Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
This week, more construction activity was observed at the Cop City site. Notably, some contractors have been hiding their logos to make identification more difficult, as seen in this photo:
ERNEST T LOPEZ COMPANY
[Private residence owned by Donna Bryson, source: https://app.regrid.com/us/ga/gwinnett/lilburn/45903]
ZIDEN INC
Atlanta Paving & Concrete Construction, Inc. was spotted this week pouring concrete for cop city. They tried to cover their logo, because they don’t want to be held accountable for their actions.
Their office is located at:
2775 Mechanicsville Rd
Peachtree Corners, Ga
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Amorós critiques the hidden activist ideology in insurrectionalism through the figure of Bonanno. Bonanno has had significant influence in the US, and all over the world, for that matter, but we are not interested in tracing his influence in particular.
Amorós accurately pinpoints the vague echo of such a line in the commonplaces of insurrectionalism. If the masses were not revolting, it was up to a more advanced group to revolt first. From these ideas, it is not far to say the group that attacks has the consciousness that the masses lack, and that they are not only revolting first but *for* them, so that they may see the open possibility of revolt. The vanguard no longer leads, it attacks first. Is it not still a vanguard?
The acts are technique, reduced to what can be easily done and reproduced. And reproducibility is perhaps what has gotten the US milieu to make the most reproducible acts (window smashing, for example) into its currency.
[…] the least we can say is that we have yet to see insurrectionary acts be anything more than themselves—anything more than reproducible. Those who imitate them are influenced by the same simplistic ideas. The masses remain motionless.
If North American insurrectionaries were to undertake and explain their actions differently, as something done for their own satisfaction, or from an advocacy of destruction for its own sake, we would no longer consider this critique relevant. But to continue to suggest that revolt will spread because easily reproducible actions do deserve a skepticism like that of Amorós. His critique of the mutated vanguardism of insurrectionalism is that its “activism not only substitutes for such struggles, it also sets itself up as the radical spectacle of such struggles.” We would only say that we are even more skeptical, because we have no idea how revolutions are really made, or if a revolution is what we want as opposed to a more comprehensive undoing of the world as we know it. To Amorós’ anti-vanguardist, Situationist-influenced critique, we add our nihilist one: we don’t even know if the conscious masses are possible.
We could therefore call many if not all of US insurrectionary anarchists activists, if only because their adherence to the simple idea of taking action is ideological. That ideology, the faith in action as opposed to waiting (there is a difference between waiting for the masses and waiting because conditions are uncertain), should be called activism, shouldn’t it?
[…] How funny; how painful; how apt. Because US anarchists know DIY so well, they traded up from collectives, skillshares, and puppets to insurrectionary acts, without knowing that the realness they were reaching for, and would soon be claiming and demanding of everyone around them, was merely a riskier variant of, not a real break with, all of their activism so far.
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
“This is a small and incomplete outline of what questions you should ask yourself, and what obstacles you may encounter when you are trying to have a fun night to forget. Most importantly – how will you emerge from the shadows and disappear back into them without a trace?“
Just off Tara Boulevard and Poston Road is a construction site full of dirt that the Clayton County Board of Commissioners hopes will bring millions to the city.
Members of the board say when the development is complete it will be a place where the community can live, work, and play.
However, the project temporarily hit a speed bump shortly before Thanksgiving after more than 20 pieces of construction equipment were vandalized.
According to the police chief, a detective on the case reports a contractor whose equipment was damaged also works on the training center, which has allegedly been the impetus for numerous acts of vandalism.
News confirmed the contractor works on both projects. [Brent Scarbrough]
During an August news conference, Atlanta Police showed pictures of vandalized equipment from the same contractor that saw their equipment vandalized at the Clayton County site. [Communique Of Attack On Brent Scarbrough Site Mentioned In Press Conference]
News also found websites by those opposing the training center listing the contractors working on the training center and providing additional details about the business.
[https://www.srycampaign.org/]
[https://sceneshosting.blackblogs.org/]
[uncovercopcity.blackblogs.org]
[https://www.stopcopcitysolidarity.org/]
“When this incident occurs it not only impacts the contractor but the people working for him,” Turner said.
Submitted Anonymously Over Email and Originally Published On Mainstream Media
On the morning of December 2nd at 5:00am we sabotaged various strategically located train lines in Northern California: in Pittsburgh, Oakland, Niles, Bahia, and Lodi. We used a tactic shared by natives and accomplices of the Wet’Suwet’en tribe in so called Canada. We took large gauge copper wire and wrapped it around both rails of the same train track. Doing this completed the low voltage current running thru the rails notifying the train operator that the track is occupied and cannot be used until the obstruction is found and removed. This method for stopping train traffic yields the lowest possibility for derailment, and thus the least likely to cause harm to human or animal life. We did this in solidarity with the ongoing resistance to genocide being waged against Palestinians by the so called state of Israel.
As anarchists we refuse to beg the masters of war for a ceasefire. We took it upon ourselves to sabotage the ability of so called Israel to commit genocide, by sabotaging the flow of capital in the US, and thus the machinery for war abroad. We know that the refined oil, the modems,computer parts, semi conductors, and all other commodities traveling out of California along Union Pacific and BNSF train lines everyday for export around the world, facilitates the massacre of Palestinians. The so called state of Israel necessitates the smooth flow of US tax dollars and direct material support of all kinds to carry out a genocide of this scale. Every shipyard, train line, warehouse, and trucking facility needs to operate efficiently for the death machine to be seamless.
The genocide happening in Gaza is part of a much larger project serving the West’s deteriorating hegemonic rule over international trade. The blockage of the Suez Canal for six days in March of 2021 highlighted how precarious this trade infrastructure is. It also revealed how politically dangerous it is for the US, due to Egypt’s alliance with Russia, to control such a linchpin in the global economy.
Biden and Netanyahu seek to bypass the Suez Canal by constructing their own ship route across occupied Palestine. The Ben Gurion canal project, as it is called, named after the founder of Israel, seeks to connect the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba, with it’s northern port of entry in Gaza. Palestinian liberation stands alone as an obstacle against this furthering of western hegemony. We refuse to be complicit in forcing Palestinian people to pay the ultimate price for imperialist greed.
In targeting the infrastructure of global trade we recognize the implications on this genocide. As insurgents in the heart of empire we have an essential role to play. We have access to the inner workings of the war machine, and we are uniquely placed to clog it’s arteries. The flow of global capital is incredibly fragile-all it takes is creativity and a willingness to act. We encourage others to sabotage the logistics infrastructure of capital as a means of disrupting business as usual. Bring the war home!
your (cool as fuck) secretive direct action is also not going to stop the war machine
and pretending you don’t need others while escalating your tactics is just going to isolate you and your comrades and make you easier targets for repression
a few comrades breaking something in the dead of night does not have the same effect as 1000 people breaking that same thing together
like, it’s surely the case that a small number of militants were instrumental in the burning of the 3rd precinct
but thousands of people were a fucking part of it and claimed it as their own. there’s deep power there.
remember:
“when the work’s done right,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it”
(tao te ching)
a militant’s cooler-than-thou attitude is as much a part of this prison world as a liberal’s fear of militant tactics
both are trapped by their need to be a “good person,” to be the one doing the “right” thing
both are trapped in the prison of the self, of the ego
this struggle is not simply a military campaign but also a process of collective unlearning, of prisonbreaking our minds and spirits
on these battlefields “theater” is a powerful tool, for good and ill. do not discount it
do not let yourself be deceived into thinking you have learned all there is to know.
remember:
“NO ONE WAY WORKS, it will take all of us
shoving at the thing from all sides
to bring it down”
(revolutionary letters)
— another criminal queer in the eddies of the ancestral current
p.s. keep fucking shit up, i love you. stay free
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
This writing has a response to it that is also worth reading for consideration called
Targets That Do Not Exist Anywhere Else (PDF Download Link)
Targets that exist everywhere – a strategic proposal for building a common front against the profiteers of war and repression Rapidly, time marches on; we are already in the 2nd year of the Covid-19 state of emergency and, knowing that no power will ever voluntarily relinquish its new mechanisms of control, anarchist and other libertarian movements all over the globe are looking for strategies and practical means against it. In some regions, social tensions have recently erupted into riots.
Elsewhere, there are short-lived outbreaks known as Corona Riots. As anarchists, we are often surprised by the dynamics, sometimes finding ourselves in the crowd of the street battles or perplexed as spectators on the sidelines. Almost every state deals with us, small groups or individuals, sabotaging, agitating and roaming restless in the cities.
With the desire to finally cross the threshold from symbolic resistance to material damage to the enemy infrastructure and their tools of power. In addition to the direct confrontation with the pigs, it seems necessary to identify and disconcert the individual cogs of their machine. There is no other way to overcome the balance of power; metropolises, which in recent years have been more frequently devastated by social struggles, general strikes and riots, have relatively quickly recovered with their arrogance. But we are still too often sliding into randomness instead of tearing apart the weaker links in the chain of oppression and their profiteers.
Curfews, police killings, gentrification, ecological terrorism, war against the own population and against foreign countries – the system gives us daily occasions to look for targets whose continuous destruction may at some point be more than a figure in the balance sheet or a report in the press.
In many urban centers, traditional forms of action have emerged over the years which, beyond their local justification, could be evaluated from the point of view, how the new anarchist urban guerrilla can relate to each other in order to overcome the borders of capital, which capital has never been bound.
In Santiago, the buses of the transport companies burn for almost every occasion, in Athens it is ATMs, in the French banlieues almost all cars but also again and again those of certain companies. In Berlin, company cars or posh cars are torched for almost every occasion as well.
Throughout Europe, antenna masts and relay stations of communications providers go up in flames. What would be the impact if attacks on specific targets were intensified? We know the damage of destroyed data lines and burned cell towers, but such attacks cannot be repeated everywhere at will. Our enemies’ vehicle fleets are also harder to access than we would like. Some facilities are well secured in big cities but unguarded in small towns. Nevertheless, there are still enough known and less known targets standing around.
And who actually supplies the equipment to the police and military? Who builds what? Who works with the supply companies or hides behind a consortium of companies? Who is guarding this all? The market is constantly in motion, big companies swallow up their competitors, hide behind other names, outsource certain activities. They collect our data and face us with their logos everywhere in the city, which they consider to be their property.
Because it should not be enough for us to follow the waves of uprisings going around the world from a distance and to look for suitable solidarity actions for them each time anew, we propose to collect information about the enemies of freedom and to spread them in such a way that it becomes known everywhere. This means to use not only the publications of the militant scene but all means, such as graffiti, posters, video rallies and other accessible media to denounce these actors of capitalist barbarism. In order to then attack them worldwide, whether in campaigns or out of the blue and without apparent cause. Continue reading “Booklet pdf: Targets that exist everywhere – a strategic proposal for building a common front against the profiteers of war and repression”
We find ourselves in the midst of a settler empire decaying and fracturing at a tempo it cannot handle. But it will not fall on its own. To play our part in subverting this monstrosity, to aid the Palestinian Resistance and armed insurgencies across the Third World, Anti-Colonial Action Brigade (ACAB) vandalized a u.s. Bank branch in so-called ‘minneapolis’ early morning Friday November 24. We spraypainted ‘FREE PALESTINE,’ ‘LAND BACK,’ ‘ACAB,’ ‘FUCK ZIONISM,’ ‘F12,’ FREE GAZA,’ ‘STOP THE KILLING IN GAZA,’ ‘FUCK u.s. BANK’ ‘DEATH TO AMERIKA,’ and smashed one window.
Headquartered on these occupied Dakota lands, u.s. Bank functions as a key financier of the settler-imperialist order—profiting from the subjugation of entire nations from Pine Ridge to Ayiti to Palestine, reinforcing the bloodsucking racial regime of capital, enriching and subsidizing the parasitic existence of the euro-amerikan masses.
We hope to see direct actions against u.s. Bank and other colonial-capitalist entities expand and escalate. We understand these activities alone are not enough to bring imperialism to its knees, but we believe they serve as a necessary first step in introducing disorder, with the ultimate aim of unsettling and demolishing the very machinery of genocidal settlerism. Decolonization is, after all, a program of complete disorder.
We take to heart the words of Amilcar Cabral: “The main aspect of our solidarity is extremely simple: it is to fight.”
We encourage all our siblings and comrades across movements and struggles, across tendencies and ideologies, across continents and oceans, to respond decisively to Abu Obeida’s call to “inflict pain and confusion on the rogue enemy state wherever the occupation’s interests are found.”
In the spirit of Little Crow and the warriors of the Dakota Uprising—who went on the offensive against european invaders more than 160 years ago—we must never waver in confronting the structures of euro-colonial rule. We must combine a unshakeable drive for liberation with a righteous desire for vengeance. Our willingness to attack now and prepare for protracted struggle, together that will determine if we are up to the task of defeating this slaveocratic settler empire and its murderous zionist spawn.
For the anonymous millions buried in mass graves from the ‘midwest’ to the ‘mideast,’ we must destroy settler society. Let us create the conditions for two, three, many Al-Aqsa Floods to flourish and drown the imperialist metropolis once and for all.
Glory to the martyrs of Palestine.
Avenge the Dakota 38.
Victory to Indigenous Resistance Everywhere.
—Anti-Colonial Action Brigade
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Reeves Young – pulled 2022
Boyette Brothers Equipment Rental Service – pulled 2022
Quality Glass Company – pulled 2023
Atlas/Long Engineering – pulled 2023
Ernst Concrete – pulled 2023
Currently the contractors/subcontractors involved that I would like to bring attention to is:
Brassfield and Gorrie
Nationwide
Brent Scarbrough & Company
Accident Fund General Insurance Company
Thomas Concrete
These contractors are the ones directly responsible for whether or not the police training facility is built.
It is useful to think of actions against targets that do not exist anywhere else, that are beyond the struggle to stop cop city, and to think of what we want of our lives, our impacts, what we are attempting in our lifetime.
“The difference between material damage and symbolic intervention, after all, is not usually the amount of damage caused. Even if there are exceptions, of course. Rather, the question is whether an attack succeeds in paralyzing authority for a while.”
– Targets That Do Not Exist Anywhere Else – Zundlappen
READ – Targets That Do Not Exist Anywhere Else
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Dressed in our silly little costumes and wigs, our small crew set out for a night of Halloween fun. In the spirit of the season, we treated ourselves and tricked our local Cop City contractors. Upon meetup we broke the ice with some drinks, a well placed wheatpasted flyer for Block Cop City, and a few tags in a dark alley. Then we headed to our first target, Cop City architects LS3P.
After a nice little hike, stopping only for a few more wheatpastes along the busy streets and swigs from our Halloween juice jug, we had arrived. The streets were rife with costumed individuals, bar hopping and enjoying themselves. Noting the busy traffic, we took a lap around the block, waiting for the right balance of opening and cover. Seizing an opportunity, we came to a stop in front of the door, seemingly a small group of friends discussing which bar they’d stop at next. We left our message on their door – it read “MURDERERS” – and off we sauntered, blending back in with the crowds, through alleys and across streets, well away before a bystander drew attention to the artwork. Another drink, another alley, another wheatpaste, another tag, another walk, and so begins the second chapter.
We arrived at Cadence Bank, on a more deserted street than the prior target. An opportunity. We began by tagging the side of the building in big bold font – “1312” and “Stop Cop City” – before circling around the building and to the drive up ATM. Deciding to experiment with this method of disruption, we let our scouts keep watch for pigs, and went to work. A thick glob of wheat paste laid over the screen of the ATM, slapping on another BCC flyer and another thick layer to top it off. Didn’t mind the atm camera filming our costumes. (We later learned that the ATM was down for at least a solid 24 hours.) We decorated a few more streets and alleys with flyers, paint, and stop sign stickers (making the signs read “STOP Cop City”), a few stickers over the city’s parking terminal screens, and eventually rolled to a stop for cigarettes, more Halloween juice, and thoughts of next moves.
Our final target, a large office building containing Nationwide offices. We scoped out the scene: pigs patrolling, potential unmarked vehicle with a driver and passenger inside. Opting to remain as discreet as possible, we slipped into the employee parking lot and went to work. We left our mark in paint, illustrating Nationwide’s service to Cop City, keeping their neighbors informed, and serving as our proverbial “warning shot” – “Stop Cop City” “Drop the contract” – And off we went.
Thus concluded our Halloween party. Halloween won’t come again for another year, but there are costume parties all year long. We reminded them that we’re here and we know where they are. Stay tuned.
– Savannah
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
ADMIN UPDATE: The fire investigators ruled that the fire started in the attic as an electrical fire.
“On Thursday, Bankhead released some of the investigation’s findings. He said the State Fire Marshals Office determined that an electrical fault in the conduit near the entrance to the home caused the fire.
Therefore, officials have determined it was not arson.” –We will not be removing this post because we believe that the spirits of the dead were showing their rage. We believe that the rage of people who were forced in chattel slavery sent a smoke signal beyond their graves in the form of a shorted electrical current. An electrical current is the most common way that ghosts make their presence known. We stand in unwavering solidarity with the ghosts who used the mystical power they channeled to enact their revenge to remove this horrid atrocity. We believe that no living being had a hand in this occurrence, but we all should take time to thank the negative energy coming forth beyond the grave.
A Civil War-era mansion in Georgia that was once a 1,000-acre plantation and home to slaves has been gutted and completely destroyed by a huge fire overnight.
The Davis House, previously known as the Dickey House, was built in the 1840s and served as a plantation – but it went up in flames between 2am and 3am this morning.
The historic 180-year-old seven-bay mansion is located in Stone Mountain Park, DeKalb County. Multiple fire crews arrived at the scene to put out the raging blaze.
Following the fire, the park’s police force have said the home is a ‘total loss.’
The cause of the fire remains under investigation – but it’s believed that the devastating fire was started in the attic or other upper parts of the home.
Police spokesperson John Bankhead told the Atlanta Journal: ‘Given the damage to the home, it’s irreparable. There’s not much we can do about it.’
“A centerpiece of a recreated antebellum plantation.”
Park police spokesperson John Bankhead said: ‘Everything in there represents the 1800s. It’s all antiques. It’s just a historic representation of the 1860s.’
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
The following was written by an anarchist not in Atlanta who has been follwing Stop Cop City closely, but not contributing much. Take it for what it’s worth.
Despite the (lack of) final result, the organizers of the Block Cop City demo did do a few things right. Their celebrated 80-something city speaking tour was straight out of the old summit hopping playbook, and did a lot to raise awareness of the mobilization. And despite rumors to the contrary, BCC had a robust legal support structure in place, although it didn’t end up having much to do. BCC’s voluminous rhetoric even convinced the cops to halt construction at the site for a day, although they might not have bothered if they’d known how harmless the action would be. That’s about it, though. After months of planning, organizing, and speaking appearances, a few hundred people marched toward the Cop City construction site, were met by a massive wall of cops, made a brief but valiant attempt to push their way through, were repelled, and called it a day. If it weren’t for a few unannounced and spontaneously organized acts of resistance, the entire week would have been a complete bust.
Starting with tactics, it’s obvious from videos of the march that somebody anticipated some potential difficulty in getting to the construction site. Two reinforced banners were prominently placed at the front, followed by a cluster of umbrellas, equipment that would hardly have been necessary if marchers thought they could just stroll on to the site and immediately lock themselves to something. The banners worked pretty well, for all the good that did. As the march approached the riot line, the banner-holders formed a wedge and and unhesitatingly charged the cops, backed by the full weight of the marchers behind them. This avoided the classic mistake of rearward marchers hanging back and expecting the front line to do all the work against cops twice their size. The riot cops held their ground for a few seconds, shoulders pressed against the banners, but were shoved back. For a moment it looked like the march was breaking through, but then a tear gas grenade went off in the middle.
An opportunity was wasted here. The cops weren’t prepared for their own gas and retreated hastily to pull on masks – but the march, inexplicably, wasn’t prepared for it either. Instead of advancing triumphantly through the haze, masks firmly affixed to every face, the march froze, with marchers retreating back down the road or dispersing into the woods on either side. Why, if they knew they would need reinforced banners, didn’t BCC organizers also hand out respirators, and even splurge on a couple leaf blowers? Maybe they blew the rest of their budget on the giant puppets? Regardless, even an N95 mask and a pair of shop class goggles for every participant would have let the march advance another few yards, and put it in a better position to resist whatever else the cops had in store. They still wouldn’t have gotten much further, especially since they had no reinforced banners on the sides of the march, but the oversight still seems odd.
We shouldn’t focus on tactics to the detriment of strategy, however. That march’s worst problem wasn’t a lack of PPE, it was that the cops had known it was coming for weeks. After the debacle in March, the last thing the Georgia State Patrol was going to do was allow themselves to be put in a position where they might have to close a gate. When the enemy knows what you want to do, misdirection is essential, but BCC organizers refused to do any. It wasn’t for lack of options. They could have pulled the classic heist movie trick of going a day early – calling the demo for Tuesday and instead invading the construction site on Monday. They could have chosen a different target while all the cops were concentrated near the forest. Maybe the Atlanta Journal-Constitution building? They could at least have attempted to infiltrate lockdown teams on to the site from the back while the march distracted the cops.
Introduction
Make no mistake. Block Cop City was a defeat. Nobody gained entry to the site, in spite of what organizers said. Construction on the project, while halted for two days, continues today. The state used its power to ensure that the construction site would be safe.
But it wasn’t a failure. It wasn’t crushed. The resistance continues. We are closer to achieving our long term goals, in spite of that particular short term goal not being reached. Because of some good planning, organizing, and discipline, there were no injuries and only one arrest. We live to fight another day. The Jail support resources aren’t overstretched. And most importantly, a better future was envisaged.
Whether it was the plan of the organizers or in spite of the organizers, a huge number of fresh-faced, new antifascists who came to Atlanta to participate in this action now have some experience and some tools available to them to take more radical action safely at home. The effects of this will spread across the country.
Those who answered the call and came left with experience and training in how to organize as affinity groups, come to group consensus, and imagine alternate structures of power and decision making. While the day’s objective wasn’t achieved, we can use the lessons from the weekend to build stronger resistance. The state has declared war on us. The more organized we are, the better we can fight back.
Participant Reflections
One Participant, an Atlanta resident, had this to say when asked about the Block Cop City weekend:
There were aspects of this recent action that were well thought out and executed and other things not so much. I feel like the spokes-council model was very useful in organizing smaller affinity groups into a larger movement and would like to see more of that general dynamic in future events.
Something that tends to happen in autonomous action is that there ends up being a ‘vanguard’ or inner circle at the core which can limit the scope of who is able to meaningfully contribute to the direction of an action because it creates a hierarchy. At spokescouncil it felt like this at times because it was primarily a small group of speakers who directed the entire block cop city movement. at times this lead to dismissal of certain concerns which were brought up by AGs.
During the action itself, the group of marchers stayed in a solid formation, having practiced the night before on how to not get broken up by linking arms and resisting police violence. Along with this, the organization of the whole crowd was as follows: blue group at the front leading the march, purple in the middle with puppets, and orange in the back with medics and if/when the march turned around they would lead. I feel like that was a good way to organize because it allowed people to know where to be and how to prepare for each segment of the formation.
One thing that was not good is how the front of blue was told their banners were reinforced, but when police in riot gear attacked the front, the banners immediately came off their frames and those without body protection were possibly injured, facing the brunt of force along with the formation behind them still moving. If people are to be involved nonviolently with actions such as block cop city, it is necessary to fully prepare them for state violence and how to protect themselves.
The Block Cop City Organizers claimed that action would be autonomous, and yet they made choices in advance about how the action would be organized. Some concerns were raised about those choices, but sometimes concerns were dismissed. By self-appointing themselves organizers, Block Cop City created a hierarchy in its organizing that may have led to some of the failures of the march itself.
A street medic who provided support to the march was critical of the way consensus was handled in the spokes-councils and how the event itself went:
A lesson for future actions of this nature and size should be to allow people time to rest in the process. I don’t know everyone’s reasoning, but the March that reached the line was about a third of the size of the March that left the park, and I spoke to a few folks who mentioned that they stopped marching and turned back less than halfway because they just didn’t have an ounce of energy left to keep up. The days leading up to it ran a lot of folks ragged.
Things did not go as wrong as they very realistically could have, and I fear that that is going to lull people into a sense of security, and that they’re going to let success(?) blind them from correcting mistakes.
There were giant gaps in the march as they made contact with the line, because when the message to slow down reached the front, someone brushed it off announcing “Don’t listen to the medics, they are predisposed to panic”
In the blue spokes meeting, I was the only person who voted for a lower threshold than we settled on. Everybody else agreed on the threshold of [keep pushing forward until officers fire live rounds.] When the blue spokes joined the rest of the spokes, there were several people who spoke up in opposition to that agreement, but there were more people defending it and we ended up maintaining it by consensus. That is a decision that I don’t believe was communicated to people who only showed up for the action, not for any of the spokes council stuff- people who may have showed up because they saw a poster the day before advertising the action.
That’s why my AG kind of dissolved, and why I jumped in as a marked medic. There were quite a few of us who were bracing ourselves for the very real potential of a mass casualty incident. And I think that there were a lot of people in the crowd who might even now have no idea that a lot of us saw that potential.
There were also people in the very front who kept pushing in that riot line until they genuinely believed that officers had fired live rounds. If you watch the videos, an officer raises a shotgun and fakes kick back as a munition goes off and then lowers it. Super close after, two other officers come forward with long guns and one of them throws a stinger flash bang, which sends tiny rubber balls flying in all directions and sounds like a gunshot, and that is when the crowd truly scattered from the line.
Somebody distinctly claimed that they saw the shotgun go up and kept pushing until that point.
A driver and AG representative for the spokescouncils was also critical of the hierarchy the organizers created, but praised how well driving to and from the scene was handled:
There were certain roles during spokes that were more organized than others. For those who wanted to be drivers and shuttle protesters, there was a signal chat to do so without having to meet in person. The admin of this chat ran a tight ship.
They created an exhaustive list of directions and further divied up the AG into four groups called North, South, East and West. Drivers assigned to a certain region after dropping off protesters were put on standby within the area given and sent pickup requests by the admin. The admin would receive a text from a protester needing a ride, and depending on their location that request got transferred to the appropriate group chat for drivers to respond to. Everything went smoothly, despite people getting pulled over, no arrests were made and evac was never an issue during the day of action.
The only issue for me, however, was the illusion of “community agreements”. During the spokes council they said the AGs would decide but after the second day they were the same as the opening speech given on the first day. I heard some people mumbling during breakout clusters who exactly agreed and set these ‘agreements’, but those voices weren’t there when needed. An air of confusion permiated behind the scenes
The majority of those who spoke up during the day were in support of tactics limited to non-violence so that BIPOC wouldn’t get arrested. I felt that due to these sentiments, people were afraid to speak up and have a repeat of what happened during the last week of action in March. So instead the speakers assumed consensus surrounding non-violence, and made no ammendments to the agreements leading up to the day of action.
Conclusion: Unanswered Questions But a Clear Path Ahead Continue reading “Participant Reflections on Block Cop City”
On the night of November 13th we set fire to 6 Ernst Concrete trucks at 553 Seaboard Industrial Drive. Ernst is pouring the foundation for Cop City. This site, like so many others, is completely unguarded.
Front-pouring cement mixing trucks have large rear engine compartments which can be accessed without opening any doors. We placed incendiary devices and kindling near the engine block, the fuel tank behind it, and the double rear tires. We encourage further experimentation with incindiary placement.
There was a time when contractors were afraid to take on this project. If we can make the cost of the contract greater than the profit, they will drop it. Sneaking around at night is fun and burning shit is cool.
Below is the full list of Ernst sites sourced from ernstconcrete.com/locations
North Atlanta
Ball Ground Plant
960 Old Nelson Rd
Ball Ground, GA 30107
Dawsonville Plant
378 W Hightower Dr
Dawsonville, GA 30534
Kennesaw Plant
1475 Lockhart Dr
Kennesaw, GA 30144
Lithia Springs Plant
7699 North County Line Rd
Lithia Springs GA 30122
East/South Atlanta
College Park Plant
502 Lees Mill Rd
College Park, GA 30349
Jefferson Plant
220 New Salem Church Rd
Jefferson, GA 30549
Lawrenceville Plant
Emerald Eagle Transport
540 Seaboard Industrial Dr
Lawrenceville, GA 30045
Lithonia Plant
7535 Rock Mountain Rd
Lithonia, GA 30058
Monroe Plant
2006 Leroy Anderson Dr
Monroe, GA 30655
Indiana
Portland Plant
1125 W. Water St
Portland, IN 47371
Richmond Plant
5390 Indiana 121
Richmond, IN 47374
Winchester Plant
1031 Old Highway 27
Winchester, IN 47394
Northern Kentucky
Hebron Plant
1593 Youell Rd
Hebron, KY 41048
Walton Plant
291 Stephenson Mill Rd
Walton, KY 41094
Louisville
Crestwood Plant
5800 Haunz Lane
Louisville, KY 40241
Downtown Louisville Plant
4121 Algonquin Pkwy
Louisville, KY 40211
Sellersburg Plant
4710 Utica Sellersburg Rd
Sellersburg, IN, 47172
Shepherdsville Plant
3260 N Preston Hwy
Shepherdsville, KY 40165
Lima
Bluffton Plant
390 Quarry Rd
Bluffton, OH 45817
Lima Plant
377 S. Central Ave
Lima, OH 45804
Wapakoneta Plant
12201 Wapa Freyburg Rd
Wapakoneta, OH 45895
Dayton/Springfield
Bellbrook (Sugarcreek) Plant
Ernst Concrete Building Supplies
2181 Ferry Rd
Bellbrook, OH 45305
Fairborn Plant
5325 Medway Rd
Fairborn, OH 45324
Germantown Plant
9411 Sugar St
Germantown, OH 45327
Springfield Plant
1020 Mitchell Blvd
Springfield, OH 45503
Troy Plant
805 S. Union St
Troy, OH 45373
West Carrollton Plant
4710 Soldiers Home W Carrollton Rd
Miamisburg, OH 45449
Greater Cincinnati
Batavia Plant
4212 Curliss Rd
Batavia, OH, 45103
Camp Dennison Plant
8151 Glendale Milford Rd
Camp Dennison, OH 45111
8th Street Plant
1450 W. 8th St
Cincinnati, OH 45203
Fairfield Plant
107 River Circle
Fairfield, OH 45014
Harrison Plant
7340 Dry Fork
Harrison, OH 45030
Lebanon Plant
4250 Columbia Rd
Lebanon, OH 45036
Lockland Plant
607 Shepherd Lane
Lockland, OH 45215
Middletown Plant 81
2504 S. Main St
Middletown, OH 45044
Middletown Plant 408
4714 Oxford State Rd
Middletown, OH 45044
Greater Columbus
Delaware Plant
450 Curtis St
Delaware, OH 43015
Stimmel Road Plant
711 A Stimmel Rd
Columbus, OH 43223
Truro Station Plant
4252 Truro Station Svc Rd
Columbus, OH 43232
Wilson Road Plant
569 N. Wilson Rd
Columbus, OH 43204
Chillicothe
Chillicothe Plant
689 Marietta Rd
Chillicothe, OH 45601
Circleville Plant
8648 US Highway 23N
Circleville, OH 43113
Piketon Plant
4245 US Highway 23
Piketon, OH 45661
Washington Court House Plant
1865 Old US Highway 23
Washington Court House, OH 43160
Submitted Anonymously Over Email
Last night we dropped a banner in downtown Ann Arbor reading “Free Palestine, Stop Cop City” in solidarity with the Block Cop City Week of Action and with Palestinians everywhere.
The genocide of Palestinians is directly supported by the Atlanta Police Foundation and all cops defending it. These two struggles are connected. The unmitigated violence of Cop City as well as the IDF will be brought “home” to be used against us if the need arises. No to settler colonialism, no to cop city!
We also improved a local police monument by hoisting a black flag reading “ACAB” in place of some thin blue line trash, to make them mad and make us laugh.
Love and rage to everyone throwing down to stop cop city, and to everyone fighting for life against domination.
Originally Posted On Unsalted Counter Info
Federal authorities are investigating suspicious letters sent to election offices in five states – Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Georgia.
The FBI said that “in at least four instances, preliminary tests … indicated the presence of fentanyl,” according to a bulletin disseminated to state and local law enforcement and obtained by News.
An image of one of the letters obtained by News indicates the intent was to “end elections now.”
“We are in charge now and there is no more need for them,” the letter reads.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement Thursday that envelopes containing “unknown powdery substances” were discovered Wednesday by election workers in several counties, prompting evacuations of those offices.
An initial test of a white powdery substance in one envelope that was sent to the county elections office tested positive for fentanyl, the Spokane Police Department said.’
Another letter sent to an election office in Washington state had a substance that tested positive for baking soda, not fentanyl, Officer Shelbie Boyd of the Tacoma Police Department told News. The state will take it to a lab for additional testing.
Chris Loftis, the director of communications for Washington State Patrol, said a state bomb squad that responded to an election office in Pierce County on Wednesday found a message advising that the intent of the letter was to “stop the election.”
In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed that election workers in Fulton County were sent a suspicious letter and that no other counties in the state appear to have been targeted.
The letter was intercepted before it arrived at the election office, Raffensperger said at a press conference. No motive has been determined, he said.
“We’re working with our state and federal partners to determine if any additional Georgia officials are being targeted,” Raffensperger said in a statement earlier. “Domestic terrorists will not trample on our right to free and fair elections.”
A Fulton County spokesperson said no additional information was immediately available.
In Lane County, Oregon, officials also temporarily closed an election office on Wednesday after a suspicious piece of mail arrived, a county spokeswoman told News.
“Certainly it’s somber today,” county spokeswoman Devon Ashbridge told News. “I can’t imagine coming to work and realizing that someone at minimum wanted to terrorize you and potentially harm you. We’re doing what we can to support our staff.”
While the incident in Oregon did not impact any election deadlines, Ashbridge said the office closure did delay ballot counting.
Officials in California also confirmed Thursday to News that the Postal Service “intercepted two suspicious envelopes headed to local election facilities,” but have not yet determined the contents of that mail.
Additionally, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the FBI are investigating a letter containing an unknown substance that was sent to the Attorney General of Texas’ office, according to law enforcement. Initial tests on the substance came back negative, officials said Thursday.
Authorities did not say if the letter sent to the Texas AG is connected to the ones from other states.
Threats to election workers have become more frequent in recent years, prompting a troubling exodus from their ranks in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.
A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement Thursday, “We are aware of the reports and the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are investigating this matter. We have no further comment at this time.”
FBI offices in Atlanta and Spokane confirmed that they were collaborating with local law enforcement to investigate the incidents.
“FBI Seattle, along with our law enforcement partners, responded to multiple incidents involving suspicious letters sent to ballot counting centers in Washington state,” the office said. “As this is an ongoing matter, we do not have any further comment but the public can be assured that law enforcement will continue to keep the public’s safety as its top priority.”
The agency’s main office said it is also investigating the incidents but didn’t comment further citing the ongoing investigation.
“The public can be assured that law enforcement will continue to keep the public’s safety as its top priority,” the FBI said in a statement. “The FBI would also like to remind everyone to exercise care in handling mail, especially from unrecognized senders.”
Submitted From Mainstream News