Category: Announcements

Announcements from Rising Tide and Rising Tide affiliates and close allies. An announcement is pretty much never also a reportback!

Hunger Strike and Blockade for the Redwoods in Humboldt

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Feb. 20, 2023

For immediate release: PRESS RELEASE

Info: Email forestaction@riseup.net
Follow  lost_coast_forest_action on Instagram for updates.

Venmo@forestdefense to support.

 

HUNGER STRIKE AND BLOCKADE FOR THE REDWOODS IN HUMBOLDT

Humboldt County, CA–On Sunday night, February 19th, forest defenders set up a sky-pod blockade, occupied by a protester commencing a hunger strike (statement below).

In January 2023 Humboldt Redwood Company (HRC) filed commencement to begin logging in Freshwater,  California. The forest
that is being logged contains massive Redwood and Douglas Fir trees that are providing critical habitat to many endangered animals in the area.
HRC claims to log sustainably but there’s no such thing on an industrial scale when profit margins are the only concern. Forest defenders are determined to stop this logging plan.

STATEMENT FROM FOREST DEFENDER “ARISTOTLE”:

“As you’re reading this I am suspended above an entrance to one of Humboldt Redwood Company’s industrial timber harvest plans, blocking this entrance by the support lines of the net that is holding me. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are desperate
times indeed. On January 18th a forest defender named Tortuguita was murdered by state troopers while occupying the Weelaunee forest in Atlanta. They have since held activists with no bail or extremely high bail to prevent people from defending the forest. I am doing this to try and honor Tortuguita’s life and wish for the land to be protected, and in solidarity with activists in Atlanta facing extreme police repression.

I will not leave nor eat until HRC commits in writing to abandon this Timber Harvest Plan indefinitely. The police may try to use this as justification to extract me for “health concerns”. I am taking supplements that will allow me to subsist without food for months without endangering my health or safety. Any attempt to extract me is for the company’s profit, not a concern for my well-being.

This forest is filled with huge redwood and Douglas fir trees which are becoming increasingly rare as private timber ravages the landscape. It is already too late for 97% of the world’s native forests. Northern California is one of the very few places in the so-called “United States” where there are still intact forests. But not for long, if the industrial logging and commercial builders get their way.

These lands don’t belong to privatized companies.  These are lands stolen from the indigenous people of this area and stolen from the many animal and plant species that call these forests home. The bears, Redwoods, huckleberry, hummingbirds, mushrooms, newts, owls, and every other species need this forest to continue surviving in an increasingly unlivable planet. Please stand with all of them and come defend this land!

LET THE FORESTS GROW!!”

Please share this press release far and wide!

 

Love for Jen Angel

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pic via PM Press

Cross-posted from the Family and Friends of Jen Angel

[Rising Tide North America note: Jen Angel was a long time independent journalist, radical media activist and former member of Rising Tide North America.  We’re heartbroken by the news of her passing.]

“Update from Family and Friends on the Death of Jen Angel, Oakland Community Leader, and Bakery Owner

It’s with a heavy heart that we announce that Oakland baker, small business owner, social justice activist, and community member Jen Angel has been medically declared to have lost all brain function and will not regain consciousness. Her official time of death was 5:48pm (PT).

Friends and family of Jen hope that the story of this last chapter of her brilliant, full, dynamic life is one focused on her commitment to community, on the care bestowed upon her and her family by the people who loved her, and on the generous and courageous role of countless health care workers and public servants who fought to preserve her life. We know Jen would not want to continue the cycle of harm by bringing state-sanctioned violence to those involved in her death or to other members of Oakland’s rich community.

As a long-time social movement activist and anarchist, Jen did not believe in state violence, carceral punishment, or incarceration as an effective or just solution to social violence and inequity. The outpouring of support and care for Jen, her family and friends, and the values she held dear is a resounding demonstration of the response to harm that Jen believed in: community members relying on one another, leading with love, centering the needs of the most vulnerable, and not resorting to vengeance and inflicting more harm.

Jen believed in a world where everyone has the ability to live a dignified and joyful life and worked toward an ecologically sustainable and deeply participatory society in which all people have access to the things they need, decisions are made by those most directly affected by them, and all people are free and equal.

Angel Cakes, the popular community-based bakery that Jen founded in 2008, will remain open, supported by Jen’s estate, and staffed by the talented team that Jen built. Community members who wish to support the bakery can especially help through buying gift certificates and committing to long-term patronage.

Per Jen’s wishes, her organs will be donated, and her committed medical team has informed the family that those organs will serve to lengthen and improve the lives of up to 70 people.

If the Oakland Police Department does make an arrest in this case, the family is committed to pursuing all available alternatives to traditional prosecution, such as restorative justice. Jen’s family and close friends ask that the media respect this request and carry forward the story of her life with celebration and clarity about the world she aimed to build. Jen’s family and friends ask that stories referencing Jen’s life do not use her legacy of care and community to further inflame narratives of fear, hatred, and vengeance, nor to advance putting public resources into policing, incarceration, or other state violence that perpetuates the cycles of violence that resulted in this tragedy.

We wish for Jen’s legacy to be one of deep commitment to safety and dignity for everyone.”

February 9th: #StopCopCity Webinar at 8PM EST/7pm CST/6pm MST/5pm PST

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Frontline organizers in Atlanta are calling for urgent support to Stop Cop City.

For years, forest defenders, abolitionists and the community of Atlanta defended the Weelaunee forest and prevented the construction of a massive police training compound. On January 18, the Atlanta Police Department murdered Tortuguita, a leader of the resistance, during a violent raid to clear the defenders encampment. Two weeks after murdering Tortuguita, the final permits for Cop City were approved.

We stand with the people of Atlanta and honor Tortuguita. Cop City will never be built.

The movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest has called for a week of solidarity actions from February 19-26th, and for a Mass Mobilization in Atlanta March 4th-11th. We need to let the Atlanta Police Department, their foundation backers, the contractors and all the financiers behind this project know that this project is doomed.

Join the informational webinar to learn more about how to support this movement.

On February 9th, 8PM EST/7pm CST/6pm MST/5pm PST, the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest is hosting No Cop City Anywhere, Defend the Forest Everywhere,. Join this informational webinar to hear from forest defenders and abolitionists to hear about what’s happening on the ground in Atlanta in the Weelaunee Forest, how you can join the upcoming Week of Solidarity Actions and the Mass Mobilization in Atlanta.

No Cop City Anywhere. Defend the Forest Everywhere.

ACT: Tell the Atlanta Police Foundation: Stop Cop City!

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The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) is trying to build the largest police training facility in the US (also known as Cop City) in the Weelaunee Forest, an urban forest in southeast Atlanta, GA. The forest in Southeast Atlanta is home to wetlands that filter rainwater and prevent flooding and plays an important role of climate resiliency in the region.

Tell the Atlanta Police Foundation: Stop Cop City!

After it was stolen from the Muscogee Creek people, it was a plantation in the 1800s and a prison farm in the 1900s. Today, it is surrounded by a Black community that overwhelmingly opposes the project. It remains hallowed ground.

The Cop City plans include a 400 acre military-grade training facility that includes a mock city to practice urban warfare, dozens of shooting ranges, and a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad. Police from all over the country will be training there. The city began planning it in response to the 2020 uprisings.

Forest defenders and community activists have courageously resisted Cop City since 2021 with protest, tree-sits, sabotage and pressure campaigns against politicians, construction contractors and the APF’s corporate sponsors.

Tell the Atlanta Police Foundation: Stop Cop City !

The goal of the campaign has been to stop the deforestation of this sacred urban forest. Two weeks ago, forest defender, comrade and friend Tortuguita was murdered by Georgia police when they carried out a violent raid of encampments in the Weelaunee Forest.

The Atlanta Police Foundation is the biggest supporter and funder of Cop City. We’re demanding that APF’s board cancel Cop City and resign immediately.

We need you to join us in taking action and tell the Atlanta Police Foundation to stop Cop City!

With love and rage in our hearts.