Photo of the day: Italian students carry book shields against police during day of action.

Striking back against the capitalist and state attempt to further privatize education and jack up fees, Italian students took to the streets to chants of "Block Everything". Exercising their power to shut down the functioning of everyday life, they tried to block parliament. They were met by police, who in turn came under attack by tomatoes, eggs and smoke bombs. More successful blockades took place at various other city institutions, like the subway and tourist attractions.

Aside from the blockades, one particular photo caught my eye: students deploying shields marked with the names of famous book titles! Notice those helmets in the background. They're ready to rumble. Bravo, kids! Offense gets all the glory, but defense can win the game (ask the Suns, who could use more of the latter these days, to be sure). One suggestion, though -- I don't see any Bonanno in there! I guess there's still a little homework to do even after school's out. Still, well done!

Photo of the Day: Undercover Blues at November 13th Anti-NSM action!

When myself and JR were in Barcelona a few years ago we happened to find ourselves in a really fun squatter anti-eviction riot in which a bunch of banks were fucked up, buildings were occupied, graffiti was thrown up everywhere, billboards were wheatpasted and a freeway was occupied. It was a blast. There was a really cool rally beforehand with all kinds of theater, fireworks and music. Quite impressive. They really had their shit together.

For the most part, until the freeway was taken over, the cops stayed at the back, kind of lurking back there or lingering on the margins. But once we all hopped the wall and got on the freeway, they finally let loose on us with everything they had, rubber bullets, batons and the usual. Quite exciting. Afterward, I remember being on the train, breathless from running, telling some Spanish guy, himself bleeding from a vicious welt inflicted by the cops, that we'd never seen anything like that in the US, and wasn't that too bad.

One tactic that the squatters used against the police in particular caught our attention. In order to keep plain clothes cops out of their march, they had constructed several stylized, giant fingers that pointed down towards the ground, saying "police" on them. The fingers were attached to poles so that they rose clearly above the crowd, in plain view of everyone. People carrying those signs would follow cops through the crowd, calling them out and driving them out. It seemed to work like a charm.

So, we've kicked around doing something similar here for quite a while but never did it, mostly because it seemed like we never needed to. However, the recent rise of the police tactic of using plain clothes snatch squads to infiltrate and grab people from within our marches and rallies reminded us of what we'd seen in Barcelona. So, before the anti-NSM action a couple of them were constructed and taken to the courthouse on the appointed day. They worked like a charm. In fact, one set of plain clothes cops fled never to be seen again that day. It says a lot that the only people arrested were grabbed after the action, I think. Of course, that means we need to think of ways to stop that from happening next.

So, our photo of the day shows one happy militant putting the tactic into practice. Look at the smile on his face! And the frustration on the officer's! Priceless!

Photo of the Day! (Updated)

Today's photo comes from LA, where fuming mad residents shouted down the chief of police at a community meeting about the recent murder of Manuel Jamines, a day laborer from Guatemala. Booing, shouting "assassins" and "killers", they forced the chief to retreat from the microphone. When he returned he promised a "fair investigation". Yeah, right... I won't hold my breath.

Outside, Angelinos clashed with police for a third straight night even as community "leaders" sought to quell and divert the anger into meaningless and more easily controlled channels. Earlier, the notorious Rampart police station was attacked with various projectiles, including a humiliating volley of eggs. The station's sign was improved with anarchist graffiti.

For our part, despite the appeal to the constitution, PCWC's sympathies lie much more with the sentiments expressed in the picture above. No doubt, as Robert Williams famously remarked, Black people with guns have always been white America's nightmare, and that goes generally for all people of color. For those interested in further reading on history, gun control and white supremacy, I explored the question a few years ago on my old blog.

UPDATE:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa validated my obviously well-justified skepticism that, regardless of the promises from the chief, there was no way anything approaching a "fair investigation" would or could take place. Speaking before reporters the mayor defended the officers as "heroes" and said that “[w]e’ve got to go through an investigation. But when it’s all said and done, I’ll guarantee you what’s going to come out is that these guys are heroes, and I stand by them.”

Amazing psychic powers? Nope. That's good ol' fashioned American justice operating as usual. So regular you can set your watch by it!

Photo of the day

"Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."
-Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno, Nigeria

Vandalized BP service station in NYC.

Despite the massive PR campaign coming from the bastards at British Petroleum, it's reassuring that some people have long memories (see above photo). It's not as though BP suffered a severe enough economic backlash from the destruction they unleashed on the Gulf either when service stations reported only a 5% drop in sales across the board. Perhaps the BP spill was just little too close to home for business as usual to go on, BP reported a $15 billion dollar loss in the second quarter due to the costs of managing the spill, a large scale ecological collapse for the region.

Europe's second largest oil corporation has little to fear in the long run, just check out the track record of Exxon Mobil or Shell, 40 years of oil spills and systematic destruction of the earth and human communities in the Nigerian Delta has had little effect on long term profits or public perception, due to their massive PR operations and the general lack of action from the west over just about any atrocity in Africa. Despite all of their baggage, 2nd quarter 2010 profits from Shell were $4.5 billion dollars, Exxon Mobil pulled in $7.56 billion, both companies are party to the continued repression of the resistance to their operations in the Niger Delta.

If the Nigerian model is any sign of what's to come, the impunity of oil companies will continue to varying degrees whether in the Delta, the Gulf, or perhaps even the Mediterranean soon enough. So don't hold your breath for any of these oil companies to be reigned in by any state actor anytime soon either, the demands for profit and the explosion of the eco-crisis have gone hand in hand for decades now with little consequence for those in power. Without the intervention of a popular and effective direct action movement aimed at destroying the worldwide menace of industrial capitalism, we will no doubt continue to see this disaster spread to every corner of the earth until the bitter end.

Photo of the day

Today's photo is bad ass, straight up. It would appear that someone(s) managed to get atop of the Coor building at ASU main campus and drop this inspiring banner. It's no secret that much of ASU's notoriously apolitical student body is more likely to go for sun bathing and beer pong than organizing and fighting against another tuition attack, thus making this action all the more heartening for us non-students at PCWC.

Not to say the are no critiques of the new student movement (my comrade Phoenix Insurgent posted one of his yesterday), I have a few of my own as well. It's always worth keeping an eye of the wing of the movement demanding tuition reform, or some other appeasement that keeps this movement within the realm of university and student life. This middle ground of the movement will ensure the student discontent stays within the confines of the school, preventing it from spilling out into the broader sphere of social tensions at play.


(photo via ASU resists)

Photo of the Day

PHOENIX PD: THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES

Minutes before the final police attack on the D.O.A. contingent, this Phoenix cop takes a cheap shot at the march. No matter the Phoenix PD's P.R. spin after the fact, the cops continue to employ indiscriminate violence. Click on the image for a larger version.

Photo of the day

Another "crime suppression sweep" ended tonight, I put the sweeps in quotations because, like many in the valley, we at PCWC understand this term to be code words for the regular anti-immigrant and racial profiling police operation ordered by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Despite the broad range of opposition from civil liberty groups, Latino residents, and police accountability groups, the "sweeps" conducted by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office continue to terrorize the Mexican-American and immigrant communities of the county. Phoenix Insurgent has previously written on the limitations and dead end-ism of the Left's approach to opposing the Arizona's anti-immigrant hysteria, and we at PCWC continue to fight for free movement for free people.

So, it was pleasing to see Sheriff Joe gripe on his twitter account today about an action by "a disobedient", a person engaging in unmediated action against an oppressor, in this case Sheriff Joe, that occurred while he gave his press conference on the latest mass racial profiling police operation. The scribbler of "Fuck Joe!" even went so far as to put it in the most appropriate place: one of the walls of the jail complex. Bravo!

Photo of the Day

Setting aside the animal rights implications of the photo, its hard not to laugh at a picture of a European farmer attacking a riot cop with a milk stream shot from the udder of a dairy cow (in downtown Brussels). One in a million. Farmers are protesting falling prices with roadblocks and various shenanigans at the European capitol.

Photo of the day

Although, the occupation has finally ended, the worker occupation of the Ssangyong motors factory in Pyeongtaek, South Korea was an inspiring display of working class militancy. More than two weeks of struggle in defense of the occupied factory finally saw the riot police, aided by company scabs, forcing the workers to abandon their fight to stop the company from cutting 1,000 jobs.

Photo from Libcom, their site has an archive of the daily updates from the Ssangyong conflict, lots of crazy photos and accounts from the frontline.

Today's photo is brilliant, the sign held in the photo below reads: "If you come in, there will be fire." Well done.

Photo of the day

This one's from back in May, rapper Murs paid a visit to Tempe while on tour and rocked PCWC's "I <3 Somali Pirates" t-shirt during his performance.

Big ups to the homie Murs!

Photo of the day

July 7: Over 4,000 Anarchists took to the streets of Athens in solidarity with immigrants across Greece. A wave of repression by the Greek state, often in collaboration with fascist groups, has been unleashed against immigrants and allies in recent weeks. Below, anarchists hold the streets, as fires burn into the city night at a barricade in Athens. Solidarity to all compañer@s in the social struggle in Greece!

Photo from Athens Indymedia.