Submission
We fucked up ATM’s at 3 Wells Fargo banks in Philadelphia using half-sized credit cards and super glue. We chose this bank franchise because it profits from migrant imprisonment, but we know they all have it coming.
Shout out to the Indonesian Anarchists facing state repression! Solidarity with other anarchists fighting more of the same, and those that oppose the borders in their totality.
The Rainy Day Glues
As a collective of abolitionists, we are confident that revolution will not be voted in and that our electoral system is inherently built to oppress the working class and people of color.
Our hope is not in this current political system.
But sometimes we can bend it in the people’s favor.
Philly Police allows ICE to access PARS (Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System), a database of police reports. Though these reports do not include individuals’ immigration status, it does include their country of birth.
For a so-called “sanctuary city,” this is beyond despicable.
For years Juntos, a community-led Latinx immigrant organization, have been leading the fight to #EndPARS, but recently due to the media coverage of the occupations and the upcoming date to renew this contract, this issue has been haunting City Hall and Mayor Kenney.
And it seems like he’s beginning to crack.
We encourage folx to continue to call Kenney’s office (215-686-2181) and let them know that this agreement needs to end.
You can also sign Juntos’ petition: Mayor Kenney: End the PARS/ICE Contract
We also encourage folx to explore creative ways of putting pressure on Philly’s Mayor and connecting this struggle to the wider abolitionist movement. Not only does the PARS agreement need to end, but the Berks County Detention Center need to be shut down and, of course, ICE as a whole needs to be abolished.
For more information:
Philly.com: In contentious back-and-forth, Philly officials say ICE ‘likely’ violates data-sharing agreement
Philly.com: Philly’s agreement with ICE: What it is and how Mayor Kenney can show moral clarity by ending it | Opinion
Juntos: Philadelphia Has Won Its Lawsuit Against Jeff Sessions.What Comes Next For Us?
Juntos: Shut Down Berks
from Instagram
The cops shot and killed one of our fellow occupiers dogs today. Someone was following one of our comrades, assaulted him and tried to grab his bag that Hippo was attached to and she jumped at him. Hippo was super docile and sweet and the camp is mourning her today. We feel like this was a targeted attack on our comrade.
Thoughts on the current #OccupyICEPHL and moving forward to #EndPARS
We are two weeks into #OccupyICEPHL. We have ceased occupying the ICE offices since July 5 and the current encampment at City Hall has lost a lot of its original momentum. The Left in Philly united on July 2nd for the original occupation, but it has been fractured by burnout and internal conflicts. A lot of us are wondering, how did we get here and how do we move forward?
The encampment at City Hall
After the camp was dismantled on July 5th by homeland security and Philly cops, a meeting took place in the evening. Hundreds gathered, sharing reflections and potential strategies for moving forward so that we could effectively pressure Mayor Kenney to not renew the Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS) contract, which allows ICE access to the PPD’s database.
Following the meeting, an autonomous group decided that one strategy in continuing the fight was to begin a camp at City Hall in order to be a confrontational presence for city officials, and to educate the public about both PARS and ICE. Within minutes, they set up at City Hall, bringing yoga mats, signs, umbrellas, chairs, and food.
Picking up on the momentum of the previous camp, many came around to provide support. The camp was quickly built up with a medic and food storage tent, as well as a table of leftist literature, including flyers on both #EndPARS and #AbolishICE. Participants were flyering; workshops and teach-ins happened throughout the day; food and water and other supplies were consistently being dropped off; chants were constant; and general assemblies were held twice a day (and they still are).
That being said, within the past week, the energy at the camp has been fizzling out. I was at the camp this morning and counted around 15 present.
Skepticism of the new camp
A number of leftists in Philadelphia have expressed skepticism of the camp.
This is fair.
More than half of those present at most general assemblies are white, and a majority of the principal organizers are white. Whiteness is a destructive force for all, with material consequences for those that cannot access its privileges. For those who are white or can access whiteness, it hinders empathy and results in moral deterioration to those who reap benefits from whiteness. We need to see and combat the way whiteness operates among us, making it a priority to center the needs and the voices of POC. In my experience, this is a constant struggle in leftist spaces, and in this sense the encampment is not unique.
It seems that a major reason why people have either backed away or have chosen not to support this camp is because they see the occupation as ineffective and believe greater action is needed. What should be noted is that this camp began with this in mind. A diversity of tactics is sorely needed and this camp was never envisioned as THE tactic for all to take. This camp was started to agitate at City Hall as part of a larger project which would include the continuing work of the original #OccupyICEPHL coalition as well as autonomous actions.
There is also skepticism because of the camp’s independence from the original coalition. Those in the camp desire to work alongside the coalition but are intentionally not bound to the coalition, structured so that those on the ground and actively involved decide the direction of the camp.
Some skepticism feels neither political nor strategic, but personal.
Infighting among leftists has been present throughout the whole occupation, even prior to the new camp. The first night of the occupation included coalition organizers squabbling with a few anarchists of a more illegalist, insurrectionist tendency. This was aired out very publicly through a zine that was published online and passed out at the final assembly at the previous occupation.
Tensions between those of a more anarchist orientation and those of a more Marxist orientation were heightened.
Some smaller orgs, especially those with a more autonomous bent, have expressed that they felt unheard and even shut down by the larger coalition.
A skepticism of anarchist organizers continues, leading some to view the new encampment as an anarchist project. Though the organization of the new camp is more horizontal, it is not solely anarchist-organized. Such thinking dismisses those houseless folks who are actively flyering, chanting, and keeping the camp smoothly operating – that do not identify as anarchists – as well as the presence of Marxists.
Again, I think some of this skepticism is a projection of people’s personal issues with specific organizers.
The stress of the original occupation, where participants were constantly surrounded by cops and federal officers, exacerbated disagreements among organizers. I cannot blame individuals for withholding their support because of being made to feel unsafe by certain organizers, but it would be strategically unwise to fully dismiss this camp because of that.
In the past week hundreds have come together to publicly agitate at City Hall. This camp is not meant to last forever, but it would be wise to not let it sputter and die out on such a sour note in such a public space. The forces-that-be want our inactivity and burnout so that the PARS contract can be renewed without a fight.
This occupation ending in such a way will reflect badly on all of us, and even more importantly, could hinder and even sabotage the campaign to #EndPARS.
Moving forward
Last week, running off the energy of the first encampment, the camp became a base for activity.
Occupiers were constantly talking to those passing by, providing information on the PARS contract and getting folks to sign the petition put out by Juntos. Media and public attention on the camp highlighted the PARS contract. Mayor Kenney and other officials were flooded with phone calls.
This base is limited, as action-planning cannot occur in such a public space. That said, it has been a space for educating, connecting organizers and people of good conscience, and most importantly, a very public way of getting Kenney’s attention.
I don’t think as much energy needs to be put into this project as the first encampment, but I think it is worth actively supporting this camp in order to strengthen our message. If more people were out on the ground, more people could take shifts. The burden of this camp would not remain on the same 20-30 people, many of which have slept in their own beds only a handful of times since the original occupation.
But, again, we need to do more.
We need to continue calling city officials, handing out flyers, flooding social media with information on PARS; but we also need to begin agitating with more creativity. Perhaps also at other strategic locations – maybe not to the point of occupation, but at least picketing. We need to be creative in finding ways to get our message out to the public and to our so-called “leaders” as well as hinder ICE operations. We cannot afford to waste time on infighting. We cannot lose sight of the goal, and therefore we must not lose sight of our current moment. Upset over ICE continues, despite the media trying to move on. The time is ripe. We must act.
Submission
Direct Action for Freedom of Movement
Thursday July 12
6:15PM
City Hall Occupation, East Market side
An informal talk and discussion on organizing and actions against border and immigration enforcement. Primarily drawn from experiences on occupied Tohono O’odham Land in southern Arizona, this talk will cover projects and mobilizations in the region from roughly 2006 through 2016. There will be some discussion on efforts in other parts of that region and globally as well!
from Twitter
Solidarity action: “Mayor Kenney End Pars” banner spotted in Philly. #OccupyICEPHL #endPARS
Yesterday the ICE encampment was aggressively and abruptly dismantled by counter-terrorism/DHS and PPD officers. Several were arrested. The experience for many was traumatic, seeing their hard work destroyed in a matter of minutes. That evening, on the ruins of the camp, a general assembly was gathered, giving voice to various orgs and participants. Many spoke about the victory of making it as long as we did, as well as the need for a diversity of tactics. Most decided it was not tactically wise to stay at that location, and the space was given up within hours.
Two dozen or so, independent of the original coalition, decided to trek out to City Hall after the assembly and focus their energies on confronting the mayor and city officials with the original occupation’s demands, as well as educating the public about Philadelphia’s Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS).
The PARS contract allows ICE to access Philadelphia’s database of arrests with the intention of ridding our city of “criminal aliens” – though the Mayor’s office’s definition of criminal aliens includes those with minor offenses such as loitering and traffic violations. That being said, Philly’s police are cooperating and working with ICE and yet Mayor Kenney claims that this is a sanctuary city. This a lie.
The contract is up for review in August, and now is the time for there to be pressure on Kenney to not renew this contract.
The new camp continues with 70 or so on the ground, who remain chanting, picketing, actively feeding all who pass by the very centrally-located camp, hosting discussions and communal meals.
Today the Mayor addressed this new camp, expressing concern that the camp may become “unsanitary and unhealthy and unsafe environment” but that it can remain as long as it does not become a “permanent encampment” with things like tents and generators. He said he has not come to the decision yet on whether or not he will renew the PARS contract.
It has been a long week for occupiers. Flash floods, police brutality, and a heat wave. The total number of arrests were around 40 or so, which included Friendly Fire comrades, both of which clung onto their rosaries in prayer as it occurred. The police responded by bashing one comrade’s head into the van, tearing the rosary out of her hand, and then stomping on it in front of her. This was after an already brutal beating. After being released within a few hours with a citation, she returned to camp, ready to continue holding ground.
Friendly Fire has held small prayer meetings throughout the week at the occupation, including a tent meeting and an exorcism of the ICE building. We are all committed to the efforts at the new camp.
We have been blown away by how the Left came together for #OccupyICEPHL and we are hopeful that we will continue building coalitions, working alongside together, even with our various tendencies and tactics. To tackle the monster that is ICE, and dare I say the police, we have no choice but a diversity of tactics.
Submission
[Zine Web]
from Radical Education Department
Arthur Burbridge
Intro
On July 2nd, a coalition of groups in Philadelphia occupied the local ICE office. In what follows I offer a few quick sketches of the occupation. I was there at the opening of the march at City Hall at 5PM until I had to leave at 9, and then again the next day (July 3rd) at 9:30, leaving just after noon. Today, July 4th, the occupation enters its third day. The account and ideas below are therefore cobbled together from my own experiences, from Unicorn Riot’s live feed, and from reports from comrades who were there when I couldn’t be.
These sketches are partial, and they need to be filled out and corrected as the struggle continues. But I hope they can add to our reflections on the ongoing ICE occupations and help us to continue building and developing radical power.
A loose timeline
The occupation was a planned escalation out of an anti-ICE rally at City Hall. After the rally, about 500 of us took to the streets. The cops were clearly expecting this to some degree—they had shut down a number of roads leading from City Hall to the ICE office—but they were also unprepared. We waded through traffic, turning suddenly and sending the police scrambling. A section of bikers darted ahead to help find a path. When we reached the ICE office at the corner of 8th and Cherry, we set up a two-part camp. The first one was in front of ICE’s van garages on Cherry. The second was on the 8th street side of the building in front of ICE’s main doors.
Tents popped up immediately and people threw down their gear to block the garages. At the other entrances, a bike loaded with food and water blocked the doors. Someone brought in a massive red van with a PA system, and parked it to block Cherry and keep out cop cars. The van started blasting tunes, and people started dancing. Somehow a couch made its way in front of the fenced parking lot for ICE vehicles. Banners swung across the streets
The cop presence was large and growing at this point. I was with the 8th street crowd guarding the building doors. I couldn’t see what was going on around the corner at the garage. But dozens of bike cops were lined up across from us. Within 15 or 20 minutes they rushed the crowd, swinging their bikes as weapons for maximum effect. They broke through the occupiers to cut the 8th street crowd in half and secure the building entrances. But the priority was obviously the van garages (we later learned there is an entrance into the building, shared by a women’s center, that ICE employees are exploiting). The pigs backed off and left the 8th street doors to us. Almost immediately the bike brigade stood wheel to wheel and people jumped into the street to cut the road off from the cops.
But police started massing forces to retake 8th. There was a commotion around the corner (since then, I heard a cop just tripped and fell down). The cops on our side panicked and tried to break through the bike line to get across. But the bike crew and the other occupiers around them refused. The line was two or three bikes deep across the street; bikes collided and people pushed back, forcing the cops to retreat.
By 9, there were over 50 cop cars lined up down the street, and rumors of riot gear being unloaded. Over the next few hours, a cop or two started appearing wearing some heavy-duty gear (vest, helmet, gas mask, etc.) that was marked “Counterterrorism Unit.” Around the corner from me—on Cherry—cops apparently tried to bum rush the crowd to break through. They were forced back again and occupiers locked arms to prevent another attack. Occupiers threw up barricades to separate the tents and occupiers from police on the north end of 8th and to create a barrier in front of the garages—wooden pallets, trash, other city debris.
As the night dragged on, more whiteshirts. Ross, the police commissioner, Ross, appeared. Cops demanded the removal of the barricades, the couch, and the banners stretched across the streets. Occupiers allowed these to be carted away. To get rid of the couch, though, the cops had to haul it up into a trash truck. People were screaming at that the police were scabbing the municipal services. By 1 the cops backed down and started trickling away. The threat of an immediate raid lifted. A number of people—maybe 50, I’m not sure—stayed the night. The cops turned on the building floodlights to fuck with people trying to sleep.
But by 6 a.m., police forces were regrouping. By 11, the camp was building its numbers, along with its cop presence. Dozens of beach umbrellas are popping up. It looked like a beach. Chants started up again in earnest. People—many otherwise unconnected to the event—were unloading car after car of food, water, ice, coolers, food.
But the pigs were biding their time for a noon assault to secure the garages. They marched out the mounted police and dozens of regular officers, along with about a dozen or two whiteshirts. Occupiers closed ranks and linked arms. Bike cops charged, shoving people aside along the wall and garage. A dense mass of occupiers refused to move. There were apparently about two dozen arrests. The pigs took control of the garages. They put up and are guarding metal barracades to make sure ICE can keep on working as efficiently as possible. It’s not clear what the future of the occupation will look like from here, but the site is still occupied without any plans to leave.
The event represents one more episode in the growing militancy and radicalism of hilly, and it offers some important lessons as radical struggles continue to grow.
The developing tactic of occupation in Philly
The actions around ICE are a reminder of the Occupy encampment a few blocks away. But this action is different. Occupy was flooded by liberals and libertarians alongside a number of radical individuals and groups. More militant actions, like confrontations with the police, were infrequent and did not occur on a large, coordinated scale. And in Occupy, the strategic plan was extremely unclear. In this vacuum, it seemed like the site was being held simply for the sake of occupying it, regardless of its tactical or strategic value.
Little of that applies here. Militancy is built into the plan. The bike squad was part of a design to keep cops away from the building and clashes between them were inevitable. The strategic aims of the occupation are clear: disrupt as far as possible the operation of the ICE office; create official and unofficial refusal to cooperate with ICE. These goals are paired with broader demands: stop deportations, end family detention in Berks Family Detention Center, and end Philly’s cooperation with ICE.
The militancy here seems to be building off of the growing energy and numbers of radical antiauthoritarian struggles over the past couple of years here, in the Summer of Rage Anarchist Crew, the actions around J20, in Antifa on the national and local level, etc. I think the militancy of anarchists as well as police abolitionists have laid some of the important groundwork. In other words, we’re witnessing a kind of accidental but powerful collaboration between groups that is building Philly’s radical power.
Is it possible for this kind of collaboration to be developed, going forward, in a more deliberate way? For anarchists and radical Socialists to deliberately coordinate successive militant actions, or actions that are different but complement each other—creating groundwork for each other, building on each other, even despite major differences?
The Cops
There is no question that the cops are working for and coordinating with ICE. This isn’t just obvious from their violent protection of the building. I’ve heard from a reliable source that on Tuesday morning, the cops helped clear occupiers out from in front of the parking lot to let in an employee car.
This opens up more space for developing local radical politics. The police are very clearly aligning here with white supremacist and fascistic forces in the state. This isn’t a shock to many of us. But the radical left has here a chance to emphasize the links between the police, the state, capital, and colonial violence. In this situation, it can become very clear why calls for police abolition, prison abolition, and radical anti-capitalist politics need to be connected.
To the barricades?
As far as I know, barricades have not been a particularly popular tactic in Philly in recent years. On the very last night of Occupy Philly, in the face of overwhelming police power, occupiers threw up a hasty barricade without much result. But barricades have played an important part in the occupation of the ICE office so far.
As police were gathering forces and preparing to invade last night, the barricades signaled a militant defense of the occupation that was unusual for the city. The dumpster rolling down the street—that was the signal of an even higher level of struggle, it seems, the threat of a pitched battle. All this seemed to spook the cops. And so it played another unexpected role, too. The cops were hesitating to raid the space. The barricades became a point of negotiation. It’s like pigs need to save face; all that hyper-masculine bullshit needs to convince itself it’s forced people to obey. The cops took the couch and the barricades. The people kept the office.
How do we up the ante and expand our use of barricades in the future? Can we set them up in advance to fuck with the way police will try to guide marches? Are there techniques we can learn to build them bigger, higher, stronger, more durable? How could they tactically help us resist repression—maybe buying us time to stay at a location, or giving us a few minutes to fly to another one while cops are stumbling over trash?
Some tactical possibilities
It’s clear the police are blundering to try to deal with this tactic and its new level of aggression. Cops were panicked and swarming us during the march, and within an hour or two at the ICE office there were easily 60-75 cop cars gathered up. But cops made an enormous traffic jam. We can use this confusing and this overwhelming show of force against cops in a two (or more) stage operation.
If a large crowd is moving towards occupying a key spot, like ICE, cops will swarm. But if we plan things right, and have the numbers, this could be followed up by getting another, separate crowd mobilized blocks away to take another major target. With so many of them tangled up at the first spot, the chance for embedding in that second location would be much higher.
And the more that we use two stage actions, the more paranoid the pigs will get. They’d be extremely hesitant to launch a massive force against an occupation for fear of the next steps—and we could use that to our advantage. Or they’d try greater shows of strength (riot gear etc.). That could be a problem, but it could be a real opportunity, too, in a city like Philly that claims to be progressive. It’s clear this city wants to shed its well-earned image of police violence.
Coalition work
The occupation is also an important experiment in radical coalition-building. The event emerged through the efforts of the following official endorsers (but many other groups were also present at the event and probably helped in various ways): Philly Socialists, Socialist Alternative, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Montgomery County Socialists, Liberation Project, Philly DSA, Reclaim Philadelphia, Green Party of Philadelphia, International Marxist Tendency, POWER, and IWW Philly.
The list shows that the event emerged out of the socialist scene here, connecting more radical groups with more reformist and traditional groups. This kind of project isn’t unusual in Philly, but the scale and militancy seems to me to be a serious step up.
The occupation acts as a kind of “estuary” where currents from different traditions, especially the more radical anticapitalist kind, are combining, and where a space for new, less ideologically rigid projects and ideas to develop. Even though the “official” planning of the event was largely socialist, many other far left groups and tendencies appeared, too: a strong police abolitionist presence as well as at least some anarchists. This kind of combination crucial as the fascistic state in the US grows in power and audacity. Developing and deepening connections among radical groups are essential today if we’re going to build an effective (and therefore, necessarily, mass) response to fascism in a still deeply fractured radical scene.
But the event also raises an important question for Philly anarchists and the other parts of the radical left beyond the socialist scene. Is this event worth throwing support behind? What about the major differences in ideology between anarchists and groups like the PSL or Philly Socialists? The occupation is mounting a clear challenge to a key local branch of fascistic power in this country. And it’s helping build radical militancy and connections among anticapitalists here. For anarchists or other radical anticapitalists to sit this out would be an important missed opportunity.
We can’t just wish away major ideological differences. They are real and create tensions that can’t be ignored. But there are also levels of coalition, the lowest being merely tactical unity without strategic or ideological agreement. This is highly limited. But it is still important, even as a first step, particularly if we’re going to go on the attack against an increasingly audacious state.
And the occupation shows the importance of different kinds of coalitions. A single Philly wide coalition right now for all anticapitalists would be too internally divided and weak. If the differences are just too big between some groups, they are much smaller between others; we see this principle at work in Philly’s current occupation. What would it look like to create more “nodes,” or sites where closer segments of the revolutionary left experimentally build together? Philly’s occupation is a coalitional project driven mostly by socialists. Something similar, maybe, could be developed across different but still close sectors of the radical scene in Philly—the most anarchic wing of socialist groups with sympathetic anarchists and prison abolitionists.
And finally, the occupation is a reminder that building revolutionary power is a process and an experiment. Connecting at least some of the revolutionary forces in a city will come step by step, by connecting some individuals across groups that share a liberatory anticapitalism, and building outward from there. We’re laying the foundation for many more struggles after this one.
Radical Education Department
radicaleducationdepartment.com
radicaleducation@protonmail.com
from Unicorn Riot
Philadelphia, PA – In the latest development in the “Occupy ICE” protest encampments spreading across America, protesters have set up a new encampment outside an ICE building at 8th & Cherry Street in Philadelphia (a “sanctuary city“). Unicorn Riot has been providing live coverage into the night.
7/5/18 – 10:57 PM EDT UPDATE: The #OccupyICEPHL encampment outside the ICE office at 8th and Cherry has mostly disbanded at this point; a new occupation is being set up at Philadelphia City Hall to demand Philadelphia’s Mayor end the information sharing relationship with the Philadelphia Police and ICE via the PARS system.
[See updates below live feed]
Watch streams from 8th and Cherry below.
7/5/18 – 12:15 PM EDT UPDATE: Philadelphia police have just swept through the #OccupyICEPHL camp outside the Philadelphia ICE office, making seven arrests for “failure to disperse”. Counter-Terrorism Unit, SWAT, DHS federal police, and Philly bike police have formed a crowd control line on the street facing #AbolishICE protesters.
7/3/18 – 2:15 PM EDT UPDATE: Philadelphia Police say 29 #AbolishICE protesters were “issued citations for Failure to Disperse” outside the ICE offices. Two protesters were injured, one person was transported to an area hospital for treatment.
7/3/18 – 12:30 PM EDT UPDATE: Philadelphia Counter-Terrorism Unit & DHS federal police have cleared #AbolishICE protesters from two garage entrances used to move ICE detainees. Activist legal support estimates ~20+ arrests & likely injuries – officers seen punching & pulling people from crowd, throwing them to the ground as police clear the street.
7/3/18 – 12:00 PM EDT UPDATE: Philadelphia Counter-Terrorism Unit and DHS are using pain compliance to break up protesters and make arrests that are blocking the ICE garage entrances. Counter-terrorism unit is making arrests.
CTU & DHS officers stand guard at ICE office after clearing street
7/2/18 – 11:00 PM EDT UPDATE: Philadelphia police have issued a “final warning”. Tents are blocking the ICE building garage entrances while protesters and vehicles are blocking the roads. Department of Homeland Security federal police and Counter Terrorism units are on scene with gas masks, along with Philadelphia police. Philadelphia police have requested a “mass arrest” team. Militarized police aka Mobile Field Force units (MFF)* are on the scene with zip ties and “less-lethal” weapons ready to make arrests. Police A/V units are gathering intelligence. Unicorn Riot will provide more live updates as the situation unfolds throughout the night.
* National Mobile Field Force doctrine training is provided via the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a 135-page guide found by Unicorn Riot in a data request revealed in November 2016.
The occupation was set up during a ‘STOP ICE’ rally held Monday afternoon at City Hall. The rally, endorsed by over 10 local Philly activist groups, presented three key demands: an end to deportations, the closure of the Berks County Family Detention Center outside of Philadelphia, and an end to Philly Police’s information-sharing relationship with ICE.
ICE’s Philadelphia office made headlines earlier this year when a ProPublica investigation found that the Philly branch of ICE, which covers a 3-state area, makes more arrests of immigrants without no criminal history than any other branch.
Other ‘#OccupyICE’ encampments have sprung up recently in several cities including Portland, New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Detroit.
To help our volunteer operated, horizontally organized, non-profit media collective please consider a tax-deductible donation:
from Facebook
ICE agents from Philly.
Submission
We dropped a banner over the local “beep beep bridge in glenolden with a torched flag attached to it in solidarity with juneteenth and solidarity with the immigrants that are being locked in cages
from Facebook
Come to the Wooden Shoe to learn about non-state, non-NGO solidarity work with global migrants, with a focus on Greece. Collective member Sharon Jacobs will share experiences from months living and organizing with migrants in an Athens squat, and we will watch an episode of the subMedia show Trouble connecting the situation in Athens with migrant struggles around the world. We’ll discuss connections between Greece and other places where migrants face state repression and human rights violations, within a context of international conflict and imperialism.
This event is being held in solidarity with Refugee Accommodation and Solidarity Space City Plaza (https://www.facebook.com/sol2refugeesen/) and the #17m18ActionDay against anti-migration policies between states.
[March 18 from 7PM to 9PMat Wooden Shoe Books 704 South St]
from Anathema
On February 8th, Congress passed a budget bill to end the government shutdown that did not include protections for DACA recipients. This budget would not have been possible without Democratic participation — in the Senate, 37 out of 49 Democrats voted for the bill, along with 73 House Democrats. Efforts by Congress in the following week to pass a new bill on immigration failed due to pressure from Trump’s administration. The fate of DACA now lies with the court system.
“Fascism, then, is a way of channeling discontent and hostilities into a consolidation of the status quo when democracy is no longer able to do so.”
Democrats had put up an appearance of resistance to the bill, symbolized by minority leader Nancy Pelosi holding the floor for eight hours to rail against it. Pelosi could have gone all out and used her leverage to whip up Democrats’ no votes, but chose not to. Despite the fact that, according to a Public Policy Polling/Center for American Progress poll, 58% of Americans wanted to include Dreamers as part of the deal to reopen the government, Democratic and Republican lawmakers colluded to ensure that this would not happen.
That means that what looks a lot like a new stage of an ethnic cleansing project by this settler colonial nation-state and its openly white nationalist presidential administration is set to move forward. Hundreds of thousands of people of color in the United States are facing the threat of deportation. In January, the government ended Temporary Protected Status for Salvadoreans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. DACA, which protects 690,000 people, expires on March 5.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removed 226,000 people from the country in the 2017 fiscal year, a slight decrease from Obama’s record last year because of Trump’s enhancements to border security. ICE’s immigration arrests are up by 42%, however. At least 8% of the approximately 110,000 arrests are “collateral arrests,” i.e. other people that the agency finds and kidnaps along the way while arresting an intended target.
ICE has specifically targeted migrants who are leading activist resistance to U.S. immigration policy. In early January, ICE suddenly detained and deported Ravi Ragbir, the executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition of New York City. This was the second arrest in one week by ICE of a leader in that coalition. Despite New York being a sanctuary city whose Democratic mayor has pledged safety for migrants, the NYPD colluded with ICE to arrest 18 people who attempted to stop the ICE vehicle from carrying away Ragbir.
Though the government has usually tried to excuse deportations by blaming migrants for their “criminal” records and going after low-income people, ICE arrests have now also started to target non-white American residents regardless of how much time they’ve spent in the country, their lack of criminal history, or their class position. In January, ICE kidnapped Syed Ahmed Jamal, a chemistry professor who has lived in the U.S. for 30 years, outside his home, and deported Amer Adi Othman, a Youngstown, Ohio business owner who had lived in the U.S. for nearly 40 years.
Taking measures to limit legal immigration is also now on the table for the first time in many years. This is notable because authorities are only discussing restricting immigration from majority non-white countries, and further indicates that the primary motivation on issues of immigration, on the part of both the Trump administration and his grassroots supporters, is to keep the U.S. a majority-white nation-state.
The U.S. is heightening its borderline-fascist state polices, and Democrats have shown they will go along with anything when the stability of the federal government is at stake. Regardless of individual lawmakers’ reasons for their decisions — the inner workings of which are nearly impossible for lowly plebian commentators like ourselves to know anyway — both political parties now seem willing to toe the line between so-called democracy and fascism in order to deal with the escalating crisis of capitalism and the accompanying threat of mass uprisings.
Because the state’s function is to unify civil society in such a way that preserves the economic system, fascism is not a subversion of capital, but a tendency that, like representative democracy, the state can turn to so as to maintain order. Historically, signs of a crisis in the state’s ability to maintain social cohesion have included an inability by democratic states to impose order after waves of revolts had been snuffed out, continual governmental crises, and imaginary plots against the nation. As with the current U.S. administration, states often respond to such crises by inventing an internal enemy and deflecting domestic conflicts by pursuing militaristic projects abroad.
The current crisis of capital requires a consolidation of force in the hands of the federal government, which either instating a dictatorship or pursuing more modest proto-fascist measures can accomplish. As in Spain, Germany, and Italy in the first half of the last century, economic misery and the rebellions it has produced in the U.S. are currently being channeled into anti-fascism, on one side (which tends to deprive revolutionary tendencies of their original anti-capitalist content) and grassroots fascism that rallies to consolidate the current administration. Meanwhile, Trump’s administration continues to accumulate resources for its police and military forces, fortify its borders, blame migrants and radicals, mysteriously kill off or deport black and brown rebels and activists, and threaten large-scale warfare abroad.
As economic theorist Gilles Dauvé noted in 1998, “An essential aspect of fascism is its birth in the streets, its use of disorder to impose order, its mobilization of the old middle classes crazed by their own decline, and its regeneration, from without, of a state unable to deal with the crisis of capitalism. Fascism was an effort of the bourgeoisie to forcibly tame its own contradictions, to turn working class methods of mobilization to its own advantage, and to deploy all the resources of the modern state, first against an internal enemy, then against an external one” (Endnotes Vol. I, 23-24).
Fascism, then, is a way of channeling discontent and hostilities into a consolidation of the status quo when democracy is no longer able to do so. Fascism, or proto-fascist governance like what we’re currently seeing in the U.S., historically has thrived off of grassroots support that mimics revolution, while drawing anti-capitalist tendencies into a “popular front” approach that gives control back to more liberal agents and institutions and no longer threatens to totally transform the miserable conditions of our lives.
Many radicals and progressives recognize that there’s a rupture in U.S. society and have in response called for rebuilding democratic power — for example, as Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America have done. This mass movement strategy should be avoided, as it is another way of rebuilding the social unity that capital needs.
Pursuing false alliances with those who want to defuse hostilities and reform the socioeconomic system will not help us get free. The ruptures and antagonisms within this society are what the state is straining to reconcile because they threaten capitalism — they are serious disadvantages for capital, and thus advantages for us. In the face of the state’s white supremacist maneuvers, we can try various short-term strategies depending on our inclinations — for example, looking out for those who will first be targeted, helping people cross the border, or attacking agencies like ICE and impeding their ability to function. But ultimately it is the borders, and capital along with it, that must go.
