S.O.S.! CAMPAIGN TO COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE 12 POLITICAL PRISONERS OF ATENCO.

CAMPAIGN TO COLLECT SIGNATURES FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE 12 POLITICAL PRISONERS OF ATENCO.

SYNOPSIS: The Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land (Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra, FDPT) brings together a number of villages and farming communities on the outskirts of Mexico City, including San Salvador Atenco. In 2002 they generated a process of peasant resistance against the plan to make a new airport, with this project the government wanted to take away their land. After an intense process of organizing the opposition to the airport, the project was canceled. The FPDT became after its struggle in defense of the land in a national and international reference of the social movement in Mexico. On May 3 and 4 of 2006 the residents of San Salvador Atenco were victims of repression by the Mexican government that prompted one of the most violent police operations in the country's history, with a balance of two youths killed, more than 200 arbitrary arrests, severe human rights violations of the detainees involving police brutality, irregularities in the process and the torture and sexual abuse of thirty female detainees. The case of repression in San Salvador Atenco has become emblematic since numerous and diverse organisms defending human rights documented and spread the above mentioned violations. Even the Mexican government agencies such as the Supreme Court have recognized that such violations took place. More than four years after these events, 12 people are still unjustly imprisoned. They are political prisoners of the Mexican government. As part of a national and international campaign called Freedom and justice for Atenco will post on this month of June an ad in a newspaper of national circulation, to demand their freedom. Before the end of June the Supreme Court's Office will decide on the release of these 12 prisoners. To lose this legal battle they will have to purge sentences ranging from 31 to up to 112 years in prison. This is an urgent statement to be signed by numerous individuals and organizations, nationally and internationally.

The legal elements are integrated in a text that has been endorsed and supported by leading human rights centers as the center Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez DH center Fray Francisco de Vitoria as well as specialists from the community of the post graduate in human rights and democracy of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences Mexico (FLACSO Mexico). That is why we invite you to sign this petition with the text that under the signatures. Esperamos que puedan apoyar este proceso por la libertad y la justicia y en defensa de quienes luchan por la tierra. We hope you can support this process for freedom and justice and in defense of those fighting for the land.

COMITÉ LIBERTAD Y JUSTICIA PARA ATENCO:

COMMITTEE FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE FOR ATENCO:

Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (People's Front in Defense of the Land), Relatives of prisoners and persecuted, Servicios legales, Investigación y Asesoría Jurídica; Servicios y asesoría para la Paz (Serapaz), Human Rights Centre Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez, Mujeres Sin Miedo, Human Rights Center Fray Francisco de Vitoria, Comité Cerezo, Comité Monseñor Romero, Consorcio para el diálogo parlamentario y la equidad; Centro Nacional de Comunicación Social (CENCOS), Jovenes en Resistencia Alternativa (JRA), Bishop Emeritus Samuel Ruiz Garcia of the Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, Ofelia Medina actress, musician Manu Chao, Julieta Egurrola actress, Raul Vera Bishop of the Diocese of Saltillo, Coahuila, Adolfo Gilly academic, actor Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Luis Villoro philosopher, singer Ruben Albarran rock band Cafe Tacvba, actor Bruno Bichir, Fray Miguel Concha Malo Dominican friar, director of the Center for Human Rights Fray Francisco de Vitoria, Roco Pachukote vocalist of the rock band Maldita Vecindad y lo Hijos del Quinto Patio, Gilberto López y Rivas, anthropologist, journalist Luis Hernández Navarro, Carlos Fazio, academic Guillermo Almeyra academic, Los de Abajo, ska and rock band, La Reinas Chulas actresses.

Text to sign:

FREEDOM NOW!!! of the 12 prisoners of San Salvador Atenco

For the ministers of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court: José de Jesús Gudiño Pelayo, Olga María del Carmen Sánchez Cordero de García Villegas, Juan N. Silva Meza, Arturo Zaldívar Lelo De Larrea, José Ramón CossíoJose de Jesus Gudino Pelayo, Olga María del Carmen Sánchez Cordero de García Villegas, Juan N. Silva Meza, Arturo Zaldivar Lelo De Larrea, Jose Ramon Cossio Diaz.

To the national and international public opinion.  

We know the serious violations of human rights committed on May 3 and 4 of  2006 that the Mexican government committed in San Salvador Atenco. Following these events 12 people are still in prison. We are concerned that the process that they followed was full of irregularities, was not respected the principle of presumption of innocence and the guarantees of due process and that the evidence established that the sentence was gathered illegally. We believe that these irregularities did not involve the right to a fair trial.  It is a warning sign that the offense of kidnapping which we believe is unconstitutional, may be used to criminalize social demands and that the system of enforcement and administration of justice was used to treat as criminals the members of the Frente de pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (FDPT). We also know that there is legal precedent issued by the Poder Judicial de la Federación, which held that the acts for which Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Álvarez and Héctor Galindo were sentence, do not constitute the crime of kidnapping; this background, even when the rules are not legally-binding for the Ministers, we believe that for security and legal consistency as well as the implications of the case cannot be ignored. Therefore, we call the First Chamber of the Supreme Court to release the 12 prisoners of Atenco.

IMPORTANT NOTE for those supporting with your signature:

For individual firms, please include name, estate or country, and profession.

In the case of signatures from organizations, groups in favor please include the full name of your organization, and country or state of the organization. 

All signatures will be accepted until Thursday June 24h at Midnight send them to firmasatenco@gmail.com  

All the information of this case can be found on our campaign page: www.atencolibertadyjusticia.com

Committee for Freedom and justice for Atenco

Frente de Pueblos en Defensa de la Tierra (People's Front in Defense of the Land)

this message sent

to Void Network from

Jovenes Resistencia Alternativa ( Youth for Alternative Resistance):

LiBeRtAd! autonomía! autogestión! horizontalidad!

jovenes en resistencia alternativa

www.espora.org/jra

for more info about Atenco see here:

A Warning to Students of All Ages by Raoul Vaneigem

As in most countries of north hemisphere the schools and the universities shut down to allow some weeks of rest, free thought and happiness to most of the students, some of the youngest mental slaves of our times,....
Void Network dedicates to all students the essay of 
Raoul Vaneigem 
A Warning to Students of All Ages

A Warning to Students of All Ages  

By Raoul Vaneigem

[Note: this pamphlet was originally published in French in 1995. It was translated by JML with NOT BORED! in August 2000.]

Chapter 1: A warning to students of all ages.

The school, the family, the factory, the barracks, and, by proxy, the hospital and the prison, have been the inevitable passages by which commodity society has bent to its profit the destiny of the so-called "human" being.
The government that this society exercises over human nature, which is still in love with the freedom of childhood, puts in their proper places the growth and happiness that precede -- and delay to diverse degrees -- the familial enclosure, the workshop or office, the military institution, the clinic, the houses of the condemned.
Has schooling lost the repulsive character that it had in the 19th and 20th centuries, when it broke spirits and bodies upon the hard realities of efficiency and servitude, making it glorious to educate by forced labor, authority and austerity, and never by pleasure or passion? Nothing is surer, and it can't be denied that, in all the apparent eagerness of modernity, a whole lot of archaic ideas continue to scandalize the lives of schoolchildren.
Hasn't the scholastic enterprise obeyed, up to this very day, one dominant preoccupation: improve the techniques of training so that the animal would become a profitable investment?
No child crosses the threshold of a school door without being exposed to the risk of losing him or herself. Losing, that is, exuberant life, filled with new knowledge and marvels, that would be excited to receive nourishment, if it were not sterilized and made hopeless under the boring work of abstract knowledge. What a terrible affirmation, to see those shining looks so suddenly tarnished!
Here are four walls. The general consensus suits the hypocrites; within these walls, one is imprisoned, constrained, blamed, judged, honored, chastised, humiliated, labeled, manipulated, fondled, violated, treated abortively and left begging for aid and assistance.
"What are you complaining about?" object the makers of laws and decrees. "Isn't this the best way to initiate the youth into the immutable laws that rule the world and existence?" Doubtless. But why should the young accommodate themselves any longer to a society without joy and without a future, a society whose adults have nothing but their defeated resignation, which they support with a mix of bitterness and discomfort?
A SCHOOL IN WHICH LIFE BECOMES BORING TEACHES NOTHING BUT BARBARISM!


please continue reading this essay here:
http://www.notbored.org/avertissement.html

AntiCapitalistMedia, an amazing blog!

We invite all our friends to navigate, investigate, read and share with everybody the amazing knowledge, information, political philosophy, sociology and history of social struggles that is gathered in the influential blog

AntiCapitalistMedia :

http://anticapitalistmedia.blogspot.com/

"Elsewhere", independent community dedicated to fine art and social visualization

"Elsewhere" is an inpedendent community dedicated to fine art and social visualization.


According to their manifesto:


"Elsewhere" social community network is a grassroots movement and independent community project dedicated to fine art and social visualization.
We aim to motivate positive social processes in our surroundings and create a common ground for Palestinians, Israelis and foreign artists. We want to establish an international space- a venue enabling unfiltered exchange of ideas, experiences and perspectives. We wish to stimulate further tolerance and facilitate a common social awareness."


http://elsewhere.ning.com/

OCCUPY EVERYTHING!: California Valley Miwok Tribe Occupies Foreclosed House in Stockton

OCCUPY EVERYTHING!: California Valley Miwok Tribe Occupies Foreclosed House in Stockton
From the upcoming issue of Modesto Anarcho, 3 year anniversary issue!
http://www.modestoanarcho.org/2009/12/occupy-everything-california-valley.html


read more about Modesto California:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modesto,_California
Modesto Anarcho: Many people do not know the history of the Native peoples in the Central Valley, can you tell us a little about the history of the Miwoks?

California Valley Miwok Tribe: Previous to Rancherias being created in California, the Miwok People's territory covered ten (10) counties. Now our Tribe is fighting to retain its Tribal Property that consists of one and one half (1 ½) acres, located in (Morada) Stockton, California.

MA: How does your tribe use the house that is located in Stockton?

CVMT: The Tribal Property at 10601 Escondido Pl. Stockton, California 95212 has a multi-purpose function. Since our tribe is a landless tribe, the piece of property, including the building, is considered to the Tribe to be its reservation, and is utilized as such. Until such time as the tribe is able to acquire a larger tract of land for the benefit of future tribal members [the house is all we have]. The Tribe conducts official Tribal 'governmental' business, day-to-day office duties, Tribal Programs, Tribal Meetings, and a portion of the building is used for housing.

MA: What brought your house to foreclosure?

CVMT: Our PL-93 638 Mature Status Contract (BIA) has been illegally withheld for two years and our Indian Gaming Revenue Sharing Trust Fund (RSTF) monies have been illegally stopped. Since the end of 2005. Without any funds coming in, the Tribe had no way to pay its mortgage on the only piece of property, the place the Tribe calls “home”. Please see our DOT US website for further info: http://www.californiavalleymiwoks.us

MA: Why did people physically occupy your house? How did you go about making sure that people were not going to be able to easily get into the house?

CVMT: The Tribe decided to stand its ground when it was threatened with eviction. We had no choice, where were we supposed to go? Our monies have been illegally withheld for no good reason, our jobs lost, our medical benefits lost with our jobs, we tribal members have been using own personal money to keep the Tribe going, to keep the USDA Food Program open for the people in need to still be able to get their monthly rations of food. We had to make our point clear that we were no longer going to be pushed out and forgotten like yesterday's trash!! We are human beings. We are not just names and/ or numbers on a piece of paper. We needed the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC to take notice of what was being allowed to happen to our Tribe. We were pushed in a corner and had no other choice but to go into survival mode and stand our ground. The Tribe went into a vote and decided to go into lockdown and barricade itself in until the Dept. of the Interior would be forced to take notice of our devastating situation and agree to sit down at the table with us to resolve our immediate problem that had been ignored up until we decided to stand our ground.

I can't answer the second part of your question because our crisis isn't over yet. We are still negotiating.

MA: How have the state and their police responded to your situation? How have other people and/ or institutions tried to hinder your efforts?

CVMT: Well, the state still hasn't released the Tribe's money. I would say that the sad part to this dilemma is seeing some of the people believing the negative stuff that had been going out on blogs. It hurts our hearts to see people say such cruel things when they don't know the whole truth behind the situation. We are confident that the truth will prevail and so we don't follow the blogs. Although we do want to thank those who stood by us and still stand with us today...

MA: In what ways have other Tribes and communities/groups offered you support?

CVMT: We are thankful for the internet radio talk shows , tv hosts, Veteran Affairs, some pocket members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), legal services, individual concerned citizens (Indians and non-Indian peoples), universities, special interest groups, Canadian Indians, doctors, Calaveras Band of Mi-Wuk Indians, Calaveras County Mountain Miwuk, Historical Shingle Springs Miwok Indians, Modesto Anarcho, Ghost Machine Group, United Native Americans Inc., WPFW Nightwolf, Onnativeground. Recently, Chairperson Burley did a presentation at the Consumnes River College in Sacramento in which they have asked how they can help show their support for the Tribe. Also, UC San Diego has passed a resolution in support of the California Valley Miwok Tribe and they have continued to be stong advocates to help our tribe get justice.

MA: Anything you would like to add?

CVMT: We (“The Tribe”) are asking for help from the General Public. Please help our tribe survive. Help us protect not only our history/culture but the native history that is a big part of California and the United States. For more information, please visit our websites at:

http://www.californiavalleymiwoktribe-nsn.gov/
http://californiavalleymiwok.com/

Zen Anarchy by Max Cafard

Zen Anarchy? What could that be? Some new variations on the koans, those classic proto-dadaist Zen “riddles”?
What is the Sound of One Hand making a Clenched Fist?
If you see a Black Flag waving on the Flagpole, what moves? Does the flag move? Does the wind move? Does the revolutionary movement move?
What is your original nature — before May ‘68, before the Spanish Revolution, before the Paris Commune?

Somehow this doesn’t seem quite right. And in fact, it’s unnecessary. From the beginning, Zen was more anarchic than anarchism. We can take it on its own terms. Just so you don’t think I’m making it all up, I’ll cite some of the greatest and most highly-respected (and respectfully ridiculed) figures in the history of Zen, including Hui-Neng (638-713), the Sixth Patriarch, Lin-Chi (d. 867), the founder of the Rinzai school, Mumon (1183-1260), the Rinzai master who assembled one of the most famous collections of koans, Dogen (1200-1253), the founder of Soto, the second major school, and Hakuin (1685-1768), the great Zen master, poet and artist who revitalized Zen practice. 

please read all article here:

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Max_Cafard__Zen_Anarchy.html

Urban Camping: Subversive City Living from Times Square to the Car Tent

 Urban camping means different things to different people, from living without a vehicle or electricity and plumbing to squatting in unused properties and more. However, the most popular definition of urban camping provided by the urban dictionary is: “camping in an urban setting by sleeping on rooftops, under bushes, and in public parks.”

Amid and Zach are two brave New Yorkers who picked the busiest and most high profile place they could think of to pitch their urban camp: Times Square, New York City. According to Zach,

“We chose the traffic median at 44th Street because it is a wide island right in the middle of Times Sqaure with plenty of room for our tents to sprawl. It was noisy and bright, but the LEDs replaced the stars nicely, and the skyscrapers couldn’t have imitated sequoias any better. We met dozens of strangers who, whether they were just curious, drunk or lonely, were eager to strike conversation to try figuring us out.”

They were also questioned by multiple police officers, to whom they provided non-commital responses about photographing the North Face store or waiting overnight to buy tickets.

Baltimore, Maryland seems as good a location as any to pitch a tent on the sidewalk. These industrious campers managed to travel virtually for free, selling mugs and living on the street.

“With promise of a free dinner from RISD, a new city to inhabit, and galleries extraordinaire, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) Conference in Baltimore was a must. While figuring out the budget side of this journey camping was suggested as a housing option in a joking manner, and strangely the idea began building with intrigue.”

Ultimately they were shooed away by the police, but not before sipping on hot chocolate and taking a few pictures.

The Car Tent is a rather ingenious approach to urban camping. Instead of hiding in a park or making up excuses in a public location, car tent users can camouflage themselves right in plain view.

“The car tent is a tent designed to look like a car cover, so you can go camping in the city without being disturbed. And really, who doesn’t go camping in the city? When you get hungry you just shoot a business man and cook him over an open flame.”

Be sure to check out this related article on car living and couch surfing and these creative homeless dwelling designs.

original article from Web Urbanist:
http://weburbanist.com/2007/09/28/urban-camping-subversive-city-living-from-times-square-to-the-car-tent/

Against intellectual property by Brian Martin

Against intellectual property
From Information Liberation, 

Challenging the corruptions 

of information power
by Brian Martin, 

Freedom Press, London 1998.

• Problems with intellectual property
• Critique of standard justifications
• The marketplace of ideas
• The alternative
  • Plagiarism
  • Royalities
  • Stimulating creativity
• Strategies for change
  • Change thinking
  • Expose the costs
  • Reproduce protected works
  • Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property
  • Promote non-owned information
  • Develop principles to deal with credit for intellectual work 

There is a strong case for opposing intellectual property. Among other things, it often retards innovation and exploits Third World peoples. Most of the usual arguments for intellectual property do not hold up under scrutiny. In particular, the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas provides no justification for ownership of ideas. The alternative to intellectual property is that intellectual products not be owned, as in the case of everyday language. Strategies against intellectual property include civil disobedience, promotion of non-owned information, and fostering of a more cooperative society.

The original rationale for copyrights and patents was to foster artistic and practical creative work by giving a short-term monopoly over certain uses of the work. This monopoly was granted to an individual or corporation by government. The government's power to grant a monopoly is corrupting. The biggest owners of intellectual property have sought to expand it well beyond any sensible rationale.

There are several types of intellectual property or, in other words, ownership of information, including copyright, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, design rights and plant breeders' rights. Copyright covers the expression of ideas such as in writing, music and pictures. Patents cover inventions, such as new substances or articles and industrial processes. Trademarks are symbols associated with a good, service or company. Trade secrets cover confidential business information. Design rights cover different ways of presenting the outward appearance of things. Plant breeders' rights grant ownership of novel, distinct and stable plant varieties that are "invented."

The type of property that is familiar to most people is physical objects. People own clothes, cars, houses and land. But there has always been a big problem with owning ideas. Exclusive use or control of ideas or the way they are expressed doesn't make nearly as much sense as the ownership of physical objects.

Many physical objects can only be used by one person at a time. If one person wears a pair of shoes, no one else can wear them at the same time. (The person who wears them often owns them, but not always.) This is not true of intellectual property. Ideas can be copied over and over, but the person who had the original copy still has full use of it. Suppose you write a poem. Even if a million other people have copies and read the poem, you can still read the poem yourself. In other words, more than one person can use an idea—a poem, a mathematical formula, a tune, a letter—without reducing other people's use of the idea. Shoes and poems are fundamentally different in this respect.

Technological developments have made it cheaper and easier to make copies of information. Printing was a great advance: it eliminated the need for hand copying of documents. Photocopying and computers have made it even easier to make copies of written documents. Photography and sound recordings have done the same for visual and audio material. The ability to protect intellectual property is being undermined by technology, Yet there is a strong push to expand the scope of ownership of information.

This chapter outlines the case against intellectual property. I begin by mentioning some of the problems arising from ownership of information. Then I turn to weaknesses in its standard justifications. Next is an overview of problems with the socalled "marketplace of ideas," which has important links with intellectual property. Finally, I outline some alternatives to intellectual property and some possible strategies for moving towards them. 

continue reading this chapter here:

http://thegringonews.net/monitor/aip.htm#2

Inspire! [a short video featuring Noam Chomsky & music from Oceansize]

Inspiration 

is our most 

powerfull weapon

We don't need followers

or faithfull soldiers

We 

Need 

Friends,

Lovers

and 

Comrades

Music:

"Music for a Nurse" 

by Oceansize 

Voice: Noam Chomsky

video directed by

MadV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0C6j0D8hrY

found at the Ataktos752 Channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ataktos752

FOOT NOT BOMBS NEEDS YOUR HELP !

Food Not Bombs is a de-centralized group of motivated individuals in the city of Missoula and across the globe who have a vision of a better world. The people in Missoula sharing food with one another in Missoula under the moniker or "Food Not Bombs" have been doing so off and on for years, this particular group has been active for about a calendar year and has successfully been operating sanitarily, peacefully, and co-operatively with the community at large. Sharing food together has proven to be a revolutionary idea in and of itself. The concept is simple: gather in a public place and share vegetarian food with all in our community in the attempt to make the following statements: 1) If effort of equal or greater value was put into feeding hungry people in the world instead of fueling the war machine, no one in our society would go  hungry. 2) Vegetarian food is non-violent and healthy. Most of our members are not vegetarian, but also due to health and food safety reasons, all the food that we bring to Food Not Bombs weekly potlucks are vegetarian dishes. 3) We believe that community space is for everyone, and that it is our constitutional right to make these statements and to assemble in public places for the purpose of sharing sanitary, healthy, delicious food with ourselves, our neighbors, and all members of the community. We see no difference between giving a casserole to our neighbors and inviting our neighbors to eat said casserole in public with us. 4) This is not a charitable practice. There is no hierarchy involved in this process, "we" are not "serving" food to "them." There is no "us" and "them.", and everyone serves themselves (free of charge, of course). All people who eat in front of the courthouse in Missoula are eating there because we are hungry and enjoy one another's company, and all are invited and encouraged to bring a dish of their very own.
The City of Missoula is trying to stop us! They have ordered us to pay them to exercise our right to free speech and assembly, to pay them to share food with our friends, neighbors, and community members. This is not right. They claim that we are "serving food to the public" without a "non-profit tax ID" and therefore are not eligible to share our resources with the community at large. It's time that we show them that Missoula cares about helping all members of the community. We need your help!
Come dine with us, bring as many people as you know who like to eat! 6pm, Sunday, in front of the Missoula County Courthouse @200 W Broadway 

Cops, Pigs, Murderers!...Angry Protests in Portland after the assassinations of people by the Police

Last week, Jack Dale Collins, a homeless man having a mental health crisis was shot and murdered by the Portland Police. Two months ago, Aaron Campbell, a suicidal black man grieving over the death of his brother the same day, was shot with beanbag guns, killed by a shot in the back, and had dogs released on his corpse. Last week, hours after the second killing in two months, Portland anarchists gathered and marched through the streets towards the East Police Precinct; bank windows were broken, neighbors came out of their houses and talked to us, and the police scrambled to respond to a spontaneous display of rage.

The next day, even more people gathered in the park, seizing Hawthorne and marching past bars and bike shops, homes and hipster dives. Once again, people poured out of their bars and houses, watching the march and receiving fliers denouncing the presence of police in our community. All were supportive; many joined the march, chanting "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" and "Our Passion for Freedom is Stronger Than Their Prisons!"
Distrust and anger towards the police is at an all-time high in Portland. The civil trial for the 2006 police murder of James Chasse, another unarmed man in a mental health crisis, begins in two months. In February, Black community leaders stormed city hall and refused to leave, demanding justice for Aaron Campbell. In a recent poll, only 56% of the population of Portland said that they trust the police. Divided demographically, 67% of African Americans and 82% of Hispanics do not trust the police. The black weekly, The Skanner, has published articles telling people not to call the police if they are having a mental health crisis.
The cracks in the facade of public trust and acceptance of police are showing, and widening. Yesterday, we thrust a crowbar into those cracks and wrenched them wide open.
The fliers were ubiquitous: "Enough is Enough; Protect our Community, Protect Ourselves!" Tags have sprouted around Portland in prominent locations: Fuck the Police; I Hate Police; ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards). Yesterday, we gathered again, this time downtown. The corporate media, shitting themselves over the potential for violence, discovered the words "Black Bloc" posted on Indymedia and showed up in force. The pigs arrived before the protesters: Riot police, mounted cops, and tactical bike cops.
Flanked by police and the media, a small trickle of people grew into a flood. 50, 60, 70 people in all black, plus another hundred or more who saw the fliers and, disgusted by police violence, came out in support. Not even the freezing weather and persistent rain can dampen our spirits. The police started moving: lines on this street, a team on that street, ready to swoop in and keep the people out of the streets. Would we ever get out of the park? Were the liberals correct, that we would alienate and endanger all of the unprepared people who joined the march?
The bloc tightened in the park, chanting. "No Justice, No Peace! Fuck The Police!" "One Chant to Unite Us All: Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" The others, those "vulnerable attendees" consistently fetishized by liberals, joined in, and chants rang out across the Park Blocks. And then, off they went, running down the sidewalk, past the police lines, and into the street, in a move that would be repeated over and over again during the four hour snake march that followed: The bloc in the street, others following on the sidewalk. Two hundred people marched on the justice center, and then past it, into the business district. Cracks spread across a Bank of America window. The first incident of "alienating, irresponsible violence, and yet everyone followed; no one was alienated, everyone was focused on their rage.
Over and over again: The march was forced off the road by horses and motorcycles, pushed onto a sidewalk corner, and then took off running again, leaving the pigs behind and seizing the street again. To Portland State University! a fraction of the march split, ran into PSU banging on doors, bring students out of their ivory tower and into the real world. Students gathered at their windows, on their skywalks, waving and joining the chants: "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" and "We Need Solidarity to End Police Brutality"
We left PSU, larger than when we arrived. Everywhere we went the march grew; passersby joined us, cars honked and handed out water bottles. Police were visibly angry and afraid; they had lost control of the march, and the city. The rage in downtown Portland was palpable; while helicopters circled, sirens wailed, and bike cops bashed people with their bikes, everyone who wasn't a cop got a flier, nodded their head, and shook their fist at the police.
Away from PSU, through a park, through an alley, onto a street and through a parking garage towards the freeway. The pigs didn't like that, and managed to hold us off the freeway, but the march continued to move like a ballet of rage. It wasn't only the Black Bloc in the streets anymore; when we had the streets, everyone was in them. When we didn't, we ran down sidewalks, backtracked, and shook off the police until we could seize the streets again.
To the City Center, and Pioneer Square; a young man, a passerby who wasn't in the march is arrested. He is given jail support info, and his five friends join the march, newly pissed at the pigs. Back to the Justice Center; it's dark now, and we can see the lights in holding cells far above us. Again, we chant: "Fire to the Prisons! Off the Pigs and Free the Prisoners!" The lights in the building flicker on and off in solidarity. They can hear us, and we can see them.
A young woman I've never seen before, who wasn't with us at the beginning, is leading the chants now: "Our Passion For Freedom Is Stronger Than Their Prisons!" We linger in front of the Justice Center, making our arrested comrades aware of our presence. And then we're off again, around the block in circles until we have an opening, and then back onto the street and into downtown, to the bars. People pour out of their bars, stare out the windows of the restaurants. Someone holds a flier up to the window; the occupants come to the window, read the flier, and smile. Even more people now; many of the original faces are gone, but our numbers are the same as before. A young woman is on the phone with her friends: "I just got hit by a cop! I'm in a riot in downtown Portland--You should come protest!"
These aren't summit-hardened anarchists now, they are passersby who hate the pigs. A woman in a wheelchair shouts, over and over again: "Fuck the Police! Get off our streets!" Another new face leads a chant: "Whose Cops? Not Ours!"
And so it goes, for four hours. The march starts with one group of people, ends with an entirely different population, but the message and the tactics are the same. Fuck the police; These are our streets. The crowd, tired and wet and cold, slowly dissipates, but not before 30 or so people block the Steel Bridge and then march across it, slowing traffic and bringing their message to the other side of the city.
Today, rest and court solidarity for our arrested comrades. Everyone feels like something has changed in Portland. Anarchists, demoralized and ostracized since the liberal take-over of the anti-war movement in Portland, have come together again. Three spontaneous marches in a week, each one larger than the last. Next week we meet again, an assembly of anarchists learning once again to trust each other, to work together, to fight the police. An upcoming community forum about safety and the police, with ex-Black Panthers, radical social workers, and copwatchers. Another one in the works, discussing concrete alternatives to the police. Murmurs of neighborhood assemblies, of building alternatives to keep each other safe and to get the pigs off the block.
These marches were our call to those who can hear: we are organizing ourselves, we are done waiting. We have chosen to take sides within our context, to exploit cracks and to fight the police wherever we are. We constitute a force against control; we seek to widen and deepen this crisis, not to manage it.


follow the news on portland anarchist movement here:
http://portland.indymedia.org/ 
see the videos from the demonstration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaXJayW4GOM&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SeUk53p4TI&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otu_km8DsxA&feature=player_embedded