Submission
Posts by Philly Anti-Cap
Opponents of Philly FDR Park Development Speak Out
from Unicorn Riot
January 26, 2023
Philadelphia, PA – The FDR Park in South Philly is in the midst of a new redevelopment plan supported by the city and private groups like Fairmount Park Conservancy. Opponents of the plan have dubbed their cause “Save the Meadows,” referencing a wild area that was partly bulldozed late in 2022. The plan’s authors are finally hosting a community event on January 26, 2023, although opponents believe that they will not be allowed to speak inside.
A demonstration outside the Grand Yesha Ballroom in South Philly is highlighting reasons they oppose the plan. An ad-hoc coalition of several groups, under the flag “The People’s Plan for FDR Park,” has pushed local officials to reconsider the plan and preserve more meadows while unlocking often-shuttered sports fields around the city.
Among the main concerns opponents have is that the expansion of the Philadelphia International Airport will remove wetlands near the town of Eastwick, which can thus expect more flooding as climate change intensifies. (The airport’s expansion is a key part of the financing of the FDR Park project.)
Live coverage below:
See our video report from last fall below:
Opposition to the development plan was also an element in a large demonstration and march in November 2022 that highlighted several different, yet related causes in the city.
Vigil and Stroll for Tortuguita
Submission
On Saturday 1/21 there was a vigil for Tortuguita Manuel Teran. A group of about 40 adults and children placed candles and homemade signs by the turtle in Clark Park.
People spontaneously made speeches about Tortuguita’s death. The speeches touched on people’s experience of them, grief, martyrdom, and continuing to struggle. People called on each other to target cop city’s sponsors and the contractors responsible for building.
After people had been speaking for a while a small group broke off from the vigil. They took the street with banners. Barricades from a nearby construction site were pulled into the street to block cops and traffic. As the march moved graffiti memorializing Tortuguita and against police was tagged. A realty office had its windows smashed.
The rowdy vigil is the first time things have popped off from Clark Park in a while. A few years ago Cark Park was a regular spot for mid sized black bloc demos to start from. We think that this is worthwhile to revisit because it’s a traditionally anarchist neighborhood and there are lots of alleys nearby to easily change in. It’s exciting to see this kind of energy re-emerge in Philly.
Even though Philly is far from Atlanta, Tortuguita’s death has been deeply felt here. We are angry. We are watching. We are acting. Cop city will never be built.
RIP Tortuguita
Neither innocent nor guilty
Neither terrorists nor protesters
Simply anarchists!
A warm embrace to those arrested in Atlanta, Seattle and everywhere else
Death to civilization
Graffiti for Tortuguita in Philly
Submission
Graffiti In Philladelphia in Solidarity with Tortuguita!
It Says ” FTP-ACAB-161-1312-(///)- RIP TORTUGUITA-DEFEND FORESTS-(A)”
West Philadelphia Vigil Remembers Tortuguita
from Twitter
West #Philadelphia earlier tonight: A vigil at a turtle sculpture in Clark Park to remember #Tortuguita, the forest defender killed near #Atlanta. About 70 people joined a vigil and talked about local struggles. One shared a memory of meeting Tort in the forest last year.
In West #Philly tonight, a small breakaway march from the vigil at Clark Park looped thru the streets and someone tagged “RIP TORT” on a Jersey barrier. #CopCity #Tortuguita
Solidarity Vigil For Tortuguita
from It’s Going Down
Philadelphia, PA
Graffiti in Solidarity with Atlanta and in Memory of Tortuguita in the South NJ
from Jersey Counter-Info
Graffiti placed in the Pinelands of NJ in solidarity with the struggle to Stop Cop City and to Defend the Atlanta Forest and in memory of Tortuguita who was murdered by police while defending the Atlanta Forest.
January discussion – Life Against Death
from Viscera
We’re taking December off, which means our next discussion is happening Sunday, January 22nd from 1-3. Weather permitting we’ll be in Clark Park near the chess tables, but will relocate or reschedule if necessary.
We’ll be reading “Life against Death: Fate, love and revolution in Mawaru Penguindrum“:
The wild ride Ikuhara takes the siblings for will showcase his own skepticism of big-R Revolutions and the Society they struggle against. Yet there is also hope – a hope that this unchanging world can be overcome, or at least survived, through revolutionizing our relationships with one another.
You can find the essay on The Anvil with cool screencaps or on the library with no screencaps. For extra credit, you’re encouraged to watch the show!
Animal People Screening 1/9
Submission
Screening of Animal People (2019)
Monday January 9
7PM
Ask here & now zines for location
(IG @hereandnowzines Mastodon ni.hil.ist/@hereandnowzines)
In conjunction with the Weekend of Solidarity to Stop Cop City. Animal People (97mins) is a documentary about animal liberation activists using innovative strategies. Discussion to follow about local land struggles.
Abolish the Family: Book Launch and Discussion with Sophie Lewis
from Making Worlds Books
RESCHEDULED – Stay Tuned!
Making Worlds Cooperative Bookstore & Social Center: Book Launch and Discussion: Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation
What if we could do better than the family?
Families can be filled with love and care, but for many they are sites of pain: nobody is more likely to harm you than your family. Even in so-called happy families, the unpaid, unacknowledged work that it takes to raise children and care for each other is endless and exhausting.
Abolish the Family traces the history of family abolitionist demands, beginning with nineteenth century utopian socialist and sex radical Charles Fourier, the Communist Manifesto and early-twentieth century Russian family abolitionist Alexandra Kollontai. Turning her attention to the 1960s, Lewis reminds us of the anti-family politics of radical feminists like Shulamith Firestone and the gay liberationists, a tradition she traces to the queer marxists bringing family abolition to the twenty-first century. This exhilarating essay looks at historic rightwing panic about Black families and the violent imposition of the family on indigenous communities, and insists: only by thinking beyond the family can we begin to imagine what might come after.
Registration required. Please RSVP here.
Sophie Lewis is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia, teaching courses for the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Her first book was Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s, Boston Review, n+1, the London Review of Books and Salvage. Sophie studied English, Politics, Environment and Geography at Oxford, the New School, and Manchester University, and is now an unpaid visiting scholar at the Feminist, Queer and Transgender Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
New Years Eve Noise Demo Reportback
Submission
On the evening of the new year about 10 people held a banner, made noise, shone lazer pointers and set off fireworks in front of the Federal Department of Corrections at 7th and Arch.
People met at a nearby park and walked over together carrying a banner, banging on pots and pans and chanting as they went. Everyone was in bloc and people stayed tight and alert during the demo which lasted about 20-30 minutes. At the prison we were greeted by a heavy police presence of at least three cars. More cops came within 10 minutes of us being there including a few bike cops who followed us for a block or two after we left. Everyone got home safe and no arrests were made.
It seemed like the cops were anxious since there hasn’t been a noise demo at that spot since a particuarly rowdy one two years ago. That demo in 2020 ended with multiple arrests and some people facing heavy charges (all of which have since been cleared I think).
Considering the history, this demo felt like a success. People inside the prison were able to see and hear us and responded by flickering their lights. The police intimidation only reaffirmed how important it is to show up for people on the inside and let them know we’re thinking of them and that they are not alone.
Hopefully more demos happen this year and people are inspired to keep acting in defiance of the police state hellscape we live in. I hope we keep finding each other and keep being creative with new tactics and old ones too.
See you next year!
1312
FREE THEM ALL
FIRE TO THE PRISONS
ONCE THERE WERE NO PRISONS AND THAT DAY WILL COME AGAIN
HAPPY 2023!
XOXO
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-Philly Anti-Capitalist
In Contempt #24: Mumia Pushes for New Trial, Updates on Antifascist Prisoners, Support #StopCopCity Arrestees
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, calls to action, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Political Prisoner News
One major piece of political prisoner news is that Mumia Abu-Jamal has an important chance to overturn his conviction after 41 years behind bars. As Democracy Now! reports, a Philadelphia judge has given the prosecution and defense 60 days to review all the evidence in Mumia’s case, including new files that the defense has never had access to before, and is then expected to make a decision on whether or not to grant Mumia a new trial. Key evidence from the files includes a letter seeming to indicate that the prosecution was paying a witness for testimony.
General Prison and Abolitionist News
January 2023 is still set to see the launch of a strike across the Pennsylvania prison system. From an article by Kim Kelly:
On January 6, incarcerated workers across Pennsylvania will launch a statewide strike in solidarity with the Alabama strikers, and in protest of the inhumane policies to which they and other incarcerated workers are subjected by the state of Pennsylvania and the U.S. carceral system writ large. They announced their intention to strike with a November 26 communique that was circulated on social media and within the broader abolitionist community. Organized under the name Subaltern Peoples Abolitionist Revolutionary Collective (SPARC), the workers outlined their demands while castigating the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC). “The PA DOC is the enemy of public safety,” they wrote. “It is the enemy of human decency.”
SPARC’s demands echo those of past prison strikers, from the 1971 Attica Rebellion to the massive nationwide prison strikes of 2016 and 2018 as well as their Alabama brethren. The unifying factor in all of these actions — and in the many other strikes, protests and acts of resistance that have taken place in prisons and central facilities throughout the centuries — is a simple request for humanity. The strikers want to be treated as people, to be acknowledged as the human beings that they are and treated with basic decency, compassion and respect. Their list of demands shows a deep desire for connection with loved ones and the world outside the walls. Requests for video visits, easier access to communication devices, and family picnic days sit alongside economic concerns like higher wages and ending the loss of jobs, like mail sorting and commissary, that are meant to be available to incarcerated workers but are being outsourced to vendors like Secure Pak.
It is clear that, like so many other unions, SPARC is not only concerned with so-called bread-and-butter economic issues. The collective is also calling for material improvements to members’ quality of life, both on and off the job, and for sweeping reforms to the state’s criminal punishment system.
Mongoose Distro continues to publish new prisoner writings regularly, including the Cries from the Gulag zine, and the Pennsylvania prisoner zine IB64, as well as individual pieces from writers such as Dan Baker, Jason Renard Walker, Jesse Mocha Scoggins, and Steven McCain.
Uprising Defendants
Everyone should support the defendants facing charges related to their alleged participation in the George Floyd uprising – this list of our imprisoned comrades needs to be getting shorter, not longer. See Uprising Support for more info, and check out the Antirepression PDX site for updates from Portland cases. The status of pre-trial defendants changes frequently, but to the best of our knowledge they currently include:
David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701
Upcoming Birthdays
Joseph “Joe-Joe” Bowen
Black Liberation Army (BLA) Prisoner of War, serving two life sentences for the assassination of a prison warden and deputy warden, as well as an attempted prison break which resulted in a five-day standoff.
Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going to connectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility,” choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections”, going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “AM-4272”.
Birthday: January 15
Address:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Joseph Bowen #AM-4272
SCI Fayette
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
United States
