A group of Philly anti-war activists turned burglars broke into an FBI office and made off with documents. They exposed the bureau’s notorious COINTELPRO and never got caught!
1971 follows up with them decades later and goes into how they planned the action and how their break-in changed the way we understand surveillance today.
Witness what is possible when a dedicated group of people decide to take on the feds, against a backdrop of Philly’s radical and progressive movements and cultures during the 60s and 70s.
(80 mins)
TONIGHT! Join us for the first ever Anarchy After Hours reading group at the LAVA Library. This is the first meeting in a series that will run every other Thursday for the foreseeable future from 630-730 PM.
We will be reading Peter Gelderloos’ Anarchy Works for the first few meetings. The group will decide today how quickly we want to finish the book and how we want our meetings to be structured. Anarchy Works is available for free download at the Anarchist Library at theanarchistlibrary.org.
The book provides an accessible overview of anarchy, and provides examples of how it has proven itself to be an effective organizing strategy throughout history.
Volunteer librarians will be running this meeting, and donations are appreciated to pay for snacks and to keep our program afloat. As always, masks are required inside the space.
Join us at the Wooden Shoe for a screening of the 1979 documentary, “The Wobblies.”Stick around after for a discussion with members of the Philadelphia IWW and some guests!
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]We return with another monthly roundup of news and analysis on political prisoners and prison rebellions.
This past month has seen an unprecedented rise in repression as Trump further consolidates authoritarian power and unleashes militarized fascist police violence on communities across the so-called US.
Following the closing of It’s Going Down, a new collective will continue publishing monthly “In Contempt” updates on this noblogs. People can submit updates and calls to action to the new email in_contempt at autistici dot org.
So much is happening so let’s jump right in!
George Floyd Uprising Prisoners
As far as we know, the remaining George Floyd Uprising prisoners’ addresses are:
David Elmakayes 77782-066
USP Lee
U.S. Penitentiary
P.O. Box 305
Jonesville, VA 24263
Smart Communications / PA DOC
Khalif Miller / #QQ9287
SCI Forest
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Political Prisoner Birthdays
Dwayne Staats
One of the two Vaughn 17 defendants to be convicted for taking part in the Vaughn prison uprising of early 2017. Dwayne and his co-defendant Jarreau “Ruk” Ayers bravely admitted to their own parts in the uprising, and then, free to testify openly without fear of incriminating themselves any further, tore holes in the prosecution’s attempts to convict anyone else – as he put it, “we’d accept being stabbed in the chest to present others from getting stabbed in the back”. To learn more about Dwayne in his own words, you can follow his instagram, read his letter to the Kentucky Attorney General, or his contribution to the Vaughn zine, “Live from the Trenches”.
Her name, Assata Shakur, has become an iconic symbol of Black revolutionary resistance to the white nation and American empire. Shot, beaten and threatened with death, Assata lived up to the meaning of her name: “She who struggles.” Born Joanne Deborah Byron on July 16, 1947, in Queens, N.Y., she came of age during the tumultuous 1960s, when young Black people joined movements and organizations devoted to Black liberation. She joined the Black Panther Party and later, the Black Liberation Army (BLA), and emerged as one of its best-known and best-loved members.
When three young Panthers were driving south on the New Jersey Turnpike, they were ambushed by state troopers, and a shoot-out ensued. One Panther, Zayd Malik Shakur and a state trooper, were shot and killed. Assata was also shot, under her arm. The third Panther, Sundiata Acoli, also survived the ambush. Both survivors were charged with murder. Assata endured some 10 trials or so, winning acquittal after acquittal after acquittal. She was convicted once, and the state threatened her with another conviction for killing of Zayd.
A BLA squad went to her jail and set her free. Shortly thereafter, she made it to Cuba, which granted her political asylum. She began teaching in Cuba, wrote riveting poetry, and prayed for social change in America, and of course, freedom for the Black Nation. She served her people and freedom’s cause with bravery, beauty and brilliance. She represented her generation as Harriet Tubman represented hers.
A screening in its entirety of a 3 part series imagined and narrated by anarchist Author Peter Gelderloos (How Nonviolence Protects the State, The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below) and brought to life by anarchist video media collective subMedia.
Part 1 of It’s Revolution or Death explores the lies that corporate green energy companies are feeding us and speculates on just how bad things will get if we continue on the current course.
Part 2 examines movements around the world by interviewing participants resisting giant ecologically destructive projects in Wet’suwet’en Territory in so-called Canada, The ZAD in Notre-Dame-de-Londres in France*, and farmland in the north of territories controlled by the state of Brazil that have been reoccupied by the Landless Worker’s movement and turned into massive organic farming projects providing both food and housing.
Part 3 brings it all home by bringing 3 simple suggestions to newer anarchists or just anarchists who don’t already live near one of these big ecological movements. Urgent Suggestion #1: A complete and Total Rejection of All the Institutions Responsible for This Disaster. Urgent Suggestion #2: Pick a Project of Transformative Survival and Urgent Suggestion #3: Connect your project to a revolutionary web of solidarity.
This series was designed to be screened in communities and start or continue the difficult conversations we’ll all have to have about making our communities more resilient in the face of worsening climate catastrophe. Run time is about 80 min.
