Tag: police

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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.

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Texas State: Students Confront Fascism, Arrested, & Launch Sit-In Against Police Brutality

Banner dropped at TXST on May Day. Picture Credit: to YDSA @ TXST (@TXSTYDSA)

Press Release published by Resistance TXST. Resistance TXST is a coalition of Texas State University students advocating for the rights of underrepresented students on campus.

Background: On May 1st, Texas State students prepared for a confrontation with members of violent fascist group Texas Nomads, who planned to travel down from Austin and stage a rally in support of “free speech.” Members of Texas Nomads have repeatedly harassed liberal & leftist events in Austin, sometimes stalking people leaving these events. Members have assaulted anti-Trump protestors. Nomads member Christopher Ritchie was at the Charlottesville Nazi rally and has repeatedly gone to Portland to fight alongside Patriot Prayer. Their presence came as a response to a campaign & student government vote to ban Turning Point USA from campus.

Texas State University Police Department Brutally Arrests 4 Students of Color During Peaceful Protest

SAN MARCOS. TX – On Wed. May 1, four students were brutally arrest. by Texas State University Police Department while peacefully protesting threats of organized white supremacist presence on campus. Two of the students arrested are vocal, queer students of color that have been previously targeted by the university administration

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Lakeway Police Chief Is ICE Guest Lecturer

Autonomous Student Media: Gestures Towards the Ungovernable

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on contracted services, which include everything from IT and technical support to chartered flights and ground transportation. Dozens of companies grow rich from giving ICE the tools they need to surveil, incarcerate, and deport an ever-increasing number of migrants.

ICE also pays individuals for services, and among them is Todd A. Radford. A career cop, Radford is currently the police chief of Lakeway, Texas, an 82% white suburb of Austin with a 3.3% poverty rate. Radford has a combination of criminal justice and business degrees, and makes money on top of his police chief salary from giving lectures. The average salary of a police chief for a town the size of Lakeway is about $90,000/year.

ICE has paid Radford an average of more than $11,000 a year for these lectures. One lecture is billed as “a unique training geared to law enforcement management”, and the other is simply described as “law enforcement training”. One can imagine the pearls of wisdom Radford has gained after 30 years of doing capitalism and nationalism’s dirty work. As the police are given more and more money, discretion, and military equipment, ICE is eager to cozy up behind the thin blue line with them.

People who live near the US/Mexico border and people suffering from poverty alike know how militarized cops of all stripes have become. Collaborations like the one between ICE and this police chief can only further harm migrants, racialized people, and poor people as cops of different stripes become more and more comfortable with sharing knowledge and information. This collaboration between Radford and ICE is above and beyond what the infamous SB4 requires of law enforcement. Radford denounced the law in 2015 while he was running for Travis County Sheriff. Unsurprisingly, he does not actually give a shit about the people he criminalizes.

Close the lines of communication between the pigs and open the borders!

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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.

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Your DNA is an Abomination

By Rudy Martinez. Republished from Sybil. Initially published in “The University Star,” the student newspaper of Texas State. This piece provoked massive right-wing backlash, resulting in the administration condemning the author and scrubbing the article from the publication. We republish it here for the crucial intervention it makes against white supremacy, and because fuck Texas State and angry whites. Read Rudy’s followup, detailing the backlash after this piece was initially published. Featured image by Alyssa Franks.

“Now I am become white, the destroyer of worlds.”

I hate white people. White people should hate white people. In fact, when I think of all the white people I have ever encountered, whether they’ve been professors, peers, lovers, friends, police officers, etc.—there are perhaps a dozen I would consider “decent.”

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Threat Modeling For Activists: Tips For Secure Organizing & Activism

Police block a roadway during Occupy SF protests, December 7, 2011. Threat modeling helps activists anticipate and respond to police repression. (Flickr / Thomas Hawk, CC-BY-NC license)

Originally posted by Kit O’Connell

Threat modeling is a fancy term for “knowing how to protect yourself in different situations.”

This is a draft document which will become part of an upcoming zine on security for activists. Your feedback and constructive criticism is welcome.

The idea of “threat modeling” originated in the military before being adopted by security experts. While the field includes many advanced concepts that don’t interest us here, threat modeling can help us get a handle on our personal security choices. In an age of mass surveillance, choosing what steps to take can feel overwhelming. For a lot of people, it may feel easier to do nothing at all than worry about protecting yourself online.

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Justice For Andres: Abuse, Mistreatment, and Retaliation by ICE

Submission from participants in Abolish ICE SATX. If you read this story, we ask that you please donate to help Andres and Margaret get back on their feet!

About two weeks ago, Andres Mancilla was deported without warning. Andres, a permanent resident, was detained by ICE about a year ago and subject to horrific mistreatment and neglect. His fiance, Margarita (aka Margaret), dropped everything to follow Andres as he was moved throughout the immigration prison system. This brought both of them to San Antonio, where Margaret came into contact with local activists. Together, they followed Andres to the processing facility at 3523 Crosspoint Drive, from where he was then sent by bus to be held at the Pearsall Detention Facility. It is because of Andres and Margaret that we even know of the Crosspoint facility’s existence. Andres’ story and Margaret’s energy helped lay the foundation for Camp Cicada.

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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. 

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NAVIGATING OUR WAY OUT: REPORT-BACK FROM J20 DEMONSTRATIONS IN AUSTIN, TEXAS

Originally published by the Autonomous Student Network at UT. This report-back from the Inauguration Day protests is offered on our site as a critical snapshot of a moment in autonomous activity in Austin. This report-back marks an attempt to forge an anarchistic pole in a moment rife with conflicts between groups over tactics, ideology, and police collaboration. This is also offered without an endorsement of the Maoist groups mentioned, but as a snapshot of a moment of tenuous (and temporary) unity between certain anarchists and Maoists in Austin. 

On January 20th, students, workers, and radicals of all stripes—mainly Maoists and anarchists—took to the streets to inaugurate Trump’s regime with renewed militancy. For some, the day began early with a strike by fast food workers and members of Austin Socialist Collective and Fight for 15. Slightly later in the day came some of the most visible protests. A student walkout had been planned for 12:15, scheduled to meet in front of the UT Tower. While some student organizations were setting up for the event, members of the Revolutionary Student Front and Autonomous Student Network rallied in West Campus a few blocks away from the university and took to the streets with a group of about 20 radical students. With multiple megaphones, banners, and flags displaying anarchist, maoist, and anti-capitalist slogans, they grabbed the attention of students and set the tone for the day’s events as they marched down Guadalupe blocking traffic, and with NO police presence around to respond and parade them down the street.

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The Birth of ATXResists

Republished from ATXResist’s Facebook

Editor’s Note: On November 9th, 2016, a collection of student activists called for an anti-Trump mobilization in the immediate aftermath of the election. The first of the anti-Trump mobilizations in Austin, it was also one of the most radical in its politic and messaging. Three days later, this statement was published by the organizers, announcing the formation of ATXResists as a coalition–of students and community members committed to combating Trump and the world that produced him. In the following weeks, a series of meetings would give form to a stronger, primarily student coalition that would introduce new forms of militant student activity at UT for the next few months. We republish this initial statement now as part of our Archiving project, to preserve the historical memory of this organization and its accomplishments (as well as its limitations) so that they may inform current and future organizers on and off campus. This will be the first in a series of entries highlighting ATXResists in particular. 

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