Monday, Sept 10th: Letter-writing for the Vaughn 17

  • September 5, 2018 8:25 pm

from Philly ABC

Our monthly letter-writing event is this coming Monday due to the holiday and local actions in support of the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike. Philly ABC stands in solidarity with all of those striking to demand humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform and the end of modern day slavery. Join us at 6:30pm at LAVA where we will be writing letters to the Vaughn 17, the individuals charged with involvement in the February 2017 uprising at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Delaware.

For more information on the Vaughn 17, check out Live from the Trenches: Letters from the Vaughn 17. Contact information for the Vaughn 17 is found at the end of the pamphlet. We will also be sending birthday greetings to political prisoners with birthdays in September: Brian Vaillancourt (the 5th), Leonard Peltier (the 12th), Abdul Maumin Khabir (the 15th).

[LAVA 4134 Lancaster Ave]

Labor Day Noise Demonstration Report

  • September 4, 2018 10:45 pm

Submission

Last night’s noise demonstration was fun and exciting! It went pretty well for most of its duration, though there were some moments of confusion and miscommunication that I think could be avoided in the future. I want to go over how things went and then address some successes, and problems I’d like to see us overcome as we continue to take to the streets together.

I met with some companions at a nearby location and around 8PM we marched together to the Federal Detention Center at 6th and Arch. Most of us were dressed in black with our faces covered. As we walked over, graffiti was painted and fliers about the strike were thrown into the air, the quiet streets were ours. Once we arrived at the prison people began shouting, shooting fireworks, throwing firecrackers, and making a bunch of noise together. Over the next fifteen minutes more people arrived and joined in, sharing water, whistles, and adding chants to the ruckus with a megaphone. Some people stood in the street blocking all traffic going past the prison, others gave fliers to this captive audience. People locked inside the prison shone lights and waved at us through the windows.

The police arrived after some time, but initially could do very little. There were only a couple cops and they protested that people were lighting fireworks and blocking the street but couldn’t so much about it. They were able to open one lane of traffic as more police arrived to back them up. By this time it was clear that the prisoners had seen us and that the police presense was growing, some police on bikes appeared. A decent time to make a dignified exit; we had broken the isolation of the prison walls, made clear our solidarity, and expressed a disgust for the police and their prisons.

We took to the street and went south to Market street with police moving alongside and behind us. We went around the block, against traffic, and circled back past the prison going west on Arch street. Here some of the march slowed down to make some more noise, while many of the masked comrades began to leave. It seemed to me that the feeling of the march then was a general leaning toward dispersal, though I cannot be sure. The cowardly police took advantage of the fact that many of the masked marchers were further away to attack those who had not yet left. They used their bikes and metal clubs to beat demonstrators and made two arrests, including a thirteen year old. After this it seemed like the demonstration was pretty much over. People went home or kept track of the arrested (both of whom are out – one with a citation, one with charges – at the time of this writing).

In many ways this demonstration was a success. The isolation of the prison was broken temporarily, news of the strike was communicated, the police were not able to control the rowdy energy of the crowd, and rebellion and freedom were celebrated with a festive enthusiasm. We were able to gather and move together under the police’s radar, it’s clear they were not prepared for a demonstration. A practice of sharing was present within the demonstration to a degree. In the longer term; tactics and ideas that during the 2016 strike seemed unusual and limited to a small amount of people have spread! The use of masks, fireworks, moving against the direction of traffic, and the creation of temporary barricades to slow police advances have become more common. Though these never spread as fast or wide as we would like, we can take a moment to appreciate the contrast between this strike and the 2016 one.

The arrests from last night might not have been preventable, we can’t know such things. What we do know is we can always strive to learn and to improve. We can open channels of communication before an action, especially one that hasn’t caught the police’s attention yet. Imagine if we had all met up in a quiet place to have a quick discussion on dispersal, legal support, and sharing supplies, before walking to the prison together. We could have some idea of what to expect of each other and the security of all masking off camera and arriving together. It might not have prevented the police from doing their job, some people would have shown up late and missed it, but it certainly wouldn’t have set us back by much. The same can be said to a lesser degree for communication once a demonstration has started moving, more easily within the bloc and probably with more difficulty beyond the bloc. To me these kinds of communications feel like they can increase our capacity, make more things possible, and keep us safer from the police. I know there are reasons we’re shy and secretive, that there is a lot of distrust, and that speaking to each other can be difficult, but let’s challenge ourselves!
How can we better communicate and look out for each other without compromising our security? How can we intensify our struggle? How can we spread it? What do we imagine is im/possible and how can we make it our reality?

Solidarity with the comrades beaten and arrested!
Fuck the police!
Strength and solidarity to the striking prisoners!
Fire to the prisons!

Noise Demonstration in Solidarity with Prison Strike

  • September 3, 2018 10:58 pm

from Twitter

Tonight in , a noise demonstration was held outside the Federal Detention Center at 8th & Arch in solidarity with the national . As protesters marched away from the facility, made two arrests & hit protesters & journalists with metal batons

Starbucks Vandalized in Connection to Prison Strike

  • September 3, 2018 10:55 pm

from Mainstream Media

Vandals shattered windows at the Starbucks in Rittenhouse Square Monday morning.

The store located at 18th and Spruce Streets was the center of controversy earlier this year.

The vandals left notes inside the coffee shop that referenced the ongoing prison labor strike happening across the country.

Starbucks says they do not hire, or work with agencies that employ prison labor.

Crews repaired the windows and the store reopened Monday afternoon.

Anti-Prison Graffiti near University Ave

  • September 3, 2018 10:51 pm

Submission

In solidarity with the prison strike!
In solidarity with all prison rebels!
Death to all jailers!

(A)

Prisoner Solidarity Banner

  • August 30, 2018 4:24 pm

Submission

As a contribution to the international week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners and to the nationwide prison strike a banner was hung on Market Street near 46th Street train station.

Solidarity with anarchist and rebel prisoners! Fire to the Prisons!

Roundhouse Prayer Meeting Reportback

  • August 30, 2018 4:17 pm

from Friendly Fire Collective

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The Friendly Fire Collective, a community of radical and abolitionist Christians in Philadelphia, meet weekly for prayer and fellowship. This past Tuesday (8/28) we had our meeting right in front of the Philadelphia Police Department Headquarters, also known as the Roundhouse.

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With our small group of 10 or so people, we prayed for those striking in prison, the abolition of the police and all prisons, as well as our own incarcerated friends and family. As we wrapped up our time of prayer, we held up our banners (“All cops are apostates” and “It is our duty to fight for our freedom”) and got on the megaphone. While on the megaphone, we stared right at the police and those employed at the Roundhouse through the windows. We read out the demands of the prison strike and then two comrades led us through a prayer of rebuke and exorcism, and plead with the officers to repent of their sins – namely being fascist tools – and quit their jobs. We wrapped up by chanting “Quit your jobs!” and “God hates cops!”

As things concluded, some bike cops came around asking questions and then followed some comrades on their way back home. As much as we do not enjoy the presence of cops, it felt good to know that this small prayer meeting was able to annoy these officers. It was also awesome that other abolitionists who aren’t affiliated with Friendly Fire or don’t identify as Christian came out in solidarity. We very much appreciated the support.

The Roundhouse has been a place of trauma for many of those present at this last prayer meeting and, of course, it is a place of trauma for many, every day. We are thankful that we had the opportunity to call down God’s judgment on this building and the Philadelphia Police Department, as well as reclaim this space for healing, prayer, and camaraderie.

All favor, honor, and blessings to those currently striking in prison!
May God’s most severe judgment rain down on all cops!
The kin-dom of God is near!

Prison strike graffiti spotted around Philly

  • August 29, 2018 1:51 pm

Submission

Fire to all cages, this week, and until they’re obsolete!!

Wild Wild West

  • August 29, 2018 1:45 pm

Submission

Spotted this a couple weeks back. It has been buffed, but was glorious while it lasted.

Reads: “Welcome to wild West Philly (A)…All institutions are prisons…Fuck every prison (A)…Penn is shit”

Prison Strike Solidarity Noise Demo Reportback

  • August 28, 2018 6:06 pm

In solidarity with the national prison strike beginning on August 21st, a noise demo took place in West Philly outside the Philadelphia Juvenile Justice Service Center (a youth detention center, to be clear.) The demo was called by the Philly IWW, with substantial support from the Friendly Fire Collective, Liberation Project, and several other groups and autonomous rebels.

Earlier on the day of the demo, door-to-door outreach took place in the neighborhood to inform people of the demo and the strike more broadly. This was generally well-received!

Roughly 75 people convened outside the main entrance of the complex with banners, IWW, RAM and black flags, as well as signs reading the demands put forward by the national strike. While still on the sidewalk at the entrance, participants made lots of noise before reading off the ten central demands of the strike. Very few police had responded at this point, but they began to take up positions surrounding the demo. In response, and with the sound system starting up an FTP playlist, we moved just south of the entrance and took the street in a spot past the police and where we could be more visible from the dorms of the detention center. At this point, a small amount of nearby debris was brought into the street to form a small barricade and fireworks began to be lit.

This went on for more or less 90 minutes, and as numbers began to dwindle those remaining set off on a short march through West Philly. The march threw traffic cones, pallets, and other available obstacles in the way of pursuing police before taking an intersection, again reading the ten core demands of the strike, and dispersing with no arrests.

From this individual’s perspective, a lot went right and there are some things to build on and learn from! It was unclear if those held inside could consistently hear and/or see the demo. In the future, larger numbers of larger fireworks should probably be used, as in past noise demos in the city. That said, the use of light barricading continues a recent trend of normalizing that sort of thing in Philly. Let’s keep putting objects between us and the police! Maybe we can get really good at it!

Earlier in the day banners for the strike were dropped at multiple locations in the city. More strike solidarity actions are forthcoming, so keep an eye out.

Towards a world without borders, police or prisons,

may a sweeping assault on reality persist,

– some people on occupied lenape land

Reflections from March Against Blue Lives Matter

  • August 28, 2018 2:08 am

Submission

On August 25th, actions took place to counter a Blue Lives Matter march on occupied Lenape land, Philadelphia, PA. A robust description of the organizers for the Blue Lives March and their connections to and affinity with white supremacy, transphobia and anti-immigrant politics can be found here: http://archive.is/8CIpg. A pretty decent description of how the events unfolded can be found here: https://itsgoingdown.org/antifascist-rally-in-philadelphia-met-with-police-violence/.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qgi6bekxjTc

Below are some (very incomplete and rushed) thoughts that feel relevant from one participant:

After the police violence we dealt with, several reportbacks and press releases framed the events as a situation where police needlessly escalated an otherwise non-violent and non-confrontational situation. While it is accurate that our team was unable to effectively attack either the fascist march or the police, and didn’t really have the opportunity to try at any point, it is decidedly inaccurate to assert that we did not have confrontational intentions. We should not play into narratives of innocence set up by our enemies when faced with state violence that we know is coming. We are in a violent political conflict with both the state and proto-paramilitary formations nationally and ought to recognize this and talk about it as it is.

In this vein, when we *do* successfully mobilize a confrontational action, we should hype that whether it goes well or not. That is the capacity we want to be building, and the 25th was another step in the right direction. Further, narratives about us being pure victims of unprovoked police violence erase the courage of those who took risks, arrests and blows in order to defend others from the cops. We had each others’ backs that day, and while it didn’t work out, that still means something. Let’s lift that up to encourage and normalize practices of immediate defense, de-arrests, and risk-taking.

Keep moving! We really need to work on both mobility and blockading. At one point, the bloc came out of an alley filled with dumpsters, saw a contingent of bike cops moving toward us, and allowed them to come up and form a line. Rather than use nearby obstacles to create space between us and the cops, we ended up in a futile standoff, dragged on longer than necessary largely by indecision.

Use what is around! At the spot where the initial arrests took place, a very large number of police barricades (left over from the most recent Occupy ICE/Homeless Against Stop and Frisk eviction) were ten feet from us. Using those to create space (as west Arch was undefended) rather than try an uncoordinated dart through bike cop lines could have been fruitful. And again, there are rolling dumpsters literally everywhere in center city.

Be ready to take advantage of opportunity! Early on, before a significant police presence had formed, we darted past the Criminal Justice Center. Aside from a couple bottles being tossed at the windows, nothing happened to the building. This would have been an especially good target considering the nature of the fascist march that day, and done well to emphasize solidarity with the prison strike. The same could be said for at least a couple empty and undefended police vehicles that we passed before the initial confrontation.

A lesson to really internalize here is that the police may escalate at any time. If, say, the above opportunities *were* seized, or our team escalated in any other ways, it’s likely that repression faced afterwards would be blamed on those actions. It’s important to keep in mind in the future, when we do go harder and actually crime it up better, that such actions are not to blame for repression. We’ve seen repeatedly that toning down our actions does not keep us safe.

And finally, the composition of the march appeared to me to be informed to some extent by its framing as primarily an “anti-fascist” event. Without going too much into the potential pitfalls of prioritizing a sort of narrow antifascism over emphasis on broader structures of domination (here is a very good starting point for that: https://itsgoingdown.org/beyond-bash-fash-critical-discussion), it seems plausible that placing more focus on the anti-police nature of our mobilization *may have* drawn more people and projects in the city into this action.

To be clear, these thoughts are all offered in extreme good faith, and I’d like to repeat that my main takeaway from the 25th is that we really had each other’s backs and did our best. Let’s do that more!

Let’s continue to care for one another in dealing with our physical and emotional wounds.
Let’s come back harder soon.

fire to the prisons & the cops,
death to fascism & white supremacy, and let’s be real, fuck democracy too,
– some anarchist living on occupied Lenape land

Antifascist Rally in Philadelphia Met with Police Violence

  • August 28, 2018 1:56 am

from It’s Going Down

The Peace Report gives us a blow by blow of a police attack on an antifascist rally in Philadelphia.

On Aug 25th in the city of Brotherly Nazi-Love (Philadelphia), two rallies occurred at the same time. One rally was organized by various alt-right groups (rumored by Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights) and individuals local to Philly. The other rally was organized by various far-left groups made up of socialists, communists, and anarchists. The police ended up protecting one rally while using violence towards the other rally. Can you guess which one was met with violence?

The far-left rally was attacked viciously by the police while the Alt-Right group was given the red carpet treatment by Philadelphia Police Department. The Alt-Right rally was organized by a group on Facebook called “Sports Beer & Politics II” (SPB), who marched under the cover of a #BlueLivesMatter rally. This is a clever move as it shows their support for the scumbag police forces in Philly while covering their true political aspirations: Nazism, white supremacy, and fascism.

As a way to counter-protest, various far-left groups in Philly organized a march called, “Fascists Go Away: March Against Police Brutality.” This march was in solidarity with several issues: solidarity with prisoner strikes, march against fascism and police brutality, and to expose the SBP group.

“I’d say the anti-fascist group was about 60-75 people deep and from what I’ve gathered on the SBP side, they had less than 20.”

The #BlueLivesMatter march began at the Liberty Bell in center city Philly while the anti-fascist march began near city hall. The plan was to meet halfway but, of course, the police intervened blocking the anti-fascists from getting anywhere near the alt-right march.

The anti-fascists attempted to find alternative routes, rushing down alley ways and marching down alternative routes but none that were successful. The police pigs had cops on bikes, cars, vans, and on foot to block every path towards the SBP group. The Philly police department even had a helicopter flying over the city coordinating their plan of action. It was pretty appalling to witness how much equipment and police forces were utilized to prevent two somewhat small groups from interacting.

I’d say the anti-fascist group was about 60-75 people deep and from what I’ve gathered on the SBP side, they had less than 20. Instead of posting photos of the great number of 20 or less alt-right group, they only posted a photo of a Trump-supporting grandma in a wheelchair with a title saying, “Philly ANTIFA showed up to BASH THE FASH. I wonder if they gave grams the pounding she so richly deserves.” We all know they love to hide behind the sheets when it comes to propaganda.

Also, nearly every single piece written in media outlets only show photos and videos of the anti-fascist march. The photos that do show the #BlueLivesMatter march only show a few people marching. The only videos of the march I found literally show a dozen or so people marching, posted by @darrylcmurphy, a reporter from WHYY:

After several blockades set up by the police, violence finally occurred. I’m really not sure what set it off and nobody seems to have any video of the beginning. The rally came to a halt in the middle of an intersection for a longer than usual period. There was much going on and many cameras were facing different directions trying to film several different confrontations. But as soon as the violence began, all cameras, including mine, started pointing towards the straight-up street brawl between anti-fascists and police.

I saw, and filmed, police tackling people off of their bikes, swinging their batons on the heads of masked citizens, and a huge group of police forces cordoning off the area with force. It all happened very quickly. But even after the initial brawl that was going on, I saw police 5 feet in front of me unnecessarily tackling American citizens, using elbow-swings on heads, and throwing people down on the ground. Then they walked away. The police just wanted to get some of their aggression out I guess. Or the police are doing what they have always been trained to do: use unnecessary force illegitimately without any accountability whatsoever.

Police officer hits person in the head with baton.

In the end, a total of 16 people were arrested. Nine of them were charged with citations for failure to disperse while 7 were charged with a misdemeanor of disorderly conduct.

I want to state that I have no affiliation to any groups of either march. I’m new to Philly and have no connections. I am a filmmaker and founder of The Peace Report. I focus mainly on anti-imperialist work but it’s been so difficult in that arena because fascists are literally marching down the streets of America. As an anarchist, which much of the world doesn’t know about me, I am turning my attention more towards domestic issues. I only hope my fellow comrades expand their work towards anti-imperialism. We need each other to bring down the system.

If you want to help me fight the imperialist powers and the destruction they are causing outside of our borders, come swing my website http://thepeacereport.com/

Solidarity!

Noise Demo Reportback

  • August 23, 2018 4:23 pm

from Friendly Fire Collective

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As the local Friendly Fire group, we decided that we would cancel our prayer meeting in order to attend an action instead. As endorsers of the National Prison Strike, and as followers of Jesus, a revolutionary abolitionist, we felt that participating in this noise demo in solidarity with striking prisoners was important.

The action as a whole turned out great. Dozens of folks showed up in front of the Juvenile Justice Services Center in West Philly with drums, pots, pans, whistles, even a saxophone – anything to make noise with.

This energy of this action was bright and joyful and yet felt a bit more militant than other recent actions, with a spontaneous blockade erected and chants such as “Burn the banks, burn the prisons, just make sure the cops are in ’em” and – a Friendly Fire favorite – “God Hates Cops.”

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There seemed to be a lot of support from those in the surrounding community, who raised their fists, honked in support, and for the most part, happily learned about the Prison Strike. A number of folks, even families, joined the protest.

We concluded by reading the demands publicly and then marched down Market Street.

We are thankful for everybody who came out and the IWW comrades who organized this action. May God be with those striking prisoners, may their demands be heard and met, and may all those opposing their work and livelihood face God’s most severe judgment.

For more information on the Prison Strike: https://incarceratedworkers.org/campaigns/prison-strike-2018

A Couple Prison Strike Banners

  • August 21, 2018 5:34 pm

from Instagram

A couple of prison strike solidarity banners spotted over Philly freeways this morning. #August21 #SolidarityForever #PrisonStrike #PrisonAbolition #RememberGeorgeJackson

banner drop in solidarity with prison strike

  • August 21, 2018 5:23 pm

Submission

Kickin’ off the nationwide prison strike with a banner drop in solidarity with prison rebels. The banner reads “NO BORDERS NO PRISONS! DESTROY ‘EM ALL!!! (circle A)”

Any act of resistance no matter how small, no matter the outcome, is significant. Even the smallest rebellion beats resigning to a life subjugation.

Fuck all prisons