Resist Line 3: Solidarity Statement from Austin, TX

A banner on white cloth is being held in front of a Chase Bank building. The banner is held above a sign reading "JP Morgan Chase & Co," and to the back on the right is an entrance to the building with the Chase Logo. The banner reads: All Pipelines Have a Body Count. Defund Line 3. Blood On Your Hands.

An Anonymous Transmission

On June 8th, as 2000+ people converge at the Treaty People Gathering in Northern Minnesota to escalate the resistance against the Line 3 pipeline, a group of activists in Austin, TX demonstrated our solidarity with water protectors up north. Early in the morning, we dropped a banner reading “Stop Line 3: Honor the Treaties” from a bridge above a busy stretch of Interstate 35. We raised another banner declaring, “All Pipelines Have A Body Count – Blood On Your Hands: Defund Line 3” at a downtown office of JP Morgan Chase, a primary funder of the pipeline. Continue reading “Resist Line 3: Solidarity Statement from Austin, TX”

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”

Histories of Displacement & Colonization: “Capitol” & “Finding Loston”

 

Austin Autonomedia: Keeping Austin Criminal

Austin is experiencing waves of displacement, organized under the banners of gentrification, anti-homeless sweeps, the suburbanization of poverty, and policing (community or otherwise). Many in this city find themselves fighting where they stand against this onslaught, attempting to construct some form of counterweight or defense against the violence of Austin’s growth. 

Continue reading “Histories of Displacement & Colonization: “Capitol” & “Finding Loston””