[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