Proud to have a friend who is putting their newly learned Arabic to good use, scribing “Jewish solidarity with Palestinians” alongside “Jewish anarchists for a free Palestine” on a banner for a demo today in a city many hundreds of miles away—and circling their A (“alef” for us Jews) with a pomegranate, a symbol that could be read as bringing together the beautiful seeds of various diasporic peoples into a wholeness.

Touched, too, to have this friend who lovingly thinks to share their banner creation with me—even if for now, while we’re far apart, it can only be via a texted photo.

Our solidarity can and should know no borders, whether we’re in the streets for each other openly decrying the violence of states, nationalism, and fascism as well as openly proclaiming freedom for all, or sustaining our rebellious connections in innumerable smaller ways, including friendship.

#FreePalestine
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#HateFascismLoveYourFriends
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife

Tomorrow is the second bond hearing for the nearly two-dozen people snatched by cops from a music festival in Weelaunee Forest on March 6, jailed ever since, and charged with “domestic terrorism” for caring about this planet and all of its inhabitants. May our hearts and solidarity be with all the arrestees and their many loved ones and supporters on what may be an extra stressful day.

Defend the codefendants.

Defend the earth.

@defendATLforest

Donate toward the long solidarity struggle ahead against this state repression. Contribute to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund at http://www.atlsolidarity.org.

#AllCourtsAreBrutal
#AllCopsAreBad
#DropTheCharges
#StopCopCity
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: One of many, many #ACAB tags spotted on the wintery, inching toward springlike, streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal)

Bash back is back!

I’m not an organizer of this. I’m just enthused to share, including because of the queer+trans-deadly fascist climate these days, and how much we need to love, protect, and stick side by side with each other.

As the organizers describe in this infographic, “Fifteen years from the original gathering, Chicago will host the 2023 Bash Back convergence from September 8th-11th. Comrades, old and new, are invited to discuss what’s still vital in the past and what’s needed in the present. In keeping with tradition, the convergence will include presentations, workshops, distro tables, parties, and assorted other opportunities to make trouble.”

They continue, “If you are interested in attending, especially if you’d like to propose programming or tabling, please email us and introduce yourself at: bashback2023 [at] riseup [dot] net. Please send all proposals by June 20th.”

For updates, including the full text, see
https://bashback.info/.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

The good folks at @detritus.books said it well yesterday as heavily armed police attacked a music festival for @stopcopcity, arresting numerous people: “One doesn’t have to be in Atlanta tonight to fight cop city. In this world, cop city is everywhere.”

Which is also why—besides basic good solidarity—folks in this world should be concerned about the heavy state repression being waged against Defend the Atlanta Forest; it too is or will be everywhere. For the more that forest defenders and water protectors and abolitionists and those defending bodily autonomy or defying evictions increasingly capture the imagination and grow resistance, the more the state, in allyship with its cops and courts, will up the ante of its brutal tactics.

Last night in Atlanta, 23 people scooped up by the cops were charged with domestic terrorism—this time, for the crime of listening and dancing to music in the Weelaunee Forest. They join 19 other defendants who were also charged with domestic terrorism recently for the crime of caring about and communing with trees—bringing the total to 42.

This tactic, if at all successful, won’t stay put in one city. It’s already sent Jessica Reznicek behind bars for trying to defend this earth in another struggle (see and support @freejessrez). Hence the need, wherever we are, to make sure collective solidarity beats out statist violence. Every time. Everywhere.

Unfortunately, another tool in the state’s arsenal is exorbitant bond/bail fees as part of the exorbitant charges. So our solidarity has to be both immaterial and material.

Materially, hundreds of thousands are needed to bond out and defend forest defenders in Atlanta, as part of our #NoLoveForCops and much rebellious love for each other strategy.

Let’s all give generously and/or help raise funds for Atlanta Solidarity Fund at www.atlsolidarity.org.

And let’s continue to mourn our dead and fight like hell for the living, while sticking side by side with each other—toward cops nowhere.

(photo: in every language, “abolish the police,” seen here in French on the wintery streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal)

#ACAB #ForestsNotFascism
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Wednesday-of-action postering as seen in a small corner of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal today in solidarity with the upcoming week-of-action gathering (March 4-11) for @stopcopcity in a big forest in Atlanta.

The particular wall pictured here has seen layers of the #ArtOfResistance related to stolen lands and stolen lives—from a powerful mural painted during @unceded_voices several summers ago to an enormous wheatpaste in defense of @yintah_access this past year to mourning and honoring Tortuguita, recently murdered-by-cops in the @defendatlantaforest struggle.

May our solidarity be thickly layered too, from those sticking side by side in the Weelaunee Forest this coming week to all those offering support, love, and collectively caring anarchic infrastructure from near and far.

Tangibly, check out @defendatlantaforest for ways to plug in and pitch in, and give generously to @atlsolfund to abidingly aid all those who the state tries to target.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#MayTortuguitasMemoryBeABlessing
#WeAreAllForestDefenders
#TreesAreLife

Shavua tov: toward a good week, a blessed week, a week of joy, a week of fighting fascism in all its forms.

#HavdalahAgainstHate
#FlamesAgainstFascism
#CandlesNotCops
#CommunitySelfDefense
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photos: #FuckNazis tag spotted on the frigid streets of Tio’tia:ke/Montreal; this evening’s Havdalah candle and its #BlessedFlame)

It’s doubly impossible tonight to lean into the practice of Shabbat as a time-space of inhabiting “the world to come,” the world we dream of and deserve—Jews and non-Jews alike.

For one, this is the first Shabbos in the new Jewish month of Adar, which holds out the notion that joy will increase. But what joy can one find in Christian fascists, neo-Nazis, and their fellow brethren calling for a “Day of Hate” against Jews tomorrow, on our Shabbat, with its joys?

And second, how is one to disengage from the world of work—as we’re “commanded”/invited by Shabbat—and instead rest in light of this? How is one to dwell in the sacred, leaving behind the profane, the common (like, say, the hegemony of Christian patriarchal white supremacy), for the 25 hours of Shabbes when a Day of Hate against Jews is unrestfully launched and thus there’s so much antifascist work to do, including community self-defense?

Of course, every day under fascism—and the United States is already there—is a day of hate, a day of targeting, a day of no rest for the weary antifascist.

Yet just as we rebels call for “days of action” to direct our love and solidarity toward the direct action of dismantling various forms of hierarchy and domination, the fascists are likely putting special effort into their Day of Hate. And even if their direct actions fall short of their aims, which include, as one flyer asserts, being “loud and clear” that “the one true enemy … is the Jew,” like our days of action, such moments can have many impacts, from visibility for a message to bolstering one’s ranks to causing a certain amount of trouble. And in this case, not the good kind—toward liberatory lives for all—but the kind that hurts and even kills people, and for sure is already paining Jews.

This Day of Hate isn’t “just” a Jewish concern—though please check in on and offer solidarity to your Jewish friends. Their conspiracy theories and genocidal fantasies tie us all together—all of us in fascism’s crosshairs. But so, too, should our common dream of a world to come—and without fascism.

(photo: hot pink and black “antifascist action” sticker seen on my #FuckFascism walk in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal today)

#WeMustOutliveThem
#CommunitySelfDefense
#BeTheGolemYouWantToSee
#SolidarityOnShabbat
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

We don’t need videos.

As the Ayotzinapa 43 families have been saying since 2014, after 43 beloveds in Iguala, Guerrero, were disappeared and likely murdered, including by police, “We want them back alive.”

Meaning: they never should have been killed.

We shouldn’t need videos to somehow prove that we want every single person murdered-by-cop to be alive. That their names should still be spoken to them, here in this world. That each and every person assassinated by police was loved and lovable, and never deserved that kind of death.

We shouldn’t need videos as evidence that there are no good cops.

The proof is in the grieving people left behind, the uprisings fueled by rage and sorrow, the abolitionist and stop cop cities/academies organizing and direct action, the myriad forms of solidarity, the murals and tags on urban walls, the DIY altars.

“We want them back alive.”

For that to have full meaning, we want and need and fight for a world without police.

#AllCopsAreBad #ACAB
#NoMoreStolenLives
#CareNotCops
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#TowardAWorldWithoutPolice
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: downtown storefront boarded up with plywood and then tagged with graffiti asserting #NoGoodCops and #Fuck12 as seen on stolen Ho-Chunk lands in so-called Madison, WI, after the windows were smashed during the George Floyd uprising in 2020)

When the police try to fuck us over, time and again, anarchist+abolitionist folks do their best to make sure they don’t succeed, and the recent arrests of six people—all now facing “domestic terrorism” charges—in the Defend the Atlanta Forest / Weelaunee forest is no exception.

Instantly, in Atlanta and far beyond, without fanfare, and with as much security and sensitivity as possible, an infrastructure of love and solidarity for the defendants arose—jail and court support, lawyer and DIY legal counsel, phone zaps and letter-writing to support the arrestees before they were released, emotional care, fundraising for bond money so they could be released, and so much more. And while that anarchic infrastructure was built on do-it-ourselves knowledge gleaned and accumulated from other such moments, and is a beautiful thing to see and be a part of, much always gets lost between the latest instance of state repression.

Hence a critical part of the infrastructure of solidarity is, as Malatesta asserted decades ago, “educating ourselves for freedom.”

And hence this #WeekOfResilience!

As you’ll see, five groups and many people have come together to offer this week of community self-defense and anti-repression trainings—some of them online and much of it person in Atlanta. And they pulled this together while the courts and statist bureaucracy took the holidays off—just another inking of how damned much we anarchists and abolitionists strive hard to love, protect, and defend each other in these situations, 24/7, 365 days a year.

It’s short notice, though, so please circulate the infographic for the Week of Resilience, especially to folks in and near Atlanta right now.

(photo: redecorated trail marker in Weelaunee forest, as seen in October 2022)

#Fuck12
#StopCopCity
#WeKeepUsSafe(r)
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#TalkToTreesNotCops

[Part 1 of 2]

[Update: Although fascists and unfriendly media have already publicly shared the defendants’ names, there isn’t consensus among those doing jail support on our side about whether to further circulate the names. So until a consensus emerges, and one based on the defendants’ wishes, I’ve deleted their names here, and urge you not to share them publicly. There’s now a workaround, though! Send your postcards to P.O. Box 5390, Atlanta, GA 30307, attn: Atlanta Books to Prisoners and they’ll get sent from there to the defendants!]

If trees could talk, they wouldn’t talk to police.

Or, for many of us, since we know that trees can and do talk in various ways, we’re sure that they would never, ever talk to the police. Especially since many of those cops want to cut them down!

We also know that trees can and do lend solidarity aplenty, whether to the ecosystems of which they are a part, those humans who sit with them, or by nonconsensually giving up their lives and limbs to be turned into paper for, say, postcards.

The trees’ sacrifice doesn’t have to be in vain. Postcards, too, can lend solidarity, and in defense of the trees and, particularly right now, those humans who are forest defenders.

This week, six folks were arrested in Weelaunee Forest on the stolen lands now called DeKalb County, Georgia, as police cracked down hard on @defendatlantaforest and @stopcopcity. They were charged with “domestic terrorism” and then denied bond.

The trees know, as we also do, that protecting forests—including by gathering in them to make and share food, engage in sacred rituals, offer and learn skills, play music and dance, and assorted other communal, life-giving activities—is the exact opposite of those charges, and that trees and people should be free.

For now, that forest (and all trees, no doubt) and those who are doing on-the-ground jail support in the Atlanta area are asking for all of us to send postcards to the six jailed forest defenders. (Scroll through the infographics here for exact instructions.)

Each postcard will not only bring care and comfort to the six forest defenders who are likely going through a range of hard/scary/stressful emotions and times but is also an implicit #ACAB to the cops and courts.

Somehow, if those postcards that used to be trees could talk, I suspect they’d glad to be bearers of solidarity—but remember, make sure your postcards don’t inadvertently talk to the cops either (again, read the instructions here carefully!).

(photo: taken in mid-October when I had the blessed pleasure of visiting this forest during sukkot 5783/2022)

#ForestsNotFascism
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#AllCopsAreBad #AllCourtsAreBad
#DefendAtlantaForestDefenders

A list of 5,000 “antifa” accounts on Twitter has been circulating today, with the fascist aim of purging these voices—an eclectic mix including liberals and even some conservatives, but mostly made up of anarchistic folks of many genders, races, cultures, etc. The responses on our side—the side firmly against fascism—are varied, but overwhelmingly, there’s been palpable and tangible solidarity. That’s crucial. We’ll need more and more of that—fierce, empathetic, unflinching solidarity. Taking the side of antifascism, and sticking side by side together.

What struck me more than anything was the shift this seems to mark. From such “antifa” lists being shared on shadowy, “fringe” platforms, or ones that mostly attract fellow fascists, to now being mainstreamed on one of the world’s biggest and oft-turned-to news platforms, owned by one of the world’s wealthiest people. This, in turn, mirrors what increasingly feels like the mainstreaming of the most explicit, virulent, violence-inspiring racist, transphobic, anti-Black, antisemitic, misogynist, homophobic, etc., sentiments on purportedly/formerly liberal, progressive, and/or “neutral” platforms, whether in the form of Chapelle’s jokes on Saturday Night Live or the vacuous “condolence” statement by Biden after the Club Q murders.

When it becomes “controversial” or scary or dangerous in a society to say one is against fascism; when it becomes “common sense” to see and treat antifascists as scary or dangerous, or more plainly, the enemy to be eradicated—we are already in fascism. It is the sea in which we must swim, or sink, as antifascists, not some surface or even subterranean phenomenon now.

Whether Twitter survives or not isn’t the issue. It’s whether whole categories of us—all the beautiful, varied identities, traditions, and experiences, and their rich and frequently millennia-long practices of communal care, mutual aid, and life-giving rituals, that are represented on that list of 5,000—will survive Christian fascism in the States and other fascisms globally.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon, in all of its beautiful diversity of forms.

#FascismKills #FuckFascism #SmashFascism #CommunitySelfDefense #WeMustOutliveThem
#TowardAWorldWithoutFascism

(photo: #AntiAntiAntifa sticker seen in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal’s anarchist bookstore, 2021)

The anarchist elves have been busily working overtime—voluntarily—to keep the lights on at #Kolektiva, especially as a whole slew of us have finally starting using our long-dormant accounts (like me) or joined in the past few days. And until capitalism is history, anarchistic infrastructure isn’t completely free—at least monetarily.

So if you can spare some change, or better yet, dollars in whatever currency is commodifying your part of this imperiled world, kick some love and cash (like I just did) to our rad admin crew!

http://kolektiva.info/donate/

#WeAreAllWeNeed
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#TryAnarchistInfrastructureForLife :anarchismred:

(photo: stencil of a can of paint filled with the “greed” of billionaires’ hubris and capitalism’s violence being poured over our home, planet earth, as seen on the wall of some hierarchical infrastructure in summer 2021 in so-called Asheville, NC)

In a time of rising and “more successful” fascism around the globe, not to mention its white Christian supremacist version in the so-called United States, along with fascism’s virulent and violent conspiracy theories that weave antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Blackness, anti-immigrant, and other racist, ableist, queer/transphobic, misogynistic (etc.) worldviews into an always-genocidal worldview/practice (aka they hate and want to eradicate everyone who isn’t them)—it feels extra sweet to be among anarchist(ic) friends and accomplices here on Mastodon, including feeling to wholly/holy seen by Kolektiva’s emojis :anarchismhebrew: :anarchoheart3: :queeranarchy: :antifa: :anfem: :anarchoheart2: (to share only a few)

#TryAnarchismForLife 
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife
#TryQueerAnarchismForLife
#TryFeministAnarchismForLife
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon 
#TryAnarchismForLove
(photo: proofreading a picture-prose piece about a month ago from my just-birthed new book, “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” [published by @tangledwild and available via @akpressdistro], with circle alef here by Naomi Rose Weintraub)

In a time of rising and “more successful” fascism around the globe, not to mention its white Christian supremacist version in the so-called United States, along with fascism’s virulent and conspiracy theories that weave antisemitism, anti-Muslim, anti-Blackness, anti-immigrant, and other racist, ableist, queer/transphobic, misogynistic worldviews into an always-genocidal worldview/practice (aka they hate and want to eradicate everyone who isn’t them)—it feels extra sweet to be among anarchist(ic) friends and accomplices here on Mastodon, including feeling to wholly/holy seen by Kolektiva’s emojis :anarchismhebrew: :queeranarchy: :ancomheart: :anfem_star: :af: :blob_anar_raccoon: :anarchoheart2: (to share a few)!

#TryAnarchismForLife
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife
#TryQueerAnarchismForLife
#TryFeministAnarchismForLife
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#TryAnarchismForLove

(photo: proofreading a picture-prose piece about a month ago from my just-birthed new book, “Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” [published by @tangledwild and available via @akpressdistro], with circle alef here by Naomi Rose Weintraub)

Such a treat to get the 2023 @certaindays @beta.birdsite.live in my snail-mailbox!

It’s made all that much sweeter because I’m not only honored to have a prose piece in it, titled “Sticking Side by Side,” but my words also get to accompany the powerful “Until Every Prison is a Library” artwork by @seize.the.mean for December 2023!

And not only that, but I get to share time and calendar space with dear friends and accomplices like ZOLA street art (whose handcrafted #WetsuwetenStrong wheat paste graces the cover and the month of January), @mtilsen, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Upping the Anti, @kill.joy.land, and others!

But best of all—besides getting to savor twelve months of the #ArtOfResistance in words and images—Certain Days is far more than a *mere* calendar. It is, quite literally, about sticking side by side with political prisoners and their freedom. That is, until every prison is abolished. Certain Days raises awareness, of course, but it raises funds too—its raison d’être (reason for being).

So don’t you want to get your copy in your snail-mailbox? Or a bunch to help sell to friends and accomplices? All proceeds are, as Certain Days explains, “donated to organizations and campaigns working to abolish the prison industrial complex and support those locked inside.” The list of past recipients is long and meaningful, from @rappcampaign to @addameer_pal, from @atxabc to @the_cldc, from @tgijusticeproject to @unistoten.camp, from @prisonhealthnews to @bflobooksthrubars, and so many more.

What’s not to love about this beautiful—literally and figuratively—calendar?

For all the details on ordering, see Certain Days at your fav social media!

#UntilAllAreFree
#CareNotCages
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#Abolition