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Nov 24, 17

All the News You Didn’t Even Know Was Going Down

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Resistance is heating up. Across the US, struggles are taking place against pipelines, and rebel communities are squatting buildings, fighting police, and blockading fracking equipment. We can’t wait to dive into all of it, but before we do we want to turn towards some big developments happening across the US.

In that spirit, let’s get to the news!

Trump that Regime

The proposed Republican tax plan is trash, benefits the wealthy and corporations, will hurt college students, and would negatively affect poor and working people in terms of slashing basic services. Already, it’s the second most unpopular piece of legislation behind Trumpcare. The plan is being sold via the same snake oil of ‘trickle down economics’ that we saw during Reagan, which purported to slash the taxes for the mega-rich and corporations and somehow end with benefiting the rest of us…but of course never did. As Andrew Damon wrote:

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a sweeping bill that will slash taxes on the wealthy and hike taxes on millions of working class households, in a move that will further fuel social inequality in the world’s most unequal developed country.

Since the 1960s, the slashing of top income and corporate tax rates has been a major driving force in the phenomenal growth of social inequality in the United States. Now, under the fascistic billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump, this process is being kicked into overdrive.

The centerpiece of the bill is the reduction of corporate tax rates by almost half, from 35 to 20 percent, at an estimated public cost of $1.5 trillion, making US corporate taxes the lowest since 1939. This will dramatically accelerate the fall in effective corporate taxes that has taken place since the 1950s, when the effective tax rate was 50 percent, to today, when it is less than 20 percent.

Next, the financial elite is salivating over the abolition of the estate tax, which the bill mandates by 2025, providing a massive windfall to the top 0.2 percent of households.

While Democratic politicians mouthed criticisms of the Republican-sponsored bill, its most important measure, the corporate tax cut, has been a major element in the Democratic playbook. The Obama administration’s 2016 budget, for example, called for lowering the corporate tax rate to between 28 and 25 percent.

Since the financial crash of 2008, the wealth gap has widened and been concentrated into fewer hands – bigly. And, the Trump tax cuts will only increase this reality but also move to attack what Bannon calls the “administrative State,” or any sort of social safety net for the poor and working class. In short, the complete rolling back of gains made during the Civil Rights and labor movements.

What this means for anarchists, autonomists, and anti-authoritarians, is that more and more the gloves are coming off for the elites, and they are reverting into a position of naked and unchecked class antagonism, which sees no reason to offer a peace treaty to the poor. While this attack will be brutal, it will also be an opportunity to expose both the neoliberalism of the Democrats along with the proto-fascism of Bannon and Trump, and call for placing the interests of the exploited, excluded, and the Earth, front and center.

Also in fuck my life news, 15,000 scientists have all signed onto a statement that says that the threat of climate change is far worse than once thought and drastic action must be taken to avoid planetary collapse, while others are pointing towards the risk of rising sea levels due to melting glaciers.

Burn Down the Plantation

Baltimore has been the scene of a massive police occupation, after a police officer was gunned down the day before he was set to testify against his own department. According to The Intercept: 

The neighborhood was promptly put on lockdown. Over the course of the week, the reward fund to find Suiter’s killer climbed to $215,000 – a figure experts think might be a state record. The Harlem Park neighborhood lockdown was justified as a way for cops to preserve the crime scene and collect evidence.

As police cars lined the perimeter of Harlem Park for days, residents were unable to enter their neighborhoods without showing IDs. Some complained about helicopters flying above their homes, flashing lights from police cars, and being subject to harassment and pat-down searches. Non-residents were barred from entering. On social media, many called to #FreeWestBaltimore.

The rumor that had been circulating through the neighborhood was that Suiter was preparing to testify against some of the seven officers indicted for racketeering charges in March. An eighth was indicted in August and a ninth last week. (The charges were filed by former U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, a month before he was named Deputy Attorney General in Trump’s Department of Justice. It was there he would have his moment in the historic sun. After Trump blamed him for firing FBI Director James Comey, he appointed special counsel Robert Mueller.)

A spokesperson for the current U.S. Attorney for Maryland told The Intercept on Monday that they could not comment on whether or not Suiter was planning on testifying in their case. But on Wednesday evening, Commissioner Davis confirmed that Suiter was in fact set to testify before a grand jury that Thursday, a day after he was shot. He also said that Suiter appeared to have been killed by his own weapon after a struggle.

Tens of thousands of immigrants are threatened with deportation with the end of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. With threats against DACA recipients and plans by ICE agents to ramp up deportations, we all need to work to build relationships with migrant and refugee communities to build solidarity and the capacity to act in defense and solidarity.

https://twitter.com/milli4prisoners/status/934199588482842625

According to Killed by Police, at least 1077 people have been killed by US law enforcement since the start of 2017, making for a total of 3.28 people per day.

Prisoners in Pennsylvania have written a report about being forced to drink contaminated water at the prison which you can read here.

Lastly, the hunger strike we covered in an episode of the IGDcast has ended, but more battles lay on the horizon. Check with IDOC Watch for more info below.

Black Snake Killaz

A tripbod blockade was set up in Southpionte, PA:

Pipeline resistance just doesn’t stop, so be sure to follow the Makwa Initiative and their battle against Line 3 in so-called Minnesota. Also, we encourage people to check out Lancaster Against Pipelines, they have been going hard for a while now. Lastly, some elders who stopped several pipelines are facing some serious jail time, and need our support!

Bring Da Ruckus

In Puerto Rico, as BoingBoing wrote:

Disaster capitalism depends on the idea that “There is No Alternative” and that the populace can only sit by passively while their infrastructure, government, homes and schools are hijacked and sold off to low-bidder corporations to financially engineer and then extract rent from.

That’s certainly the model that started to play out after Hurricane Maria, when Trumpist cronies were handed sweetheart deals and the people were left to die in droves while captains of industry carved up the loot.

But the populace need not be a flock of sheep waiting passively for the shear: instead, they can rise up and take care of themselves, through systems of solidarity and mutual aid, and that’s what’s happening in Puerto Rico, where Molly Crabapple reports on the smashing success of anarchists and socialists whose collectives are filling in the humanitarian relief that has been denied to them by Trump’s incompetent state and the shareholder firms who are more interested in their bottom lines than the human lives they are being paid to ease.

Case in point, check out this water filtration system that Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MAD) is building in Puerto Rico below:

Community kitchen build project in Caguas! Compost toilet/water filtration/painting in a chorus of mutual aid and solidarity

由 Mutual Aid Disaster Relief 发布于 2017年11月24日周五

The Autonomous Tenants Union in Chicago is organizing to win, check them out here:

In Mexico, self-organization continues to carry the day as people come together to rebuild in the wake of a massive earthquake:

In Mexico, people gathered to send love to animal liberation and anarchist prisoner Walter Bond:

Also in Mexico, parents and friends of the 43 disappeared took over a tool both:

In Haiti, protests continue against the government:

In LA, RASH (Red and Anarchist Skinheads) Fest took place:

https://twitter.com/AFAPHX/status/932119017136955393

Also in antifa, news, Mark Bray is wrapping up his tour, which was a huge and smashing success, bringing out literally thousands of people, experienced only a few attempts by fash to disrupt, and was a great time. Bray’s tour shows that anarchist ideas are growing and there is increased interest. All power to the tours!

In Fresno a banner was dropped.

In Philadelphia, a group of people wearing black hoodies and masks attacked a police substation, splattering it with paint and breaking windows on squad cars. Here’s a photo of the flyer that was left at the scene:

A local journalist took photos:

https://twitter.com/jpegjoshua/status/931589517324308481

UPS workers are threatening to go on strike during the holiday, Drexel students are taking action in support of anti-capitalist professor George Ciccariello-Mahr, people in Detroit are building their own internet in impoverished neighborhoods, and in Olympia, the #OlympiaStand blockade continues against shipments of fracking sand at the port.

Anti-Colonial Resistance

Resistance to fish farms in so-called British Columbia continues:

Swanson Occupation Day 90

Swanson Island Occupation day 90.

由 Tabitha Milian 发布于 2017年11月22日周三

In Chicago:

An anti-colonial ‘National Day of Mourning’ protest march took place on Thanksgiving, and the ‘Fountain of Pioneers’ was dyed red with blood in Michigan.

Also, the yearly Sunrise Ceremony took place on Alcatraz Island:

Also, be sure to check out both the Tiny House Warriors who are still fighting in so-called British Columbia as well as well as Gorge ICE Resistors who are holding demonstrations in Oregon. Meanwhile, in New York, the annual Macy’s Day Parade was disrupted by undocumented people and their allies.

Shout Outs

The trial of Red Fawn starts soon, more info here.

Walter Bond has ended his hunger strike but still needs support. More info here.

Check out this amazing interview with anti-capitalist smart person Jasper Barnes on the future of ‘logistical capital’ and the power of blockades.

The Unicorn Riot film, Black Snake Killaz is out now! Check it out here.

The J20 trial is ongoing. For updates check The Real News and Defend J20 Resistance. Also on November 27th, a solidarity rally has been called. If you are in the DC area, please show up!

It’s Going Down

Along with Submedia, CrimethInc., Channel Zero Network, and others, we are excited about a call to hold events in autonomous and anarchist spaces across so-called North America and beyond during the week of January 20th. See what you can come up with! More info here. #BuildtheBase!

We are looking to raise $5K for our winter fundraiser. At IGD, we like that we don’t have to beat people over the head about money, and we hope that our dedication to our work speaks for itself. We ask that you stand by and and help us meet our goal. We have new shirts!

info [at] itsgoingdown [dot] org
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In search of new forms of life. It's Going Down is a digital community center and media platform featuring news, opinion, podcasts, and reporting on autonomous social movements and revolt across so-called North America from an anarchist perspective.

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