An anonymous transmission
We did our math wrong last year! This year, the actual 10th annual New Year’s Eve Noise Demo was a blast of sounds and fireworks. A few dozen rowdy rebels marched to the jail with noisemakers, a sound system, and tons of fireworks.
The following was read out before the noise demo started:
Prisons are not just buildings; they are symbols of oppression, violence, and suffering. We all know the current system is broken beyond repair
Tonight we say fuck prisons. We dance on their concrete graveyard. We mourn the loss of our comrades inside, and we stand in solidarity with those who remain imprisoned behind enemy lines.
Tonight we celebrate. This is not about merely wishing death upon the old world. It’s about wishing life into the new one. It’s about recognizing that we can build a better world if we don’t lose sight of our shared goals. We understand that change starts with us, because our collective power is transformative. Each day we choose who we fight alongside, and we refuse to accept the world as it is now.
The ashes are the result of burning over ten years’ worth of letters from prisoners–words that carried stories, struggles, and resistance. They represent the heart of the work that ABC [Austin Anarchist Black Cross] shared as a collective and the weight we have now released, laying this project to rest with the dignity and care it deserves.
We invite you to scatter these ashes along our path to the jail, and around the jail as a symbolic act. Let the ashes mark both an ending and a beginning: a reminder of what we’ve built and a call to nurture what comes next. Where the ashes land, new possibilities will grow.
Tonight, under this new moon, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, we inaugurate the 10th annual NYE noise demo at the Travis County Jail. With 10 years of ritual, we establish tradition and precedent.
We carve out a time for comrades to feel each other’s presence, to know we are not alone in facing whatever the coming year brings. We renew our commitments and connection to all those held captive by these jails, to remind them that they are not alone.
We use this time to feed and unleash the militant fires burning within us, establishing a combative presence that others would deny is even possible. Through our fierce and consistent displays we have proven that it is legal to shoot fireworks at the jail.
The prison is the threat dangled over every potential insurgent, meant to spread a suffocating fear that smothers rebellious fires. Every year, each act of escalating freakishness and defiant antagonism–shooting fireworks, tearing fences, dancing deliriously, dumping slimeballs–dispels this fear, shattering the prison’s psychic stranglehold and reconnecting us with our own power.
Tonight, and always, let yourself be possessed and carried away by the delirious, ecstatic spirit of anarchy.
May the noise that we bring forth into the world,
whether by voice, by drum, by horn, or by any other means,
reach all within hearing.
May it be pervasive.
May it bring comfort and strength to our accomplices,
fear and confusion to our foes.
May it never cease.
Many of the aforementioned ashes were poured into the shape of a circle-A, on top of the spot that hosts the memorial to dead cops.
Happy New Year & Fire to the Prisons!
Got a something you need to publish? Send it to us! We take all kinds of radical/revolutionary content, with a special affinity for anarchist/autonomous movements and crews. We specialize in research and strategic intelligence that can inform direct action, but we’ll take art, opinion pieces, and other stuff too! Submit content to austinautonomedia [@] autistici [dot] org.