This Is America #191: Shane Burley on the Weaponization of Anti-Semitism, Resistance to War Heats Up

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Welcome, to This Is America, December 9th, 2023.

On this episode, first we speak with antifascist journalist, author, and researcher Shane Burley along with Xeno, an anarchist and anti-Zionist Jew about the weaponization of anti-Semitism by groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the far-Right, amidst the growing movement to end apartheid in occupied Palestine.

We then switch to our discussion where we tackle the political implications for a growing break between those rejecting Washington’s war plans and the Democratic Party and beyond.

All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!

Defend the Atlanta Forest

In mid-November, hundreds converged in so-called Atlanta, Georgia to participate in actions to “Block Cop City,” leading to clashes with the police and causing construction at the counter-insurgency training facility to come to a halt. Check out a report back on IGD here.

Actions in solidarity with the movement against Cop City have also continued across the so-called US. At the construction site where Cop City is being built, persons unknown set fire to several cement trucks. The same concrete company was also targeted in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a communique claiming credit for breaking windows and sabotaging tires at one facility. In the bay area of California, two offices for Nationwide, the insurance provider for the Cop City project, were also vandalized, in Savannah, Georgia, several businesses funding the Cop City project were targeted with graffiti slogans and sabotage, and finally in Atlanta, people claimed credit for pouring 25 pounds of stinking fish guts into the air ducts of a theater hosting a fundraiser for the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is spearheading the project.

From the communique:

As two of us hauled buckets full of rotting fish-vicera and compost-sludge, another quickly undid the two hex screws holding the access panels in place. We then dumped the 25 pounds of reeking slurry into both of the theater’s air handling units, in the compartments where clean air usually reenters the building; bypassing the layers of filtration and purification. Nearby, three police cars sat idle, completely useless and oblivious.

According to a post to the counter-info site Scenes from the Atlanta Forest, at the time of this writing, at least 5 different contractors have backed out of the project to build the Cop City complex since the campaign began several years ago.

Trials for those facing RICO charges in the unfolding struggle against the Cop City project are scheduled to begin soon. Be sure to follow the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Defend the Atlanta Forest on social media for updates.

Solidarity With Palestine

As Israel expands and increases its bombing campaign across Gaza, mass actions, protests, targeted blockades, and shut-downs across North America have continued in solidarity with occupied Palestine and to demand an end to the ongoing genocide and war being carried out by the Israeli state and its imperial backers in the US.

According to a communique posted to Indybay, anarchists carried out railroad stoppages in “Pittsburgh, Oakland, Niles, Bahia, and Lodi” California. From the communique:

We did this in solidarity with the ongoing resistance to genocide being waged against Palestinians by the so called state of Israel…As anarchists we refuse to beg the masters of war for a ceasefire. We took it upon ourselves to sabotage the ability of so-called Israel to commit genocide, by sabotaging the flow of capital in the US, and thus the machinery for war abroad.

Blockades of railroads, roads, and bridges also took place across Montreal along with a blockade in front of Lockheed Martin.

At Columbia university, pro-Palestine students disrupted a class being taught by Hillary Clinton, in Tucson, people blockade the entrance to a Raytheon facility, in Ithaca, New York, students at Cornell University occupied buildings for two days, demanding the university divest from the Israeli state, and at George Washington University, students held a sit-in to demand that the University divest from Israel,

Banners were dropped in Portland and across so-called Florida and sabotage actions also took place in so-called Minneapolis, where a bank was vandalized with anti-colonial slogans.

Finally in a big win for direct action, Palestine Action reports that, “After two months of sustained pressure, Elbit’s main recruiters dropped the Israeli weapons makers as a client!”

More Action and News

In Davis, California, antifascists organized a rally on campus of over 100 people, which disrupted a far-Right, anti-LGBTQ+ event organized by Turning Point USA.

In the San Francisco, California, during a day in memory of trans people killed, anarchists busted out the windows of a WalGreens, the corporate chain store responsible for the recent murder of Banko Brown, a 24-year old transgender Black man who was shot and killed by a security guard after being accused of shoplifting.

In Florida, the #Tampa5, students facing charges stemming from police attacks on protesters denouncing Ron DeSantis’ attacks on education, recently had their charges dropped.

Finally, dozens of foxes were liberated from a fur farm in so-called Ohio. According to a communique:

Every fox that now has a chance for life in Ohio would have been brutally killed for their fur in the next 30 days. The Animal Liberation Front and other anonymous activists utilize economic sabotage in addition to the direct liberation of animals from conditions of abuse and imprisonment in order to halt needless animal suffering. By making it more expensive to trade in the lives of innocent, sentient beings, they maintain the atrocities against our brothers and sisters are likely to occur in smaller numbers; their goal is to abolish the exploitation, imprisonment, torture and killing of all innocent, non-human animals.

Last year, approximately 25,000 to 40,000 mink were released from other fur farms in Ohio and the perpetrators left spray-painted graffiti saying, “ALF” and “We’ll be back.” The total number of fur farms in America has dwindled from more than 300 in the 1990s to less than 60 today, as the fur industry continues its steady decline into oblivion.

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