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Sep 12, 15

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

Originally posted to It’s Going Down

Indigenous struggles across so-called Canada continued to heat-up. In the Vancouver area, protesters from the Ahousaht First Nation have set up a boat blockade against a new salmon fish farm. One report reads:

Members of a Vancouver Island First Nation are vowing to risk arrest rather than allow an international fish farming company to anchor an open-net salmon farm north of Tofino. The Ahousaht say the company holds 17 salmon farm tenures in Clayoquot Sound and applied for two new tenures in the same area last year.

The First Nation believes the applications signal a new round of fish farm expansion on the West Coast, with the Ahousaht Fish Farm Committee predicting a four-fold increase in the industry over the next 15 years. Protesters oppose any new fish farms in the area.

From another report:

“Wild salmon are in decline everywhere salmon feedlots are in operation around the world. We will stop any future activity at this location”, said Tom Paul, an Ahousaht member. “We will stay out there until we are moved—we will be arrested if need be” he added.

In British Columbia, First Nations are vowing to do whatever it takes to stop trophy hunting of bears on their lands. One person was quoted as saying:

“We’ll do whatever it takes. I guess I should be careful what I say, but on the ground, I think if we were to see someone responsible for this, I think it would be very interesting. There are some communities that would literally drive between boats trying to shoot bears. Some people will stay and scare the bears away.”

While resistance to pipelines in Canada continues, with indigenous people on the front lines, in Hawaii, people continue to take action against a telescope project set to be constructed on a sacred site as they face more and more arrests. The Guardian reported:

Seven women and one man were arrested early on Wednesday in the latest round of arrests in the ongoing battle against building a giant telescope atop a mountain many native Hawaiians consider sacred.

Meanwhile, in Florida, demonstrators attempted to crash the celebration of 450 years after Spanish Conquest over indigenous people. Several arrests were made but all have been released. As one report from Earth First! reads:

Six people were arrested today for demonstrating against the celebration of the 450th anniversary of the Spanish invasion of so-called Saint Augustine, Florida. Arrestees are being held at the St Johns County Jail with misdemeanor charges. So far, three have been released. The support team does not have enough support to bond out all arrestees.

Tribal elders and the Council of the Original Miccosukee Simanolee Nation Aboriginal Peoples called for resistance demonstrations months ago. The Council asked Saint Augustine city officials not to glorify the rape, torture, displacement, enslavement, and genocide that accompanied European colonization but they were repeatedly ignored.

The campaign against a new animal testing labratory at a Washington University has also begun to get off the ground, as people protested at a corporate office in Virginia. As DC Direct Action News reported:

The University of Washington has employed the multinational construction firm Skanska to build an underground vivisection laboratory for them. Underground it will be out of sight and armored against attack. The global No New Animal Lab campaign is mounting a pressure campaign to force Skanska to drop their contract and halt contruction of this torture chamber. On September 9, they showed up in front of Skanska’s offices in Rosslyn, Virginia with signs and bullhorns for a noisy and graphic protest.

This is an energetic, broad-based campaign mounted by organizers well aware that the vast majority of the public abhors the primate “research” and other animal torture carried out in the existing animal labs at University of Washington and so many other places. No way can the University of Washington’s vivsection program survive this kind of campaign, and no way can Skanska afford to put up with this kind of pressure for one tiny contract out of their huge portfolio. No New Animal Lab can and will stop this project.

Across the US, the anarchist collective Crimethinc is set to embark on an ambitious tour across the country discussing the role of anarchist struggle within the current and ongoing crisis unfolding before us. With a variety of speakers, presenters will address how anarchists are engaging with the wider population engaged in social movements and struggles against exploitation and domination. Check out their list of tour dates here to see if they are coming to a town hear you. This tour looks to bring out some fantastic speakers and engage a wide variety of people interested in toppling this system, so bring a co-worker, friend, or neighbor. From Crimethinc:

This panel brings together organizers from Latin America, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and North America to discuss the significance of anarchist ideas and tactics in the 21st century.

The participants will compare experiences from the wave of protests and uprisings that has swept the world since 2010—exploring the role of demand-based politics in both catalyzing and limiting movements, examining a variety of forms of repression, and critically evaluating experiments with direct democracy. They will conclude by assessing the prospects of contemporary struggles for self-determination in an era of globalized capitalism and state control.

Anarchists across the US also took part in events to raise funds for the Anarchist Black Cross in cities from Denver, New York, and LA. The events, called ‘Running Down the Walls’ raise funds for the ABC Warchest, which goes to help ABC Chapters send money and literature to political prisoners across the US. The runs are conducted in US cities and inside prison walls, building solidarity between incarcerated prisoners and those on the outside. Bill Dune, anti-authoritarian political prisoner wrote on the occasion:

Running Down The Walls has become a fine and honored tradition on our side of the barricade. I could run like the wind in past RDTWs even where I ran alone because the sense of solidarity took away the pain of physical exertion and of distance from my community – from you all. This year, unfortunately, I will be unable to physically run with you. I’ve been relegated to FCI Herlong’s dungeon because in the agency of repression’s mythology, an anonymous note purports that I’m planning to run from them. It was most likely written by a person of the porcine persuasion actually worried I might be planning more litigation. But so it goes in life with big brother! I will be with you this day nevertheless, if not in person, in mind, in heart, in solidarity as you – as we – run, walk, roll, move however we can down the road to revolution. See you closer to the finish line!

In other prison news, the fight to end solitary confinement in the US has gained steam. As one website wrote about a recent ruling:

This settlement represents a monumental victory for prisoners and an important step toward our goal of ending solitary confinement in California, and across the country.  California’s agreement to abandon indeterminate SHU confinement based on gang affiliation demonstrates the power of unity and collective action.  This victory was achieved by the efforts of people in prison, their families and loved ones, lawyers, and outside supporters.

The fight to re-open a closed school in Chicago, continues, with the hunger-strike nearing almost a month.

In the US, police as of this writing have killed 829 people in 2015. In Fresno, police shot 3 people in 5 days. In Pasco, Washington, no charges were filled against a police officer who killed an unarmed immigrant. Protests also happened against police murders in Ontario. Check out Ash J’s weekly round-up of anti-police news at Mask Magazine. In Oakland, people blocked streets against the yearly Urban Shield counter-insurgency expo and training exercises. Cops across the US are also still boo-hooing over #BlackLivesMatter, saying that because they keep killing people, no one likes them. They claim the recent anti-police rebellions have encouraged more people to take up arms against the pigs. As USA Today wrote:

“The opportunity for officers to let down their guard, maybe show a little more empathy – that is all lost when you have these situations,” said Terrence Cunningham, police chief in Wellesley, Mass., and first vice president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. “That becomes very, very difficult when officers see their brother and sister officers essentially being assassinated and being ambushed.”

Recent shootings include:

– A Las Vegas officer shot in the hand Sunday while sitting in his car at an intersection, on his way to a call. The suspect was captured nearby without police firing back.

– The Sept. 1 death of Fox Lake, Ill., Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, who was investigating suspicious activity. His death sparked a massive hunt for three men by 400 federal, state and local police, and the search continues.

– The Aug. 28 death of Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth while he was refueling his patrol car at a Houston-area gas station. Shannon Miles, 30, has been charged with capital murder, accused of emptying a 15-round handgun into Goforth’s back and head.

Back in the Central Valley (what WHAT!) of California, hundreds protested foreclosures.

In labor news, a strike by Seattle teachers continues into it’s third day, as US steelworkers continued in contract talks. Also in Seattle, workers with Alaska Airlines walked off the job and school bus drivers are on the verge of walking off. In other bus driver news, a strike in Tucson has continued for over a month despite scabs coming in and in Oakland drivers have complained about record temperatures due to global warming.

This Labor Day, despite ever declining wages and worsening conditions across America, the Obama Administration and their union bureaucrat lackeys addressed the people they hope will launch them into several more years in office at various rallies. As one commentator wrote:

Monday’s official Labor Day events highlighted the anti-working class lineup of the trade unions and the Democratic Party in the United States. In the face of mounting working-class anger and disgust with both big-business parties, the professional sellouts who run what is called the labor movement did their best to promote the myth that the Democrats speak for the working man.

Labor Day events called by the AFL-CIO and other unions in Boston, Pittsburgh and Detroit attracted few workers. In New York City, the labor federation has not even bothered to hold an event for years.

The disaffection of workers with these organizations stood in sharp contrast to the praise heaped on them by President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. In Boston, Obama spoke before a rally of 700 people, overwhelmingly union bureaucrats and Democratic Party officials, before inviting American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Service Employees International Union President Mary Kay Henry to fly back to Washington, DC with him on Air Force One.

In Pittsburgh, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard hosted Vice President Joe Biden, who is considering a run for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary Clinton, whose campaign shows signs of foundering.

Obama and Biden both decried worsening conditions for the “middle class” and record levels of social inequality, evidently hoping that no one would notice that they have been in power for the past six-and-a-half years.

The Obama Administration has also been trying to keep quiet reports of CIA torture. As one report reads:

The US government has declared that the first-person account by Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah of how he was tortured in a CIA prison is a classified document. In other words, the criminals who ordered the torture have stamped “TOP SECRET” on the eyewitness testimony of one of their victims.

The legal action involves an effort to make public the notes taken by defense lawyers for Abu Zubaydah, a US prisoner since 2002, held at Guantanamo Bay for the past nine years. The alleged al Qaeda member was waterboarded 83 times in one month and lost an eye under torture at a CIA secret prison.

People continued to let Donald Trump know how much he sucks at life. In Dallas, Texas people protested Trump, as one online source reported:

A large group of community members spent Labor Day rallying outside Dallas City Hall. The group held posters and banners blasting Presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“He needs to see that we are not all of the same cloth,” said Iraq war veteran John Maldonado. “He needs to understand that we have a voice, and we need to say something.”

In Mexico, people have been taking off their clothes to protest corruption. As one report reads:

For the last few weeks, Mexican campesinos have organized semi-nude protests in the streets of Mexico City to call attention to corruption in the southeastern state of Veracruz.+

A group of topless women, joined by men wearing only loincloths decorated with the faces of Mexican politicians, routinely gather two blocks away from the Zócalo plaza, demanding to meet with Federal Attorney General Arely Gómez.+

The group, known as the Movement of the 400 Nations, meets during the week from morning until sunset, obstructing Mexico City traffic to make their voices heard.

Teachers in Mexico also aren’t fuckin’ around and plan to take action against education reform if their demands aren’t met. One article states:

Section 22 of the CNTE teachers’ union has given federal and state authorities until 1:00pm to respond to a call for negotiations on education reform, canceling the reorganization of Oaxaca’s education agency, automatic positions for new teachers and other demands.

Rejecting a suggestion there be a dialogue, union leader Rubén Núñez insisted there be a public and open negotiating table without conditions. If not, the union will occupy shopping centers, department stores, radio stations and highways to press its demands.

That’s it for us. This week we hope to drop a big story on your collective laps and continue to bring you all the news that’s fit to set the world on fire.

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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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