from Bash Back News
Dear philly faggots,
Thxx so much for the great time this weekend! While we were visiting we saw those cameras on the power lines by Bartram North and decided to take a few down with some girth tails and a 4lb hammer. A big ladder would also have worked. Sorry we didn’t get them all, but we’ll get the rest next time!
Until then,
shapeshifters
Submission
Calling all neighbors, organizers, radicals, militants, anarchists, outside agitators, and people of conscience to converge upon the UPenn Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
The students, faculty, and neighbors who initiated the occupation on Penn’s campus took a definitive step toward liberation for the people of Palestine, and all victims of colonization and imperialism the world over. This cannot be debated, and their actions should be applauded. However, over the course of the past three days, it has become clear that the student organizers who have placed themselves in control of the encampment are ill-equipped to seize the moment. Whether guided by fear, inexperience, or liberal politics, the most outspoken among us have shown themselves to be hostile toward action and escalation. Respectability politics, “optics”, and fear have stifled any attempts to force UPenn to take the action seriously.
When a single meager spraycan expressed its discontent, organizers used umbrellas to block the slogan until campus staff could send a cleaning crew. ZIOS FUCK OFF. Later that day, Penn’s president declared a hate speech investigation, and set the stage for the encampment’s looming eviction.
History has taught us that this WILL end in conflict and violence, “peaceful protest” claims be damned. The same pigs who played soccer with children in the quad yesterday will be back with pepperballs and batons tomorrow. The students who are more interested in cosplaying as revolutionaries before finals start, than actually exerting pressure to approach meaningful change, are not prepared for this reality.
Materially speaking, the camp is full of tents, food, resources, and bodies. There is still an opportunity to escalate, but the window is closing quickly. Come join us before it’s too late.
Free Palestine
No Arena In Chinatown
Stop Cop City
Chinga La Migra
Abolish The Police
ZIOS FUCK OFF
Submission
So, there was an encampment that was sprung up on the Penn campus on Thursday, April 25th. Guess I love the enthusiasm? It’s being put on by a couple different orgs I’m thinking. One thing I know for sure is it’s definitely a young crowd. Which, is cool, love to see younger folx doing cool shit. N this is probably a lot of their first time doing a protest encampment. Unfortunately, there’s obviously some dumb shit. Like, they got fucking rules and demands and shit. Obviously as an anarchist, I don’t really vibe. But hey, fuck ton of food and other supplies. Hopefully people can come take what they need. And it was nice to see more than a few other anarchists in the initial taking of the space. But I did notice people already getting peace policed. Idk man, people should just keep that in mind. Other than that, maybe we can try and get it to be more direct in action or something. The fact these people only have a plan to GET arrested and none to de-arrest is beyond my understanding. Asking us all to be “nice to the cops” while being arrested… *Sigh* Honestly, we’re hoping that there’s room to get people here to be more confrontational. I won’t hold my breath.
Dear Comrades, you are warmly invited to attend!
This Wednesday, May 1st , at 8:30 EDT
Here is the link:
https://meet.jit.si/WSAMayDay2024
Opening Song by Martin Traphagen: “Arrival”
Annual One-Minute May Day Speech, by Rebecca Croog
Heath Care Workers’ Struggles
Haymarket Historical Quotes
Relaxed Reports Back from May Day Events and Issues
See you there!
from Free Library of Philadelphia
Wed, May 1, 2024 7:00 P.M.
Parkway Central Library
Slash and his friends in True Biz present an image of anarchism rarely seen in the news. For those who want to learn more, Anarcho-Curious at the Free Library expands the Anarcho-Curious program periodically hosted by Wooden Shoe Books. The event includes three speakers, all based in Philadelphia: Kim Kelly, author of Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor; Andrew Lee, author of Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War; and the abolitionist educator and organizer Felicia Teter. Kelly, Lee, and Teter will share their stories and an outline of what anarchism means to them in a panel conversation moderated by Wooden Shoe volunteers. Then, attendees will break into conversation groups to ask questions and discuss. Curious about anarchism? Join us!
This event will take place in the Skyline Room, on the 4th floor of Parkway Central Library. ASL interpretation will be provided. Masks required.
Join us on Monday April 29th, 6:30pm at Wooden Shoe Books as we complement the 2024 NE Bash Back Convergence in Philly with a letter writing for incarcerated transgender anarchist, environmentalist, and animal rights activist Marius Mason. Marius is currently serving an almost 22-year sentence for property damage conducted in defense of the planet.
After years of aboveground organizing for social movements in Indiana and Michigan, Marius embarked on a Earth Liberation Front sabotage campaign in the late 90s. In 1999, he set fire to a lab at the University of Michigan that researched genetically modified organisms (GMO) for Monsanto. Threatened with a life sentence, lacking financial stability, and wary of dragging his family into a costly legal battle, Marius pled guilty in 2009. At sentencing, the judge applied a terrorism enhancement, makng Marius’s sentence the harshest punishment levied on anyone convicted of environmental sabotage in the US to date. No one was ever harmed in any of his actions.
Marius lived and worked in the Detroit area for most of his life. Like the late Earth First! (EF!) organizer Judi Bari, he was part of a generation of radicals who worked to link the environmental and labor movements, and was jointly active in both EF! and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). This alliance contributed vastly to the initial successes of the anti-globalization movement, including the 1999 anti-WTO demonstration in Seattle. Mason was an editor of the the Industrial Worker, and is also a musician. In 1999, he recorded “Not For Profit,” a neo-folk album with EF! comrade Darryl Cherney.
If you can’t join us in person this month, you can still write to Marius at the address below. Please review his current mail restrictions before drafting your letter.
Marius Mason #04672-061
FMC Fort Worth
P.O. Box 15330
Fort Worth, TX 76119
We’ll also sign and send birthday cards to U.S.-held political prisoners with birthdays in May: Xinachtli (May 11th) and Kojo Bomani Sababu (May 27th).
from Instagram
Join us for an open conversation about anarchism where you can ask all your questions and talk to other people about how we can build a freer, more just society. To attend the @freelibrary event please register! https://libwww.freelibrary.org/calendar/event/134416
from Unicorn Riot
Philadelphia, PA — Unicorn Riot has obtained a schedule for “cleanup” operations due in the next 72 hours in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, one element in new Mayor Cherelle Parker’s plan to dramatically change local conditions through state action. Some parts of Kensington have become well-known for open-air drug use and homelessness, which has become a subject of international attention, national political sniping and Internet clickbait. Days after Parker toured the area, “Kensington Cleanup Days” are slated to happen at certain locations. The “clearing” of encampments has been publicized in recent days.
Some local groups are concerned that Mayor Parker’s heavy-handed approach could increase incarceration or lay groundwork for wealthy developers to move in. Other parts of Kensington have seen rapid construction recently, just blocks away from the targeted area.
The Parker administration declared a State of Emergency just after swearing in (PDF of Executive Order 1-24 here). The previous mayor, Jim Kenney, refused to declare a State of Emergency. Now, a “Kensington Community Revival” “five-phase initiative” has been launched as well, but we hear that information on important plan features like specific treatment centers for people facing addiction in the area is hard to come by. (The police department also released a 100-day report (53 page PDF) last week as directed by the emergency order.)
We have learned imminent clearings are scheduled at the following locations under “Scheduled Kensington Cleanup Days” on Wednesday April 17th, 2024, and Friday April 19th, 2024, “at or after 8 AM.”
For many years, Kensington ‘revitalization’ plans have come and gone. According to local urban anthropologist Bill McKinney, the previous plans included:
- “All efforts have run through the city’s Managing Director’s Office or the often centralized efforts of the Philadelphia Police Department, which lack the expertise and resources to implement strategies to address poverty, addiction, violence, and helping the unsheltered.
- No authentic, participatory, community engagement processes that lead to sharing of power and co-creation of solutions with the community.
- Each effort has treated Kensington and its residents as the problem, thereby ignoring the actual causes of the core issues, vilifying residents, and encouraging additional exploitation of the community.
- After 20 years of interventions, racial disparities in areas ranging from housing to health outcomes have increased, and while every effort has claimed success at some point, none have had any form of measurable sustainable accomplishment for residents, only for those leading the efforts.”
“History is repeating in Kensington. It doesn’t have to be this way.” Bill McKinney, WHYY, May 2021
McKinney acknowledged the giant scale of the area’s shadow economy, which was a result of decades of disinvestment: “We’re trying to turn off a billion-dollar industry […] There was intentional disinvestment in this community — and so that economy was replaced with another economy. That other economy needs to be addressed. It’s not addressed just by picking up a few people and locking them up.”
From the perspective of people like former Kensington Neighborhood Association President Eduardo Esquivel, the government’s existing strategy has been to “keep a billion-dollar open-air drug market contained in Kensington.”
Other planning frameworks previously developed include the “North of Lehigh Neighborhood Revitalization Plan” (Dec. 2013 PDF) and the Heart of Kensington plan. KensingtonPlan.org has more information about these plans and the use of opioid settlement funds.
Apart from the Kensington Caucus at Philadelphia City Council, which has been openly hostile to well-known harm reduction programs like needle exchanges, there are other players to consider. (Council member Quetcy Lozada “asked the real estate developer who owns the building where Savage Sisters is located to terminate the organization’s lease,” CBS Philadelphia reported in February. Harm reduction nonprofit Savage Sisters provides services like wound care, caused by ‘tranq’ (xylazine) – a tranquilizer commonly found in the area drug supply.)
With Mayor Parker’s new pressure to remove people, any plan to force people into “treatment or jail” decisions hinges on District Attorney Larry Krasner’s discretion. The de facto policy right now doesn’t push jail time for simple drug possession. Therefore, the DA office would need a policy shift to impose this choice on detained people. (Paraphernalia or public intoxication charges could also be leveled.)
A source with close knowledge told Unicorn Riot that they heard the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is also taking an interest in the situation. Federal agents have been photographed in the area in recent months. The source relayed that the DEA was concerned about violence around the clearing operations so they may want to reshape the marketplace by coercing dealers into leaving, hoping that would disperse open-air drug consumers to other areas of Philadelphia. (The DEA Philadelphia Field Division office conducts “Operation Engage Philadelphia” in the city.)
Unicorn Riot was also told that the Philadelphia Police Department has intentionally been dropping off intoxicated people at dispersed locations around the city.
This police operations pattern reminded us of multiple instances during the 2011-2012 Occupy Movement where police would drop off intoxicated people at the protest camps, as well as the 2012 Drug Recognition Evaluator (DRE) scandal in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota State Patrol was running a program to give unhoused people drugs at a shed by the MSP International Airport before dropping them off at the protest encampment at Peavey Plaza.
Cover image composition and photos by Dan Feidt.
from It’s Going Down
As the A15 Actions account wrote:
Over 65 cities, 19 countries and six continents took collective risk for a liberated Palestine. This is just the beginning. Activists across the globe carried out large-scale actions Monday as part of A15, a coordinated economic blockade in solidarity with Palestine.
U.S. organizers blockaded factories and corporate offices of weapons manufacturers, including the Boeing plant in St. Charles, Missouri; Pratt & Whitney in Middletown, Connecticut; and the Lockheed Martin building in Arlington, Virginia.
Protesters took over major roads in Philadelphia and Oakland, while others rallied in front of government buildings and cultural sites. In San Francisco, activists shut down both sides of the Golden Gate Bridge in a major disruption to traffic in the Bay Area.
Activists in New York marched across the Brooklyn Bridge and rallied on both the Brooklyn and Manhattan sides of the iconic bridge. Dozens of people were arrested in the peaceful action, including reporters covering the protest.
Across multiple cities, police made hundreds of arrests and in Fremont, shot off projectile weapons in an attempt to stop demonstrators from blockading a Telsa factory. Just as they did under Trump, Republican bureaucrats like Tom Cotton called for far-Right vigilante violence against demonstrators stating, “I would encourage most people anywhere that gets stuck behind criminals like this who are trying to block traffic to take matters into their own hands [and] put an end to this nonsense.” In the face of the success of the A15 actions, many pundits on the Right and neo-liberal Center have also started a fear mongering campaign about the movement using “escalated tactics,” while student organizers continue to face expulsions, evictions, and repression.
Philadelphia, PA: Demonstrators in Philadelphia organized blockades and marches across the city. According to Unicorn Riot, “The crowd marched to the offices of arms manufacturers Day & Zimmerman, who provides components for weapons being used by Israel against Gaza.” A report on social media wrote:
The demonstrations began at 8:15 a.m., when dozens of protesters disrupted rush hour traffic as they waved Palestinian flags during a teach-in. Simultaneously, another group led a funeral procession of cars up I-95, while a third marched near City Hall, stopping at various locations to call attention to connections between Philadelphia’s economy and Israel’s occupation in Gaza.
The Philadelphia Police Department confirmed that 67 people were arrested for obstruction of highway during the morning protests. Officers issued civil citations to 41 demonstrators, who were then released from custody, said Sgt. Eric Gripp, a department spokesperson.” Philly Inquierer: https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/protests-gaza-palestine-irs-building-university-city-20240415.html
“In Philadelphia, people across the city took part in #PhillyA15 coordinated actions aimed at disrupting the local economy and blockading major traffic routes on the East Coast to demand an end to the genocide and occupation in Palestine being carried out by the apartheid government of Israel. Key weapons manufacturer, Day & Zimmerman, and Philadelphia City Hall both went on lockdown as a result of these actions.
Over 50 people blockaded the major intersection at 30th Street and Schuylkill Avenue, effectively stopping traffic on 76 in both directions. Across town a coordinated funeral procession mourning the slaughter of more than 38,000 Palestinians—including over 14,000 children—slowed traffic on both 95 north and south bound to a near stop, while Philly Palestine Coalition took to the streets in center city with 200 people who walked out of work in solidarity with the worldwide, coordinated economic blockade #A15. Sixty-nine people were arrested.
The Philadelphia economy is complicit in this ongoing genocide. In 2023, $23,657,015 of Philadelphia’s tax dollars were sent to Israel. Philadelphia is also home to weapons manufacturers Day & Zimmerman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, L3Harris, and Ghost Robotics who manufacture weapons of war that have been used by Israel.
It is within our collective power to stop this genocide. More importantly, it is our collective responsibility to do so. Find your humanity in the struggle! #PhillyA15 is everywhere, every day, until Palestine is Free! #a15forpalestine
from Unravel
Philadelphia police are searching for multiple suspects caught on video vandalizing cars in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood back on Friday, March 29.
In the social media video obtained by police, you can see the suspects jumping on hoods of parked cars and kicking in windshields along the 1400 block of Oxford Street. Police say the string of vandalism incidents along Oxford Street happened around 8:30 p.m.
from Unicorn Riot
Philadelphia, PA — On Saturday, April 13, local groups protested Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed 33,000 Palestinians according to the latest figures. The march gathered in Clark Park.
Organizers say that workers and unions are sending the message today. The Philly Palestine Coalition says groups involved include the Labor for Black Lives Coalition, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, Philly IWW, TNG Local 10/CWA Local 38010, SEIU Healthcare PA, Unity Caucus, Philly Tenants Union, & Workers World Party. According to the post, “Our goal is clear: to stand in unwavering solidarity with Palestinian workers and communities. Together, let’s demand more than just a ‘ceasefire now’ – let’s demand justice and equality for all.”
One key focus of Saturday’s march is the company Ghost Robotics which makes what organizers call “killer robots” for Israel’s military; the company’s Vision 60 “dog robot” was reportedly used for IDF experiments in the Gaza Strip.
On April 4 a rally at the University of Pennsylvania kicked off the “Shut Down Ghost Robotics“ campaign. Pics below from the April 4 event:
Since the April 4 event we have been checking more into Ghost Robotics and have some additional information to release later. We also have a report from a March 28 protest at Day & Zimmermann, a munitions manufacturer for the IDF headquartered in Philadelphia.
from Making Worlds
ADVANCED REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED
From the fight against the AIDS crisis to the struggle for Black liberation and international solidarity, Graphic Liberation! digs deep into the history, present, and future of revolutionary political image making.
What is the role of image and aesthetics in radical change? In his most recent book, Josh MacPhee interviews some of the most accomplished international political graphics producers, and through these conversations charts the importance of revolutionary aesthetics as a through line connecting the Black Panthers to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa to the AIDS organizing of ACT-UP to the Palestinian struggle to organizing against nuclear power and militarism. MacPhee argues that the culture produced by and within social movements is both central to their organizing strategies but also their sense of community and social identity.
Josh MacPhee has created a composite work life that merges elements of designer, artist, author, historian, and archivist. He is a founding member of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative (Justseeds.org), the author of An Encyclopedia of Political Record Labels, and coeditor of Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He cofounded and helps run Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements (InterferenceArchive.org). He regularly works with community and social justice organizations building agit-prop and consulting on cultural strategy. work. In addition, MacPhee co-edits the publication Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture, and this event will also be the release party of the newly published Signal:09.
from North American Animal Liberation Press Office
Catawissa, PA, February 21, 2024 –
Fire completely destroys a meat market and deer processing business.
The Valencik family writes: “A devastating fire destroyed the nearly 57 year old deer processing shop at the Valencik farm. It is a total loss and although the building was insured it is not nearly enough to cover everything that was kept inside the entire building.”
