Hello everyone! My name is Christa Rivers. It brings me nothing but pain and anxiety to write to people in our community but I have to tell this story. My partner, Daniel Gibson, had been volunteering with the Occupy PHA encampment in north Philly. PHA police and Philadelphia police have been surveilling the camp. On the night of July 2, 2020 he was on his way home when he asked the police why they were following him. He was arrested that night, and is currently upstate in SCI Coal Township. They beat him; he still has bruises and scratches all over his body two weeks later, still has a swollen and fractured knee, fractured shin bone. The charges they have against him can be fought, we just need to hire a lawyer. Which is why we’re turning to the community for help. I want my loved one home. We believe that hiring a lawyer, whom we have already contacted, will yield the best results. This is going to be a long process because of covid 19 and because the court system is slow, especially for those who are already in state custody. I just want to do everything possible to make his time in prison end sooner than later. As of right now, we are keeping the fundraising deadline open to account for future curt dates. Please help anyway you can, share with people, donate, connect us with a pro bono lawyer–anything. Thank you, from both of us.
Luis had packed all his belongs, ready to be transferred, when the CO’s at James T. Vaughn informed him that the deputy warden is denying his transfer. Call until Luis is transferred to gen population!
[Luis has been held in Solitary Confinement for the past 10 years at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center. Finally, he was approved to be released into the General Population, but the Warden and Deputy Wardens won’t release him and refuse to explain why.
Call the number below to demand that Luis be released into the General Population!
(302) 653-9261
Robert May: Warden
Phil Parker
Natasha Hollingsworth]
Four unoccupied Philadelphia Police Department vehicles were set on fire overnight, burning them but not injuring any officers or passersby, authorities said.
Shortly after 1:30 a.m. Monday, authorities said, someone set fire to the front passenger side of a police cruiser outside the Sixth District station, near 11th and Vine Streets. About 15 minutes later, they said, the left rear tire was burned on another empty cruiser near Seventh and Chestnut Streets.
Then, about 2:30, two more cars were set on fire farther west, authorities said. One vehicle was parked outside the University City District’s headquarters on the 3900 block of Chestnut Street, they said, and the other was a mile away on the 400 block of North 39th Street in Powelton.
On North 39th, authorities said, they determined the cruiser was set on fire with a Molotov cocktail placed on the hood of the driver’s side.
In the later incidents, police said they used University of Pennsylvania Police security cameras to identify a suspect. In surveillance footage, a man wearing a flannel shirt and a backpack was seen leaving the area on a white Cannondale bike, authorities said.
It was unclear whether police considered him a suspect in all four incidents or just the two in West Philadelphia.
Investigations into the arsons are ongoing, police said, and no additional information was available.
It was unclear whether the property damage was linked to the recent protests across the city or the calls for police reform nationwide in light of the death of George Floyd.
Join us Saturday, August 1st for our next virtual reading discussion and hang-out! We went into the woods with Seaweed last time, and this time we’ll be reading something… a little different.
There is no human nature, whether that be a natural state of “wildness”, or killing each other if there’s no State, or cooperating perfectly in mutual aid in an anarcho-communist society, or whatever. Cyber-nihilists reject all essentialism and are viciously misanthropic, and therefore we also fully support the proliferation of technology. Let it cover the Earth’s surface until there is nothing that is not a part of the Wired, let Nature complete its next metamorphosis into something more sublime than anything to exist yet.
Our next reading is Hello from the Wired and its afterwords by n1x. You can find the essay on the anarchist library here – the afterwords are on their website along with the essay in hot pink text. You can also find it in aesthetic zine form with lots of screenshots from Serial Experiments Lain here.
As usual, we’ll be meeting on jitsi in room Viscerapvd – the password changes each time, so contact us beforehand! Casual discussion from 1:30-2:30, reading discussion until 4!
It is now possible to submit content to Philly Anti-Capitalist through the comment section at the bottom of the Contact & Submissions page. The only section that needs to be completed is the one marked “Comment,” the other parts including the ReCAPTCHA do not need to be filled out. We recommend that content is sent while using TOR Browser if anonymity is a concern. We will not post content sent this way as a comment, we will review and potentially post content as a blog post.
Submission by email is still available for those who prefer. Our PGP key is on the Contact & Submission page.
Join us for our monthly letter-writing to political prisoners that we hold on the 4th Monday each month. To observe social distancing, we will hold this event online once again on the secure video platform, Jitsi. We will post the link on social media the day of, or message us beforehand for the link.
In honor of the International Day of Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Prisoners, this month we’re writing letters to Gage Halupowski, an anti-fascist political prisoner serving an insane six year prison sentence stemming from a counter protest to a far right rally in Portland, OR on June 29th, 2019.
If you’re looking for different ways to engage with Gage when sitting down to write that first letter, here are a few things to keep in mind – not only is he an anti fascist but he also is a radical environmentalist and an anarchist. So, discussing history, politics or the ideologies of those movements as well could be a good place to start. He is also a fan of the fantasy novel series, The Wheel of Time and looks forward to reading all 12 books in the series while he’s in, so if you’ve read those or would like to he’d love to discuss them with you.
If you are unable to join us, please send Gage a letter anyways:
Gage Halupowski #21894460
Snake River Correctional Institution
777 Stanton Blvd.
Ontario, OR 97914-83305
from Facebook
An all-day event of skill building workshops to strengthen our
individual and collective capacities to survive, heal, build, attack,
imagine, and live in anti-cop, anti-capitalist, and anti-authoritarian
ways.
Workshops all day…….BYO seating
Free screenprinting…..BYO fabric
Open grill…………..BYO food
Email us with any accessibility questions: hereandnowzines@riseup.net
~*Schedule*~
1-2 Screenprinting, Anything But Obedience
2-3 Authentic relating games, Prop Werks, Boosting 101,
3-4 Reimagining consent, accountability, and justice, Graffiti
4-5 Demo safety & tactics, Guerilla Gardening 101, The Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Colonial Roots of Harm Reduction
5-6 Discussion on fear & uncertainty, Parkour, Slingshot making
6-7 Trains, Introduction to herbal first aid, Political Prisoner Support
7-8 #!/bash/back, Trauma Support for Anarchists
8-9 Invisibility, Internet Security 101 & Intro to Tails OS
[Saturday, July 25, 2020 at 1:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Bartram North]
Mob of Racists who harassed, intimidated and attacked other residents of Philly who they perceived as being allied with Black Lives Matter.
Panic over “Antifa” and “anarchist agitators” has reached a fever pitch in this country, thanks to Donald Trump and his state media parrots at Fox News, Breitbart, The Daily Caller, and other far right and white nationalist outlets. This scapegoating has been discussed and debunked at length in other outlets.
It was this hysteria that was used to justify the mob of (almost entirely) white men who “patrolled” the Fishtown neighborhood of Philly on June 1st, 2020. According the the organizers of the mob, and the ones giving interviews, they were there to prevent looting and rioting where they lived. The truth of how this mob was formed, which we discuss at length below, is far different.
However one needs only look at the video and photos recorded from that evening to see that the group was not any sort of defense-minded community patrol, but a pack of bigots looking for easy targets to intimidate and assault to feel powerful after seeing 2 days of furious protests and riots aimed both at the cops they call family and friends, but also the white supremacist power structure that remains in place in this country and all the ways it harms Black people.
The members of the mob were unable to contain themselves. They identified people who were supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement and attacked them viciously.
Richard Goodwin (white shirt, note the Teal shoes), Jimmy Bradley (green hoodie) and others attack several BLM protestors.
Two medical professionals, who happened to witness the attack, stopped their car to help one of the people Goodwin and co. assaulted. While one of them rendered aid, Richard Goodwin returned to smash the window of the medic’s car.
Goodwin changed his shirt between attacks, but the shoes, shorts, hair, build and tattoos all match. It was also confirmed by eyewitnesses that Goodwin broke the window.
The other medic was in the back seat of the car when the window was smashed and was showered in broken glass.
Despite their being several cops nearby enough to hear the breaking window, and the yelling exchanged between Goodwin and the medics, Goodwin mysteriously escaped being detained or arrested. Even more strangely, despite being identified over the next few days on social media and alternative media like Idavox, Richard Goodwin was still not arrested. As of this writing, Goodwin has finally been named in the Inquirer, but still has not been arrested or charged.
This is likely because Richard Goodwin has a brother, Joe Goodwin, who is a longtime cop in the 26th precinct, which is the precinct that enabled Richard Goodwin and his cohorts to harass and assault people on the night of June 1st. Despite having been identified in multiple outlets, Richard Goodwin has not been arrested or charged for this attack. Even more suspiciously, Joey Goodwin was in uniform and working in Fishtown that evening.
Even more unsettling, as covered in BillyPenn, this mob was not simply an organic event in response to the rioting. It was, in fact, PHILADELPHIA POLICE OFFICERS from the 26th prescinct who had gone door to door to claim that “Antifa were coming to loot.”
Justin Haskell (white shirt, carrying bat) formed the mob of racists in Fishtown on June 1st. Haskell trains martial arts at Renzo Gracie Philly in Kensington.
For those keeping score, here are the facts of the events of June 1st:
Cops from PPD MANUFACTURED a mob of their supporters with a baseless rumor.
A large number of those supporters went on to harass, intimidate, insult and assault activists, journalists, or just random people in the area. Many of these acts were in full view of PPD officers from the 26th . Not only was no one from the mob arrested, but weeks later they have failed to investigate or charge anyone.
At least one person involved in one of the assaults that was caught on camera, Richard Goodwin, has a family member who is a cop in the 26th precinct, his brother Joe Goodwin. Joe was present that night and therefore there’s no doubt that Richie was identifiable as having participated in the assaults.
The PPD behavior in Fishtown, the several days of even more disgusting attacks by violent racist reactionaries at Marconi Plaza in South Philly, including the Proud Boys, and the police violence against Black Lives Matter protesters in this city have made it clear that the PPD is not a neutral party simply enforcing the laws of the land. It is on us to defend ourselves and see the PPD as another adversary in the fight for Freedom, Justice and Equality.
Since, as of this writing, he has not been arrested and is still at large and a danger to others, people should be aware that Richard Goodwin lives at 2981 Aramingo Ave. He works in the building trades, possibly as a roofer.
Mayor Kenny and Commissioner Outlaw are probably aware of vast corruption in the PPD, and the 26th and 1st precincts involvement in the racist mobs in Fishtown and Marconi Plaza. In that case, they are running a smokescreen and dragging their feet in holding the cops accountable. The other option is that they have lost control of the PPD, and the PPD has decided they are no longer going to prevent violence against those that want to curb their power and influence in this city. Not only that, but the PPD are going to encourage and condone those attacks, and defend those that perpetuate them from being held accountable. Either way, we will be working to identify EVERY person who has participated in these mobs and further exposing how the PPD was a their partner in terrorizing parts of this city.
The city is moving ahead with plans for a Friday eviction. It’s time for all of us to join together to defend the camp. All hands on ceck, please spread the word!]
Join us Sunday, July 19th for our next virtual reading discussion and hang-out! We’ll be reading Seaweed’s Land and Freedom:
Drawing from histories of rebellion, Seaweed begins a conversation with fellow anarchists about struggle, strategy, subsistenence, or past, and our future. What kind of communities do we need to exist to support long-term rebellion against Capitalism? What would it mean to create insurrectionary movements for subsistence? What kind of relationships might arise from long-term ecologically-based struggles? This book is an invitation to explore these ideas.
(Note that this is the full version, not the excerpts uploaded to the anarchist library – you can also buy the book in full from us or Little Black Cart)
As usual, we’ll be meeting on jitsi in room Viscerapvd – the password changes each time, so contact us beforehand! Casual discussion from 1:30-2:30, reading discussion until 4!
URGENT: John Bramble of the Vaughn 17 is on hunger strike. The Vaughn 17 continue to be retaliated against in PA. They have now been in solitary for 3.5 yrs in retaliation for a prison uprising that the State couldn’t prove they participated in.
Johnny is still being held on the Restricted Release List (indefinite solitary) w/o due process. Lately he’s being harassed by guards to discourage him from testifying for another prisoner who was accused of attacking the cops. He has no other recourse left except hunger strike.
Johnny is asking for us on the outside to call SCI Rockview at 814-355-4874 (btwn 9am-3:30pm today or tmrw); ask to talk to Superintendent Garman or Deputy Superintendent Houser. You can say you’re concerned for his safety and his mental state and that he’s not eating.
He says he is not going to break the strike until something changes. If you support militant resistance against prisons, PLEASE call today or tmrw! These guys took major risks & came together in multiracial solidarity against the system. We can’t let them fall through the cracks!
