Submission
A zine was made on resisting mask bans. It calls for a different set of strategies than the public health model, advocating for a diversity of tactics. The model proposed in this piece is inspired by the prisoner revolts against neglectful COVID practices in 2020.
from Anarchist News
From Sachio Takashima (facebook)
Clarissa Rogers
Nov 12th 1967-March 17th 2024
Friends and loved ones of Clarissa,
On this day, she has made her transition. And her work lives on!
Two years ago, due to long Covid, Clarissa fell into a coma. She awoke, but with no memories. She later described this time as akin to a process of writing a detective novel of her own life. She started to remember in bits and pieces, looked through old photos, found out more and more by researching her own life. Accompanying this process was an eerie feeling of all of these events happening to someone else, but that someone else was her.
She remembered friends, and asked to find out who they were. She remembered tastes, re-discovered that she was a foodie, and investigated which foods excited her. She came across a picture of herself at the Opera! She remembered advocating for a friend years ago, saving them years from a prison sentence. She found out she loves writing, and that she’s a poet! She found out she loves photography, that she has a camera and a collection of serene nature pictures and pictures of little wild creatures. She learned that she loves the Simpsons, and especially loves using episodes to talk about anti-capitalism.
She remembered she’s a working class anarchist, involved in supporting workplace struggles, and the struggle against racism, and ultimately found out that she’s involved in the world’s oldest Anarchist International! Perhaps most meaningfully, her detective skills revealed a whole community across the country, and around the world that supports her and adores her.
She remembered more and more, and figured out quickly that in her own hospital experience as a poor working class woman, she witnessed the health inequities shaping her own journey. While still hospitalized, she took up Disability Rights of working people as a central part of labor organizing. She started to regain her capacity for organizing and theory, so she started what became an international reading group of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid. And she facilitated the first meeting from her hospital bed at the Critical Care Unit! Her comrades were inspired by this, called her their hero for this, and will always remember this remarkable commitment to the movement.
As her memories and capacity increased, she found herself right back in the thick of the movement. Like a Phoenix, she found herself, miraculously, at the height of her achievements. She recovered her abilities not just for writing, but for editing, and even contributing to theoretical conversations about what anarchist editing ought to be. She was working with authors again, providing help and guidance for their articles. She started a series of interviews and a possible book, giving it the SO Clarissa title: “From Comma Girl to Coma Girl and Back Again.”
She came to facilitate one of the most difficult meetings of her life, and did so brilliantly. In this meeting she helped bring about a feminist revolution within the country’s oldest Anarchist-Syndicalist national organization.
Clarissa Rogers–lover of puns, connoisseur of wacky adventures, fiercely loyal friend, quirky builder of community–we love you! Coming from so many walks of life, our collective support has poured through for you from our hearts, as we feel a profound gratitude for all you have given us. Clarissa, you have made your transition, and we will carry on your work, for…
the wacky adventure continues!
Long live the planarchy!
Clarissa, rest in power!
We love you!
from Unicorn Riot
Philadelphia, PA — Unicorn Riot has obtained a schedule for “cleanup” operations due in the next 72 hours in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, one element in new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s plan to dramatically change local conditions through state action. Some parts of Kensington have become well-known for open-air drug use and homelessness, which has become a subject of international attention, national political sniping and Internet clickbait. Days after Parker toured the area, “Kensington Cleanup Days” are slated to happen at certain locations. The “clearing” of encampments has been publicized in recent days.
Some local groups are concerned that Mayor Parker’s heavy-handed approach could increase incarceration or lay groundwork for wealthy developers to move in. Other parts of Kensington have seen rapid construction recently, just blocks away from the targeted area.
The Parker administration declared a State of Emergency just after swearing in (PDF of Executive Order 1-24 here). The previous mayor, Jim Kenney, refused to declare a State of Emergency. Now, a “Kensington Community Revival” “five-phase initiative” has been launched as well, but we hear that information on important plan features like specific treatment centers for people facing addiction in the area is hard to come by. (The police department also released a 100-day report (53 page PDF) last week as directed by the emergency order.)
We have learned imminent clearings are scheduled at the following locations under “Scheduled Kensington Cleanup Days” on Wednesday April 17th, 2024, and Friday April 19th, 2024, “at or after 8 AM.”
For many years, Kensington ‘revitalization’ plans have come and gone. According to local urban anthropologist Bill McKinney, the previous plans included:
- “All efforts have run through the city’s Managing Director’s Office or the often centralized efforts of the Philadelphia Police Department, which lack the expertise and resources to implement strategies to address poverty, addiction, violence, and helping the unsheltered.
- No authentic, participatory, community engagement processes that lead to sharing of power and co-creation of solutions with the community.
- Each effort has treated Kensington and its residents as the problem, thereby ignoring the actual causes of the core issues, vilifying residents, and encouraging additional exploitation of the community.
- After 20 years of interventions, racial disparities in areas ranging from housing to health outcomes have increased, and while every effort has claimed success at some point, none have had any form of measurable sustainable accomplishment for residents, only for those leading the efforts.”
“History is repeating in Kensington. It doesn’t have to be this way.” Bill McKinney, WHYY, May 2021
McKinney acknowledged the giant scale of the area’s shadow economy, which was a result of decades of disinvestment: “We’re trying to turn off a billion-dollar industry […] There was intentional disinvestment in this community — and so that economy was replaced with another economy. That other economy needs to be addressed. It’s not addressed just by picking up a few people and locking them up.”
From the perspective of people like former Kensington Neighborhood Association President Eduardo Esquivel, the government’s existing strategy has been to “keep a billion-dollar open-air drug market contained in Kensington.”
Other planning frameworks previously developed include the “North of Lehigh Neighborhood Revitalization Plan” (Dec. 2013 PDF) and the Heart of Kensington plan. KensingtonPlan.org has more information about these plans and the use of opioid settlement funds.
Apart from the Kensington Caucus at Philadelphia City Council, which has been openly hostile to well-known harm reduction programs like needle exchanges, there are other players to consider. (Council member Quetcy Lozada “asked the real estate developer who owns the building where Savage Sisters is located to terminate the organization’s lease,” CBS Philadelphia reported in February. Harm reduction nonprofit Savage Sisters provides services like wound care, caused by ‘tranq’ (xylazine) – a tranquilizer commonly found in the area drug supply.)
With Mayor Parker’s new pressure to remove people, any plan to force people into “treatment or jail” decisions hinges on District Attorney Larry Krasner’s discretion. The de facto policy right now doesn’t push jail time for simple drug possession. Therefore, the DA office would need a policy shift to impose this choice on detained people. (Paraphernalia or public intoxication charges could also be leveled.)
A source with close knowledge told Unicorn Riot that they heard the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is also taking an interest in the situation. Federal agents have been photographed in the area in recent months. The source relayed that the DEA was concerned about violence around the clearing operations so they may want to reshape the marketplace by coercing dealers into leaving, hoping that would disperse open-air drug consumers to other areas of Philadelphia. (The DEA Philadelphia Field Division office conducts “Operation Engage Philadelphia” in the city.)
Unicorn Riot was also told that the Philadelphia Police Department has intentionally been dropping off intoxicated people at dispersed locations around the city.
This police operations pattern reminded us of multiple instances during the 2011-2012 Occupy Movement where police would drop off intoxicated people at the protest camps, as well as the 2012 Drug Recognition Evaluator (DRE) scandal in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota State Patrol was running a program to give unhoused people drugs at a shed by the MSP International Airport before dropping them off at the protest encampment at Peavey Plaza.
Cover image composition and photos by Dan Feidt.
Submission
“Beautiful Boxer (2004), directed by Ekachai Uekrongtham, is the biopic of Muay Thai boxer Parinya Charoenphol, who pursued the sport to pay for her gender reassignment surgery.”
from Jersey Counter-Info
On New Years Day 2024 Daryle Lamont Jenkins was admitted to a hospital in the New Jersey area, three days later and he is still there. Doctors have removed several blood clots and are now concerned with his kidneys. Daryle has been fighting for the cause of civil rights in the United States for well over a quarter of a century, traveling over the country at his own expense, giving help to all of us whenever we needed it- he now needs our help to heal.
I am writing this asking for your help. Daryle is going to need time to heal and get well, not get out of the hospital and get back to work- that may cause damage that there is no coming back from, so we are asking for funds that will help with rent and bills and food while he recuperates. Your generosity is appreciated it will allow him to continue this important work that too few people are willing to do on all of our behalf.
Update From Daryl on January 7, 2024
I figured I will be the one who updates this time. As you might know from some of the vids I have posted on social media, I’m home now. Next week, I will be talking with doctors to see what my next steps are because there needs to be alternatives to the treatment I have been getting and we need to pursue them. That’s not the only issue as before I had to deal with all the craziness of the past week, I had to make plans to get surgery on my hand because of some issues I have been having for a few months. So I am pretty much spending the next month or two doing doctor appointments and making sure things stay good. I should by the way note that due to the proximity of the two situations there might have been some confusion so let me note that me going to the hospital was unrelated to the accident with the train a few days prior. There were no injuries that day and only the car was hurt. Still, that is going to hurt me financially on a few levels which is why Luis suggested this GoFundMe in the first place. I’m glad he did because I was very down and stressed out these past few days and this effort took me out of that. I know I have said thank you before but frankly I can’t say it enough. So once again thank you and I will be out there with you all soon enough!
If you are interested in donating to help support Daryl please do so through this gofundme link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-fighter-is-fighting
from Instagram
As deaths in Vancouver, Canada, reach an all-time high, the Overdose Prevention Society—a renegade supervised drug consumption site that employs active and former drug users—opens its doors. This intimate documentary looks beyond the stigma of drug use to show how the organization’s staff and volunteers do whatever it takes to save lives while giving hope to a marginalized community.”Join us for our next screening on Sunday, June 18th, where we’ll be watching Love in the Time of Fentanyl. We’ll be at @makingworldsbooks on 210 S 45th St.Naloxone training at 6, movie at 7, followed by a discussion. Suggested donation $10-20, proceeds go to @the_sol_stories and @south.philly.punkswithlunch
from Twitter
from Unicorn Riot
PHILADELPHIA, PA — On Sunday, November 13, 100+ counter-demonstrators tried to drown out about 30 protesters who were demonstrating against transgender people’s access to medical transitions, recognition of chosen gender and other rights near Independence Hall. The counter-demo side characterized them as “TERFs” or ‘Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists.’ Philadelphia Police and U.S. National Park Service Park Rangers separated the crowds using bicycle police and portable barricades. Inside the barricades, several men, mostly masked up concealing their identities, paced around and eyed the crowd; they were widely suspected to be Proud Boys providing security according to a counter-protester. However, their identities are unknown.
Over almost three hours, Unicorn Riot interviewed nearly a dozen hoarse but spirited attendees. In this 29-minute video, we hear about why they consider noisy counter-demonstrations strategically significant, as well as reactions to how the recent U.S. elections largely — but not entirely — refuted anti-transgender politicians and messages.
Some interviewees believed that John Fetterman, the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, who will soon be seated as a U.S. senator, would protect their rights. Another interviewee said that democracy and electoralism create situations where groups are enabled to spread messages about taking away rights from transgender people.
While there was at least one round of counter-demonstrators splashing the anti-transgender demonstration with water, no arrests transpired during our time observing the event.
The marquee anti-trans speaker was British activist Kellie-Jay Keen Minshull, who has also been known by the name “Posie Parker.” Keen Minshull appeared on a podcast with white nationalist French Canadian Jean-Francois Gariepy. An ardent ‘white ethnostate’ supporter, Gariepy has made videos with key Neo-Nazis including Richard Spencer, David Duke and Mark Collett. Several Philadelphia counter-demonstrators highlighted this shared media connection between Keen Minshull and Duke, although they have not appeared side-by-side.
Connections between “gender-critical feminists” like Keen and far-right white supremacists have been turning up for years, and the far-right has tried to leverage opposition to transgender rights to expand its movement. More about Gariepy’s long history with far-right circles and accusations of abusing a minor has previously been documented.
In 2019 Keen Minshull praised high-profile English racist ‘Tommy Robinson’ of the English Defense League who has been supported by the Philadelphia-based think tank Middle East Forum, The Guardian reported in 2018. Robinson’s real name is Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon; he is banned from entering the United States and has been convicted of fraud, in addition to drug and public disorder offenses.
After the anti-trans protesters left the area, they were forced to leave the nearby Khyber Pass Pub by employees who became aware of their bigoted views. The pub “is a punk and metal institution … they aren’t to be fucked with by bigots and fascist[s],” one observer noted.
from Philly ABC
A notorious Trump lackey targeted Lore in June 2020 to be a scapegoat for the demonstrations that empowered Philadelphians against constant police brutality. Lore is known for providing essential, life-sustaining services to the most vulnerable Philadelphians as a care worker. She supports community members who live with HIV and chronic illnesses to access medical and critical care, often at her own expense. She provides regular outcalls to elders and clients who cannot leave their homes as a professional massage therapist. She is the irreplaceable rock of support to her family. Over the last two years, Lore has become a vital source for health information and care to the women hidden in the Bureau of Prisons’ Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia.
Join us online as we answer the call from her family and friends to send letters or postcards of support, share all your hope, well wishes, and your good news. Her support site also includes instructions on how to send photos and books .
If you are unable to make it, please drop Lore a line at:
Lore-Elisabeth Blumenthal
#70002-066
FDC Philadelphia
PO Box 562
Philadelphia, PA 19105
We will also be sending birthday cards to U.S.-held political prisoners with birthdays in August: Daniel Hale (the 1st), Eric King (the 2nd), Bill Dunne (the 3rd), Hanif Bey (the 16th) and Ronald Reed (the 31st).
from Medium
Content Warning/Trigger Warning
Community Alert! Those in the Penn State and State College community should be aware of a dangerous bigot on PSU campus who advocates for r*pe and wh!te supremacy named AVI RACHLIN. Rachlin uses the handles: resistpennstate (twitter) and avsterbone (reddit). The following report and photographs document only a few of the many instances where Rachlin has committed discriminatory harassment and violence. This info is already public: anyone can research Rachlin to find the same information. The images below have been censored. All community organizations in State College, thank you the work you do, please inform your networks!
Email PSU’s Office of Student Conduct, StudentConduct@psu.edu or call 814–863–0342 to demand Rachlin be held accountable for “discriminatory harassment.” Email PSU Provost Nick Jones (provost@psu.edu) to demand Rachlin be removed from Penn State.
In a reddit thread, Rachlin alarmingly says that if he could get away with it or face no consequences, he wishes to do a school shooting. He says, “I’d definitely shoot up a school,” and “I’d then probably start driving around and shoot at random cars & pedestrians.” In this same fantasy, Rachlin says that he desires to r*ape and m*rder women, if he could get away with it.
Recently, New Jersey police denied Rachlin a gun permit because they deemed him a threat. Police determined that Rachlin has a history of domestic harassment and unhinged, aggressive behavior. See Rachlin v Baumann where public court records detail the reasons New Jersey police consider Rachlin a threat. After he was denied a gun permit, Rachlin violently disrupted a PSU campus rally waving a sign with an image that threatened gun violence. The image depicted Alex Jones holding a pistol aimed at viewers. Over this image the sign said, “Shut the F*ck Up Liberals.” At worst, this image could be interpreted as depicting Rachlin’s fantasy of using gun violence to m*rder students and professors whom he sees as his enemies. At best, the image depicts the kind of gun violence that New Jersey police believe Rachlin might commit if he were to possess a handgun. In line with this, Rachlin has also repeatedly tweeted his unwavering support for armed white vigilantes who murder Black Lives Matter protestors.
Rachlin is an avid white supremacist. He’s proud that people call him a n*zi. He believes “wh*tes should remain dominant.” In a public Penn State discord channel, Rachlin yelled the n-word. Fellow students reported Rachlin to Penn State’s Office of Student Conduct, but Penn State ignored the complaint and did nothing to hold Rachlin accountable. Rachlin also calls people the n word on his reddit account.
Rachlin has a long history of being a r*cist, mys*gynist, and hom*phobe. Penn State admitted Rachlin as a student despite his public support for r*cism and r*pe. Penn State has also allowed Rachlin to remain on campus despite threatening and assaulting students, professors, and community members at a pro-vaccine campus rally in August of 2021.
Rachlin was removed from a gamer community after one its members who was a minor reported that Rachlin had sent them pornographic images. A moderator notified Rachlin he was being removed because he had sent pornographic images to a minor. Rachlin admitted to this and then bragged that he “was a deadass” for committing this violence to a minor.
On numerous occasions, Rachlin has advocated for the r*pe of women. Screenshots from his twitter and reddit accounts show him admitting to engaging in phone s*x with women without their knowledge or consent. He also claims that women who don’t dress conservatively deserve to be s*xually a*saulted. In December of 2021, Rachlin tweeted that “r*ape is good for your s*x life.” In 2018, Rachlin called a Wendy’s restaurant to demand he be allowed to masturb*te on the premises. He recorded this act of sexual harassment for his youtube channel.
In Oct. 2021, Rachlin proudly served as a volunteer for a f*scist and hom*phobic event on PSU campus titled “Pray the G*y Away.” The speaker of the event advocated for conversion therapy. Rachlin recruited other volunteers to join him to help make the event possible. Before the event, Rachlin tweeted a message that denounced LGBTQ+ students, saying support for LGBTQ+ students is “nauseating.”
In August of 2021, as mentioned above, Rachlin threatened people at a pro-vaccine campus rally. Several students and professors tried to deescalate Rachlin to protect themselves from his dangerous behavior. In response, Rachlin attacked these people. The Penn State police were called on Rachlin who removed him from the rally. Rachlin then lied to Penn State police, claiming his was victimized. Penn State police sympathized with Rachlin because they share the same anti-vax, white supremacist politics. Penn State police targeted one of the professors who protected students from Rachlin’s violent actions that day. Penn State police unjustly charged the professor for keeping the campus safe from Rachlin’s threatening behavior. The professor was innocent and was later cleared of all charges. The DA and a judge did not believe Rachlin’s lies. So far, though, neither Penn State police nor Penn State administration have held Rachlin accountable for his violent actions that day.
Currently, Rachlin remains on PSU campus. PSU Police have greenlit Rachlin’s dangerous behavior. Say no to white supremacists and r*pe promoters like Rachlin. Share this article to alert the Penn State and State College community. Demand Penn State remove Rachlin from the campus community. People aren’t safe with him around.
As mentioned above, email PSU’s Office of Student Conduct, StudentConduct@psu.edu or call 814–863–0342 to demand Rachlin be held accountable for “discriminatory harassment.” Email PSU Provost Nick Jones (provost@psu.edu) to demand Rachlin be removed from Penn State.
from Viscera
With our own plague raging, we’ve got another in-person, outdoor event to warm us all in these cold winter months. Come get exposed to something other than COVID-19 with our next discussion on Antonin Artaud, Hakim Bey and the Theater of Cruelty!
The theater, like the plague, is in the image of this carnage and this essential separation. It releases conflicts, disengages powers, liberates possibilities, and if these possibilities and these powers are dark, it is the fault not of the plague nor of the theater, but of life.
Join us Sunday, January 30th from 1-3 – we’ll be meeting in the same place as last time, so let us know if you need the address. In case of rain we’ll reschedule.
You can find the introduction to The Theater and its Double and Theater and the Plague here:
In addition we’ll be discussing two short pieces from Hakim Bey’s T.A.Z. – Poetic Terrorism and Communique #6.
This is a bit of reading, so we recommend allotting some time for it!
from Viscera
The crisp of autumn is in the air and the sun ceding ground to the long, long night, which means it’s time for a spooky reading!
Today, the man best protected against setting the stage for his own dying is the sick person in critical condition. Society, acting through the medical system, decides when and after what indignities and mutilations he shall die.
Join us on Saturday, October 30th in Clark Park (near the chess tables) from 1-3 pm for a discussion about Ivan Illich’s “Death against death” from the classic Medical Nemesis. You can read the chapter online with footnotes here or in pdf form below:
There might even be Halloween treats!
from Viscera
oin us Sunday, September 26th from 1-3 pm for a discussion about anarchist responses to COVID! This is a subject we’ve talked about a lot, but with vaccines, new restrictions, and the limited economic support from the state being rolled back things look a lot different now – well, except for the growing number of infections!
We’ll be reading two recent pieces, one from some French anarchists who attacked a vaccination site and one less spicy (but still good!) piece from Canada!
About an attack on a vaccination centre
We’ll be meeting in Clark Park near the chess tables, as usual!
from Philly ABC
The news hit hard yesterday when we were informed of the passing of Consuewella Africa, nearly one year to the day when we lost Delbert Africa. Consuewella’s passing is heartbreaking, especially after the devastation the Move family has already been going through the past couple months.
We send our sincere condolences, love and solidarity to all of the Move family and supporters. #RestInPower Consuewella. You will never be forgotten.
Posted by MOVE:
The MOVE ORGANIZATION just wants to take the time to inform people that our beloved sister Consuewella Africa passed away today. Consuewella had been hospitalized these past couple of weeks due to health complications behind the stress of this situation with The University Of Pennsylvania and the remains of her Daughter Tree Africa.
Consuewella was a minister of confrontation for The MOVE ORGANIZATION, and a survivor of the August 8, 1978 Confrontation who spent 16 years in prison for refusing to renounce MOVE. Her Daughters Tree and Netta Africa were murdered by this Government on May 13, 1985.
We were advised by the University of Pennsylvania’s Anthropology Dept. that Tree Africa’s Remains were sent to Terry’s Funeral Home and are ready to be picked up. We hope that we can put Tree and Consuewella together. We will keep people posted on a memorial service.
Rest Easy Consuewella
Our Dear Sister, We Love you And Will Hold You In Our Hearts Forever
YOUR, MOVE Family
from We Love Lore
It’s been a year since Lore Elisabeth was taken from us. She was apprehended violently in her home, tortured for weeks, infected with COVID, denied medical care throughout, and fights to this day for access to her case files. Federal authorities have shown no interest in proving their case against her, nor have they allowed her to defend herself.
Thanks to you, she can still fight. In this past year, you have kept our beloved Lore going with your precious messages of love and solidarity; you kept the pressure on the Bureau of Prisons until she and her women’s unit got access to the vaccine; you showed your joy online and onsite where she could see and feel it; and you raised an absolutely essential fund for her legal defense.
Let’s show Lore that we still love and haven’t forgotten her. Please never stop supporting our friends and allies leading the fights against police violence and mass incarceration. Keep sending letters and photos! And you can always donate to Lore’s commissary fund via PayPal or Venmo @WeLoveLore for food, clothes, and essentials. We couldn’t do it without you 🌈🙏✨
