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#willemvanspronsen — Public Fediverse posts

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

  1. "There’s wrong and there’s right.

    It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.

    Evil says one life is worth less than another.

    Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.

    Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.

    The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.

    Beware the centrist..."

    Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement
    theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

    #WillemVanSpronsen #Action #DirectAction #PropagandaOfTheDeed

  2. "There’s wrong and there’s right.

    It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.

    Evil says one life is worth less than another.

    Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.

    Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.

    The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.

    Beware the centrist..."

    Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement
    theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

    #WillemVanSpronsen #Action #DirectAction #PropagandaOfTheDeed

  3. "There’s wrong and there’s right.

    It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.

    Evil says one life is worth less than another.

    Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.

    Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.

    The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.

    Beware the centrist..."

    Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement
    theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

    #WillemVanSpronsen #Action #DirectAction #PropagandaOfTheDeed

  4. "There’s wrong and there’s right.

    It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.

    Evil says one life is worth less than another.

    Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.

    Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.

    The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.

    Beware the centrist..."

    Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement
    theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

    #WillemVanSpronsen #Action #DirectAction #PropagandaOfTheDeed

  5. "There’s wrong and there’s right.

    It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.

    Evil says one life is worth less than another.

    Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.

    Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.

    The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.

    Beware the centrist..."

    Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement
    theanarchistlibrary.org/librar

    #WillemVanSpronsen #Action #DirectAction #PropagandaOfTheDeed

  6. From 2019: On #WillemVanSpronsen’s Action against the #NorthwestDetentionCenter in #TacomaWashington

    Including the Full Text of His Final Statement

    2019-07-14

    Excerpt: "On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility. His final statement, reproduced below, conveys that he was acting in response to the continuous raids and deportations carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). His action occurred on the one-year anniversary of a hunger strike inside the Northwest Detention Center and an encampment outside. You can read a list of other acts of resistance that have occurred inside the Northwest Detention Center here.

    "We understand why Willem Van Spronsen decided to give his life to interrupt the violence that is perpetrated against undocumented people in the United States every day.

    "It is not hyperbole to say that the #ICERaids are targeting our friends and neighbors, people who have lived and worked alongside us for years or even decades. The vulnerability of long-term undocumented people as a hyper-exploitable class has helped billionaires like #DonaldTrump to profit even more than they could have by legal means. To put the icing on the cake, #capitalists then turn to the other workers they are exploiting and tell them that the poverty and misfortunes they experience are the fault of those who are poorer and more oppressed than them. It’s hard to imagine a more cynical strategy.

    "The disparity in rights between the documented and undocumented is a construct—just as the disparity in value that the #Nazis constructed between Jewish people and gentiles was a construct. Both are mere inventions; they have no intrinsic existence except as a means for a powerful group to justify violence against a less powerful group. Those who justify obedience to the law as a good in itself stand alongside the Nazis whose laws condemned millions to the death camps, not to mention the racists who passed the #FugitiveSlaveAct and the #JimCrowLaws in the American South.

    "Laws are just constructs. They have no value in and of themselves. They often serve to legitimize injustice that people would otherwise take action to oppose.

    "The further that the proponents of racist violence are permitted to legitimize invented concepts like slavery and citizenship, the more violence they will perpetrate—up to and including roundups, concentration camps, and mass extermination. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and we are seeing it again today in the United States. The thousands of deaths that take place in the borderlands and the thousands murdered by police are just a foretaste of what is possible."

    Read more:
    crimethinc.com/2019/07/14/on-w

    #ResistICE #ICEKidnappings #ICESucks #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #TrumpSucks

  7. From 2019: On #WillemVanSpronsen’s Action against the #NorthwestDetentionCenter in #TacomaWashington

    Including the Full Text of His Final Statement

    2019-07-14

    Excerpt: "On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility. His final statement, reproduced below, conveys that he was acting in response to the continuous raids and deportations carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). His action occurred on the one-year anniversary of a hunger strike inside the Northwest Detention Center and an encampment outside. You can read a list of other acts of resistance that have occurred inside the Northwest Detention Center here.

    "We understand why Willem Van Spronsen decided to give his life to interrupt the violence that is perpetrated against undocumented people in the United States every day.

    "It is not hyperbole to say that the #ICERaids are targeting our friends and neighbors, people who have lived and worked alongside us for years or even decades. The vulnerability of long-term undocumented people as a hyper-exploitable class has helped billionaires like #DonaldTrump to profit even more than they could have by legal means. To put the icing on the cake, #capitalists then turn to the other workers they are exploiting and tell them that the poverty and misfortunes they experience are the fault of those who are poorer and more oppressed than them. It’s hard to imagine a more cynical strategy.

    "The disparity in rights between the documented and undocumented is a construct—just as the disparity in value that the #Nazis constructed between Jewish people and gentiles was a construct. Both are mere inventions; they have no intrinsic existence except as a means for a powerful group to justify violence against a less powerful group. Those who justify obedience to the law as a good in itself stand alongside the Nazis whose laws condemned millions to the death camps, not to mention the racists who passed the #FugitiveSlaveAct and the #JimCrowLaws in the American South.

    "Laws are just constructs. They have no value in and of themselves. They often serve to legitimize injustice that people would otherwise take action to oppose.

    "The further that the proponents of racist violence are permitted to legitimize invented concepts like slavery and citizenship, the more violence they will perpetrate—up to and including roundups, concentration camps, and mass extermination. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and we are seeing it again today in the United States. The thousands of deaths that take place in the borderlands and the thousands murdered by police are just a foretaste of what is possible."

    Read more:
    crimethinc.com/2019/07/14/on-w

    #ResistICE #ICEKidnappings #ICESucks #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #TrumpSucks

  8. From 2019: On #WillemVanSpronsen’s Action against the #NorthwestDetentionCenter in #TacomaWashington

    Including the Full Text of His Final Statement

    2019-07-14

    Excerpt: "On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility. His final statement, reproduced below, conveys that he was acting in response to the continuous raids and deportations carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). His action occurred on the one-year anniversary of a hunger strike inside the Northwest Detention Center and an encampment outside. You can read a list of other acts of resistance that have occurred inside the Northwest Detention Center here.

    "We understand why Willem Van Spronsen decided to give his life to interrupt the violence that is perpetrated against undocumented people in the United States every day.

    "It is not hyperbole to say that the #ICERaids are targeting our friends and neighbors, people who have lived and worked alongside us for years or even decades. The vulnerability of long-term undocumented people as a hyper-exploitable class has helped billionaires like #DonaldTrump to profit even more than they could have by legal means. To put the icing on the cake, #capitalists then turn to the other workers they are exploiting and tell them that the poverty and misfortunes they experience are the fault of those who are poorer and more oppressed than them. It’s hard to imagine a more cynical strategy.

    "The disparity in rights between the documented and undocumented is a construct—just as the disparity in value that the #Nazis constructed between Jewish people and gentiles was a construct. Both are mere inventions; they have no intrinsic existence except as a means for a powerful group to justify violence against a less powerful group. Those who justify obedience to the law as a good in itself stand alongside the Nazis whose laws condemned millions to the death camps, not to mention the racists who passed the #FugitiveSlaveAct and the #JimCrowLaws in the American South.

    "Laws are just constructs. They have no value in and of themselves. They often serve to legitimize injustice that people would otherwise take action to oppose.

    "The further that the proponents of racist violence are permitted to legitimize invented concepts like slavery and citizenship, the more violence they will perpetrate—up to and including roundups, concentration camps, and mass extermination. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and we are seeing it again today in the United States. The thousands of deaths that take place in the borderlands and the thousands murdered by police are just a foretaste of what is possible."

    Read more:
    crimethinc.com/2019/07/14/on-w

    #ResistICE #ICEKidnappings #ICESucks #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #TrumpSucks

  9. From 2019: On #WillemVanSpronsen’s Action against the #NorthwestDetentionCenter in #TacomaWashington

    Including the Full Text of His Final Statement

    2019-07-14

    Excerpt: "On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility. His final statement, reproduced below, conveys that he was acting in response to the continuous raids and deportations carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). His action occurred on the one-year anniversary of a hunger strike inside the Northwest Detention Center and an encampment outside. You can read a list of other acts of resistance that have occurred inside the Northwest Detention Center here.

    "We understand why Willem Van Spronsen decided to give his life to interrupt the violence that is perpetrated against undocumented people in the United States every day.

    "It is not hyperbole to say that the #ICERaids are targeting our friends and neighbors, people who have lived and worked alongside us for years or even decades. The vulnerability of long-term undocumented people as a hyper-exploitable class has helped billionaires like #DonaldTrump to profit even more than they could have by legal means. To put the icing on the cake, #capitalists then turn to the other workers they are exploiting and tell them that the poverty and misfortunes they experience are the fault of those who are poorer and more oppressed than them. It’s hard to imagine a more cynical strategy.

    "The disparity in rights between the documented and undocumented is a construct—just as the disparity in value that the #Nazis constructed between Jewish people and gentiles was a construct. Both are mere inventions; they have no intrinsic existence except as a means for a powerful group to justify violence against a less powerful group. Those who justify obedience to the law as a good in itself stand alongside the Nazis whose laws condemned millions to the death camps, not to mention the racists who passed the #FugitiveSlaveAct and the #JimCrowLaws in the American South.

    "Laws are just constructs. They have no value in and of themselves. They often serve to legitimize injustice that people would otherwise take action to oppose.

    "The further that the proponents of racist violence are permitted to legitimize invented concepts like slavery and citizenship, the more violence they will perpetrate—up to and including roundups, concentration camps, and mass extermination. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and we are seeing it again today in the United States. The thousands of deaths that take place in the borderlands and the thousands murdered by police are just a foretaste of what is possible."

    Read more:
    crimethinc.com/2019/07/14/on-w

    #ResistICE #ICEKidnappings #ICESucks #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #TrumpSucks

  10. From 2019: On #WillemVanSpronsen’s Action against the #NorthwestDetentionCenter in #TacomaWashington

    Including the Full Text of His Final Statement

    2019-07-14

    Excerpt: "On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility. His final statement, reproduced below, conveys that he was acting in response to the continuous raids and deportations carried out by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). His action occurred on the one-year anniversary of a hunger strike inside the Northwest Detention Center and an encampment outside. You can read a list of other acts of resistance that have occurred inside the Northwest Detention Center here.

    "We understand why Willem Van Spronsen decided to give his life to interrupt the violence that is perpetrated against undocumented people in the United States every day.

    "It is not hyperbole to say that the #ICERaids are targeting our friends and neighbors, people who have lived and worked alongside us for years or even decades. The vulnerability of long-term undocumented people as a hyper-exploitable class has helped billionaires like #DonaldTrump to profit even more than they could have by legal means. To put the icing on the cake, #capitalists then turn to the other workers they are exploiting and tell them that the poverty and misfortunes they experience are the fault of those who are poorer and more oppressed than them. It’s hard to imagine a more cynical strategy.

    "The disparity in rights between the documented and undocumented is a construct—just as the disparity in value that the #Nazis constructed between Jewish people and gentiles was a construct. Both are mere inventions; they have no intrinsic existence except as a means for a powerful group to justify violence against a less powerful group. Those who justify obedience to the law as a good in itself stand alongside the Nazis whose laws condemned millions to the death camps, not to mention the racists who passed the #FugitiveSlaveAct and the #JimCrowLaws in the American South.

    "Laws are just constructs. They have no value in and of themselves. They often serve to legitimize injustice that people would otherwise take action to oppose.

    "The further that the proponents of racist violence are permitted to legitimize invented concepts like slavery and citizenship, the more violence they will perpetrate—up to and including roundups, concentration camps, and mass extermination. We have seen this before, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere, and we are seeing it again today in the United States. The thousands of deaths that take place in the borderlands and the thousands murdered by police are just a foretaste of what is possible."

    Read more:
    crimethinc.com/2019/07/14/on-w

    #ResistICE #ICEKidnappings #ICESucks #USPol #Authoritarianism #Fascism #TrumpSucks

  11. CW: Death, anxiety, various horrible things but maybe also hope

    "Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." - #AaronBushnel

    "When I was a boy, in post-war Holland, later France, my head was filled with stories of the rise of fascism in the ’30s. I promised myself that I would not be one of those who stands by as neighbors are torn from their homes and imprisoned for somehow being perceived as lesser.
    You don’t have to burn the motherfucker down, but are you going to just stand by?" - #WillemVanSpronsen

    I remember a point in my life, I don't remember when, that I came to the realization that people in the past weren't really that different from me. I came to the realization that all the evil that we recognize today was once considered acceptable, at least by enough people to not immediately end it.

    Once you realize that, you have to realize that for every atrocity in the past there's at least the potential for an analog today. When you look specifically at the evolution of slavery to Jim Crow, you have to acknowledge the possibility that there's *something* similar going on today. Of course, if you know what the 13th Amendment says and you've paid any attention (especially over the last 10 years or so) it's painfully obvious what that analog is.

    Every word Aaron said is true, and more. The scale of horror being perpetrated today, where ecocide is a progenitor of genocide globally, has no historical analog because no society has ever had the capacity for this level of atrocity at any point in human history. This is, of course, on top of all the other familiar horrors Aaron referenced.

    This can be overwhelming. It is easy to give up, put your head down, and just try to ignore it all. And that's just what most people did during all those other atrocities. But a few people said, "no." Those people did change things for the better.

    Let this knowledge be burned into your mind forever. Let this approach shape the way you think about the world. Let this idea guide you until the news fills you with joy and hope instead of rage and despair. Let this idea be your compass.

    When one asks the question, "what would I have done," it can be hard to not be overwhelmed by shame when you already know the answer. Willem answered with his actions, "I would do what John Brown did." Aaron answered, "I would do what Thích Quảng Đức did."

    If you're not happy with your answer to this question today, you can turn to shame and hide or you can take action and be proud. Shame, in this situation, is selfish and only reinforces itself. But before you turn to action, you need knowledge. While the scale of this time is unique, those who have resisted, those who you join with your action, have been resisting for a *long* time.

    Those people attacked plantations from maroon colonies. They built the underground railroad. They hid Jews in their homes, and helped them escape persecution. They bombed Nazi infrastructure. They handed out flyers and were executed for it. They talked to other people. They were beaten by police. They canned food and stored it to remove one bit of leverage from their oppressors. They learned history, learned from their ancestors, and shared their knowledge with anyone who could use it.

    This is a long fight and most of the critical things are invisible. It is the invisible labor of organizing and caretaking without which revolutions are impossible.

    That work, the hard and invisible work performed mostly by femme socialized and presenting folks, is the work that needs to be done right now. As someone socialized male, it's hard to remember that. I have to keep reminding myself.

    Aaron was doing some of that work before he died. With his death he sent a clear message. He reminded us to pay attention to our place in history. This was an important act. But I wonder if the houseless folks he supported were better served by his life or by his sacrifice. No one can answer that question now. We may never be able to answer it.

    It can be hard to feel like that's enough because the history we're told excludes those people and the work they do. Maybe we need to learn to tell our own histories.

    Keep this in mind when you answer that question for yourself. Most of the people who ever changed things for the better will never have their names in a history book. In building a future worth living in, we need those people more than ever right now. It may never feel like you're doing enough, and that's OK. If we all do what we can, that is enough. It's always been enough, because that's what everyone who's resisted has done... everything they can.

  12. Fwd from Haymaker Gym, Chicago on the death of anarchist, antifascist Wilem Van Spronsen who attempted to burn immigration police buses to sabotage deportation enforcement at NWDC in Tacoma, WA (run by GEO Group):

    "Sometimes our love, rage, and grief hit a breaking point & we do things that feel right even though they aren’t strategic. I don’t know what #WillemVanSpronsen was feeling in his last hours but my guess is that he desperately wanted to end the horror of fascist camps *right now*."

  13. reading the #WillemVanSpronsen hashtag on twitter makes it look like gab. Fucking hell there are a lot of nazi's using twitter.