Olympia, WA: To Block the Train, Fight the Police

From Puget Sound Anarchists

To stop the train, to stop fracking, to be together on the track, we must fight the police.

As we hold down the tracks in Olympia, we resonate across more than one time and place.

We stand on the same physical tracks that trail into North Dakota where the Standing Rock Sioux and Comrades also block a path – between a poisonous pipeline and their lands. But we are also at the Port of Olympia, where in 2007 people blocked the way of shipments to the American Military in Iraq. There is a real force that shares power between these times and places where people have and continue to resist authority.

As we continue to refuse to let these trains pass, it is likely that tension will grow between the blockade and the port. In the coming days we should remember that the police are here to protect the interests of property, not our interests and certainly not the interests of the earth. Let’s remember how they attacked anti-war protesters on this very street in 2007, and that the police are currently attacking the people at Standing Rock who are defending their own land and the well-being of us all. The police usher in environmental devastation. The police enforce colonialism. They are an institution of racism. The role of the police has always been to protect and serve capitalism, the state and white supremacy. The police are our enemy.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMzeVMCgSDc/?taken-by=black_._spring&hl=en

For this reason, we should turn to each other, talk to each other and try to trust each other. WE should not talk to the police. We should not call the police if we have a problem. WE should develop the skills and resources necessary to support and problem solve together, instead.

When we take control of the train tracks, saying that we refuse to passively support fracking in North Dakota, the police will push us back. They want us to be quiet and afraid. But it is even more important now than ever, with a literal fascist in the white house, to stand up together against the powers that be. We say fuck the police, and fuck the law.

We block the train in memory of PMR 2007, in resonance with the power at Standing Rock, against the police.

<3 some pnw anarchists.