Coalition of Resistance Conference | School Student | 27 Nov 2010

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descentintotyranny:

Three activists were raided, “had anarchist literature seized,” and are now sitting in prison for refusing to testify before a secretive grand jury

Oct. 10 2012

“Today is October 10th, 2012, and I am ready to go to prison,” announced 24-year-old Leah-Lynn Plante yesterday. By Thursday morning, the Portland activist was in custody and could remain incarcerated in a U.S. federal prison for 18 months, although she has not been charged with a crime.

Along with two others in the Pacific Northwest, Plante was remanded into federal custody for her refusal to provide a grand jury testimony regarding activists in the region. Matt Duran and Kteeo Olejnik were jailed in previous weeks for, like Plante, refusing to cooperate with a grand jury. All three are now being held in U.S. federal prison, not because they are being punished for crime, but, as the National Lawyers Guild’s executive director Heidi Boghosian told me earlier this year, “to coerce cooperation.”

Writing for Truth-Out in August about the Northwest grand juries and those resisting cooperation, I noted that grand juries “are among the blackest boxes in the federal judiciary system.” The closed-door procedures are rare instances in which an individual loses the right to remain silent. As was the case with the Northwest grand juries resistors, the grand jury can grant a subpoenaed individual personal immunity; Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination are therefore protected, but silence is not. In these instances, refusal to speak can be considered civil contempt. Non-cooperators can be jailed for the 18-month length of the grand jury.

“The arbitrary issuing of subpoenas to activists and pressuring them to divulge information about others in secret proceedings extends to arresting them when they decide to resist,” NLG’s Boghosian told me Thursday, commenting that the grand jury subpoena process has a “star chamber quality.”

Lawyers, scholars and activists alike have long complained about the use of federal grand juries as tools for political repression. The case of the Northwest grand jury resistors is now well-known in activist and anarchist circles around the country. As I wrote in August:

The Seattle grand jury subpoenas were served in late July, when the FBI and a Joint Terrorist Task Force conducted a series of raids on activist homes and squats in Portland, Olympia and Seattle with warrants seeking out computers, phones, black clothing and “anarchist literature.” The FBI has stated only that the grand jury pertains to “violent crime,” but it is believed to relate to property damage in Seattle during this year’s May Day protests…

Will Potter, author of “Green Is the New Red,” who has long covered the state persecution of environmental activists and anarchists, noted in a recent interview… “I think what’s most indicative of what’s going on though is that specific call for agents to seize ‘anarchist literature’ as some kind of evidence of potential illegal activity.” He added that the convening of a grand jury is “especially troubling because grand juries have been used historically against social movements as tools of fishing expeditions, and they’re used to seek out information about people’s politics and their political associations.”

Facing a number of months in prison, Plante remained steadfast in her refusal to speak to the grand jury. Aware that she would likely face jail time, given the previous incarceration of two other resistors, Plante gave a public statement the morning of her grand jury hearing Wednesday. She detailed the depression and fear triggered by the threat of jail time, but said, “I never once considered co-operation and never would. It is against everything I believe in. On my right arm I have a tattoo reading ‘strive to survive causing least suffering possible.’ This is something I live by every single day and will continue to live by whether I am in a cage or not.” Plante is being held at the Federal Detention Center Sea Tac in Seattle.

Since news of the Seattle grand jury and its resistors emerged a few months ago, a host of protests, rallies, acts of graffiti and sabotage have taken place across the country to express solidarity with the Northwest anarchists. Large banners have been illegally dropped in cities from New York to Atlanta, while police vehicles and substations have been graffitied and vandalized in Oakland, Calif., San Francisco, Illinois and elsewhere. The Committee Against Political Repression put out a petition to the U.S. attorney, with nearly 400 organizations signed on, stating opposition to the treatment of the subpoenaed activists.

Watch the video of Plante’s statement below (via Sparrowmedia.net):

Statement From A Resister - Leah-Lynn Plante from Because We Must on Vimeo.

thepeoplesrecord:

Occupy Wall Street: One year later and people still don’t “get” it
September 17, 2012

As American anti-capitalists prepare for the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street today, media outlets are reviving beaten-to-death stories questioning the movement’s tangible influence.

Of course, barely any legislative reforms have come from the protest movement that stirred so much debate last year. Money continues to reign supreme in elections, Wall Street oligarchs are still President Obama’s beloved mistresses, education debt is continuing to skyrocket and corporations are still the kings of policy.

But that is what slides by most people trying to grasp the influence of OWS. A radical movement like this cannot (and must not) work within the system it is trying to replace. Protesters who first camped out at Zuccotti Park and other campsites across the country already know voting for Politician A or Politician B will only enforce the parasitic capitalist system that tramples on the working class. Camaraderie between big banks and politics can’t be broken unless capitalism is replaced with social justice. We cannot expect fair and equal education opportunities without severing the chains that tie students to debt and private interests. We’re not looking to support the “lesser of the two evils”; we want to create an alternative.

So of course policy changes can’t be seen as a win for OWS. The movement is beyond electoral politics and complying with those who only strengthen the institutional powers that hold us down. But just because play by the rules gains haven’t been won doesn’t mean OWS has rendered itself useless one year later.

The radicalization and awakening of Americans has been one of the most difficult and most crucial wins for the anti-capitalist struggle. Seeing the web of connections between environmental degradation and corporate greed, student debt and privatization, women’s rights and electoral politics, mainstream media and poverty has most visibly become OWS’s most vital legacy. Once connections are molded between the working class struggle and the ruling class that tried to suppress OWS, they cannot be erased.

But occupiers already know this. Activists aren’t waiting for the mainstream media to catch up because there is work to be done. OWS knows what its demands have been from day one and now that we are enlightened, action must continue and spread.

The year wasn’t perfect, but a mere beginning was all people needed. Groups once solely focused on OWS have now broken down their struggles to combat various branches of capitalist deterioration. Fights against mass incarceration, Monsanto, worker’s rights, immigration, foreclosures, police brutality and poverty have replaced complacency for those occupiers who spent the latter of last year in tents and general assemblies.

So we cannot expect the mainstream media or politicians to “get” what we’re doing. OWS is still in its natal stage and is already developing into a whole new creature on the revolutionary trajectory to rattle the ruling class.

Happy one year anniversary to a movement that flooded the streets in nearly 100 countries and shook many out of their blindness.

-G. Razo

yeah pretty much. this is only the beginning - as the new generation of people wake the fuck up.

(via jobsinla)

resistdnc:

PDF
Very interesting read.

This is a very interesting read indeed. 

Anarchist extremists? what the fuck. and oh really activists plan for injuries because they’re going to be violent. that is such bullshit - the police are the ones who are violent, and they are the ones who start riots. 

Lawful protests?? All protests should be lawful. 

fuckyeahmarxismleninism:

National University students fire a homemade weapon during protests against the FTA between Colombia and United States, May 21, 2012.