The 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia: The Black Bloc, State Power, & the Death of John Timoney

  • March 3, 2019 10:48 pm

Submission

This hastily-compiled zine is drawn from two sources as a contribution to the historical memory of confrontational resistance in Philadelphia.
First, a fairly long, lightly edited excerpt from Direct Action: An Ethnography, by David Graeber. The first part of this excerpt is a narration of the author’s experience with the black bloc during the 2000 Republican National Convention mobilization in Philly. Following that is a section examining state power, particularly the dynamics that arise when we confront it in the streets.
This excerpt, and the book as a whole, is somewhat dated now. Published in 2008 and mostly dealing with events during the anti-/alter-globalization movement from roughly 1999-2003, its perspectives on non-violence, the police, repression, and identity, do not necessarily hold up today. Still, it remains useful not only for its accounts of important events but also for some very cogent broad analysis.
The second included essay was published by Crimethinc shortly after the death of John Timoney. Timoney was Philadelphia Police Commissioner during the 2000 RNC, and continued a career in repression both nationally and globally afterwards.
Timoney is gone. It’s up to us to make a world where we can say the same for all police.
– Philly Anarchy Jawn, 2019
[read] [print]
Also of interest is this reflection on the RNC: Former SLAM Members Reflect on the RNC Protests in 2000

Research 101: Digging and Strategizing to Win

  • March 3, 2019 3:17 am

from Philly IWW

Much of our work goes beyond the one-on-one bonds across the workplace, the streets, and the city. This training hosted by the IWW is designed to give you the skills necessary to find and build leverage agains bosses, corporations, the police state, and more. Participants are highly encouraged to bring laptops as the training will cover many online public databases.

Topics covered will include:
-Forming a research strategy to win
-Corporation and land records searches
-Company financials and labor violations
-Public contracting of prison profiteers
-Public data on police
-Social media and network research

April 6th, 2019
12pm-2pm
at CityCoHo
2401 Walnut St. Philadelphia

Snacks will be provided!

Accessibility: 2401 Walnut street’s rear entrance has a ramp entering the building and elevators to the floor where our room is on. Please note that the entrance for CityCoHo is on the northern side of the building adjacent to the parking lot.

New Zine from Here and Now Zines

  • March 3, 2019 3:14 am

Submission

Here’s a new zine from our distro on identity and power
(unsurprisingly). A quote to get an idea of what it’s about:

“We are against identity because we think it holds this oppressive reality together. Our identities as marginalized people are our inheritances that separate us as inferior. For centuries, distinctions of inferiority have been used as the building blocks for exploitation and control. Identity is the infrastructure of our suffering and would need to be shattered if we wish to see oppression demolished. Presently, identity pits us against each other instead of against the system’s infrastructures. Scrambling to tally distinctions of how oppressed we are in comparison to others and what we deserve to be compensated doesn’t end our exploitation and only keeps us distracted from making the necessary calculations to sabotage the infrastructure holding domination in place.”

[Print] [Read]

Liaisons presents: In the Name of the People

  • February 28, 2019 11:47 pm

from Facebook

Please join us for a discussion and presentation with Liaisons on their recent book “In the Name of the People”. Authors from Japan, Mexico, Montreal, and New York will be present to discuss the global populist surge.

The upheaval and polarizations caused by populist movements around the world indicates above all the urgency to develop global revolutionary perspectives, and to make the necessary connections to understand and act in the present. Liaisons is a collective of authors from America, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Quebec, Russia, and Spain.

More than a collective, less than a world, Liaisons is an inclination, a tangent, a crossroads of confrontations, links, and encounters. Liaisons does not study the movement of others as an external object (movement history), nor does it project principles of revolution in the context of pure theory (intellectual history). Instead, Liaisons assembles analyses and theorizations directly from the ongoing struggles of affiliated groups, based in different parts of the planet and seeking a common ground. Liaisons has formed through long-term friendships and, in ensemble, its discourses shed light on a horizon of living-in-struggle. The works of Liaisons are not embodiments of a shared doctrine, but rather research on the interconnectivity among singular problems and aspirations, to facilitate a planetary reverberation of militant autonomy. The works are to expand along with the permeation of the collective, and metamorphose amidst the fluctuating situation of the world.

http://www.commonnotions.org/liaisons
https://www.facebook.com/liaisonshq
https://twitter.com/liaisonshq
https://www.instagram.com/liaisons_hq/

[March 7 from 7:00PM to 9:00PM at Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]

Trouble at Anarchy Afternoons

  • February 27, 2019 10:53 pm

from Facebook

We will be screening the new episode of Trouble during Anarchy Afternoons. Anarchy Afternoons have been happening for several weeks offering coffee, tea, snacks, and discussion. It basically serves as open hours for A-space.

This week we will watch this short video put out by Submedia to help direct our discussion. The video is 30 minutes and is also available freely on the internet if you are interested.

Anarchy Afternoons runs from 1-6. The video will be shown around 3pm.

Here is description of this episode:

Cops are the front-line of the state, tasked with defending and reinforcing all illegitimate hierarchies of power. They are the armed enforcers of white supremacy who catch paid vacations for murdering Black children in the streets. They are the knock on the door to evict you from your home. They are the no-knock SWAT Team raid that shoots your dog. They are the corrupt overseers of the ghetto, the barrio, the favela. They are the unmarked cruiser that slows down to harass a sex worker. They are the vicious interrogators of rape survivors. They are the protectors of bulldozers and pipelines. They are the batons, flash bangs and rubber bullets used to break up our demonstrations, and put down our riots. They are the guardians of capital. They are the oppressor. And without exception… they’re all bastards.
As the overlapping and reinforcing internal crises of capitalism continue to pose an existential threat to the very foundations of state power, governments around the world are doubling-down on their internal security. In many cases, this has come in the form of intense militarization and counterinsurgency training… a process that blurs the traditional between domestic policing and military forces. But further equipping the police does nothing to address the root causes of oppression, exploitation and ecological destruction fuelling social revolt… if anything, it just ups the stakes.

trailer: https://sub.media/video/trouble-18-acab-trailer/

[March 1 A-Space Anarchist Community Center 4722 Baltimore Ave]

Phone Zap for #Vaughn17 Comrades

  • February 25, 2019 5:00 pm

from It’s Going Down

Call-in campaign to support two #Vaughn17 comrades.

Two defendants from the latest #Vaughn17 trial, Kevin Berry and Abednego Baynes, were just acquitted on all charges and are still being held at James T. Vaughn Correctional. This is the same facility where the prison riot took place on February 1st, 2017, and conditions have not changed! Prisoners have reached out and asked for people on the outside to call the warden and demand that Kevin and Abednego get transferred to a lesser security facility.

Call:

Warden Dana Metzger

(302) 653-9261

Here is a suggested call script:

Hello, my name is _____ and I’m calling to demand that Kevin Berry and Abednego Baynes get transferred immediately to another facility. Both defendants were just acquitted on all charges related to the February 1st prison riot, they should not continue to be held at the same facility.

The Local Kids – Issue 3

  • February 25, 2019 4:54 pm

Submission

The Local Kids – Issue 3 – Winter 2019

A compilation of texts, a contribution to a correspondence between those who desire anarchy and subversion.

Life is separated into different phases; as you pass through the years, you are supposed to move on, to progress. One part of life is dedicated to education and exploration, inspired by the naivety and idealism of the inexperienced. Another is about application and comfort, framed by the maturity and pragmatism of the learned. Eventually you arrive at accomplishment and can reap the rewards of a fulfilled life. Only maybe temporarily upset by some (un)desired reskilling and the uncertainty that the future holds. At least that’s how it should be. Or should it? The progress you make seems often nothing more than a narrative structure imposed on loosely related events. That destabilizing thought sometimes flickers through the activities of everyday life. But forget that thought, because you have already invested your time and you want the results. Stubbornly we hold on to the story of achievement and merit. In the meantime we become attached to the perpetuation of this social reality because we don’t want to lose everything. What if we let go of the linear construct of time to mold our perspective on life? Not to not apply ourselves anymore or to live from impulse to impulse. But to avoid the rigidity of (supposed) wisdom, the certainty of the past and the arrogance of the entitled. Life goes in waves, or the circles of a spiral, or some other image that fits a fragmented whole. Of course this goes against the logic of society, and thus the guiding lines of many people around us. We are not traveling along the same paths; our lives are discordant. This is a radical difference that at times makes it hard even to communicate, to find common ground. Nonetheless we shouldn’t banish the unforeseen and have the confidence to hold on to ourselves while we turn this world inside out.

PDFs on thelocalkids.noblogs.org

[Contents]
– To Seize the Moment (Still)
– Caught in the Web
– 2+2=7
– Day-to-day Normality as Source of Depression
– A Barbaric Contribution
– Murmurs and Cries from the Underground

Anathema Volume 4 Issue 13

  • February 24, 2019 9:57 pm

Submission

https://anathema.noblogs.org/post/2019/02/25/volume-4-issue-13/

In this issue:

Krasner was Never a Prison Abolitionist
Checking in on Amazon
What Went Down
Policing Update
Whether Guilty or Innocent: The Vaughn 17
Neither God Nor Master
Who do you Protect?
A Review of “Diagnostic of the Future”
Yiddish Anarchist Conference Reportback
World News
Poem: Faceless

Chinga La Migra Graffiti

  • February 24, 2019 9:53 pm

Submission

Seen near Washington ave

Flash Protest at ICE Office

  • February 23, 2019 12:22 am

from Twitter

Earlier today in Philadelphia, PA, around 9 AM, protesters created a noisy disruption outside the ICE office during morning traffic. They said they were joining in a national response to President Trump declaring a state of emergency to fund his border wall.