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
Press contact: press@phillysocialists.org
Our statement regarding our comrade’s arrest:
On Sunday June 10, a comrade, ReeAnna Segin, was arrested for exercising their First Amendment rights by allegedly attempting to burn a “Blue Lives Matter” flag at the Philly Pride March. She was charged with arson, causing/risking a catastrophe, and other misdemeanors, and released from CFCF (a men’s prison) at approximately 5pm on Monday.
Several groups, including Philly Socialists and Philly for REAL Justice, helped to raise bail funds and legal support for her. We’re going to give ReeAnna some space, but we’ll let you know if she decides to make a public statement to the media. We cannot release much information at this time, but this incident highlights why cops should not be allowed at any pride parades.
As an institution, the police have no place at Pride. Police presence at Pride represents an affront to LGBTQ people and people of color, who daily face threat of unjustified, brutal violence and death at the hands of the police state. We must not forget the courageous work of trans women of color activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, whose actions at Stonewall against the dehumanizing systems of police oppression laid the groundwork for Pride and for the LGBT movement as a whole.
While there have been social and legal improvements for LGBT people since Stonewall, these improvements have disproportionately gone to cis white people. Trans people and queer people of color still face tremendous threats of violence from the state. Though Pride has become a celebration of all that the LGBT movement has accomplished, we cannot forget that the struggle against state oppression is far from over.
Philly Socialists stands in solidarity with all queer and trans comrades, and against the capitalist police state!
from June 11th
On June 11th in Philly we had a vegan barbecue in an autonomous garden. We raised money for anarchist prisoners and had a nice time hanging in the sun. We had anti-prison and anti-police literature on hand.
Up with autonomous spaces!
Down with prisons!
Anarchist prisoners we are with you!
Submission
There was a call put out for a bike bloc to go” All Out for Pablo” and go all out we did. In response to our comrade Pablo Avendano being murdered by the gig economy relegating millenials to a precariat class, we set out on this bike bloc armed with bricks and ceramics. A car that was in a bike lane will need a new paint job after it met the force of our anger through a projectile brick. Pablo was murdered even though he was riding in a bike lane, it seems like drivers need to be reminded to stay the fuck out of our way. Pieces of brick were thrown at the windows of yuppie luxury condos, however the windows did not shatter :(. After the ghost bike memorial to Pablo, a fuck the police chant was started and a bank was attacked with bricks, unfortunately again the windows did not shatter. A mercedes benz was attacked with a piece of ceramic. Those scratches are probably costly $$$$, sorry not sorry ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. A lock was thrown at the windows of the Law Enforcement Benefits office because fuck every LEO who has ever breathed (except Chris Dorner), unfortunately we missed the tiny windows. Some light barricades were built of tires and wooden police barricades, to stop traffic in commemoration of Pablo. This is a fun and interesting tactic to play with, a bunch of angry cyclists attacking capital and anything that gets in their way, moving swiftly in all black attire. It can also be said that many people who did not participate in the attacks did participate in the barricade building, showing that a few folx demonstrating the possibility of conflictuality can spread to others who may want to express their emotions in a more confrontational manner. Some set backs were our aim and force, it is difficult to throw things effectively and hit targets at a distance from the back of a bike, but this situation was more a test of the waters for this kind of action in broad daylight in Philly. Hopefully more rowdy black clad bike rides happen in Philly for less somber occasions.
We claim these actions with hate in our hearts for the bourgiosie and the cops who protect their dying world, and in commemoration of Pablo. May you rest in power comrade. We also act in solidarity with All prisoners in commemoration of June 11th. Until all prisons are ash we will never stop fighting.
May this dying society tremble at our anger, in it’s destruction may we find joy. Every time their society kills one of us, we will attack them with furious revenge in our hearts and a wild fire in our eyes. Our future is already dead, but in the rubble of modernity may we be able to live in the now.
-N0 0N3
from Earth First Journal
from Lancaster Against Pipelines
A bus full of pipeline protesters. From Lancaster Against Pipelines facebook
Something extraordinary happened in Lancaster County yesterday.
A busload of fifty local residents took over the field offices of Williams/Transco at 805 Estelle Drive, Suite 101, in Lancaster. We dropped a 12 foot stretch of pipeline in Williams’s meeting room, sang songs through the hallways, and slapped a Condemnation Notice on the door before leaving. When a Williams employee complained about our visit, one of our residents deadpanned: “Sucks to be invaded, doesn’t it?”
Our message was simple and direct: we the people, whose lives and land are under assault by this toxic piepline, openly defy the “right” of dirty energy giants to profit at the expense of our health, safety, water, and land.
From there, the bus headed down to southern Lancaster County where Williams is drilling under the Conestoga River and desecrating federally recognized indigenous graves. The HDD process they’re using is the same one now contaminating drinking water along the Mariner East 2 pipeline.
We walked off the bus and sang our way straight onto the worksite, right past the workers, and up onto the drill rig itself. After police arrived, five bold residents locked arms and stood atop that monstrous machinery for another three hours, shutting down operations for the rest of the day.
By day’s end, the Drill Rig Five were arrested while defending our community. It’s a perversion of justice that law enforcement are sued to protect the financial interests of energy giants in Oklahoma over the health and safety of local residents. We look forward to the day when fossil fuel billionaires are stuffed into police cruisers for sabotaging our children’s future, rather than those of us peacefully working to protect that future.
Yesterday made one thing crystal clear: local communities are done waiting around for regulators, legislators, judges, and law enforcement to protect our most basic rights–pure water, healthy soil, clean air, and safe communities.
Until it’s illegal for dirty energy giants like Williams to seize farmland and force explosive pipelines next to our children’s schools, we’ll keep walking onto their destruction sites, dropping pipes into their corporate offices, and singing songs of defiance right onto their deathly drill rigs.
Momentum is shifting, and the industry knows it. That’s why they’re so desperate–and why we need to be more resolved than ever. And the march goes on!
Submission
It’s been a year since Donald Trump took office, and Philly has been stepping it up. Let’s take a minute to celebrate all the determination, courage, and endurance of all the rebels who’ve poured sand in the gears of the system that makes his presidency possible. This is a timeline of some of the anarchic activity that’s happened over the last year. Let’s look back to learn from our mistakes, and continue to build our strength against everything that brings oppression into the world.
Against Trump and the world that makes him possible.
Submission
On February 4th, 2018, the Philadelphia Eagles stomped out the New England patriots in a classic expression of proletarian violence versus the statist symbol of a modern day “patriot.” Such highlights as known trump supporter and nerd Tom Brady getting dunked on will continue to inspire us. With this event in mind, our affinity group coordinated with other anarchists and anti-authoritarians in the weeks leading up to it to make sure that we all agreed to violently attack institutions and pigs using the sports celebration as cover. Fliers were posted all throughout the city calling for a loose “bird bloc” aka wear eagles gear and fuck shit up. We set the meeting point as city hall, leaving it vague and open to interpretation with the intention of autonomous groups coming together to perform their own actions. We felt this type of action would be more productive for this situation than an organized bloc. From everything we’ve seen so far, this is exactly what happened.
Decked out in Eagles gear, our crew used the cover of this celebration as an opportunity to attack what we view as the structures of domination that continue to keep us in chains. Instead of choosing specific targets, we recognize that with the oppressive structure of civilization, everything in the major business districts of a city, is a valid target. Hidden amongst thousands of eagles fans, we joyfully wandered the streets smashing, painting, and torching whatever we pleased. We also used this opportunity to violently assault police officers with a scattered volley of projectiles. For some of us, this was our first opportunity to physically strike back against the police with the aid of more experienced anti-cop militants. It was wonderful to see the way our friends eyes lit up with joy when they realized that they had all the tools they needed to fight back in ways they felt most comfortable.
We reached out other east coast anarchist crews to assure that we all got the opportunity to experience the fun of this attack, and as an opportunity to reconnect with friends we’ve made while traveling to actions in other cities. It was extremely refreshing both physically and mentally to share these moments of insurrection with people we don’t have the chance to revolt with in our everyday lives. We urge other insurrectionaries and revolutionaries to call upon friends in other places more often. Borders aren’t real and we shouldn’t let imaginary lines define our friendships.
We feel that it’s critical for anti-authoritarians to look for events such as this to plan attacks but also not to wait for them. This sports riot was perfect cover to carry out actions to temporarily liberate ourselves but these events are rare and we strongly believe that we must create our own spaces to act in however ways we see fit. It is worth noting that the NFL is an extremely fucked up hyper-masculine, sexist, racist, oppressive, capitalist institution that profits off the bodily harm of people who, for the most part, grew up in working class neighborhoods. We are also disgusted by the way the state uses the super bowl as an opportunity to further occupy and militarize cities. We stand in full support of the folks in Minnesota holding it down with protest and direct action. Philly loves y’all. Keep up the good work.
We took these actions with the memories of the murders of David Jones, Trayvon Martin, Philando Castile, Scout Shultz, Laquan Mcdonald, Alexis Grigoropoulos, our Russian comrades being tortured, and everyone else who has been murdered, tortured, assaulted, or imprisoned by the state. We one day hope to see the structures of domination that keep us unfree as piles of ashes and distant memories.
Free Meek, The Move 9, Mumia, the remaining J20 defendants, and all political prisoners
Fuck the Patriots, fuck the pigs, fuck 12
To Amazon: Fuck you, theres plenty more where this came from. STAY OUT
To all our friends who couldn’t be with us today: We love y’all
Last of all “GO BIRDS”
With Love, rage, and solidarity
-Philly anarchists and 161s
Submission
On January 21st, we took the opportunity to take part in the temporary autonomous spaces created by the post victory fervor of thousands of football fans. Realizing that the soon to be victory of the Eagles was an ample time for us to strike back against the domination of civilization, the police, and the prison walls built by our own deteriorating mental, we met up with friends outside of Lincoln Financial field with the intention of freeing ourselves, albeit temporarily. We joined up with fellow members of the continuous class war in their celebration, singing, chanting, lighting fires, and using this opportunity to attack ATMs and throw a little bit of art on the dismal walls of south Philadelphia. We moved down broad street with a roving party that the Philly PD just couldn’t seem to shut down.
After the pigs threatened an individual with noise violations for playing music to the crowd, the atmosphere took a more exciting turn. South Philly sports fans who normally shrieked about the thin blue line became agitated at who they viewed as their protectors. We took this opportunity to begin chants such as “Fuck the Patriots” and “Fuck Tom Brady” which many didn’t notice quickly became abbreviated to “FTP” and “Fuck 12” (Brady’s number). The crowd began to swell, with people leaving and even more left their homes to join the party and follow what soon became an autonomous, spontaneous anti police demonstration.
We made our way to city hall where our moving party joined up with an even larger group, the smell of smoke and alcohol filled the air and the distinct sounds of chanting bellowed in our ears, drowning out the orders of the Philly PD. With growing anger, the police attempted to clear the street. We used this opportunity to use the hundreds of bottles littering the streets as projectiles, with many others soon following our lead. The riots moved slowly, untamed by the police as people continued to share their joy and release their rage against the city through attack. More and more riot cops materialized from the side streets as someone with a speaker played NWA’s “fuck the police” to the excitement of many within the crowd. We continued to throw projectiles, light things on fire, and paint the walls with many other folks, most of whom we had never struggled against domination with, but whom we certainly hope to have at the barricades with us in the future. The crowd moved towards 15th and JFK and eventually dispersed. At this time, we are unsure of anyone arrested for taking part in this spontaneous riot.
This action was super great for us and hopefully for the hundreds of others who took to the streets at our sides. It was a beautiful change of pace to strike back in such a low stress environment on such a large scale without the traditional cover of the black block. As insurrectionary anti-authoritarians, we’re far too aware of how damaging to our mental health the institution that is the state is, and how little we get to exercise our rage to the capacity we would like to. This battle in the on going class war was extremely refreshing, and most importantly it was fun. By striking back, we were reminded of the level of joy only experienced when we make our executioners fear us, to watch the uncertainty and terror that manifests in their eyes when they realize that they’ve lost control. We are reminded that within the chaos, we can be free. Most importantly, we are reminded of our own power and that class war and insurrection will never be a few small groups taking actions, but a writhing unstoppable horde of love and rage.
We took these actions in memory of all our comrades across this dying world who are no longer with us and those who are slowly slipping from our embrace, whether it be from toxic institutions pushed onto them, or ones they’ve summoned for themselves. A riot will always carry the ghosts of our losses, and our hopes for a world we hope to see one day. For this reason, we view every attack as a eulogy, and a chance for inspiration. We hope to see y’all in the streets February 4th.
Fuck Cops, Go Birds
Submission
On the eve of 2018 anarchists and anti-prison rebels gathered to make noise, show solidarity with prisoners, and express our disgust with prisons. While gathered in a park people shared drums and stickers before parading to the Federal Detention Center at 7th St and Arch St. The cold quiet streets filled with the reverberation of drums and the clanging of pots and pans, and the walls were decorated with posters, stickers, and tags against imprisonment. Once at the detention center the noise only got louder, growing frantic each time a prisoner flashed their cell lights, waved to us, or shone a flashlight out the tall thin windows. Fireworks lit up the facade of the gloomy building. After a while the cops showed up and not long after we marched away, insulting the police and shouting slogans, and dispersed safely. It felt great to be so loud and to see those locked inside enjoying and responding to us being there.
For a Black December, for a year full of revolt and defiance 😉
Strength to everyone fighting repression <3 <3
Freedom for all prisoners
from Facebook
Thanks to so many who came through to show support. Despite unseasonably cold weather we danced our asses off, called to drop the charges and raised awareness about our upcoming trials. Moreover we triumphed over the unnecessary antagonism of the Philadelphia Police Department who pushed us off of the plaza in front of the Rocky Steps and on to the sidewalk stating ridiculously ‘the grey squares are private property. You must stay on the brown squares’. In fact the ‘grey squares’ of the Plaza are part of Fairmount Park which is as public Philly property as it gets. We stood our ground and used their ridiculous aggression to illustrate how law enforcement stifles, harasses and silences those who dissent. A very helpful member of Up Against The Law googled videos of past demonstrations on the Rocky Steps and kept engaging the cops and pointing out how they were out of line and eventually they conceded. We took the grey squares with a cry off ‘we’ve won the grey area.’ And after all that’s what we’re fighting for right? Some grey area in a world marked by straight line thinking and black and white authoritarianism. Long live the grey area! Let’s get our communities what they need and deserve. Let’s stand up for those who stand up for all of us. Let’s defend J20! If you want to get involved in ongoing efforts to support J20 defendants please message us.
from Philly Antifa
Antifa attempted to approach Reardon and Sawyer to discuss some of their activities, but unsurprisingly they elected to run to the safety of Philly Police Department who had begun to congregate up around the Gazebo to undertake their traditional role as protectors for Fascists and Nazis.
By now, KSS began to arrive in carloads. We blasted the info out on social media in hopes of gathering some more opposition on short notice. Surprisingly, this appears to have been a new low in terms of attendance for KSS for this event. They managed to muster only about 25 Nazis to rally despite having opened up the event to strangers like Reardon and Sawyer and having gathered 40+ for the last 3 years since moving the event underground following a disastrous 2013 event.
Their original plan was to march all the way to the art museum to give speeches in front of the Washington Monument in Eakins Oval which were to be broadcast on Red Ice. Once Antifa began to form up, though, that plan was quickly abandoned in favor of their time honored tradition of saying some dumb shit in a megaphone at the Thorfin Karlsefni Statue while Antifa chanted, shouted at and heckled them. After maybe 20 minutes at the statue, police pushed Antifa down the sidewalk and street to escort the Nazis back up Lemon Hill and to their cars.
As the Nazis left, Anti-Fascists blocked Lemon Hill Road to get pictures of the vehicles for future identification of any Fascists yet unknown to us.
from Radical Education Department
Recently, we’ve seen powerful Antifa actions on college campuses like Berkeley and the University of Virginia striking back against emboldened white supremacists and fascists. We’ve also seen how crucial Antifa is on college campuses after neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer proclaimed they are targeting colleges as recruiting-grounds.
But what if you’re on a conservative or even reactionary campus? This situation poses special challenges for Antifa. It may be difficult to find anything beyond a small group willing to mobilize against fascism and its roots in the white supremacy, misogyny, and imperialism central to capitalist society. And activists confront not only widespread apathy, but also the real possibility of backlash from both administrators and many other students and faculty. The threat to contingent faculty is especially great. The situation can seem hopeless.
Still, there is great value in cultivating a radical Antifa presence on conservative campuses. In this post, I point out that importance by drawing on my own experiences as part of a small Antifa group on a conservative campus. And I start to assemble a list of other, further radical possibilities beyond those we explored. I hope, then, this reflection could be helpful to people in similar situations.
1. Some background: Villanova and the Charles Murray Action
Villanova University is a notoriously conservative school. Many students in its overwhelmingly white and upper-class student body vocally support the Trump administration (with “Make America Great Again” signs and parties, for example; check out this endorsement of Trump in the college paper). It was in this context that white supremacist physical violence erupted on campus. Two of my own students of color mentioned to me the fear they felt for their safety on campus.
Villanova has also been openly hostile to progressive activism. For instance, one contingent faculty-person in our group–Nova Resistance–was explicitly threatened with being fired for another, very benign and non-disruptive, organizing project on campus. In recent years, Villanova administrators rescinded a speaking invitation to a queer activist.
We formed Nova Resistance to disrupt an invited talk by the white supremacist, anti-worker, and misogynist pseudo-intellectual Charles Murray in March 2017. In the lead-up to the event, two of us had tried to create a large faculty and student action; they were either ignored or met with anemic, sanctimonious arguments for “free speech” or “boycotting.”
In the days prior, one of us hung very simple posters across campus to call for resistance. We distributed it by slipping it secretly inside the student newspaper and taping it across many campus buildings. Nova Resistance officially met for the first time only hours before the event began. Members made signs, and made a plan for the action. Some of us were very new to more disruptive, small-group tactics.
By the day of the talk, we were only a handful of activists, with at least one person coming from off-campus. The event was heavily guarded many hours before. A police helicopter circled overhead; campus swarmed with armed police carrying many thousands of dollars of military-style equipment; there were numerous conspicuous undercover cops; and so on. The talk was to be held in a secure basement location on campus with very limited seating–obviously chosen because it is the building that houses campus security. Moreover, we discovered that, in addition to campus police, the university paid some $15,000 to hire the police force from Radnor township. Clearly, administrators were spooked by the ghost of Middlebury.
Four made it into the crowded event, while a few others remained outside to prepare for a protest and teach-in after our eventual ejection. As soon as Murray took the stage, two from Nova Resistance stormed the front of the event, blocking the projector screen with a banner. The plan was for the two to stage a silent action during the event while a banner and signs were held to under-cut the talk. Others were to create an increasing disruption of ridiculous noises, cheers, heckling, etc., all as a way of interrupting and hopefully halting the talk.
Almost immediately, the two of us who were standing at the front were accosted by belligerent audience-members. One person in the reserved seats in the front row–neither security nor a talk organizer–grabbed the shirt of one of us and seemed nearly on the verge of punching him. The talk’s faculty organizer, as well as an unaffiliated, liberal professor, approached the two Nova Resistance members at the front, trying to convince them to cease the disruption. Another member of our direct action team went to the front of the room with the other two.
Fairly quickly amid these confrontations, one of the three activists at the front began more disruptively yelling about Murray’s fascistic ideology, the school’s implication in it, and so on (departing from the group’s plan of silence). However, the activists refused to engage directly with the attempts at heckling or negotiation and instead resolutely stated that they refused to have their university provide a podium for a reactionary eugenicist, racist, misogynist hack. After around 15-20 minutes of this, campus security threatened to arrest the activists if they did not allow themselves to be escorted out of the event. They chose the latter option in order to re-consolidate outside. One member filmed the encounters and eventually posted them on our social media outlets.
Outside we rapidly escalated. One of us brought a megaphone. Using this, we organized an impromptu, direct-action “teach-in” immediately outside of the windows of the Murray talk. The crowd that formed around us was perhaps 40-50 strong and fairly receptive–unusual for Villanova’s campus–though the crowd was largely passive. We screamed and chanted (“No Murray! No KKK! No fascist USA!” etc.) into the open windows of the event with the megaphone, creating additional disruptions, although the windows were rather quickly closed. The police then confronted us, telling us we had to cut the megaphone (on threat, apparently, of arrest). We continued without amplification for a while, and then left. Members of Nova Resistance were approached by local news outlets for interviews and quotes.
We were not ready for the next steps. We had no statement prepared and hadn’t set up any social media outlets to post videos or analysis or to garner more support and visibility. Later that day we whipped up a Facebook page and began posting media, and within a few days we submitted an article for the school newspaper and created a manifesto-style statement, posting them as well. But our lag left us without a voice at a time when our actions were being interpreted and either supported or condemned without our own voice helping to shape the narrative.
(It should also be noted that the school newspaper, The Villanovan, warped the statement they ran without consulting us, toning down and pacifying our language.)
Nova Resistance then began to meet regularly, renaming itself the Radical Education Department (RED). We reframed our task beyond Villanova as the creation of a radical left think-tank developing Antifa practices across college campuses. We used the visibility and experience from the event to inform a number of articles in left popular media (for example, this, this, and this).
from Idavox
It didn’t take long for antifa to mobilize against the latest outing by the Keystone State ‘Skinheads’ (KSS) and friends and even less time to send them packing. Props go to Philly!
PHILADELPHIA, PA – Oct. 14, 2017 – Alerted by a tip off, antifa from Philadelphia and other areas of the state were able to rout a significantly small group of neo-Nazis who came out for the “Leif Erickson Day Celebration” on Boathouse Row. Antifa were also able to for the first time converge on their after rally event at a park in South Philadelphia, which ended in an altercation that had the neo-Nazis cut their event short.
Each year for the past decade, KSS, which prefers to go by the name Keystone United, would attempt to hold a rally at the statue of the Icelandic explorer Thorfinn Karlsefni, but after 2013, when there was a massive number that turned out to oppose them, they have attempted to conceal the event from the public to avoid such opposition, even holding the rally at night. This year, they attempted to hold an afternoon event once again and were set upon by antifa before they even left their usual staging area at the gazebo in nearby Fairmont Park that overlooks the statue. This marked the first time in four years the neo-Nazis were opposed.
A paltry 24 persons came out to rally this year, but even with the short notice antifa managed to bring out 30 to counter protest. At a nearby pavilion in Fairmont Park, there was a memorial service for a bike messenger that recently passed away, and while no one attending the service participated in the counter demonstration, some speakers shouted out their contempt for the assembled neo-Nazis to cheers.
Those among the neo-Nazis, who came from as far as Albany, NY and Indiana with just a few of them currently living in Philadelphia, were many that have been seen in past years, but new faces included Mark Daniel Reardon, who according to Philly Antifa fled his apartment when community members learned that he had posted fliers around West Philadelphia, looking to recruit for a violent neo-Nazi group called Atomwaffen and model Bryan Christopher Sawyer, who does work for the White Supremacist podcast Red Ice and once lost his job at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts when he videotaped himself harassing a Black woman with racial slurs, posting the video on his Facebook page. KSS associate and convicted felon Tim Wylie also participated in the rally, and on Thursday, he is scheduled to appear in court on weapons charges, including one for providing false information on an application while attempting to purchase a firearm in July 2016. He has participated in a number of rallies and events with KSS in the past, including an anti-refugee rally in the Pennsylvania State House in 2015.
After some time at the gazebo, the rally participants then march down to the statue with antifa in front of them chanting “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA!” and antifa then blocked them from getting near the statue and began either shouting back and forth with the neo-Nazis, or loudly debated them, KSS associate Bob Gaus, who appeared to lead the rally denying that neither he nor anyone he was with was a Nazi, but instead a White Nationalist.
Although according to some information, the plan was supposed to have been to march to the Washington Monument in front of the nearby Philadelphia Art Museum, the presence of antifa might have thwarted those plans, and the assembled retreated back into Fairmont Park to return to their vehicles. It was learned however that they ended up in South Philadelphia at Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park for an after party, and antifa followed them there. At some point there was an altercation, at which time the neo-Nazis ended their event and left the park.
One week earlier three times as many antifascists came out to the same statue to claim it and the day from the neo-Nazis that annually hold their event in that location. No neo-Nazis came to oppose or attempt an event last week, although police fortified the statue, which was vandalized with red paint, with barricades and officers guarding it.
