The Border Patrol 6 prepare for trial and call for resistance, as the Arpaio 5 cases come to an end

The six people who locked down at the Tucson sector Border Patrol headquarters last May, demanding the end of border militarization amongst many other anti-border demands, are fighting their charges and calling for additional action. While their trial kicks off in Tucson tomorrow, there will be a concert benefiting the Border Patrol 6 (BP6) organized by the comrades from the Border Opposition Action Fund to be held at the Dry River Radical Resource Center tonight featuring bands and speakers.

The BP6 are also asking for people to join them this week at the opening of their trial at 2PM on Wednesday, February 23 at the Tucson City Court, located at 103 E. Alameda St. Tucson, AZ. Their will be a solidarity presence that will be meeting up at the Joel D. Valdez Pima County Public Library (101 North Stone Avenue, Tucson, AZ) at 1:30 PM for a rally and march to the city court. The event organizers are requesting that people interested in attending the rally bring signs and banners, instruments and other noise-makers, and comfortable walking shoes.

In addition to the calls for solidarity at the trial, the BP6 issued a statement earlier this month in which they announced their decision to take their trespassing cases to trial. Along with this information they included a series of demands so vast that they aren't so much demands to be answered by the federal government, but rather giving direction to those struggling against border militarization, as if to say "these are the steps to take for the dissolution of the national territorial boundary along the southwestern United States." Thoroughly anti-colonial, it addresses the necessity of free movement for O'odham people, the original inhabitants of this occupied territory, but it doesn't end there.

Yes, the border wall suffocates the O'odham communities on the other side of the border line, but O'odham people also suffer through the manned checkpoints, the camera eyes of the aerial drones, and the disturbance of cultural practices and sacred sites caused by the Border Patrol and its agents. However, the O'odham do not suffer alone, nor do they resist alone. Hundreds of miles east of the southern Arizona borderlands, there are Lipan Apache grassroots efforts resisting the same imposition of the border wall and subsequent militarization in their own traditional lands.

The authors of the BP6 trial statement didn't have a narrow definition of solidarity in mind when they wrote this document. Instead of calling for a single solidarity rally to correspond with their trial, the BP6 are saying that the best way to show solidarity with them is to take action against the systems of control and domination behind the border apparatus. One of the things I really liked about the call for solidarity is that it links the state's attacks on migrants through legislation and criminalization, the federally granted police powers for cops to terrorize and racially profile communities of color, and the militarization of indigenous lands by the military and federal police agencies as equal parts of the ongoing colonial attack on non-white people in the southwest.

The occupation of the border patrol lobby placed the struggle against borders not as a component of the mainstream immigrant movement and the fight against SB 1070, but rather that the movement in defense of immigrants is situated within the centuries old resistance to colonialism from the indigenous peoples of Arizona. Similarly, as it was pointed out in the DOA statement last year:

We recognize what appears to be an unending historical condition of forced removal here in the Southwestern so-called US. From the murdering of O'odham Peoples and stealing of their lands for the development of what is now known as the metropolitan Phoenix area, to the ongoing forced relocation of more than 14,000 Diné who have been uprooted for the extraction of natural resources just hours north of here, we recognize that this is not a condition that we must accept, it is a system that will continue to attack us unless we act.

Whether we are migrants deported for seeking to organize our own lives (first forced to migrate to a hostile country for work) or working class families foreclosed from our houses, we see the same forces at work. Indeed, in many cases the agents of these injustices are one and the same.

We wish our friends and comrades luck this week as they travel to Tucson to face these charges. Drop all charges against the BP6, free movement for all!


A final update on the Arpaio 5

As another resistance trial begins, the final two cases of the five valley anti-authoritarians and anarchists who were arrested at last year's anti-Arpaio march have finally come to an end. Both Claire and Garyn chose to take their cases to trial, they were tried in a bench trial (no sitting jury, just the judge), and were correct to be confident in their ability to walk away with a "not guilty" decision from the judge. We at PCWC were very happy to hear that our comrades left the courtroom victorious, over a year after their arrests, the state's flimsy case against Claire and Garyn fell apart in under two days of testimony.

As any witness to the police attack at last year's January 16 demonstration can attest, the undercover cops and uniformed snatch squads made arbitrary arrests as they moved through the clouds of pepper spray grabbing who they could. Through the heavy doses of pepper spray it was just as clear that the police had a political motivation in attacking and isolating the militant section of the march, creating a lasting rift between sections of the mainstream movement and those critical of the movement's leadership and strategy.

Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments to come out of the events on January 16 was the manner with which Phoenix New Times columnist Stephen Lemons portrayed the police attack. As I recall, Lemons penned three separate blog entries on the attack, in the first two posts he attempts out the details from a few protesters interviewed and puts some video up, but in the third post he claimed to have seen video footage that conclusively showed an anarchist attack one of the mounted officer who rode into the march. In two of the screen shots posted he specifically noted a demonstrator with a green hoodie who Lemons claimed was attacking the horse. What's interesting is that the video in which Lemons grabbed the screen shot, and claimed to see a person wearing a green hoodie attack the police horse is the very same video that got the person in the green hoodie's case dismissed. It only looks like he's shoving the horse because he was being tackled by a Phoenix cop from behind, something that a single screen shot doesn't show. Where was the screen shot half a second later that showed the Phoenix cop behind him? Why did Lemons want to paint a picture that said anarchists are at fault, whether or not some were acting in self-defense to a coordinated police attack. In addition, where's the follow up article(s) on the not guilty/case dismissal of three of the five arrested?

There's no doubt that Lemons has contributed some valuable reporting on the immigrant movement, and the battles against the rightwing populists of the Phoenix metro area. When the mainstream movement hacks totally ignored the BP6 lockdown and occupation, Lemons wrote glowing praise for those involved, and wrote that he hoped their acts would inspire others. He's written of a number of anarchist actions in solidarity with migrants, or opposing anti-immigrant racists, even though anarchists weren't mentioned by name. We know he likes it when anarchists and anti-racists gave the nazi hell! Hell, he even gave a shoutout on his New Times blog to a fundraising effort we initiated for the BP6.

So rather than enter into a debate with Lemons on the merits of writing an entry on supporting the "good anarchists" whose cases were thrown out, or why the I'd say the "bad anarchists" were never bad, I'd like to draw from an inspiring slogan I was introduced to at the last Beer & Revolution, along with one of my favorite photos from the January 16 DOA contingent. After the years of repression, frame ups, and state attacks from police, our Chilean anarchist comrades have managed to capture in one concise sentence the tension that exists when the actions of a movement in resistance brings imprisonment, and how this resistance is justified to the rest of society. Quite simply:

"We're not innocent, we're not guilty, we're your enemies"

An Urgent Request from Grace Daniels

Below my comments here I have re-posted a letter appealing for assistance in Grace Daniel's case. Please do everything you can to offer aid and comfort as requested. Your help is needed now more now than ever.

PCWC stands unequivocally behind everyone beaten and arrested by those thugs the Phoenix Police and MCSO at the January 16th anti-Arpaio march. We likewise denounce the leftist activists who collaborated in advance and after the fact with the attack and the bullshit press that, in the truest tribute to the Red Scare I've seen in some time, quickly tried and convicted our friends without bothering getting the facts.

One reason anarchists oppose law and policing is precisely because it focuses on process over substance, power over equality and the result therefore almost always resembles nothing even remotely like even a shadow of what we might call justice as most people understand the word. More often than not the outcome looks something akin to blackmail or, as Orwell put it in a slightly different context, a boot to the face. That the State is incapable of delivering justice in most cases -- for instance when factors like race, income or oppositional politics come into play -- reveals the entire spectacle to be a sham.

Often, when the cards are stacked against you as is the case with the majority of us that lack wealth and power, you are forced into a lose-lose situation, where the choice becomes more one of damage control and the hedging of bets in order to preserve your already limited freedom. Deeper questions of justice and wrong and right frustratingly fade into the background.

Frustratingly, I say, because despite the sheer absurdity of the process when taken at face value, at every turn the so-called justice system reminds you with the grand language of guilt and innocence, justice and reparation, that although what you're going through feels a lot like extortion, instead it is supposedly a quest for truth and fact. Bullshit! Cognitive dissonance prevails nowhere in this society so much as in the courtroom. And since the State is built on laws, it is in the courtroom where we often get our purest look at its hypocrisies, as well as its failings.

Consider, as a case in point, Grace's situation where two sentences, one a month and the other more than ten years are bandied about as equally viable options for the same alleged crime. Where does justice lie when the outcomes, both State-sanctioned, are so disparate? To speak of justice as long as these kinds of dichotomies exist is in reality to speak of nothing at all.

Realistically, going to trial can be very dangerous given the tendency of the agents of the State and their masters to lie, cheat and manufacture/disappear evidence/witnesses. It takes strength and courage to stand up against that onslaught, even if the struggle isn't carried through to trial. As anarchists we reject the State's definitions of guilt or innocence and we stand with our comrades under attack, even as we understand the limitations that the legal framework puts on defense and the sad pragmatism that often must result from the pathetic application of the stinking law.

For my part, I do not begrudge anyone, with the obvious exception of those whose deals lead to collaboration with the State, for taking the better of two shitty deals, or of not risking a fight that can have catastrophic results. Battling the State on their home turf is not easy and in the courtroom they hold all the cards. I myself have faced this situation more than once in my life. My deepest sympathies to anyone who sits in a similar position. Decisions rarely come easy.

Justice in capitalist democracy is a sham and I would no more hold a comrade to its anemic standards than I would myself. It's failings reveal only more clearly the need for an uncompromising revolution that overturns this wretched order: a kicking over of this justice death-machine that has left so many wrecked lives in its wake. Solidarity in struggle to all who face it in the name of liberty, freedom and equality for themselves and others, as well as to those who face it just to pay the rent or put food on the table.

Support our comrades under attack. Support Grace Daniels.

-Phoenix Insurgent

An Urgent Request from Grace Daniels

Friends, Family, Comrades:

I just spoke to my lawyer regarding the current state of proceedings regarding the charges being alleged against me since my arrest on January 16th at the Anti-Arpaio march in Phoenix, Arizona. I had hoped my next post on this topic would at least contain semi-positive news; unfortunately that is not the case. The prosecutor has disclosed their final plea deal which would require me to plead guilty to a class 5 felony, with a mandatory 30 days in jail, and a minimum of 1 year supervised probation (which could be up to 3 years).

I have until Wednesday to agree to take this plea or not, if I decide to go forward with the plea it would be effective on September 3rd, Friday. If I decide to take this to trial, the date is set for September 14th. Given the case that we have I normally would see taking this to trial as the best option, however, because a special sentencing statute specifying that this was a “dangerous” offense was added, the judge has no leeway in my sentencing and if convicted it would mean a mandatory 10.5 years in prison. As of right now although we have witnesses, we do not have any video documentation showing the moment that the alleged “crime” was committed. The police as anyone who was there knows, and as we know through the video that we have seen, had numerous cameras throughout the protest and at that moment. However, they are claiming that it does not exist at this point, meaning that it has likely been destroyed.

I am writing this as a last urgent call out to whoever reads this. Things that may help if received by Wednesday would be; character letters (guidelines specified below, you can email them to me at s0917daniels@gmail.com), any video documentation of the protest, and witnesses who saw me directly before, during, and after my arrest. If you feel you have any possible information or documentation that may help in this case, please email me for my lawyers phone number.

Thank you to everyone who has provided unending support and to those who continue to fight despite tactics such as these used to try to scare us into submission.

If you are unfamiliar with the events on the 16th, please see links below for more background and current updates in regards to the other 4 who were arrested that day.

~Grace

GUIDELINES

Who they are - brief

How they know you, how long, etc

Acknowledge that they know essentially what you are charged with

Then, FOCUS on your good character traits, with specific examples if possible.

Character for non-violence generally, and if they have experience with you at marches, rallies, etc, your non-violence at those.

They can then simply request leniency on your behalf.

They should NOT profess your innocence unless they were there and saw you right before and up to your arrest – and of course, we have found no such person yet.

They should NOT try to school the prosecutors and/or judge on the justice system, jail, prison, etc.

The latter stuff just turns off the professional who is reading it and they will ignore the good stuff!

The focus is on you, not the case.

Support the Arpaio Five!

This is a reminder that several comrades of ours still face charges stemming from the police attack on the Dine', O'odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian contingent (DO@) at the January 16th anti-Arpaio march. If you visit the support page, you can read updates and donate money for the defense. Please consider helping out our friends in their fight against this bullshit.

Rereading the DO@ statement lately, I'm impressed with how prescient it was, as well as how the problems within the movement that were highlighted in it remain with us. Indeed, the statement was a clear, unambiguous call for a new kind of movement that recognized that the fight against white supremacy and colonialism transcended the crass and limited opposition to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This is a point that was brought clearly home the day that SB1070 passed and the movement in general was forced to recognize the truth, even if (as usual), the people who made that point earlier have continued to be ostracized and attacked.

In addition, it critiqued the boring repetition of useless marches and predicated and called for the rise of a direct action-oriented movement, which was ridiculed at the time but has since come to pass. There is certainly a time for marches and vigils, but I think it was clear to all of us involved in organizing and writing that statement that that time had long since passed, given the situation in Arizona. As I said, that logic, though lost on the conservative movement leadership (and other non-profiteer types outside the state) and various self-appointed gatekeepers, has found fertile ground in many people these days, as we saw most recently with the lock down of the Tucson border patrol office by an affinity group of anti-authoritarian, anarchist and indigenous militants.

But, perhaps most of all, it called for a broadening of the movement, of a reconsideration of the composition of the movement and for a radically democratic and participatory movement to replace the rigid, leftist, hierarchical movement that currently holds power. We see more and more evidence of this emerging these days, whether in the student self-organized walkouts during the week SB1070 passed to the neighborhood assemblies now forming in several cities in the Valley, originally initiated by anarchists and other residents in Tempe (including PCWC), that have begun to spread, prefiguring a new way of resisting the law and racism in general that bypasses both statewide government and the movement hacks, and determines to drill down as small as it takes to get a core that can set up resistance in collective, accountable and democratic fashion.

As men and women willing to stand up and defend that vision with their bodies and their futures, the Arpaio Five deserve our support. Please visit their page and make a donation. And continue to fight for the movement we want.