 26th, 2023, political prisoner Rashid Johnson and 14 other prisoners at Red Onion State Prison located in the southwest Virginia town of Pound have been sustaining a hunger strike over the human rights violation of long term solitary confinement.

Under the United Nations’ Mandela Rules, solitary confinement amounts to torture. Torture was prohibited under the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture. Despite the recent passage of House Bill 2487 — which was meant to restrict the use of solitary confinement — the Virginia Department of Corrections has continued on with the practice unabated, renaming it “restorative housing.”

The hunger strikers have sought legal recourse prior to the strike to address these issues with no resolution. Having exhausted all options, they have been forced to engage in the hunger strike as a last resort. Their demands are as follows:

• Release prisoners from “restorative housing”
• Restore visitation rights of prisoners so families may check on them
• Access for families to inspect conditions of prisoners
• The transfer of Rashid Johnson back to Sussex I prison for proper medical treatment for cancer and congestive heart failure

The Blue Ridge IWW stands in solidarity with the Red Onion prisoners on hunger strike. We call on the Virginia Department of Corrections and the Youngkin administration to meet their demands and to stop the use of torture as defined by the United Nations.

We call on all supporting organizations and individuals to endorse this statement and sign this petition asking for the Red Onion hunger strikers’ demands to be met by the state of Virginia.

Supporters are also encouraged to contact the following officials to meet the strikers’ demands:

–  David Robinson, VADOC Central Administration, 804-887-8078, david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov

–  Virginia DOC Director Chadwick S Dotson, 804-674-3081, Chadwick.Dotson@vadoc.virginia.gov

–  Rose L. Durbin, VADOC Central Administration, 804-887-7921, Rose.Durbin@vadoc.virgina.gov

–  Beth Cabell, Division of Institutions, 804-834-9967, beth.cabell@vadoc

–  Gov. Glenn Youngkin, 804-786-2211, glenn.youngkin@governor.virginia.gov

Photo by Milad Fakurian on Unsplash

Report on noise demo on New Year’s Eve in so-called Tucson, Arizona. To see a full roundup of noise demos on NYE across the US, go here.

On New Years Eve 2023, the three-foot thick concrete walls and double razor wire topped fences of the Pima County Jail once again proved ineffective barriers to our collective action of reaching those locked inside.

As we gathered outside the jail walls, we screamed, banged pots, played instruments, exploded fireworks, and blasted music, while those on the inside flashed the lights on and off in their cells to let us know our message was received. Through these actions we achieved direct communication without the consent of their captors, without complying with the ridiculously strict mail policies that recently banned sending letters inside, and without paying the parasitic companies that charge us to make calls to our loved ones inside while nosey pigs listen in on our intimate conversations. For an hour and a half the walls of the Pima County Jail gave, and direct communication was possible.

While we acknowledge the content of our message was limited by the form that it needed to take, we commit to deepening our relationships to those inside by any means imaginable. Our creativity is our weapon and we engage in dual political development and struggle with our imprisoned equivalents. While the prisons and jails are spaces of concentrated state power, oppression, harm and premature death, we know they are also spaces of deep study, creative innovation and militant confrontation. We strive to match those on the inside in our study and struggle by chipping away at our side of the wall–sometimes incrementally and sometimes with a bulldozer.

https://itsgoingdown.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/tucmov1.mp4

We will continue to construct wrenches of delay and disruption to destroy the possibility of a new jail here in Tucson. We will continue to send our message unmediated by bureaucrats and elected officials, who attempt to constrict our resistance through biased digital forms and surveys. We refuse to give our directives to them to dilute and manipulate for their own interests. We will not stand in line or wait around for their crumbs and lies.

We will do the hard work of collaborative direct action as we did on NYE when we took over Silverlake Road near the memorials of three people who lost their lives in the jail. With road flares, construction signs and a rowdy crowd we created a street barricade. As cars sped out getting dangerously close to comrades, we had each other’s backs, tightened our formation and rearranged our barricade. If the county intends to expand the carceral space of the Pima County Jail with a new jail building, we will collectively take militant action to put up barriers to that process and commit to caring for each other in that process.

We will reach towards each other, as we have the knowledge of what our people need and the strength to make it a reality. We will not get sucked into interpersonal and relational drama or discouraged by the time it takes to weave webs of connection and trust between comrades. We are creating a connected battlefront, finding pathways to collaborate with those who may favor different tactics or play separate roles in the revolution.

We will free our minds and hearts, making space for a radical love of the struggle and of our comrades, of a reciprocally nourishing relationship with the land that allows us to reclaim the innocence of finding love in the mud and in the wind. Our fears will not trap us, we will acknowledge and walk through them in sync. We will embrace a messy, fierce, abundant sweetness that connects us more wholly to each other. We will continue building momentum and power side by side so that we can find the cracks in the system and bust them open into oblivion. Join us.

Editorial from a prisoner in the so-called state of Texas on the recent war and genocide unfolding in occupied Palestine.

By Monsour Owolabi, Ferguson Unit

When thinking about the connections between Amerikkkan prisons and the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people at the hands of Israel, there’s a list of parallels that come to mind.

Both the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the human rights violations that fuel prison resistance and abolitionist praxis are fueled by gigantic industrial complexes [the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex]. These complexes and their profitability prevent human decency and human interests equality and justice from taking precedence over corporate and capitalist-imperialist interests.

The role of the police and military, i.e. prison guard or “security force” as an occupying army. A mad-dog, militarized force utilized to be sicced on oppressed people, confined people, unbroken people, exploited people, and anyone on the wrong side of imperialist hegemony.

The usage of these agents of repression to instill terror in the people is the same in both instances.

In both instances, the enemy has demonized struggle, and de-regulated and criminalized self-defense. Israel screams, “Defend Israel’s right to exist,” and many run with that notion, never understanding that under international treaties and standards a nation does NOT have the right to defend itself against the attacks by a nation or people is is currently occupying or colonizing. In Amerikkkan prisons, and on Amerikkkan streets, a person can not defend themselves from police attack, and in events where state agents attack the people, official law protects those agents with “qualified immunity.”

In a Texas town, police attempted to kill a man after his legal advocacy not only helped get one man off death row but exposed deliberate corruption in the local police force. When an officer of that same police force went to kill this man, he happened to wrestle the weapon from the officer and shot his would-be assassin. The man who defended his life was arrested and sentenced to fifty years in Texas prison. That man has spent the last two decades in a US torture chamber. He is political prisoner Alvaro Luna Hernandez, aka Xinachtli, a person denied the right to defend his right to life, similar to the denial of the Palestinian resistance as a legitimate liberation movement defending millions of lives.

In Florida, Othal Wallace is fighting the empire’s “legal” killing machine (death row) after courageously defending himself when an officer attempted to shoot him. After a quick tussle Othal “Ozone” Wallace killed the officer in self-defense. His defense of his life is considered illegitimate, much like those countless Palestinians who’ve lost life, liberty, limb, and safety at the hands of settler-colonialism prior to October 7th. To those people who support Israel, those people do not matter. The Palestinian people are now fighting death row at the hands of Israel’s “legal” killing machines.

Those captive in US prisons and the Palestinian people are state-less human beings with no instrument of governance in existence that maintains, protects, or provides basic rights. Neither can vote for people who make decisions each day that dictate their lives. Both are second class citizens at best. Both experience a separate and unequal existence in comparison to the rest of the Amerikkkan/Israeli populace.

In both experiences the power structure maintains a monopoly on the propaganda and thus warps the public opinion in its own favor.

Gaza has often been called an open-air prison. Palestinians there understand the meaing of a confined existence. They understand being born a suspect. They know what it means to be designated a “security threat group” or “terrorist.” They understand the reality of living under constant surveillance. They know how it feels to be abducted from your community, held captive, and ripped apart from your family. They also know the “fire inside” that rages and plots victory over one’s enemies.

If observing the Palestinian struggles against Israeli domination doesn’t inspire you as a revolutionary, you may be another species other than human. I listened to a woman learn of her husband’s death, and begin to exclaim and shout as if a miracle had happened. She was proud. She was joyful. Her understanding of the liberation struggle of her people made her proud that her husband died for such a worthy cause. She could not bring herself to selfish self-pity. Instead, in the midst of enemy onslaught, she compelled her neighbors, her friends to join her to break bread, sharing what would have been her husband’s portion. What a person! What a fighter!

When taking mental notes of the Palestinian liberation war I am being reminded of our need over here to intensify the struggle, intensify the contradictions. I am reminded there is no commonality between the imperialists and the people, between the enemy state, between the empire and its revolutionary subjects.

International solidarity must not cease or slacken, even in prisons, because a ceasefire is not even the tip of the iceberg in bringing a solution to this conflict.

May the fighting spirit of the Palestinian people become the fighting spirit of freedom fighters everywhere.

#LongLivethePalestinianPeople

#FreePalestine

Monsour Owolabi

Ferguson Unit

Texas “Department Of Correctional Justice”

Photo by ev on Unsplash

Report back on new year’s eve noise demonstration and rally in so-called Vacaville, California. To see a full roundup of noise demos on NYE across the US, go here.

In keeping with tradition, abolitionists from around the Bay Area converged on New Year’s Eve to hold a noise demo at the front gates of California Medical Facility (CMF), a prison in Vacaville that holds approximately 2000 people captive (mostly disabled, immuno-compromised, or in recovery, many elderly). The group numbered around 30-40 and was heard from inside certain parts of the prison, according to several reports. The entrance gate where the action took place was adjacent to a neighborhood, from which a lot of people came out to film and take supportive interest in the event. In between statements and words, we blasted music that echoed throughout the prison property and the surrounding neighborhood. Songs ranged from local classics such as “Punk Police” by Mac Dre to anti-police bangers such as “I Have a Dream, Too” by Dead Prez (a song that famously lists the names of abolitionist martyrs such as George Jackson, Yogi Pinell, and Ruchell Cinque Magee).

Two banners were raised on the fences by the prison entrance; one read “FUCK CDCR”, the other “FREE THE PEOPLE/FREE THE LAND/BURN THE PLANTATION”. The banner colors were red, black and green on an off-white banner, to show appreciation both for our New Afrikan comrades in the prison, and to draw connections between the struggle against the U.S. white supremacist settler State and resistance to the genocidal Zionist occupation of Palestine. We added pink to the banners to signify solidarity with queer and trans prisoners in CDCR, and solidarity with the survivors of FCI Dublin (another scandalous Bay Area prison). Some of the prison’s signs were redecorated with marker.

Speeches were made through a megaphone and wheeled sound system. People who have been involved in support efforts for some comrades imprisoned at CMF shared about the conditions inside this specific facility. Echoing across the premise, they recited facts such as an account of the recent string of targeted raids conducted by a group of guards, who have been planting drugs and items deemed contraband in the cells of Black and Brown prisoners.

Attention was also brought to particular violations of Black women in the visiting rooms, with cops forcing women who wear wigs to remove them from their heads prior to entering for bogus “drug searches.” This, the speaker explained, is part of a pattern of racially-concerted antiBlack harassment in the visiting process at CMF. Black prisoners and their loved ones over the past year have also been frequently subjected to punishment for expressing policy-sanctioned and legally-permitted acts of romantic intimacy. One example in recent months is the suspension of visits for a Black couple as retaliation for sharing a kiss before departing at the end of a recent visit. This heightened control of specifically Black prisoners and visitors persists throughout the entire visitation process, amounting to a systematic attack on Black intimacy and bodily integrity.

Abolitionist organizers are preparing to begin a phone zap and focused campaign, rooted in the principles of autonomous direct action, that addresses these specific conditions by targeting institutional pressure points of CMF/CDCR.

Comrades spoke out in honor of Ruchell Cinque Magee who spent the end of his very long sentence at CMF, only to pass within months of his release. Cinque was the longest held political prisoner in the U.S. to date, imprisoned for 67 years and punished for his unyielding resistance to the prison regime. The speaker who commemorated Cinque also spoke about the past decade of a resurgent Prisoner Movement, which between 2010 and 2020 has brought into motion a decade of insurgency, prisoner uprisings and large-scale (statewide and nationwide) strikes that have dramatically advanced the trajectory of abolitionist struggles today.

With this resurgent phase of rebellion in mind, we are reminded of our departed comrade Cole, who answered the Oakland Abolition & Solidarity phone line when prisoners called for many years, and who passed in 2022. He was with us the entire day in the form of the Black and Red flags that he used to carry to action after action.

We decided to hold the noise demo for about an hour and then collectively bounce to evade getting stopped by Vacaville PD. We intentionally planned the demo to start when visitation was ending, so as to impact prisoners as little as possible and to be seen by visitors leaving the prison. Cars continued to stream in and out of the prison gate; some waving as they passed, others honking and cheering us on.

Two different people from the neighborhood came up to our group to express support and that they had loved ones inside of CMF. One person was on the phone with their husband and shared that he could hear everything we were saying from his location in the prison. Both people were very excited that we were out there and very excited to connect. Another comrade from inside reported they could hear us from the yard, and also heard someone doing donuts in a car on the other side of the prison.

Our emphasis was on reminding people inside the prison that if they take collective action, there is an outside movement that is working to support them. “You Are Not Alone” was the rallying cry and underlying message shared to comrades held captive in CMF.  We showed out not simply as a symbolic gesture of solidarity. We showed out to directly affirm, in person, at the entrance of this facility, that there is an existing support network of autonomous groups, people, platforms and community forums that can support them if they take direct action against the prison.

Whether it is the need for phone zaps to expose or challenge a particular normalized abusive practice, or the need for material support during collective actions such as work or hunger strikes, we have been diligent rebuilding a decentralized abolitionist network that can support such actions.

Actions like these are an important part of building a culture of resistance on both sides of the walls, wherever you exist in this carceral hellscape. Going out to the prisons for a noise demonstration means something no matter what, but it is a surreal kind of experience when you know people on the other side of the wall. We encourage more groups who work with imprisoned people, their loved ones, and other support groups to rally numbers in their networks this year, to continue building with others who have loved ones inside, and to organize noise demos at the prisons, jails, and detention centers for occasions beyond only New Year’s Eve. Think toward Black August. Think longer term.

At the end of the day, a number of people involved in the demo met to share a meal and reflect. Among those in attendance, there was an overwhelming sense of motivation and direction to seize initiative over the coming years, and push the limits of what is currently imagined possible with regards to demo-actions at the prison gates. There was a sense, shared by some, that we could have stayed out there for much longer than an hour.

For future consideration, we are calling on all to reconsider the potential role and function of demo-actions within a broader abolitionist anti-prison strategy, and to experiment with the infinite array tools and tactics that can be drawn upon when descending upon these gulag camps. We encourage people to continue re-building a revolutionary abolitionist movement in the Bay Area and beyond. Be safe, stay dangerous.

– some abolitionists

As funding for war reaches new heights alongside growing inequality and declining conditions within the US amidst growing repression, the war and genocide against Palestinians continues within the occupied territories, as Israeli leaders push for full on ethnic cleansing.

As wrote in the Washington Post:

This week alone, a parliamentarian from Netanyahu’s Likud party went on television and said it was clear to most Israelis that “all the Gazans need to be destroyed.” Then, Israel’s ambassador in Britain told local radio that there was no other solution for her country than to level “every school, every mosque, every second house” in Gaza to degrade Hamas’s military infrastructure.

far-right figures like finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who do little to hide their vision of an ethnically-cleansed Gaza. “What needs to be done in the Gaza Strip is to encourage emigration,” Smotrich said in an interview Sunday with Israeli Army Radio. “If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after will be totally different.” Ben Gvir separately called for the de facto forced migration of hundreds of thousands out of Gaza.

Netanyahu himself, according to my colleagues, tried to cajole Egypt and other Arab governments and states elsewhere into taking Gazan refugees — a non-starter for many in the Middle East, who fear further Palestinian dispossession of their lands.

In the face of this, across the US, demonstrations in solidarity with occupied Palestine have remained ongoing, with thousands continuing to take part in protests, targeted sabotage and direct action, disruptions, and blockades throughout December and into the new year.

From @AshAgony, “NYPD has been trying to stop #FreePalestine protesters from getting into Moynihan Train Hall tonite but protesters just caught the cops slipping & got in through one of the entrances.”

What follows is our latest roundup of solidarity actions across the so-called US. We encourage people to write up report-backs, reflections, and analysis and contribute here.

Protests Shut Down Streets and Blockade Airports and Military Base

In late December, dozens of people were arrested for carrying out coordinated disruptions of major airports in New York and Los Angeles. According to a post from the Resistance News Network Telegram channel:

Pro-Palestinian protesters in the US succeeded in simultaneously blocking the entrances two of the largest airports in the country moments ago: LAX airport in Los Angeles, California, and JFK airport in New York.

Despite their small number, their actions effectively disrupted operations, declaring: no business as usual while a genocide and siege is ongoing. These protests highlight the effectiveness of strategic, direct action, showcasing how international allies can support Palestine.

Notably, the Los Angeles protest highlighted the ongoing displacement and genocide taking place in Palestine, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where a combined 16 million people have been displaced and tens of thousands killed. Further, aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s role in these genocides was noted: Boeing has received hundreds of billions from from US government contracts to provide products to the US Military, as well as sells its weapons and technology to the zionist entity and Saudi Arabia.

In New York, about 30 arrests were documented, and about 40 were documented in Los Angeles.

In Chicago:

[Protesters] also shut down I-90 and I-94 temporarily on Sunday…The USPCN held a similar protest on Dec. 23 when a nearly 100-car caravan temporarily shut down both sides of I-190 while calling for a ceasefire.

In the bay area of California:

Hundreds of people rallied on 12/28/23 against the transfer of military weapons from the Travis [Air Force Base] which is the largest US military transfer base in the United States. The base was blocked for several hours and the three entrances were shutdown.

Then on January 1st, as Democracy Now reported:

[A] caravan of cars with Palestinian flags blocked traffic headed to John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday. Meanwhile, in Pasadena, California, protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza briefly halted the Rose Bowl Parade.

The action shows no signs of dissipating. In just the last two week, in New York, rowdy demonstrations snaked through streets as police attempted to control crowds, while in Oakland, people broke out windows to banks and spray-painted pro-Palestinian slogans, demonstrators disrupted a shopping district in San Francisco. protested outside of the homes of state officials in DC, and in Sacramento, hundreds shut down streets.

Graffiti from rowdy demonstration in Oakland, CA. SOURCE: Unravel

On January 3rd, hundreds of anti-Zionist Jews also shut down the first day of the California legislature, calling for a ceasefire and dropping banners from the capitol building.

Marchers in the streets in Durham, NC. SOURCE: CrimethInc.

In Durham, NC on January 4th, as CrimethInc. reported:

In Durham, North Carolina, which saw several protests against the bloodshed in Gaza throughout late 2023, the first explicitly autonomous and leaderless large-scale solidarity demonstration took place on January 4. As at previous demonstrations, hundreds of people gathered, took turns speaking, and marched through the city. This time, however, the march went to the jail, where participants shot fireworks at the building and projected “Free Palestine—Free prisoners” across its façade, connecting the struggle against ethnic cleansing in Palestine to the local struggle against police and prisons.

Days later, demonstrators in Seattle were able to shut down for hours the I-5 freeway, using stalled cars and protesters blocking oncoming traffic. Supporters also marched to support the blockade and took over nearby on-ramps, dropping banners in support of Palestinian prisoners and demanding a ceasefire.

Finally on January 8th, while some interpreted Biden’s speeeh in Charleston, NC, protesters shut down “the Brooklyn Bridge, Manhattan Bridge, Williamsburg Bridge, and Holland Tunnel to demand an end to the ongoing American-funded, American-led genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” according to the Palestinian Youth Movement. “325 people were arrested by the Port Authority and New York Police Department at the four locations,” according to ABC News.

Protesters shutting down Holland Tunnel in New York.

Wave of Targeted Vandalism and Direct Action Continues

New York has seen a wave of targeted vandalism and direct actions in solidarity with resistance to the occupation of Palestine. According to a post on the counter-info site Unravel:

[A]n autonomous group of anti-colonial anarchists redecorated Neue Galerie on 5th Avenue in NYC with blood red paint yesterday for its direct support of the IDF & its ties to Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems.

“In response to the call from Bethlehem for no celebration during genocide, and on one of the biggest days of the year for capitalist consumerism, an autonomous group of anti-colonial anarchists targeted Neue Galerie on 5th Avenue in New York City for its direct support of the IOF and its ties to Elbit Systems. The activists smeared paint as thick and red as blood across the outer walls and entrance gate.

They also wheatpasted flyers showing a tube of red lipstick superimposed over a military tank’s gun. With this intervention, the outsides of the Neue Galerie were made to match its insides. Like so many cultural institutions in the imperial core, this private museum abets the colonial war machine by art-washing genocide. Ronald S. Lauder is the Neue Galerie’s president and an heir to the Esteé Lauder fortune. He is also the president of the World Jewish Congress, and it was as such that he declared, on October 7, that it is imperative “to bolster the success of the IDF and the state of Israel.” His support of the ongoing Palestinian genocide could not be clearer.

The CEO of Esteé Lauder, Fabrizio Freda, sits on the Board of Blackrock, which is the largest investor of weapons manufacturing in the world and owns major shares in Elbit technology.

Elbit uses Palestinians as test subjects for its experimental weapons technologies, and thus has been the target of direct actions all over the world. These bold autonomous activists believe in a liberated Palestine and an end to the Israeli apartheid state.

Their action brings to mind the exhortations of Juliano Mer Khamis, founder of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, who said that the third intifada would be a cultural intifada. We join them in their cry: LONG LIVE THE INTIFADA!

In Brooklyn, New York, a recruiting station was covered in paint and a Chase Bank had its locks glued. A communique posted to Unravel read:

On Friday night 12/21, a Chase Bank located near Chuck Schumer’s Brooklyn apartment was shut down with ample amounts of superglue in its door lock and card reader. Its windows and walls were redecorated with “Stop Cop City” and “Free Gaza.”

JP Morgan Chase is a funder of Atlanta’s Cop City, the genocidal regime in Israel, the Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as numerous capitalist and imperialist projects destroying the earth and causing immense suffering. It must be stopped by any means necessary.
To Chase, we are the New York rats that can’t be poisoned. We are the cockroaches that won’t die. When you least expect it, we will crawl all over your fancy dinner. We will jump out from the darkest corners of your fears to bite you in the ass. Watch out.

In Kalamazoo, MI, a report posted to Unsalted Counter-Info wrote:

Early one December morning in so-called “Kalamazoo, Michigan,” four humans dressed in black crept under the light of golden arches, posters and spray paint in hand. They set out to disrupt people’s genocide-flavored morning coffee. Rollers oozing wheat paste, they splattered signs which read, “McDonald’s supports genocide”, “Free Gaza River to Sea”, “Hungry for Freedom”, and other messages onto the driveway menus, windows, and the speaker box. They also sprayed the word “BOYCOTT” onto the wall of the building in black paint, and quickly made their exit.

It was a monday morning. People would soon need their coffee to help them facilitate capitalism better, and McDonald’s would profit. The goal was to disrupt that as much as possible. While people in Kalamazoo enjoy a morning crappucino, people in Gaza don’t even have basic access to water – clean or dirty, thanks to corporations such as McDonald’s which directly support the Israeli bombings in Palestine. While people here can enjoy an egg mcmuffin and hashbrowns for breakfast, people in Gaza go hungry — 9 in 10 Gazans cannot eat everyday. If they do find food, it is likely moldly, expired, or otherwise unfit for consumption. While McDonald’s is hungry for profit, the world is hungry for freedom. The hope was to make the ongoing horrors in Palestine all too apparent to those who are complicit by supporting such businesses that aid in their continuation.

This action was executed with simple tools: paint rollers, wheat paste, handmade posters, and spray paint — accessible items anyone can get their hands on. The planning was simple– a drop off/pick up spot was designated, posters were put up within two minutes, and they were out. They wore indistinguishable black clothes to be changed out of after the action was completed. Posters were designed to be eye catching and legible, with simple messages. No one involved was there to see the impact in effect during operating hours. If one were to perform such an action again they could have planned ahead of time to send someone not associated through the drive thru to document the disruption. Although no one involved saw it, wheat paste and spray paint are notoriously difficult to remove, and thus time was necessarily wasted cleaning up and taking everything down, rather than serving up hot McWarCrimes.

Actions like these can be very simple, cheap, and safe with good planning and research. They scouted the area for cameras and planned a discrete route with minimal exposure. They wore masks and covered faces. They stuck towards the back of the building that wasn’t visible from the road for the majority of the action, and only spent about two minutes in danger of being seen/connected with the posters and paint.

Finally, in so-called Portland, Oregon, a communique took credit for an action against a Mercedes-Benz dealership. In a claim of responsibility posted on Unravel stated:

After weeks of indiscriminate bombing and a ground military invasion of Gaza, leveling homes, hospitals, and schools, the cost to human life has been over 18,800 deaths — 8000 of which are children — and over 51,000 injured. The bombings along with the ongoing Israeli blockage has created a humanitarian catastrophe leaving hundreds of thousands of Gazans displaced with little to no access to food, clean water or medical care. This genocidal assault has also taken the form of intensified repression against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank — mass arrests, targeted military raids, and an escalation of settler violence. We are all too aware that this war waged by Israel is made possible in large part by weapons and equipment supplied by the United States and their allies. As anarchists living behind enemy lines, we refuse to sit by and watch yet another genocide unfold before our eyes.

So, in the early morning hours of 12/11, a fire was started at the Mercedes-Benz dealership in downtown Portland.  The blaze destroyed a delivery van and burned out the exterior of their ‘wholesale parts’ garage on SW Market St. This was done as an act of economic sabotage against a corporation that develops military vehicles for the Israel Defense Forces and profits from the dispossession and occupation of Palestinians.

Apart from selling luxury cars Mercedes-Benz also produces weapons of war—in the form of light infantry vehicles — for militaries across the world. In regards to Israeli, Mercedes-Benz has partnered with Israeli based military contractor Plasan to produce a light-infantry vehicle. The Plasan Hyrax — which utilizes the Mercedes-Benz G-wagon chassis — was developed to replace the IDF’s aging fleet of ‘David’ patrol vehicles. As of 2019 the Hyrax has been certified for use with the IDF

Mercedes-Benz’ sister company Daimler Trucks, and their subsidiaries — in which Mercedes-Benz owns a 30% share — has supplied transport vehicles to the IDF in the past. As recently as 2020 Daimler Trucks was awarded a contract to supply busses to Israeli based company Egged for inter-city bus transport. Egged provides transportation between Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. Egged busses use roads off limits to Palestinians and operates segregated busses. This racist apartheid system is a defining aspect of the Israeli settler colonial project, built on the displacement and denigration of Palestinians.

In the broader context of resistance throughout world against war and militarism — from the anti-war partisans in Belarus and Russia derailing trains of military cargo, to the Palestinian youth in the West Bank standing down tanks with a slingshot and stones — this action was our modest contribution to that struggle.

For a more dangerous solidarity

-some anarchists

Follow It’s Going Down on Mastodon for future and ongoing updates.

Statement on the city of Seattle’s recent move to destroy the Black Lives Matter Memorial Garden. Originally posted to Puget Sound Anarchists.

On Wednesday, December 27th, at approximately 6 am, the City of Seattle sent Seattle Parks & Recreation (SPR) along with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) to destroy the Black Lives Memorial Garden (BLMG) and in doing so they violently displaced people living in and around it. BLMG was planted during the 2020 George Floyd uprising within the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone/Occupied Protests in Cal Anderson Park. The garden commemorated and honored Black and Indigenous people murdered by police, was home to a variety of medicinal plants and foods, and has been used for many forms of radical mutual aid and agitation against police violence. A broad collection of individuals worked together to create a space of solace in an otherwise increasingly hostile city. What follows are the words of several individuals involved in maintaining and growing the BLMG in response to the City’s sweep and public statement defending the eviction.

The Black Lives Memorial Garden was founded during the 2020 protests against the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. In the three years since, it has grown countless pounds of produce and herbal medicine distributed freely to local community, as well as established dozens of native plants that are vital for the health of our local ecosystems. It has provided sanctuary, healing, and joy. The garden has expanded beyond its symbolic representation of resistance against state oppression to become an active community hub for mutual aid networks, food distribution, and political education for building dual power and unity amongst oppressed communities.

The Black Lives Memorial Garden collective is heartbroken that the City took the step of removing the garden. We are heartsick over the destruction of so many indigenous plants and determined to regrow. In this time of mourning, we are also disappointed and frustrated by the City’s statement on the garden’s destruction. This statement misses many important points about the garden, its history, and the community around it.

First and foremost, the City’s statement overlooks that BLMG was created to honor Black and Indigenous lives. Volunteers engaging with visitors to the garden begin their introductions with this information, Black Star Farmers press releases states this, and memorial offerings in the garden demonstrate this. It’s worth noting that the garden has always been home to indigenous plants that provide food, medicine, and beauty. When the City arrived on Wednesday morning, they destroyed these plants. They didn’t move them, they killed them. It took an hour for one steward to finally be allowed into the work zone to salvage plants from the native berry bed. The rest are gone, for the moment.

The City has said many times that it has engaged in community outreach. Unfortunately, when asked for specifics about their methods, they don’t provide answers. Even other City officials have only been given SPR’s 2021 report when they ask for data. When asked about recent outreach, SPR only provides press releases, even though the Parks Board of Commissioners themselves said at a November meeting that they’ve received hundreds of letters and calls about the garden. By contrast, the BLMG collective spent the autumn of 2023 doing outreach around Cal Anderson, collecting thousands of signatures on a Change.org petition and over 75 letters of support from local businesses. Survey results from local residents also support the garden. After seeing how SPR handled outreach for the recently proposed playground at Denny Blaine Park, we’re curious who they spoke with about the BLMG, when, and how.

We do know how they’ve spoken with us. Parks Commissioners have fumbled the name of the garden as the “Black Lives Matter Garden” rather than the “Black Lives Memorial Garden.” Parks officials have made promises not to touch the garden until meeting with garden organizers, meetings which have not yet happened. The Mayor’s office has cold-called activists during the holidays. And SPR has never been willing to discuss compromises that would let the memorial garden stay where it is in some form.

The City cited unsafe and unhygienic conditions at the BLMG as the primary reason for its removal. The City has not been there when community members provided medical aid to park users, included administering Narcan and training people in its use. The City was there during the recent cold snaps, to remove the heat sources at the garden that people living outside were using to survive. People using Cal Anderson, and especially people living outside there, do need the City’s help to be safe and hygienic. Unfortunately, the City chose to spend thousands of dollars to continually sweep people seeking refuge near the garden and thousands more to destroy the garden entirely. We’re curious how they intend to offer safety and hygiene to Seattle residents, including our unhoused neighbors.

The BLMG is located in the middle of Cal Anderson, by the public restrooms, on a slope that was once part of the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area. SPR has said repeatedly that this slope, the Sun Bowl, is “one of few spaces that is appropriate to host gatherings and events” in the park, and implied that the footprint of the BLMG makes those gatherings and events impossible. To the contrary, the BLMG utilized the space with movie nights, mutual aid fairs, and education and artistic circles. Black Star Farmers has hosted large events in the garden area since 2020 that offer reconnection to the land and encourage dialogue and reflection on our collective conditions. Permitted events have taken place in the North and South Meadows of the park without interruption for the garden’s entire lifespan. We’re curious what events SPR hasn’t been able to host in Cal Anderson since 2020, and why efforts were never made to collaborate with garden stewards to hold events in the Sun Bowl.

Finally: The Parks Department’s statement contained numerous quotes from Black Seattleites, including family members of victims of police violence, that expressed disapproval with aspects of the Black Lives Memorial Garden and critiques of Black Star Farmers’ intentions. The BLMG collective takes these perspectives seriously. Many of our most involved community members are Black and other people of color; we’ve been impacted by police violence ourselves; and we want to be accountable where we have caused harm or hurt feelings. We’d like to find time for a longer discussion directly with the parties quoted.

SPR stated in their release that they’re open to continuing dialogue, and the Board of Commissioners stated during their December 2023 meeting an interest in holding a town hall style community meeting to discuss the future of the garden. We look forward to this, though neither the violent removal of the garden and its surrounding residents, nor the behind-closed-doors conversations arranged by the Mayor, espouse the “good faith” rhetoric stated by SPR. In the meantime, removing the garden and displacing the people there does not change the desperate situation faced by people who came to the garden for warmth, food, and medicine. The mutual aid programs operating around the space will continue.

Any gardener can tell you that growth is hard, slow, and sometimes full of setbacks. But as gardeners, we also know: we can regrow. And we hope the City, our neighbors, and our community will join us as we renew.