Anarchism // Current

Actually, Free-Markets DON'T WORK, Survey says

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread... more

asherp
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6 days ago
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27 comments

Why We're Winning

A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is that it gets more respect the further it occurs from home. Anarchists who would never dream of complaining that the Thessaloniki Food not Bombs is being neglected while its members amuse themselves burning banks, who could never conceive of suggesting that the Somali pirates stop seizing ships for ransom in order to start a bike repair collective, have no problem criticizing their own friends and comrades for shortchanging local projects to attend semi-annual mass mobilizations. This is a shame, because a look at the broader picture reveals that summit demos are taking an ongoing toll on the ruling class, even when they are tactically unsuccessful.

Just for starters, any city hosting a summit has to impose de facto martial law for the duration of the meetings. Miles-long steel security fences, bag searches on the subway, black helicopters in the sky, armor-clad riot cops on every corner, among other measures, make a mockery of the myth of "civil rights." By employing such repressive tactics just to keep a few summit delegates from being confronted by those they claim to be helping, authority reveals its true nature, undisguised by the usual lies and propaganda. People who claim that we should abandon summit protests because we can never replicate the WTO (World Trade Organization) riots in Seattle are missing this point. While it's true that the cops will never again allow themselves to be defeated on the street the way they were in Seattle, the things they have to do to win in the short term erode the perceived legitimacy of the entire ruling system in the medium term. If all they had to do was stop the protests they could just shoot the protesters. But since they must also maintain the illusion of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, their problem is complicated immensely. They have no good options, so it's not a matter of whether we will win, only of how.

Their situation becomes all the worse when, after turning the host city into a militarized encampment for a week, the cops can't even stop a few kids in black from breaking windows. The resulting frustration often leads them to attack and arrest defenseless groups and individuals who have minimal connection to the protests, further compounding their problems when the videos hit Youtube. Then to justify their own brutality, the cops make an example of a handful of protest organizers by hitting them with ridiculously inflated charges, usually for actions that most people would consider perfectly innocuous. As an added bonus, the lawsuits generated by blatantly unconstitutional arrests and searches strain city budgets, consume prosecutors' time, and extend their PR nightmare. For authoritarians, the only thing worse than appearing brutal and repressive is appearing brutal and repressive and ineffectual. Cops, by their nature, will fall into this trap every time, as long as we show up and set it for them.
full article at link......A curious property evident in the discussion of insurrection in the United States is... more

animalia_libero
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7 days ago
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Remember, Remember The Fifth of November!

V's Speech from V for Vendetta www.imdb.com/title/tt0434409/

lordsbassman
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10 days ago
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9 comments

How I Became an Anarchist

I recently discovered that I am an anarchist. I never thought about it much until... more

critic
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18 days ago
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81 comments

The Revolt of Other Animals and the Case for Total Liberation

[go to full link for the images and links because they won't be posted here]

One thing I hear from the anti-animal liberation movement (or those apathetic to it) is that the animal liberation movement is different from other movements because the animals don't come together to rise up against their exploiters. They also claim that the animal liberation movement is unlike that of other human animal struggles because x% of that struggle was the oppressed group (i.e. 50% of the population was women during the suffrage movement). Both of these misconceptions result from both speciesism and an effective campaign to demonize any retaliation from other animals against their captors.

A recent story inspired my entry on this topic: Russian Circus Bear Kills Manager
In short, a bear exploited, demeaned, and undoubtedly beaten into performing for humans on ice skates retaliated against his/her captors. The bear was shot on scene after giving fatal injuries to their exploiter.

In reading this story, others immediately came to mind. The horrid circus elephant attempt at escape in Honalulu. She made it out of the building, and through the gates, but then where was she to escape to? She was shot to death shortly after.

When performing monkeys banded together to attack their trainer in China, who had be imprisoning and beating them, their attack ended there. They were tied to the trainer by their necks and had nowhere to escape to. No one helped them.

When a mother cow attacked a farmer as he tried to steal her baby (as farmers do), she is labeled as "overprotective" as if there was something strange about her attempts to save her child. This cow was lucky enough not to be identified by the remaining farmers, but only at the cost of killing her captor and devastating his family.

These stories and many others beg the question: How are the animals to rise up against their exploiters (without our help) when every time they do they are met with weapons and immediate punishments of death? We do not speak their language nor they ours so no amount pleading will help (which they do do in their own forms of communication as they cry out from cages, scream in pain, and other noises which are ignored by their exploiters). Letter-writing and pleading doesn't even help us get things done within our own species.

The other point about x-amount of beings being part of a struggle begs the question: Why do only humans count in the percentage? The animals in the movement, while lacking in our weapons and technology, outnumber us. For this reason, their movement should be considered on level with our own as we are all animals. Also, in most other movements, it was NOT the oppressed group acting alone against the oppressor. The oppressed group almost always had allies from outside their demographic which helped make their revolutions a success. Could those suffering in the Holocaust have brought the Nazi war machine down on their own?

Before we judge the plight and worth of other species based on their ability to revolt, we must remember that the cruelty towards our fellow animals is so heinous that it can be compared to every single human struggle that has existed. Factory farms are concentration camps. Female farm animals serve as sex slaves and breeding machines. Animals in entertainment are slaves to their oppressors.
No one is free while others are oppressed.[go to full link for the images and links because they won't be posted here] One... more

animalia_libero
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23 days ago
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3 comments

Know Your Rights Booklet for Activists

The Center for Constitutional Rights has a great new legal guide for activists called... more

animalia_libero
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29 days ago
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0 comments

Image Problem: G20 Police Break Cameras and Destroy Video of Police Actions

Missy Jarzenske was headed to her Lawrenceville home on 37th Street after an afternoon... more

animalia_libero
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29 days ago
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Appellate Court: Encouraging Civil Disobedience is Not Protected Speech

The conviction of the SHAC 7–animal rights activists hit with “terrorism” charges for publishing a website and vocally, unapologetically supporting direct action–has been upheld by a U.S. appellate court. It is a landmark free speech ruling that lowers the threshold of what types of conduct are protected by the First Amendment, and upholds a law that is so broad that it targets civil disobedience as “terrorism.”

As a brief introduction: The “SHAC 7” of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty ran an effective campaign that had the sole purpose of putting Huntingdon Life Sciences, a notorious animal testing company, out of business. The campaign pressured corporations to sever ties with the lab. The SHAC 7 were never accused of breaking windows or releasing animals from labs, but they supported those who did. They published a website which posted news of both legal and illegal tactics, and supported all of it. The website had also posted names and addresses of individuals connected to the corporations targeted.

The ruling was issued today and, although there are many aspects that deserve attention, I want to walk through what I think are by far the most dangerous and troubling implications of this ruling–those related to the First Amendment:

[PDF of the SHAC appeal ruling]

Supporting and facilitating non-violent civil disobedience is not protected speech.

As part of their campaign, SHAC supporters were emailed about “electronic civil disobedience.” The email and message board posts included instructions on how electronically “sit in” on corporate web sites through emails, faxes and phone calls.

Now, one of the benchmarks in First Amendment law is what is called the Brandenburg standard. It holds that even the most controversial and inflammatory speech is protected as long as it not likely to incite “imminent and lawless action.” That is a very high threshold. In this court ruling—which, to the best of my knowledge and the attorneys I have spoken with is the first of its kind—the written word can be construed as promoting, or resulting in, imminent and lawless action.

To put it more plainly: Vocally supporting civil disobedience, explaining what it involves, and encouraging/facilitating people to take part is not protected speech.

This is so important let me say it again, another way: People who write about civil disobedience and encourage people to take part can be found convicted of a crime even if they do not take part in the civil disobedience.

This has dangerous implications far beyond this case. For instance, I wrote about the recent call by mainstream environmental groups for massive non-violent civil disobedience in defense of the environment. Under this reasoning, organizers of that event who published a website aren’t protected by the First Amendment.

[UPDATE: One person had this question, so others might as well: I am not at all saying that simply endorsing civil disobedience is now not protected speech. However, doing so and also facilitating civil disobedience is what the court ruled is not protected. So in the example above, the organizers promoted civil disobedience, encouraged it, set up a website telling people where to go and when, and there were people involved to specifically support those arrested. I think there is a very real danger of that type of conduct being affected by the reasoning presented in this ruling. That is what I had meant by the headline and preceding points.]

Fiery rhetoric is a “true threat” when illegal conduct has taken place in the same campaign.

Another measurement of whether speech is protected by the First Amendment is whether it is a true threat. Throughout the appellate court ruling, the court argued that SHAC’s speech did, in fact, constitute a true threat.... full article at link........The conviction of the SHAC 7–animal rights activists hit with “terrorism”... more

animalia_libero
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29 days ago
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Justice Denied: The AETA 4 and You

The following is a letter just released by one of the lawyers defending the AETA 4, Bob Bloom. The letter captures both the absurdity of the charges, and the significance of the case for the animals and all of us. For a blunt and succinct explanation of how far the FBI is willing to go to crush the more effective tactics employed by the animal liberation movement, read on.

-Peter Young
A new client of mine, a young man named Joseph Buddenberg, is one of four principled, dedicated, and non-violent animal rights activists who have been indicted in federal court in San Jose, California under a new federal statute that was intended by Congress to target unlawful and violent conduct.

The statute, effective as of 2008, is known as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), and each of the four defendants is facing five years or more in federal prison because they are alleged to have engaged in, literally, picketing at the homes of researchers they believe cause laboratory animals to be subjected to inhumane experimentation that causes suffering, pain, and death.

Congress was cautioned that the statute would be subject to overreaching by the FBI and by prosecutors. Predictably, this case that targets non-violent and non-criminal speech is the very first prosecution the government has chosen to initiate under this new statute. (The statute can be found by Googling 18 U.S.C. 43).

I do not understate or attempt to mis-state the allegations against the defendants. One of the documents I enclose is an affidavit sworn to by the FBI agent in charge of this case. The affidavit sets forth the worst of what the FBI claims the defendants did (in fact, the affidavit mis-states the facts as to one event). As you will see from reading the affidavit, the defendants are accused of identifying and locating animal researchers and then loudly picketing on the sidewalks in front of their homes. The intent was, and is, to stop the torture and other mistreatment of animals by speaking out in a non-violent manner to shame the researchers by exposing them and their conduct to their neighbors.

This kind of activity, speaking out to expose wrongdoers, is the very essence of the First Amendment. But the offending research laboratory, the University of California, is politically very powerful, and it has apparently lobbied federal law enforcement officials to bring this prosecution. The right of non-violent activists working to protect animals is under threat, and the First Amendment rights of all of us are threatened by this prosecution as well, as the animals suffer and die painful deaths every day.

The defendants are all good people, and courageous people. I have come to know Joe, and I can tell you that he cares deeply about protecting innocent creatures and putting an end to the mistreatment and the suffering. He is not a violent person, and he is not a criminal. And he certainly is not a terrorist.

Many animal lovers and civil libertarians believe that this is an extremely important case for a number of reasons. I have been engaged in civil rights law for more than forty years, and I am truly offended by, and worried by, this prosecution. Needless to say, it impacts the four defendants, but it also imperils the rights of all of us, as well as the lab animals who are being subjected to horrific mistreatment.

The case is complex and labor-intensive. It involves a maze of legal questions regarding the constitutionality of the statute, the validity of search warrants, potential issues regarding wiretapping, and other challenging issues, including the intricacies of the law of conspiracy (one of the two counts in the indictment). The facts of the case are also complicated, encompassing some fourteen incidents in at least three counties, and there are literally dozens of witnesses for whom we must prepare............The following is a letter just released by one of the lawyers defending the AETA 4,... more