Get In the Zone: A Report from the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle

Posted on 17/06/2020 by roverello

The following is an interview with a Seattle resident who has been out on the streets during the recent uprising and watched as both vigilantes, police, and the National Guard have attacked protesters in the Capital Hill neighborhood. Now, after over a week of intense rioting and clashes with the authorities, Seattle police have evacuated from their East precinct and an autonomous zone has sprung up around the empty building. Wanting to know more about what all is going down, we caught up to discuss how the last week and a half has played out on the streets.

IGD: Broadly speaking, what’s been happening in Seattle since intense rioting broke out in late May?

Things began in Seattle on Friday, May 29th, with Saturday the 30th being the most intense day of rioting and looting. The days that followed all had similar arcs and tones, but were generally focused around the Seattle Police Department’s East precinct in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. This is where the majority of the evening clashes with police took place.

Every day has seen massive demonstrations throughout the city while protest infrastructure along the main business corridors of Capitol Hill has grown. Food, music, medics, literature tables and a vigil to the fallen all appeared over the course of the week.

IGD: The other day, the police announced that they were gathering their things and leaving their precinct. What do you make of this?

This, to be very honest, is anyone’s guess. There are many theories around why they abandoned the precinct. Some feel that they ran out of resources, some feel that it was a politically expedient move on the Mayor’s part. From my perspective-this was a “good” move on the city’s part. They were getting hammered in the press for the nightly tear gas barrages and street clashes, and the crowds never really got smaller. When an active shooter was on the scene, people rushed to the neighborhood to give support.

Every day has seen massive demonstrations throughout the city while protest infrastructure along the main business corridors of Capitol Hill has grown. Food, music, medics, literature tables and a vigil to the fallen all appeared over the course of the week.

The risks that people were facing in standing off with the cops night after night were just not the deterrent I assume the city thought it would be. Once they left the precinct, while certainly a blow to their power, the focus has been taken off of the heavily militarized police that is still lurking in the area.

They also mounted a hard counter ‘arson’ campaign through fearful social media posts about the “threats of arson to the precinct” and the Seattle Fire Department on “standby.” From my perspective, it was a strategy gamble on the city’s part once they realized that the thing they were defending was symbolic at best. What they might not have factored in is how important symbology is to revolt – the statues coming down all over the world is a good example.

IGD: The area in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that people have been gathering around has been described as an autonomous zone. Can you speak more about this?

Autonomy is going to mean a lot of things to a lot of people. This space is certainly not controlled by the city at this point. But it’s important to remember that because of the pandemic, this neighborhood was nearly abandoned for the last 2 months, which has made it an excellent choice to occupy but also an easier space to tip over into feeling like it’s ours.

Capitol Hill is the historic queer neighborhood, and back in the day it was where the punks and the musicians and all the freaks lived. The pitched battles around Ferguson in 2014/2015, Occupy in 2011/2012 and the anti-police movement of 2010/2011 saw a majority of these conflicts on the Hill. This has always been “our” neighborhood – but as with literally every other city in the US, rapid gentrification and demographic shifts kicked everyone out, corporatized Pride month, and built the neighborhood into a tech corridor. Currently, the streets are ours again, and with that comes the next battle of what does it mean to be autonomous?

IGD: What is the crowd coming out to these events like? How have bureaucratic Left groups/peace police attempted to maneuver in this context and how have they been received?

With 9 days of riots, looting, demonstrations, sit-ins, clashes and everything else it’s hard to categorize the crowds in any way. But across the board, especially for the Pacific Northwest, this was some of the most diverse, inter-generational and generalized revolt that I have ever seen.

The streets have been filled with energetic Zoomers and street hardened anarchists, “peaceful protestors,” and those wanting to directly confront the police and capital. What has emerged tactically is the idea that militant defense was acceptable, and that more aggressive actions against the police were more controversial, leading to a deep “peace police” element which has been consistent. Despite that, people of all types continued to charge cop lines, throw sooo much shit at the police and try to create tensions with the cops literally raining tear gas down on people’s heads. The complex nature of race and leadership has been prominent in these clashes, with white people stopping Black youth from doing their conflictual thing because they have some sort of in with, “Black leadership.” These dynamics have made cohesion in the crowd difficult but not impossible. Fuck, despite the peace police people have been able to keep the National Guard at bay and get them to abandon their beloved precinct, so they couldn’t have been that powerful in the end.

Overall, there has been a lot of emotion felt viscerally on these blocks. So much joy and so much anger held at the same time as people have been coming together physically for the first time in months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Live music has been played every night by these musicians calling themselves the Marshall Law Band, less than a block away from where police would be shooting tear gas and flash-bang grenades at protestors. Surreal barely describes the experience.

IGD: The National Guard has now left; does this change anything at all?

The National Guard as of last night (6-8-2020), is very much still present in Seattle. They’ve been spotted at various public school parking lots and parks in the areas surrounding the neighborhood. Not seeing them in backing up the police lines, that have also disappeared from the block, clearly allow a more tranquil atmosphere to take place. There was a lot of rage and anger voiced at the National Guard when they would physically march with police to press protestors back, people still seem very attached to this idea that the National Guard is supposed to serve the “American people” and everyone’s been calling them traitors for serving a role in suppressing the uprising. The public school district of Seattle posted on twitter that they were looking into finding a way to block the Guard from using their parking lots as staging areas, an encouraging statement for all of us who’ve had to stare them down over the last week.

IGD: Law enforcement in Seattle and Portland seems to have trying to outlast the people on the street; tear-gassing people again and again. Can you say anything to their over all strategy on the street? How have people responded?

The police in Seattle have very clearly tried to fix their public relations image in the last couple of days that led up to their withdrawal from the precinct. Seattle police have been issuing countless warnings via sound-system, specifically citing the importance of peaceful protest and stating things like, “It is you the protestors who have advanced your line towards us, we have not made any movement towards you.” Eventually these warnings turn into a deluge of crowd-dispersal tactics, including but not limited to tear-gas, OC canisters, pepper-balls fired from paintball guns, rubber bullets and flash-bangs shot directly at protestors.

It was a horrifying and incredible moment that was a clear example of how a liberatory process will incur attacks from all sides and will have to defend itself in a bunch of different ways. Those who were involved clearly found that the police do not care for our well being, and that we can protect ourselves from reactionary violence without the aid of the police.

I have been nothing short of inspired by the crowds’ ability to remain calm in the face of these aggressive maneuvers by the police. Countless videos show the crowds simply slowly falling back from advancing police lines, forming defensive lines with shields and umbrellas, and even sometimes throwing tear-gas and OC canisters back towards the police. However, it is also in these moments where some individuals have taken the opportunity to throw things at the cops, which is still incredibly unpopular in the streets, even as the police are actively attacking people.

IGD: The other night in Seattle, a vigilante drove into the crowd and opened fire, hitting one person. Has far-Right and/or vigilante violence been a re-occurring problem?

So far, the identity of the shooter is very confusing. As far as most people can discern, he is a unaffiliated, not-white regular ass dude from the South End of Seattle. Instead of focusing on him, I think it’s important to think about the response to his attack – which is irrefutable.

When he drove his car at significant speed towards the crowd, people did not hesitate to try and stop him. People put themselves in the way, tried to pull him from the car, pulled others to safety, and physically stopped the car with repurposed cop barricades. Someone was shot for his efforts. It was a horrifying and incredible moment that was a clear example of how a liberatory process will incur attacks from all sides and will have to defend itself in a bunch of different ways. Those who were involved clearly found that the police do not care for our well being, and that we can protect ourselves from reactionary violence without the aid of the police.

Our general response has been to show up, to be there, to have literature and info available, to stick with it night after night and confront the peace police and help the medics drag bodies out, to get people out of jail and have some of the conversations that need to be hashed out-and to make the alliances and build the crews we we will need to continue this past a conflict with the East Precinct.

The threat of reactionary violence is very real, and I fear that we will see this boomerang back at us soon. But in the current moment one of the bigger threats seems to be the fear around these forces. As we speak, hundreds if not more people are messaging, tweeting and generally boosting unsubstantiated claims of reactionaries on their way to the Hill at any given times. This constant signal boosting of public police scanner channels has deeply hampered the ability to organize real and consistent response to if and when the right does choose to engage us.

IGD: Riot shaming, liberal disinformation, conspiracy theories – the wider Left has really shown itself to be lacking in overall analysis and understanding of the current moment. Just curious how people are dealing with the sea of misinformation and bad-faith actors.

There are so many people engaged in this movement it is difficult to break down one exact way in which these ideas are being addressed. It also greatly depends on which perspective you are coming from. We can see that the people positioning themselves to “lead” this movement are disingenuous grifters, while others think the same way about anarchists. Our general response has been to show up, to be there, to have literature and info available, to stick with it night after night and confront the peace police and help the medics drag bodies out, to get people out of jail and have some of the conversations that need to be hashed out-and to make the alliances and build the crews we we will need to continue this past a conflict with the East Precinct.

https://itsgoingdown.org/get-in-the-zone/

Detainment is Death in the Pandemic!

Posted on 11/06/2020 by girasoli

Umaapaw na raw ang kulungan. [The jails are overflowing.] Nearly 30,000 people were reportedly arrested under the quarantine in the Philippines, with more than 4,000 of these arrested detained, based on a report dated April 18, 2020.¹ Doubtless, more have since been arrested and detained since then. The police even went on record saying there will no longer be any more warnings to the alleged “quarantine violators” and will arrest people as they see fit,² likely straining the capacities of the already overstretched jails and prisons.

As the recent proletarian demand “tulong, hindi kulong” [“aid, not detentions”] suggests, there is already a collective experience where the state is more felt in its punitive instruments of violence and policing more than its capacity to deliver aid. Indeed, every evening on the news we watch helpless as more and more injustices are wrought onscreen as police inflict more and more violence upon people and communities. A man suffering from PTSD was shot and killed by police in broad daylight.³ There were mass arrests of people demanding food aid.⁴

Police maul a street vendor for not wearing a face mask.⁵ Watching these unfold fill us with loathing for the police.

Instead of the state providing people with face masks when its agents see people without these, they detain them, putting them more at risk of contracting the dreaded COVID-19. Instead of providing enough food and medicine to remove the need for people to go out, the state and its agents arrest people for a smallest deviation of procedure when people leave their homes to get food and medicines. It is clear then the state cares little for the well being of the people under this pandemic—it only cares for its “peace and order.”

The framework of this martial law cloaked in quarantine is always the peace and order for the state; fulfilling the needs of those in quarantine are secondary, if they are even considered at all. This regime of policing would detain people for any little slight, regardless of personal context. The state narrative frames people as “pasaway” [stubborn and willful] or “tigas-ulo” [stubborn, literally hard-headed], deliberately erasing the contexts of people to fit their image of automatic guilt. Like Duterte’s “war on drugs,” this narrative that people are pasaway, or tigas-ulo justifies the harshest of repressions. To these agents of the state, everyone is guilty until proven innocent. Installing a climate of fear and culpability seems to be the only method that this government knows in addressing issues.

Let us be clear: the state cares not about your lived experiences and motives. It cares not if you are at risk of starvation and you must leave your home to get food. It cares not that you have run out of medicines and you must obtain more. It only cares that you are outside your homes and thus breaking its pronouncements. What the state cares about most is punishing whom it pleases. The paltry provision of aid compared to the deployment of violence is testament to that.

The state is uncaring, and its prisons and jails more so.

Remember that it will always be the poor that bears the brunt of the state’s policing and incarceration. Remember the arch-plunderer and widow of the dictator Marcos is still a free woman despite being already declared guilty.⁶ Remember that the senator Koko Pimentel that brazenly risked infecting others with COVID-19 because he refused to quarantine himself is still free with the law taking its sweet, sweet time to prosecute this quarantine violation.⁷ Quarantine violators among the proletariat face warrantless arrests while quarantine violators among the privileged do not even face a slap on the wrists. The law will always take its time punishing the wealthy and privileged for they are the ones that drafted and adopted the laws and it is people of privilege who comprise the police to begin with. The state and its laws will always protect property and privilege for that is what the state was made for. They made the laws and they can break them. Only in rare circumstances where the balance of power goes against wealthy and powerful defendants that they are imprisoned.

The mass arrests and tortures inflicted by the state in the time of pandemic only convinces us more on the necessity of prison abolition. We are for prison abolition because the prisons are always machines designed to make those with less privileges to suffer. How many in prison are there for crimes motivated by need? How many are in prison because of the “war on drugs” whose addiction was penalized instead of treated medically? How many of those arrested for alleged quarantine violations were out of their homes due to need? We are under no illusion that arch-plunderers would go to jail anyway, so why pretend that those who are imprisoned actually deserve it? Prisons and jails are overwhelmingly for punishing the poor.

In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, the institutions of imprisonment becomes institutions of death. There is no quarantine on the inside of prisons and jails. Detentions risks becoming death sentences as jails and prisons are all highly vulnerable in pandemics. People deprived of liberty do not deserve to die, much less die in such putrid conditions. Indeed, state has already practically sentenced many to die with its dragging of its feet on releasing people from detention. In some prisons the plague has already started to make its course, with 63 persons on the inside of a jail in Cebu City test positive for COVID-19.⁸ In other prisons like in the New Bilibid Prison, bodies are starting to pile up—suspected to be because of COVID-19—but the Bureau of Corrections remains silent on their cause of death and of how many inmates have already been killed by their negligence.⁹

We demand the police stop its campaign of public harassment of people. We demand that the state cease its program of mass incarceration of so-called pasaway and alleged quarantine violators. We demand that the persons deprived of liberty be released at once, so that they may care for their health and their families without the violence of detention getting in the way. We demand that non-violent convicts be released back into society before the prison system destroys what is left of their humanity and before the pandemic kills them on the inside.

In time, we demand that prisons be abolished and instead of incarceration, a regime of rehabilitation. In time, we demand an end to policing and instead of cops, non-violent reconciliations based on care and need. But until that day, we struggle against the policing of the current order.

Tulong, hindi kulong!

Bigas, hindi bala!

Image from the Twitter account of Bangued Police Station. The emoji over the detainee’s face was added by the account holder.¹⁰

Eimor Santos, “Nearly 30,000 quarantine violators arrested nationwide in a month,” (CNN Philippines., April 18, 2020). https://www.cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/18/quarantine-violators-arrested-coronavirus-lockdowns.html (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Rambo Talabong, “PNP begins to arrest lockdown violators without warning,” (Rappler, April 21, 2020). https://www.rappler.com/nation/258570-pnp-begins-arrest-coronavirus-lockdown-violators-without-warning (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Vince Ferreras and Gerg Cahiles, “Retired soldier shot dead by police at checkpoint in Quezon City,” (CNN Philippines, April 22, 2020). https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/22/Retired-soldier-shot-dead-by-police-.html (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
CNN Philippines Staff, “21 protesters demanding food aid arrested in Quezon City,” (CNN Philippines, April 1, 2020). https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/1/quezon-city-protesters-arrested-.html (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Rambo Talabong, “QC officials maul, drag fish vendor for not wearing face mask,” (Rappler, April 28, 2020). https://www.rappler.com/nation/259289-quezon-city-officials-maul-drag-fish-vendor-not-wearing-face-mask (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Lian Buan, “What’s taking the Sandiganbayan long to issue warrant vs Imelda Marcos?,” (Rappler, November 13, 2018). https://www.rappler.com/nation/216601-where-is-arrest-warrant-vs-imelda-marcos (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Dona Z. Pazzibugan, “DOJ sets Pimentel probe in May,” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 15, 2020). https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1258792/doj-sets-pimentel-probe-in-may (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Dale Israel, “63 persons inside Cebu City jail test COVID-19-positive,” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 25, 2020). https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1264619/63-persons-inside-cebu-city-jail-test-covid-19-positive (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]
Lian Buan, “Concern over deaths in Bilibid mounts in the face of the pandemic,” (Rappler, April 30, 2020). https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/259317-concern-bilibid-deaths-mounts-coronavirus-pandemic (Retrieved on 2020-04-30) [↩]
PNPAbraBangued. @PNPAbraBangued. Twitter Post. 11:48 AM, April 19, 2020. https://twitter.com/PNPAbraBangued/status/1251719226022170625 (Retrieved on 2020-04-29) [↩]

https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/post/2020/04/30/detainment-is-death-in-the-pandemic/

Survival of the Fittest in the Time of Pandemic

Posted on 11/06/2020 by girasoli

People often equate Charles Darwin’s notion of “survival of the fittest” with competition. People think that the natural way of the world requires some sort of battle. This is also often translated in how we deal with other people. “It’s either myself or others,” that’s how many people justify cruelty and domination. But if we think closely, survival of the fittest does not always mean competition.

Survival of the fittest simply means that if a specie is not able adapt to the changes in the environment, that’s when it starts to die out. If your fur is not thick enough, then you might die in the winter of Alaska. If your fur is too thick, then you would die like a Siberian Husky in the tropics. If you can not grow claws, you might not be able to catch prey, or be able to climb tress to avoid predators. Strength is not enough in survival. If we only consider strength, then no animal now can match the dinosaurs who were much bigger in size and appetite. They have walked the earth for millions of years, but eventually, they became extinct because they were not able adapt to climate change.

As pointed out by a former Russian prince turned biologist and anarchist named Peter Kropotkin, few people realize that mutual cooperation is as much a factor of evolution as competition. If we think about it, there are quite a number of species which might have not survived if they did not practice cooperation amongst themselves or with other species. Canines work in packs. Gigantic sea mammals like whales and sharks may die of parasites if they did not allow smaller fishes to ride on their backs. Bees (which are prehistoric in origin) or ants can not survive without the hive or colony.

Another misconception which may arise here is the conception of the alphas. Herds and packs tend to have alphas but these alphas are not there to terrorize their own specie. Alphas become alphas because they have the capacity to protect and search for food. Their position is not permanent. Being alpha in the animal kingdom does not have a time frame. Quite different from the human conception that alphas should reign for as long as six years even when he or she is not capable of feeding and protecting the group. We should also take note that in many species, alphas are of the female gender.

In the bee or ant colony, there are also roles taken by each individual. There’s the “queen,” the “soldiers,” and the “workers.” But this is entirely different to how we look at queens, soldiers, and workers in the human context. In the colonies of such arthropods, the queens are also replaceable, the soldiers do not harass the workers, and in contrast, the workers can become the heroes. In colonies, the queen or the soldiers do not have authority over workers. They do not make rules and they do not assert self-righteousness. Each individual act on their own will and understanding to preserve the colony. When a worker finds a good tree to establish shelter, it dances, to tell the others of the location, so others can verify if the claim is true. They require a constant check and balance similar to how internet open-sources work. Dictatorship does not work in nature.

Of course, there are instances where competition is evident in many species. But take note that this is only true when resources are scarce. In the human world, resources are more than enough to feed everyone in the world for multiple times. Scarcity is a myth repeatedly told by hoarders. Competition is only acceptable in scarcity, not in the abundance that we have now. Poverty and hunger, therefore, are crimes committed to the poor, most especially during a pandemic. Thankfully, instead, we witness cooperation almost everywhere during these times.

Survival of the fittest is not only about competition. Survival is also about adaptation and mutual cooperation.

https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/post/2020/05/05/survival-of-the-fittest-in-the-time-of-pandemic/

Detention is Better Than Cure?: The Railroading of the Anti-Terrorism Bill Amidst the Pandemic

Posted on 11/06/2020 by girasoli

Written by Safehouse Infoshop and initially published on their website.

We have witnessed the government respond to the health crisis with military and police might. Over 30,000 people were arrested and detained, while those estimated to be affected of the actual virus only amounts to less than number. Many were detained for non-violent acts. Some were beaten up for not wearing masks. Others were shot dead, with the president’s grace, for mere disobedience. Demolitions continued. And despite strict security measures in the streets, human rights activist were gunned down.

Detention is better than cure.

This might have been the mantra of the state during this pandemic. As early as January of 2020, there were suggestions to deploy a travel ban to avoid the spread the virus in the archipelago. But as the president and the health secretary claimed, their priority during those months was tourism, the economy, and diplomatic relations. Four months after the first cases were documented, there is still no plan for nationwide mass testing, despite the billions they have received from declaring emergency powers, and the billions they acquired from foreign debt which we will pay for in the future.

Consistently, the government announced confusing guidelines. First they announced that people should stock up supplies, then, they announced dole outs and scheduled trips to the markets. On all instances, mass of people rushed to groceries and dole out sites, risked higher chances of infection. Subsequently, government loyalists started blaming the poor for “spreading the virus”, when the virus should have been controlled months ago.

This incompetency in handling the pandemic has been too obvious. And weeks before the quarantine ends, the so called Anti-Terrorism Bill was approved in the Senate quite very timely. The Bill has been criticized for its vague definitions of what “terrorism” is. Critics called it the “Terror Bill” as it threatens to violate basic human and constitutional rights.

Though the bill claims that it will “uphold basic rights” and it will not proscribe “advocacy, protests, dissent, stoppage of work, industrial and mass actions” to be terroristic acts, the bill, when examined, contains obvious loop holes and vague definitions. For instance, any serious damage to government or private facility is proscribed as terroristic, as long as the government ascribe it as intending to promote fear and destabilization. As well as joining rallies which they deem to be “a serious risk to public safety”. The breach of privacy of persons which they “suspect“ as terrorists is also entertained in the bill. Playing the republican mindset, this is a clear violation of the constitutional right of a person’s innocence until there is proof of guilt in front of a fair trial. The only thing that a military or police personnel needs is an order from the Court of Appeals to “secretly” begin using technologies to breach one’s private affairs. But come to think of it, if they can do surveillance “secretly”, does the CA have the means to know if any personnel have been breaking the law? In section 19, it states that the personnel in charge must report to the CA if there are any violations done during surveillance and interrogation. Now, would a military or police personnel really incriminate himself or his colleagues? Especially now when it is common knowledge that the police and military are capable of planting evidences. Here we are reminded of the shoot-out between the police and a military veteran, when the police took the bag of the shot military personnel when it was not their job to do so. Eye-witnesses never saw any gun, but after the police took his bag, brought it inside the police car, there suddenly appeared a gun in the bag, later proven to be planted.

In this kind of state, everyone can be a terrorist, given that evidences are planted. This was also said to be a common tactic during their celebrated drug-war campaign. Over 30,000 small fish drug-users and pushers were killed. Only a handful of rich dealers were killed, or rather silenced, mostly former compadres of the president.

It seems that playing with names and definitions is a useful tactic of this administration. They have won the sympathy of quite a number of supporters by tagging every persons related drug use and distribution as “addicts”, when in the medical world, drug addicts are different from rare users, occasional users and drug dependents, among others.

This tactic can now be used with anyone who criticizes the government. By putting all their critics to the “Terrorist” category, they can easily deny them of their rights, even when they have not done any crimes at all. Meeting with friends and colleagues can be proscribed as either “conspiring, proposing, inciting” to acts of so-called terrorism. Even the act of making “speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems and banners” can be considered as terroristic, because terrorism for them is criticism of this already damaged system. Pointing out the obvious defects of the government, for them, is terrorism.

It is ironic that they proscribe as terrorism any violence and damage to the government when it is the government which have developed systematized violence. With their allegiance or subservience to corporations, they have used violence to steal lands from indigenous communities in far flung areas and from indigent communities in the cities. To rephrase John Zersan: violence against the upper class is crime, and violence by the upper class against the lower class of people is law. In this archipelago, the people pay the state to serve and protect the elites and the state itself.

Sadly, the government is still not for the people it claims to serve, as it had been most of its existence. The government has put themselves in a platform where they can not be touched or held accountable by the people. And this is what the Terror bill tries to solidify. The 19 senators and the congressmen who voted for the approval of the bill do not represent the people. Neither do the congressmen who are railroading for its approval in the congress. They have distinguished themselves from the people. They do not walk or commute in the streets, so how can they represent those who do this everyday? We can only vote for leaders but we can not tell them what to do after they establish their positions. We do not think that the people who voted for these so-called leaders were aware that they can be tagged by these politicians as terrorists. They did not know that the taxes they pay everyday can be used to buy bullets and bombs against them. Representative democracy has never been about democracy. And people in power know that very well.

Historically, the term “terrorist” refers to people who use violence and threats to make people follow them. It was initially attributed to states and governments which use violence to iterate authority. In this era when the state officials act as warlords, protecting and benefiting only themselves, can we say that nothing much has changed?

https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/post/2020/06/03/detention-is-better-than-cure-the-railroading-of-the-anti-terrorism-bill-amidst-the-pandemic/

Against the Terror of Anti-Terror

Posted on 11/06/2020 by girasoli

The Philippine government is another step closer to revealing its true self: an undemocratic, oppressive entity ready to protect and serve the interests of the powerful, wealthy, and privileged few. Before there was talk of lockdowns and quarantines during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was the issue of updating the Human Security Act, a law defining the parameters of terrorism. After many days and weeks of politicking, grandstanding, and red-tagging, Congress unveiled the 2020 Anti-Terror Bill.¹

In it, the government aims to strip whatever semblance of constitutional liberties and rights are left after the Duterte administration’s stints into extrajudicial killings and human rights abuses, that have claimed upwards of 5,000 lives and left indelible marks on the lives of countless Filipino families.²

On the 28th of February 2020, the Senate passed their version of the Anti-Terror bill, with 19 senators voting yes, and only 2 voting no.³ Debate still rages in the House of Representatives on its merits and its dangers,⁴ however, as of the 29th of May, two congressional committees approved the Anti-Terror Bill.⁵ As the people of the archipelago face the greatest health crisis of this century without mass testing, public safety, and financial stability, Congress is trying to take advantage of us while we are down and already suffering from pandemic and the excesses of government.

A History of Insurgency

Different insurgent groups exist within our country, whose goals aim to threaten and change the status quo — to overthrow the people who benefit from it: the current ruling class. The most prominent of these groups are the Bangsamoro separatists (such as the MNLF and MILF), the Islamic fundamentalists (such as the BIFF, the Abu Sayyaf, and the Maute Group)⁶ and the Marxist-Leninist parties engaged in armed struggle (the CPP-NPA-NDF and remnants of MLPP-RHB).⁷

These sets of militant organizations with their own allegiances and motivations have been operating for decades across the archipelago, challenging government power in rural and urban areas around the country.

It is in this landscape of insurgency that in 1996, then-Senator Juan Ponce Enrile introduced a bill that would create a legal definition for terrorism, and outline what the police and military can or cannot do to catch and prosecute convicted “terrorists.”⁸ A “watered-down” and “toothless” version of this bill became the Human Security Act, signed into law by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007.⁹

However, the rhetoric since then has evolved as Rodrigo Duterte became the President of the Philippines. Duterte has condoned and even called for the extrajudicial execution of alleged drug users and pushers as part of his campaign against illegal narcotics.¹⁰ He also told soldiers to shoot female rebel combatants in the genitalia, a clear violation of the Geneva Convention.¹¹

Meanwhile, police and military forces regularly illegally detain dissidents, regardless of their affiliation or intention.¹² There are even cases where farmers, workers, and activists are murdered as part of “anti-subversion activities.”¹³ Worse still, indigenous Lumad ancestral land across the country are being occupied illegally, while atrocities against their communities continue to be perpetrated.¹⁴

Left and right, in the name of public safety and order, the current administration has committed grave violations of human rights. Civil and military officers even called for the restoration and enhancement of laws and measures to make their jobs easier, presumably so that they could claim more victims and plunder more territory. This included the push by Secretary Año to bring back the Anti-Subversion Law that specifically targeted communists and those with communist sympathies.¹⁵

In this context, one cannot help but be skeptical about the government’s motivations in changing the definition of terrorism, and extending the punishment to be meted out to suspects and convicts under this bill.

Reading Between the Lines

In the Senate, this bill was authored by Senator Panfilo Lacson, to “provide a strong legal backbone to protect our people from the threat of terrorism, and at the same time, safeguard the rights of those accused of the crime.”¹⁶

Terrorism has been given a different definition under this bill. Simply, terrorism is any organization of people proving to be harmful to the social, cultural, and economic structures of society, capable of causing harm to property or personage, and inciting other people in joining their cause.

Under the proposed law, suspected “terrorists” can be held for 60 days without an arrest warrant. Aside from this, a 60 day period can also be granted for digital surveillance, meaning any gadget connected to the internet, a phone, a computer, and appliance can be spied on, with a simple suspicion by an involved police or military authority. This basically means that freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and even freedom of conscience can be violated as soon as any investigator deems a person or a group “terrorist.” Anything suspects do can be considered a “terroristic act” and will be subject to the state’s extrajudicial ways and means.

Once convicted, those who will “propose, incite, conspire, and participate” in the “planning, training, and facilitation of a terrorist attack” face life imprisonment. The same punishment goes for any “recruiters and active supporters of a terrorist organization.” Lesser sentences are given to those who “threaten to commit terrorism, incite others to do so, voluntarily join any terrorist group, or be an accessory in any acts they do.” In short, anybody remotely related to any “terrorist organization” can be charged with a crime under this act.¹⁷

Overbroad and Overpowered

We can all agree that safety of the public is always the concern of our society. Our safety and the safety of our friends, our family, and our communities have been part of the Filipino psyche for centuries. Once this welfare has been violated, we come to each other’s aid, and struggle to restore it to them. An injury to one is an injury to all.

However, the government has consistently shown itself as the primary violator of our freedom, our security, and our right to live. Whether it be on issues of labor, civil rights, the indigenous peoples, or even human life, the State continues to side with the powerful and supports Capital, the wealthy, and the privileged.

Yet, the State itself has the audacity to declare what is a public threat, what is terrorist or not. Under this bill, any organization can be dubbed terroristic as long as there is enough “evidence” to secure a conviction. Anyone can be convicted as a terrorist just because they called to oust the current president, joined a rally that suddenly became a “serious risk to public safety,” or even shared posts or messages that are remotely critical of the government. They can be detained for as long as the police or military would need to build a falsified, trumped-up case against them.

For years, activists have been discriminated on without any proof from the government. Students, labor leaders, and even indigenous elders from Mindanao have been harassed and persecuted for their views and beliefs. If the Anti-Terrorism Bill passes, anyone the regime considers an enemy can be silenced with practically life imprisonment. No wonder why many people consider this bill as a Martial Law in all but name.

The Terror in Anti-Terror

Mikhail Bakunin once said that:

“The human being completely realizes his individual freedom as well as his personality only through the individuals who surround him, and thanks only to the labor and the collective power of society.”¹⁸

This means that freedom is only achieved when all people are themselves equally free. Freedom can only be achieved when a person’s beliefs and actions are recognized by their fellowmen. The fact that our conscience can be arbitrarily punished by any leader in government means that freedom can be punished for being in the way of greed for power.

Once we start thinking about this reality, it then dawns upon us that we have never really been free. We may have freedom to post online, to make our opinion and dissent heard, and to act according to our beliefs and interests. However, as soon as we point our fingers to those in power and disclose their weaknesses and faults, they will do everything in their power to silence us, and hide it from plain view. For years, this facade of democracy reigned over the archipelago. In reality though, it is nothing but a game the rich and powerful play to become even richer and stronger. This bill merely shows us the rules they want to play on.

A society that is libertarian, a society that respects liberty, does not rely on organizations that say they protect and serve us, only to break up protests, discriminate based on sex or race, and kill in cold blood. It recognizes and respects the autonomy of each person, the ability of each person to think, speak, and act however they want. As such, the power to protect themselves and those they care for from the threat of terrorism, perpetrated today by cops, bosses, and government officials.

We have a long way to go before we can even ponder on what we should do to build a better society. Today, we see what little freedom we have left collapse into authoritarianism and fascism. We have seen Bolivia, the United States, and Hong Kong. If this bill is not junked, we could see it too in the Philippines. This is not just an issue for Filipino libertarians and anarchists. This is an issue for everyone in the archipelago, regardless of age, sex, religious belief, or political affiliation. If the State can take away from us, how more are they willing to terrorize us further? Besides, how can we trust fascists to tell us who are the real terrorists?

See a report on the proposed law: Neil Arwin Mercado, “Longer warrantless detention among features of Lacson anti-terror bill.” Philippine Daily Inquirer. October 02, 2019. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1172687/longer-warrantless-detention-among-features-of-lacson-anti-terror-bill [↩]
See a list of some of the victims: Jodesz Gavilan, “LIST: Minors, college students killed in Duterte’s drug war.” Rappler. October 21, 2019. https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/179234-minors-college-students-victims-war-on-drugs-duterte [↩]
Op. Cit. Neil Arwin Mercado, “Longer warrantless detention among features of Lacson anti-terror bill.” [↩]
Filane Mikee Cervantes, “House panels OK non-contentious provisions in anti-terror bill.” Philippine News Agency. March 10, 2020. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1096093 [↩]
Filane Mikee Cervantes, “House panels approve anti-terror bill.” Philippine News Agency. May 29, 2020. https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1104372 [↩]
See the report: Agence France-Presse, “Tracing back the Philippine Muslim conflict.” Rappler. October 7, 2012. https://www.rappler.com/nation/13759-tracing-back-the-philippine-muslim-conflict [↩]
See the report: Alan Robles, “Explained: the Philippines’ communist rebellion is Asia’s longest-running insurgency.” South China Morning Post. September 16, 2019. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3027414/explained-philippines-communist-rebellion-asias-longest-running [↩]
Janess Ann J. Ellao, “Human Security Act: ‘Draconian, Fascist.’” Bulatlat. August 11, 2007. https://www.bulatlat.com/2007/08/11/human-security-act-‘draconian-fascist’/ [↩]
GMANews.TV, “Arroyo to sign proposed anti-terror law Tuesday.” GMA News Online. March 5, 2007. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/33045/arroyo-to-sign-proposed-anti-terror-law-tuesday/story/ [↩]
Sofia Tomacruz, “Duterte: It is my job to kill.” Rappler.com. March 10, 2020. https://www.rappler.com/nation/254037-duterte-says-job-to-kill [↩]
Paterno Esmaquel II, “Duterte defends ‘shoot in the vagina’ remark.” Rappler. February 26, 2018. https://www.rappler.com/nation/196966-duterte-defends-shoot-female-rebels-vagina-remark [↩]
See for example the harassment of mutual aid activities during the pandemic: Rambo Talabong, “10 feeding program volunteers arrested in Marikina.” Rappler. May 1, 2020. https://www.rappler.com/nation/259615-feeding-program-volunteers-arrested-marikina-may-2020
See also the harassment of benign May Day protests: Eimor Santos, “Cases filed vs. 18 ‘protesters’ arrested in Quezon City.” CNN Philippines. May 2, 2020. https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/5/2/Alleged-Labor-Day-protest-Quezon-City-cases.html [↩]
See for example a report on the killings perpetuated on the island of Negros: Ronalyn V. Olea, “Negros killings, ‘a war against unarmed civilians’ — groups.” Bulatlat. July 27, 2019. https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/07/27/negros-killings-a-war-against-unarmed-civilians-groups/ [↩]
See for example the report: Cristina Rey, “Increased militarization under martial law threatens Lumad teachers in the Philippines.” Intercontinental Cry (IC). July 15, 2017. https://intercontinentalcry.org/increased-militarization-martial-law-threatens-lumad-teachers-philippines/ [↩]
Janella Paris, “Proposed anti-subversion law a ‘repressive weapon’ – law group.” Rappler. August 17, 2019. https://www.rappler.com/nation/237963-law-group-says-anti-subversion-law-repressive [↩]
Op. Cit. Filane Mikee Cervantes, “House panels OK non-contentious provisions in anti-terror bill.” [↩]
Taken from the contents of the bill itself. See: Senate Bill No. 1083 “The law on the prevention of terrorist acts of 2020.” https://senate.gov.ph/lis/bill_res.aspx?congress=18&q=SBN-1083 [↩]
Mikhail Bakunin, “Man, Society, and Freedom.” The Anarchist Library. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/michail-bakunin-man-society-and-freedom [↩]

https://bandilangitim.noblogs.org/post/2020/06/01/against-the-terror-of-anti-terror/

The daily bloodbath of exploitation

Posted on 11/06/2020 by girasoli

The new reality

Someone once said that the oppressibility of humans knows no limits. Humans are creatures of habituation and after a short shock, they seem to be able to adapt and get used to any condition, no matter how humiliating and oppressive it may be. A world population under quarantine, governing by state of emergency, bans on all social life – and after a few weeks it almost feels normal. One gets used to the restrictions – to home office as well as to the loss of freedom of movement. In this hard hour we close ranks, show understanding and pay respect to the Chancellor, that she places the protection of health above the protection of the economy…

Originally published in Fernweh 33. Translated by Enough 14.

Download the full edition of Fernweh Nr. 33 here (PDF, German)

Wait a minute… before this crisis, were we all healthy, happy and free?

The fiction and fear currently generated by the media and the state that we are threatened with mass mortality if we do not limit ourselves, fades out the fact that global capitalism produces mass mortality every day. More than one billion people worldwide are suffering from hunger, thousands of them die every day, while in Germany about one third of the food is thrown away each day… More than 700. 000 people die of HIV every year, even though there are already anti-HIV drugs on the market that are not sold at affordable prices because of the pharmaceutical industry’s monopolies. … Every day, people die in wars in Yemen, Mexico, Afghanistan or Syria from weapons produced in Germany. … And thousands are blown to pieces in the Middle East by US drones operated from Germany. In the last five years, more than 20,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, as there are no legal flight routes to Europe… and worldwide, 2.4 million people die each year in industrial accidents, murdered by the profit-seeking capitalist order. And this very order, which produces all this suffering and misery every day, is now suddenly supposed to protect our health? I believe that it would be most beneficial to our mental and physical health to kill this polluting and sick-making order!

Governing by fear

Generating fear has always been one of the most important techniques of domination. A person who is not only afraid, i.e. who is tense in the face of a concrete danger situation and is looking for a way out, but who lives in permanent fear, is easy to rule. A person who lives in permanent fear has less self-confidence, isolates himself more, makes himself tributary and dependent on others, seeks protection and strong leaders, is afraid for the unknown and strangers, sinks into lethargy, depression and powerlessness – and above all is afraid to rebel. We are not only educated and socialized to such obedient slaves, such a fear is literally trained on us by stirring up concrete fears and then generalizing them. Fear for the future, fear for strangers, fear for terror, fear for the virus… While we are becoming more and more isolated from each other in the current state of emergency, while we rot lonely in front of screens, fearing for our future and jobs and hiding every impulse and emotion behind a breathing mask, the streets fill with strong and uniformed protectors. The laws and regulations are changing so fast that in the end you have to expect anything, finally tolerate everything and get used to the arbitrariness of state power. Whether the uniformed people scare away pedestrians or not, there are security guards and cops everywhere, whether in the supermarket, in the park or at the border… one not only gets used to their presence, but also to the fact that one moment they scare people off the street and the next they only honour those who venture outside with mild and alert looks. By isolating us from each other and at the same time monitoring us and urging us to be passive, the state reinforces its social control and power. No matter how the coming months develop, these measures of militarization will remain and become more and more commonplace, because the state is always keen to extend the power of its institutions and repressive organs and to perpetuate its order.

Pre-crisis, post-crisis

Since the existence of capitalism, it has always produced crises. If the world economy collapses now, it is not because of Corona. It was clear that at some point there will be a worldwide economic crisis, this crisis is only the trigger, the economic system itself and not the virus is to blame. Those who will be without jobs and money in the future will be told that the cause lies in the “Corona crisis” – although crises are an inevitable part of the capitalist economy. Capitalism uses such crises and interruptions not only to sort out and reorganize the companies that are not viable, but also to develop significantly and give a new direction to the next economic growth. The issues that are currently looming on the horizon of the current crisis will accompany us for a long time to come: The abolition of hard cash and the introduction of digital identities. A virus offers the ideal occasion for this. But the Western states are very conscious of the danger of not putting their foot in the mouth of “surveillance states” like China and are trying to introduce their innovations slowly, self-critically and with the inclusion of pseudo-criticism. And of course not obligatory, but always “voluntarily”… and bit by bit you can only pay and participate in things (travel, public transport, schools, universities, concerts, libraries etc.)without cash if you “voluntarily” create an e-ID card or an electronic proof of immunity or proof of vaccination etc.

Let’s not be confused by the Orwellian double-talk that wants to make us believe that it makes a big difference whether movement and contact data are stored centrally or decentrally – surveillance is surveillance and control is control and incompatible with freedom.

Against the return to normality!

Now let’s be honest: haven’t we all experienced interesting moments in the last few weeks? The experience that some people are willing to break the rules imposed by the state if they don’t make sense to them… the certainty that we can decide for ourselves if and when we want to go out and what behaviour seems appropriate to us… the will to take responsibility for our own decisions, even if they could be labeled as criminal offences… and then this unexpected solidarity when strangers on the banks of the Isar [1] warn of approaching cops! And doesn’t this polarization also have something relieving, something honest? Everybody has to position himself in the face of the state of emergency and the state measures, nobody can hide… you can see how people are facing freedom and the freedom robbers in general, who can decide and think for themselves and who proves to be a squealer… and who acts like a lamb looking for new shepherds and follows old patterns of explanation in a new garment.

While in the Parisian suburbs (Banlieues) cops are being driven out of the streets and blazing barricades light up the night, revolting Lebanese people are screaming at the top of their lungs in the light of burning banks and military vehicles: “The politicians are distracting our attention with the corona virus so that they can continue to rob us!” And there seems to be some truth in this slogan: Even if theoretically anyone can get sick and die from the virus, it is those who are really hit hard by the crisis, those who were only exploited and punished by capitalism before – the poor, the wage dependants with shitty jobs, all those who are not in the rich West and belong to the elite and above all those who are locked up in refugee camps and prisons. Perhaps it would be time to realize that all the poor and exploited in the world have always been those who suffer most from the deadly plague of capitalism and are forced by the armed and war-bringing state to continue to toil and sacrifice their lifetime for the price of survival.

I think it is time to embrace life and to take the risk to revolt against the butchers and bloodhounds of everyday exploitation!

Notes

[1] The Isar is a river in Tyrol, Austria and Bavaria, Germany. Its source is in the Karwendel range of the Alps in Tyrol; it enters Germany near Mittenwald and flows through Bad Tölz, Munich, and Landshut before reaching the Danube near Deggendorf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isar

https://enoughisenough14.org/2020/05/25/the-daily-bloodbath-of-exploitation/

Long live the revolt! – Pamphlet about USA and “Antifa”

Posted on 04/06/2020 by girasoli

After another night of revolt in the streets of The United States due to the killing of George Floyd, president Trump, from a bunker in the White House, announced that he would designate “Antifa” as a terrorist organization. This finger-pointing seeks to frame a spontaneous and manifold movement (without capitals) as an Organization, not only assigning it an ideology but also a functionality that is hierarchical and in consonance with state logic.

Once again, terrorism is is used as an alibi for the criminalization of wide sectors in the struggle, which at the same time completely exceed “anti-fascism”. But beyond denouncing and fighting against the repressive advance that this signifies, it’s necessary to reject the polarization that is sought to be introduced at the heart of the struggle.

The false choice between the economy and life that was imposed commencing from COVID-19 caused a resurgence of the classical bourgeois polarization between economic liberalism and state interventionism. This, in the same time, has been codified in different forms according to the region. Generally as progressivism vs. the right, and even arriving to speak of fascism, like in Brazil and the United States. We don’t see any coincidence in anti-fascism being appealed to for the channeling of a revolt that they cannot control.

Although street anti-fascism (Antifa), of the thug type that confronts the neo-nazi gangs, which is common in the United States and Europe, is not the statist and military antifascism (of “the good guys”) from the ’30s of the last century, it is its heir. The victorious defenders of official anti-fascism killed workers and raped women on a massive scale during the Second World War. And they directly formed a part of the triumphant governments that, in the name of the struggle against fascism, subjected so many countries to a capitalist democratic regime in which one must no longer protest because we’re supposedly free and we would have it much worse if the others had won.

Fascism and democracy have always been complimentary political systems to the service of the interests of the rich. When democracy can no longer contain the struggles of the exploited and oppressed, or to simply keep them in line, Capital resorts to more brutal forms. Today these methods, which it is supposed are exclusive to the fascists, form a part of any government that declares itself to be be free and anti-fascist, which on their part are openly totalitarian: killings such as that of George Floyd or the millions of deaths at the hands of the police of every country, slave labor as the necessary compliment of the labor market, and discipline in the schools, jails and mental hospitals. However, no president calls themself fascist – all to the contrary!

Now that democracy has turned into totalitarian control of social life, fascism as a system of domination has lost its meaning. Obviously there continues to be nazis and fascists but they aren’t the ones pulling the strings, they are a problem of the street and there must be fought against day by day. But but anti-fascism as a political option is a farce. Now just as before it only serves to befriend the oppressed and the oppressors, exploiters and exploited, governors and governed. In the name of anti-fascism they call on us to unite behind the genocides of today: the progressive or leftist rulers of whatever country, who also have their hands stained with blood. Or the heirs of genocidal stalinism and maoism.

The problem is not the right or the left. It’s capitalism, it’s democracy. It’s not needed to unite behind the antifascist front in order to fight the fascists. What unites us is common action everywhere against what exploits and oppresses us, against the root of the problem: private property, money and the State.

In the streets of the United States there mix black proletarians, together with whites and latinos. They have challenged the oppressive everyday normality in less than a week. To want to attribute this to one sole movement as does Trump and his entourage, or to want, like his opposition, to score a point by these declarations, expresses the commonality in political mentality that these two opposing factions have, but only in how to manage this mercantile world.

May neither Trump nor the executioners from any part of the world mark the objectives and developments of our struggles for us!

The State is the real terrorist!

For download: https://panfletossubversivos.blogspot.com/2020/06/long-live-revolt.html

The Battle for the 3rd Precinct: a personal account.

Posted on 01/06/2020 by roverello

When I arrived in the afternoon at 3rd precinct the vibe was jovial as thousands of people chilled around a burning car campfire in the bombed out Target mini-mall. With the backdrop of a waterfall pouring out of the charred skeleton of a massive torched two-story housing development, people celebrated their success and how surreal the entire situation was. Packed vehicles with folks hanging out the windows weaved through the Target parking-lot yelling, “Fuck 12!” blaring Lil Boosie’s “Fuck the police” – a song that’s become default to Midwest riot culture.

As the sun went down the mood shifted towards rage as the 3rd precinct siege began in earnest. Eventually, the building was smashed and broken into. In a last ditch effort to hold their territory, the pigs huddled in cowardice towards the back of the police station and lobbed tear gas into the wrath-swollen crowds of combatants. Fed-up and in the mood for a fight, the free people of the north pelted the ill-equipped enemy with projectiles behind make shift plywood shield-walls as they slowly overwhelmed the pigs. With munitions likely running low and no options left aside from a strategic yet pathetic retreat, nothing remained to contest the takeover. The precinct was taken.

As the flames from a 2-story building about a block away touched the heavens as it reached its apex, the 3rd precinct became a piñata. Its fences were torn down as the structure was smashed porous; and the front-portion was set ablaze as 20ft flames signaled flawless victory. At this point the rioters entered into what I can only describe as an ecstatic frenzy as a multi-decade blight was deleted and with it the pain its facade represented. As thousands sat and watched this bitch burn, I couldn’t help but think about the generations of people tormented, tortured, and/or murdered by the sub-humans that walked the halls of this precinct. The precision of this act of vigilante justice oozed with the vitriol and fury of ancestral vengeance.

At this point, rioters broke into the back portion of the precinct that wasn’t ablaze – its a really long building – and began looting it for weapons, bulletproof vests, rounds, and other useful items. There were rumors going around that rioters were trying to set the back half of the building on fire, but I suspect a reason they didn’t might’ve had something to do with all the goodies they were sacking from its innards. Some folks did take it upon themselves to start a solid trash fire in the parking lot as people gazed in awe of the performance. Simultaneous to this, another building was set ablaze down the street, I can’t confirm which one it was although I could see the flames in the distance.

The first gunshots of the night echoed in the air as some patriot appeared to be shooting semi-auto rounds into the sky while rattling on about all sorts of beta shit “blah blah 1776… blah blah we will not submit to the NWO…”. Initially this shook people as live rounds tend to, but eventually it became evident these fools were mostly just looking for a cool sound-bite and temporal symbolic victory for a social media presence or some shit as one of the fuck-weasels seemed to be broadcasting his actions to his followers. After puffing out their chests for a few minutes, they left.

Around this time people started to report that the National Guard was being staged to retake the 3rd precinct. This had a tangible effect on the mood of 10% of the folks (especially with all the gunshots heard in the surrounding neighborhoods), but everyone else for the most part seemed unfazed. Some continued to build burning barricades, some looted Arby’s (and eventually set it on fire), and others danced on top of and around cars blaring Meek Mill while energy-drink-pounding savages on crotch rockets did burnouts and badass tricks anywhere they could find space. If I had to put a vibe to that moment, I would say it landed somewhere between Fast and Furious (not counting that weak-ass Tokyo Drift shit) and the spirit of Ferguson.

While I can attest most accurately to the happenings around the 3rd precinct, the entire Twin Cities was being sacked. H&M in Uptown was reported to have been looted, people were rioting and looting in downtown Minneapolis, and after a day of mall destruction in Midway, rioters had turned their sites on other places in St. Paul. This isn’t including the handfuls of accounts of small time looting and general spike in criminal activity going on all over both cities due to normies probably realizing that if the pigs can’t protect a measly precinct without calling in the National Guard, they’re clearly over stretched and simply can’t be everywhere.

As I packed it in for the night, the destruction seemed to be pushing forward at a break-neck pace with rumored arsons across the entire Twin Cities and reports of people turning their focus onto the 1st and/or 4th precinct(s) as the 5th was rumored to be completely abandoned. It’s difficult to encapsulate the energy of the battle for the 3rd precinct into pixels. I guess you had to be there. The current landscape around Lake St. was/is reminiscent of scenes from Escape from L.A., as 5-10 long Minneapolis blocks were either on fire or smashed-out with nearly no police presence or hope for reprieve from the insatiable war-dance. If the spirit of that night is any indication of what’s to come, I seriously doubt the arrests of Floyd’s killers or the National Guard is going to do much to subdue people’s anger. This is about getting even in a time where there is much more to get even for.

The spiritual and strategic victory in compromising and sacking the 3rd precinct is incalculable and the symbolic power unleashed of what is possible in future revolts is nothing short of incredible.

Police stations CAN be overtaken.
The state CAN be bent to our will.

Long live anarchy and the free people of the north!

https://anarchistnews.org/content/battle-3rd-precinct-personal-account

Greece, Athens – Responsibility claim for domiciliary incendiary attacks

Posted on 26/05/2020 by salice

We live in the era of hyper-information and perpetual production and
flow of news. The dominant power is defined by the control over the
info-flow and the big-data. The control of human force is now possible
via the constant analysis of the data daily collected by everyone’s
digital tracks, and intends to a voluntary enslavement under the
dominant order. These imposition terms are totally different and more
whitewashed in comparison with the previous years. The strategy of
counter-insurgency and preventive repression against the damned ones has been framed by dystopic new technologies, specialized knowledge and even more fluid and complex methods of investigation and evidence collection.
The constant mapping of our anarchist environments from the police
forces -i.e. the prosecutions and the arrests for postering and
interventions, or the GPS trackers and the micro-cameras planted to
comrades’ homes and vehicles- intends to the perpetual enrichment of
their data-base, utilised by the State’s machinery.
Once more we see a systematic imposition of far-right and racist
narratives by the media. This way, they justify the image of militarized
public spaces and the droves of cops dispercing through every street and square. The national body is spreading its roots in the arid soils of
its downfallen inheritage, supporting again the rising of neo-nazis and
fascists who were hiding under the umbrella of patriotism and
“frustration”. We also notice an increasing intensity on their actions,
along with operational development of the means they use, and apparently the equivalent State’s support and analgaesia. The armed citizens’ guardings in Evros, under the tolerance and the covering of the police forces, are a gloomy depiction of the future. All those who had signed an informal or formal truce with the previous government due to their supposed social-democratic mediocrity, lost the “deal” after July. All those who supported the politics of SYRIZA due to ideological affinity, are now dully shouting, trying to persuade us that it was the lesser evil.
Greek State, in the present historical conjuncture, is coping with the
interior enemy applying the intensive strategy, imposing states of
exemption and “law and order” doctrines, erecting monuments of victory against our imprisoned and prosecuted comrades, striving for the establishment of capitalist normality and the interception of every
insurrectional move. It’s our responsibility to develop a militant
infrastructure and to carefully plan our next steps to the formation of
a prepared anarchist movement, able to stand as a barricade against the totalitarian capitalist attack. At the last months, the actions of
individual and collective insurgency become more frequent, painting the nocturnal metropolitan canvas with fiery shines of arsons, deafening melodies of explosions and beams of successful conspiracies.

Domiciliary incendiary attacks as one of the fine arts
The complex of the dominant capitalist relationship is not only composed by faceless nets of capitalist violence and relentless reproduction of the social relationships being imposed by them. It’s not only composed by our mental mutilation, by our fragmentation, by the repeated behaving of the capitalist ritual inside the metropolitan factory which destroys our memory, our creative imagination, our identity. It’s not only composed by the capital’s expansion on every second of our daily life, even further than the working condition; a proccess of denervation that destroys every non-capitalist cell of our individuality. The capitalist formation is also composed by human beings who become an integral part of it by serving a social, economical, political role. They are one among the many expressions of capitalist brutality; they are its body and it voice, its eyes and its ears, its guns which target us, and its stormy propaganda.
The strategy of personalised targeting serves plenty of political and
tactical purposes. It transfers the fear and the terror -grown and
pracitced against the oppressed ones- to the dominants’ homes, to the
places in which they feel safe and invulnerable. It proves that we are
able to afflict them, when being organized and having the will; that,
when we choose the time and the place, when we choose the guerrilla
methodology as a tool of struggle and conflict, we can be the front of
counter-attack against the state’s and capitalism’s strategy of
counter-insurgency. It’s in our hands to remind the zealous guardians of the capitalist world that they can face determined resistance if we
realise the social war’s full dimentions. If we reify the material
consequences that will be paid by all those who serve the modern gloom.
If we take the decision to become really dangerous and to organize
ourselves. Let’s bring the warfare to their garden, outside their
outdoors. Because, even if the people serving important positions on the authoritarian pyramid are expendable, it’s still of a high political
importance to give them back the fear and the psychosomatic pain which they ‘ve exercised over the oppressed bodies. Let’s become the constant threat dangling over their heads; the threat that makes them need 24/7 armed security down of their homes or during their transportations, cameras on every corner, and finally a whole machinery of research, prevention, data collection, repression and justification of their disgrace. Let this threat hunt them. The active supporters of the dystopic neo-liberal normality are targeted. Therefore, it would be appropriate for them to count their choices and their words, claiming the importance we intend to impute to them counting their addresses.
Unfolding our roots and origins on the public sphere
That’s where we come from: From the appartments of the miserable cement and the metropolitan isolation. From the failed crises of conscience attempted by the media via brain-washing and reality inversion; from the mass culture of consumerism and advertising which construct pseudo-necessities, so as to fulfill the bosses’ pockets; from the body punishment of the beatings at the police stations and the protests, when we decide to stand against power; from the “non-violent” ideology, which is nothing more than a humiliating bow and a call for the dominant subjects to continue their murderous work; from the deppression, which is massively spreaded by capitalism via asphyxiating pressure, virtual stupor, ruination of every healthy social relationship – intending to give us the “solution” and heal us via psychopharmaceutical drugs, leaving us limp, unconcious, wandering victims of the post-modern decay.
Facing the violent present of our times, we regret remaining indifferent servants and pathetic observers. We want to counter-attack; against the functions of management and reproduction of the capitalist reality, against the “bellum omnium contra omnes”, against the individualization and the constant antagonism. We want to make barricades of resistence against a state which rises nationalism and racism; which divides the people into locals and foreign ones; which decides for their life or their death at the ground or sea borders, under the sound of war drum beat and the screamings of the expanding social fascistization.
Anarchy -as the embodiment of the constant war for freedom- is a
permanent reminder to those serving the authoritarian institutions that it can be perceived as a revenge on a small scale for everyone who feels that capitalism is social death in disguise, an open wound from whichthe blood of the world’s damned ones spills all over. A revenge on a small scale for all of us that feel we ‘ve lost thousands of beautiful
days enclosed in the labour camps, producing profit for the bosses; that
we ‘ve lost thousands of beautiful days incarcerated in the
concentration camps, in their open or closed detention centres and
prisons; that we daily destroy our bodies so as to cope with the
ridiculous employer’s demands; that we become expendable so as not to disrupt the capitalist profit-seeking. That’s why these actions are also a signal of solidarity to those who will find a part of themselves
reading this text; a promise that the struggle goes on; an open
challenge, because we need comrades with whom to create militant bonds and collective prospects. Let’s fulfill the vision of freedom and
resistance, so as to become the worst nightmare of those who want us
with our head bowed.
Our relationships and our beliefs are planted like a seed deeply inside
the soil. They flourish like cracks of vegetation out of the mousy and
cold cement. They flourish everywhere and always. This time, they
flourished from the flames and the whomps of the incendiary/explosive devices that we placed at the outdoors and the property of some wingmen of the capitalist abjection that we experience and fight inside our territory.
We claim the responsibility for the incendiary attacks on the houses of:
– Manolis Asariotis, a police reporter of ANT1 (greek corporate media).
His role as a person that totally supports the state and expresses the
government’s propaganda on his public speeches, in fact being their
physical extension; his total co-ordination with the (un)known circles
of the counter-terrorist unit which publicize fake news so as to target
comrades; his opportunism and his hatred against anarchists that lead
him to build a “reality show” around the personal lives of anarchist
combatants, to reproduce the police narratives, to construct guiltiness
for many people, to prepare the ground for their repression; his role to
cover up all the crimes of Greek Police against combatants, migrants,
excluded ones; these are some of the reasons why we visited him. Next
time he reproduces fake news and targets people, let him be aware that
his house is known in our circles.
– Thanos Tzimeros, a fascist politician. His role as a graphic, though
potentially dangerous politician; his public statements that profane our fallen ones, such as Alexis Grigoropoulos and Pavlos Fissas, his racist and xenophobic gutter against migrants, the shameful reproduction of the theory of the two extremes (horseshoe theory), and the equation of nazism with communism; these are some of the dozens of reasons why we visited him. To solve the question of our poor Thanos: maybe he hasn’t served any political position – even if he has elected 3 members on the county council of Attica. Though, he is still a visible voice of the far-right wing, of the neo-liberal pole, of the conservative narratives.
His stupidity surprised us once more, as we learned that he makes a
fundraising to collect money and fix his house’s burnt-down entrance.
Let him be sure that now, as we know his house, maybe we will
unsuspectedly give him our fund
– Ioanna Mandrou, a journalist of SKAI (greek corporate media), and her judicial husband. Nothing was mentioned in the corporate media about the incendiary attack on the authoritarian couple’s house. Her role as a priest of the judicial reportage, based on the “objectivity” and the “valid information” coming straight out of her husband, who serves an important position on the judicial hierarchy; her constant slandering against political prisoners (i.e. the case of the negative decision about the furloughs of Dimitris Koufontinas) and prosecuted combatants; her offensive comments against Magda Fissa (that during the court she was provocative against the murderer of her son, Pavlos Fissas); her responsibility for the perpetual covering of every political and economical scandal (see Novartis), as she always creates atmosphere for the social justification of the pre-decided acquittals; the fact that she is politically organized on New Democracy party, and she can be noticed at every encounter, outing or meeting of ND politicians (see the video of her dancing at en event of the Minister of Maritime Affairs, Giannis Plakiotakis, along with all the far-right gutter); the fact that she is a fanatic supporter of fascism, of the memoranda, of the social inequality, of state repression; all these were enough for us to target her. Let both her and her husband keep in their minds that we still have unfinished business with them. The choice of Mandrou to pressure our comrades through slandering, lies and obsessions, opening the doors for the judicial scum -like her husband and his “high class” fellows, who hung our comrades on the loop of incarceration- will not remain unanswered.
– Manolis Themelis, a veteran cop who is now a local politician next to
the mayor (ex PASOK member) of Nea Filadelfia region, Giannis Vouros. This was an attack also not mentioned at the media. He is a fascist militant, with an active role on reproducing the governmental strategy on his neighbourhood. He has worked as a cop at the Police Station of Omonoia -known for its cops’ plenty of brutalities and murders- (among others), having a prominent position on torturing, attacking, bullying and humiliating migrants over the past years. He has served the Greek Police in several ways, always reproducing the dominant cannibalistic and exploitative morality. He is one among the many “anonymous” cops, well-buried inside the slime of the supposed anonymity ensured by their position as expendable executive organs. We exhumed him as an example for every equivalent piece of human garbage, so as to remind them that they ‘ve made very specific and unforgettable life-choices. Maybe an incendiary gift to their cars or to their houses’ entrance can help them remember that they are on the first line of the war against the revolutionaries and the damned ones, and that this position will possibly have a personal price for them.
Our total solidarity to our comrades K. Athanasopoulou, D. Valavani and G. Michailidis, who are now imprisoned, after a counter-terrorist
operation.
Strength for the four comrades who are prosecuted for their
participation to the supposed organization “Comrades”, after a stupidly orchestrated operation itending to terrorize the anarchist movement in total.
Signals of solidarity and strength to our comrade Gabriel Pombo da
Silva, to the two comrades arrested for the arson of an ATM in Madrid, to the Park Bench three in Germany, and to all the anarchist,
anti-authoritarian and antifascist prisoners in Russia and Italy.
Our thoughts for the imprisoned people who revolt against the state of
isolation inside the Italian prisons, after the generalized emergency
situation.
Inside our hearts, the flames of the Chilean insurrection are still
burning, and we don’t forget neither the fallen ones, nor the imprisoned ones, nor the people who experienced the brutality of the uniformed scum.
And because memory is a weapon on our hands, Lambros Fountas always accompanies our hearts and our struggles. At the 10th of March nobodydies, at the 10th of March gives birth to guerrillas.
Anarchist Groups of Nocturnal Visits
PS: We consider as non-equivalent for this situation to just make a
fragmentary mention on the issue of COVID-19. We would just like to
simeologically focus on the enforced exercises of social distancing,
alienation, self retirement, loneliness, insecurity and fear for the
people next to us. Exercises of consolidation of the emergency state, of
the metropolitan militarization, of the capitalist restructuring in
terms of militarized and battle management on the social field, of the
fluid and elastic readjustment of the working relationships via the
house-work and the temporary engagements, of the destruction of every collective feeling inside the working spaces or the fields of social
reproduction. Exercises of closed mouths end eyes in front of the modern upgraded panoptic control, the thermal cameras or the cameras of immediate biometric analysis, the silent drones, the justification of the mobile tracking. Exercises of insensitivity and apathy in front of the total unfolding of the modern death-politics and the social exclusion of migrants, prisoners, homeless ones, people that practically couldn’t follow the infamous “We stay at home”, because they don’t have a home, or maybe because their “home” is a place where they are invisibly accumulated, with no medical care, as they are not considered as “normal people”, as “citizens”, but as superfluous bodies.
The management of this “health crisis” in terms of war, is just one more point of the social-class war. It’s a straight attack against the exiled from the kingdom of priviledges, as there’s no golden cell for them to be stoically enclosed, but precarious and underpaid long hours, savage working hours without the necessary means of hygiene, firings and unemployment, hunting for handouts, high anxiety and insecurity for what’s next. The class truce which we are about to sign, coping with the “invisible enemy threatening the society”, makes even more visible for us where to direct our fire. What we deeply need to communicate with our comrades now, is that -beyond the basic issues of solidarity, mutual aid and self-protection- this conjuncture should find us prepared. Let’s communicate – Let’s talk – Let’s organize – Let’s get ready. So that we can be able to stand on our ground and cope with the coming capitalist crisis and the war against us.
Translated from greek by: Translation Initiative

https://actforfree.nostate.net/?p=37353

Boletìn La Oveja Negra: Coronavirus and social issue

Posted on 18/05/2020 by girasoli

We find ourselves in a state of exception although it is within capitalist normality. State reason knows not of exceptions but of rules. It is not the end of the world. And it is not necessary to suspend reflection or action due to force majeure.

Capitalism is an everyday catastrophe. However, it only presents as a serious problem that which it seeks to solve immediately. What has already naturalized as being inevitable becomes part of its normality. Hence, all proposals that do not aim to fight capitalism only aim to manage its catastrophe.

Among the accepted facts of this society is the “statistic “ that 8,500 children in the world die every day from malnutrition as estimated by UNICEF, the World Bank and the World Health Organization. It is written quickly, four digits… but it is an unspeakable horror. Isn’t this enough to fall into desperation? To consider this society dysfunctional? Doesn’t that mean that everything must be changed? Doesn’t it finally make evident what kind of world we live in? Or perhaps a pandemic must arrive to the cities where those of us who have the voice and the means to act and complain about this live?

Clearly, and unfortunately, for a long time now, these deaths from hunger are not an exception. Those figures seem even more abstract because of the distance, geographical and of all other types, that we have with the African continent, the undisputed centre of global hunger. There, capitalism exploits not only through wages, as it usually does here, but particularly through semi–slave labour, while at the same time dispossessing and destroying in a brutal way.

The pandemic first began to affect countries that are important centers of capitalist production: China, Italy, Spain, and the United States, threatening to paralyze the production and circulation of commodities in its global spread, and to cause the collapse of the health system.

It is precisely because it has reached such regions, with a productive population that has access to medical and hospital systems, that it became so alarming. However, most of us are outside of that circuit, and barely linked to formal jobs.

It is worth remembering that capitalist society is the society of wage labour and domestic work which is not directly paid, as well as slave labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo or in northern Argentina. There is not a good side and a bad side, they are necessary aspects for the functioning of capitalist normality.

On the other hand, we should ask ourselves: how it is possible, with such a stop in productive economic activity, for the banks to keep getting richer? In the absence of a vaccine for COVID–19, the United States Federal Reserve, for example, injected billions of dollars to calm markets and prevent the pandemic from threatening growth. The United States has lowered its annual interest rates to 0%.

Today capitalism is sustained on the basis of the continuous production of fictitious capital, of debts and through all kinds of financial injections that allow it to continue. The bourgeoisie is beginning to be aware of this fiction, and therefore this dominant widespread fear is nothing more than the fear which the dominant class has.

To return to our most tangible and macabre global reality, we make it clear, if need be, that we are not belittling this pandemic that scourges us. One situation does not remove or obscure the other, even worse, they reinforce each other. There is no such thing as the “privilege” of having coronavirus in Italy as opposed to the possibility of dying of hunger in Burundi. But we do see that some dead are worth more than others, which should not be overlooked when analysing a problem that is supposed to be global.

As we write these words, the pandemic is beginning to prey upon India. There, compulsory confinement will have its own characteristics since it is the second most populated country in the world, and because according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) at least 90% of the labour force in India works in the informal sector.

The coronavirus pandemic, the panic that has taken hold of the population and its corresponding quarantine are a living experience shared by millions of people. The Chuang collective, in their article Social contagion. Microbiological Class War in China, points out that “quarantine is like a strike hollowed of its communal features but nonetheless capable of delivering a deep shock to both psyche and economy. This fact alone makes it worthy of reflection”. With this special issue of La Oveja Negra we want to contribute to the necessary reflection on the situation we are going through.

6th of April, 2020. Rosario, Argentina.

CORONAVIRUS AND SOCIAL ISSUE

• The virus is capitalism?
• Faith in Science
• The State’s reaction
• State of isolation
• Public health and workforce
• “We are at war”
• Coronavirus did not cause the economic crisis
• Work, work, work!
• A return to normalcy?
• Box/ No need for a conspiracy
• Box/ There are no “posh people”, there are social classes

• Box/ «Let’s face it, the lifestyle we used to know is never going to return»
• New title: Social Contagion. Microbiological class war in China (Chuang)

Read each article
Donwload as a PDF

http://boletinlaovejanegra.blogspot.com/2020/04/coronavirus-and-social-issue.html

The Plague And The Fire

Category Archives: Analysis

Get In the Zone: A Report from the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone in Seattle

Every day has seen massive demonstrations throughout the city while protest infrastructure along the main business corridors of Capitol Hill has grown. Food, music, medics, literature tables and a vigil to the fallen all appeared over the course of the week.

Detainment is Death in the Pandemic!

Survival of the Fittest in the Time of Pandemic

Detention is Better Than Cure?: The Railroading of the Anti-Terrorism Bill Amidst the Pandemic

Against the Terror of Anti-Terror

A History of Insurgency

Reading Between the Lines

Overbroad and Overpowered

The Terror in Anti-Terror

The daily bloodbath of exploitation

The new reality

Governing by fear

Pre-crisis, post-crisis

Against the return to normality!

Notes

Long live the revolt! – Pamphlet about USA and “Antifa”

The Battle for the 3rd Precinct: a personal account.

Greece, Athens – Responsibility claim for domiciliary incendiary attacks

Boletìn La Oveja Negra: Coronavirus and social issue