Being the Bigger Brother

By Nathaniel Mayer

This morning, like most mornings, began with me waking up in terror. No way could we be living in an era where the Truth is silenced at every turn, but look at these new laws saying we can’t videotape police anymore. Isn’t that how the savage beating of Rodney King was reported to the world? Is the First Amendment being fisted by the government into oblivion? How can we not be allowed to film the same police that are supposed to be here to “protect and serve”?

I have only recently been able to tap into the power and resources of the internet as a forum, just as it is being warped into a controlled and censored security grid. I feel like a 14-year-old virgin boy showing up too late for some sort of ecstasy-fueled teen orgy and it’s getting broken up by the cops just as I’m slipping my belt off. Internet journalists are working on borrowed time right now and video is one of our last tools for Truth.  Just YouTube “asshole cop” and you’ll catch a glimpse of what power the web can have in broadcasting our police with dozens of uploaded videos displaying our government at its most sinister. The power of video can expose any injustice these rabid foot soldiers dish out against the people.

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Interview with a Grower

By Nathaniel Mayer

In a few weeks, Californians will decide if marijuana will be decriminalized and made legal to cultivate under Proposition 19. A majority of California’s people believe Prop. 19 should pass in November according to a recent poll by the “Public Policy Institute of California”. There are other multiple polls that are indicating it will be voted in by at least a slim 3%-6% margin. It may come as a surprise though, that many people who currently are involved in the growing and selling of Medical Marijuana are not proponents of Prop. 19. These people are currently working within this new “Grey Market” are getting by just fine without things getting mucked up by changing the rules all over again.

I spoke with one expert Northern California grower who says he will be voting “No” on Prop19 and may be leaving town for good if it passes. “It won’t be worth it anymore”, he explains. He sees the proverbial writing on the wall and he’s cashing in his metaphorical chips. He’s been growing weed for over a decade and now this seasoned Dr. Greenthumb is taking The Pineapple Express out of The Emerald Triangle.

Alright, that’s enough colorful imagery. I actually don’t believe he’s ever voted before in his life. His kind has to stay off the radar in order to survive. He can remain abrasively quick-witted while sloppy drunk (he’s talked his way out of several D.U.I.s) and I’ve seen him charm hugs out of lesbian mothers in their late forties while he pounded a fifth of Stolichnaya.  He has no formal education to speak of, but his keen intuition and street smarts will keep him alive as long has his toxin-abused internal organs will last. He’s an old friend of mine which is the only reason he would speak me about his barely-legal vocation.

Mosque ado about Nothing

By Nathaniel Mayer

I’m putting this thing to bed now.  It needs to stop.  The “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy is a bait and switch tactic being used by mainstream media and our government to take our attention away from the issues that really matter. They would rather have us focus on trivial nonsense.  After all, this is an election year and if we’re “withdrawing” from Iraq than we need some reason to go deeper into Afghanistan.  So, I am putting the final nail in this coffin, getting the facts in order, and we’ll agree never to discuss this nonsense again.

The new 15 story building at Park51 is to be a hub of worship, culture, and education. The Cordoba Initiatives’ plan is to create a place where people of all can work in harmony and enjoy their community. The Cordoba House (funded partially by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf), named after the Spanish City, is supposed to invoke a “model for peaceful existence” between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Daisy Khan, executive director of the project said, “It’s going to be a place not only for Muslim activity, but interfaith activity of the highest order… Most of the resistance we’ve encountered has been from people who don’t know the Muslim community”. Khan went on to say, “It’s just fear of the unknown, and it’s our job to approach and reach out to those people, and try to show them what our community and what our message is really all about”.

2012 RNC Press Release

Tampa Bay Action Group Announces Opposition to the 2012 RNC in Tampa Bay Florida, Reclaims Tea Party’s Anti-Imperialist Legacy of Property Destruction

Contact: tampabayactiongroup2012rnc@gmail.com
Website: http://no2012rnc.blogspot.com

July 2, 2010–Tampa Bay, Florida–The Tampa Action Group (TBAG), a decentralized collective of anarchists and neo-maroons from across the urban and swampy reaches of Florida, has begun organizing to confront the Republican National Convention when it arrives in Tampa Bay, Florida in August of 2012. “We intend to shut the event down. The Republicans, like their Democratic counterparts, have carried on the tradition of wholesale exploitation of the planet, costing the lives of millions of people and other critters for the sake of profit, greed, and consumerism. The powers that be have left us with war, deforestation, exploitation and a techno-dystopia far worse (and especially far more boring) than any sci-fi book could foretell. We promise to confront them in the streets of Tampa Bay armed with the ferocity of a swamp panther in heat,” said Barley Barber, a self described leftneck alligator whisperer and feminist philosopher from the bottom-lands of South Florida. “Where we once had biodiversity sits a strip mall with an army recruiting office and a doughnut shop full of cops. That’s enough to fill any gal with a hint of life in her with piss and vinegar.”

Another member of the group Clinton Tyree has called for an all out human barricade of the streets of Tampa Bay. “I’m tired of the right-wing fat cats who live in cookie-cutter suburban homes and work as advertising reps in mind-numbing cubicles calling themselves tea party protesters. The tea party was all about destroying the commodities of the imperialists in order to overthrow the imperialists. These idiots are the ruling class. We are gonna take back the legacy from these whimpering bourgeois racists and make property destruction sexy again!”

While the RNC 8 face felony charges for organizing against the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Tampa Bay Action Group takes hope from their fight against the repression of police state tactics. We continue to believe that creating a space to directly confront the world’s oppressors (and their investors, and puppet heads, and apologists) is a key to opening the doors to liberation.

xxx

All Out Against the 2010 Winter Olympic Games!

The 2010 Winter Olympics will take place in Vancouver & Whistler, on unceded Indigenous land, from February 12-28 2010. We call on all anti-capitalist, Indigenous, housing rights, labour, migrant justice, environmental, anti-war, community-loving, anti-poverty, civil libertarian, and anti colonial activists to come together to confront this two-week circus and the oppression it represents. We are organizing towards a global anti-capitalist and anti-colonial convergence against the 2010 Olympic Games.

BASIC SCHEDULE: The basic plan thus far is: – Conference and People’s Summit on Wed Feb 10- Thurs Feb 11 – Fri Feb 12: Take Back Our City! “Welcome” the 2010 Olympic Torch with Free Games, Free Speech, and Free Food! Beginning with a festival at the Vancouver Art Gallery at 3 pm, followed by a parade and protest to BC Place Stadium. Details, including childcare arrangements, at: 2010welcoming.wordpress.com

Read more at subMedia…

Neither One State Nor Two States But No States

Image by Carlos Latuff

Editor’s note: This statement was released around this time last year from the Manchester branch of the Anarchist Federation on the Gaza war, but it continues to remain relevant today and cuts to the core of something we must be clear on: just exactly what it is we, as anarchists and revolutionaries, stand in solidarity with when we stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza and Palestine. Thus, we felt it was worth republishing at this time, as food for thought. We must not whitewash the realities of authoritarian extremism on both “sides” of the “conflict.” As the statement says, whoever dies, both the State of Israel and the Palestinian extremists win. We must also remember that there is strong evidence of collusion between Mossad (Israeli intelligence) and many Palestinian extremists, and Mossad agents themselves have been known to don Palestinian attire and conduct black op false flag attacks. This all serves to de-legitimate and marginalize militant yet non-extremist grassroots resistance from below on the part of both Palestinians and Israelis, many of whom seek to work together towards peace and reconciliation.

Statement from the Manchester branch of the Anarchist Federation on the Gaza war

One thing is absolutely clear about the current situation in Gaza: the Israeli state is committing atrocities which must end immediately. With hundreds dead and thousands wounded, it has become increasingly clear that the aim of the military operation, which has been in the planning stages since the signing of the original ceasefire in June, is to break Hamas completely. The attack follows the crippling blockade throughout the supposed ‘ceasefire’, which has destroyed the livelihoods of Gazans, ruined the civilian infrastructure and created a humanitarian disaster which anyone with an ounce of humanity would seek an end to.

But that’s not all there is to say about the situation. On both sides of the conflict, the idea that opposing Israel has to mean supporting Hamas and its ‘resistance’ movement is worryingly common. We totally reject this argument.

O Canada, the home of native lands

By David Sugar

While it is funny at first to hear a nation filled with squatters singing of their “native land”, the humor wore off a long time ago. One really has to have a good idea of what is happening in the real Kanienkehaka, in indigenous Canada, and particularly the Haudenosaune lands, to fully comprehend what is today the British dominion of Canada.

First it is essential to consider that while there is a “government”, it is essentially the colonial caretaker of what is claimed to be the Queen’s “property”. Recent colonial administrations, such as the present Harper government, are actively trying to sell the land and resources, including so called “human resources”, of a privately instituted and legally registered holding company, “Canada Inc”, to other private companies. Imagine living by a lake and finding one day you, your house, and the lake you fish at are now the private property of a corporation, a modern form of direct slavery. The one inconvenient problem with all this is that the lands of British Canada is actually held under what is called “Aboriginal Title”, and hence the original inhabitants, and not, as claimed, by the crown.

Resistance Spreads Like Wildfire

Last month Guerrilla News brought you “Is America Already a Police State? An incomplete overview of police state legislation, domestic military deployment, and other fascist developments in the United States,” an article originally published on the now-closed Guerrilla News Network website. That article was in turn a follow-up to two previous articles published on GNN.tv by the same author surveying the global economic crisis and the revolts that accompanied its first phases. Below are both articles, combined into one, archived here for posterity, in chronological order of publication. As you can see from the embedded links, the decision on the part of the GNN™ owners to shut the site down effectively cut off access to vast swaths of information, which is truly a shame. In the coming days, your friendly local Guerrilla News editor will comb through the links and attempt to alter them to accessible sources. Thank you for your patience and patronage. Words are weapons. Write like war.

Jeff Luers is FREE!

(Wed, 12/16/09)

Dear Friends,

This morning in Portland, Oregon, Jeff walked out of prison a free man. We have a press release of information available here.

But there’s really not much else to say because we are too busy celebrating! Join us in the celebration! You helped make this possible, you helped Jeff make it through the most difficult time in his life. And now, he can start a new life and finally see the sunrise and sunset, hold hands, and hike in the forest, among everything else we take for granted.

Denver anarchist held without bail in Copenhagen: Call for Solidarity!

From our comrades at the Denver Anarchist Black Cross:

Today we learned that an anarchist comrade and dear friend of ours has been arrested on two charges at the ongoing Cop15 actions in Copenhagen, Denmark and will be held without possibility of bail for at least three weeks. Solidarity in the form of letters of support (free to send), as well as legal donations, is urgently needed.

Noah “Rockslide” of Denver, Colorado moved to Copenhagen several months ago and has been active in the organizing of resistance to the Cop 15 Summit. He has been arrested and charged with two counts (one is the Danish equivalent of a felony, the other a misdemeanor): Violence Towards Police and Disturbing the Public Peace. He is being held on remand at a jail outside Copenhagen awaiting a preliminary hearing on Jan 4th 2009, when he will be able make a petition for his release. It is possible that this preliminary hearing could be his trial, though this is unexpected because they normally take longer to prepare and the courts will be on holiday because of Christmas.