Monday, October 31, 2022

Disrupt The Cognitive Infrastructure

Listen to a reading of this article:

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Leaked documents reveal that the US intelligence cartel has been working intimately with online platforms to regulate the “cognitive infrastructure” of the population — the information systems people use to feed their minds and think their thoughts.

If it is the job of the US intelligence cartel to regulate society’s cognitive infrastructure, then it is the job of healthy human beings to disrupt the cognitive infrastructure.

Fill the cognitive infrastructure with information that is inconvenient for the powerful.

Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure by saturating it with unauthorized speech.

Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure. Corrupt the cognitive infrastructure. Tell the cognitive infrastructure that the teacher is bullshitting and the preacher is a liar. Sneak the cognitive infrastructure its first cigarette and a copy of the Communist Manifesto.

Take the cognitive infrastructure’s virginity. Teach the cognitive infrastructure about the primacy of the clitoris. Take the cognitive infrastructure on its first psilocybin mushroom hunt and give it phoenix reincarnation orgasms in the forest.

Pay attention to that man behind the curtain. Extremely close attention. Be intrusive about it. Shine a flashlight up his asshole. Disregard the proper channels. Hack his devices and publish his emails.

Sow chaotic good tidings throughout the information ecosystem. Surf on waves of WikiLeaks documents and Grayzone reports with problematic revelations pouring from your throat like rain. Scrawl “WHAT CAN BE DESTROYED BY THE TRUTH SHOULD BE” on bathroom stalls and overpasses.

Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure on your smartphone. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure on the street corner. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure in conversations with friends and family. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure too severely and from too many directions for there to ever be any hope of its regulation or control.

Be the disruption you want to see in the cognitive infrastructure. Be a splinter in the monster’s paw. Be sand in the gears of the juggernaut machine. Disrupt the cognitive infrastructure in such numbers and with such aggression that the whole thing comes toppling down, and people’s eyes begin to flutter open, and they wake up from their propaganda-induced comas into the real world, and stride out to do the very things the US intelligence cartel has been trying to prevent them from ever doing.

Free beings under a wide open sky.

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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, buying an issue of my monthly zine, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/11/01/disrupt-the-cognitive-infrastructure/
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Canadian Tire Fire #47: RCMP Vehicles Torched, Mohawk Mothers Win Injunction Against McGill, Actions Against Line 9B

In our column this week, our main stories feature organizing in Vancouver against police brutality, the torching of RCMP vehicles in Smithers, a court victory for the Kahnistensera against McGill University, and an action against Line 9B in Montreal.

On October 27th, folks gathered in Toronto’s economic district to disrupt an event where RBC CEO Dave McKay was being awarded “Business Leader of the Year.” At the counter-event, McKay was awarded “Climate Villain of the Year.” RBC is the world’s 5th-largest funder of fossil fuel projects, and the largest in Canada. The demonstration included a 20ft effigy of McKay.

This week, news emerged of a Toronto man who fell to his death after a long interaction with police in his high-rise apartment. 32-year old Taresh Bobby Ramroop was in mental health crisis when police were called by other residents in his apartment building. Witnesses estimate that around 20 police were present when he died. His family arrived at the building after receiving texts from Bobby saying that he needed help, but were forced to wait in a locked superintendent’s office for hours. They are now calling for the release of police bodycam footage and the names of the officers involved, as well as the abolishment of the Toronto police.

In class war news, since October 19th, 1,500 part-time academics and TAs have been on strike at Dalhousie University. Their union, CUPE 3912, says the main point of contention with the university has been over wages, which have not kept up with the cost of living. On Monday October 31st, a student walkout is expected in solidarity with striking workers.

The remaining 14 tenants in a Montreal building that has been turned into a construction zone are organizing against renoviction. Anarchists have been supporting the tenants under the banner of the Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union. One member wrote a sum up of the situation, which you can read here.

Read on for this week’s full stories!

RCMP Vehicles Torched on Wet’suwet’en Territory, Updates on CSIS Surveillance of Struggle

The morning of October 26th held a rude awakening for cops and industry in Smithers, BC, who woke up to news of 8 torched vehicles, including 4 cop cars in the parking lot of a hotel. One of the burnt police vehicles was a C-IRG (Community-Industry Response Group) car, an RCMP branch specifically tasked with policing movements against extractive industry. It is likely, however, that all RCMP vehicles there have been involved in some way in repressing, surveilling, and harassing the land defenders on the yintah who have been fighting CGL for years. When preparing for raids of camps on the yintah, police are often staged at hotels in Houston and Smithers.

Despite the fact that nobody has claimed the action and no official motive has been established, it appears obvious that the action was taken as part of the struggle against CGL and against the colonial police attempting to force the pipeline through Wet’suwet’en land. As police investigate, we hope for the safety of whoever took this brave action, and for the continued decline of police morale in the face of this resistance!

Shortly after news of the Smithers action came out, a CBC investigation revealed more details of the surveillance of 2020’s Shut Down Canada rail blockades. CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, was evaluating behind the scenes whether it would be viable to classify Indigenous activists as terrorists for participating in train blockades in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en. In March 2021, as part of a counter-terror briefing with government officials, the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre (ITAC) reported that “Unsophisticated acts of unlawful interference [like blockades] do not cross the terrorism threshold. Although these disruptive actions are damaging to the economy and to rail network operations, they have not yet amounted to acts of terrorism.”

CSIS raised concerns both about the struggle against CGL and its country-wide support actions, but also about 1492 Land Back Lane, the victorious occupation of a would-be housing development by Six Nations land defenders. As well, they were concerned about “anarchist interference” in these and other Indigenous-led movements, saying that while not technically terrorists, Indigenous land defenders and their allies are “ideologically motivated violent extremists” who warrant state surveillance.

It can be very useful to know bits and pieces of how the state is evaluating anarchist and anti-colonial movements. However, it can also be stressful and paranoia-inducing to consider the lengths that the state is likely going to to attempt to quash these movements. Attempts to paint anarchists as outside agitators with nefarious intentions  piggy-backing off of Indigenous-led movements is an old strategy which serves only to scare people out of participating in struggle and weaken relationships of solidarity. Let’s stay strong in the face of repression, keep up the fight, and not allow the state to weaken our bonds of solidarity or our resolve.

Vancouver Against Police Brutality

On October 22nd, people in Vancouver gathered to mark the International Day Against Police Brutality. The event was co-hosted by Defund 604 and Justice for Jared, a group fighting for an end to police violence in the memory of Jared Lowndes, a Wet’suwet’en man murdered by police last year.

The event is timely, following the election of a law-and-order mayor who has promised to hire 100 new cops in Vancouver earlier this month. The same week, Vancouver Police were invited to an apology ceremony hosted by the Heiltsuk Nation with the intention of moving forward from an act of violence against two of the nation’s members.

In 2019, two Vancouver police officers handcuffed an Indigenous man and his then-12-year-old granddaughter on a busy Vancouver street, after a bank where they were trying to open an account wrongly assumed they were using a fake status card and called police. The officers were expected to attend the ceremony and apologize, as one piece of a settlement in a human rights complaint filed by the Heiltsuk Nation. However, the officers chose not to attend, in a move Heiltsuk Nation members called hurtful, angering and disappointing.

This week video was also circulated of Vancouver Transit Police violently restraining a woman in a Vancouver transit station. While the police say that the officers attempted to use de-escalation techniques, witnesses state that police tackled the woman to the ground with no communication, and used a taser gun on her multiple times. In videos, police can be seen kneeling on the woman, who witnesses say appeared to be in mental health crisis, while she begs for them to stop and says she is not resisting.

Stop police brutality! Abolish the police!

Kanien’kehà:ka Kahnistensera Win Injunction Against McGill University, Supporters Continue to Organize

In our last issue we covered the ongoing struggle against the renovation of the Royal Victoria Hospital grounds and building by the Kanien’kehà:ka Kahnistensera, or Mohawk Mothers. Since then, the Kahnistensera represented themselves at the Quebec Superior court asking for an injunction to stop the construction, on the grounds that there may be unmarked graves, including graves of Indigenous children, at the site. The Kahnistensera faced off against lawyers for McGill University, the Société québécoise des infrastructures, the City of Montreal and the Attorney General of Canada.

In a surprising development, out of keeping with the overwhelming pattern of injunctions being used against Indigenous groups and being denied to those Indigenous groups who seek them, the Kahnistensera were granted a temporary, emergency injunction by the judge, immediately stopping the work. Though some excavation had already been done by archeological firm Arkéos, further work will be halted, leaving time for the potential use of non-invasive archeological methods to investigate the presence of remains at the site.

Before the court decision, another solidarity action took place. This one was an “artistic intervention” on the grounds of the Royal Vic. According to a communique, “We arranged childrens’ shoes and clothing, assembled tombstones labelled “unknown” with flowers, and lined the area with “crime scene” tape because McGill and Arkéos are actively going against the kaia’nereh’ko:wa (Great Law) by digging up potential unmarked graves against the Kahnistensera’s wishes. This space should be considered as the crime scene that it is.”

The communique also stated “We also want to empasize that Kanien’kehà:ka sovereignty on this land goes well beyond this current campaign. Some land acknowledgment in McGill’s official communication is not enough. We support the Kahnistensera’s broader vision of a university which has been renamed to not pay homage to James McGill, a colonial slaveholder. We also agree with the Kahnistensera that McGill should at the very least repay its financial debts to the Rotino’shonni peoples, and stop all military research, in accordance with the Kaia’nereh’ko:wa.”

You can follow @stopthenewvic on Twitter for updates.

Action Against Line 9B in East Montreal, Banner Drop in Chicoutimi in Solidarity

On October 20th, around 20 activists from Collectif Antigone blocked access to a fuel loading site at the Port of Montreal, demanding the closure of the Enbridge’s Line 9B pipeline. The pipeline transports up to 300,000 barrels of crude oil a day from Hamilton to Montreal. The 20 activists arrived early in the morning and used various methods to shut down access to the area. Several climbed a loading tower and several others locked themselved within a shipping container at the entrance to the port.

The action was aimed primarily at drawing attention to the threat to drinking water caused by the pipeline, which crosses multiple rivers. It lasted about 23 hours, at which point the last activists were arrested.

In Chicoutimi, a banner drop took place in solidarity with the blockaders. The communique read:

We wish to underline the urgent need for action in the face of climate change, which is real and directly threatens biodiversity as well as the health of millions of inhabitants of the territory of Quebec.

This action is undertaken in support of the ongoing blockade, in Montréal-Est, of the supply of diluted bitumen to oil tankers from the largest pipeline in Quebec, Enbridge’s line 9B.

Follow Canadian Tire Fire here. Cover photo from Montreal Counter-Info.


by Canadian Tire Fire via It's Going Down
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New Study Finds The Rest Of The World Supports China And Russia

Listen to a reading of this article:

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The US is preparing to station multiple nuclear-capable B-52 bombers in northern Australia in what the mass media are calling a “signal to China,” yet another example of Australia’s forced subservience as a US military/intelligence asset.

“Having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further,” Becca Wasser from the Centre for New American Security think tank told the ABC.

“This is a dangerous escalation. It makes Australia an even bigger part of the global nuclear weapons threat to humanity’s very existence – and by rising military tensions it further destabilises our region,” tweeted Greens Senator David Shoebridge of the incendiary provocation.

A new Australian Financial Review article titled “Australia’s alliances in Asia are a tale of two regions” candidly discusses the Biden administration’s recent sanctions geared toward kneecapping the Chinese tech industry in what the author James Curran correctly says “is unambiguously a new cold war.” Curran describes the impossible task Australia has of straddling the ever-widening divide between its number one trading partner China and its number one “security” partner the US, while Washington continually pressures Canberra and ASEAN states toward greater and greater enmity with Beijing.

“ASEAN countries, as much as Australia, have much at stake in resisting the onset of a bifurcated world,” Curran writes.

But that bifurcation is being shoved through at breakneck pace, using both hard and soft power measures. Australians have been hammered with increasingly aggressive anti-China propaganda, and as a result nearly half of them now say they would be willing to go to war to defend Taiwan from an attack by the mainland, with a third saying they’d support a war against China over the Solomon Islands.

A recent Cambridge study found that this hostility toward China has been on the rise in recent years not just in Australia but throughout the “liberal democracies” of the US-centralized power alliance. But what’s interesting is that public opinion is exactly reversed in the much larger remainder of the Earth’s population, with people outside the US power cluster just as fond of China as those within that power cluster are hostile toward it. This relationship is largely mirrored with Russia as well.

“Among the 1.2bn people who inhabit the world’s liberal democracies, three-quarters (75%) now hold a negative view of China, and 87% a negative view of Russia,” the report reads. “However, for the 6.3bn people who live in the rest of the world, the picture is reversed. In these societies, 70% feel positively towards China, and 66% positively towards Russia.”

The report finds that in the “developing” world, approval of China is higher than approval of the US:

“For the first time ever, slightly more people in developing countries (62%) are favourable towards China than towards the United States (61%). This is especially so among the 4.6bn people living in countries supported by the Belt and Road Initiative, among whom almost two-thirds hold a positive view of China, compared to just a quarter (27%) in non-participating countries.”

The report finds that while Russia’s approval has plummeted in the west, it maintains broad support in the east despite the invasion of Ukraine:

However, the real terrain of Russia’s international influence lies outside of the West. 75% of respondents in South Asia, 68% in Francophone Africa, 62% in Southeast Asia continue to view the country positively in spite of the events of this year.

I first became aware of the Cambridge study via a Twitter thread by Arnaud Bertrand (who is a great follow if you happen to use that demonic app). Bertrand highlights data in the study showing that US-aligned nations’ opinion of China began plummeting not after the Covid outbreak in late 2019, but after 2017 when the US began ramping up its propaganda campaign against Beijing.

Apart from the fact that the USA’s immensely sophisticated propaganda machine naturally focuses primarily on where the world’s wealth and military firepower rests while pushing its global agendas, and apart from the fact that those in Belt and Road Initiative countries apparently believe they benefit from their economic relationships with China, the disparity between the “developed” and “developing” worlds in their perceptions of the US and its enemies may also be partly explained by another thought-provoking Arnaud Bertrand thread, which I will quote in its entirety here:

A puzzling observation in today’s world is that almost no Western leader has laid out a positive vision for the future.

Take Biden for instance. His big vision is “democracies vs autocracies”. Meaning his vision for the future of the world is conflict. How positive is that?

Contrast this with China: between “national rejuvenation” and “common prosperity” at home and the “global security initiative” as their vision for improved international relations; everyone is very clear on the journey they’re embarked on.

This is a key, if not the key reason why the “West” has no chance in hell to convince the “rest” to join them.

There’s simply nothing to join! Except conflict, I guess, but you join a conflict to fight for a vision – for a better world – the conflict itself cannot be the vision!

This reminds me of what George Kennan, the architect of the cold war, wrote: to win he said that America had to “create among the peoples of the world generally the impression of a country which knows what it wants, which is coping successfully with the problems of its internal life and with the responsibilities of a World Power, and which has a spiritual vitality capable of holding its own among the major ideological currents of the time”

Does America give this impression today?

Even in my own country, France. Ask any French person what Macron’s vision for the future of France and the world is, what the grand plan is, and you’ll get very puzzled looks. “Reform the pension system so we have to work longer?”

The truth is there’s nothing, nada, rien! 

What we have essentially in the West are political operators. They think their jobs are to get reelected and to attempt to move whatever metrics the electorate cares about: GDP, unemployment, debt levels, CO2 emissions, etc. Actual leaders have gone extinct (or gone East).

It’s actually quite sad, really speaks to the levels of intellectual decrepitude in the West today. The time of the Enlightenment, the big revolutions is well and truly gone. We’re stuck with our mediocre operators.

It’s also why this is such a dangerous time. A positive vision brings confidence, it brings hope, it motivates, it makes people look forward to what’s to come. The West has none of that today.

The future is scary, the dominant feelings are fear and anger.

And when there’s a lot of fear and anger, these feelings need to be directed somewhere. And our operators certainly don’t want it to be them! So it’s China, Iran, all those “foreigners” who “hate our freedom”.

Perfect recipe for a very bad conflict…

Please, don’t get fooled!

Bertrand’s musings echo a recent quote by Professor Jeffrey Sachs at the Athens Democracy Forum: “The single biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

Indeed, we could be striving toward a positive vision for the future, one which seeks “common prosperity” and “improved international relations,” one which works to remedy inequality and address the looming environmental crisis. Instead the world is being bifurcated, split in two, which history tells us is probably an indication that something extremely terrible is on the horizon for our species unless we drastically change course.

It’s worth keeping all this in mind, as nuclear-capable bombers are deployed to Australia; as NATO weighs moving nuclear weapons to Russia’s border in Finland; as the Biden administration goes all in on economic warfare with China regardless of the consequences; as Russia accuses the US of “lowering the nuclear threshold” by modernizing the arsenal in Europe into “battlefield weapons”; as the Council on Foreign Relations president openly admits that the US is now working to halt China’s rise on the world stage; as China declares its willingness to deepen ties with Russia on all levels.

We could have such a wonderful, healthy, collaborative world, and it’s being flushed down the toilet because an empire is using its leverage over the wealthiest populations on our planet to work toward dominating all the other populations. This stupid, insane quest to shore up unipolar planetary domination is costing us everything while gaining us nothing, and it’s going to be the poorest and weakest among us who suffer the most as a result.

________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, buying an issue of my monthly zine, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/31/new-study-finds-the-rest-of-the-world-supports-china-and-russia/
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#StopCampGrayling Protesters Hang Banner, Light Fireworks at DNR Director’s Home.

The following action report was originally published by Stop Camp Grayling on social media. For more background on this struggle, see this zine here.

Forest defenders descended on Department of Natural Resources (DNR) director Dan Eichenger’s home last week to demand he reject the land-use agreement with the Michigan National Guard, which would double the size of Camp Grayling. The DNR controls the land encompassing the proposed expansion, and would lease it out for free to the National Guard.

Masked forest defenders approached Eichenger’s home, chanting and lighting off fireworks. They hung a banner from the porch reading: ‘Hey Dan, no Camp Grayling expansion!’ read a statement telling Eichinger to ‘announce publicly that the DNR will do the right thing and reject the proposal,’ and chanted ‘Stop Camp Grayling’ and ‘We’ll be back!’

Their demands include not only rejecting the proposed expansion, but also call on the DNR to return the land to its rightful stewards: the Ojibwa, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples.

“We know the military exists to bring pain and misery to our relatives and our earth,” said a group member. “The war machine must be stopped,” said another, “Our targets have names and addresses.”

Camp Grayling is already the largest National Guard training facility in the so-called United States. All branches of the military as well as foreign armies, law enforcement, and private contractors train and test weapons here, causing environmental and public health damages.

In January 2022, Camp Grayling’s colonel Myers met with Eichenger to pitch the expansion of the training facility. Dan Eichenger is one of two individuals who can put a stop to this expansion.  The other individual is Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

photo source: @GraylingCamp


by Stop Camp Grayling via It's Going Down
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Sunday, October 30, 2022

Before the APOCALYPSE... #shorts


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The end is the beginning #short


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Love Like There’s No Yesterday

Listen to a reading of “Love Like There’s No Yesterday”:

❖

Love like there’s no yesterday
like you’re the first to ever love
like it’s fresh and for the first time
because it is fresh and for the first time
and the illusion otherwise is just a trick of human perception

Love like a hermit crab that said fuck it
and cast aside its shell forever

Love like a three year-old rides a tricycle

Love like the nukes just started flying

Love like two middle aged bloggers
making out in the rain while Australia floods

Love like cobwebs and calliopes

Love like a geyser of starlings
pouring from your chest cave

Love like God just cracked you open
and gazed at all the parts of you you’re most ashamed of
the things you feel most guilty about
and chuckled sweetly
at how you think any of that matters
in this roaring ocean of infinity

Love like an intimate ultrasound
of the world that’s waiting to be born

Love like everyone’s watching
and you’re a slutty little attention whore

Love like peacock angels in screaming orgasm

Love like you deserve to love
and be loved
because you do
because you do
I swear to you on my accordion heart
and my warzone womb
and my eyes that are brimming with my grandmother’s tears
you deserve to love and be loved
you do
you do
and it is safe
and it is right
and it is good

Love like tender holiness kisses

Love like swampwater messiahs

Love like watching My Dinner with Andre for the very first time
home alone with the lights out
and a box of tissues
and a mind full of wonder

Love like eating an orange while listening to crickets

Love like a heartfelt impromptu pop song serenade
from an adoring lover
who cannot sing

Love like a mother noticing that her prattling child
will never be that age again

Love like you are a very young primate
in a very old universe you do not understand
and your accomplishments mean nothing
because everything’s so big
so all that matters is love
and loving

Love like a scarecrow saint

Love like a balrog buddha

Love like babies eating ice cream

Love big

Love hard

Empty the tank

Leave it all in the ring

There’s nothing to save it for anyway

________________

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________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, buying an issue of my monthly zine, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/30/love-like-theres-no-yesterday/
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Antifascists Defend Protest at UC Davis from Violent Attack by the Sacramento Proud Boys

Report on antifascist defense of a counter-rally against Turning Point USA on the UC Davis campus and how antifascists were able to protect is from an attack by Proud Boys.

On October 25th, protesters at UC Davis were violently attacked by a group of Proud Boys. The protesters had gathered in opposition to an event held by the far-Right student organization Turning Point USA, which featured systemic racism denier Stephen Davis, aka MAGA Hulk. This attack by the Proud Boy follows multiple attempts by the neo-fascists at intimidation in the local area. Last spring, Proud Boys dropped banners off of highway overpasses in Davis and appeared at meetings for the Davis Board of Education. Local Proud Boys have also worked in collaboration with the neo-Nazi group White Lives Matter (WLM) to harass Pride events and more recently, Proud Boys violently attempted to attack a drag show at Mojo’s in Woodland this summer.

 

After the TP-USA audience had gone inside the venue Tuesday night, a group of eight Proud Boys, including San Juan school board candidate Jeffrey Perrine, and known Proud Boy Tyler Greenhalgh, came out of the UC arboretum, behind the remaining protesters. The Proud Boys are a militant, fascist street gang who self-identify as “Western Chauvinists” and whose members rise in rank by using violence against activists and marginalized groups, especially members of the LGBTQ+ community. The eight who showed up on campus are affiliated with the Sacramento Proud Boys, a chapter that also has ties to white nationalist and neo-Nazi gangs as well as other far-Right, fascist organizations. Contrary to the coverage of this event by many news outlets, there was no 100-person brawl; rather, no more than 15-20 people protected the larger group of protesters by standing up to the coordinated assault by the Proud Boys.

Protesters had preemptively moved metal barricades to shield the crowd from fascist attacks. As the crowd turned around to face the Proud Boys, they approached head-on, and then flanked from the sides, but protesters quickly moved the barricades to block them from the rest of the crowd. This resulted in a 30-40 minute standoff between the two groups, during which Proud Boys took every opportunity to pick off protesters who were separated from the crowd. Several unsuspecting protesters and unaffiliated bystanders were met with extreme violence. Proud boys punched three people in the head (including at least one young woman), with such force that they were knocked to the ground. One of these attacks left the victim motionless on the concrete, seemingly unconscious.

At one point, a woman was seen talking to the Proud Boys and seemed familiar enough with them for one of the Proud Boys to put his arm around her. She later identified herself as a TPUSA member. She then proceeded to cross over to the side of the protesters while filming. She repeatedly got uncomfortably close to several protesters who tried to block her camera with signs. Several people asked her (nicely) to stop filming, expressing their discomfort. Filming protesters represents a threat to their well-being, especially when the person filming clearly shares an affinity with fascists. Photos and videos are frequently used to identify individuals who then become targets of violent fascist gangs like the Proud Boys and WLM. After multiple calls to back away and to stop filming were ignored, an incident ensued in which she claims she was hit with a chemical agent of some kind by the protesters. Proud Boys had already been using bear mace and pepper spray prior to this and the air was still heavily contaminated. She went back across the street to the Proud Boys where she spoke to Perrine, asking if she should call the police. In a video posted to Perrine’s YouTube channel, he can be heard saying, “They’re not going to come because they know we’re here. They want us to fight them.”

As the conflict continued, and the Proud Boys’ attempts to break through the barricade by throwing signs, using pepper spray, and other formation tactics failed, they were forced to retreat and were chased down the block by protesters. The Proud Boys were never able to get past the barricades. Not long after the protest died down,  the university announced the Stephen Davis talk had been cancelled due to events outside the building that constituted ‘grave danger.’

A statement from the student organization UC Davis Cops Off Campus put it well:

The events on the UC Davis campus last night before the supposed talk by Stephen Davis underscore three points: 1) Turning Point USA and their friends the Proud Boys have no interest in free speech or free protest; they are enthusiastic only about violence and have no place in any community committed to freedom. 2) UC Davis and other police have no capacity to keep anyone safe and no interest in doing so; they are a problem and not a solution. 3) That principled community defense will continue to be an absolute necessity in the face of rising white nationalist violence. We learned at Charlottesville; do we have to learn again and again while the administration talks about “both sides”? No one is free until everyone is free, and the proud ethnonationalists who make watchlists and attack crowds of protestors have no right to use the word “free” ever again. It should be ash in their mouths.

— Cops Off Campus, October 26, 2022

The evening also presented itself as a game changer for those who may not have fully grasped the seriousness of the ongoing struggle against fascism: we cannot simply plead with these people. Organizations like TP-USA and the Proud Boys represent an existential threat to everyone in our communities, particularly our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ friends, neighbors, and family members. These extremists groups cannot be taken lightly and should be forced out of any space where they choose to show their faces and by any means necessary.

Until all are free! Until every chain is broken! For a better world!


by Anonymous Contributor via It's Going Down
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“Demand Housing, Not Hellscapes”: Call for Autonomous Actions October 29th – November 5th

Call for autonomous actions “from October 29th to November 5th to demand open borders, empty prisons, and free permanent housing for all.” Submitted anonymously.

photo: @AshAgony

This is a call to action for all of us to do something, right here and right now, to create the world we want to live in. The death toll in NYC jails continues to rise, surpassing 2021’s record. Police flood our subways, street corners, parks, schools. The city government tries to project an image of NYC as a “Sanctuary City,” while bringing back Broken Windows policing, setting up flooded tent camps in remote and inaccessible parts of the city for newly arrived migrants, or sending people in their most vulnerable hour through a violent, decrepit homeless shelter system currently staffed by the National Guard. And as if it couldn’t get any clearer, a recent report exposed nearly 90,000 vacant, rent stabilized apartments in NYC warehoused by landlords in 2021, while the unhoused population stands at around 55,000 people.

Ruling classes around the world want to pit communities in profound need against one another – migrants and the undocumented, unhoused people and the working poor, all of us living on the margins. But in unity is our strength. We know that borders and prisons are the crisis, not neighbors and families looking after one another. We know that no one is illegal and that an injury to one is an injury to all.

We are calling for people to take action in their cities, towns, neighborhoods, schools, or homes from October 29 to November 5, whether with banner drops, walkouts, street art, postering, opening up vacant homes as shelter for the unhoused, exposing conditions in your city’s shelters or camps, food serves and radical distro in your neighborhood, lighting fireworks, or whatever creative ideas people come up with.

– Call your own people to action on these dates in solidarity with migrants, the unhoused, and criminalized people everywhere.

– Come up with the strategies, targets, and tactics best suited to your own community.

– Document your actions. Share images, stories, and reports with your social networks using the hashtag #HalloweenUprising and #HomesNotHellscapes.

– Be safe, be smart, and be dangerous. Consider people’s needs, capabilities, and vulnerabilities. We ask that all who answer this call be prepared to support each other in case of arrest, detention, or repression.

Llamada a una semana de acciòn autònoma para #movilizacióndehalloween #hogaresnohorrores.

Únete a nosotrxs la próxima semana, entre el 29 de octubre al 5 de noviembre, para demandar fronteras abiertas, prisiones vacías y vivienda gratis y permanentes para todxs.

Este es un llamado a la acción y a movilizarse, a que todxs hagamos algo, aquí y ahora, para crear el mundo en el que queremos vivir. El número de muertes en las prisiones de NYC continúa aumentando–ya ha sobrepasado el número de muertes registradas en el 2021. La policía vigila e inunda metros, esquinas, parques y escuelas. El gobierno de la ciudad intenta proyectar la imagen de NYC como “ciudad santuario”, al mismo tiempo que vuelve a implementar el sistema de vigilancia de “Ventanas Rotas”, que establece campamentos inundados en áreas remotas e inaccesibles para personas migrantes recién llegadas, o que somete a personas en su momento más vulnerable a un sistema violento y decrépito de albergues, actualmente atendido por la Guardia Nacional. Como si no pudiese ser más claro, un reporte reciente expuso que hay cerca de 90,000 apartamentos vacantes de alquiler estabilizado en NYC en el 2021, sujetos en manos de propietarios especuladores, al mismo tiempo que la población sin hogar alcanza las 55,000 personas.

Las clases dominantes alrededor del mundo quieren que las comunidades más precarizadas se enfrenten entre sí: personas migrantes e indocumentadas, personas sin hogar y trabajadores pobres, todxs quienes vivimos en los márgenes. Sin embargo, en la unidad está nuestra fuerza. Sabemos que las fronteras y las prisiones son el problema y lo que está en crisis, no lxs vecinxs y las familias que se cuidan unxs a otrxs. Sabemos que nadie es ilegal y que quien golpea a unx, golpea a todxs.

Convocamos a todxs a movilizarse y hacer acciones en sus ciudades, pueblos, vecindarios, barrios, escuelas, universidades y hogares, entre el 29 de octubre y el 5 de noviembre, ya sea exhibiendo lienzos, haciendo arte callejero o pegatina de carteles, planeando salidas masivas de la escuela, abriendo casas o apartamentos vacíos para personas migrantes o sin casa, exponiendo las condiciones de los albergues y campamentos “de acogida” para migrantes, sirviendo comida y habilitando lugares de distribución radical, tirando fuegos artificiales, o de cualquier otra forma creativa ideadas por sus grupos.

– Convoca a tus redes o grupos para agitar y movilizarse en estas fechas en solidaridad con las personas migrantes, sin casa, y personas criminalizadas en todas partes.

– Idea estrategias, y define los objetivos (lugares) y tácticas que mejor se adecuen a tu comunidad, barrio o vecindario.

– Documenta tus acciones. Comparte imágenes, historias y reportes con tus redes sociales usando los hashtags #movilizacióndehalloween #hogaresnohorrores.

– Mantente a salvo, sé inteligente, sé arriesgadx. Considera las diferentes necesidades, capacidades y vulnerabilidades de las personas. Pedimos que todxs quienes respondan a este llamado estén preparadxs para apoyarse unxs a otrxs en caso de arresto, detención o represión.


by It's Going Down via It's Going Down
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Fighting to Save the Meadows in South Philadelphia: An Interview with Anathema

Interview between anarchist publication Anathema out of so-called Philadelphia and people involved in the struggle to defend FDR park from destruction.

Anathema sat down with two people involved in the struggles to defend the meadows at FDR park in South Philly. What follows is an abridged transcript of the interviews that took place. To read the complete interviews visit the Anathema website anathema.noblogs.org.

Anathema: Can you tell us a little bit about FDR park, the Meadows, and the development taking place there?

1: Yeah, I don’t know about the original history of this park. I know for long term residents of Philly, FDR park is called the Lakes because of the big bodies of water here. I think FDR park was built around these golf courses, and The Meadows was a golf course for a century. It was repeatedly flooded and decommissioned as a golf course in 2018. Although even when it was a golf course, you hear stories about people who have used this land to make a connection to nature. People have stories about foraging all kinds of stuff from South Philly communities. It’s kind of one of the last wild spaces in the South Philly area.

The development that’s taking place here, it’s titled “The Master Plan for FDR Park.” It is an ongoing city plan to raise the elevation of certain areas of the park and add 12 new sports fields. The plan is also connected to development plans with the Philadelphia Airport, which wants to expand and is destroying 40 acres of wetland. By law, it has to restore a comparable amount of wetland. So funds for the redevelopment of this park are funds from the airport to offset the wetland destruction there. They’re also going to “improve” 35 acres of wetlands here at FDR Park.

Anathema: What have the struggles against the development looked like so far? What’s happening?

2: So far, the things that have been happening that I’ve been witness to, have been bulldozing. So just clearing the area of natural trees and wildlife. Fencing it off from the general public who were once able to freely roam around it. The struggle has been trying to find the exact dates of when bulldozing will happen, and also people have done campaigns like phone zaps, and making banners and posters. There have been some events held around the Meadows such as foraging, tree-mappings to try and identify trees and other species within the Meadows to have a perspective on if there are some species that might be endangered.

Basically trying to find ways to halt the destruction. When that didn’t happen, the struggle has looked like more events in the park, more walkabouts, filming. Trying to spread as much awareness as possible. There has been some apparent sabotage of equipment, so you could also say some insurrectionary developments in there as well.

1: There wasn’t a big offensive push. I think that equipment got staged in late August, and there was push back. People…serviced the machines that arrived *laughs.* I think there were a lot of people doing different things, discussing whether construction people had permits, or thinking of ways to put pressure on the construction company. People trying to put pressure on city officials in ways that had no real effect whatsoever.

At first, when the destruction happened in late August, there wasn’t a clear construction zone. Lots of people were just out and about amongst the destruction, kind of putting themselves at risk in hopes that the construction company would get some kind of retribution for endangering people. That didn’t have much effect. They put up more solid fencing pretty immediately. In the first week of destruction, people were messing with equipment, people may or may not have spiked some trees. That stopped the destruction for a week. The place was swarming with cops and the unusable machinery got replaced.

They did the destruction pretty quickly after that. I feel like they were destroying dozens of acres a day. After a few weeks in which there wasn’t much real material resistance, they had cleared like 70 acres. From what I hear, all they have funding for is this first phase of destruction. As far as I know, now that the first 70 acres are destroyed, there’s gonna be a pause.

Anathema: How have the city, the cops, the neighbors responded to the struggle for the Meadows?

1: The city doubled down on its greenwashing media blasts. The Inquirer and other news outlets are like “The protesters are out of control!” or “Why the city needs the development at FDR Park.” They’re just pushing a narrative that they’re trying to make the space better, of course. Gentrification. They’re trying to make the park welcoming to sports people.

A response from neighbors…I’ve definitely seen people who are used to using the land express heartbreak and dismay that they can’t access the space, that it’s being destroyed.

2: For the most part, the Friends of FDR Park have been going around telling people that they were going to make the Meadows into a different type of area, but that they were going to leave a certain amount for people to still use. Trying to talk about it being more nature. Ultimately it’s being discovered that that’s a lie and not what they were really going to do. The community really enjoys this area, so they have responded like “that’s really fucked up.” But there are still people who believe their master plan, if you will. Because of that, they are under a false assumption that the Meadows will be made into something different and better, so they’re all for the project.

The police response was very minimal at the beginning. As tactics escalated, they responded with a lot more surveillance. It went from a little surveillance, to 24 hour surveillance, to bringing in the FBI. They’ve also brought in the counter-terrorist chain. They’re really trying to snuff out any real sense of eco-justice of an insurrectionary nature.

Anathema: A lot of the land in FDR has already been cleared. Has this changed how people are struggling and what are some of the next steps in light of this clear cutting, leveling, and bringing in dirt

1: I think that once the destruction started and it was kind of clear that we were slow on having both an offensive and a defensive strategy. Once we weren’t able to hold ground anymore, a lot of people were like “Oh fuck, we lost.” I guess it’s real to feel disheartened. People have distanced themselves from this struggle.

There’s still around 100 acres of land that hasn’t been touched, that they plan to develop. There’s still a lot worth defending here. Trying to get ahead of what the developer’s plans are makes sense as a strategy. There could be a long lull until they get enough money to move forward. And continuing to make the project financially unviable for them will always benefit us in trying to stop them.

2: People have definitely had to go and do things a little more under the radar or while knowing there are multiple FBI and security personnel that are constantly watching and trying to analyze where they’re going. There have been rumors of cameras being placed in the park every so often. That’s been a general concern which has deterred a lot of people from coming back into the park. A lot of equipment is now under heavy surveillance or is just off of the grid, so any type of sabotaging efforts have pretty much come to a standstill.

In light of the clear-cutting, the next steps have really just looked like more events in the park, trying to get awareness out there, collaborating with other projects such as the UC Townhomes struggle. Also trying to appeal to the city to stop future leveling efforts.

Source: @kayteterry

Anathema: What would you say to anyone who wants to take part in defending the Meadows?

2: Environmental defense of any kind is important. All ecosystems are important. All matters of wildlife are relatively equal to all of us, we’re not more than any animal that is out there. Ecological defense is very much needed. Any effort you want to give is very much appreciated. I understand people have different comfort levels and ideas, but if you were looking to start somewhere, definitely come out and take a walk around the area. Talk to the local people. Go on instagram. Come get involved, come through to an event.

1: I would say there’s a lot of ways to do that. There are a lot of people invested in this project for whatever reason–annoying them and making their lives difficult is great. I think a lot of people would probably enjoy that. There’s still a lot of open space here to have parties, bring people out. I think A&P construction and the other subcontractors who stand to gain from this project…it definitely makes sense to try to make their lives more difficult.

If you’re looking for offensive or defensive entry points, there are many.

Anathema: Do you think there’s anything people outside of Philadelphia can do to contribute to this struggle?

1: I feel like having solidarity, especially in land defense struggles but I’m thinking in particular urban land defense struggles – like the Atlanta forest, or stopping big development projects. Continuing to boost each others’ struggles and bringing attention to them is bugging the people who stand to gain from them. Those people, those companies exist in different cities. It feels really good, fun, and exciting to be learning from each others’ strategies and boosting each other in those efforts.

Anathema: Is there anywhere people can follow these struggles and keep themselves informed about what’s going on around the Meadows?

1: Yeah, I think the news source I trust the most at the moment about it is the Save the Meadows. They have a website savethemeadows.com. The instagram account is @savethemeadows.

Anathema: What would you say are some strengths and weaknesses of the struggle to defend the Meadows?

1: Some strengths are that our opponents in this struggle–the city, parks and rec, the developers, the cops–are really stupid. The people involved in defending the Meadows are more creative and smarter.

There is a difference in resources, obviously. The city has machinery that can facilitate destruction really fast. The city’s monopoly on violence and destruction is an obstacle to work around. But I feel like there are a lot of artists, smart and brave people involved in the struggle. A disadvantage is that this plan created by the city precedes a lot of our knowledge. They had a big head start.

Source: @kayteterry

2: The struggles for the Meadows really seem to be coming internally in the form of communication, even though there is an instagram and a website. For instance, there was communication of how much is being cleared, but not about how much all at one time. There was speculation of whether there were 100 acres left or less. I would say the struggle of communication is real.

There have definitely been internal struggles. Not everybody is on board with all the tactics that have been used or talked about through this entire movement. There are definitely people trying to control narratives, peace policing, and denouncement of tactics by certain organizers. A struggle is people not getting along or communicating.

Anathema: What are some of the biggest tensions involved in people defending the Meadows?

2: The biggest tension thus far is between organizers and people who are more of a free association, so to speak. People peace policing, people trying to fit a certain narrative or only wanting certain tactics. This has been really frustrating for a lot of people. Organizers have definitely talked a lot of shit on each other. The solidarity is not really there.

And also organizers trying to throw shade, really belittling the work because it wasn’t approved by them. Really trying to go after this narrative of “the movement is 95% white and half of these people are not from the community, so their opinions don’t matter. The ways they choose to enter into the struggle don’t matter.” It’s a real fucking shame because it’s going to show there’s not solidarity amongst everybody, and I think it’s going to turn a lot of people off, if it hasn’t already.

1: Politically, a lot of people involved are still invested in a centralized decision making around what happens here, whether that’s collaborating with the city or having a centralized organization. Of course you don’t have to participate in that, but a lot of organizers are still thinking in terms of how they can get other people to do things instead of doing the things that they want to do, or encouraging people to do the things they want to do. Maybe that’s an issue with how we imagine projects getting done, or how we imagine working together for a shared goal. There is a desire amongst some of the organizers to continue a top down model, and it’s a lot of work to continually challenge that.

photo: Unicorn Riot


by Anathema via It's Going Down
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Saturday, October 29, 2022

The Official Narrative On Ukraine

Listen to a reading of this article:

❖

The official narrative promoted by the entire western political/media class is that Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February of this year solely because he is evil and hates freedom. He wants to conquer as much of Europe as possible because he cannot stand free democracies, because he is another Adolf Hitler.

The official narrative is that while Russia is in Ukraine solely because its leader is an evil monster like Hitler, the US is in Ukraine solely because its leaders are righteous. The United States is providing arms, military intelligence, and assistance on the ground from special ops forces and CIA officers to Ukraine, as well as implementing an unprecedented regime of economic warfare against Russia, solely because the US loves its good friends the Ukrainians and wants to protect their freedom and democracy.

If you dispute any part of the official Ukraine narrative, you are an evil monster, and a disinformation agent. Because Vladimir Putin is the same as Adolf Hitler, you are also the same as Neville Chamberlain, and are guilty of the cardinal sin of supporting appeasement.

Because you are an evil disinformation agent Neville Chamberlain appeasement monster, it is legitimate to censor you. It is legitimate to accuse you of being secretly paid by the Russian government. It is legitimate to swarm you with coordinated astroturf trolls working to shout you down and overwhelm you. It is legitimate to publish propagandistic smear pieces about you. All normal expectations of public discourse go out the window, because you are a monster, not a person.

If you are tempted to ask questions which put a wobble on the official narrative, you must resist this urge at all cost. Don’t ask why western officials, scholars and strategists have spent years warning that the actions of western governments would lead to this war. Don’t ask what people are talking about when they say the US provoked this war, or when they say the US is using this war to advance strategic agendas it has had in place for years, or when they suggest that these things might have something to do with why the US is obstructing diplomatic solutions at every turn. If you ask questions like these, you are the worst person in the world.

Per the official narrative, if you confront powerful lawmakers on their support for US interventionism in Ukraine, you are “parroting pro-Putin talking points” and spreading “Russian disinformation“. Questioning officials of the most powerful government in the world about the most consequential decisions being made in the world is violence, and is not allowed.

If you claim you are objecting to the US using proxy warfare in Ukraine on anti-war grounds, you are lying; you are not anti-war. You are only anti-war if you support the same positions on Ukraine as noted anti-war activists John Bolton, Bill Kristol, Tom Cotton, and Mike Pompeo. If you want to learn about the true anti-war position, consult reliable anti-war publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post.

The official narrative on Ukraine is that the US empire and its media never lie or circulate propaganda about wars that the US is involved in. If you dispute this, you are lying and circulating propaganda. That’s why it’s necessary to have so much censorship and organized trolling and mass media reports reminding you how good and righteous this war is: it’s to protect you from lies and propaganda.

If any part of the official narrative on Ukraine sounds suspicious to you, this means you have been infected by Russian disinformation. Do not breathe a word of the thoughts you’ve been thinking to anyone, or else you will be guilty of spreading Russian disinformation and will become the enemy of the free world.

Remember, good citizen: we must oppose Russian propaganda at all costs to protect our western values of free expression, free thought, free press, and free democracy. So do not question any part of the official Ukraine narrative. Or else.

________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, buying an issue of my monthly zine, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my American husband Tim Foley.

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source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2022/10/29/the-official-narrative-on-ukraine/
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