Tag: rally

Posted on

Goodbye Southby: The 1st Annual SmashXSmashWest in Review

Austin Autonomedia: Keeping Austin Criminal

Strolling down the thumping, plastered downtown streets that SXSW treat as its campus, you are likely to have a free can of “C4” shoved in your face. This energy drink named after an explosive is the perfect symbol of what the festival-conference has to offer: a cloying and too seamless blend of brand consciousness, work cultism, consumerist reverie, and militarism. The can is a bomb lobbed at you– but one you are meant to gleefully let blow you up to improve your status and efficacy within the capitalist-imperialist project.

Watching Southby’s lanyard wearing throng drink down these noxious narratives left us with a seething desire to knock the can out of their hands, to shout the truth to the heavens, to shake some sense into the world around us. And so we did.

Whether answering SmashXSmashWest’s call for Divestment and Disruption or following their own paths, autonomous crews of protesters, revolutionaries, and hooligans made their presence known downtown last week, ripping through layers of self-congratulatory spectacle to reveal the conference’s deep cynicism, moral bankruptcy, and harmful consequences within Austin and far beyond. Here are the interventions we know about.

Continue reading “Goodbye Southby: The 1st Annual SmashXSmashWest in Review”

Posted on

Imagine a Free Palestine: A Thought Experiment About A Saturday March

a picture of a crowd of pro-palestine protesters marching in the street down congress avenue. An instagram caption reads "we took the streets" with a palestinian flag next to it

Report-back anonymously submitted

Imagine that you have witnessed four months of unrelenting genocide.
Imagine that the government you live under and pay taxes to is sponsoring and encouraging that genocide.

Imagine that all over the country, for four months, people have been engaging in brave protest and resistance to that genocide—blocking bridges, freeways, train stations; disrupting meetings and political rallies of genocidaires; vandalizing the businesses of profiteers; getting arrested by the score; literally setting themselves on fire to make their protest seen, heard, and viscerally felt.

Continue reading “Imagine a Free Palestine: A Thought Experiment About A Saturday March”

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”

Posted on

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.

Continue reading “NAVIGATING OUR WAY OUT: REPORT-BACK FROM J20 DEMONSTRATIONS IN AUSTIN, TEXAS”