Lehigh Valley Anarchist Updates
Local news by and for anarchists. Accepting submissions for events, articles, and letters to the editor. September 2019, Volume I Issue II
lvacc@protonmail.com
@LVanarchists
LVA fights fascists: A report from the August Boston Police Riot On August 31, 2019, a small contingent of activists from Eastern Pennsylvania joined about 800 others from all over the country in Boston, Mass. to counter-protest the Straight Pride Parade. The parade was organized by a group that calls itself Super Happy Fun America. It’s a front group for the notoriously violent hate groups Resist Marxism, the Proud Boys, and the American Guard. This parade was not an expression of pride; it was an expression of hate and bigotry. This last June marked the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, widely regarded among historians as the birth of the modern queer liberation movement. Straight Pride was a clear and emphatic rejection of the progress made from fifty years of queer struggle. The counter-protest was organized as a non-centralized mass action. All contingents of the left were present and organized. The first plan of action on Saturday morning was to be undertaken primarily by the Boston Democratic Socialists of
LVA members discovered fascist propaganda throughout the city.
America. The plan was to enter Copley Square, where the Straight Pride Parade was to start, and engage in a “noise demo” against the parade goers as they prepared for the parade. In other words, protesters were going to answer the far right’s speech with their own chants and revelries. A local brass band was there to help.
There was no ban on masks in Boston that day, so by 10 a.m., anarchists and other antifascists were at a staging area in Boston Commons, gearing up to black bloc. Black bloc is a tactic developed in post-war West Germany to respond to police abuse and fascist violence at protests. The idea is that everyone wears black and
covers their face and hair in order to blend in. It protects the most vulnerable activists from police or fascist retaliation. Just like most antifascist tactics, the black bloc is largely defensive—a response to the large-scale targeted harassment campaigns organized by the far right on image boards, chat rooms, and other dark corners of the internet. The bloc’s purpose that day was to maintain a defensive line between the noise demo and the parade goers. The Rhode Island John Brown Gun Club came early as well, armed only with first aid supplies, including water bottles filled with an antiacid and water mixture used to treat pepper spray injuries. The Bostonian Left showed up, unified and en masse, to tell these hateful and violent people that they are not in friendly territory. But things didn’t go as planned. At around 10:30 a.m., before anything got moving, the Boston PD Bike Unit led by Captain John Danilecki circled round the bloc using a tactic known as “kettling,” Continued on 3
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The Lehigh Valley joins the 2019 Climate Strikes The energy crackled from megaphone. Feet flew over the pavement, marching towards the halls of state power. City Hall glistened in the distance, 70’s cement and brutalism perched on the hill ahead of us. We walked through the autumn sun, throwing off class, work, other responsibilities, to come together to work towards a better world. How to make that better world was left undecided: reform or revolution? Members of the Lehigh Valley Anarchist network played key roles in each of the Valley’s climate strikes. Climate strikes were held at Bethlehem City Hall, Center City Allentown, Northampton Community College and Lehigh University. Members of LVA assisted with coordination between each of the strikes and helped with the work to get the strikes off the ground. The rally in Allentown was organized by Make the Road. The strike was mostly speeches from people in the community. Some members in the LVA network got to speak and stressed that voting is not enough.
Allentown protestors photographed by @maketheroadpa on Instagram.
Direct action must be a part of all our activism. They presented some demands they wrote, including worker’s rights and support for climate refugees. A Make the Road activist spoke about the importance of climate justice for the Bahamas and Puerto Rico and for having 100% renewable energy in Allentown by 2050. Most of the students present were from the outer lying suburbs and were white. Allentown School District was ready to punish
kids who left class, deterring participation. In the future, more support of activism from Allentown students and engage in open and active listening conversations with them around activism and the struggles face by Allentown is important for Allentown Youth to be present at protests like the Climate Strike. Some members in the LVA network believed it was important to fly the red and black anarcho-communist flag at the climate strike
and engage the strikers. At a meeting one member remarked, “the worst we could have done is just stand there with the flag and hand out zines. But we got a lot of people mobilized for their first time and made some strong local connections.” During the Bethlehem Climate Strike, copies of the local Lehigh Valley Anarchist Updates, Slingshot Newspaper, and an LVA signup sheet floated around to the strikers. Many of the high school and col-
lege-aged people were excited to hear about anarchist organizing locally. A few people recognized the flag and excitedly came up to us. Offering this alternative vision of an anti-capitalist ecological future seemed to excite some folks. While handing out Lehigh Valley Anarchist Updates to some young peeps, an older woman with white hair yelled, “Hey! Old people can be anarchists too.” I apologized and we laughed together, and I had to reflect on my own ageism and the youth centered in our anarchist scene. Other members in the LVA network expressed the need to push the climate strikers more. “It was not enough. White liberals need to start doing more actions and getting symbolically arrested for it.” Some of our folks left early because they got tired of hearing people speak once the march to City Hall was done. Some of our crew wanted to take the streets but after some discussion realized people were not ready to risk arrest. All of this kept actual confrontation with the state and Continued on 4
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LVA UPDATES SEPTEMBER 2019 VOLUME I ISSUE II LVA fights fash, continued from page 1
in which officers surround a group with the intent to instigate arrests. Danilecki is on video de-masking, searching, and pushing protesters unprovoked. Inevitably, some people lost their balance and the police started throwing people to the ground. One officer can
on camera indiscriminately using pepper spray and other forms of violence on peaceful, unmasked protesters assembling on public easements. The chants, first directed at the fascists in the parade, quickly turned against the police. It became evident as the day went on that the police were part of the Straight
The Bostonian Left showed up, unified and en masse, to tell these hateful and violent people that they are not in friendly territory. But things didn’t go as planned. be seen on video with his knee and full body weight on the head of a non-resistant protester. Shouts of “Off his head! Off his head!” echoed through the streets until the officer stood up. Several people were arrested, including a dear friend from the Lehigh Valley, before the protest even started. Our comrade is seen on camera trying to calm down a person being de-masked and roughed up before he was tackled unprovoked by two bike cops. The noise demo couldn’t enter Copely Sqaure as planned. The bike unit chased the bloc through the streets of Boston until they were able to loop around and blend into the larger body of protesters that had assembled on the edge of the Commons along Boylston Street. The cops were rioting. Throughout the day, Captain Danilecki was caught
Pride Parade. There were more police than parade-goers; they came from all over Massachusetts. The Mass. State Police were there, dressed in all black. Armed and armored, they stood at attention, with their backs to the fascists, as their commanding officer paced in front. The bloc was not big enough to take on the cops, so antifascists changed priorities. They provided first aid and helped people get out of harms way. One protester in bloc could be seen helping people over concrete planters. Cops carefully corralled the protest between a concrete wall and a wrought iron fence, then drove motorcycles through the middle of the congested mass. Those they helped turned around to help more people escape. Others carried injured protesters to street medics and helped wash out people’s eyes. Al-
most all of them spent some time keeping people away from especially aggressive officers like Danilecki. No one had the bad sense to fight the cops. We didn’t have the numbers. Molly Conger, an activist and writer from Charlottesville, tweeted, “i had some guardian angels in the bloc today. thank you to the probably half a dozen different people today who grabbed me by my backpack and pulled me out of harm’s way. you’re the best.” Conger was pepper sprayed twice by Danilecki. The action reached it’s climax as the parade goers were leaving. Despite a peaceful assembly, the bike cops did not take any time to clear out the crowd of counter-protesters. They formed a line and began to push the crowd back with their bikes. They took an old woman’s cane from her and dragged her into a paddy wagon when she couldn’t move. The protesters were beginning to stiffen into
ers. The cops took our comrade all the way to the other side of the city. It was as inconvenient as possible. Thanks to the a bail fund set up by the Lucy Parson’s Center and legal aid from the National Lawyers’ Guild, we were able to pick them up that night. By the time we left the bar, all of our phones were dead. We found our way back to our host’s place using a comrade’s encyclopedic knowledge of Fallout 4, and then drove to the lockup. The next day in the outskirts of Boston, all of us joined an effort to remove the fascist stickers that found their way onto the of street signs, lamp posts, and postal boxes in LGBT-friendly neighborhoods. The trend from police protection of to police involvement in fascist movements is not isolated to the Boston area. Sixth months ago, the Guardian uncovered a secret relationship between Joey Gibson, the leader of
[The cops] took an old woman’s cane from her and dragged her into a paddy wagon when she couldn’t move. a line when Danilecki, yet again, unholstered his pepper spray and began to spray indiscriminately into the crowd, spraying several members of the press, the Libertarian Party presidential candidate (and Straight Pride speaker) Adam Kokesh, and countless oth-
the Oregon-based Christian dominionist group Patriot Prayer, and Lt. Jeff Niiya of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB), the then commander of PPB’s “Rapid Response Team” (SWAT). The Guardian accused Jeff Niiya of tipping Gibson off on the Continued on 4
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LVA fights fash, continued from page 3
arrestables within his ranks, allowing many of the more dangerous far right insurgents a chance to escape after battering counter-protesters. On September 12, the chief of the PPB cleared Niiya of all charges. In the Summer of 2016, a group of Philidelphia lawyers began talking to each other about different police officers who had posted racist, sexist, or otherwise reactionary content on public FaceBook groups. That conversation lead to the creation of the Plain View Project (plainviewproject.org), an open database of those very posts made by current and former cops throughout the country (with lots of content for Philidelphia). On July 1, Propublica
published an investigative report that unconvered a FaceBook Group with 9,500 current and former Border Patrol Agents. Anti-migrant dehumanization, rape culture, and far right politics are dominant themes within the group. On September 4, Suffolk County Judge Richard Sinnott stepped beyond his powers, refusing to accept District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ motion to dismiss most of people arrested in Boston at the Straight Pride Parade. He put defense attorney Susan Church under arrest for contempt when she tried to cite the same case law as Rollins. After she was released, Susan Church joined the discussion on WGBH’s Greater Boston show: “The court room was packed with po-
lice officers. I heard them cheer when I was handcuffed and led away. This politicization of our courts, in a country where the rule of law is essential to our democracy, is extremely concerning.” - Susan Church, Greater Boston (09/04/19). We have had a problem with police in our country since there were police. From Black Lives Matter and Occupy, all the way back to the Underground Railroad and the Sons of Liberty, resistence against the “enforcers” of the law has always been essential part of the liberatory process. It’s critical to think about why. Words by Oaks.
Climate strikes, continued from page 2
Climate strikers in Bethlehem marched to city hall to hear speeches from community members. Photo by Krafty.
corporations to a minimum. For some members, this was their first experience helping to organize a large protest event and they left the strike wanting to push for more. “The whole thing was pretty exhilarating and powerful, the camaraderie of people talking about why they wanted to come out to the strike. People need to take this momentum and channel it into organizing actual revolutions against the system that is causing the climate crisis … What I would want to see next is for the Lehigh University divestment campaign to really take off. A full-term revolution is great but we need short term solutions to get people together before we get to a full scale
redefining how humanity operates.” During the day, this member had gotten to publicly confront a Lehigh University administrator for the first time about their failure to do anything significant for the climate. They say they are ready to do it again. The debate around anarchist involvement in the Climate Strike has been varied. This is reflected in the different responses of LVA members in response to the strikes. We have planned a potluck for the week after the strike to keep up the conversation and build up our connections with people. Whether the strike can continue to build momentum or will follow the cycle of student
protest remains to be seen. However, the strike as it stands gave some of our members experience in organizing and helped strengthen our local connections and outreach. As “strike” re-enters the public language, and a strike wave hits the US, from the Climate Strike to UAW Strike to the WV Coal Miners strike, we look to see how this wave manifests in our Valley. We are planning on ways to creatively engage with these movements and look for ideas from people in the valley and other comrades worldwide. Words by Connor.
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Lehigh Valley Anarchists
Who we are Lehigh Valley Anarchists is a decentralized direct action network focused on local mutual aid;
loosely based on the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council model (MACC). As a network we link affinity groups, collectives of individuals organizing towards a common goal. Affinity groups are based on voluntary participation and are open to all. LVA is explicitly antifascist, antiracist, antimisogynist, antiableist, but what are we for? As anarchists we all share a common goal: the end of capitalism and a better future for all.
Affinity groups Ecoanacharcists, MarGen Medusas (marginalized genders/anarchofeminist), Newsletter Group, Reading Group, Potluck Punks, Lehigh Fash Smash, and Mutual Aid.
Submission guidlines Lehigh Valley Anarchist Updates is a monthly newsletter created by mem-
bers of Lehigh Valley Anarchists. The final deadline for submissions for Issue III is October 21st at 11:59 p.m. The editors are currently accepting submissions for publication in the following formats: - Articles: 250 word minimum, 1000 word maximum. Please submit as a Microsoft Word document or through CryptPad. Subjects include, but are not limited to, event coverage, opinion pieces, reflections on current events, letters to the editor, or other exploratory writing. Previous writing experience is not necessary; articles will be content edited and copy edited by our editors. - Article pitches: Have an idea for an article but not sure where to start? One of our editors can help guide you through the writing process. Send your pitch or question as an email. - Poems: No word minimum/maximum. Theme should be relevant to anarchism, community, anticapitalism, resistance, etc. Please submit as a Microsoft Word document or through CryptPad. - Art: Photographs, digital art, anything that can be uploaded digitally. Theme should be relevant to anarchism, community, anticapitalism, resistance, etc. Please submit as a PSD or TIFF. All submissions should be sent to lvacc@protonmail.com. If you have an idea that doesn’t fall into any of the above categories, please do not hesitate to contact us. We want to encourage all those interested to submit, no matter their confidence in their writing. This newsletter is an opportunity to try something new. Thank you for reading!
Event calendar Event: Divest from dirty banks protest Saturday, Oct. 5 @ 9 am
301 Broadway, Bethlehem Wells Fargo has been the second largest funder of climate chaos in the years since the Paris Climate Accords. While the world was trying to keep average warming below 1.5C, Wells Fargo was investing $152 billion in climate chaos infrastructure, projects, expansion, and exploration. Show up to divest your funds and encourage patrons to divest theirs. Ain’t No Blood on Our Money!
Event: Narcan Training – English + Spanish Wednesday, Oct. 9 @ 6 Pm
347 n 8th St, Allentown Hosted at Make the Road Allentown. Learn how to administer Narcan to someone who has overdosed on opioids. Training will be provided in both English and Spanish.
Event: “On Both Sides: Rally to End Death by Incarceration and Heal Our Communities” Wednesday, Oct. 23 @ 12 PM Capitol Rotunda, Harrisburg
Rally sponsored by Coalition Against Death by Incarcertaion (CADBI). The local Lehigh Valley chapter, along with members from our EMI partners in our recent series on Criminal Justice Reform, is organizing a group to attend from the Valley. Bus transportation will be provided at no cost; please reserve a seat by filling out the registration form at https://docs.google. com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfM9tdymU0LRHlUbAQAc8iU0wi1ETgWIF6p3TXKu9Cq_LJ7EA/viewform or contact cadbilehigh@googlegroups.com.with questions.
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Forgiveness: a short essay Despite the increasing presence of trolls, the Internet can often be a safe haven for individuals with trauma, allowing us to build personally curated timelines of others just like us: people who are searching for guidance and support in their journies of healing. Abusive relationships, emotional manipulation, physical abuse, sexual abuse, childhood trauma–no matter the origin of the pain, reflecting on it can often be just as painful, if not more. Everyone wants to heal, but can never be fully prepared for what we discover in the process. Healing is nonlinear. Because we as humans experience different emotions and respond to those emotions differently, no one’s path is quite the same. I’d like to think that mine is unique, that it will end a story of victory, of success, of “I made it.” I cling to this hope even in the bleakest moments because I repeat to myself that this journey is nonlinear. (Thank you, adrienne maree brown). It wasn’t until I was removed from the environment where my abuse occurred that I realized the extent to which I had been impacted by remaining in
the same environment as the abuser. My hope was that my brain would be so overwhelmed with culture shock that I wouldn’t have a free moment to think about my trauma. But the first moment I was finally alone I could do nothing but cry. “How am I supposed to cope with this 5000 miles away from home?” For the last month, to keep my emotions at bay I had become dependent on substances that I would never dream of never bringing to Japan out of fear of deportation, and finally, after a thirteen-hour flight, everything I had been hiding hit me like a tidal wave, and my only coping mechanism was gone. Who are you when you are all alone? And do you love that person? ... My friends are everything to me. I’m so grateful not only for the friends back home who answer my messages in the dead of night but also for the new friends that allow me to be vulnerable after knowing each other for only a few days. Even though I had just been hurt from trusting too much too soon, I will continue to radically trust the people around me (read: nonmen) because if we
don’t have trust, what else do we have? Even though my support network was (and still is) healthy and resilient, I still needed to find healthy coping strategies. I was experiencing panic attacks, flashbacks, and nightmares that were exacerbated by withdrawal. Naturally, I turned to the Internet for solace. While I picked up some strategies for coping with my emotions, I also searched for strategies for reconciliation. My goal was to introduce a transformative justice platform to my comrades because healing is never an individual process. Abuse affects the entire community, and it should not be the burden of the victims alone to heal both themselves and their abuser. But I continue to find my efforts getting cast aside for more important issues. Thankfully, this didn’t go unnoticed by some of my comrades, and so we formed our own affinity group, MarGen Medusas (badass, right?) Just creating this safe space relieved the immense pressure I had been feeling by tenfold. Together we are unified in this ongoing struggle for accountability. Nevertheless, I continue to struggle indi-
Words by Venus. Art by Marlene.
vidually. My research brought my attention to the subject of forgiveness in the healing process, and I’ve been meditating on it for some time now. Sitting on the shore of Lake Biwa in the warm September midnight, I traced my internal monologue into the sand: “everyone is worthy of a second chance. But is everyone worthy of forgiveness?” I will continue to advocate for transformative justice measures because I believe they are critical to building a healthy organizing community. This is bigger than just me and my experience. Forgiveness, on the
other hand, is conditional. Why extend forgiveness to those who don’t seek it? Instead, I choose to forgive myself. I forgive myself for being naive. I forgive myself for my avoidance. I forgive myself for getting too drunk on Monday night. I forgive myself for my violent urges. I forgive myself for forgetting to take my medication. I forgive myself for skipping meals. I forgive myself for overeating. I forgive myself because that is the true key to healing; and if this journey is nonlinear then I know I’ll fail again, and I’ll continue to forgive myself every time I do.