Better late than never

Most of these posts have been up for a while, but I missed them. They are awesome. Go read some.

 

Links!

Why I broke up with the anarchist community. [thx, jill]

Laura Ingraham is stupid.

Sarah Palin deprives Salt Lake City of delicious CostCo tomatoes. She’d been pelted with tomatoes at an earlier event, and CostCo (“The Only Place For Tomatoes in SLC”) could take no chances. [via wonkette]

Hockey fight! [via kottke]

 

“Crow Creek land is not for sale”

A call to action for Native land defense in Minnesota:

Brandon Sazue’s camper sitting in the middle of the prairie presented a lonely but inspiring image as we drove up Wednesday afternoon.  Despite the bitter cold and wind, the young Crow Creek tribal chairman was taking a stand against the United States theft of any more Dakota lands, telling us “Crow Creek land is not for sale, and it never will be.”Symbolically placing his camper under a wind data tower, Sazue has committed to remain on this parcel of land as long as it takes to achieve justice.  The land is part of the 7,112 acres recently stolen by the United States government in what amounts to a 21st century land grab.  Because the land is not currently held in trust, on December 4, 2009, the Internal Revenue Service used that as an opportunity to claim it and auction it off as a means to settle what they assert is a delinquent $3,123,790 tax bill (…)

Sazue’s stand in defense of the land is a rallying cry to the rest of the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires) of the Dakota Oyate (Nation).  Though fierce winter weather has so far kept supporters from camping out next to Sazue, a steady stream of allies offering prayers, songs, food, supplies and encouragement continues throughout each day and even more people show their solidarity through phone calls and emails.  We know more of our people will be coming.  Like Chairman Brandon Sazue, we will not allow these lands to be taken.  We will stand with him.

Unsettling Minnesota has a list of ways to help.

 

“Robert Erickson’s” Yes-Men moment at MN anti-immigration rally

My favorite action in recent memory: An anti-racist activist infiltrates an anti-immmigration group, gets added to the list of speakers, and stages an elaborate put-on worthy of the Yes Men. TCindymedia’s reportback has much more.

“Robert Erickson’s” message for the rally-goers? Deport all “the illegals” back to … Europe. After all, European immigrants have brought with them waves of crime, crippling disease, and stole Native land and jobs, claiming they are entitled to such things simply because they can lie and deceive their way around the law and customs. They have undermined Native sovereignty and have viewed with scorn the traditional practices and mores of those who were here first. And they do all with this — from genocide to ongoing land and resource theft — with impunity.

Video and the text of the speech after the jump.

 

Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Keep fighting.

 

Local resistance news round-up

The Quad-City Times has a pretty decent article on Minneapolis resident Carrie Feldman and her refusal to testify before a Davenport, Iowa grand jury. The focus on the raid itself, rather than the undemocratic nature of grand juries (to put it mildly), is sort of unfortunate, but actually not that unfair, in my opinion.

 

A quick note on “property crime”

So I was briefly in court the other day. I am not going to comment much on the reason for my presence, though you can get an idea here.

What an amazing thing it is to be in court, though. The system stands naked before you and gets all awkward about the shit.

The last time I was in court, a few months ago, we (me and my co-defendants) were preceded by three different cases. One was a public urination offense and the other two were trespassing charges lodged against rather sad-looking dudes who had apparently slept in an abandoned house and a trainyard, respectively.

This time, since we had acquired counsel, we weren’t really even on the agenda. We mostly hung out in the hall, reading the formal complaints we’d demanded a month ago and received directly prior to the hearing. The state offered us the same basic offer we got last time, which we refused. One of us got our charges dismissed for some reason. Hell yeah for that.

Anyways, sitting in the courtroom, here are the two other charges I heard against others on Friday:

Public indecency: A woman was arrested passed out in the passenger seat of a car with no pants on. The representative of the state asked her very serious questions about this. She was compelled to answer very seriously. The prosecutor was a young white woman and the defendant was an African-American woman in her mid-30s, I’d guess. Everyone found it awkward and distasteful and stupid. Still, that’s how the system rolls.

Trespassing: An old man — grizzled, looking pretty beat-up but mostly from the travails of street-life, I’d guess — stood in shackles in that little booth Hennepin County mandates for inmates. Turns out, he slept in a bus stop enclosure and got picked up. It was readily apparent that he probably had nowhere else to go. Still, here he was, jumpsuited, shackled, looking like someone who’d hurt someone. Fuck if I know if he ever had. He mostly looked dejected and sad. He answered questions like, “Did you know, on the evening of October xx, that it was illegal to seek shelter in a bus-stop?” And he was like, “Yes, m’aam.” And looked down.

We, me and my co-defendants, are charged with allegedly impeding — in various ways — the eviction of a 25-year resident from her house. Later, it seems, they will arrest those who sleep in the house they just emptied. Later still, they will arrest those who “seek shelter in bus-stops.”

This is madness.

 

The Revolting Queers have a blog

It’s here.

 

Push-back against MN Neo-Nazis continues

This time in Austin, MN.

Revealingly, the cops maced anti-racist opposition, arrested three folks, and then escorted the Nazis (one of whom had earlier destroyed a protester’s cell phone) safely to their cars.

In a surprise to no one, the local corporate media’s coverage was abysmal, failing to specify that the NSM are Nazis and preferring to cast this description as a matter of dispute (while corporate print media reported that the NSM speaker ended his tirade with “White Power!” and images of NSM swastika decals abounded), and uncritically quoting an Austin cop saying,

“Our role here is to keep the peace, not take sides but to keep the peace so nobody get’s hurt [sic].”

In the meantime, we are of course routinely treated to the neologism “self-described anarchists” in virtually every RNC or RNC8-related story to be found.

If shouting “White Power!” and wearing swastikas doesn’t make you a “self-described neo-Nazi,” I have hard time understanding what would.

 

Neo-Nazi scum claim they’re coming to Minneapolis

To protest an anti-racism workshop.

Mobilizations are underway to combat this hate-mongering. As others have written,

This provocation also has a wider goal: The NSM has been holding racist anti-immigrant rallies in southern Minnesota, and now they are seeking to establish a presence inside the City of Minneapolis. For years Minneapolis has been a virtual “no-go” area for organized racist activity, due to the efforts of young anti-racist organizers.It is vital, especially in the wake of the racist attacks in Brooklyn Park last week, that the nazis not go unopposed. They plan to bring their racist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, antisemitic message of division and hate right into the heart of the city. They must not go unopposed!

Indeed.

Midtown YWCA, Saturday morning. Be there.