Direct Action Mobilization Against Mountaintop Removal

Photo from Mountain Justice and RAMPS action after Mountain Justice Summer Action Camp. They stopped 9 coal trucks and a coal barge (Photo originally posted here)

From RAMPS Campaign in Southern West Virginia

From the RAMPS Call to Action:

At PowerShift 2011, currently imprisoned activist Tim DeChristopher pointed out, “With only the people in this room, we could send 30 people onto a mountaintop removal site, shut it down temporarily, start to clog up the West Virginia court system. And we could send 30 people the day after that and the day after that and the day after that every day for a year. I believe we would never get to the end of that year because mountaintop removal would end before we reached that point.”

This summer we will take the first step toward that vision. Come to southern West Virginia on July 25. RAMPS will host a mobilization where people will prepare to take nonviolent direct action to shut down a strip mine. We are calling for as many people as possible to come together and do what the politicians, the regulators and the courts have been unwilling to do; to defend the land and the people; to stop strip mining.

The success of this depends on your participation. Whatever your skills, availability, or ability to risk arrest, there are ways for you to make this mobilization a success. To join ongoing working groups or find out more about ways to participate, please email [email protected]. We also deeply need your financial support. Please donate today so RAMPS can continue its vital work. Most importantly, spread the word.

Read the whole thing here

Pornography is a Left Issue

By Gail Dines and Robert Jensen

Excerpt:

Pornography is fantasy, of a sort. Just as television cop shows that assert the inherent nobility of police and prosecutors as protectors of the people are fantasy. Just as the Horatio Alger stories about hard work’s rewards in capitalism are fantasy. Just as films that cast Arabs only as terrorists are fantasy.

All those media products are critiqued by leftists precisely because the fantasy world they create is a distortion of the actual world in which we live. Police and prosecutors do sometimes seek justice, but they also enforce the rule of the powerful. Individuals in capitalism do sometimes prosper as a result of their hard work, but the system does not provide everyone who works hard with a decent living. Some tiny number of Arabs are terrorists, but that obscures both the terrorism of the powerful in white America and the humanity of the vast majority of Arabs.

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Feature: Occupy the Machine – Stop the 1% Has Begun

Our Bodies Will Be Our Demand

Photo Credit: Not a DGR Action. Earth First and Rising Tide blockaded a gas-fired power plant construction site in Palm Beach County, Florida in 2008. http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2008/02/19/blockade-shuts-down-south-florida-power-plant-construction-27-arrested/

Click here to download this document as a pamphlet to distribute anywhere.

Occupy the Machine is an ad hoc umbrella group using serious, sustained direct action campaigns to shut down major targets that destroy the land and exploit humans, permanently.

Sign up here to be notified when the target is announced.

Occupy the Machine has begun.

We are pleased to announce the Occupy the Machine US Speaking Tour! Click here to learn more


Pass it on!

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The Occupy Movement is beautiful. We support it and though we are small, we are participating all over the country. We invite all occupiers to read, give feedback, and if you feel moved to do so to present this at a General Assembly or committee meeting near you.

We invite you to imagine, as many of you already probably have, if thousands of people occupied local refineries, roads, ports, oil and mining extraction sites, etc. – in other words, imagine if people occupied the locations where the 1% destroy the land and exploit humans, all for profit.

Imagine their stock prices falling, their cash flow being interrupted, their ability to get loans and/or expand “production” – a euphemism for converting living beings into dead products – finished.

Imagine if we were able to stop them, stop the 1%. Literally. Not symbolically.
We think it can be done if we all do it together. We think it can be done if we all figure out how to do it and if we are willing to make the necessary sacrifices, together.

Here’s one way we could start:
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Feature: Australian Agency Monitors Groups Online that Target Critical Energy Infrastructure

The more serious your actions are, the more they will target you. That is ok. Repression is never a reason to not do what is necessary. Repression is just one more reason to fight. When they increase repression, you escalate. Or regroup and get stronger. But you always come back, harder.

Re-posted from Earth First! Newswire

Excerpt:

A private intelligence company, the National Open Source Intelligence Centre, works under contract for the Australian Federal Police and the federal Attorney-General’s Department to monitor activist websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter to provide warning and analysis of protest activity.

Details of its work have emerged as internal government documents reveal a push by the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, to increase surveillance of protest groups, including by specialist intelligence officers employed by the AFP.

 

Read whole article here.

Occupy Seattle: Open Letter Regarding Non-Violence vs. Diversity of Tactics Debate

Diversifying tactics does not mean that our movements have to polarize around the “violent/non-violent” debate. This letter from a member of Decolonize/Occupy Seattle frames the debate well. It might give you some ideas for clarifying this debate at your local General Assembly.

Excerpt from anonymous letter posted on Occupy Seattle website:

“[D]iversity of tactics” means we are are open to all sorts of smart tactics that would be considered nonviolent by the mainstream society, as well as others that are similarly smart, but get labeled as “violent” by the mainstream media. Basically, I think we should start the conversation with the question: which tactics are smart and which ones aren’t? We may find we have more agreement there then we’d expect, agreement that’s getting overlooked in this debate…

Occupy Seattle Logo from their facebook page.

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Feature: DGR Speaks at Occupy West Coast Port Shutdown Solidarity Action

Listen to Dillon Thomson, Deep Green Resistance organizer, speak here:

(Dillon’s speech is the first four minutes of the video.)

DGR organizers Max Wilbert and Dillon Thomson spoke at the December 12th Bellingham, WA Action in Solidarity with West Coast Port Shutdown. Below is their report:

On December 12th, 2011, we spoke at a rally in Bellingham in solidarity with Occupy Oakland and the shutting down of ports along the west coast. Bellingham was one of several west coast cities to carry out actions in support of Oakland protesters.
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Feature: Occupy Locations Can Defeat Police Evictions – Here’s How

The deciding factor in a battle is not who has more guns, but who has the best strategy for that situation. The cops are strategic in their application of force. Our movements have to be equally strategic in coordinating a response. Below is some effective, kick ass information from Occupy Portland that can help keep the police running in circles when they try to evict you. If we learn from Occupy Portland, next time the cops come, we will be ready.

A scene from Occupy Portland during the coordinated attack by riot police on December 3rd (Photo originally posted here)

Tactical Advice from Occupy Portland

Excerpt

The Portland Occupation stumbled upon a tactical innovation regarding occupying public spaces. This evolution in tactics was spontaneous, and went unreported in the media. On December 3rd, we took a park and were driven out of it by riot police; that much made the news. What the media didn’t report is that we re-took the park later that same evening, and the police realized that it would be senseless to attempt to clear it again, so they packed up their military weaponry and left. Occupy Portland has developed a tactic to keep a park when the police decide to enforce an eviction…

So far, all the occupations have, in a grave tactical error, agreed to engage the riot cops when they march in to clear parks.

The tactical evolution that evolved relies on two military tactics that are thousands of years old- the tactical superiority of light infantry over heavy infantry, and the tactical superiority of the retreat over the advance…

Read the whole article here