Tag: direct action

Five Atlanta training center protesters charged with domestic terrorism

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Credit: Steve Schaefer

cross-posted from EF! Journal

By Tyler Estep, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Five activists protesting Atlanta’s new public safety training center have been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, the GBI announced Wednesday — one day after the latest clash between authorities and activists at planned site for the controversial development.
Dozens of arrests have been made since activists began taking up residence on the site — and engaging in more extreme actions — in an attempt to stop the training center’s construction.
But the charges announced against those arrested this week are believed to be the most serious to date.
“Yesterday, several people threw rocks at police cars,” GBI spokeswoman Nelly Miles wrote in a press release. “Task force members used various [violent] tactics to arrest individuals who were occupying makeshift [sic] treehouses.”
Those tactics included tear gas and pepper balls.
Members of  “Stop Cop City” coalition were scheduled to hold a press conference at 10 a.m. Wednesday. But DeKalb County police had access to the press conference site — a piece of former DeKalb County parkland adjacent to the training center property — blocked off [in order to prevent word of their violence reaching the general public].
Authorities  said they found “explosive devices” after Wednesday’s efforts to clear the forest. [The word of the police was taken at face value, despite them constantly making up stories to make themselves look better, because this reporter is way to lazy to actually investigate anything]
The Atlanta City Council approved last fall a land lease paving the way for the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the sprawling $90-million training facility on more than 300 acres of city-owned forest in southwestern DeKalb County.
The James M. Cox Foundation, the “charitable” arm of Cox Enterprises which owns The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has contributed to the training center fundraising campaign. It is among several Atlanta-based foundations that have contributed.
In the year-plus since the land lease was approved, a coalition of activists — anarchists, police abolitionists, environmentalists and everyone in between — has pushed back against the concept, seeing it as the city doubling down on police militarization and other controversial tactics even in the wake of 2020?s [George Floyd uprising].
Conventional protests and opposition efforts have also taken place. But more extreme tactics have included vandalizing police property and the homes and offices of contractors tied to the training center’s construction, setting fires and throwing Molotov cocktails at police and taking up residence in the forest.

3 days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | October 12, 2022

Washington, DC, October 12 – Beginning today and through Friday, a global coalition of activists will demonstrate at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings to demand that these institutions end their investment in fossil fuels, cancel the debt they claim Global South countries owe, and pay climate reparations.

Three days of resistance to World Bank/IMF feature hundreds of activists, mobile DJ booth, bike blockade, and more.

WHAT: Over 400 activists from around the world are planning three days of demonstrations with large-scale props and amplified sound, including a bike blockade, a mock trial, educational events, and a massive noise demonstration. On Friday, the week of action comes to an end with a festival of resistance envisioning the world we deserve, and a march featuring representations of international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil. These demonstrations follow weeks of action by climate activists to remove World Bank president David Malpass, who refused to acknowledge climate change.

WHO: ShutDownDC, Arm in Arm For Climate (Washington, DC), The Big Shift Global, CODEPINK, Debt for Climate, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Extinction Rebellion (Washington, DC, Philadelphia, New York City), Glasgow Actions Team, GreenFaith, Justice is Global, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, others.

WHEN:

  • Wednesday, October 12, 5:00 PM, Edward R. Murrow Park (H St. and 18th St. NW): Bike blockade of the G20 dinner featuring 100 cyclists and a mobile DJ booth
  • 8:00 PM, Murrow Park: Teach-in: “How neoliberalism conquered the world and how the world is fighting back”
  • Thursday, October 13, 10:00 AM – noon, Murrow Park (rain location: George Washington University, Rome Hall Room 204, 801 22nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20052): Mock trial of the IMF and World Bank
  • 1:00 PM, Murrow Park: Soccer-themed noise demonstration outside the G20 press conference
  • Friday, October 14, 8:00 AM – 11:00 AM, Murrow Park: Festival of Resistance celebrating and welcoming the world we want to live in
  • Noon, Murrow Park: The Big Shift Global march – featuring international financial institutions in a literal bed with Big Oil – and rally calling on the IMF and World Bank to stop funding fossil fuel projects.

 

Detailed schedule available at https://www.forpeopleforplanet.earth/calendar/

WHY: The week of October 10th, the World Bank and IMF are holding their annual meetings in Washington, DC.* Drawing on decades of resistance to these institutions and following the leadership of organizations and individuals representing this global fight, activists are demanding that they cancel all debt, pay climate and colonial reparations to countries in the Global South, and stop funding fossil fuel projects.

The people making decisions at the IMF and World Bank meetings have historically chosen to advance colonialism, contribute to climate change, and make it harder for everyday people to survive events like natural disasters and pandemics. At this year’s meetings, they will continue to prioritize extractive energy markets over Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice, and profits for transnational corporations over the economic futures of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

The decisions made at these meetings will most directly affect those who have contributed the least to the climate catastrophe and yet are the most indebted to the IMF and World Bank – like the tens of millions of people displaced last month as a result of flooding in Pakistan. The creative direct actions occurring this week are a powerful tool allowing activists to uplift the experiences and demands of our neighbors in the Global South.

HOW: For press inquiries please contact Basav Sen with ShutDownDC at media@shutdowndc.org or 513-262-2750.

*Washington DC is unceded territory of the Piscataway Conoy people. Learn more about The Cedarville Band of Piscataways and paying land tax, their collective choice for reparations here: CBPI, Inc. | Instagram, YouTube | Linktree

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#ShutDownDC is an organizing space where individuals and groups can come together to organize direct action in the fight for justice.

PODCAST: Defending Mendocino’s Sacred Sites

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cross-posted from the Green and Red Podcast

In the 1850s, the “Mendocino War” was a bloody conflict between the Yuki tribe and white settlers in Northern California. White settlers raided and stole Yuki lands and massacring hundreds of Yuki in the process. The Yuki fled to “The Mountain” in what is now known as the Jackson Demonstration State Forest to escape the violence. Those villages in the forest are now sacred sites to the Coastal Yuki and Northern Pomo tribes.

The state of California is allowing logging companies to log the 50,000 acre Jackson Forest for profit to finance CalFire’s operations fighting wildfires. Despite Gov. Gavin Newsom’s direction for California state agencies to co-manage state lands with local Native American tribes and seek opportunities to return State lands to Native American tribes, the Dept. of Natural Resources has only designated 75 acres as “sacred sites.”

Flying solo, Scott talks with Pricilla Hunter, Polly Girvin and Andy Wellspring with the Coalition to Save Jackson Forest about the ongoing campaign to save the Jackson Forest and the sacred sites within it. The campaign has seen backcountry blockades and tree-sit action as well as rallies and marches in Mendocino County and Sacramento.

Bios//
Priscilla Hunter is a Tribal Elder of the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians, former Chairwoman of the Tribe, and currently the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Priscilla is working to protect the Sacred Sites of her Northern Pomo and Coast Yuki peoples that are threatened by logging, road building and pesticide operations in the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, which is located in her homelands, also called Mendocino County. Priscilla also founded the Intertribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council and has served as its Chairwoman for over 30 years, the Intertribal Council has secured the return of over 5,000 acres of redwood forest to Tribal people and is stewarding the land according to traditional knowledge.

Polly Girvin is a movement elder, Chicana activist, and civil rights and Federal Indian Law attorney graduated from the University of California Berkeley and Columbia University School of Law. Polly has worked with the Assembly of First Nations of Canada, and in the US helped establish the government to government consultation process with Tribes at the Federal level, including repatriation efforts for the return of ancestral human remains and sacred objects from museums and universities throughout the US. She has also been on the front lines of forest protection in Northern California for over 30 years.

Andy Wellspring is a member of Showing Up for Racial Justice, the Mendo Coast chapter. SURJ is white folks committed to racial justice nationally, and SURJ Mendo Coast is a member of the Coalition to Save Jackson State Forest and supporting the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians in this struggle to protect sacred sites and end commercial logging on Pomo Homelands. Andy has worked as a community organizer in grassroots struggles, in solidarity with Indigenous people, for over a decade.

The Coalition to Save Jackson State Forest is supporting the Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians as they negotiate equal co-management of the Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF) in their Pomo homelands.

** If you want to get involved with the Save Jackson Forest campaign: email: surjmendocoast@gmail.com.

San Francisco Bay Area: Climate Activists Crash JPMorgan Chase’s Corporate Challenge Race

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photo cred: Jade Northrup

cross-posted from Oil and Gas Action Network

CONTACT: Piper • 408-202-9416 • pipermcn4climate@gmail.com

BREAKING: Climate Activists Crashed JP Morgan Corporate Challenge Race

Protesters challenged the largest funder of the fossil fuel industry.

SAN FRANCISCO —Activists at the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge foot race on September 20 in San Francisco aimed to raise public awareness and demanded that Chase stop lending billions annually to the oil and gas industry. Protesters entered the race course and raised a 30 foot banner reading “CHASE Stop Funding Fossil Fuels” in front of the finish line. Activists on kayaks with banners off the 3rd street bridge, a large “Chase Bank” facade set up along the course with a pipeline spilling black water “oil” out the front, banners along the race course, and street theater characters all sent the message to participants that Chase must end all investment in fossil fuels.

The action included an art gallery where photojournalist and Paradise resident Allen Myers, displayed his photos of friends and family standing in the ashes of their homes. Myers said, “I’ve watched the climate change in my lifetime. We know climate change played a role in the Camp fire. These photos show the face of the climate crisis and that it is here, right now in California, and the companies funding this crisis have got to be stopped.”

“Letters and other polite requests have not worked,” noted Alec Connon of Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of more than 230 organizations. “We feel it is vital to make life uncomfortable for JP Morgan Chase at public events in order to stop their funding of the climate chaos that is rapidly becoming a disaster for us all.”

JP Morgan Chase is the world’s largest fossil fuel banker. In the six years

photo cred: Peg Hunter

after the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, Chase provided nearly $382 billion to fossil fuel corporations that are building coal mines, oil pipelines and fracked gas terminals ? that’s 36% more than any other bank in the world.

“We’re part of a global movement to keep fossil fuels in the ground. People power is fighting to keep money out of Big Oil,” said Leah Redwood, an organizer with Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area. “We are seeing the impact of the Climate Emergency – floods, heat waves, wildfires, sea level rise – every day. Cutting the supply of money to the fossil fuel industry will cut off the oxygen that is fueling this global disaster and will give us all a fighting chance.”

Participating activist organizations include:

  • 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations
  • 350 Bay Area
  • 350 Seattle
  • Diablo Rising Tide
  • Direct Action Everywhere
  • Extinction Rebellion SF Bay Area
  • Oil and Gas Action Network
  • Regenerating Paradise
  • Rich City Kayaks
  • Silicon Valley Climate Action Now
  • Stop the Money Pipeline
  • Sunrise Bay Area
  • Third Act Sacramento

#JPMCC #ChaseClimateChallenge

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