Tag: autonomous organizing

Posted on

Deep In The Heart of Texas: The Car Demo Form as Attack on Economic Circulation

An anonymous transmission from a participant in the Rent Strike ATX car demo on May Day

On May 1st, a caravan of around 30 cars proceeded down I-35 as part of a May Day car demonstration hosted by Rent Strike ATX. Some cars bore banners and signs reading “Rent Strike,” and “Justice for Mike Ramos,” while others amplified various parts of the 5 demands which have been popularized nationwide (including free healthcare, freedom for prisoners, no debt, and homes for all).

This communique offers a participant’s perspective on the events of this May Day demonstration—both evaluating its local significance and the contribution it makes to evolving national experimentation with the car demo form. It is a response and extension of the strategic conversation initiated by friends in Atlanta around the car demo form, with analysis that still speaks deeply to a local context. This piece aims to cultivate, deepen, and inspire forms of autonomous action that can strike directly at the settler-colonial economic system which, with each passing day, reveals itself more and more to be a death cult for many of us. May the experience of this demonstration offer strategic clarity to others seeking ways to intervene in our exceptional moment, whether in so-called Austin or anywhere else across this world.

Continue reading “Deep In The Heart of Texas: The Car Demo Form as Attack on Economic Circulation”

Posted on

Stop the Sweeps Zine

Originally published by Stop the Sweeps Austin

For public access and distribution, we are republishing a zine produced by Stop the Sweeps Austin–a local network combating the sweeps and displacement of homeless people in Austin. This zine was produced for distribution at the 2020 Austin Anarchist Bookfair, and features a timeline of events presented through facebook highlights, as well as a statement of principles and vision for the organization. We hope it inspires those locally seeking to join or conspire with these folks, or those near and far looking for inspiring examples of ways to organize themselves. Click the hyperlinks below to access digital and print-imposed PDFs of the zine. 

PRINT PDF 

READ PDF 

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.

Posted on

Protests Against “Proud Boy” Dustin Casler Continue

Communique republished from Texas Antifascist News

Editor’s Note: In recent weeks, focus has been placed on the AT&T Conference Center Hotel near UT for employing a Proud Boy named Dustin Casler. As we have said in a previous article, The Proud Boys are a fascist, “Western chauvanist” group founded by Gavin McInnes. They’ve frequently been found to have connections and overlap with outright Neo-Nazi groups. One of the defining features of the Proud Boys is a thirst for violence, expressed in things like calls to attack immigrants and attacks on anti-fascists, people of color, queer & trans folks, and others in the streets. After this news initially came out, antifascists began flyering and calling in attempting to get Casler fired. This article follows up on recent events surrounding that campaign and includes instructions on how to call in to pressure the Hotel.

Continue reading “Protests Against “Proud Boy” Dustin Casler Continue”

Posted on

Black Sovereign Nation Calls for Boycott of Austin Public Libraries

Modified from a series of Facebook posts by Black Sovereign Nation. Read below for background on the #NoSanctuaryForBlackFutures Campaign. Visit BSN’s campaign website for more links, info, & ways to plug in.

 
From now until August, Black Sovereign Nation’s No Sanctuary for Black Futures Campaign is calling for a boycott of Austin Public Library. We would like to send the library administration and the City of Austin a strong message that our community takes equity very seriously. The library is an amazing space at which Black youth should feel welcome, celebrated, and supported. Unfortunately, APL does not have policy or training that can engender that type of environment. Our ask is simple! Develop stronger policy so that our kids can return to the libraries, where they belong.

Continue reading “Black Sovereign Nation Calls for Boycott of Austin Public Libraries”

Posted on

Interview: Indigenous Resistance at the Border

Originally published by It’s Going Down

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Welcome, to This Is America, December 22nd, 2018.

In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking to someone at the Somi Se’k Village Base Camp, which is an indigenous led resistance camp that is organizing along the Rio Grande in so-called Texas to mobilize against various resource extraction projects, threats to sacred sites, destruction of butterfly and other wildlife habitat, to provide direct aid to migrants, and also to fight border wall construction.

#StopRioGrandeLNG Banner Drop

Earlier today, we held banners on the proposed site of Rio Grande LNG to demand French bank Société Générale no longer finance this fracked gas project that would pollute the Valley! #StopRioGrandeLNGOn Friday, activists in France will mobilize outside the bank office to demand they divest from Rio Grande LNG & all fracking projects.

由 SAVE RGV from LNG 发布于 2018年12月12日周三

During our interview, we talk about the land the the battles facing the people there, and their call for solidarity and support. On their Facebook page, they write:

the Somi Se’k Village Base Camp’s mission is to populate and support a network of front Line Encampments (Wolf Pack) villages along the so called Mexican-American border. These villages will be active in providing aid to our asylum seeking relatives, protecting indigenous sacred sites, resisting construction of the LNG (fracked gas) terminal, accompanying pipelines, and stopping the Border wall. We fight to stop the senseless endangerment of people, animals, and the environment.

The first encampment that our Base Camp will support will be the Yalui village, located at the National Butterfly Center, which the border wall will soon divide and desecrate. The village will exist on both sides of the wall. From there, we will rebuild more Esto’k villages, from which we will protect, aid, and bear witness along the so called Texas-Mexico border.

The Somi Se’k Village Base Camp will support and train activists to populate these villages. We operate with the understanding that the issues arising around the border– the right to migrate, destruction of the environment and indigenous sacred sites, and the inhumane incarceration of migrant children– are intersectional and are symptoms of centuries-long control and oppression by colonizers.

We are Natives and non-Natives, Water Protectors, military veterans, students, community organizers, antifacist collectives, and working people. Working under the leadership of indigenous communities, we are people of all races, genders, ethnicities, political and spiritual backgrounds, and ages. We recognize our co-dependence and understand that we are one people.

To get in touch, donate, and learn more, go here.

After the interview, our discussion then turns to headlines, where we tackle the continued rapid disintegration of the Trump administration, the increasing far-Right rhetoric against migrant workers, Trump’s failure to get border wall funding passed, and also, the ramifications of his recent decision to pull out of Syria, leaving the Kurds and Rojavan territories to face Turkish and ISIS aggression on their own. For up to the minute news from Kurdistan, please follow ANF News as well as our comrades at Internationalist Commune.

We will return before the end of the year with announcements on new projects for 2019 as well as info on looking back on 2018. See you soon!

Posted on

#TexasFightBack Press Release

Submission from campus antifascists, including members of the Autonomous Student Network, Solidarity 6.04, and United Students Against Sweatshops

UT students call on Austin to protest Katie Hopkins
British white nationalist encouraged Europe to meet migrants with “gunships”

On Tuesday November 13, UT students and greater Austin residents will gather outside UT’s Patton Hall to protest white nationalist Katie Hopkins’ scheduled speech. The UT chapter of Turning Point USA is hosting Hopkins, who is known for her extreme anti-migrant and Islamophobic rhetoric. Hopkins has advocated for the use of “gunships” against refugees entering Europe and a “final solution” for Muslims. In 2017, she collaborated with Defend Europe, a white supremacist organization with ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

Continue reading “#TexasFightBack Press Release”

Posted on

#TexasFightBack: Turning Point Brings White Nationalist To UT

Submission from some anti-fascist longhorns

On Tuesday, November 13th, the UT chapter of Turning Point USA will host a speaking event by white nationalist British “journalist” Katie Hopkins. While the choice of speaker is not surprising, it is a bold escalation from the more disguised racism that TPUSA typically traffics in under the banner of conservativism. Katie Hopkins’s racism is not disguised.

Continue reading “#TexasFightBack: Turning Point Brings White Nationalist To UT”

Posted on

Caught Between Borders: An Interview With Mapache

Interview originally posted on It’s Going Down. Check out this original poem written by Mapache during his incarceration
 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Android | RSS

Mapache has lived through a nightmare many people can’t even imagine. In late July, Mapache spoke with It’s Going Down on This Is America, reporting on an ongoing encampment protesting ICE deportations, forced child separations, an mass roundups. About a week after our interview, Mapache was picked up by ICE officials, as they knew his DACA was up. Upon being arrested, he was visited by the FBI, who gave him a choice of either informing on his comrades who were simply involved in protesting ICE, or staying locked inside a detention facility – he chose the later.

As The Intercept wrote:

After Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a longtime U.S. resident protesting against ICE in San Antonio, Texas, the FBI stepped in for an interrogation, telling the resident, 18-year-old Sergio Salazar, that his immigration status had been revoked because he was a “bad person.” The FBI agents asked him to inform on fellow protesters and said if he did so it could help his immigration case.

“It seems evident that he was targeted here because of his involvement in the anti-ICE protests,” said Jonathan Ryan, Salazar’s lawyer from RAICES Texas, an immigrant advocacy group. “We’re very concerned about how directed and targeted and aggressive and quick this was.”

Despite having no record, authorities used Mapache’s involvement in the protest as a pretext for his repression. After refusing to talk to the FBI, Mapache was then moved to another detention center run by a private corporation several hours away. Here, with hundreds of others, he remained for about a month. During our conversation, we talk about the conditions within the facility, the people within it and their stories, and the impact of the Abolish ICE movement.

Finally, after about 40 days, Mapache decided to opt to be deported to Mexico. While this means that he left the prison behind him, it also meant that for 10 years he is banned from returning to the United States, where he has lived almost his entire life.

In this emotional and heartfelt discussion, we talk about the arbitrary and violent nature of the deportation machine, the irony of a system that represses migrants yet depends on their labor, the struggles and humanity of those locked inside detention centers, and the brutality and psychosis of those that don badges to uphold the racial order.

More Info: Get at Mapache on Twitter and donate here.

 

Got a story you need to tell? Publish it with us! Send us your opinion pieces, art, zines, reviews, news, statements, report-backs, or anything else you wanna see put out in the world. We take all kinds of content, with an eye towards marginalized perspectives and news about movements & revolutionary organizations. Submit content to austinautonomedia [@] autistici [dot] org.

Posted on

Austin Goes #AllOut: Autonomous Antifascists Assemble

Submission from a few black flags

#AllOutATX was the final act in a month of struggle against fascism in central Texas. While the ongoing Occupy ICE San Antonio encampment faced attacks from Patriot Front, local police, and the FBI,this marked the final event of #AllOutAugust, which had been a series of successes from Portland to D.C. in which antifascists defeated far-right forces, often facing brutal clashes with the police who defend them. On the 18th, attention from across the nation was on Austin. Jennilyn Kae Lohmer-Salinas, one of the main organizers of the nationwide marches “against far-left violence,” hails from the area, and Austin was one of the first cities to announce such a rally. In the days leading up to the event, the doxxing of some supporters by an independently set-up honeypot site along with internal conflict resulted in the cancellation of multiple rallies and a fracturing of fascist forces. Locally attention was also focused on this event as it promised to be a test of the strength and future potential of both fascist forces and new autonomous antifascist networks in the area. Below is an account of the events of the day and reflections on how we could have conducted ourselves better. 

Continue reading “Austin Goes #AllOut: Autonomous Antifascists Assemble”