Mastodon Twitter Instagram Youtube
Aug 9, 18

This Is America #24: Charlottesville State of Emergency, #AllOutDC

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Welcome, to This Is America, August 9th, 2018.

In this episode, recorded on almost the one year anniversary of Unite the Right in Charlottesville, we’re going to feature voices from Cville itself. First, we speak with Molly, better known as “Socialist Dog Mom” on Twitter, about the State of Emergency in Charlottesville. We discuss the patterns of policing and counter-insurgency as they have played out in the city, which saw police coming down heavily on anti-KKK protesters in July, and then letting both sides fight each other in August. This time around to avoid lawsuits, the city of Charlottesville is pulling out all the stops and ramping up an authoritarian buildup of police and repressive infrastructure. We talk with Molly about who is impacted by this buildup the hardest, and who, if anyone, this State of Emergency is really keep safe.

We then turn to talk with two students involved in University of Virginia Students United, a group of radical students in Charlottesville, about what their lives have been like since the neo-Nazi tiki torch march their attacked their campus last year. We discuss what has gone down on campus and in town after the smoke had cleared and the cameras went away, and how administrators and professors brushed aside student concerns, and Alt-Right trolls walked the halls and rallied openly in the town. Throughout our discussion we talk about the ongoing work that UVA Students United has engaged in, how the city and the university has attempted to recuperate the anger, sorrow, and rage from August 12th, as well as the rally that they are planning planning in Charlottesville on campus on August 11th.

Lastly, we talk with several folks from DC, who discuss the upcoming #AllOutDC mass mobilization against the second annual Unite the Right, happening this weekend.

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

Living and Fighting

  • As we reported on the last show, on August 7th, protests too place across the US against GEO Group, one of the largest corporations that is contracted out by ICE. For more information about the corporate landscape which works with ICE, go here. In response to the protests however, as well as the continued power of the #OccupyICE movement, Geo Group has now threatened to sue anti-ICE organizers. According to Splinter News:

ICE’s biggest contractor, the private prison company GEO Group, has threatened a group of activists in Florida with legal action for allegedly publishing false information and staging protests outside the company’s facilities.

The group responded this morning with a point-by-point dismissal of the letter, including evidence of their claims that GEO cages children and overwhelmingly imprisons black, Latino, and poor white people.

  • Speaking of GEO Group, a hunger strike made up of parents and children who have been re-unified but still are protesting their conditions and interment has begun this week. As one report wrote:

“The dads are on a hunger strike and they are refusing to obey any directions from ICE and GEO guards,” [a pro-migrant group stated]. The hunger strike was said to have begun on Wednesday. “There’s definitely a strike.”

  • In Olympia, Washington, a member of the Proud Boys who was outed to his community via flyers following the events in Portland last Saturday, flyer which also included his work number, has been fired from his job. The “not so Proud Boy” was also seen in his neighborhood attempting to take down flyers, which were widely distributed.
  • The National Lawyers Guild has officially endorsed the upcoming national prison strike. People are also hitting the streets with #PrisonStrike stickers in the led up to #August21. IWOC has also produced a new video to promote the strike. Check it out below.

  • According to a support page for anarchist prisoner Michael Kimble, he is in severe condition after being attacked. A support Facebook page writes: “Holman Correctional Facility is not releasing his condition, let us flood the Commissioner of Prisons lines and demand that they release Michael to an actual hospital that will help him. The # to the commissioner’s office is 334-353-3870, ask to release Michael Kimble from Holman Correctional, AIS 00138017. FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS, RAZE THE WALLS.”
  • At Ohio State Penitentiary, where Siddique Hasan has been fighting against repression, other prisoners report that a work stoppage has broken out. More info here.
  • Yesterday in Portland, protesters literally stormed City Hall, clashing with police officers, chanting against police brutality, and causing Mayor Ted Wheeler to scurry away with his slimey rat tail between his gets. Abolish ICE PDX wrote on Twitter:

We have been violently ejected from city hall after demanding we be heard by Wheeler and his rabid dogs after demanding he hear our voices. Attacked us after we demanded the sanctuary promised this city [from] ice a year ago.

  • Protests and confrontations against the Bayou Bridge pipeline continue. Check out L’eau Est La Via Camp for more updates.

  • According to Killed By Police, from January 1st to July 31st, American law enforcement has killed 720 people, for an average of over 3.4 per day.
  • #OccupyICE in LA celebrates 49 days of the encampment!

Share This:

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.

More Like This