Appreciation for Dangerous Individuals

from Rififi Bloomington:

In spite of cold rain, 20 people held a microphone demo in People’s Park against state repression and social cleansing last Friday, October 19. The focus was solidarity with anarchists grand jury resisters in the Pacific Northwest and with the homeless people in Bloomington currently subjected to a campaign of police harassment and violence. Both are blemishes in the facade of commodity-democracy that the police would like to quietly wipe out. Banners against the jail and supporting prisoners’ struggles were also hung, and a cacophonous sound system played anti-police tunes.

Let’s make sure that the state can’t get its way and smoothly eliminate our comrades, social spaces, and struggles. Let’s also make sure that all those who fight back – whether grand jury resisters Katherine “KteeO” Olejnik, Matt Duran, and Leah Lynn-Plante or the homeless folks who won’t abandon their hang-outs in parks targeted for development – know they’re loved and supported. And most importantly, let’s all become dangerous to a world based on domination.

Copies of this text were distributed:

Appreciation for “Dangerous Individuals”

Police are again escalating their repression against all those who oppose the current system. As of now, both Matt Duran, Katherine “KTO” Olejnik and Leah-Lynne Plante have been taken into custody for “contempt of court” – for their refusal to snitch on comrades in grand jury proceedings in the Pacific Northwest. This grand jury, essentially a secret proceeding intended to manipulate people into giving the state evidence against loved ones, is a blatant act of oppression against anarchists. This latest wave of repression began with the police brutality that brought the first phase of the Occupy movement to a violent end. It continues today against anyone who attempts to take space for public discussion, encounter, and resistance.

Here too, anarchists have faced police repression. From felony charges for dancing in the streets during the New Year’s Eve anti-prison demo to arrests at gunpoint for dropping banners, the Bloomington police have acted to contain the germ of rebellion that local anarchists, these “dangerous individuals,” represent. But here too, they will fail.

In Bloomington, as in most places, this game of control has extended so far that the police now worry about the potential of unregulated life in public parks, such as Seminary Square and People’s Park. In Seminary Square, police nightly hound, hunt, and beat the homeless who find refuge and social space there, as part of the quest to eliminate all ways of life that exist outside the regime of work-consumption-death.

Whether the social cleansing directed against the homeless or the persecution of “eco-terrorists,” the state never seems to tire of its violent, repressive game. Anarchists are certainly no strangers to repression, but the latest wave of repression is already being contested on many fronts. Most importantly, none of the anarchists subpoenaed to the grand jury have cooperated with the state, refusing to give evidence that will imprison others. Solidarity demonstrations with the Pacific Northwest anarchists have spread across the continent and the world, as have attacks on symbols of repression, wealth, and power (banks, police stations, and upscale businesses) claimed in solidarity with the arrestees. These acts demonstrate that police attempts to contain rebellion and social antagonism have once again failed.

October marks the one-year anniversary of the People’s Park occupation, a source of liberation and community for many here. We came together to claim space in which we could form relationships and initiate a struggle against the reigning social order under terms that we could collectively determine. Perhaps most importantly we met comrades with whom we would later plan, coordinate, and orchestrate actions and who became close friends and important sources of support.

Let’s celebrate our collective struggle and continue to spread the germs of subversion. The best way to support all those facing repression is to continue their struggle and defeat the cops’ dreams of an icy, repressed world. Against that dream, let’s all become “dangerous individuals.”

Meet at People’s Park at
sunset on October 26.
Solidarity with everyone
engaged in the social struggle!

http://pugetsoundanarchists.org/node/2171