home.social

#collectivism — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #collectivism, aggregated by home.social.

  1. @[email protected] Some of the same impulses that were captured by the socialist movement more than 100 years ago, are indeed today being captured by cryptocurrency and other decentralised cypherpunk projects.

    However, the baseline of collectivist impulses in society has also radically decreased with all this time, resulting in a very different moral basis being applied for validating the goals of such projects. 🤔

    #anarchism #left #decentralisation #collectivism #socialism

  2. "One of the great weaknesses of our era is that we get lone superhero movies that suggest that our big problems are solved by muscly guys in spandex, when actually the world mostly gets changed through collective effort."

    –Rebecca Solnit on her new book, The Beginning Comes

    #collectivism #resist #worktogether

  3. How do we align the interests of the individual and the collective? We look at examples from history of leaders and thinkers that did just that in the 3rd episode of our series on The Alignment Problem No One is Talking About #Collectivism #Aristotle #Kendi #Mill #JohnStuartMill #JohnKey #Nixon

    ALIGNING INDIVIDUAL AND COLLEC...

  4. CW: -uspol

    #RenéeGood is dead. An #ICE agent shot her three times through her car window in #Minneapolis. Video shows the agent had time to step away—instead he drew his weapon and fired. This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution.

    Philosopher Harry Binswanger traces the philosophical chain: hbletter.com/trumps-gestapo-is

    ICE exists because we philosophically and politically destroyed the concept of #IndividualRights.#Bentham called #rights “nonsense upon stilts” 20 years after #Kant. That became settled doctrine. Without a defensible theory of rights grounded in reality, we got the #Progressive movement’s #collectivism, then the xenophobia that built ICE, and now we have federal agents executing protesters in the street.

    ICE has no legitimate function—it exists to grab and deport people, operating with arbitrary force. "The nature of an action follows from the nature of the entity that acts.” ICE's nature is thuggery wrapped in the language of #LawEnforcement.

    But there’s also a commercial-political chain that made this possible: government agencies contract with private #surveillance companies to bypass #FourthAmendment protections. What the government can’t collect directly, it purchases from #DataBrokers and information services.

    The technical infrastructure—databases, APIs, real-time intelligence platforms—gets built by engineers who think they're just solving technical problems. That infrastructure feeds into operations that put agents on Minneapolis streets with intelligence they couldn’t legally gather themselves.

    This didn't have to happen.

    Rights theory didn't have to lose to #utilitarianism and Kantian duty. We didn’t have to allow commercial surveillance to become a Fourth Amendment bypass. But we did, and now 37-year-old Renée Good is dead because an agent felt empowered to approach her car, try her door handle, and shoot when she tried to leave.

    The horror isn’t just that Renée Good died. It’s that her death was philosophically, politically, and technically inevitable once we abandoned individual rights and built the infrastructure to enforce #collectivist #immigration policy at scale.

    #ReneeGood #philosophy #politics #USpol #USpolitics #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism

  5. CW: -uspol

    #RenéeGood is dead. An #ICE agent shot her three times through her car window in #Minneapolis. Video shows the agent had time to step away—instead he drew his weapon and fired. This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution.

    Philosopher Harry Binswanger traces the philosophical chain: hbletter.com/trumps-gestapo-is

    ICE exists because we philosophically and politically destroyed the concept of #IndividualRights.#Bentham called #rights “nonsense upon stilts” 20 years after #Kant. That became settled doctrine. Without a defensible theory of rights grounded in reality, we got the #Progressive movement’s #collectivism, then the xenophobia that built ICE, and now we have federal agents executing protesters in the street.

    ICE has no legitimate function—it exists to grab and deport people, operating with arbitrary force. "The nature of an action follows from the nature of the entity that acts.” ICE's nature is thuggery wrapped in the language of #LawEnforcement.

    But there’s also a commercial-political chain that made this possible: government agencies contract with private #surveillance companies to bypass #FourthAmendment protections. What the government can’t collect directly, it purchases from #DataBrokers and information services.

    The technical infrastructure—databases, APIs, real-time intelligence platforms—gets built by engineers who think they're just solving technical problems. That infrastructure feeds into operations that put agents on Minneapolis streets with intelligence they couldn’t legally gather themselves.

    This didn't have to happen.

    Rights theory didn't have to lose to #utilitarianism and Kantian duty. We didn’t have to allow commercial surveillance to become a Fourth Amendment bypass. But we did, and now 37-year-old Renée Good is dead because an agent felt empowered to approach her car, try her door handle, and shoot when she tried to leave.

    The horror isn’t just that Renée Good died. It’s that her death was philosophically, politically, and technically inevitable once we abandoned individual rights and built the infrastructure to enforce #collectivist #immigration policy at scale.

    #ReneeGood #philosophy #politics #USpol #USpolitics #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism

  6. CW: -uspol

    #RenéeGood is dead. An #ICE agent shot her three times through her car window in #Minneapolis. Video shows the agent had time to step away—instead he drew his weapon and fired. This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution.

    Philosopher Harry Binswanger traces the philosophical chain: hbletter.com/trumps-gestapo-is

    ICE exists because we philosophically and politically destroyed the concept of #IndividualRights.#Bentham called #rights “nonsense upon stilts” 20 years after #Kant. That became settled doctrine. Without a defensible theory of rights grounded in reality, we got the #Progressive movement’s #collectivism, then the xenophobia that built ICE, and now we have federal agents executing protesters in the street.

    ICE has no legitimate function—it exists to grab and deport people, operating with arbitrary force. "The nature of an action follows from the nature of the entity that acts.” ICE's nature is thuggery wrapped in the language of #LawEnforcement.

    But there’s also a commercial-political chain that made this possible: government agencies contract with private #surveillance companies to bypass #FourthAmendment protections. What the government can’t collect directly, it purchases from #DataBrokers and information services.

    The technical infrastructure—databases, APIs, real-time intelligence platforms—gets built by engineers who think they're just solving technical problems. That infrastructure feeds into operations that put agents on Minneapolis streets with intelligence they couldn’t legally gather themselves.

    This didn't have to happen.

    Rights theory didn't have to lose to #utilitarianism and Kantian duty. We didn’t have to allow commercial surveillance to become a Fourth Amendment bypass. But we did, and now 37-year-old Renée Good is dead because an agent felt empowered to approach her car, try her door handle, and shoot when she tried to leave.

    The horror isn’t just that Renée Good died. It’s that her death was philosophically, politically, and technically inevitable once we abandoned individual rights and built the infrastructure to enforce #collectivist #immigration policy at scale.

    #ReneeGood #philosophy #politics #USpol #USpolitics #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism

  7. CW: -uspol

    #RenéeGood is dead. An #ICE agent shot her three times through her car window in #Minneapolis. Video shows the agent had time to step away—instead he drew his weapon and fired. This wasn’t self-defense. It was execution.

    Philosopher Harry Binswanger traces the philosophical chain: hbletter.com/trumps-gestapo-is

    ICE exists because we philosophically and politically destroyed the concept of #IndividualRights.#Bentham called #rights “nonsense upon stilts” 20 years after #Kant. That became settled doctrine. Without a defensible theory of rights grounded in reality, we got the #Progressive movement’s #collectivism, then the xenophobia that built ICE, and now we have federal agents executing protesters in the street.

    ICE has no legitimate function—it exists to grab and deport people, operating with arbitrary force. "The nature of an action follows from the nature of the entity that acts.” ICE's nature is thuggery wrapped in the language of #LawEnforcement.

    But there’s also a commercial-political chain that made this possible: government agencies contract with private #surveillance companies to bypass #FourthAmendment protections. What the government can’t collect directly, it purchases from #DataBrokers and information services.

    The technical infrastructure—databases, APIs, real-time intelligence platforms—gets built by engineers who think they're just solving technical problems. That infrastructure feeds into operations that put agents on Minneapolis streets with intelligence they couldn’t legally gather themselves.

    This didn't have to happen.

    Rights theory didn't have to lose to #utilitarianism and Kantian duty. We didn’t have to allow commercial surveillance to become a Fourth Amendment bypass. But we did, and now 37-year-old Renée Good is dead because an agent felt empowered to approach her car, try her door handle, and shoot when she tried to leave.

    The horror isn’t just that Renée Good died. It’s that her death was philosophically, politically, and technically inevitable once we abandoned individual rights and built the infrastructure to enforce #collectivist #immigration policy at scale.

    #ReneeGood #philosophy #politics #USpol #USpolitics #SurveillanceState #SurveillanceCapitalism

  8. Why can't the argument be:

    - Less about #individualism versus #collectivism, and
    - More about seeing both as part of a spectrum, where

    We understand that either can be toxic and destructive when taken to an extreme, weaponised to benefit a few.

    To explore that the answer may not be any rigid one position, anywhere on the spectrum (or plane involving other points), thus to study both (or all) positions instructively to help find a balance that flows between the two?

  9. With the recent #tariffs news, it’s a good time to revisit Harry Binswanger’s 2024 essay, “’Buy American’ Is Un-American”: newideal.aynrand.org/buy-ameri

    Originally delivered as a speech in 1987, it highlights just how long this flawed concept has persisted.

    Economic #nationalism goes against America’s fundamental values of #individualism, #FreeTrade, and rational self-interest. Choosing products based solely on their country-of-origin fosters #collectivism and #xenophobia, not true #patriotism.

  10. Berkeley researcher proposes collectivist approach to artificial intelligence development: Digital marketing could benefit from new economic perspective that prioritizes social welfare over individual systems. ppc.land/berkeley-researcher-p #ArtificialIntelligence #Collectivism #SocialWelfare #DigitalMarketing #EconomicPerspective

  11. The #NuclearFamily ("#individualism")

    killed

    the #TraditionalFamily (#collectivism).

    I'm sick and tired
    of pretending otherwise.

    #consetvatives , #liberals, #nationalists, #fascists, you screwed THE ENTIRE WORLD and don't even know it's your fault.

    Bury your heads in the sand no more, or at the very least stop pretending liberals are #leftwing. Here's a hint: #liberalism is RIGHT FROM #CENTER.

  12. As usual, those who can’t win in the commercial #marketplace resort to riding the coattails of the one ideological stance that’s already won (by default): #collectivism and its companion, #government force.

    https://fosstodon.org/@xmpp/114235801609817484

    #XMPP #Jabber #Meta #DMA #politics #EU

  13. Multi generational housing coming back in the US. This is a good thing. This is good for the physical and mental health of families. Toxic families can be an issue, that is something you have to adjust yourself in. It can be hard for some, but it is possible. For example, latin american, south asian, and east asian countries have adults that live with their parents.
    #Collectivism
    vox.com/24115808/multigenerati
    pewresearch.org/social-trends/
    pewresearch.org/short-reads/20

  14. The reactionary notion of #collectivism is often used to discredit various left-wing policies, ranging from taxation to social welfare. It's also portrayed as incompatible with individualism.

    However, this overlooks how #inequality limits individual freedom. Socialists aim to create conditions where everyone can pursue their aspirations without the constant struggle for survival, through collective efforts like public services and economic redistribution.

    #jacobin
    znetwork.org/znetarticle/dont-

  15. #AynRand directly refuted detractors of her #philosophy of #Objectivism who claimed it was “lone wolf” #individualism: mastodon.josefabio.com/@aynran

    Run away from anyone who offers you the false dichotomy between solitude and #collectivism. They do not recognize your right to hold them to their agreements.

  16. @Radical_EgoCom it is very interesting, mainly is what is fueling the #kurd #revolution in #Rojava. I keep learning when I can, it has lots of ideas from #collectivism #feminism #cooperatives and also personal liberties of property i believe.

  17. Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

    Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
    2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc

    "Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy

    "With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.

    "On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.

    "This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]

    "The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”

    "It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.

    "The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."

    Full article:
    crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

    #JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs

  18. Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

    Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
    2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc

    "Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy

    "With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.

    "On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.

    "This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]

    "The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”

    "It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.

    "The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."

    Full article:
    crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

    #JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs

  19. Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

    Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
    2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc

    "Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy

    "With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.

    "On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.

    "This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]

    "The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”

    "It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.

    "The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."

    Full article:
    crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

    #JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs

  20. Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

    Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
    2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc

    "Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy

    "With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.

    "On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.

    "This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]

    "The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”

    "It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.

    "The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."

    Full article:
    crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

    #JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs

  21. Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity

    Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
    2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc

    "Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy

    "With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.

    "On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.

    "This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]

    "The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”

    "It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.

    "The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."

    Full article:
    crimethinc.com/2023/12/12/dont

    #JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs