Crapaganda.com

After filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Richmond Police Department for police training documents, Mo Karn received much more than expected in return: homeland security and crowd control guides that show how the police target protests.

The police filed for an emergency court order yesterday to prohibit Karn from publicizing any of the documents, which should never have been released. The cops’ reasoning? “Defendant Mo Karn is a known and admitted anarchist.”

The documents, however, have already been published online. And buried in the training guides are insights into three trends in law enforcement that have been occurring not just in Virginia, but nationally: the demonization of protest, the militarization of police, and turning local cops into “terrorism” officials.

The Demonization of Protest

The Richmond Police Department’s Emergency Operations Plan
includes a section on “civil disturbances.” While this sounds innocuous, “civil disturbances” are defined so broadly as to include what the police call “dissident gatherings.”

“The City of Richmond is a target rich environment” for antiwar protesters, the document says. And it warns that police and homeland security have reason to be increasingly concerned:

“Current training and intelligence reveals that protestors are becoming more proficient in the methods of assembly.”

Militarization of Local Police

Such a depiction of “assembly” (a First Amendment right) as a “disturbance” and a threat is all the more troubling when put in the context of the other police department guides. Richmond’s Crowd Management Operating Manualis for the police unit assigned to large protests (no experience required). Among the tools that the crowd management team are issued include riot shields, chemical agents, cut tools, helmets, body armor, cameras, video cameras, batons, gas masks, and a “mass arrest kit.”

Deputizing Local Cops as Counter-terrorism Officials

This militarization of local police is accompanied by another trend in law enforcement since September 11th: deputizing local cops to becoming “homeland security” and counter-terrorism officials. According to the Homeland Security Criminal Intelligence Unit Operating Manual, “The Richmond Police Department is under contract with the FBI to provide assistance through staffing, intelligence and equipment.” And one member of the homeland security unit is assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The result? Documents like the Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment. The 2009 document was created by the Virginia Fusion Center, of which the Richmond Police Department is part. Fusion centers are ostensibly designed to gather terrorism intelligence from multiple police agencies, and make us safer. In practice, they routinely label activists as “terrorists.” Among the “terrorist threats” identified in Virginia were animal rights activists, environmental activists, and anarchists.

According to the threat assessment, “The Virginia Federation of Anarchists has held two conferences in Richmond in November 2007 and January 2008″ and “Anarchist protesters at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. spilled over into Prince William County.”

Karn, meanwhile, wears her scarlet circle ‘A’ with pride, and has no problem being labeled an anarchist. The FOIA was submitted by the Wingnut Collective, a Richmond anarchist group, as part of their police accountability project.

In his court motion warning that Karn is an “anarchist,” Richmond’s Deputy Assistant Attorney Brian Telfair doesn’t allege the possibility of any violence or property destruction. Instead, he cites a blog post by Karn about acquiring government information through legal requests. The title? “FOIA Rocks!”

Source: GreenIsTheNewRed.com

By Tim Dees

For some, anarchy is a full-time job. The nature or cause of the event is a far secondary issue to the opportunity to disrupt people’s lives, destroy property, and flip the bird at authority. These folks devote their talents to devising new ways of creating quickly-constructed blockades of streets and buildings, improvising protective gear, and manufacturing weapons to use against riot police. Organizations such as the Direct Action Network, which played a major role in the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” riots, provide instrumentality for the riot-inclined. Fortunately, anarchists don’t organize well (imagine that), so the networks come and go.

These professional anarchists travel the globe to lend their skills at whatever demonstration might be handy, ranging from World Trade Organization meetings to student protests like London is experiencing. Like most other major cities, London has its share of organized protest demonstrations from time to time. Most recently, the Metropolitan Police contended with multiple incidents centered on the news that tuition at public universities was being increased substantially. The latest protests may have been the first instance of social networking used not just to organize the protests, but also to monitor activity in real time and subvert police efforts to keep the peace.

In December 2010, protest organizers used custom Google Maps to track police movements and rally points, updating the maps in real time with wireless Internet connections. The updaters even created custom icons to represent police, aircraft, and prisoner transport vans. Google Maps can be shared between designated users or made public, so anyone who knows where to look can see it. The maps for this event were public, and presumably the links to them were disseminated to other protest information sources.

Historically, police have had the upper hand in tactical information during public order events. Radio networks of officers posted at observation points, possibly coupled with closed-circuit television images, keep command post personnel apprised of what’s happening and where. Keeping that information current is absolutely critical for effective management of the situation. Without it, personnel and equipment won’t be where it’s most needed.

The proliferation of highly capable handheld ‘smartphones’ now makes it easy for protest organizers to communicate by voice, text and images, even with real-time video. The protesters may have more watchers and observation points than the police, and actually outpace the police in quantity and quality of intelligence.

Having this kind of information available has made it possible for disrupters to create decoy incidents to draw resources away from where they are needed most. An observation point may report that people are assembling a “protest tripod” to block an intersection at ‘X’ and ‘Y’ streets. These tripods are made of three tall poles, lashed together at one end with a protester dangling from the junction. They take up a lot of room and are difficult to dismantle quickly without injuring the protester. Meanwhile, there is a less obvious gathering of people in another location who intend to break out windows and tip over cars on a street as soon as forces are marshaled to intercept the tripod crew.

Having a real-time map, complete with satellite photos, of where everyone is at any one moment is almost as good as having your own helicopter overhead — maybe better, if you can distract the crew of the helicopter.

First Amendment and net neutrality issues being what they are, there isn’t much law enforcement can do to keep protest organizers from using these resources. What you can do is know that your opposition has access to this kind and quality of information, and not to underestimate them or their capability. Managing large-scale public order incidents is a science, and it’s possible to leverage a relatively small force to be effective against a large gathering. If you anticipate the possibility of a protest or other anarchist demonstration in your community, prepare now.

The protesters are preparing already.

Source: PoliceOne.com

At a labor convention held in October 1884,  unions unanimously set May 1, 1886, as the date by which the eight-hour work day would become standard.  When May 1, 1886 approached, U.S. labor unions prepared for a general strike in support of the eight-hour day.

Rallies were held throughout the United States.  It has been estimated that the total number of striking U.S. workers was somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000.  The movement was centered in Chicago where an estimated 40,000 workers went on strike.  The founder of the International Working People’s Association was Albert Parsons.  He, along with his wife and children, led a march of 80,000 people down Michigan Avenue.

On May 3, striking workers in Chicago rallied at McCormick Harvesting Machine Company plant where union molders had been locked out since early February.  When the bell rang marking the end of the workday a group of striking workers surged to the gates to confront strikebreakers. Despite calls for the workers to remain calm, gunfire erupted as police fired on the crowd.  In the end, two McCormick workers were killed

Outraged by the police violence, local anarchists quickly printed and distributed fliers calling for a rally the next day at Haymarket Square.  These fliers alleged that police had murdered the strikers on behalf of business interests.  Some of the fliers said, “Workingmen Arm Yourselves and Appear in Full Force!”

Read more »

Excerpted from:

It’s true. If your idea of healthy human relations is a dinner with friends, where everyone enjoys everyone else’s company, responsibilities are divided up voluntarily and informally, and no one gives orders or sells anything, then you are an anarchist, plain and simple. The only question that remains is how you can arrange for more of your interactions to resemble this model.

Whenever you act without waiting for instructions or official permission, you are an anarchist. Any time you bypass a ridiculous regulation when no one’s looking, you are an anarchist. If you don’t trust the government, the school system, Hollywood, or the management to know better than you when it comes to things that affect your life, that’s anarchism, too. And you are especially an anarchist when you come up with your own ideas and initiatives and solutions.

As you can see, it’s anarchism that keeps things working and life interesting. If we waited for authorities and specialists and technicians to take care of everything, we would not only be in a world of trouble, but dreadfully bored—and boring—to boot. Today we live in that world of (dreadfully boring!) trouble precisely to the extent that we abdicate responsibility and control.

Anarchism is naturally present in every healthy human being. It isn’t necessarily about throwing bombs or wearing black masks, though you may have seen that on television (Do you believe everything you see on television? That’s not anarchist!). The root of anarchism is the simple impulse to do it yourself: everything else follows from this.

Click here for the entire Anarchist Primer in pdf (13 pages)

We dropped out of school, got divorced, broke with our families and ourselves and everything we’d known.

We quit our jobs, violated our leases, threw all our furniture out on the sidewalk, and hit the road.

We sat on the swings of children’s playgrounds until our toes were frostbitten, admiring the moonlight on the dewy grass, writing poetry on the wind for each other.

We went to bed early and lay awake until well past dawn recounting all the awful things we’d done to others and they to us—and laughing, blessing and absolving each other and this crazy cosmos.

We stole into museums showing reruns of old Guy Debord films to write fight foul and faster, my friend, the old world is behind you on the backs of theater seats.

The scent of gasoline still fresh on our hands, we watched the new sun rise, and spoke in hushed voices about what we should do next, thrilling in the budding consciousness of our own limitless power.

We used stolen calling card numbers to talk our teenage lovers through phone sex from telephones in the lobbies of police stations. Read more »

-Emma Goldman

Marriage and love have nothing in common; they are as far apart as the poles; are, in fact, antagonistic to each other. No doubt some marriages have been the result of love. Not, however, because love could assert itself only in marriage; much rather is it because few people can completely outgrow a convention. There are to-day large numbers of men and women to whom marriage is naught but a farce, but who submit to it for the sake of public opinion. At any rate, while it is true that some marriages are based on love, and while it is equally true that in some cases love continues in married life, I maintain that it does so regardless of marriage, and not because of it.

On the other hand, it is utterly false that love results from marriage. On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable. Certainly the growing-used to each other is far away from the spontaneity, the intensity, and beauty of love, without which the intimacy of marriage must prove degrading to both the woman and the man. Read more »