Submission
The mindless nothingness of the morning work commute was a fine place to remind the drones that
WE DON’T WANT THEIR JOBS
WE DON’T WANT THEIR WORLD
FUCK CAPITALISM
HAPPY MAY DAY
HAPPY MAY DAY
Anti-Work Banner Over Highway
from instagram:
Someone really needs to quit their job. #mymorningcommute #philadelphia #goodmorning #goodidea
Have a great summer!
Submission
Happy May Day y’all. Since public marches aren’t quite our thing, we decided to head out into the night to cause some trouble as soon as the clock struck 12 am, May 1st. We wandered throughout the side streets of brewery town, giving plenty of those nice new Resnik developer buildings some much needed paint jobs, smashing windows is always a good time, but for this little adventure, we felt that it would cause just as much damage and cost as much money to fix if we painted their windows a nice sleek shade of black. We also took the time to sabotage their locks in a bunch of fun, easy to reproduce ways. On the way, we also stumbled across the vehicle of a yuppie “clean energy” company. We figured this would look much better with some big black streaks on it so we gave it a sweet paint job (free of charge of course). Hope that’s a friendly reminder that we don’t give a fuck about your capitalist version of sustainable future and more importantly, stay the fuck outta our hoods with your ugly gentrified houses.
We went on this little adventure with the memories of the anarchists slain both in the labor struggles in Haymarket square, and for those murdered in the struggle against domination, the memory of their attacks have warmed our hearts and fueled our mischievous deeds. We also took these actions in memory of David Jones who was murdered by the terrorist pig Ryan Pownell, and in solidarity with those struggling against Temple’s new stadium, and our comrades arrested on May Day last year.
The Summer of Rage has begun! Get your sun screen on because it’s gonna be a hot one! From May 1st-September 21st, every troublemaker, criminal, anti fascist, crime-doer, and anti-authoritarian is invited to join the Summer of Rage Anarchist Crew. Plan some free picnics for your community, paint some fun slogans and pictures on those boring city walls, break whatever you want, have a bonfire with whoever you want wherever you want and most importantly, remind our friends at OCF, Resnik Developers, and all their little gentrifying buddies that Philly belongs to us. Have a great summer
-SORAC
Pipeline Sabotage
Submission
Early last week, we made the two tractors that Energy Transfer Partners was using to construct the Mariner East 2 pipeline near Exton, PA inoperative by cutting their hoses and electrical wires, cutting off valve stems to deflate the tires, introducing sand into their systems, putting potatoes in the exhaust pipes, using contact cement to close off the machines’ panels and fuel tanks, and a variety of other mischievous improvised sabotage techniques.
We feel called to fight for the natural world and would be lazy to submit to the demise of the earth, animal and self by not fighting against its destruction by machines and corporations who seek to kill it for capitalist growth. It was surprisingly easy and brought us so much joy. We’ve read since that ETP has had to acknowledge the damage, which they are usually careful to cover up, and see that this wreck of a project could be seriously compromised by the proliferation of more actions like these.
For those restless, angry warriors out there, we hope you find similar happiness in destroying little by little the tools of this capitalist settler-colonial nation. Death to colonization and capitalism… Shout out to everyone out there still attacking in spite of repression and grief.
May 1st General Strike
from Philly IWW
Fellow Workers,
Another May is soon to come. May is a special month for working people around the world. It is a time to remember fellow workers martyred for daring to say the common people deserve a say in the trajectory of their lives. Martyred for suggesting people exist with comfort at the expense of profits for business owners. Martyred for dreaming of something better. May is a time when workers come together to experiment for a new world, like the students of Paris in 1968. May is a time when workers rejoice at all they have won, like Philadelphia’s Dock Workers Local 8 in 1913. What will May be for you?
On May 1st, 1886, workers across the United States went on strike for an eight-hour workday. On May 3rd, police fired on striking workers at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, killing two. This was only the beginning of violence against working people that May, the most famous incident of which was the sentencing and execution of four workers accused of bombing a gathering of people on May 4th in Haymarket Square, Chicago – these workers were pardoned posthumously by the governor of Illinois in 1893. The trial-execution-pardon cycle has been repeated countlessly and persists today, though anymore it seems the cycle is execution-trial-pardon with a one-sided trial by media.
May 1st is a day to remember and a day to dream. We workers claim this day for all workers across the globe.
We won the eight-hour workday. We won a guaranteed minimum wage. However, it is increasingly common for people to work multiple jobs, part time, at a wage well below livable. Medicine advances daily, but access to health care is evaporating. A four year college degree is required in more workplaces, but access to education continues to fall for the majority of people. Politicians stand by as our neighborhoods are bull-dozed so developers can build condos we can’t afford – letting them stand empty so wealthy investors can store their money.
Amazon threatens to come to town. A neighborhood will be razed to make way for HQ2. Rents will increase – rents we cannot afford. Jeff Bezos and his politicians promise jobs, but we know they only want us in the Amazon warehouses, restaurants, and convenience stores earning minimum wage. The city has promised Amazon will not pay taxes or for our education.
The Philadelphia Industrial Workers of the World call on you to strike! Walk out with all of your coworkers and enjoy the day. The bosses cannot threaten you if there is no one to take your place.
Strike against police brutality, mass incarceration, and racism.
Strike for justice.
Strike against ICE.
Strike for workers of all nationalities.
Strike against low wages and reduced hours.
Strike for the ability to thrive.
Strike against environmental destruction.
Strike for life.
Strike against gentrification.
Strike for your community.
Strike against disenfranchisement.
Strike for control of your life.
Strike for a future without work.
Strike for imagination.
Strike for yourself.
Strike for those who cannot.
Strike for liberation.
Strike to remember.
Strike for fun.
Have a Great Summer :)
Submission
We would like to claim the following attacks between February 2018 and April 2018
We sabotaged between 20-30 ATMs with glue, pvc cards, and spraypaint
12 yuppie bike rentals were destroyed using glue, pvc cards, and spraypaint
Anti-gentrification graffiti was used to attack different construction sites in North Philadelphia in solidarity with community members fighting back against Temple University’s plans to build a massive stadium
Maybe best of all, each OCF coffee was mysteriously hit with a few pounds of concrete flushed down their toilets. We hope Ori knows a good plumber ????
Have a great summer
-Summer of Rage preseason softball team
Freight Train Traffic Disrupted by Anarchists
from Insurrection News
Received on 12.03.18:
Taking inspiration from Olympia Stand, we disrupted freight train traffic using copper wire. We did this three times over the last 30 days. Since hearing of the blockade we felt the need to act in solidarity and we know it was a while ago but time is a scam!!!!!
Obviously we took this action because we hate the economy, money, and the things that keep capitalism moving! We want to fuck with its flow with whatever means we had.
This action is also meant to be an attack on the social peace. Hierarchy and domination are a problem, and we want to attack all its forms, but submission, apathy, conformity, resignation, and stagnation also prevent us from being free. We want to end everything that holds this misery together. Fuck comfort and safety—nothing is safe! This supposed “security” people strive for is just creating more policing over our lives. We need to let go of security! How can we expect to move toward freedom without letting go of comfort and taking real risks?
The crisis is always urgent!
Anarchy as a struggle lived in the present!
Solidarity with anarchists and anti-fascists facing repression and torture in Russia
Solidarity to the anarchists in Hamilton fighting the rich and those who defend their peace of mind and property
Solidarity to the remaining J20 defendants
Also shout out & solidarity to whoever smashed the cafe windows of some buildings in West Philly recently
A Statement on International Women’s Day
from Philly IWW
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the (human) race.
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life’s glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!
There is no major movement – social or political – that has not been touched indelibly by women. No movement more so, perhaps, than the International Labor Movement.
Where there have been principled, passionate, and strident gains for working people, women have been a crucial guiding force, though they have often gone unheralded. We recently saw that once more in West Virginia as their teachers, most of whom are women, defied the orders of their government and their union leaders by staging a wildcat strike.
That goes especially for our Union, The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). It was a Union co-founded by women at a time when virtually all major, American labor organizations did not allow women; much less allow them leadership roles. Yet in its earliest years, its most visible and effective members were women – including Lucy Parsons, Mary Harris (“Mother”) Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Dorothy Day, and Helen Keller. Among its greatest moments – including the 1912 Lawrence, MA Textile Workers Strike – depended on the mass mobilization and leadership of women, many of whom were immigrants.
Textile workers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey also marched under the banner of the “One Big Union” in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, whether by accident or on purpose, many of their words and deeds have been lost to history. They have largely gone unnoticed by the culture-at-large and are scarcely taught to children.
But the latest incarnation of the Philadelphia IWW – along with its contingency in the Harrisburg area – hasn’t forgotten their struggle. From them, we have acquired an ambitious, hard-earned legacy. That legacy is vision of a world beyond the exploitative wage system but what’s more, it is a vision in which all forms of bigotry and alienation – including sexism – are eradicated and the present, patriarchal orientation of our society is permanently recalibrated. Not only do we believe it to be the right thing to do but we believe our goals will be impossible to achieve one without the other.
On this International Women’s Day – March 8, 2018 – we recommit ourselves to the billions of working class people across the gender spectrum. We offer our support and our efforts, especially to those who find themselves on society’s margins due to their gender identity. We also strive to make our Union a more inclusive and affirming place for non-men; we will do our best to uproot any and all forms of toxic masculinity we find in our Union, our branch, and ourselves.
In our workplaces and in our communities, the Philadelphia IWW will fight sexism by any means necessary.
The Teacher Strike in West Virginia: Interview with IWW Teacher Michael Mochaidean – JPS
from Radical Education Department
Introduction
West Virginia has been rocked by a statewide strike by teachers, bus drivers, and other school employees. Today, March 2nd, the strike enters its seventh day.
Beginning on February 22nd, workers shut down public schools in all 55 of West Virginia’s counties, rejecting abysmal and declining teacher pay and the state’s attack on public employees’ health insurance. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), one of the unions helping to organize the strikers, reports the following worker demands:
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A natural gas severance tax that creates a self-sustaining source of revenue for PEIA [Public Employees Insurance Agency] and public employee pay.
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No regressive taxes, which ultimately affect working-class families more than the wealthy elite.
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A permanent tabling to any and all legislation pertaining to co-tenancy and joint development, which allow large natural gas industries to engulf local landowners.
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A pay raise of 5% per year over the next half decade.
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A permanent tabling to any and all legislation pertaining to charter schools, voucher systems, and any attempts to privatize public schools.
On February 27th, Governor Justice announced an agreement with three of the major teacher unions in the state: a 5% pay increase for teachers as well as a 3% increase for state employees generally. Union officials and the governor alike pleaded for school employees to return to work, despite the fact that key demands remain unmet.
On March 1st, however–defying the governor and official union leaders–teachers refused to return to work, swarming the capitol and chanting “It’s not over.”
Meanwhile, that same day, even the modest pay raise was refused in the state legislature.
Below is an interview conducted via email between John Schultz of RED and Michael Mochaidean, a West Virginia teacher and member of the IWW.
JS: Can you give a brief account of how the statewide teachers’ strike in West Virginia began and developed? What role did the rank-and-file play, and what role did the IWW as well as the major teacher unions (AFT, WVEA, etc.) play?
MM: I am speaking here as an individual within the IWW, not as a representative for the West Virginia IWW or the IWW broadly speaking. […]
The statewide strike did not originate with the unions and their leadership, but rather with the rank-and-file of their membership. It began as an effort by members to do away with the strategies of leadership that seemed stale and unable to adapt to changing times. For example, leadership had endorsed Governor Jim Justice as a Democrat, but he soon changed his party and was in opposition to the unions and teachers by and large, so we felt that this strategy of endorsing and electing conservative Democrats would only backfire in the future. This movement was entirely rank-and-file in its beginning and as it has progressed over the past week. Both AFT and WVEA have worked jointly on these issues at the county and state level, with many members acting on behalf of the other.
This cross union solidarity raised the consciousness among many teachers of the need to perhaps consider uniting the associations in the future. The IWW is relatively new to West Virginia in the sense that we have no official chapter in the state and only a few disconnected members. However, the outpouring of support from IWW members has been immense. Wobblies from the southern states reached out to me after they listened to my interview with IGD and we began organizing for more direct control over the unions. We developed brochures, pamphlets, and literature to be distributed throughout the state to keep up the momentum for grassroots organizing within and outside the official associations. We also set up a strike fund to fund possible leafleting campaigns, renting halls, inviting speakers, and the like.
JS: What conditions as well as organizing strategies do you think helped make this strike a broad and powerful one? And what could others–not only unions, but social movements generally–learn from the West Virginia teachers?
MM: The anarcho-syndicalist tradition offers the best analysis, in my mind, as to how we can understand the teachers movement and its efficacy. The inherent contradictions in capitalism and the resource paradox nature of our state provided necessary conditions for public service personnel to slowly lose their rights as laborers. However, the history of West Virginia is one of mutual aid and community support that grows organically rather than through vanguard party structures. Therefore, anarchist traditions of mutual aid and support are more palatable and grew within the associations themselves. Furthermore, by framing this discussion as one of public employees versus the state, we engaged in the syndicalist tradition that workers of those areas should determine their destinies.
I would say that other social movements should try to look at what is happening here in the state as part and parcel of our current late stage of capitalism. Focus the discourse on larger, interrelated issues, but at the heart, deal with one issue that can connect all others. For us, it was our insurance plan. By tying the issues in our insurance plan to larger issues of worker autonomy, capitalism, and corporate elites profiting off of our labor, we could bring in these other points simultaneously without losing traction on the issue of healthcare.
JS: On February 27th, it was announced that the teachers’ strike would end: Governor Jim Justice had come to an agreement with leaders from three of the major unions organizing the strike. And yet the IWW-WVA points out that key demands haven’t been met: a tax on natural gas to help fund teachers’ health insurance and pay, for example. What does this deal signify about the major unions and their relationship to workers?
MM: Our statement [which can be found here] is reflective of the conditions of public employees who were overwhelmingly opposed to any compromise with the state that did not include long term funding for PEIA. The severance tax, proposed by Sen. Ojeda, has been continuously shot down by the legislature, in part because of the control the oil and natural gas industry lobby has in the state. Public employees seemed to feel that the deal was intended to fracture the unions and their support among all public employees, as well as the communities they serve. Thus, they decided to engage in another day of work stoppage (03/01) until these issues have been voted on.
We do not wish for rank-and-file members to leave their primary unions, but rather to engage in more direct efforts to hold their leadership accountable and ensure that whatever deals are made are done so with full knowledge by all of those involved.
JS: Teacher have often been on the front lines of union struggles in recent years. What role do teachers play within the broader struggles of workers in America? What possibilities are there for teachers to connect with and support other kinds of workers?
MM: Teachers had to take to the front lines in this state because other public employees – police officers, DOH, EMTs – are unable to call a walkout because their careers are deemed essential. Since we still have a relatively strong union presence for educators in this state, we used this avenue to push for benefits for all public employees, knowing that if we succeeded, they would succeed, but also that if we failed, they would fail, too.
Teachers are the public face of our communities, and work stoppages by educators can highlight the complexities of local autonomy, funding, and the economic conditions of our time.
JS: Where does the IWW in West Virginia go from here? Can you share some key short-term and long-term goals, not only as for teachers but beyond too?
MM: Short-term, we hope to push union leadership to not compromise on deals that their rank-and-file members reject. After all, it is the members that pay their salaries, so the members deserve to have a say in what is voted upon.
Long-term, we hope to grow the IWW in the state and in major areas where membership can be sustained. This strike has brought attention to issues we as an industrial union have been describing for over a century – the working class and the capitalist class have nothing in common. Business unions, while good in their own right, will make decisions for their members against their wishes. Since the IWW is entirely democratically run, we hope to raise awareness in the state about these ideas, how to continue organizing against capitalism and its effects, and connect the local struggles in our state with international struggles for worker solidarity.
JS: I’ll end with a broader question: what limits are worker struggles facing in the coming year, and what important possibilities are opening up for them? What do you think is needed for those struggles to become broader, more coordinated, and more powerful?
Currently, we are seeing electoral strategies touting the singular way that the working class can regain its rights in this state and in the country at large. The Democrats are pushing hard at midterms for a blue wave to bring a coalition of forces to Congress and state legislatures. However, in this state, we have a long history of conservative Democrats who differ little from the Republican Party. We do not wish to see this movement become simply another Wisconsin in 2011, where the working class struggle was diverted by establishment politicians into establishment politics. When that struggle ended, and we had lost, the momentum had been shattered. By not allowing our struggle to be co-opted, we can control the narrative, direct its course, and ultimately use direct action to gain our freedom.
Solidarity from WV.
“The Koch Brothers at Villanova” (Flynn and Dave in Forum)
from Radical Education Department
(Flynn and Dave’s article was originally published in Forum.)
RED’s Introduction to “The Koch Brothers at Villanova”
The article that follows was recently published in the Villanova student magazine Forum. It uncovers the hidden influence exerted by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers on Villanova University’s campus. The Matthew J Ryan Center, Flynn and Dave show, receives large sums of money from the Kochs precisely in order to serve as their puppet in peddling neoliberal indoctrination under the disguise of the academic pursuit of
knowledge.
RED has a particular interest in the Koch’s secret influence at Villanova, since our group first banded together–under the name “Nova Resistance”–to disrupt a Ryan Center event. In early 2017, the center hosted a talk by the widely disgraced pseudo-intellectual Charles Murray, who became infamous in the 1990s for openly embracing the eugenicist view that workers, women, and people of color are genetically inferior to rich, white men. The event was billed as an expression of Villanova’s deep commitment to academic “free speech”–a ridiculous claim, given that the talk was secretly purchased by billionaires spreading an agenda that does not stand up to academic scrutiny, on a campus that refused to allow the “free speech” of an openly gay performance artist on campus. Moreover, it came to light that the university paid between $10,000 and $15,000 for additional “security” from the local police department out of fear that activists would exercise their purportedly constitutional right to protest the Charles Murray event. For more on our disruption of this corporate bank-rolled, over-securitized, pseudo-intellectual spiel, see this official statement.
Dave and Flynn’s article highlights a problem that goes far beyond Villanova University, however. Corporate and military interests regularly shape academic life on college campuses, in what some aptly call the military-industrial-academic complex. See, for instance, this article and this piece. The university system is not set apart from the forces of social domination that structure our society. It is neither a pure “ivory tower,” nor simply a harmless public service aimed at helping students find jobs. It is a site of social struggle. In it, reactionaries seek to advance, by any means necessary, an agenda of social domination. But history repeatedly shows the university can also be a means to infect society with radical, liberating social change.
The aim of the Left should not just be to protest corporate and military interests on university campuses. Such a reaction is defensive; it fails to make a lasting change, leaving the university at the mercy of reactionaries. Instead, the goal must be nothing short of a radical offensive: transforming universities into spaces from which to spread radical social change. This is precisely one of the reasons why we founded RED in the wake of our disruption of the smooth functioning of the military-industrial-academic complex at Villanova University.
– RED
Striking Back Against the Banks In Portland
from It’s Going Down
In solidarity with our comrades in Philadelphia and in solidarity with all our comrades battling the State, we have started off 2018 with the same guerrilla tactics perfected throughout 2017.
We are no longer willing to wait for the some great spark to cause the Revolution, nor can we afford to wait as our mental health depreciates with each new bit of bad news about our dying planet and all these warring nations fighting over blood and oil. Instead, we will turn every little act into an act of rebellion and refuse to submit to the State any longer.
Tonight we borrowed from our comrades in Philly and went out to jam up some bank ATMs. One could not find a better representative of the capitalist machine we seek to dismantle than the very cog which keeps the whole thing afloat, for without banks the State would have no way of determining “value” and stacking debt onto the backs of the impoverished while enriching the lucky few ad nauseam.
We attempted first to lodge rectangles of non-corrugated cardboard into the slots on the ATMs, but found that the machines wouldn’t accept our counterfeits. In a split second decision, we ransacked the closest big box grocery store for all the Visa gift cards we could stuff into our pockets. We cut off about a third of these, so as to make them that much harder to fish out of the machines, and processed to gallivant across Portland jamming every machine we came across. In total we managed to wreck almost 20 ATMs, although we shall have to see how long it takes the banks to repair them. This tactic could and should be implemented all winter long, and could even likely be performed in broad daylight without catching so much as a second look. In truth, humans are so programmed not to notice things anymore that even the cops that passed us by periodically didn’t so much as slow down or look over while passing.
In summary, cardboard works if you really work it but gift cards are easy to steal (since they must be loaded by the clerk before using, anybody who noticed probably thought we were the dumbest shoplifter ever), they easily slip into the machine, and nobody questions a person walking up to an ATM with a card in hand. We felt like the action was a huge success and we will definitely be adding it to our playbook. While our actions will not make the State crumble tomorrow, they allow us a bit of sanity and self-confidence which has been stolen from us. They remind us that the State is not as all knowing or all powerful as it would like you to believe. Most importantly, these low risk actions help us form stronger bonds with each other for when the actions we must take are no longer low risk and the consequences may be dire.
Solidarity and Respect
ATM Attacks
Submission
In celebration of Black December some anarchists in Philly decided to take a leisurely winter stroll downtown and put a stall in the commerce-shit-capitalism of nearly every ATM in the financial heart of the city.
We took non-corrugated cardboard cut down to the width and half the length of an ATM card with super-glue applied to one side, and jammed them into the card slot of the machine or the card slot for the entry to the vestibule. It was surprisingly easy to do and more than 50 targets got got!
This attack was super low key! All we needed was to dress in the normal winter attire for a below freezing night (faces covered, gloves etc), wipe down our tools, and walk around with the assured confidence of boring yuppies. This time of year has prime weather for looking unassuming and concealing your identity while carrying out all kinds of illegal activities, so don’t be afraid to try this at home! We felt super chill and productive!
This attack was carried out with the memory of Scout Schultz and Alexis Grigoropoulos on our minds, and is dedicated to all those resisting state repression.
For the death of capital and reclamation of our lives!
Money is death sabotage is fun!
Let us light up these dark winter nights with a big fuck you to you know who!
May the burning flames of anarchy warm us this winter & on & on
happy black december y’all
Bosses, Workers, and Race in Philadelphia, Part 1
from Tubman-Brown Organization
Philadelphia and the surrounding areas are well known for their poverty, drug addiction, and violence. It is hard to get a straight answer about why this is, and when the answer is given it’s often blatantly racist or racist just under the surface. One of the more common answers, especially among White Philadelphians, is that Black and Latin people are inclined towards crime and violence — whether or not they actually claim people of color are naturally or culturally inferior only depends on if they’re comfortable being an obvious racist or not.
Of course, this explanation is ridiculous. The various Black and Latino/indigenous cultures of Philadelphia are unique in their traditions, their music, their literature, and their history — they are not unique in their inclination towards crime and violence. White Irish and Italian neighborhoods in Philadelphia have always had their share of gang violence, and currently there are majority White neighborhoods, most notably Kensington, that are notorious for drug addiction and drug trade. The Near Northeast and South Philadelphia also provide examples of White poverty easily comparable to the poverty of Black and Brown people throughout the city. Often it seems that the distinction made by White Philadelphians between the White poor and the Brown poor is based on their level of personal comfort instead of any social reality.
It is, however, true that Black and Brown people in Philadelphia are poor at a greater rate than White people in the city. Why is this? The basic answer is that racism has always been used as a tool by politicians and by bosses to divide the poor and working class people. The history of Philadelphia is a history of competition between bosses and workers, hidden by a staged conflict between races and ethnic groups for jobs and living space — both of which would be available to all peoples if not for the artificial scarcity created by bosses and politicians. Working class unity, across racial and ethnic lines, means that workers have leverage over their bosses, something a boss clearly does not want. To maintain control over their workers, an easy and successful strategy is for bosses to, first of all, hire mostly White people if possible. When required to hire Brown workers, they will treat White workers better (and as anyone who has worked for a living knows, a slight difference in the quality of employment goes a long way) so that White workers are loyal to their bosses and will side with the boss against their fellow Black and Brown workers. This produces a self-fulfilling prophecy in which Black and Brown workers will usually be poorer, and as a result are unwilling to put in as much work when they’re treated worse and are considered disposable.
In a country filled with mostly White workers, mostly White politicians, and mostly White bosses, and with a set of laws created to favor White businessmen, it is no mystery why bosses and politicians strategically choose to give White people preference over Black and Brown people. Another successful strategy to bait White people into betraying their class interests is the White police force, and this White police also goes a long way in explaining the larger amount of poverty present in Black and Brown communities.
When Whites were forced to compete both among themselves and against Black workers, they were offered a job not initially offered to people of color — that of the policeman, a new job that came around with the growth of cities in the mid 1800s. When many White immigrants, especially the Irish, took this job of the policeman, it gave their own ethnic community power to enforce their interests, a power that other communities did not have. It is often mentioned that the Irish were once discriminated against — this is true. It is also often claimed by racists that the Irish pulled themselves out of discrimination and that Black and Brown people could do the same if they really wanted to. This is simply wrong. The Irish were not discriminated against as White people — rather, they were discriminated against until they became White, and they became White by serving White interests. Also this was clearly made easier through having a physical appearance compatible with Whiteness. But consider the Russians and Ukrainians who now have their distinct communities in Philadelphia. They may be light skinned and white by a wide definition, but there is certainly a distinction made between a White person and a person from Russia. And further, a Puerto Rican person with light skin is not considered White the moment their accent reveals them as Puerto Rican. These categories we have been placed into are not inevitable.
When many police were Irish, the Irish community was able to “lift themselves up” by choosing not to arrest other Irish, and choosing to arrest those Black and Brown people they believed were competition for their own people. When many able bodied Black workers, the economic pillar of the Black community, were arrested for the same things able bodied White workers were allowed to go free for, this created a situation in which the Irish were able to improve their economic situation through undermining Blacks.
Guerillas of Desire Book Launch, with Kevin Van Meter
from Facebook
Behind the smiling faces of cashiers, wait staff, and workers of all sorts, a war is going on, usually without the knowledge of official political and labor organizations. Guerrillas of Desire maps these undercurrents, documenting the history of everyday resistance under slavery, in peasant life, and throughout modern capitalism, while showing that it remains an important factor in revolution and something radicals of all stripes must understand. Join the author for a reading and discussion.
[August 31 from 7pm to 10pm at Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]
J20 to G20 We Are Ungovernable
from Facebook
As we put our bodies in the way of the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, we look to the inspiration of those resisting the capitalist order in the face of brutal state violence.
211 people are each facing up to 75 years in prison for disrupting the inauguration of our fascist president and July 20th marks the beginning of a week of solidarity for the J20 defendants. Tens of thousands took to the streets of #Hamburg, #Germany this past week to block the #G20 and the smooth functioning of the global ruling class.
We did a banner drop from our tree sit in the path of the ME2 Pipeline in solidarity with our comrades. From the streets of Hamburg to the streets of DC, the rallying cry of the people is screaming “Shut It Down!”
Sign On to Statement of #Solidarity of #J20 Defendants & Follow: Defend J20 Resistance is a platform to support and amplify the voices of those who are working together to fight this case. http://defendj20resistance.org/
