ALEC thinks they're meeting in Scottsdale, AZ this November...
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is a massive non-profit body that brings corporations and legislators together to draft "model" legislation. For example, AZ Senator Russell Pearce and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation's largest private prison firm, have been members for years. ALEC finalized the model legislation which became, almost word for word, Arizona's SB1070, aka "Support Our Law Enforcement." It's the latest in the historical pattern of colonization, slave codes, convict leasing, and the drug war, that CREATES crimes and therefore criminals, for profit.
With British Petroleum (BP) and the Koch brothers as some of their funders, ALEC has pushed for Three Strikes and Mandatory Minimum sentencing, as well as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. More than 200 of ALEC's model bills became actual laws throughout the country over the past year.
We're a group of people in occupied Indigenous lands, now called Arizona, who demand the end of SB1070 and 287g, the criminalization—and then the incarceration—of migrants, and the militarization of the border. We oppose private prisons, detention centers, and security companies, not simply because they are private, but because we are sickened by profiteering on human misery. ALEC desires "free markets" and "limited government," which means they use the state to support profit-making, the continuance of colonization, and neo-liberal policies (NAFTA, CANAMEX, etc.) that draw lines, make laws, and build freeways and prisons to exploit labor and the earth.
Whether maintained by the state or corporations, we're against all systems of control. We are for freedom of movement for all people.
ALEC should know there are a million better things to do with their time than plotting mass incarceration. But there’s nowhere we’d rather be than confronting their meeting. We're calling for four days of action here in occupied Onk Akimel O’odham lands from November 29th - December 3rd, 2011, with an emphasis for action on November 30th (N30!). We encourage a creative diversity of tactics on N30, the 12th anniversary of the Seattle uprising against the WTO. No matter the acronym, ALEC is no different than all the other gangs of businessmen, politicians, and bureaucrats that we’ve been resisting for over 500 years.
In solidarity with everyone locked up and locked down in AZ, and all O’odham, Yaqui, Lipan Apache separated by the border, and anyone dispossessed by the wealthy and powerful…
Project Baldwin
projectbaldwin@riseup.net
see also: azresistsalec.wordpress.com
Showing posts with label direct action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label direct action. Show all posts
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Monday, August 2, 2010
Anti-SB1070 graffiti popping up in downtown Phoenix
PHOENIX - Arizona's border battle is leaving its mark on downtown Phoenix, but not in a good way.
"Usually people, when they see graffiti, they think of crime or a run down area," said Manager of Alta Phoenix Lofts Chiara Elie.
Within the last week, downtown Phoenix has become a spot for anti SB 1070 tagging, which has residents in Alta Phoenix Lofts upset.
"What's terrible is that we're really trying to bring up this community, not just this property but the neighboring businesses and the last thing we need is graffiti," said Elie.
The messages are showing up on everything from stop signs to a mural on the side of a building.
Within a few blocks there are eight different anti-SB1070 messages.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Immigration protesters try to close Tucson freeway with tar, tires, glass
Traffic on Interstate 19 was briefly disrupted south of Ajo Way this morning after a group of protesters placed tar and tires on the highway.
A group calling itself "Freedom for Arizona" said it planned to cover the southbound lanes of I-19 with tires covered in tar and broken glass to shut down "the very road that is used to deport people deemed 'illegal' as well as a direct disruption of the flow of capital," the group said in a news release.
Law enforcement officials have cleaned up the tires and reopened the interstate, according to the Department of Public Safety.
There were no reports of injuries.
Andres Chavez was arriving home from school and saw the whole incident. He said two trucks driving parallel on southbound Intestate-19 between Ajo and Valencia stopped and threw tires connected by rope from the truck beds.
The 8-12 men in the trucks then threw brown paint, broken glass and a sign over the tires. The sign read: "Stop the militirazation on the border." Then, they drove away, Chavez said.
"They halted traffic completely and almost got rear-ended by cars behind them," Chavez said.
Chavez pulled the 15-20 tires off the road because he was worried about wrecks.
"I have no problem with people protesting or whatever, but they were putting people's lives at risk," said Chavez, a 23-year-old University of Arizona journalism student. "There could have been a multi-car pile up there."
He described the tire-throwers as men between the ages of 20-25 who wore regular regular clothes.
In its news release, a group claiming responsibility said: "Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate.
"U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive."
Downtown protest
Meanwhile in downtown Tucson there were mostly peaceful protests in front of the state building at Congress and Granada.
One man, who supported SB1070, was arrested on suspicion of the threats and intimidation after he continued agitating those opposed to the law, and threatening two people, said Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police Department spokesman.
Officers had asked him to calm down before the arrest. He was removed from the protest area and taken to the Tucson police west side substation. The man was cited and released.
That was the only arrest at the Tucson events.
Several hundred people with signs, bull horns and drums demonstrated Thursday morning, most of whom oppose the law. Most said they were pleased with the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton that blocked key provisions in the law but that they still had concerns about the remaining provisions that went into effect.
"I'm pleased but not satisfied," said Lino Vasquez, a 25-year-old college student.
"It was a small stepping stone," said Angelina Castrillo-Sereno, who brought her two children with her to the rally.
There was also supporters of SB1070 who were unhappy with the judge's decision.
"I'm very disappointed," said Renee Allison, of Tucson. "It's a very sad day. It's sad that people don't support the law."
By 11 a.m., the number of protesters had decreased substantially.
Phoenix Arrests
Opponents of Arizona's immigration crackdown went ahead with protests Thursday in Phoenix despite a judge's ruling that delayed enforcement of most the law, and dozens of people in Phoenix were arrested after peacefully confronting officers in riot gear.
Outside the state Capitol, hundreds of protesters began marching at dawn, gathering in front of the federal courthouse where Bolton issued her ruling on Wednesday. They marched on to the office of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration one of his signature issues.
At least eight protesters approached a police line and allowed themselves to be arrested. A group of about two dozen protesters then sat down in the middle of the street or refused to leave, and police arrested them as well.
Earlier, three people were detained at the courthouse after apparently entering a closed-off area. Former state Sen. Alfredo Gutierrez, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2002, was among them.
Marchers chanted "Sheriff Joe, we are here, we will not live in fear," and among the crowd was a drummer wearing a papier-mache Sheriff Joe head and dressed in prison garb.
The Associated Press contributed to this story
Communique: Tucson Interstate Temporarily Blocked!
Sigue en español abajo:
DIRECT ACTION DISRUPTS ARIZONA RACISM!
Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged. This is why today we shut down Interstate 19 (I-19)
July 29, 2010 Tucson, AZ—On the morning that SB1070 is scheduled to take effect in the state of Arizona and three days before Obama deploys 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a group of concerned community members blocked traffic on I-19 south of Ajo Rd. in Tucson, AZ. A blockade of tires covered in tar and broken glass were placed across both southbound lanes along with a banner reading “Stop All Militarization! The Border is Illegal!” This blockade is a temporary shutdown of the very road that is used to deport people deemed “illegal” as well as a direct disruption of the flow of capital. By blocking I-19 we have halted the transportation of migrants and the profits Whack-n-hut and Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka make by these inhumane acts of separating families, communities and loved ones. This morning we interrupt the privatization of the criminalization of people of color.
The State of Arizona ruthlessly disrupts and terrorizes the lives of non-white communities on a daily basis. SB 1070 is yet another example of how migrants and people of color are criminalized. Today’s action is a declaration of resistance to the criminalization of affected communities and the militarization of indigenous land.
Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end these capitalist exploitations and stop their military invasions abroad.
We want an end to the militarization of indigenous land, I.C.E. raids, deportations, the attacks on ethnic studies, violence against women and queer people, the expansion of prisons and immigration detention centers, empire, the border wall and the genocide at the Arizona-Sonora border that has claimed the lives of over 153 people during the first 8 months of this fiscal year alone.
Today we interrupt the flow of Arizona’s traffic to bring attention to the following points:
ABOLISH ALL OF SB 1070 AND OTHER ANTI-MIGRANT LAWS.
STOP ALL MILITARIZATION. NO NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ON INDIGENOUS LAND.
BORDERS AND THE ARIZONA GOVERNMENT ARE ILLEGITIMATE.
NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL—THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS TO BLAME.
WE WANT RESPECT AND JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE.
We affirm our dignity and promote the well-being of all people. We stand for solidarity, peace, self-determination and autonomy. We assert the rights of all people everywhere to feel safe and live free of oppression and state violence.
**************************************************************
ACCIÓN DIRECTA INTERRUMPE EL RACISMO DE ARIZONA!
A pesar de la decisión de la Juez de bloquear componentes polémicos de la medida SB 1070, el perfil racial, las redadas, deportaciones y la militarización de la frontera continuaran sin ser desafiadas. Es por eso que hoy bloqueo la Interestatal 19 (I-19).
29 de Julio 2010 Tucson, AZ—En la mañana que la SB 1070 esta programada para entrar en vigor en el estado de Arizona y tres días antes de que Obama desplegue a 1,200 tropas de la Guardia Nacional, un grupo de miembros comunitarios bloquearon el tráfico hacia en la I-19, sur de La Calle Ajo en Tucson, AZ. Un bloqueo de llantas cubiertas con alquitrán y vidrio quebrado fueron colocadas en los dos carriles que van hacia el sur. En la carretera se ubicó un cartelón que declara “¡Alto a toda la Militarización! ¡La Frontera es Ilegal!” Este bloqueo es un paro temporal de la misma carretera que es usada para deportar a personas consideradas “ilegales”, al igual que es una interrupción directa del flujo de los productos y mercancía. Al interrumpir el tráfico de la I-19 hemos logrado suspender el transporte de migrantes y las ganancias que empresas como Wackenhut y Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka ganan al cumplir actos inhumanos como separar a nuestras familias. Esta mañana nosotr@s interrumpimos la privatización de la criminalización de las comunidades de color.
El Estado de Arizona sin piedad perturba y aterroriza a diario la vida ñde nuestras comunidades. La SB 1070 es otro ejemplo de cómo los migrantes y las personas de color somños criminalizadas. La acción de hoy es una declaración de resistencia a la criminalización de nuestras comunidades y la militarización de tierras indígenas.
Ni la SB 1070, ni el desplegue de tropas de la Guardia Nacional hacen nada para combatir las causas de por qué la gente emigra. Las guerras y las pólizas económicas de los EE.UU. han desplazado y empobrecido a millones de personas en todo el mundo. Pólizas impulsadas por ganancias, como el Tratado de Libre Comercio, causan la pobreza. Estas políticas y leyes no sólo consumen y explotan la tierra y la gente, pero también nos desplazan de nuestros hogares, obligándonos a emigrar para sobrevivir. Si los políticos tuvieran la seriedad de frenar la "inmigración ilegal", pondrían fin a su sistema económico que empobrece al mundo y acabarían con sus invasiones militares en el extranjero.
Queremos poner un fin a la militarización de tierras indígenas, redadas, deportaciones, los ataques a los estudios étnicos, la violencia contra las mujeres y gente gay, lesbiana, bisexual, transgenero, la expansión de las cárceles, los centros de detención, el imperio, el muro fronterizo y el genocidio en la frontera entre Arizona y Sonora, que ha cobrado la vida de más de 153 personas durante los primeros ocho meses de este año fiscal. Hoy interrumpimos el flujo del tráfico de Arizona para llamar a la atención los siguientes puntos:
SUPRIMIR COMPLETAMENTE LA SB 1070 Y OTRAS LEYES ANTI-MIGRANTES.
FRENAR TODO LA MILITARIZACIÓN. FUERA TROPAS DE LA FRONTERA.
LAS FRONTERAS Y EL GOBIERNO ARIZONENSE SON ILEGITIMOS.
NINGUN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL—ESTE SISTEMA ECONÓMICO ES EL PROBLEMA.
QUEREMOS RESPETO Y JUSTICIA PARA TODAS LAS PERSONAS.
Afirmamos nuestra dignidad y promovemos el bienestar de todas las personas. Estamos a favor de la solidaridad, la paz, la auto-determinación y la autonomía. Afirmamos el derecho de todos los pueblos del mundo a sentirse seguros y vivir libres de la opresión y libres de la violencia estatal.
DIRECT ACTION DISRUPTS ARIZONA RACISM!
Partial justice is no justice at all! Despite Judge ruling to block parts of SB 1070, racial-profiling, raids, deportations and the militarization of the border will continue unchallenged. This is why today we shut down Interstate 19 (I-19)
July 29, 2010 Tucson, AZ—On the morning that SB1070 is scheduled to take effect in the state of Arizona and three days before Obama deploys 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, a group of concerned community members blocked traffic on I-19 south of Ajo Rd. in Tucson, AZ. A blockade of tires covered in tar and broken glass were placed across both southbound lanes along with a banner reading “Stop All Militarization! The Border is Illegal!” This blockade is a temporary shutdown of the very road that is used to deport people deemed “illegal” as well as a direct disruption of the flow of capital. By blocking I-19 we have halted the transportation of migrants and the profits Whack-n-hut and Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka make by these inhumane acts of separating families, communities and loved ones. This morning we interrupt the privatization of the criminalization of people of color.
The State of Arizona ruthlessly disrupts and terrorizes the lives of non-white communities on a daily basis. SB 1070 is yet another example of how migrants and people of color are criminalized. Today’s action is a declaration of resistance to the criminalization of affected communities and the militarization of indigenous land.
Neither SB 1070 nor the deployment of National Guard troops to the border do anything to address the root causes as to why people migrate. U.S. economic policies and wars have displaced and impoverished millions of people all over the world. Capital-driven policies, such as NAFTA, create poverty. These policies and laws not only consume and exploit land and people, but they also displace us from our homes, forcing us to migrate in order to survive. If policymakers were serious about stopping “illegal immigration,” they would end these capitalist exploitations and stop their military invasions abroad.
We want an end to the militarization of indigenous land, I.C.E. raids, deportations, the attacks on ethnic studies, violence against women and queer people, the expansion of prisons and immigration detention centers, empire, the border wall and the genocide at the Arizona-Sonora border that has claimed the lives of over 153 people during the first 8 months of this fiscal year alone.
Today we interrupt the flow of Arizona’s traffic to bring attention to the following points:
ABOLISH ALL OF SB 1070 AND OTHER ANTI-MIGRANT LAWS.
STOP ALL MILITARIZATION. NO NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS ON INDIGENOUS LAND.
BORDERS AND THE ARIZONA GOVERNMENT ARE ILLEGITIMATE.
NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL—THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM IS TO BLAME.
WE WANT RESPECT AND JUSTICE FOR ALL PEOPLE.
We affirm our dignity and promote the well-being of all people. We stand for solidarity, peace, self-determination and autonomy. We assert the rights of all people everywhere to feel safe and live free of oppression and state violence.
**************************
ACCIÓN DIRECTA INTERRUMPE EL RACISMO DE ARIZONA!
A pesar de la decisión de la Juez de bloquear componentes polémicos de la medida SB 1070, el perfil racial, las redadas, deportaciones y la militarización de la frontera continuaran sin ser desafiadas. Es por eso que hoy bloqueo la Interestatal 19 (I-19).
29 de Julio 2010 Tucson, AZ—En la mañana que la SB 1070 esta programada para entrar en vigor en el estado de Arizona y tres días antes de que Obama desplegue a 1,200 tropas de la Guardia Nacional, un grupo de miembros comunitarios bloquearon el tráfico hacia en la I-19, sur de La Calle Ajo en Tucson, AZ. Un bloqueo de llantas cubiertas con alquitrán y vidrio quebrado fueron colocadas en los dos carriles que van hacia el sur. En la carretera se ubicó un cartelón que declara “¡Alto a toda la Militarización! ¡La Frontera es Ilegal!” Este bloqueo es un paro temporal de la misma carretera que es usada para deportar a personas consideradas “ilegales”, al igual que es una interrupción directa del flujo de los productos y mercancía. Al interrumpir el tráfico de la I-19 hemos logrado suspender el transporte de migrantes y las ganancias que empresas como Wackenhut y Corrections Corporation of Amerikkka ganan al cumplir actos inhumanos como separar a nuestras familias. Esta mañana nosotr@s interrumpimos la privatización de la criminalización de las comunidades de color.
El Estado de Arizona sin piedad perturba y aterroriza a diario la vida ñde nuestras comunidades. La SB 1070 es otro ejemplo de cómo los migrantes y las personas de color somños criminalizadas. La acción de hoy es una declaración de resistencia a la criminalización de nuestras comunidades y la militarización de tierras indígenas.
Ni la SB 1070, ni el desplegue de tropas de la Guardia Nacional hacen nada para combatir las causas de por qué la gente emigra. Las guerras y las pólizas económicas de los EE.UU. han desplazado y empobrecido a millones de personas en todo el mundo. Pólizas impulsadas por ganancias, como el Tratado de Libre Comercio, causan la pobreza. Estas políticas y leyes no sólo consumen y explotan la tierra y la gente, pero también nos desplazan de nuestros hogares, obligándonos a emigrar para sobrevivir. Si los políticos tuvieran la seriedad de frenar la "inmigración ilegal", pondrían fin a su sistema económico que empobrece al mundo y acabarían con sus invasiones militares en el extranjero.
Queremos poner un fin a la militarización de tierras indígenas, redadas, deportaciones, los ataques a los estudios étnicos, la violencia contra las mujeres y gente gay, lesbiana, bisexual, transgenero, la expansión de las cárceles, los centros de detención, el imperio, el muro fronterizo y el genocidio en la frontera entre Arizona y Sonora, que ha cobrado la vida de más de 153 personas durante los primeros ocho meses de este año fiscal. Hoy interrumpimos el flujo del tráfico de Arizona para llamar a la atención los siguientes puntos:
SUPRIMIR COMPLETAMENTE LA SB 1070 Y OTRAS LEYES ANTI-MIGRANTES.
FRENAR TODO LA MILITARIZACIÓN. FUERA TROPAS DE LA FRONTERA.
LAS FRONTERAS Y EL GOBIERNO ARIZONENSE SON ILEGITIMOS.
NINGUN SER HUMANO ES ILEGAL—ESTE SISTEMA ECONÓMICO ES EL PROBLEMA.
QUEREMOS RESPETO Y JUSTICIA PARA TODAS LAS PERSONAS.
Afirmamos nuestra dignidad y promovemos el bienestar de todas las personas. Estamos a favor de la solidaridad, la paz, la auto-determinación y la autonomía. Afirmamos el derecho de todos los pueblos del mundo a sentirse seguros y vivir libres de la opresión y libres de la violencia estatal.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Norway: Lier asylum centre in Buskerud burnt to the ground
theforeigner
8 July 2010 - Police have arrested 23 people on suspicion of arson after last night’s fire that destroyed Lier asylum centre in Buskerud
The fire started in three separate buildings that were far apart almost simultaneously, and preliminary investigations show traces of inflammable liquids.
Inmates already knew what was going to happen, as several refugees had packed their belongings, according to VG.
Jan Erik Skretteberg, regional director of SOS Rasisme, says he can understand why the fire was started, claiming there are many frustrated people who don’t get enough food or vitamins. There isn’t enough hot water in the showers, and a complete lack of mental health services.
“Several residents have warned previously it was only a matter of time before someone either harms of kills himself because of conditions at the institution. Not only do they live under severe mental pressure, but living conditions at the centres are also not fit for human beings,” he says.
Trouble at both the Lier, as well as Fagerli asylum centre in Nannestad in Akerhus municipality started early yesterday morning. Rioters destroyed fixtures and fittings, broke windows, and started smaller fires. Both facilities are now uninhabitable.
The centres house refugees who are awaiting deportation, after their asylum applications have been a final rejection. Some have been living there for four years.
http://sysiphus-angrynewsfromaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Group attacks border fence in protest of border patrol shooting
A group of young people demonstrated on the Rio Grande near the Santa Fe bridge Saturday to protest the fatal shooting Monday of a 15-year-old Juárez boy a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The demonstrators appeared to have crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the international fence on the U.S. side of the border. The demonstrators also cut a hole in the fence.
The protest was staged after the shooting death of Sergio Adrian Hernández Guereca, who was killed by a Border Patrol agent trying to make an arrest during a rock-throwing incident near the Paso del Norte Bridge in Downtown El Paso.
Officials said the agent was defending himself when he fired his weapon three times. The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation in the case.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15284326?source=most_viewed
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Anarchists attack ICE facility in Loveland, Colorado
ICE Facility Attacked in Loveland
Over the weekend of the 15th of May, an ICE field office in Loveland, Colorado was attacked. Every window and door was shattered, totaling around twelve panes in all.
The unmarked facility is one of many such hidden ICE buildings in the U.S. that attempt to operate in secrecy. One tactic used by ICE to maintain this secrecy is to take people from their homes in the middle of the night to be "processed" before taken to privately-owned ICE prisons.
By operating in secrecy, ICE is able to maintain this particular sub-station within a shopping and residential district without revealing the repression used to create and sustain borders.
This action was taken in the climate typified by SB1070 in Arizona and local anti-immigrant sentiment. However, the ICE office would have been targeted regardless of legislation.
Resistance and attacks against manifestations of borders, prison and power will continue as long as families are separated and people are imprisoned, deported, and harassed.
As others have said-
NO DEPORTATIONS!!! NO BORDERS!!
Solidarity means attack,
some anarchists
Over the weekend of the 15th of May, an ICE field office in Loveland, Colorado was attacked. Every window and door was shattered, totaling around twelve panes in all.
The unmarked facility is one of many such hidden ICE buildings in the U.S. that attempt to operate in secrecy. One tactic used by ICE to maintain this secrecy is to take people from their homes in the middle of the night to be "processed" before taken to privately-owned ICE prisons.
By operating in secrecy, ICE is able to maintain this particular sub-station within a shopping and residential district without revealing the repression used to create and sustain borders.
This action was taken in the climate typified by SB1070 in Arizona and local anti-immigrant sentiment. However, the ICE office would have been targeted regardless of legislation.
Resistance and attacks against manifestations of borders, prison and power will continue as long as families are separated and people are imprisoned, deported, and harassed.
As others have said-
NO DEPORTATIONS!!! NO BORDERS!!
Solidarity means attack,
some anarchists
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Radical Resistance: The Bird Lauds One of the Bolder Acts of Civil Disobedience Arizona's Seen Recently
RADICAL RESISTANCE
In one of the boldest acts of civil disobedience of late, a group of Native American, Mexican-American, and white activists occupied U.S. Border Patrol offices at Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on May 21, locking themselves around a pillar in a lobby that was soon filled with shocked Border Patrol agents.
Six of the demonstrators bound themselves together using pieces of PVC pipe around their arms and u-shaped bicycle locks around their necks. A banner was hoisted in front of the lobby's desk reading "Stop Militarization on Indigenous Lands Now."
The protesters had decorated the PVC with slogans such as, "No Militarization of the Border," and "Stop SB 1070." They chanted, sang songs, prayed, and even did freestyle raps, as befuddled BP agents tried to figure out what to do with them.
"It's very empowering to be in a room with 30 officers and know they can't do shit to you," Alex Soto, a Tohono O'odham tribesman and Phoenix group member told me after the action. "It was definitely going to take some force to get us out of there. Force they did not want to use."
Ultimately, the Border Patrol called the Tucson Police Department, and a settlement was negotiated. The demonstrators agreed to leave after 3 1/2 hours. They were arrested, cited for trespassing and disorderly conduct, then released.
Soto, who's working on a degree in American Indian studies at ASU, is originally from Sells, the O'odham Nation's capital, where much of his family still lives. He said this act of "peaceful resistance" was meant to broaden the debate over what's been going on in Arizona in the wake of Governor Jan Brewer's signing Sand Land's new "papers, please" legislation.
"It's not just about one bill or one sheriff," Soto told me, making reference to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "Our voices are always being marginalized. So we felt the need to take action."
The occupation of the Border Patrol HQ was meant as a challenge not only to Secretary Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security, of which the Border Patrol is a part, but also to the immigration-reform movement itself.
Soto decried what he insists is a trade-off that reform activists are willing to make: increased border security and a border wall in return for a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented residing in the United States.
"We want no walls, no racist, colonial laws that affect people of color, people who come here out of forced migration because of [economics]," he said.
The 24-year-old aspiring hip-hop artist also questioned the Border Patrol's heavy hand on the O'odham Nation, where thousands of migrants cross regularly, and where Border Patrol agents — with their checkpoints in and out of the reservation and their seemingly ever-present vehicles — make O'odham tribal land resemble a police state.
"How are we a sovereign nation when we have an occupying army patrolling our lands, while we're just trying to live?" wondered Soto.
That's a good question, one with no ready answer.
I would also note that it's highly ironic that an agency such as the Border Patrol, which supposedly guards the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border using barriers, helicopters, nighttime cameras, and watchtowers has little or no security vetting access to their own offices on a freaking U.S. Air Force base.
ARIZONA BRUSH FIRE
"Hopefully what we did will inspire other O'odhams and other races to take action," said Alex Soto.
I have no doubt that it will. Indeed, in the wake of SB 1070, the recent ban on ethnic studies, and the declared intent of state Senator Russell Pearce to push the Legislature to deny birth certificates to American-citizen children born to undocumented parents, a brush fire of pro-immigrant activism has swept the state.
On May 17, four students pushing for the DREAM Act were arrested after a sit-down strike in the Tucson offices of U.S. Senator John McCain. The DREAM Act is proposed federal legislation that would allow undocumented students brought to this country as kids to normalize their status.
Three of those young activists were undocumented, and they were held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after hearings before a judge in Tucson. ICE later released them on their own recognizance, but they now face deportation hearings.
Though the three came here from other states, they have vowed to remain in Arizona to organize and agitate on behalf of the DREAM Act.
Fifteen students were arrested days earlier, also in Tucson, in a protest over a ban on classes that promote "ethnic solidarity." The ban is the lame brainchild of Arizona Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, who is beating the nativist drum as he seeks to become our state's next attorney general.
And before that, on April 20, nine college-age men and women chained themselves to the door of the state Capitol in protest of SB 1070, forcing Capitol police to use bolt-cutters to free the activists before they were arrested and shipped to the Fourth Avenue Jail for this display of civil disobedience.
One of the Capitol Nine, as they're now called, was Leilani Clark, a 21-year-old student at Pima Community College whose defiant expression, radical outlook, and massive hair all combine to remind me of a young Angela Davis, the California history professor and political activist whose face was emblazoned on many a poster during the 1970s.
In a sort of echo of those times, an image of Clark getting arrested is now part of a billboard-size digital work of art that's being exhibited on the outside wall of Galeria de la Raza, a gallery in San Francisco's Mission District.
Clark is not Hispanic. Her father is African-American. Her mother is Native American. And she proudly touts herself as the product of the Tucson Unified School District's ethnic studies program. The very one Tom Horne's intent on destroying.
"It's very deep political consciousness that they give you," she told me over lunch in Tucson, referring to her ethnic studies. "So you can see the root factors of things.
"This is not just an immigration problem, it's an economic problem. Because all of the people coming up to the U.S. are economic refugees. They've lost their work, they've lost their livelihood down in Mexico because of U.S. trade policies."
Like many on the left, Clark points an accusing finger at the North American Free Trade Agreement, which critics say has devalued the price of corn in Mexico and helped impoverish many Mexicans, thus forcing them to flee north for work.
The ethnic studies program did not teach her this, per se, rather it taught her how to think critically. At age 16, she was already reading Howard Zinn's influential A People's History of the Unites States and comparing it to other U.S. histories. Pretty advanced stuff for a 16-year-old.
Anglos are not excluded from the classes, according to Clark. She told me that students read Chicano literature, African-American literature, and Native American literature, among other writings.
"It's very diverse," she said. "And it teaches you to have self-consciousness about other cultures. A lot of the students end up studying anthropology in higher education."
It is, in fact, that very diversity and independence of thought that Horne and the racist white Arizona power structure want to eradicate. Indeed, the Arizona Republican Party, in particular, wants to rip it up by the roots, all in a futile attempt to maintain Arizona as a white man's state.
I say futile because in 10 or 15 years' time, young people like Clark will have moved from the barricades to hold positions of influence themselves. And that terrifies the likes of bigots and opportunists such as Horne, state GOP Chairman Randy Pullen, Russell Pearce, and apparently Jan Brewer, as well as the fearful Caucasian community these leaders represent.
That's why these politicians are behind a law like 1070 that declares "attrition through enforcement" to be the policy of Arizona. When I asked Brewer what that meant during her recent press conference with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to promote a push-back to the boycott of Arizona, she tried to tell me it was about people coming here "legally."
Not at all, I shot back. It's about pushing people out — legal and illegal, as many brown people as they can get to leave the state as possible.
The bad news for them is that brilliant young men and women such as Clark are not leaving. They've opted to stay and fight.
WALKING TALL
"Civil disobedience is the next tactic in the escalation of the immigrant rights movement," Leilani Clark said. "We've exhausted every other resource. We've tried to call our senators, set up meetings with the governor. We've done our vigils, done our rallies, our prayers. We've fasted and marched. Our voices are not getting heard. We don't even count."
So Sand Landers can expect more civil disobedience, more passive resistance, and more demonstrations as the war over 1070 goes into a new phase. Unless, perhaps, 1070 is struck down by the courts.
Sigmund Freud had a concept that psychoanalysts call "the return of the repressed," wherein ideas and elements pushed down into the depths of the unconscious will inevitably reappear.
The anti-SB 1070 march to the Arizona state Capitol from Steele Indian School Park on Saturday, May 29, will be part of that return. (Check out www.AltoArizona.com for details.)
So, too, will be the acts of defiance that precede, follow, and accompany the march.
Because the more Arizona's leaders attempt to suppress the state's minority population, the greater the reaction will be, both within the state, and from without.
Long before Freud posited his theory, the American romantic poet William Cullen Bryant put it in more spiritual terms, in a passage the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of quoting:
"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again."
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-05-27/news/radical-resistance-the-bird-lauds-one-of-the-bolder-acts-of-civil-disobedience-arizona-s-seen-recently/
In one of the boldest acts of civil disobedience of late, a group of Native American, Mexican-American, and white activists occupied U.S. Border Patrol offices at Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base on May 21, locking themselves around a pillar in a lobby that was soon filled with shocked Border Patrol agents.
Six of the demonstrators bound themselves together using pieces of PVC pipe around their arms and u-shaped bicycle locks around their necks. A banner was hoisted in front of the lobby's desk reading "Stop Militarization on Indigenous Lands Now."
The protesters had decorated the PVC with slogans such as, "No Militarization of the Border," and "Stop SB 1070." They chanted, sang songs, prayed, and even did freestyle raps, as befuddled BP agents tried to figure out what to do with them.
"It's very empowering to be in a room with 30 officers and know they can't do shit to you," Alex Soto, a Tohono O'odham tribesman and Phoenix group member told me after the action. "It was definitely going to take some force to get us out of there. Force they did not want to use."
Ultimately, the Border Patrol called the Tucson Police Department, and a settlement was negotiated. The demonstrators agreed to leave after 3 1/2 hours. They were arrested, cited for trespassing and disorderly conduct, then released.
Soto, who's working on a degree in American Indian studies at ASU, is originally from Sells, the O'odham Nation's capital, where much of his family still lives. He said this act of "peaceful resistance" was meant to broaden the debate over what's been going on in Arizona in the wake of Governor Jan Brewer's signing Sand Land's new "papers, please" legislation.
"It's not just about one bill or one sheriff," Soto told me, making reference to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. "Our voices are always being marginalized. So we felt the need to take action."
The occupation of the Border Patrol HQ was meant as a challenge not only to Secretary Janet Napolitano's Department of Homeland Security, of which the Border Patrol is a part, but also to the immigration-reform movement itself.
Soto decried what he insists is a trade-off that reform activists are willing to make: increased border security and a border wall in return for a pathway to citizenship for the estimated 12 million undocumented residing in the United States.
"We want no walls, no racist, colonial laws that affect people of color, people who come here out of forced migration because of [economics]," he said.
The 24-year-old aspiring hip-hop artist also questioned the Border Patrol's heavy hand on the O'odham Nation, where thousands of migrants cross regularly, and where Border Patrol agents — with their checkpoints in and out of the reservation and their seemingly ever-present vehicles — make O'odham tribal land resemble a police state.
"How are we a sovereign nation when we have an occupying army patrolling our lands, while we're just trying to live?" wondered Soto.
That's a good question, one with no ready answer.
I would also note that it's highly ironic that an agency such as the Border Patrol, which supposedly guards the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border using barriers, helicopters, nighttime cameras, and watchtowers has little or no security vetting access to their own offices on a freaking U.S. Air Force base.
ARIZONA BRUSH FIRE
"Hopefully what we did will inspire other O'odhams and other races to take action," said Alex Soto.
I have no doubt that it will. Indeed, in the wake of SB 1070, the recent ban on ethnic studies, and the declared intent of state Senator Russell Pearce to push the Legislature to deny birth certificates to American-citizen children born to undocumented parents, a brush fire of pro-immigrant activism has swept the state.
On May 17, four students pushing for the DREAM Act were arrested after a sit-down strike in the Tucson offices of U.S. Senator John McCain. The DREAM Act is proposed federal legislation that would allow undocumented students brought to this country as kids to normalize their status.
Three of those young activists were undocumented, and they were held by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after hearings before a judge in Tucson. ICE later released them on their own recognizance, but they now face deportation hearings.
Though the three came here from other states, they have vowed to remain in Arizona to organize and agitate on behalf of the DREAM Act.
Fifteen students were arrested days earlier, also in Tucson, in a protest over a ban on classes that promote "ethnic solidarity." The ban is the lame brainchild of Arizona Schools Superintendent Tom Horne, who is beating the nativist drum as he seeks to become our state's next attorney general.
And before that, on April 20, nine college-age men and women chained themselves to the door of the state Capitol in protest of SB 1070, forcing Capitol police to use bolt-cutters to free the activists before they were arrested and shipped to the Fourth Avenue Jail for this display of civil disobedience.
One of the Capitol Nine, as they're now called, was Leilani Clark, a 21-year-old student at Pima Community College whose defiant expression, radical outlook, and massive hair all combine to remind me of a young Angela Davis, the California history professor and political activist whose face was emblazoned on many a poster during the 1970s.
In a sort of echo of those times, an image of Clark getting arrested is now part of a billboard-size digital work of art that's being exhibited on the outside wall of Galeria de la Raza, a gallery in San Francisco's Mission District.
Clark is not Hispanic. Her father is African-American. Her mother is Native American. And she proudly touts herself as the product of the Tucson Unified School District's ethnic studies program. The very one Tom Horne's intent on destroying.
"It's very deep political consciousness that they give you," she told me over lunch in Tucson, referring to her ethnic studies. "So you can see the root factors of things.
"This is not just an immigration problem, it's an economic problem. Because all of the people coming up to the U.S. are economic refugees. They've lost their work, they've lost their livelihood down in Mexico because of U.S. trade policies."
Like many on the left, Clark points an accusing finger at the North American Free Trade Agreement, which critics say has devalued the price of corn in Mexico and helped impoverish many Mexicans, thus forcing them to flee north for work.
The ethnic studies program did not teach her this, per se, rather it taught her how to think critically. At age 16, she was already reading Howard Zinn's influential A People's History of the Unites States and comparing it to other U.S. histories. Pretty advanced stuff for a 16-year-old.
Anglos are not excluded from the classes, according to Clark. She told me that students read Chicano literature, African-American literature, and Native American literature, among other writings.
"It's very diverse," she said. "And it teaches you to have self-consciousness about other cultures. A lot of the students end up studying anthropology in higher education."
It is, in fact, that very diversity and independence of thought that Horne and the racist white Arizona power structure want to eradicate. Indeed, the Arizona Republican Party, in particular, wants to rip it up by the roots, all in a futile attempt to maintain Arizona as a white man's state.
I say futile because in 10 or 15 years' time, young people like Clark will have moved from the barricades to hold positions of influence themselves. And that terrifies the likes of bigots and opportunists such as Horne, state GOP Chairman Randy Pullen, Russell Pearce, and apparently Jan Brewer, as well as the fearful Caucasian community these leaders represent.
That's why these politicians are behind a law like 1070 that declares "attrition through enforcement" to be the policy of Arizona. When I asked Brewer what that meant during her recent press conference with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to promote a push-back to the boycott of Arizona, she tried to tell me it was about people coming here "legally."
Not at all, I shot back. It's about pushing people out — legal and illegal, as many brown people as they can get to leave the state as possible.
The bad news for them is that brilliant young men and women such as Clark are not leaving. They've opted to stay and fight.
WALKING TALL
"Civil disobedience is the next tactic in the escalation of the immigrant rights movement," Leilani Clark said. "We've exhausted every other resource. We've tried to call our senators, set up meetings with the governor. We've done our vigils, done our rallies, our prayers. We've fasted and marched. Our voices are not getting heard. We don't even count."
So Sand Landers can expect more civil disobedience, more passive resistance, and more demonstrations as the war over 1070 goes into a new phase. Unless, perhaps, 1070 is struck down by the courts.
Sigmund Freud had a concept that psychoanalysts call "the return of the repressed," wherein ideas and elements pushed down into the depths of the unconscious will inevitably reappear.
The anti-SB 1070 march to the Arizona state Capitol from Steele Indian School Park on Saturday, May 29, will be part of that return. (Check out www.AltoArizona.com for details.)
So, too, will be the acts of defiance that precede, follow, and accompany the march.
Because the more Arizona's leaders attempt to suppress the state's minority population, the greater the reaction will be, both within the state, and from without.
Long before Freud posited his theory, the American romantic poet William Cullen Bryant put it in more spiritual terms, in a passage the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of quoting:
"Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again."
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2010-05-27/news/radical-resistance-the-bird-lauds-one-of-the-bolder-acts-of-civil-disobedience-arizona-s-seen-recently/
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Battleground Arizona: Students Take the Streets for Immigrant Rights and Against Racism
Undocumented students arrested in McCain’s office, held for deportation
By James Jordan |
May 18, 2010
Tucson, AZ - Arizona has seen an explosion of Chicano and Mexicano led student resistance to racist laws and in defense of the right to a quality education. Nowhere is this more evident than in the city of Tucson, which is singled out for attack by racist elements of state government. The struggle has attracted attention across the nation. Since the state House and Senate adopted the anti-immigrant and anti-Latino law, SB1070, thousands of students have walked out of school in protest and there has been a wave of youth-led direct actions.
On May 12, students surrounded the Tucson Unified School District to stop TUSD’s ethnic studies program from being shut down. On May 17, the anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, students from across the country came to occupy the Tucson office of U.S. Senator John McCain to demand passage of the Dream Act, legislation that would give some undocumented students the opportunity to legally pursue higher education. Four of the students were arrested by Tucson police, three of whom were undocumented. After being released from jail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took the three undocumented students into custody where they are now awaiting deportation.
A human chain of hundreds gathered at a May 12 protest to defend local education from the racist attacks of State Superintendant of Education Tom Horne. Chanting, “Our education is under attack! What do we do? Fight back!” the crowd could be heard blocks away. Those present were mostly Latino, mostly middle and high school students, but with significant multi-ethnic and multi-age support. Students walked out of school, organizing the demonstration in just a couple of hours when they learned that Horne was coming to Tucson. According to some students, he had come “to personally shut down ethnic studies classes.” However, that was one plan Horne had to cancel.
About 400 students walked out in protest. HB2281, which Horne personally authored, is a direct attack on TUSD’s ethnic studies program, which was won through popular struggle over ten years ago. Horne’s law bans ethnic studies and punishes districts in violation of the law by withholding 10% of their budget. TUSD Board member Adelita Grijalva told an April rally, “We have people up there in Phoenix focused on one district…Instead, they should focus on funding the state’s schools!”
TUSD officials had requested Horne’s presence for a private meeting to discuss the new legislation, which goes into effect on Dec. 31. Horne, who is in a primary race for the state’s Attorney General Office, decided to make a statement to the press before leaving for Tucson. In response, TUSD canceled the meeting.
Tucson businessman Raul Aguirre, talking with Fight Back!, compared this legislation with earlier measures such as the English-only bill and bills attacking bilingual education. Addressing the students, Aguirre said, “In a time of a global economy, when people everywhere are talking about getting a global perspective, this is myopic!”
Later that day, around 200 students and allies marched to the state building, where Horne had gone to make yet another public statement. Around 40 people entered and occupied the building, with 15 people arrested before the day was done. Media representatives were physically forced to leave before the arrests were completed, according to videographer Jason Aragones.
HB2281 outlaws programs that are aimed at students of particular ethnicities or that advocate “ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.” However, TUSD ethnic studies classes have always been open to and attended by students of any ethnicity. Likewise, students attend and participate in classes ‘individually’ and they are graded ‘individually.’ Revealing the subjective and arbitrary nature of the legislation, its enforcement is left to the State Superintendant’s discretion.
During an interview with CNN later that evening, Horne’s defense of the bill seemed almost paranoid as he denounced the wearing of sunglasses and berets as “revolutionary.” Horne told CNN “…we should be teaching the kids that this is a land of opportunity, and not teach them the downer that they’re oppressed and…they should be angry against their government...I brought in a picture that you might want to show that shows the revolutionary garb that they wore when they protested against my law with masks, sunglasses, berets, brown shirts.”
HB2281 is the first passed of several pending bills that would encode racist measures in Arizona schools. Also under consideration are bills requiring students to prove their citizenship status and for schools to report those without proper documents to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The protests and arrests that took place surrounding Horne’s visit are the latest examples of a growing militancy in the Arizona fight back. Mobilizations exploded with the passage in the state house of SB1070, a law that institutionalizes racial profiling. SB1070 gives state law enforcement authority to detain and investigate anyone they suspect of being an undocumented immigrant. In Arizona, that means anyone with brown skin, speaking Spanish. Two days after that vote, the White House carried out a militaristic raid of Latino communities in Arizona by more than 800 ICE agents, with the cooperation of local and state law enforcement. Many local activists saw this as an unspoken endorsement of Arizona’s new policies.
Since then, anti-racist Arizonans have been arrested several times in direct actions, thousands of students have participated in walk-outs and there have been almost daily demonstrations - many days with more than one. On May 7, students, teachers and community members conducted a 24-hour vigil in support of ethnic studies at Tucson High School. Meanwhile, reports came in from the border cities of Nogales and San Luis that on the Mexican side, motorists had shut down the ports of entry in protest. Eyewitnesses say that on the U.S. side, people were getting out of their cars, raising their fists and voices in a show of solidarity.
The four college students arrested on May 17 after the daylong occupation of Senator McCain’s Tucson offices - Lizbeth Mateo, Yahaira Carrillos, Mohammad Abdollahi and Raúl Alcaraz - had ties to Illinois, California, Kansas, Michigan and of course, Arizona. The undocumented protesters, Mateo, Carrillos and Abdollahi are now in custody of ICE. As the students were being taken to jail in a police van, the crowd chanted, “Undocumented! Unafraid!”
Chicano activist César Wolf did a call and response with the crowd:
“Are we going to unite brown people into this movement?”
“Yes!”
“Are we going to unite Mexicans into this movement?”
“Yes!”
“Are we going to unite white people…Asians…our abuelitos…our youth into this movement?”
“Yes!”
Speaking for those arrested, Tanya Unzueta, who has been in the U.S. since the age of ten, said “I am undocumented, living in Chicago. There are four students inside, three of them undocumented. They send a message of love.These students have risked their lives, their education, their freedom. Now it is up to us to make sure they are not forgotten...If they were able to do this, then - what are you going to do?”
As the movement in Arizona grows, supporters across the country are being asked to come to Phoenix on May 29 as part of a national protest against the state’s anti-immigrant laws and to demand an end to federal policies that militarize the border and criminalize undocumented workers. Meanwhile, the summer of 2010 has been declared “Freedom Summer” by several organizations. To learn more about May 29, go to http://altoarizona.com/. Those interested in coming to Southern Arizona to join in solidarity activities this summer can learn more by writing james@afgj.org.
People are also being asked to support the struggle in Arizona by: 1) demanding that the federal government not cooperate with SB1070 and to take quick action to keep it from being implemented, and 2) boycotting Arizona until SB1070 and other anti-immigrant and anti-Latino laws are repealed.
The boycott includes conventions and conferences in Arizona, visits to the state (not including visits to close friends and family or to take part in solidarity actions) and a refusal to patronize the Arizona Diamondbacks, whose owners provide major funding to the Arizona Republican Party and supporters of sb1070.
Sadly, in the midst of these growing mobilizations, another increase is taking place. The number has grown by 60% over last year for undocumented workers dying as they try to cross desert borderlands. Already, the remains of 110 persons have been found. Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, over 5000 displaced and undocumented workers have died crossing the US-Mexico desert. They are displaced because of NAFTA provisions that have destroyed rural economies. The situation is worsened by the border’s militarization, forcing workers to cross the most inhospitable and harshest of terrains. (For more information: http://derechoshumanosaz.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2... .)
If the middle and high school students leading these anti-racist struggles have anything to say about it, these fallen workers will not have died in vain. These students and their allies are organized, fired up and ready for a protracted struggle. Speaking bluntly about “the house that racism has built” one young Chicano activist declared: “We are coming to burn your house down!”
Monday, May 17, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Phoenix Anarchist Actions in Response to SB1070
On Friday morning, AZ governor Jan Brewer passed the newest and perhaps most violent in a succession of racist bills, 1070.
1070 means:
It is now illegal for any person to be on public or private land (meaning in any location within the state) without carrying verification proving citizenship or legal residency.
Every person must now carry proof of legal residency at all times in Arizona,and may legally be asked by any state employed to present documentation.
It is now illegal for any person who cannot provide legal documentation to look for employment or to be employed in the state of Arizona.1070 makes no bones about it: the bill is one of the most honest in demonstrating the progression of Arizona into the furthest depths of a Police State, and of the racism that necessitates it.
Phoenix area anarchists were quick to respond- in a matter of 2 days, a multitude of actions were organized around bringing the conflict more visibly to the streets of Phoenix (for the mainstream unaware of how issues of state racism and indigenous colonialism affect everyone).
With black flags, signs, and banners, a march of approximately 40 anarchists proceeded South on Central Avenue towards Van Buren. Pedestrians cheered as the group approached. The street, artistically peppered with messages of resistance- stickers, paintings and the like- became a ground for insurrectionary conflict as the loud cadre erected a border wall across Central Avenue: “DO NOT CROSS: VIOLATORS MIGHT GET FREE".
The business district was an obstacle course as drivers and passersby were forced to negotiate the obstruction of their space and the impediment of their movement- a burden placed daily on the shoulders of the indigenous whose land has been militarized and the undocumented- hunted daily.
As the public on Van Buren at Central were left to respond to the ruptures that their political complicity facilitated, the group rambunctiously proceeded along Van Buren to third street. “No Borders; No Nations; No Police Stations!” Chants rung about the cold concrete high rises as police suddenly and forcefully halted the march. Throwing marchers to the ground and threatening them with tasers and mace, the pigs detained the majority of march participants. The police demanded the names and birth dates of all detained at the threat of mass arrest. After approximately forty minutes all were released without charges or citation, except for one comrade who was arrested for “obstructing justice by not giving his true name”; a fabricated accusation.
Demonstrations this past week indicate an escalation in radical protest and dissent that will not be ameliorated by any form of legislation or representative polity. The popular resistance in Arizona thus identifies with anarchist principles, and Arizona anarchists locate themselves fittingly within a timely social war for total liberation.
Arizona: attack! Let’s get free.
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