Author Archive
August 3, 2010 at 12:56 pm · Filed under Internal Memos, posted by ret marut
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Earlier this summer, From the Depths returned from an exciting, inspiring, and educational two-month tour of Europe. They brought back copies of the European pressing of their “Germinate” LP, which are now available from Stickfigure distribution.
In addition, now that the band has finally made enough money to cover the recording costs of the album, they are offering it for free downloading. Donations are still welcome to cover the costs of making this available.
“Germinate” is still available on CD via CrimethInc. Far East. From the Depths is scheduled to record another record this fall.
July 5, 2010 at 7:15 pm · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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Our last update offered an overview of what happened in Toronto during the anarchist actions against the G20 June 25-27. We’ve received the following blow-by-blow report from on the ground there, offering context and analysis from inside the riots that shook Canada’s largest city. Anarchists have fully emerged in North America as a force to be reckoned with following the events in Toronto, and it is important to understand how this came about. The black bloc has become a household name throughout the region, and we must use this exposure to our advantage by maintaining our visibility even in the face of repression. We must also look critically at the events of the weekend in order to make strategic advances toward our goal of completely dismantling the domination and hierarchy of the present world.
Information on the situation facing arrestees in Toronto is still sketchy at best, as most of those with serious charges have not received bail hearings yet and full coordination of support campaigns has yet to emerge. We will present an additional update on repression and arrestee support as soon as possible.
Full report here.
February 15, 2010 at 7:21 pm · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by ret marut
![[Banner photo by Michael Thibault, Crimson Phoenix Photography, www.crimsonphoenixphotography.com.]](http://thecloud.crimethinc.com/images/riot2010/1_a.jpg)
“We love athletics” —anarchist contestants for the 2010 Olympics
We’re pleased to bring you breaking news from Vancouver, where united indigenous and anarchist resistance has disrupted the capitalist and nationalist triumphalism at the opening of the Olympic Games.
Read on after the jump!
November 12, 2009 at 7:50 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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Two dear comrades, Carrie Feldman and Scott DeMuth, are subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury in Davenport, Iowa this coming Tuesday, November 17. The prosecutor has not disclosed the pretext for the subpoena, though it appears that it may be connected to the FBI investigation of an Animal Liberation Front action that occurred at the University of Iowa in 2004—when Carrie and Scott were barely in high school.
Grand juries exist to coerce civilians into providing information about themselves and others to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. They operate in secret; no judges or defense attorneys are present, and neither Constitutional rights nor conventional evidence-gathering protocol apply. Grand juries are frequently used to harass activists and dissidents; for example, a grand jury forced independent journalist Josh Wolf to serve 226 days in a federal prison simply for refusing to turn over a videotape he had shot at a demonstration.
Carrie was already called to appear before this grand jury on October 15, and refused to answer questions, reading a statement declaring that she had “no intention of testifying before this grand jury” on account of her personal convictions. It is possible that if she and Scott refuse to answer questions this Tuesday, they will be thrown in jail for up to a year.
Both Carrie and Scott have contributed immensely to their communities and to the struggle for a freer world. Among other projects, Carrie has worked with EWOK!, a Twin Cities group supporting environmentalist defendants and prisoners, and the Coldsnap Legal Collective, which has been instrumental in supporting arrestees from the 2008 RNC protests. In addition to his own involvement with EWOK! and the Anarchist Black Cross, Scott participates in Oyate Nipi Kte, a group dedicated to the liberation of the Dakota people and the rediscovery of their traditional ways of life, and the editorial board of the Dakota community journal Anpao Duta. If these two are kidnapped by the state, it will be a tremendous loss.
Supporters are calling for a phone-in day to pressure the prosecutor to leave them alone. This Monday, call US Attorney Cliff Cronk and demand that he dismiss the subpoenas. Let them know this harassment is unacceptable and will be met by popular outrage and opposition at every turn. Feel free to take up as much of their time as you can—they clearly feel entitled to waste ours.
Monday, November 16, 9 am to 4 pm Central Standard Time
US Attorney’s Office
Cliff Cronk: (563)449-5432
Support Webpage for Carrie and Scott
General Purpose Poster against cooperating with police investigations [PDF, 576k]
October 29, 2009 at 1:49 pm · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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In our initial coverage of last month’s G20 protests, we challenged readers to imagine the offensive role dumpsters played in the conflict as a fable in which a tool refuses its prescribed social function:
Imagine, if you will, gentle reader, the animist version of this story in which dumpsters, long accused of complicity in anarchist “lifestylism,” step out of their social role to join the social war. Free food, even when distributed via programs like Food Not Bombs, is not enough—we want freedom itself, and the dumpster does too, and it gains momentum down the hill as it rolls, alone and magnificent, directly into a pair of oblivious policemen.
Our friends at the Super Happy Anarcho-Fun Pages, profiled earlier on this blog, have risen to the challenge, publishing a special issue of their comic delightfully lampooning our biannual Rolling Thunder. This sendup chronicles the adventures of one Skip, a dumpster who forsakes his place in a dropout community to make war on the ruling social order. It is available for downloading here:
web version [6MB PDF] : letter-size print [6.6MB PDF] : A4 print [6.7MB PDF]
October 25, 2009 at 7:38 am · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by ret marut
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One month after the G20 protests in Pittsburgh, many still face felony and misdemeanor charges. Chief among these are the two people arrested for sending Twitter messages during the protests, whose home was subsequently raided by the FBI, and David Japenga, the young man ludicrously accused of being “single-handedly responsible for most of the $50,000 in damage” anarchists inflicted on corporations during the summit.
In addition to the felony charges filed in Pittsburgh and the house raid, the Twitter defendants—and perhaps others?—are apparently being targeted by a secretive federal grand jury. Supporters have established an informative and frequently updated blog here. A rudimentary support page for David Japenga can be found here. The Twitter case will set important precedents about people’s legal rights to use modern communications technology—a matter that could determine the shape of protest in this country for decades to come. It is also important to support David Japenga, who is the state’s scapegoat for this mobilization.
Meanwhile, last Thursday, over 100 other defendants appeared in court for charges stemming from the G20 protests. A smug judge lectured college students who had been randomly assaulted by police, while prosecutors and public defenders attempted to intimidate brutalized arrestees into accepting plea bargains and thus giving up their opportunity to sue the authorities over the abuse.
Donations to the support campaign for those targeted by the Twitter charges, the house raid, and the grand jury can be made here; the Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project is also taking donations for a legal fund to support arrestees.
October 7, 2009 at 2:23 pm · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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The reports are coming in, and many participants are describing the G20 protests in Pittsburgh as a success. This is exciting news; the US anarchist movement hasn’t pulled off an unequivocally successful nationwide mobilization in half a decade or more. At the same time, success entails risks of its own: we may overlook the things we didn’t do well, take credit for things outside our actual influence, or fixate on attempting to repeat ourselves. Meanwhile the authorities, who often exaggerate our effectiveness to justify repressing us, appear to be understating the extent of anarchist damage and disruption in Pittsburgh, perhaps to downplay the possibility of militant anticapitalism regaining momentum.
This appraisal explores the triumphs and shortcomings of the G20 mobilization, in hopes that these lessons can be applied soon on a variety of other battlefields.
Read full piece here.
August 29, 2009 at 9:33 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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This September’s protests against the G20 summit in Pittsburgh offer a rare strategic opportunity to reassert anarchist struggle in the new era of economic recession, ecological collapse, and liberal government. We’ve prepared a summary of why these demonstrations are important, who is organizing them, what is planned, and how to get involved.
We’ve also designed a poster promoting the unpermitted mass march to downtown Pittsburgh scheduled for Thursday, September 24, which we predict will be the high point of the mobilization.
Continue after the jump!
June 9, 2009 at 4:39 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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Once again, despite ourselves, we are thrust onto the front lines of history. In the midst of an economic crisis, the leaders of the wealthiest nations on earth are meeting in Pittsburgh to discuss how to preserve global capitalism and reform the loathsome International Monetary Fund—and we are hosting our convergence in Pittsburgh a mere two months earlier.
We hadn’t planned on this—perhaps we’d forgotten that we are in a war that is constantly unfolding, that doesn’t permit truce or respite. It’s hard to bear in mind at all times how much depends on us, to remember that we are responsible for making the kind of resistance we want to participate in come about in our lifetime. At the same time, we can’t only react to our enemies, even when they are constantly provoking us—we must also take the time to develop long-term relationships and projects, or else we’ll never be able to take the initiative.
So what will the convergence in Pittsburgh look like?
Reflections, Solicitations, and Announcements after the jump!
April 25, 2009 at 1:23 pm · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by ret marut
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Over the past three decades, Earth First! has waged a life-or-death campaign to halt the destruction of the natural environment. Right now, the Earth First! Roadshow is halfway through a five month revival tour across the United States, sharing direct action skills, ecodefense history, and opportunities to get involved in protecting the wilderness. Consult their schedule here to see if they’ll be passing through your bioregion before the tour ends at this summer’s Earth First! rendezvous in Cascadia.
One of the acts on the roadshow, a puppet show teaching basic security culture skills, is especially timely in view of recent government efforts to entrap and frame environmental activists. We’ve obtained the script and an audio file, and are sharing them here to equip you to put on the puppet show yourself if you so desire. If your community could use a refresher in protecting your privacy and safety against snooping, evil-intentioned G-men, just build some puppets and adjust the show to your local needs! You can even use the audio recording if you prefer not to memorize the script yourself.
It’s all after the jump!
March 28, 2009 at 11:49 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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Over the past decade, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty—SHAC—has waged an international direct action campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe’s largest contract animal testing corporation. By targeting investors and business partners of HLS, SHAC repeatedly brought HLS to the brink of collapse; it took direct assistance from the British government and an international counter-campaign of severe legal repression to keep the corporation afloat.
In the wake of this campaign, there has been talk of applying the SHAC model in other contexts, such as environmental defense and anti-war organizing. But what is the SHAC model, precisely? What are its strengths and limitations? Is it, in fact, an effective model? If so, for what?
This analysis explores these questions in depth, charting the history of anti-HLS organizing and reviewing subsequent attempts to utilize the same tactics.
Read full piece here.
December 20, 2008 at 10:25 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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From December 6, when police murdered 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in downtown Athens, to the time of this writing, Greece has seen unprecedented rioting. Anarchists and students, supported and often joined by significant swaths of the population, have clashed with police, destroyed corporate and government property, and occupied government buildings, trade union offices, and media outlets, not to mention the usual universities. By December 12, police had used over 4600 capsules of tear gas, and were seeking more from Israel and Germany—an ominous pair of nations, when it comes to repression.
What’s going on in Greece? Is it simply a matter of disenfranchised youth protesting a discouraging job market, or is there something more afoot?
Photos, questions, and a preliminary analysis after the jump.
November 29, 2008 at 3:49 pm · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
Here’s a new poster on the economic crisis, perfect for wheatpasting in neighborhoods with a lot of foreclosures.
Everybody knows that you’ve got to have money to make money, and never is that more true than in a speculation-driven economy. As the stock market reached unprecedented heights, its connection to the nuts and bolts of the economy became more and more illusory, making a “correction” inevitable–and profitable, for some. Gambling on the correction became a money-making scheme in its own right, and continues now after the collapse, without regard for the fact that such late-game betting assures that the recession will be all the more severe. Institutional investors can afford to play this game because, for them, a collapse of the stock market just means an opportunity to gamble on bonds or currency or whatever other financial product which might benefit from the disappearance of trillions of dollars in artificial value.
But if the value lost in the stock market is artificial, the consequences for human beings are very real. The ranks of the unemployed are rising by the hundreds of thousands every month. Inflated prices for consumers goods will largely stay inflated, even as earnings decline and homes are repossessed. And while the ultra-wealthy will ride out the recession in a riot of luxury and consumption, everyone else will be faced with a new, harsh reality—one in which the means of subsistence are increasing hard to achieve.
So for all the media’s obsession with stunned stockbrokers and disgraced corporate tycoons, their suffering is distinctly abstract: paper losses to be pondered during a long and comfortable early retirement. The rest of us will be forced to wonder why the most basic needs of our lives—food, shelter, medicine—are tied to the whims of a marketplace designed for collapse.
Further reading links after the jump.
November 15, 2008 at 10:16 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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An analysis of the political climate following the election of 2008; a plea for anarchists to maintain vibrant networks and confrontational organizing even as Obama takes office; a discussion of what it takes for such networks and organizing to succeed; and a brief review of actions around the election, with a glimpse of what is to come.
Featuring a revision of our earlier Obama poster, and a PDF [6.2 MB] of a paper used to satirize corporate media the day after the election . . .
It’s all after the jump!
October 11, 2008 at 10:22 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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Nowadays, entirely apart from the question of whether you’re engaging in illegal activity, it can be important to protect your privacy while participating in public protests. Local and federal law enforcement agencies are compiling extensive files on everyone they deem suspect; if you don’t want them invading your privacy, it may be appropriate for you to remain anonymous while exercising your supposed right to free speech. The same goes double if you lack the privileges of citizenship or you fear your employer may discriminate against you for your political beliefs. In the light of the felony charges resulting from the recent RNC protests, it is especially important for activists to be aware of this.
We’ve already published extensively on this topic, most notably in the guide Blocs, Black and Otherwise. The following is largely a refresher for anyone who needs it before hitting the streets again.
Full text after the jump.
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![[Banner photo by Michael Thibault, Crimson Phoenix Photography, www.crimsonphoenixphotography.com.]](http://thecloud.crimethinc.com/images/riot2010/1_b.jpg)
