#solidarityisourbestweapon — Public Fediverse posts

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #4

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

If you go to “No Kings” rallies today, no doubt it will be all you can do—as an anarchist who believes deeply in liberatory practices and politics—to maintain your cool when faced with both liberals’ and authoritarians’ lack of solidarity. Go with other anarchists and be each other’s support system, and debrief (rant, cry, laugh, and/or chill) afterward.

But also go as “friendly anarchist factions” to model what solidarity actually looks like—even if too many nonanarchistic folks don’t yet know what that feels like or how to do it. I always wish that people didn’t need to be, say, tear gassed or arrested to learn that ACAB isn’t just a slogan, and that anarchists will almost certainly be the ones to have their backs. But such is the wearisome “learning curve,” and the more folks who see beloved community self-defense modeled for them, unflinchingly, on the streets, the more they’ll understand how (and why!) to stick side-by-side too—including with us.

Be solidarity.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #3

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

Back in the day, ahead of a big protest, anarchists set up “convergence centers”: big, scrappy, communal spaces where folks could not only find each other, make and eat food, plug into art and media making, etc. in the days before an (often direct) action based on a wide-ranging diversity of tactics—under an umbrella name like “Carnival against Capitalism” or “No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands”—but also skill up together.

There’s no time to do this before the poorly named “No Kings” (aka, it’s fascism) protests tmrw. Yet you could easily do pop-up skill shares. So many “newbies” are open to learning and eager for alternatives!

Remake the urban landscape into temporary autonomous “classrooms.” Use public furniture or gathering spots, or bring blankets or chairs to sit on. Write the skill share topic on cardboard and display it. Run around and announce skill shares as they start. Bored protesters waiting for a march to begin or tired of listening to rally speeches make great participants. Circle up and start passing along handy skills—say, how to help each other rinse tear gas out of eyes or turn a T-shirt into a mask (over your N95), or how to do forms of community self-defense or jail support. Offer an Anarchism 101 or local rad history talk too. Exercise hands and minds, encouraging liberal and progressive folks to (begin to) think and act for themselves.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #2

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

It’s tough not to fume over the “peaceful protest” call for a “sit-down wave” at this Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies, such as one that asserts: if you see so-called infiltrators “destroy[ing] property,” “sit down and leave the provocators” standing. That’s how the self-appointed leaders of these nonprofit-corporate “ally” demos uphold a status quo that benefits them. In practice, it means anyone not falling in liberal line will get the brunt of police violence and state repression.

Enough fuming. My anarcho-prefigurative self says: outorganize the “peace police”! #BeGayMakeFun! Alongside bringing many zines to gift out at these rallies: Set up carnivesque “no kings, no masters” participatory games! Bring screen-printing supplies (stencils, silk screens, or even humble potatoes carved with printable slogans) and let folks print your rebellious designs on T-shirts, patches, or cardboard! Create playful shield-making art station! Become snack faeries, carting around yummy treats in wagons to freely distro! Do some rebel street theater or radical cheerleading! Bring a queer rebel marching band or amplified music, and start a street dance!

Anarchism is not just good politics; make it good fun, and when folks are drawn to you, anarchism will not only be welcoming but irresistible too. Plus, who knows, maybe you can joyfully teach people how do a “stand-up wave” against the real provocateurs (cops).

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT, #1

(Note: this was written for an earlier No Kings rally, but it might be helpful for the ones tmrw, which should at least be renamed “No Fascists” aka “We Are All Antifascists”!)

🖤🩷🖤🩷

I know it’s no fun to go to liberal-progressive rallies, but thousands of newbies and/or newly awakened folks will be at this Saturday’s “No Kings” protest. Don’t let the nonprofit “ally” complex siphon off the genuine energy of those seeking social transformation—those who don’t yet know that, for instance, “police are not our friends” or “solidarity is our best weapon.”

Instead, print thousands of zines that allow people to “educate themselves in freedom,” especially accessible ones that include rebellious ideas and do-it-ourselves practices! Take those zines to rallies. Walk around and freely gift them to people!

From personal experience, I know that a single zine can change many hearts and minds—and create “accomplices” now willing to experiment with anarchistic forms of street militancy, from varied types of community self-defense to myriad types of collective care and mutual aid.

#MakeMediaBuildSolidarity
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#TryAnarchismForLife

On many days of late—too many of them—it feels like we’re up against such monumental brutality on so many levels, it’s hard to imagine what “winning” looks like, much less even being able to put small yet well-placed wrenches in the gears of fascism. Yet each and every day, I force myself to notice at least one messy-beautiful anarchic example of what we can do and what we are doing. And on some days—like this one—my weary heart is stretched past the ugliness of this world and feels comradely warmth that no borders can contain.

I woke to beloved friends sending me this photo of a solidarity banner in Athens, Greece. The banner hangs off a balcony on a squatted social center called Zizania (“weeds”), which when evicted at one point, set up a social center on a nearby public plaza in what’s largely an immigrant and refugee neighborhood, until folks could squat the building again. This squat has a distinctly queer and feministic sensibility, and many of its projects revolve around care, from a solidarity kitchen and squatted communal garden, to free Greek-language classes aimed at those who’ve been compelled to flee their homes in other lands. Like many a liberated space in Athens—and walls in general—the exterior of Zizania is covered in rebellious street art, including the words “this building has been squatted,” but it also has an events calendar chalked on its front.

Today, Zizania’s exterior now includes this banner, aimed at raising awareness and support for anarchists and others in Texas facing state repression following an alleged July 4 noise demo outside an ICE detention facility. For the overall situation, see and follow @dfwsupportcommittee. In particular, see and follow @free.des.revol to support my beloved friend who is now also incarcerated, charged with alleged “evidence tampering” for allegedly moving some zines from one place to another. The banner, in a mix of English and Greek, reads:

“From Frontex to ICE, against detention centers, concentration camps, borders, and deportations everywhere in the world. Solidarity to the arrested Texas comrades.”

We may only have scrappy tools, but we use them well and defiantly, and especially, lovingly.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Over the past 3 days, I’ve gone to three different gatherings that all share 1 common theme: brutally unnecessary loss, which in turn is inseparable from brutal forms of theft.

On Friday, I walked up a steep hill in the middle of urban Montreal to a secluded grassy area surrounded by trees and filled with birdsong. It felt instantly sacred. And instantly ugly. The bodies of Indigenous children, victims of nonconsensual psychiatric experiments in the 1950s-60s, are likely buried in unmarked graves on these grounds—a former psychiatric hospital owned by McGill University. At a weekly vigil, people and orange ribbons cry out for the “TRUTH” of colonialism.

Yesterday, I listened to panelists talk about the 20th anniversary of a 7-day “Solidarity across Borders” walk from Montreal to Ottawa, with ethics like “status for all.” It took 6 months to organize, and brought together people compelled to move from all corners of the globe. Rad banners from demos over the years had been put up around the room, and someone noted an addition to the oft-used “No One Is Illegal” slogan: “Canada Is Illegal.” Yet various folks on the walk were later deported. And as the contrast between collective possibility 20 years and how much worse things are now filled the air, the banners started falling to the ground.

Today I went on a funeral march for DIY cultural and political spaces. A marching band accompanied us through the streets. We stopped outside now-bland, hipster-upscale businesses that had once housed lively evenings, or as one person put it, “places to fall in love with art, friends, communities, the city,” to speak to the ravages of capitalism. There were relatively few of us. Passersby seemed confused, for they had no idea what gentrification had erased.

Last night, at midnight, a friend in Vienna had just woken up and texted: “My body is in a state of shock. I hug you, because I don’t know what else to do at this moment.” I knew they meant because the US had begun bombing Iran. Minutes before, I’d read the news, wondering how I could go to sleep. How can any of us sleep at night—we, who are intertwined by brutally unnecessary losses and our broken, rebellious hearts?

🖤💔

Photos (continued in comments): “Destroy Power Not People” sticker seen in Stockholm, June 2018; “Land Back,” “ACAB,” and “Neither Quebec nor Canada” stickers seen in Montreal, August 2024; “No Human Is Illegal” sticker seen in mid-Michigan, December 2022; the word “TRUTH” spelled out in orange-fabric ribbons on a fence as seen in Montreal, June 2025; “No Borders, No Nations” spray painted on a wall, as spotted in Athens, March 2025; “Nationalists Not Welcome” sticker seen in Portland, OR, April 2018; “Capitalism Ruined My Life” sticker spotted in Montreal, June 2025; orange-fabric ribbons tied to a tree with glimpse of unmarked burial ground for stolen Indigenous children in the background.

#DestroyPowerNotPeople
#NoBordersNoNations
#AllStatesAreIllegal
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Für Kurzentschlossene in Freiburg: 18:00 Uhr Protest vor dem Revier der Bundespolizei!

Wo: Wentzingerstraße 25

Gemeinsam gegen die massiven Grenzkontrollen!

Gegen die illegalen Zurückweisungen durch die Bundespolizei!

Seit Herbst 2024 werden die Grenzen zu Deutschland intensiv kontrolliert. Bundesinnenminister Dobrindt ließ die Kontrollen mit tausenden Bundespolizist*innen und Millionen an Steuergeldern am 7. Mai 2025 weiter verschärfen. Am 2. Juni erklärte das Verwaltungsgericht Berlin die Zurückweisungen von Asylsuchenden an der Grenze klar für rechtswidrig. Dobrindt und Co. setzen dennoch weiterhin auf offenen Rechtsbruch und bedienen sich unverändert rassistischer Hetze.
Deshalb wird es gleich eine Kundgebung geben!

Keine Zurückweisungen an den Grenzen!
Schluss mit den Grenzkontrollen!
Kein racial profiling!
Solidarität mit geflüchteten Menschen!

#bundespolizei #grenze #Grenzkontrollen #Freiburg #solidaritat #noborders #grenzkontrollen #keineGrenzkontrolle #keinegrenzen #Dobrinth #innenminister #FreiburgImBreisgau #freiburg2025 #montag #freiburg25 #antirepression #solidarity #solidaritatstattausgrenzung #SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 4

If you go to “No Kings” rallies today, no doubt it will be all you can do—as an anarchist who believes deeply in liberatory practices and politics—to maintain your cool when faced with both liberals’ and authoritarians’ lack of solidarity . Go with other anarchists and be each other’s support system, and debrief (rant, cry, laugh, and/or chill) afterward.

But also go as “friendly anarchist factions” to model what solidarity actually looks like—even if too many nonanarchistic folks don’t yet know what that feels like or how to do it. I always wish that people didn’t need to be, say, tear gassed or arrested to learn that ACAB isn’t just a slogan, and that anarchists will almost certainly be the ones to have their backs. But such is the wearisome “learning curve,” and the more folks who see beloved community self-defense modeled for them, unflinchingly, on the streets, the more they’ll understand how (and why!) to stick side-by-side too—including with us.

Be solidarity.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: pink and black circle A heart spray-painted on a wall in Athens, Greece, during a queer+trans International Women’s Day march on March 8, 2025)

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 3

Back in the day, ahead of a big protest, anarchists set up “convergence centers”: big, scrappy, communal spaces where folks could not only find each other, make and eat food, plug into art and media making, etc. in the days before an (often direct) action based on a wide-ranging diversity of tactics—under an umbrella name like “Carnival against Capitalism” or “No Olympics on Stolen Native Lands”—but also skill up together.

There’s no time to do this before the poorly named “No Kings” (aka, it’s fascism) protests tmrw. Yet you could easily do pop-up skill shares. So many “newbies” are open to learning and eager for alternatives!

Remake the urban landscape into temporary autonomous “classrooms.” Use public furniture or gathering spots, or bring blankets or chairs to sit on. Write the skill share topic on cardboard and display it. Run around and announce skill shares as they start. Bored protesters waiting for a march to begin or tired of listening to rally speeches make great participants. Circle up and start passing along handy skills—say, how to help each other rinse tear gas out of eyes or turn a T-shirt into a mask (over your N95), or how to do forms of community self-defense or jail support. Offer an Anarchism 101 or local rad history talk too. Exercise hands and minds, encouraging liberal and progressive folks to (begin to) think and act for themselves.

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE, pt 2

It’s tough not to fume over the “peaceful protest” call for a “sit-down wave” at this Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies, such as one that asserts: if you see so-called infiltrators “destroy[ing] property,” “sit down and leave the provocators” standing. That’s how the self-appointed leaders of these nonprofit-corporate “ally” demos uphold a status quo that benefits them. In practice, it means anyone not falling in liberal line will get the brunt of police violence and state repression.

Enough fuming. My anarcho-prefigurative self says: outorganize the “peace police”! #BeGayMakeFun! Alongside bringing many zines to gift out at these rallies: Set up carnivesque “no kings, no masters” participatory games! Bring screen-printing supplies (stencils, silk screens, or even humble potatoes carved with printable slogans) and let folks print your rebellious designs on T-shirts, patches, or cardboard! Create playful shield-making art station! Become snack faeries, carting around yummy treats in wagons to freely distro! Do some rebel street theater or radical cheerleading! Bring a queer rebel marching band or amplified music, and start a street dance!

Anarchism is not just good politics; make it good fun, and when folks are drawn to you, anarchism will not only be welcoming but irresistible too. Plus, who knows, maybe you can joyfully teach people how do a “stand-up wave” against the real provocateurs (cops).

#EverydayAnarchism
#TryAnarchismForLife
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo of a brick wall with a circle A spray-painted on the concrete foundation below it, as spotted on the stolen lands of Tioh’tià:ke/Montreal, June 2025)

ANARCHIST PUBLIC SERVICE:

I know it’s no fun to go to liberal-progressive rallies, but thousands of newbies and/or newly awakened folks will be at this Saturday’s “No Kings” protest. Don’t let the nonprofit “ally” complex siphon off the genuine energy of those seeking social transformation—and don’t yet know that, for instance, “police are not our friends” or “solidarity is our best weapon.”

Instead, print thousands of zines that allow people to “educate themselves in freedom,” especially accessible ones that include rebellious ideas and do-it-ourselves practices! Take those zines to rallies. Walk around and freely gift them to people!

From personal experience, I know that a single zine can change many hearts and minds—and create “accomplices” now willing to experiment with anarchistic forms of street militancy, from varied types of community self-defense to myriad types of collective care and mutual aid.

#MakeMediaBuildSolidarity
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#EducatingEachOtherForFreedom
#TryAnarchismForLife

Alas, “Taking Sides: Revolutionary Solidarity and the Poverty of Liberalism” (a collection of essays from the streets during the Ferguson uprising era) continues to be relevant again & again:

“The lines of oppression are already drawn. The only question is, Which side are you on in the struggle against the violence that is white supremacy and policing? ‘Taking Sides’ supplies an ethical compass and militant map of the terrain, arguing not for reform of structurally brutal institutions but rather for their abolition. Its thirteen essays are sharp interventions that take particular aim at the role of nonprofits, ‘ally’ politics, and ‘peace police in demobilizing rebellions against hierarchical power. The authors offer tools to hone strategies and tactics of resistance, and hold out the promise of robust, tangible solidarity across racial and other lines, because in the battle for systemic transformation, there are no outside agitators.”

#AccomplicesNotAllies
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781849352338

“This is a collection of movement resources compiled by various collectives and individuals that might be of use. … Share, study … prepare.”

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#AllComradesAreBeautiful

https://open.substack.com/pub/instruggle/p/resources

Shout it from the rooftops, or at least paint it: “freedom to Palestine & destroy all prisons.”

#ArtOfResistance, or better yet, #ArtOfLiberation, as seen on a #FuckFascism stroll before sunset & Shabbat in Exarchia, Feb 7, because if nothing else, we should dream aloud, so others hear & join us.

#UntilAllAreFree
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Dreaming of waters (& lands) through which we can all move freely, with the freedom to stay, return, or journey, & with a reciprocal obligation toward all human and nonhuman life, beyond anything nations & states can ever comprehend or constrain.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(#ArtOfPersistance, seen in Exarchia on Feb 6)

Books as solidarity: a fundraiser for @gazamutualaid

Examples of solidarity weave their way through all of the (increasingly relevant) book projects of mine pictured here, so it’s apropos that these titles, in your hands, will become a form of much-needed solidarity beyond borders with Palestinians in Gaza, thx to on-the-ground mutual aid.

While supplies last, grab a copy of one or more of the following books at the sliding scales below, and I’ll send 100% of the money raised (minus shipping in US only) to Gaza Mutual Aid.

“Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy” — $8 to $19 (or more)

“Anarchism and Its Aspirations” — $6 to $12 (or more)

“There Is Nothing So Whole as a Broken Heart: Mending the World as Jewish Anarchists” — $11 to $23 (or more)

“Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief” — $10 to $20 (or more)

“Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle” — $10 to $20 (or more)

You can find full descriptions of the first four books on publisher @akpressdistro’s website and a full description of the last one on publisher @tangled_wilderness’ website.

That said, the edited anthologies “Deciding for Ourselves,” “Nothing So Whole,” and “Rebellious Mourning” are all overflowing with stories and art about real-life examples of messy beautiful practices of remembrance, resistance, and especially, prefiguring otherworldly ways of self-determining and self-governing our lives. They all contain magical, emotional, and inspirational words (as weapons against the social order and salve for our despairing hearts), and I trust that the same is true of the two books I wrote, “Aspirations” and “Try Anarchism for Life,” which also includes an array of gorgeous drawings of circle As embodying the beauty of what anarchism is, does, and envisions.

All five books are direct counters to this fascist present, particularly in how they illuminate actually existing alternatives, and thus possibilities in the here and now.

To donate to this fundraiser and dive into reading (or gifting) one or more of these books, email me at cbmilstein [at] yahoo to work out the simple details.

#ReadWriteRebel
#UntilAllAreFree
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Sparks of rebellious inspiration have a funny way of not staying put in one time or space. They traverse borders. They congregate without permission in all sorts of unexpected places. They defy the logics of commodification, freely sharing with and borrowing from each other, while also defying the logics of colonialism and states, offering life-giving solidarity to weather and contest their death machinery.

We never know, when we release tiny sparks into the enormous darkness of this social order, where they will end up, if they manage to stay alighted at all. Or who will see them, or where or when, much less what they will make of those sparks. Most often, we never know, and don’t really need to.

Yet we do need to remember that each and every one of us who aspires to kindle the flames of a new world does indeed put out sparks into the night via all our many gifts. And just as we find inspiration in those random sparks that we stumble on and run with, others will likely do the same with what we release into the wind to stir up social transformation.

But occasionally, we get to see and feel the fruits of reciprocal inspiration—proof positive that our liberatory strivings can soar above walls and fences to magnify resistance. Or simply to supply each other with the further inspiration to keep fighting and dreaming.

The past two days in Montreal, some 85,000 students went on strike in solidarity with Palestinians, timed to coincide with NATO meetings in that city. This student strike, in turn, finds echoes of inspiration in years of powerful student and social strikes in Montreal. And just as I was feeling FOMO that I couldn’t be there for this strike, a Concordia student texted me these photos (used with consent) of an altar they’d set up as both a blockade in their classroom and collective space of grief, inspired by the stories in my edited anthology #RebelliousMourning (@akpressdistro, with striking design by @eff_charm).

May our arts of inspiration, resistance, and remembrance burst into rebel bonfires, illuminating our ancestors there alongside us and honoring them as we journey toward freedom.

#CollectiveWorkOfGrief
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

While there is no safety in this dangerously unsafe world, “solidarity” as a verb, as a lived and rigorous practice, is precisely what’s needed as our best form of communal self-defense, whether against antisemitism, Islamophobia, or white Christian supremacy.

And when done well, by more and more of us, it is the only thing that can keep people safer from, say, fascism.

Take what’s currently going down in the United Kingdom, where thanks to Elon Musk’s platforming of vicious conspiracy theories and equally vicious fascists, modern-day pogroms against Muslim, Black, and Brown people, no matter their faith or lack thereof, are in full, ugly swing. It is truly only because of the solidarity of antifascists (of all kinds), and the brave spaces they are creating and holding, that far fewer buildings are being torched or people are being injured and/or killed by the fash.

Which leads me into highly recommending @shaneburley and Ben Lorber’s “Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism.”

The subtitle, alas, doesn’t do the content of this book justice. Or rather, I suspect it encourages a Jewish readership and makes non-Jews disinterested, thinking that this particular “ism” doesn’t concern them, or conversely, is only about how antisemitism harms Jews.

For what Shane and Ben lay out in this smart yet accessible work is that the logic of antisemitism is one of the key pillars of white Christian supremacy and fascism, and that to fight and better survive both, we need to fight and survive antisemitism.

That the fascists perpetrating the UK pogroms so easily fell for a conspiracy theory—which nearly always follow an antisemitic logic—on Musk’s X platform as the spark for their violence is one clear example.

Hence why all freedom seekers should read this book! And/or listen to a wonderful conversation I had (as question asker) with Shane and Ben, thx to @firestormcoop, where they shared many an insight and lots of heart:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQWuEWqAZU4

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon. But only if we wield it expansively and fully.

(photo: “Safety through Solidarity” book next to a handmade patch by @stormbringer_press, symbolizing the new conceptual spaces required for new worlds to take root)

Support the “AVL 4” Appalachians against Pipelines!

On March 4, four of our Asheville, NC, friends were arrested along with three other people after being aggressively chased by police through the woods of Poor Mountain in West Virginia. Only one of these seven has been bailed out so far, with others hopefully released soon—but all with hefty bond amounts and legal expenses ahead. That same day on that mountain, two other people locked themselves to an immobilized car and shut down Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) work for eleven hours.

The repression against MVP resistance has continued to escalate of late. In recent months, local and Indigenous pipeline resisters have been charged with felonies, hit with egregious civil lawsuits, and faced months of jail time for protesting the devastation of this delicate ecosystem. If completed, the MVP will contaminate sensitive water sources for poor communities across West Virginia and Virginia, perpetuating a legacy of resource extraction and disregard for human and nonhuman life in Appalachia.

Our AVL buddies need your support! Let’s shower them with love and solidarity!

DONATE to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund: bit.ly/applegaldefense

#NoMVP #StopMVP #NoPipelines #FTP #SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Support the “AVL 4” Appalachians against Pipelines!

On March 4, four of our Asheville, NC, friends were arrested along with three other people after being aggressively chased by police through the woods of Poor Mountain in West Virginia. Only one of these seven has been bailed out so far, with others hopefully released soon—but all with hefty bond amounts and legal expenses ahead. That same day on that mountain, two other people locked themselves to an immobilized car and shut down Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) work for eleven hours.

The repression against MVP resistance has continued to escalate of late. In recent months, local and Indigenous pipeline resisters have been charged with felonies, hit with egregious civil lawsuits, and faced months of jail time for protesting the devastation of this delicate ecosystem. If completed, the MVP will contaminate sensitive water sources for poor communities across West Virginia and Virginia, perpetuating a legacy of resource extraction and disregard for human and nonhuman life in Appalachia.

Our AVL buddies need your support! Let’s shower them with love and solidarity!

DONATE to the Appalachian Legal Defense Fund: bit.ly/applegaldefense

#NoMVP #StopMVP #NoPipelines #FTP #SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Holding in my heart: each and every person (except the police) who was at a music festival in the Weelaunee Forest one year ago today. Those performing. Those dancing and reveling. Those resisting. Those doing logistics and care. Those mourning Tortuguita. Those savoring moments of reinspiration and respite, joy and connection. Those looking out for others.

Especially those brutalized, arrested, and detained that day, and now facing heavy yet absurd charges.

Cops ruin everything, from March 5, 2023, in Atlanta, to yesterday among Appalachians Against Pipelines, to March 5, 2024, in Gaza, to all the days in between.

Courts aren't any better, even when they purport justice or rule something "a genocide." Prisons and militaries, states and borders, continue apace, churning out death.

We know this.

(At this point in human history, everyone should.)

What we too often overlook amid the despair, intensity, and trauma of these times is: we are the ones who make music. Even when it feels a whisper. Or when we feel as if we're humming alone or singing aloud with only a few friends. Our tunes float from forests and rivers to mountains and seas, in melodic forms that no cop, court, or country can see, hear, or comprehend. They take the shape of everything from rituals of resistance to jail solidarity and collective defense, to our many imaginative direct actions, dreamy do-it-ourselves spaces, mutual aid through asundry disasters, and communal care, to our ability to find cracks of possibility even when their walls seem impenetrable.

Still, anniversaries can feel hard. Our bodies remember, even if our minds try to block them out.

Let's all hold all of those (except the cops) who were at a music festival a year ago in our hearts, and others grappling with the state's crackdown on @stopcopcity as a movement, until all the charges are dropped, #UntilAllAreFree—everywhere.

#AllCopsAreBad
#AllCourtsAreBad
#ACABincludesIOF
#CareNotCops
#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

(photo: #ACAB Palestinian solidarity sticker seen recently on Stone Mountain in so-called Georgia; while they last, these stickers are free at @community_books_ga)

I went to a noise demo on this #NotMyNewYear, #NotOurWorld evening, and felt profound love for how anarchists make time and space, day in and day out, for solidarity, deep and reciprocal.

I went to a noise demo that took pauses in the cacophony of @brassyourheart marching band, amplified music by the @pansy.collective, and the banging of pots and pans to give voice to how our solidarity sees intimate kinship between struggles—naming political prisoners and those politically imprisoned because of things like racism and classism; naming criminalization against anarchistic movements both local like @parksareforeveryone and further afield such as @stopcopcity; naming the open-air prison and now genocide in Gaza; naming the injustice system’s logic and our abolitionist ways of troubling it.

I went to a noise demo where DIY solidarity looked like warm pizza and fresh flowers and zines and handcrafted stickers, freely gifted, and the @certaindayscalendar offered as a fundraiser for @avlbail.

I went to a noise demo on stolen Cherokee lands, walking to and from it past capitalist excess drunk on its own delusions and power, and I cried both ways. I wiped tears away during the demo. My body was there, seeing those in the jail flash lights back at us, wanting them to all be free, and prisons and police to be abolished, and a wholly new world take their place. But my heart was far, far away, with the dead. The dead who should still be here were it not for thefts of lands and all that’s sacred, including life.

I went to a noise demo, yet this #NotMyNewYear, #FuckThisWorld, I heard and felt the quiet of absences: three months of tens of thousands of Palestinians murdered or still “missing” under the rubble, and today, one sudden and still incomprehensible death that’s hitting hard for me and many others, @kleebenally. May their blessed memories—each and every of our dead—topple walls and empires, colonialism and fascism, and all that keeps us from being free, from living lives worth living and dying in our own good time, not killed off early by this sick, sick social order.

#AllComradesAreBeautiful
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#UntilAllAreFree

A small reminder (that should go without saying) to non-Jewish and/or non-Muslim anarchists out there, via a fragment of a wheat-pasted poster I saw recently: our fights are intertwined; so is our liberation. Solidarity is our best weapon. And that solidarity should extend, as anarchists, to fighting all forms of deadly -isms and hierarchies—not just select ones.

I’m seeing more and more “sloppy” positions among non-Jewish anarchists who were raised within some form of Christianity—positions that inadvertently (or not) aren’t at all sensitive to their Jewish anarchist friends and all the awfulness, conundrums, and feelings we’re grappling with these days, never mind all the numerous fronts we Jewish anarchists are having to fight on that you might not even see or be aware of. Or sadly, painfully, inadvertently (or not) are replicating bad/old/tired antisemitic tropes. Or sadly, painfully, inadvertently (or not) are throwing their Jewish anarchist friends under the bus—or seemingly advocating our death along with all Jews, or at least a hefty amount of bloodlust against most of the world’s Jews.

My heart feels more broken then ever by the genocide against Palestinians, and as an anarchist, by knowing we can’t rely on any state, international body like the United Nations, or NGO to stop it. (Progressives and liberals can at least comfort themselves with such delusions.) All we can rely on is each other, as bleak and horrific and powerless as that feels when Palestinians are being massacred by the hour. Yet we only keep our hearts—broken, yes, precisely because they are fiercely and rebelliously loving—if we keep steadfast to liberatory forms of solidarity, liberatory forms of collective care, including taking care not to do (further) harm to each other.

Because fascism and colonialism, racism and heteropatriarchy, states and cops, antisemitism and Islamophobia are damned good at harming us without anarchists offering a helping hand. Without us, inadvertently (or not) becoming as bloodthirsty as them.

What we have that they never will is our ability to gift each other as much life and empathy, love and solidarity as possible.

(photo: bottom half of an 8.5x11 white piece of paper wheat pasted to a wall in so-called Asheville, NC, as seen on a walk; the words on the paper, in black ink, read: “Fight for Palestine! Fight for humanity! Fight racism! Fight Islamophobia! Fight antisemitism! Fight colonialism!,” signed by “Eve Adams sisters in arms / Jewish voice for anarchy,” with three little symbols: a Star of David, dove with olive branch, and circle alef [jewish anarchist version of a circle A])

#JewishVoicesForAnarchism
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#UntilAllAreFree

How does one have a “good morning” when you wake to the rain outside your window weeping in rhythm to the return of bombs raining down heavily again on Gaza?

As repression rains down heavily too on those—especially Palestinians and some Israelis, Muslims and Jews—who dare to defy the supremacy of Christo-fascism, colonialism, statism, and militarism? Who dare to engage in relentless resistance using a diversity of strategies and tactics, bound in one big collective heart? Who dare to remain steadfastly resilient, dignified, solidaristic?

One remembers that those who “believe the land can be possessed” do not understand that “home … exists in language,” words of welcome beyond borders, carried on the wings of cultures that know humans are but “visitors here on earth,” and thus must tend to it and each other—even and especially when dispossessed.

By the light of growing numbers of candles in homage to the dead who shouldn’t be dying, shouldn’t have been slaughtered in yet another genocide, one reads the words of poets, like Sam Sax, who offer us gifts of some sustenance on this long journey toward liberation, toward free societies:

“yesterday a bird flew through an airport & i watched that border zone collapse beneath its wings.”

#MournTheDead #FightForTheLiving
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#UntilAllAreFree

(“Anti-Zionist Abecedarian” appears in Sam’s new book, “PIG.” The Poetry Foundation recently “shelved” a review of this collection because it discusses anti-Zionism. Thanks to my friend @wrenawry for thinking of me when reading this poem and texting me this photo of it today. The first photo is of a grief altar set up last night at a Palestinian solidarity screening of the film “Hebron.”)

Defend the forest!
Teach each other!
Free the @stopcopcity codefendants—and drop all of their charges!

I’m delighted and honored to join this Saturday with so many rad, queer, and feisty folks for a day of workshops, teach-ins, and gathering to benefit the @defendatlantaforest codefendants facing terrorism and RICO charges (look up DTAF RICO for more info)!

Here’s the scoop, as pictured—pretty in pink—in the infographic (plus I’ll be tabling with anarchic zines related to Palestinian solidarity, because our struggles and freedom are intertwined, across and beyond borders):

Saturday 11/11/23
Asheville, NC
Noon-6 @ Twelve Baskets

12-1 Riley — safe in the sheets, dangerous in the streets: safety planning and threat modeling for parties and actions

1:15-2:15 @cindymilstein — Repression vs Solidarity

2:30-3:30 Poptart — Understanding RICO and the law: Breaking down the RICO

3:45-4:45 Kaylah Brathwaite — AntiBlackness and Genocide

5-6 V — HARM REDUCTION SAVES LIVES: Doubling down on the failed Drug War and criminalizing proven solutions

The teach-in space is free y’all. We want to share a room and discussion with you so that we can continue to build together in the face of increased repression.

We ask that attendees wear a mask inside of the workshop space. KN95s will be provided.

In the evening, a benefit dance party at a secret location will commence.

Donations at the door encouraged to support our friends facing repression. No funds required, but we do ask that y’all respect each other and the space. Plenty of (warm) outdoor space too at this event!

Text 828-771-6249 for address+questions.

#ForestsNotFascism
#CareNotCops
#ACABmeansIOF
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#UntilAllAreFree

#IslamophobiaKills
#AntisemitismKills
#MourningOurDead
#FightingLikeHellForTheLiving
#WeMustLoveAndProtectEachOther
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

art by Wendy Elisheva Somerson

Tonight, as some of us rad Jews were painting several banners for our Public Mourner’s Kaddish tomorrow (see photo 2), including this in-progress “Jews against Genocide” one, some 500 Palestinians were murdered when the Israeli government and its war machine dropped bombs on a hospital in Gaza.

On a hospital.

I feel the heaviness, poignancy, and responsibility—as a Jew and anarchist—of fighting this genocide, a word invented by Polish Jewish Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin to describe what at the time, 1944, was for him “a crime with no name” that he never, ever wanted to see happen again to any peoples.

“Jews against genocide” should be a given, something we don’t need to name on banners. But unlike Lemkin, I put no stock in states, the United Nations, or human rights conventions to make this crime obsolete, nor do I place any hope in begging nation-states to stop the bombing of Gaza. Hope, I know, feels a mirage right now.

Yet today, while we put paintbrushes to fabric and shared in deep, genuine, hard conversations as fellow rad Jews about the conundrums and grief and horror of this moment, wrestling with ideas and emotions, I felt a hint of promise—the kind that only comes from the many self-organized acts of direct actions, mutual aid, and solidarity that point, however tentatively, to worlds without states and their genocides.

May we have no need for the name “genocide” because our forms of solidarity beyond and without borders forever banish such crimes.

For now, may we find each other—anarchistic Jews, Muslims, and others—mourn for all the dead, and imaginatively and rebelliously dream up better ways—outside statist, nationalist, nonprofit, etc. logics—to fight for the living together.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

“History will ask: What did you do to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people? Have an answer.”

—Rabbi Alissa Wise

Out of our own heartache and rage—and so many more feelings in between—my dear co-organizer of the Jewish Anarchist Salon and I pulled this simple, one-sided, 8.5x11 flyer together for downloading, printing, and sharing.

It is obviously incomplete, as is the work of ending occupation, settler colonialism, and fascism, or the powerlessness so many of us feel to be able to halt the bombing of Gaza and end the Israeli government’s genocide of Palestinian people. But as Jews and anarchists, we’re leaning into what we can do, such as humbly offering solidarity toward the aspiration of a world without borders and states, without Islamophobia and antisemitism, and especially a world shaped by collective liberation and freedom.

This flyer focuses on some of the funds that seem to be going far more directly and as mutual/material aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, along with the powerful grassroots effort of Israelis refusing to do military service and the ongoing BDS campaign.

Personally, as an anarchist and Jew, I hope we can think and engage through the lens of our ethics of direct action, self-organization, rituals of resistance, mutual aid, abiding solidarity, and rebellious love—until all are free, toward the sacredness of life.

Feel free to share this infographic widely and freely. Once I figure out how to upload the PDF to some website, I’ll share that link. (DM me if you’d like the host the PDF on your website!) For now, see text below.

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#AnotherWorldIsPossible

Stop the Genocide — Not in Our Name!
Resources for Jewish-Palestinian Solidarity

As Jews, we reject the weaponization of our grief, and we reject genocide committed in our name. This resource list was created in the spirit of Palestinian-Jewish collective liberation.

Another world is possible. May it be so // כן יהי רצון

Direct Support:

Medical Aid for Palestinians, https://www.map.org.uk/

Gaza Mutual Aid, https://instagram.com/gazamutualaid

Hebron International Resource Network, https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net

Friends of Palestinian Medical Relief, https://friendsofpmrs.org/donate-now-2/

Middle East Children's Alliance, https://www.mecaforpeace.org/

BDS Movement, https://bdsmovement.net/

Refuser Solidarity Network, https://www.refuser.org/

Readings:
Gaza Is Being Killed. We Desperately Need Your Help, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/gaza-is-dying-dispatch-bombing/

We Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other, https://jewishcurrents.org/we-cannot-cross-until-we-carry-each-other

It’s with heavy hearts that we’re announcing the cancellation of the Jewish Anarchist Salon with @mesarvot. Our friends at Mesarvot are understandably unable to focus on the salon right now, and we are sending them love and solidarity from afar.

If you want to contribute to their anarchistic work of refusing military service, as part of a bigger network of refusal groups, and joint initiatives of solidarity against the occupation, you can go to Mesarvot’s Instagram page, website at https://linktr.ee/Meaarvot, or use this direct donation link: https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/pe97jlkjood

Other ways to financially contribute, including by holding fundraisers, are:

Hebron International Resource Network, https://www.nonviolenceinternational.net/hirn_partner

Medical Aid for Palestinians, https://www.map.org.uk/

Middle East Children's Alliance, https://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Friends of Palestinian Medical Relief, https://friendsofpmrs.org/donate-now-2/

Gaza Mutual Aid, https://instagram.com/gazamutualaid?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Fauda (Palestinian anarchists), https://t.me/fauda_ps

There may be another relevant salon in the future. In the meantime, we remain committed to the work of collective liberation, a free Palestine, and a world without antisemitism and Islamophobia, and grieve the loss of so many lives.

🖤, Cindy Barukh + J, co-organizers

#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#UntilAllAreFree

As a morale booster and tender form of solidarity following the latest twist in state repression against @defendatlantaforest, @stopcopcity, anarchists and forest/water/land defenders everywhere, and especially the 61 people named in the RICO indictment of two days ago, at long last the recording of the “Cultivating Resilience and Care” webinar is available for watching/listening.

Big and abiding gratitude and love to @firestormcoop for hosting, and crucially, Mar, Siihasin, and Lyle for agreeing to share their experiences, wisdoms, and hearts as former defendants in prior moments of state repression, but more important, as folks who all do so much to put communal care into their varied practices aimed at mending this world. I was supposed to facilitate the webinar, held in July 2023, but as you’ll see, Mar, Siihasin, and Lyle ran (beautifully) with it, so feel free to fast-forward past me and soak up the power of their words and conversation!

As a brief description, also noted in the graphic here:

“When we're experiencing state repression, our fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and loss of control can be so overwhelming that we turn on each other with lateral aggressions, crushing us and our solidarity. How do we resist state repression and come out stronger? In this discussion, three panelists reflect on the tools and strategies they've used to build personal and collective resilience.”

You can find the recording at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMSCdbvTfo

#CareNotCops
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon

Proud to have a friend who is putting their newly learned Arabic to good use, scribing “Jewish solidarity with Palestinians” alongside “Jewish anarchists for a free Palestine” on a banner for a demo today in a city many hundreds of miles away—and circling their A (“alef” for us Jews) with a pomegranate, a symbol that could be read as bringing together the beautiful seeds of various diasporic peoples into a wholeness.

Touched, too, to have this friend who lovingly thinks to share their banner creation with me—even if for now, while we’re far apart, it can only be via a texted photo.

Our solidarity can and should know no borders, whether we’re in the streets for each other openly decrying the violence of states, nationalism, and fascism as well as openly proclaiming freedom for all, or sustaining our rebellious connections in innumerable smaller ways, including friendship.

#FreePalestine
#SolidarityIsOurBestWeapon
#HateFascismLoveYourFriends
#TryJewishAnarchismForLife