Austin Autonomedia: Keeping Austin Criminal
Grassroots support for Palestinians is at an all-time high despite Western politicians’ and war profiteers’ attempts to weaponize Jewish identity against them, outlaw and repress solidarity protests, and rally around Israel’s “right to defend itself.” But to stop the genocide in Gaza, activists in the United States will have to move from demanding a ceasefire to imposing one. This will require a shift from demands that appeal to the consciences of elected officials to tactics that create a political crisis for politicians and disrupt corporations’ ability to profit from the oppression and genocide of Palestinian people–Fayer Collective, “Strategizing for Palestinian Solidarity: Expanding the Toolkit“
Below is a brief opening to a conversation about how to advance the current Palestinian solidarity efforts in Austin beyond the marches, which currently remain contained to a framework of demand-making and limited to marching downtown. Below is a list of different institutions that form components of the US & Israeli war machines, which may be sites of action. We hope this information inspires people, whether in small crews taking action together, or larger autonomous groups looking to act during the marches downtown. Images for conversion into flyers at the end.
US Army Future Command
The US Army Future Command is a branch of the Army focused on its modernization and anticipating future threats. Its projects include developing software & AI, robotic combat vehicles, targeting systems, new artillery & weapons.
Places the Command is reported to have space:
- the 9th floor of the UT System building on 210 W 7th St
- in the Capital Factory, based out of Omni hotel at 701 Brazos St
- at the Center for Electromechanics at the JJ Pickle Research Campus, off North Burnet & West Braker Lane
- the Anna Hiss Gym at UT, 2501 Wichita St
Given UT’s extensive entanglement with the military, one may pick any UT system institution as a target for pressure or disruption.
Military Recruiting Centers
Marine, Army, & Navy recruiting centers can be found at the following locations around the city:
- 2025 Guadalupe St, inside the Dobie
- 9900 S I-35
- 2525 W Anderson Ln, #125
- 13729 Research Blvd
- 2000 S I35 frontage road, round rock
Military Contractors
While Austin has a relatively low density of military contractors compared to San Antonio, there are a few examples beyond the city core.
BAE Systems—825 E Howard Ln
Northrop Grumman—7745 Chevy Chase Dr #100
Cruise Self Driving Cars have been seen stored in a lot at the southwest corner of 8th and Neches. As noted in this Bay Area communique:
Sneaking past their security, we drenched 8 Cruise cars with red paint for being a subsidiary of General Motors, which has offices in Israel and is invested in Mobileye, an Isreali self-driving car surveillance technology company.
Other Companies Complicit in the Occupation:
HOLT CAT–9601 S I-35
Dell–600 Congress Avenue
Starbucks
McDonalds
Final Note
Downtown is a cage built to limit our movement to nothing more than marching. The Capitol is an empty symbol, distracting from the real flow of power in the goods, weapons, & money that make colonial economies run. To attack colonialism, strike the arteries and the heart, not its hollowed out shell. Decolonization is a program of complete disorder.
Find your people. Trust your intuition. Seize the initiative.
For those still restrained from acting by concerns of acting out of place or following “leadership,” we offer this excerpt from a statement released in recent weeks by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:
The Front calls for escalating the struggle and focusing on the embassies of the countries of the aggression alliance and its supporters, considering America as the spearhead of this aggression. They should realize the consequences of their actions and their clear complicity in the killing our children and in the massacres and genocidal war against our people.
Providing justifications and excuses to lower the level of revolutionary and solidarity action to symbolic and formal levels is a stab in the back of Palestine and its people, and will comfort the aggression alliance to give it space to continue crimes against our people. The Front reaffirms its previous call for a mass flood towards the embassies, interests, and bases of the aggression forces and a greater role for solidarity parties and forces in escalating the struggle against the alliance of enemies worldwide.
Edit 02/2024: Updated flyers making use of some of this information, submitted anonymously.
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