I’m curious why I don’t see more outright…

  • May 6, 2016 1:31 pm

from Anarchadelphia

I’m curious why I don’t see more outright solidarity from the self-proclaimed “reds” in the city with local striking workers.  I’ve seen them attending every possible kind of demonstration, but never supporting strikes (like some west coast anarchists have done in recent years in the ports), taking actions against scab sites and employers (like some of the union members with some sort of teeth), or reaching out to the frustrated at more reformist rallies (the way the insurrecto-oriented have been doing against prisons and the police, locally).

I don’t find any promise in the possibility of the (ever-dwindling) working class uniting and rising up to overthrow anyone, let alone even pursuing a non-hierarchal society —and even if I did, I don’t believe unions would be the medium to achieve this.  But, red anarchists purport to believe just that, suggesting it would be in their interest to participate in such a way.  Yet, they seem more likely to be organizing with college kids and liberals at a $15 & a union rally — or so it seems to me.

This crosses my mind with the passing of May Day, as I remember picketing workers infiltrating a car show and trashing it at the convention center, as I watch the CWA striking against verizon again, and further reports of sabotage unsanctioned by said union against Verizon’s fiber optic infrastructure circulate.  Whether the CWA does not, in fact, condone the sabotage or is trying to keep its hands clean begins to illustrate its limitations, and the complete absence of radical unions like the IWW from anything substantial since the first red scare illustrates theirs.  The last local news of note we’ve had from the IWW, in fact, includes an absolute failure around organizing a South Street Workers’ Strike (was that in the ’90’s?), to scandals resulting in the booting of certain “esteemed” local anarchists over financial discrepancies, to an article in support of striking Santander Bank employees in Spain.  This is hardly the stuff of a restless, growing, anticapitalist mass.

The Prison General Strike this September, as called for by some Texan prisoner wobblies, could bring about the first functional endeavor of the IWW in almost a century, however, and I’m excited to see it happen.  Maybe this is the long overdue tactical transition the reds have been searching for in response to the recuperation of workers as increasingly comfortable consumers?

I would love to be proven wrong in such a way.  I don’t agree with many red anarchist goals or tactics, but please make a go of it and prove me wrong; show me why these things are a good idea.  Don’t tell me, I cut my anarchist teeth on Berkman and Goldman and abandoned a union that proved useless to my needs, but try to make these things happen if that’s what you actually believe in.

And sometimes I wonder what it would look like for such ideas to come to fruition.  For red anarchists acting in kind with striking workers against fiber optics developing a temporary, tangible, action-oriented affinity with green anarchists, for instance.  What other avenues might we find intersections on?

Autonomous March in Solidarity with Prisoners in Philly

  • May 3, 2016 6:05 pm

from It’s Going Down

Across the country, prisoners have been pushing back against the indignities of prison. In Texas, prisoners have been on strike against slave labor for almost one month. Bubbling tensions in Holman, Alabama have erupted into prison riots at least twice and are now taking the form of a work stoppage. Three facilities around Michigan have seen mass protests, with inmates refusing meals and skipping meetings with the prison staff in protest against food quality. Louisiana has also seen hunger strikes recently. All of these actions lead toward a nation-wide prison strike on September 9th, the anniversary of the Attica uprising.

On May Day, between 15 and 20 people gathered for a short autonomous march through West Philly in solidarity with prisoners’ struggles and against prison society. The demonstration moved east behind two banners, “Prisoners to the Streets” and “REVENGE”. Music from a sound system kept the atmosphere playful.

Pamphlets expressing solidarity with struggles in prison were given to people in cars and in the street who were curious about what was happening. Stickers and tags against police and prison were put up along the way. A police substation received a few splashes of paint as the march passed it. People generally seemed enthusiastic about the demonstration and expressed their support from the sidewalks and cars.

The march ended and dispersed without incident at a nearby park. It had been promoted in a way to decrease the possibility of police presence at the meetup and no police were around for the entirety of the brief march.

Some takeaways:
-Avoiding reliance on Facebook and building networks of friends and comrades in less mediated ways makes repression harder.
-More dialogue between participants — especially during the demonstration — can make events like these less confusing in the future.
-As long as an escalation is not too drastic, sharing tools (like paint, stickers, flyers, etc) can welcome and encourage people to take action in a friendly setting.
-Bad weather is not the end of the world.

Art as Resistance: Discussion and Art Making Night

  • April 7, 2016 11:45 am

from facebook

Permanent Wave Philly Presents:

Art as a Form of Resistance: Feminist Discussion and Art Making Night!

The first part of the evening will be an open discussion where we will talk about: What is art? What is activism? What is resistance? How can feminist activists practice resistance through art? What is effective? Bring your thoughts, questions, and experiences — this is a no experts discussion!

The second part of the night will involve making stuff together! We’ll have stations set up with supplies for silk screening, stencil making, button-making, coloring pages, zine-making, and more!

Want to make a sign for the upcoming Take Back the Night Philadelphia 2016 (4/28)? Want to make some buttons to wear on your jean jackets, or give to friends? Want to make a stencil for spray painting or make a silk screen print for your wall? Let’s get creative.

Join us on Thursday, April 14th at A-Space! [6PM]

More info to come!

What is Direct Struggle?

  • March 19, 2016 11:40 pm

from Facebook

What are the possibilities today for struggles against capitalism and the white supremacist colonial state? How have state repression and the rise of activism in the U.S. precluded various forms of militant struggle, and what exactly do these more direct forms of struggle look like?

This workshop will discuss the relationship between symbolic and direct action and explore various strategies for informal coordination, organization and action. We will look at a range of specific examples from around the world, including projects around land defense, anti-fascism, and construction of new prisons.

Presented by Movement for No Society.

Free.

Wooden Shoe is handicap accessible (bathroom is not)

[March 26 from 4pm to 6pm at Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]

The Spaces Between

  • February 15, 2016 6:21 pm

from facebook

All too often as anarchists in the U.S. we look to places like Oakland or New York for cues of how to get it done. The problem with this being that most of us don’t live in anarchist-disney world, where anything is possible and everything is flammable, and we couldn’t afford the rents in Oakland anyway. This February and March we will be publishing a collection of interviews and essays from the spaces in between to bring to your towns.

The tour features friends from Denver, Colorado and Richmond, Virginia coming to your town to talk about what it looks like for anarchists outside those spaces with longstanding institutional left bases. We think there is a lot to learn from the less glamorous towns and small cities where anarchists continue fighting in spite of it all. Sharing our experiences of building, failing, rebuilding, fucking it up and sometimes winning, we hope to strike up conversations in your towns with your friends. Let’s talk community defense work, anti-police struggles, combating gentrification warfare, how not to let the liberals get us down and more.

[February 22at 8:30pm at A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave]

A no show doesn’t mean go home, it means go hard!!

  • February 5, 2016 4:18 pm

Submission

A no show doesn’t mean go home, it means go hard!!

Rumor has it that Daryush “Roosh V” Valizadeh and his Return of the Kings have canceled their international meet-ups due to safety concerns.
Philly has no reason to stand down in light of this. It’s easy to label him and his people as benign internet trolls, but the reality is way more sinister. The Return Of Kings represents a serious rise of tradtionalist fascist movements that aim to uphold structures of sexism, racism, transphobia, and homophobia through the direct promotion of violence. Roosh V even rails against “multiculturalism” making society “unlivable”. He is a self-described advocate of trumps doctrine as well. It cannot be stressed enough that these fuckrs are not as isolated as we wish they were.

White nationalist terror attacks have been on the rise as a white nationalist figurehead has been given the mainstream spotlight through the elections.
This is directly related to the struggles of women of all backgrounds. The same forces that enable these racist attacks to occur are the ones that allow there to be attacks on women’s health centrs, and women in general. The enemy is fascism, and all systems of control that dominate everyday life. This isn’t a matter of negotation. Women being raped, while rapists speak in comfort means this is a matter of war!

To expect the state to do a damn thing is a huge mistake. The state not only protects fascists, but it is an active part of the same structure that fascists aim to strengthen. The police are not our fucking friends. They enforce the same borders bastards like Trump wish to secure even more. They have their guns directed at the same people of color that white nationalists wish to see dead. It’s already well known that 40% of police officer’s families experience domestic violence at the hands of the officer in the family. Support for policing in what is a clearly a police-state has no place in any anti-fascist movement.

The kings may not return saturday night but fascists are stepping it up all over the country with the full suport of American politics. The ideas fascists promote are everywhere and a constant part of our society. Anti-fascists waiting even a moment longer means allowing the enemy to continue dealing the cards. It means allowing them to create the stakes, and control the game.

In an age where fascism is growing stronger, it’s abou time we strengthen our own convictions and actions. Whether these rapists show or not we still need to be out there celebrating anti-fascists resistance. It’s time we step it the fuck up and show every fascist scum what happens when they even so much as mention building a platform for their movement on OUR streets in OUR city. Every Fascist, and Rapist should have fear struck into their hearts when they hear the word “PHILLY”.

SEE YOU IN THE STREETS!

Three Dead Anarchists of Philadelphia, and Why I stalk Them: a talk about the place of local history in today’s struggle

  • January 28, 2016 11:03 am

from facebook

For over 25 years, Robert Helms has researched anarchism’s “golden age” in Philadelphia. Working as an independent scholar, Helms has uncovered nearly all of what is known about two leading women anarchists who were active between 1889 and 1917, Natasha Notkin and Mary Hansen, and many important facts and texts by the well-known anarchist public intellectual Voltairine de Cleyre. Helms’ talk will describe the major events and activities of the anarchist milieu in Philadelphia during this period. Focusing on the lifetime commitments and sacrifices made for the cause by these three women, and how their personalities and the circumstances of their lives informed their radicalism, Helms will address the question of why local historical research is critical to our struggles to create a just and happy world.

He will discuss his methodology for conducting research, as well as the intense thrill a researcher has when they are the only person on earth who knows an amazing, true story of long-dead anarchists. We hope this event will spark discussion about how people can conduct this kind of research in their own communities, the best ways to share the histories and generate future workshops on research in the New York area.

[February 4th at Interference Archive 131 8th St, Brooklyn, NY]

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

  • January 21, 2016 3:24 pm

from facebook

For most of US history, the police have used violence against African Americans with impunity—but after the murder of unarmed teenager Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, mass protests erupted to challenge that impunity. In the process, a new generation of Black activists has come to question the old methods of struggle, puncture the Obama-era illusion of a “postracial” United States, and declare without apology that #BlackLivesMatter.

In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the history and current realities of US racism. Taylor examines how institutional racism has created and shaped the structural problems that affect Black people, such as mass incarceration and unemployment, even as more Black people hold political office than ever before. She paints a vivid picture of the context for this new struggle against police violence—and shows the potential of the Black Lives Matter movement to reignite and broaden the struggle for liberation.

[January 28 at 7pm at Friends Center 1501 Cherry St]

Reclaiming Our Future: The Black Radical Tradition In Our Time

  • January 1, 2016 9:03 pm

from facebook

On January 8th -10th, the Black Radical Organizing Collective (BROC) including grassroots activists, organizers, educators, scholars, and faith leaders will convene a conference on the Black radical tradition. The title of the conference is “Reclaiming our Future: the Black Radical Tradition In Our Time.” The conference will take place in North Central Philadelphia on the main campus of Temple University.

The mission of the conference is twofold. First, we wish to celebrate and illuminate the history of the Black radical tradition. Second, we wish to highlight the vital importance of today’s Black radical movements as we look to the future. The Black radical tradition represents a wealth of theoretical and practical wisdom. It is this rich heritage, combined with a forward-looking perspective that we wish to display at Temple University. Like critical perspectives throughout US academia, the Black radical tradition suffers at Temple. Radical approaches, traditions, and voices at America’s “imperial” universities face an onslaught of neoliberal policies which weaken students, faculty, and surrounding communities. In response to these circumstances, we seek to promote onsite critical analysis and collaborative solidarity among activists of today’s Black radical movements and those of previous generations.

Volume 2 Issue 5

  • December 18, 2015 3:25 am

from Anathema

Volume 2 Issue 5 (PDF for printing 11×17)

Volume 2 Issue 5 (PDF for reading 8.5×11)

In this issue:

  • What’s the Point of the Black Bloc? Reflections on “Don’t Let Paris Be A Pretext”
  • Anarchy In A Time of Civil War
  • A Reportback from Leif Erikson Day 2015
  • Recent Actions in Philly
  • Local and International Writings on Black December
  • Timeline of Action Against Gentrification

The Age of Extremes- Climate Change, Terrorism, and Capitalism: A Talk and Discussion with Journalist Arun Gupta

  • December 4, 2015 6:37 pm

from facebook

Award-winning journalist Arun Gupta, in conversation with Sally Eberhardt, will discuss the state of America on the eve of the 2016 election. In recent years Gupta has gone undercover to police conventions, investigated the migrant crisis in Tijuana, stood on the frontlines of “Blockadia,” uncovered an FBI terrorist-entrapment plot, examined profiteering in the prison industry, traveled through the marijuana industry in California, infiltrated the Tea Party, covered Occupy Wall Street, and told the stories of Iraqi refugees, low-wage workers, and Black Lives Matter activists.

With more hot air than action coming out of the U.N. summit on climate change in Paris, Gupta will explain how terrorism, capitalism, and climate change are interconnected, and why there needs to be credible alternatives to capitalism or most Americans will continue to fall for demagogues like Donald Trump or pro-Wall Street, pro-war Democrats like Hillary Clinton.

Arun Gupta contributes to outlets including the Washington Post, The Nation, In These Times, The Guardian, The Progressive, YES! Magazine, Telesur, ZNet, Counterpunch, and Al-Jazeera America.

This event is free. The space is wheelchair accessible though the bathroom is not.

[December 11 at 7pm at Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]

Some History of Cedar Park Neighbors and the Barn

  • November 20, 2015 12:03 pm

Submission

Recently the Barn on Baltimore – a newer bar in Cedar Park – and some signs put up by the Cedar Park Neighbors (CPN) group were both vandalized. The Barn had “FIRST WORLD LOUNGE” spray painted across the facade. The signs – which stated “Cedar Park Neighbors Welcomes You” – had paint splattered on them. The Barn and CPN have been criticized for furthering gentrification in Cedar Park.
The building that houses the Barn used to be the home of a bar and club called the New Third World Lounge; Cedar Park Neighbors played an active role in having the place shut down, paving the way for the Barn. CPN spread racist rumors online that portrayed the mostly black clientele of the New Third World Lounge as dirty, drug ridden and criminal. They actively encouraged people in the neighborhood to file complaints against the bar for minor ordinance violations. CPN would follow up by publishing the contact information of the Licensing and Inspection officials in charge of handling the complaints to pressure the city to fine the building owners. As the building owners received more and more negative attention they eventually succumbed and kicked out management of Third World Lounge and eventually invited the current occupiers to create the Barn in its place.
The Barn, though well received by CPN, was heavily criticized by many residents for replacing a nexus of black social activity with a venue that mostly catered to young white transplants. Initially the Barn made attempts to cater to the neighborhood in the same way that the New Third World Lounge but these soon fell to the wayside. Indeed, the Barn has entrenched itself as a watering hole for the creative class.
With these kinds of histories it’s no surprise people are opposing the Barn and Cedar Park Neighbors.

Why Not Nonviolence?

  • November 12, 2015 12:53 pm

from facebook

This workshop is the first in a monthly series, *Anarchist Interventions*, that discusses and responds to current tendencies in the anti-authoritarian scene in Philly and beyond.

This workshop will look at anti-authoritarian views of nonviolent tactics and the current climate of social justice organizing and activism, examining the available terrain of tactics and strategies. Presentations and discussion will focus on why a critique of nonviolence is important in a decentralized and horizontal milieu, how official activism and organizations contribute to reproducing the socioeconomic order, and the relation pacifism and non-violence has to race, gender and identity in general. We hope to pose and discuss a few central questions: Can we return to the debate over the diversity of tactics? What styles of informal coordination and action are available, as opposed to activist organizations, and how do these work? How do we lend support to or create solidarity with those at risk of police repression? How do we organize with a heterogeneous composition of crowds? How can we adapt to shifting circumstances, such as the militarization of the police, and respond as anti-authoritarians?

[7:30pm November 19 at A-Space 4722 Baltimore Ave]

No Platform for Neo-Nazis Pamphlet

  • October 8, 2015 1:20 am

received via email

“Here’s a pamphlet made for the upcoming demonstration. Please share it.”

Daryle Lamont Jenkins on the far right in the U.S. and an update on the Menard hunger strike

  • September 28, 2015 10:04 pm

from The Final Straw

 

Airs on WSFM-LP 103.3 in Asheville / streaming at AshevilleFM from 3am EST on September 28th, 2015 through October 3rd , then podcasting at archive.org. Also airing this week on KOWA-LPFM in Olympia, WA, KWTF in Bodega Bay, CA, KXCF in Marshall, CA, and WCRS-LP Columbus Community Radio 98.3 and 102.1 FM. The show will later be archived at TheFinalStrawRadio.NoBlogs.Org. You can email us at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net and you can send us mail at:

The Final Straw
c/o AshevilleFM
864 Haywood rd
Asheville, NC 28806

——————————————————————————————————

This week we’re speaking with Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People’s Project based in Philadelphia, PA. Mr Jenkins is a writer, activist, and committed anti fascist. This hour we’ll speak about the state of fascism in the US and how to approach dealing with fascists and racists in your community. We talk about the One People’s Project, its history, and its goals. Keep an eye out for their new website at http://idavox.com/ to be up next month.
You can see our previous interview with Mr. Jenkins at The Final Straw’s website

To write to the One People’s Project, address letters to:

One People’s Project
PO BOX 42817
Philadelphia, PA 19101

For more about Ida B. Wells you can visit the wikipedia article about her

For information about the TORCH Antifa Conference in November 2015 you can visit their website

And for more about the 0161 Festival in England, you can visit their facebook link