There is a lot of analysis regarding the war in Ukraine on this one-year anniversary of its beginning.
I have so many questions.
What role did the US and NATO’s increasing militarization of the countries near Russia play?
What about the role of increased sanctions against Russia?
How is it acceptable to pay Ukraine to fight a proxy war for us?
Where will the increasing escalation of armaments the US gives to Ukraine end?
In how many ways does tremendous pressure from arms manufacturers control foreign policy?
Why is the US President suddenly sounding so belligerent? Not only against Russia, but now China?
How can billions upon billions be spent on arming Ukraine at a time when so many in this country and around the world struggle to afford basic necessities?
How can we countenance making so many children orphans?
There are things I do know.
The Spirit is about peace.
War is Not the Answer.
All military activities must cease, because that is the main source of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The real war, the existential threat, is humanity against Mother Earth.
I’ve been enthusiastically involved in Mutual Aid for three years. I’ve also been frustrated for those years, because I haven’t been able to tell others what a significant change Mutual Aid represents. Recently discovering Cecosesola will help with that, I think. “The theoretical frameworks for Protest and Social Movements are not sufficient to understand the emergent horizontal and prefigurative practices.”
What has been taking place in disparate places around the world is part of a new wave that is both revolutionary in the day-to-day sense of the word, as well as without precedent with regard to consistency of form, politics, scope and scale. The current frameworks provided by the social sciences and traditional left to understand these movements have yet to catch up with what is new and different about them. Specifically, the theoretical frameworks for Protest and Social Movements are not sufficient to understand the emergent horizontal and prefigurative practices. I suggest we think beyond these frames, and do so first by listening to, and with, those societies and groups organizing from below – and to the left.
… People from below are rising up, but rather than going towards the top – ‘from the bottom up’, they are moving as the Zapatistas suggested, ‘From below and to the left, where the heart resides.’ Power over, hierarchy and representation are being rejected, ideologically and by default, and in the rejection mass horizontal assemblies are opening new landscapes with the horizon of autonomy and freedom.
Those who live in Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) communities have been on the front lines, building such communities for years. because they have never fully benefited from the systems of white superiority, dominance, and capitalism.
On September 29, 2022, Cecosesola received the Right Livelihood Award, a Swedish prize often known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” This award honors people and organizations that encourage social change. According to a statement issued by the Right Livelihood Foundation, the prize was given to Cecosesola for “establishing an equitable and cooperative economic model as a robust alternative to profit-driven economies.”
An Alternative to Capitalist Hierarchies: A Conversation with the Cecosesola Co-op. A Venezuelan cooperative network that recently received the “Alternative Nobel Prize” tells its story by Cira Pascual Marquina, Venezuelanalysis, Nov 20, 2022
I have been amazed at how my Mutual Aid community functions. The services to those who are houseless, jail and court solidarity, and our free food project are some of the things we do. With no government support.
Something new is happening – something new in content, depth, breadth and global consistency. Societies around the world are in movement
For a long time, I’ve been looking for stories about large groups of people who have established Mutual Aid communities. I haven’t been quite sure what that would look like. The Mutual Aid community I have been part of is pretty small. The free food project usually involves about eighty people. A dozen of us filling and passing out the food boxes, about fifty people picking up food boxes, and about ten people from the places that donate the food. All of these people are part of our Mutual Aid community. That’s one of the keys of Mutual Aid, we’re all in it together. Working to avoid hierarchy.
I also wanted to find examples of large Mutual Aid communities because, when I explain what I know about Mutual Aid to others, they see us as just another one of the usual small community service groups. And they don’t see how the ideas of Mutual Aid could scale.
Those are reasons why I’m excited to be learning about Cecosesola
Cecosesola was established in Barquisimeto, capital of the State of Lara, in the central western region of Venezuela, as a cooperative integration organization on December 17, 1967. It is a meeting place where more than 50 community organizations are active, integrated in a network of production of goods and services that brings together more than 23,000 members from the popular sectors. Through this network, we develop a wide variety of activities such as: agricultural production, small-scale agro-industrial production, funeral services, transportation, health services, financial services, mutual aid funds, distribution of foods and household items. We are made up of about 1,300 associated workers who manage daily activities through participation that is open to everyone, without hierarchical positions.
I came across these black and white photos from an earlier age. 1970 seems so far away.
Close to fifty years ago I had a life-changing vision related to mountains and air pollution. A horrific vision of my beloved Rocky Mountains hidden in clouds of smog, the very thing that did happen in an area near the Himalayas.
My vision was related to this photo of Long’s Peak rising above Moraine Park in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. I can barely bring myself to remember that vision of Long’s Peak hidden in smog.
Long’s Peak above Moraine Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
That vision determined the course of my life. From that day I sought the Spirit to guide me in ways to protect Mother Earth. That led me to live without having a car, and the myriad of things that happened as a result. The unintended consequences, most of them very good.
I developed the film and printed these photos in a darkroom I had set up in my bathroom. One reason I’m often reminded of this vision is because this photo was hanging on my wall
These black and white photos remind me of the lyrics of the song “Blue” by Troye Sivan.
I know you’re seeing black and white So, I’ll paint you a clear blue sky Without you I am colour-blind It’s raining every time I open my eyes
“Blue” by Troye Sivan
And Worldwide Beautiful by Kane Brown, who is multiracial.
You’re missing every color if you’re only seeing black and white Tell me how you’re gonna change your mind if your heart’s unmovable We ain’t that different from each other, from one to another I look around and see worldwide beautiful
Yesterday’s post (When the government is incapable) was related to news stories that certain Congressional representatives want drastic reductions in social safety net programs. This comes after having approved yet another massive military budget, this year’s is $858 billion.
The Federal budget has always been a priority for the work of Quakers’ lobbyists in Washington, DC, the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). Following is a letter FCNL and 58 groups are sending to President Biden, asking for a reduced military budget.
We reject pouring our dollars into outdated ships, malfunctioning planes, or record-breaking contractor CEO salaries while everyday people remain hungry, unhoused, in need of adequate healthcare, or seeking a living wage.
It’s just unbelievable, or sadly, it is believable, that Congress can suggest severe cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Social Security, Medicare, and other social safety net programs. All of which could be paid for by a small fraction of the military budget. This is just another example of the government being incapable of helping us. And/or unwilling to do so.
The following is from Des Moines Mutual Aid, that I am proud to be a part of.
In the late 1970’s the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast for School Children Program fed tens of thousands of children daily. Our free food project in Des Moines is a continuation of the program started by the Des Moines Chapter of The Black Panther Party for Self Defense fifty years ago.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation recognized what a threat the free food program was to the status quo in those days.
Free food seemed relatively innocuous, but not to FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, who loathed the Black Panther Party and declared war against them in 1969. He called the program “potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for,” and gave carte blanche to law enforcement to destroy it.
How the Black Panthers’ Breakfast Program Both Inspired and Threatened the Government. The Panthers’ popular breakfast programs put pressure on political leaders to feed children before school by ERIN BLAKEMORE, History.com, FEB 6, 2018
Newly uncovered FBI records are a poignant reminder of just how long African Americans and others have been demanding fair treatment from the law. Together with the marches across the nation last year after the killing of George Floyd, the records serve as a stark reminder why lasting police reform can no longer be delayed.
The FBI documents shed new light on a scandalous raid on a Black Panthers apartment on Chicago’s West Side on Dec. 4, 1969. In the pre-dawn raid, officers under the command of then-Cook County State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan shot and killed Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
The killing of two Black Panthers, the secrets of the FBI — and our nation’s long fight for police reform. Newly released documents shed disturbing light on the FBI’s involvement in a 1969 police raid that resulted in the deaths of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by CST Editorial Board, Chicago Sun-Times, Jan 24, 2021,
When those in authority talk about threats, they are referring to social, political, and militarized policing threats. Threats of violence and death.
It’s important to point out that Mutual Aid is absolutely nonviolent. Violence is antithetical to Mutual Aid. The following describes the first action of Des Moines Mutual Aid, participating in a peace march.
One year ago today Des Moines Mutual Aid participated in a march protesting the potential for war or increased hostilities with Iran that followed the fallout of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani by drone strike in Baghdad.
This was our first “public” event since adopting the name Des Moines Mutual Aid, a name we gave our crew during our growing work with our relatives at the houseless camps throughout the city and our help with coordinating a weekly free grocery store that has a 50 year history, founded by the Des Moines Chapter of The Black Panther Party For Self Defense.
Des Moines Mutual Aid, January 7, 2020
For years I’ve been warning about the collapse of our social, political, and governance systems from environmental chaos. But it has become increasingly clear that social and political collapse from extremists and the movement to authoritarianism is happening now. Authoritarianism advancing with the aid of increasingly militaristic, deadly police forces. With radically expanding surveillance and characterizing political dissent as terrorism. I removed the credit for the quote above from a good friend of mine for security reasons in this political climate.
So, it’s time for many more of us to do something like a free food program again. A growing number of us are doing what “the government is incapable of”. In a minute I’ll be leaving to go to our Des Moines Mutual Aid free food project, as I have for almost three years.
I’ve been horrified, watching the scene of the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. That reminded me of another train derailment which was in Sandpoint, Idaho in 2016.
The press release below for a protest against fossil fuels train pollution at that time reminds me of one of my solo demonstrations. Oil trains were moving through Indianapolis at the time (2016).
One of the arguments sometimes made for pipelines was they were a safer way to transport oil than trains. We have to keep all fossil fuel in the ground. Thus, we don’t need oil trains or any more pipelines, refineries, cargo ships or any other fossil fuel infrastructure.
We had planned a demonstration, but when no one else showed up, I asked someone walking by to take a photo of me and my sign.
2016 Downtown Indianapolis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 30, 2020
Media contact: Helen Yost, Wild Idaho Rising Tide. wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com, 208-301-8039
Saturday Protest of Fossil Fuels Train Pollution
February 1, 10 am rally & carpool at Sandpoint City Beach Park, & 11 am march from Bonners Ferry Visitors Center (Sandpoint, Idaho)
Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT), #No2ndBridge, and regional climate activists are hosting a Fossil Fuels Train Pollution Protest in Bonner and Boundary counties on Saturday, February 1. Participants are gathering at 10 am around the City Beach Park pavilion in Sandpoint, Idaho, for a brief, information sharing rally. Carpoolers are next traveling to the Gateway Visitors Center in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to march at 11 am and return to Sandpoint by 1 pm.
This community event commemorates the one-month anniversary of the January 1, rockslide derailment and January 26 removal and current disassembly of a Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway, mixed freight train locomotive that submerged and leaked at least 2,100 gallons of diesel fuel and engine oil into the Kootenai River near Moyie Springs, north Idaho.
Resistance to ongoing, coal, oil, and hazardous materials train pollution and derailment risks and impacts to public and environmental health and safety is increasing across the Idaho Panhandle. Rural, rail corridor residents continue to oppose bridge, track, and operations expansions that compound these threats, such as BNSF’s inherently perilous, present and proposed, fossil fuels pipelines-on-rails across north Idaho, along the Kootenai River, and almost one mile over Lake Pend Oreille.
After dozens of derailments along waterways and deadly and injurious railroad collisions in north Idaho and western Montana during the last decade, frontline activists are demanding that multiple government agencies provide to the public and enforce several measures, to prevent and remediate the ecosystem and economic devastation imposed on rural communities by the Kootenai River wreck and similar disasters. Through comment letters, they are requesting derailment oil spill information, independent water quality and environmental monitoring, protection of native and endangered fish and wildlife, a Federal Railroad Administration incident investigation and penalties, and railroad operation revisions and locomotive recovery plans.
Protest organizers ask that participants dress for winter warmth and dryness, bring friends, family, and creative, relevant signs and banners, assist with event transportation, and sign the Petition to Deny and Revoke Permits for the BNSF Sandpoint Junction Connector Project [1]. Contact WIRT for further event and emerging issue information, also described through the linked event flyer and announcements [2] and compiled photos and updates [3] on WIRT facebook and website pages.Sandpoint, ID: Protest of Fossil Fuels Train Pollution, RISING TIDE NORTH AMERICA, JANUARY 30, 2020
Students at the Atlanta University Center and Morehouse College denounce the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center (Cop City)
DEMANDS OF MOREHOUSE COLLEGE STUDENTS
We demand that Morehouse College denounce and sever their support in building the “Public Safety Training Center” in our Atlanta community, which is referred to as “Cop City”.
We demand President Thomas dissent, as a Board Member of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, against their support of the creation of Cop City.
We call the student body to action. We must advocate for the reallocation of the 30 million of taxpayer dollars to be invested in the Atlanta community.
We demand that President Thomas align himself with these demands and join us to fight against every contribution to over policing.
Streamed live on Feb 2, 2023.MOREHOUSE COLLEGE CROWN FORUM: Chris Smalls | Amazon Labor Union | TALKING RACE AND WORKER RIGHTS!
We got to build the community that we want to live with. …that’s one without police
Chris Smalls at Morehouse College
The real Fighters and the real leaders are right here in this room and understand that Jay-Z and all these other billionaires like Oprah they’re not going to give us what we want, they’re just not. We have to understand that if we get the opportunity to we got to be the ones to pour back into our communities and not just pour back into our communities we got to build the community that we want to live with.
And let me tell you one that is one without police. Let’s tell you right now that’s one without police. That’s a mouthful and that’s definite. That’s a revolution. Chris Smalls, I want to thank you for the words that you’ve given us today and I want to start with something that you said, and I think it’s very important that we remember this. We are here to keep it real and keep it black. These students are here, these are Morehouse students and members and faculty of the community who agree that there is a problem. We are here to discuss a system that is historically and continuously oppressing our community. We are here to acknowledge the murder of Tyree Nichols.
We are here to address the construction of a mass police training center in Atlanta. And we are here to discuss Morehouse’s contributions to a system that does not serve black people. Morehouse, policing in America has not served our people their needs, their interests. It is not serving us. Morehouse has issued a statement referencing the murder of Tyree Nichols by law enforcement not only commemorating his life but to publicly endorse the mass militarization of the police. Morehouse has endorsed the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known as Cop City, for those who are unaware. Cop City is a Training Center built in a black community or planning to be built in a black community in Atlanta. The residents of Atlanta have descended its construction of the facility since its approval in September of 2021. There have been three years of peaceful protests, but the people have not been heard and the protests have resulted in violence. Two weeks ago, a protester was killed for believing what they thought was what they believed to be right standing against Cop City. And two days ago, Mayor Dickens of Atlanta addressed the building in this facility and not once did he acknowledge the problem of police brutality in our community. He alleged that Atlanta officers are already required to undergo civil rights history education training, but his team failed to address the murders of black people historically in Atlanta. The murder of Rayshard Brooks by APD or Anthony Hill a veteran with mental health issues who was undergoing amental health episode and was killed naked in the streets, these streets of DeKalb County where they plan to erect Cop City. There is an undeniable reality that police systems in our communities, across America, are terrorizing our people.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | February 10, 2023 MEDIA CONTACT: Kannette King
Students of the Atlanta University Center Denounce the Building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Morehouse College Holds Private Forum with Mayor of Atlanta to Discuss Atlanta Public Safety Training Center Atlanta, GA – On Thursday, February 2, 2023, students of the Atlanta University Center occupied a school-sanctioned event at Morehouse College. During the event, the students shared their concerns about the College’s association with the Atlanta Public Training Center, as well as the larger issue of systemic oppression and police brutality in the city of Atlanta.
Following the event, the students refused any private discussion of the Institution’s relationship with the training center, demanding a public forum for President Thomas to address all students’ concerns publically. The President organized a forum addressing the student body and invited Mayor Dickens to address the construction of the Atlanta Public Training Center. This raised a new concern address in the forum by the student speaker.
On Tuesday, February 7, 2023, Morehouse College hosted a private forum with the Mayor of Atlanta for students from the Atlanta University Center. Unfortunately, the forum was not open to the public and residents of the community were not given the opportunity to attend and express their concerns. Additionally, Clark Atlanta University personnel were not formally invited, and Spelman College only informed their students about the event an hour before it took place.
Despite these limitations, the President of Morehouse College allowed only one student to make a statement during the program, which was limited to five minutes in the ninety-minute forum. Many questions were left unanswered and students departed the event feeling disappointed in the condescending manner of communication from the Mayor. It appeared that the purpose of the Mayor and his staff was not to converse with the community about public concerns, but instead to propagate the need for an Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
In conclusion, the intention of the forum was to address the concerns of students and the community, but it was clear that many of these concerns were not taken seriously. The students and residents of Atlanta deserve a platform where their voices can be heard and their concerns addressed in a meaningful way.
About Morehouse College: Founded in 1867, Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts institution located in Atlanta, GA. The College has a rich history of producing outstanding leaders and thinkers, and has a commitment to providing a transformative educational experience for its students. About Atlanta University Center: The Atlanta University Center is a consortium of historically black colleges and universities located in Atlanta, GA. The consortium includes Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Clark Atlanta University, and is dedicated to providing world-class educational opportunities for African American students.
Morehouse students issue demands, statement on Cop City
FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
To the Morehouse Community,
The Graves Hall Bell, forged in 1886 from Bethlehem Steel in Baltimore, MD, serves as a Morehouse relic that was utilized to signify danger or celebration. Whenever there was a sign of external danger towards the campus grounds, the bell would be rung for students and staff to seek refuge to the nearest building in sight. The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, Cop City, is a threat that is approaching our institution and community.
In 2016, The bell was rung to signify a universal danger, the election of Donald J. Trump. We find ourselves again in times of imminent danger. With the creation of Cop City, it is apparent the enemy is near. We must speak up about the development of Cop City, for its construction will only lead to more instances of police brutality and racial profiling within the Atlanta community. We, the concerned Morehouse students, understand the great moral hypocrisy of our institution supporting the implementation of this policing facility, and we can not allow this to go unnoticed.
The bell will ring!
From the Samuel T. Graves Era to the present day, this bell embodies the immense amount of triumph and strength that this institution has been able to endure. For these reasons, we will ring the bell in honor and support of its historical significance.
Signed, Students Allied to the Movement
DEMANDS OF MOREHOUSE COLLEGE
I. We demand that Morehouse College denounce and sever their support in building the “Public Safety Training Center” in our Atlanta community, which is referred to as “Cop City”.
II. We demand President Thomas dissent, as a Board Member of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, against their support of the creation of Cop City.
III. We call the student body to action. We must advocate for the reallocation of the 30 million of taxpayer dollars to be invested in the Atlanta community.
IV. We demand that President Thomas align himself with these demands and join us to fight against every contribution to over policing.
The proposed construction of “Cop City”, an 85-acre, $90 million dollar project to build a police training facility in the South River Forest in Atlanta, is a prime example of so many injustices.
Land theft from the Muskogee people
Forced displacement of the Muskogee, the “Trail of Tears”
Enslavement of people of color
Once a prison with a history of abuse
Environmental injustice
Attempted corruption of city council members
Killing Manuel Teran (Tortuguita)
Charges of terrorism against people protesting the training center, and the death of Tortuguita
And these concerns are not limited to Atlanta, or Georgia. The plan is to train police there from all over the country.
FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — Groups who oppose the construction of Atlanta’s future public safety training facility are asking the courts to block construction at the site until the appeal against its land disturbance permit is sorted out.
In Monday’s complaint, individuals said that despite an appeal against its permit, the Atlanta Police Foundation — who is the main funder of the project — is still clearing land at the planned site of the future training facility. The site has been the epicenter of a more than yearlong protest movement that refers to the area as “Cop City.”
Those who oppose the facility said the appeal should mean that the foundation must stop all construction or clearing of the site until the zoning board reaches a decision — but the foundation has continued business as usual.
This video from Al Jazeera explains the many problems related to the proposed “Cop City” project in Atlanta.
From the transcript:
I’m not sure they’re trying to force us out of the community and just take over the whole Community overall but that’s what it looked like. The path we headed down to Atlanta’s proposal to construct the police facility here speaks to the land’s painful history.
The site was a prison farm until 1995. Prisoners there were subjected to harsh punishments and slave conditions including poor sanitation nutrition and overcrowding. Some critics say claims of unmarked graves have not yet been properly investigated.
Before that the land is thought to have been a plantation that enslaved at least 19 people. It was originally stolen from the Muskogee who lived there until the U.S government forcefully displaced them to Oklahoma. Today both activists and tribal members have reclaimed the indigenous name as Weelaunee People’s Park. Local Advocates have long called for the area to be preserved as a historical site. They just can’t wait, they cannot wait, they just want to go in and bulldoze everything and then write the history the way they want. They haven’t even done proper you know, ecological surveys yet. But Cop City isn’t the only facility that the residents have opposed. Around the forest is a Hollywood studio, sanitation Center, juvenile prison and asphalt and trucking factories, and KIRO landfill. Nobody wants to address the environmental Injustice of this. Those issues have never been vetted. The facilities have severely polluted Muscogee Creek which flows downstream to the South River.
History of the Land
Until the 1830s, the Weelaunee Forest — now called the South River Forest, located southeast of Atlanta — was occupied by the Muscogee people. The Muscogee were known as the first tribe to become “civilized” through George Washington’s civilization plan, a six-step plan to disrupt Native culture, occupy native land, and teach Indigenous people how to live like white settlers.
The Muscogee were forcefully removed from the forest in the 1830s through the “Trail of Tears,” a decades-long movement to forcibly remove Indigenous people from their homelands, resulting in thousands of deaths. Following their removal, the land was purchased by plantation owner Lochlin Johnson. During the Civil War, it was the site of the Battle of Atlanta.
In 1918, 1,250 acres of the forest were bought by the Bureau of Prisons and United States Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta for $160,000. Until the early 1990s, the land was used as a prison farm.
Atlanta Is Starting Construction of ‘Cop City.’ Here’s What You Need to Know. We take a deep dive on the history of the land, the environmental and political implications, and the growing movement against the facility by Adam Mahoney, Madeline Thigpen, and Adam Mahoney, Capital B News, Feb 9, 2023
On January 31st, we had a solidarity action in Des Moines related to “Cop City” and the killing of Tortuguita. We visited the local office of Cushman and Wakefield. They are a global corporation and John O’Neill is the President of U.S. Multifamily Capital Markets of the global firm. We asked the president at the local office to contact him to cut ties with the Atlanta Police Foundation. He confirmed that he did, for what it’s worth.
Following are some of the photos I took at our action that morning.
The Atlanta public safety training center’s land disturbance permit (LDP) is being challenged by a member of the project’s own review committee, and another member has resigned in outrage over the police killing of a protester at the site.
Community Stakeholder Advisory Committee (CSAC) member Amy Taylor filed an appeal on Feb. 6 with the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeal (ZBA). The appeal claims the County improperly issued the LDP because the project would violate a state limit on sediment runoff and because its lease gives an inaccurately large number for the amount of green space set aside.
Meanwhile, CSAC member Nicole Morado quit on Jan. 18, the day that police killed protester Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, after the protester allegedly shot and wounded a state trooper during a raid of civil-disobedience campers on the site.
“Really I did not want to be affiliated with a project that is using police violence and taking lives…,” Morado said in a phone interview. “I’m still an interested resident. I just don’t want to be affiliated with that group any longer.”
…
“It was kind of getting uncomfortable about how some of the members were being OK with how the police were treating the protesters over exaggerated concern over safety of the police officers,” she (Morado) said. “I was like, gimme a break. They can handle this. They’re professionals. … [The protesters are] just a bunch of kids – nonviolent, Earth-loving people.”
The public safety traning center’s master plan as of November 2022. (Image by Atlanta Police Foundation.)
(Atlanta police chief) Schierbaum was speaking about a march through midtown Atlanta, Georgia, last Saturday night that began peacefully, only to see several protesters separate and begin breaking windows of businesses and lighting fire to a police car. The marchers were protesting “Cop City”, an 85-acre, $90m training facility planned for South River forest, a wooded area south-east of the city.
They were also protesting the fatal police shooting of Tortuguita, a fellow activist, less than a week earlier, on a raid in the Atlanta forest where dozens have been tree-sitting and camping for more than a year.
The march, arrests of 18 activists charged under a state domestic terrorism law, a series of raids on the forest in recent weeks and Tortuguita’s killing have escalated tensions over Cop City. They culminated Thursday afternoon in the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, declaring a state of emergency. Under the order, up to 1,000 national guard troops will be available until 9 February or upon further order.
Brian Kemp, the Georgia governor who declared a state of emergency and mobilized 1,000 members of the national guard over the (Atlanta) protests, has blamed “out-of-state rioters” and a “network of militant activists who have committed similar acts of domestic terrorism across the country” for the troubles.
Georgia’s response to the protests follows an alarming pattern of environmental and land rights defenders across the US being threatened, arrested and charged with increasingly drastic crimes, including terrorism, for opposing oil and gas pipelines or the destruction of forests or waterways, advocates claim.
“This was meant as a chilling deterrent, to show that the state can kill and jail environmental defenders with impunity. It reflects a trend towards escalation and violence to distract from the real issue of advancing corporate interests over lands,” said Nick Estes, author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.
Twoeditorials on the $90m, 85-acre project, called “Cop City” by activists, recently appeared in the New York Times, both calling attention to flaws in the democratic process that led Atlanta city council to approve the training center in late 2021.
Students and faculty from Atlanta-area schools Emory University, Morehouse College, Spelman College and other historically Black schools also issued statements this week, urging the schools to denounce the project.
Three members of Congress – Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush and Senator Ed Markey – have called for an independent investigation into Tortuguita’s death, who law enforcement officials say fired first, wounding a Georgia state patrol officer.
…
More recently, opposition to development in South River forest has included neighborhood associations, established environmental groups such as the Sierra Club’s Georgia chapter, local schools, Atlanta-area citizens and others. About 70% of more than 1,000 comments to Atlanta city council in advance of their September 2021 vote on the project also opposed the project, according to an independent analysis.
‘COP CITY’ OPPOSITION SPREADS BEYOND GEORGIA FOREST DEFENDERS. Law Enforcement Training Center Has Drawn Attention And Concern From A Broad Range Of Local And National US Voices Who Worry About Its Impact by Timothy Pratt, The Guardian, Feb 9, 2023
Quakers and Mutual Aid 