#crimethinc — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #crimethinc, aggregated by home.social.
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"It was also crucial that the movement against police and white supremacy centered those who have the least cause to preserve the existing order. This should not be lost on middle-class people who hope that others will join them in resisting the Trump regime. In order to involve enough people to succeed, any movement against Trump will have to address the material needs of the oppressed, giving everyone else a stake in the fight. If we don’t want to live under autocracy, there is no way around it—we have to organize against all forms of oppression."
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#Crimethinc: A #Demonstrator’s Guide to Understanding #RiotMunitions
And How to Defend against Them
2021-01-04Police fire a wide range of blunt force projectiles from a variety of weapons. Manufacturers and police departments sometimes call these 'Blunt Impact Projectiles' (#BIPs) or 'Kinetic Impact Projectiles' (#KIPs). #RubberBullets are only one of many variants. They vary in size, force, composition, delivery methods, and lethality.
"The sales pitches that manufacturers make to law enforcement agencies emphasize the ability to obtain compliance from subjects via projected force with minimal risk of injury or death. All of the academic studies—not to mention our lived experience—show that neither of these claims is correct: impact munitions regularly #maim and kill #protestors and they rarely succeed at breaking up demonstrations. They’re even less effective at stopping social movements. Often, when one of us loses an eye or suffers a fractured skull, more people come out to the streets.
"Some of the more common impact munitions include baton rounds, large plastic, foam, gel, or even wooden #projectiles that are fired from a multi-launcher or occasionally a shotgun; rubber bullets, #MetalProjectiles coated in rubber or PVC; #BeanBagRounds, woven bags filled with either silica or lead, usually fired from shotguns; #Pepperballs, which are essentially paintballs filled with pepper spray; #FN303 rounds, a combination of pepper-balls and regular impact munitions; rubber balls, which are rubber or plastic or foam pellets packed into grenades to explode like shrapnel or shotgun shot; and, of course, the venerable #GasCanister (bearing chemical agents or smoke), which is not designed to be fired directly at protestors—but regularly is.
"Contrary to popular supposition, most modern impact munitions are designed for 'direct fire' rather than 'skip fire.' Direct fire munitions are for shooting directly at individuals, while skip fire projectiles are designed to be skipped off the ground into the crowd. Tear gas canisters are generally intended for skip firing at close range or firing at a 25-30 degree arc into the air for maximum range; they are not rated for direct fire. Some styles of baton rounds that split into multiple projectiles are designed for skip fire to distribute the projectiles more widely, while others are designed to be fired over the heads of protesters in order to rain chemicals down. Full-size wooden baton rounds and some rubber bullets seem to be designed for skip fire as well, but in general, skip fire is less accurate and less common.
"Baton rounds, stinger grenades, and beanbags hurt. They injure people. Occasionally, they maim or—even more rarely—kill people. Yet of all the tools used by the police, they are some of the least effective at stopping demonstrations. Unlike a cop within mêlée range, a baton round cannot arrest you. Unlike a cloud of gas, it can’t force you to disperse. Ranged impact weapons rely primarily on pain compliance. While this may work on individuals, pain alone usually cannot force a resolute crowd to comply. Standing around getting shot at isn’t always the right move. But the effects of impact munitions can be mitigated by protective equipment including shields, armor, helmets, goggles, barricades, and even umbrellas. Impact weapons rely on fear above all—and through mental preparation and mutual support, we can defend ourselves from fear. We can choose not to comply with fear."
Learn more:
https://crimethinc.com/2021/01/04/a-demonstrators-guide-to-understanding-riot-munitions-and-how-to-defend-against-them
#Resistance #Protests #Demonstrations #ProtestSafely #BePrepared -
From 2017, but still very relevant!
#Crimethinc: From #Inclusion to #Resistance - Neither Trump’s Trans Ban nor Assimilation, but Total Liberation
2017-07-27
[Excerpt]: "What’s radical about trans students contesting bathroom and gender assignment is the possibilities this opens for all students to contest #authority. If we don’t accept their rules regarding which toilets to use, why should we accept the legitimacy of the system that functions as a school-to-prison pipeline? While we support anything that can reduce the misery of trans kids, we also recognize that trans-inclusive bathroom policies are a safety valve intended to divert student resistance and to bolster the legitimacy of a failing public school system. As with marriage and the military, trans liberation in schools isn’t just a question of easing our inclusion into them. It would demand something more like #dismantling them altogether.
"It’s strategic for defenders of the status quo to re-center the #LGBT rights debate around trans people in the military at this moment. As #transgender, #genderqueer, and #NonBinary communities are appearing in mass media and popular consciousness in unprecedented numbers, an optimist might speculate that US gender relations could come up for renegotiation—along with all the institutions they undergird. What better way to protect those relations and institutions than by reducing the scope of the discussion to the most reactionary formulation possible: integration into the military?
"It’s better for both liberals and conservatives that we stop talking about radically #reconfiguring #HealthCare, #sexuality, #education, the #economy, and numerous other social institutions shot through with #patriarchal norms."
https://crimethinc.com/2017/07/27/from-inclusion-to-resistance-neither-trumps-trans-ban-nor-assimilation-but-liberation
#RadicalResistance #Resistance #TransgenderRights #NoWar #SmashThePatriarchy #TransRightsAreHumanRights -
Came across this article and thought it might come in handy...
A Demonstrator’s Guide to #GasMasks and #Goggles
Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Eyes and Lungs from Gas and Projectiles
2020-09-02 via #CrimeThinc
"One of the basic ways that police maintain violent control of our society is by interfering with our ability to breathe—and sometimes with our ability to see. Nowadays, regardless of whether you employ confrontational tactics, you could be exposed to tear gas or hit by a rubber bullet just by being is in the vicinity of a protest. By taking the proper precautions, we can mitigate the risks while continuing to show up for each other. This guide explores a wide range of options for protecting your eyes and lungs from chemical agents and projectiles, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of each, so you can pick out what’s best for you."
https://crimethinc.com/2020/09/02/a-demonstrators-guide-to-gas-masks-and-goggles-everything-you-need-to-know-to-protect-your-eyes-and-lungs-from-gas-and-projectiles
#Resistance #Dissent #ProtestSafely -
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."
#JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs