Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information
Montréal Contre-information

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CALLOUT for the Anticapitalist Mayday ’22: Colonial and Ecocidal, Capitalism is War!

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Feb 222022
 

From the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes

On May 1st, 2022, Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC) is calling for a 15th Anti-Capitalist Workers’ Day demonstration. This year, the colonial state has demonstrated once more that it will prioritize capital growth over our lives. In total hypocrisy, our governments speak the words reconciliation and environment while ignoring the sovereign rights of Indigenous peoples and destroying the land with extractivist and discriminatory policies. It is time to revolt!

As time passes, our steroid pumped capitalist system increasingly contributes to the degradation of the climate and ecological conditions that ensure our survival. We are heading for disaster as our governments collude with oil companies, the forestry industry and the mining industry to continue to push through ecocidal projects like the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Wet’suwet’en land, the Fairy Creek cuts and the latest announcements allowing the mining industry to emit even more zinc and nickel particles in so-called Quebec. To defend their right to bring the world to an end, they buy guns, cops and prisons, because they know that people are resisting, have always resisted and will continue to do so. Extractivism goes hand in hand with colonialism and the oppression of Indigenous peoples; both of these systems of oppression are central to the running of the capitalist system that keeps us in a misery that is constantly getting worse.

We have stopped relying on the hypocritical people in power for quite some time, but Trudeau and Legault are working hard to break records. Our governments continue to lash out at the unvaccinated in order to avoid blaming all the paternalistic governments of the last few decades for the unbearable working conditions in education and health care (disproportionately afffecting women). As usual, there is always a lack of money for schools and hospitals, but never for cops and prisons for migrants. On top of that, our governments wash their hands of the violence they inflict by attacking “wokes”, saying that “Quebecers, we’re not that bad.” Among other things, Legault is puting forward transphobic, interphobic (PL-2), and xenophobic (PL-21) bils in addition to refusing to apply Joyce’s Principle and to consider the housing crisis as such. As ecological catastrophe continues to plague the globe, our governments give us shit worlds of unsustainable electric cars that keep people in bondage and contribute to urban sprawl. They send an RCMP military squad to destroy an Indigenous camp so they can build another state and bank funded fucking pipeline ostie, and this at the very time the province is dealing with major flooding.

We have to face the fact that the situation is devastating; however, the world is starting to wake up and more and more people are standing together, standing in solidarity with other communities and building bridges that didn’t exist before. There is more and more talk of environmental racism, for example of the illegal landfill in Kanesatake that endangers the health of people and land. Banners are appearing in occupied Palestine in solidarity with the defenders of the Wet’suwet’en territory. Our movements to abolish capitalism and all systems of oppression continue to grow in strength. We are on the right track.

We no longer have a choice but to refuse this work-based system of death whose primary interest is the enrichment of the bourgeoisie at the cost of our physical and mental health and the infinitely complex millennia-old ecosystems on which we depend.

On May 1st, let us express our rage against capitalism. Let’s stand up against these oppressions, against the destruction, and build a radically different future. Let’s take to the streets, together.

Time and place TBA.

Gridlocked: The Freedom Convoy and the New Canadian Populism

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Feb 202022
 

From subMedia

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, a popular movement demanding an immediate end to vaccine mandates and other restrictions on daily life has shaken the Canadian state to its core. Its calls have deeply resonated with members of settler-colonial society in which public health measures and other forms of collective solidarity are seen by some as an affront to individual freedom and an undue hindrance on capitalist enterprise. While the movement is now facing the brunt of a massive wave of state repression, from which it is unlikely to recover, the contradictions it has exposed are only set to get worse.

Concerning the Attack on the Coastal GasLink Worksite on Marten Forest Service Road

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Feb 192022
 

From Gord Hill

What appears to be a highly effective act of sabotage carried out by Indigenous land defenders: cue the conspiracy theorists…

And some aren’t even theorizing, they assert it as fact: it was the cops, it was CGL… Here’s a theory: the attack was carried out by Indigenous people who, in the cold dead of night, set out on a mission to sabotage the CGL pipeline.

They carried out an audacious and complex attack that I would imagine started with getting the security guards away from vehicles and buildings. At some point after the security guards had fled, blockades and counter-vehicle devices were put in place on the only road leading to the site, delaying police response probably by hours. In that time the warriors carried out millions of dollars in sabotage.

Considering all this, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this may just be what it appears to be: an attack carried out by Indigenous warriors.

I’ve seen people posting about a bomb attack the RCMP carried out in Alberta in the 1990s as proof of cops carrying out fake attacks. This bombing was part of the police investigation of Wiebo Ludwig and his campaign against the oil and gas industry. The action was intended to entrap Ludwig. With cooperation from the oil company, the police blew up an abandoned, unused shed. It was in no way a major act of sabotage, in contrast to what is now being reported in Wet’suwet’en territory. It was insignificant compared to the actual sabotage that was occurring and for which Ludwig was widely suspected… and for which there was a virtual media blackout by the oil companies and RCMP who did not want the practice of sabotage to spread.

One of the problems with this conspiracy mongering is that is undermines the effectiveness of this action. The more it spreads and festers the more people question if it was a genuine act of resistance or not. Who does this inspire? In whose interests are acts of Indigenous resistance diminished rather than promoted? I also believe this conspiracy mongering demoralizes those who carried out the action (and who are now being hunted by police).

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence…

Anyway, that’s my theory…

Ill Winds from Ottawa

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Feb 162022
 

From CrimethInc.

Thinking Through the Threats and Opportunities as a Far-Right Initiative Gains Momentum

Opponents of vaccine mandates have established protest encampments in Ottawa and elsewhere around Canada, blockading several routes crossing the United States border. Far-right organizers and former police officers have prominent positions in this movement, and police have taken a relatively hands-off approach thus far; it appears likely that the model currently being tested in Canada will appear elsewhere around the world shortly. In the following extensive report, our correspondent in Montréal explores the sequence of events that led up to these developments, reviews the agendas of the various forces vying for control, and reflects on what we can do in a situation in which the far right has gained the initiative.

To preface this report, it is necessary to deal briefly with the question of whether the anti-mandate protests in Ottawa represent a movement for “freedom,” as the participants insist.

On October 25, 2021, officers of the New York City Police Department participated in shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge—where they famously kettled and arrested Occupy protesters almost precisely ten years earlier—to protest against a vaccine mandate for municipal employees. While we passionately believe that people must be free make their own medical decisions and determine their own risk tolerance, the police were effectively demanding the right to expose those they arrest to even greater medical risk. This is a particularly clear-cut case showing that the movement against vaccine mandates is not necessarily a movement against state control or in favor of medical autonomy.

An authentic movement for freedom and medical autonomy would oppose all the forces that compel workers to expose themselves to COVID-19 against their wishes—in other words, it would be explicitly anti-capitalist. Likewise, such a movement would support striking students intent on determining for themselves which risks they wish to take.

When anti-mandate protesters maintain that borders should be tightly controlled by passport checks, yet decry vaccine passports as “fascism”—when they complain about police checking for vaccine cards, but support police in arresting and imprisoning people by the million—when they object to the government placing limits on economic activity, but not to the vast economic disparities that force workers to face potentially lethal risks simply in order to pay rent—they are not taking a stand in favor of freedom so much as they are willfully changing the subject from the encroachments of state power as a whole to a few details of state policy. This is part of the process through which a spurious right-wing opposition functions to redirect rebellious impulses into ersatz movements that ultimately strengthen state institutions.

It is possible that a consistent movement opposing state control in favor of medical autonomy could serve as a space in which those who oppose vaccine passports could go through a process of political development. But for this to be possible, these movements would have to foster a systemic analysis of power, whereas in fact, they are dominated by right-wing elements intent on limiting their political horizons. Therefore, at the minimum, it is necessary to oppose and outflank the right-wing elements in these movements—which is the subject of the following text.

The paranoid fears concerning vaccination and the conspiracy theories regarding COVID-19 concern entirely the issue of the loss of autonomy. They allegorically (and distortedly) project real economic and social experience onto the body. In this manner, they both express and repress the experience, just as dreams, and more generally, the language of the unconscious, do: it’s not, allegedly, that the small store owner or the small businessman has been crushed by large states’ economies of scale, but rather that there is a plan to control his/her brain, or his/her body, his or her reproductive capacities.

Because the anti-vaccine unconscious is, like every form of mass irrationalism, the exact opposite of what it believes it is—because, in other words, it is a deeply conformist way of thinking—it is also a particularly fertile ground for the development of forms of racism, among which the anti-semitic and the Sinophobic elements are predominant.

-“The Anti-Vaccine Unconscious

Without further ado—the report.

Continue reading on Crimethinc.

An Anarchist Rejection of the Covid Culture War

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Feb 142022
 

From IGD Worldwide

At the beginning of the pandemic the state claimed masks were futile, but this was due to shortage and the government’s refusal to regulate the free market to ease the pain of the pandemic. Once companies managed to catch up with demand, the narrative changed. Many people likely died unnecessarily as a result of this.

Wearing masks can help save lives, but it is not a political statement in and of itself as some seem to think. Wearing your mask is not meaningfully countering the death-cult voices on the openly right-wing side of this culture war, it is simply common decency. On a larger level, it serves the state’s agenda to be louder about wearing masks than about the failing medical infrastructure around the world, or how the global medical establishment only serves the rich. I cringe when I see a liberal wearing a mask as if it is a symbolic virtue signal for BLM and organic farming. Supporting masks, encouraging vaccines, and not wanting vulnerable demographics of people to die is something we may have in common with someone on the liberal side of this culture war– a culture war that has been fabricated by state media and the worst of the internet– but it does not mean we can align ourselves with the liberals.

As Omicron predictably swept the earth in light of a vaccine rollout hobbled by the interests of capitalists, the pandemic that has plagued our lives is showing signs that it may be here to stay. Denmark has already acknowledged this: taking into account its privileged vaccine status, the country has already dropped all covid restrictions. Hong Kong, a country with some of the toughest restrictions in the world, is struggling with the futility of their own covid mandates in light of Omicron and may wave the white flag soon. Still many are dying across the world, as many also die from cancer, heart disease, famine, and war– although capitalism seems to consider these the cost of doing business. So much has happened since March 2020 when this boring apocalypse began.

I am not excited to be writing another piece on covid, but it is a truly unprecedented event. Even beyond the scale of death it has caused, its ripple effects and political implications are essential to discuss, no matter if we’re all tired of it. The pandemic continues to dominate our lives despite a looming and ongoing climate catastrophe, a global refugee crisis, the hyper-resurgence of fascism, and an increasingly stratified world. The world will never be the same. As anarchists, however, we must also evaluate our own behavior to grow and strengthen our communities of resistance in light of the world to come.

You can read my last article regarding the anti-vax and anti-lockdown right-wing movements that seized on the fear of those overwhelmed by this unprecedented event. I do not subscribe to this rubbish thinking. I am vaccinated; the first time to help others, the second time to be able to travel and enter a damn bar. I find the narrative of much of the anti-vax and anti-lockdown movements to still be dominated by double standards, inconsistencies, and the heinous influences of right-wing and anti-Semitic opportunism, but governments pretending the pandemic is the fault of the unvaccinated doesn’t work on me, because I know who is to blame. Omicron is a direct result of vaccine companies blocking patent sharing and the capitalistic practices of the “first world.”

I am uninterested in playing into the games of the governments of the world, governments that have proven they exist solely to preserve the comforts of the wealthy and maintain the existing social order of misery for most of us. Covid has made this even more obvious. After the arguments of state-defenders that murders and rapists are inherent to humanity (rather than a result of poverty and a patriarchal society), plagues and unprecedented global events are probably the next things to be used to defend and rationalize the horrors of government. Covid has shown, however, that the government really serves no purpose apart from its own interests, and will cravenly blame those it rules over if it can not manage what it supposedly exists to manage.

I am pro-vaccine the same way I am pro-chemotherapy. Both are a method of dealing with a horrible thing produced by the same horrible society responsible for the problem’s creation. I am cautious and concerned about who I come in contact with because I realize that the excluded and exploited are more likely to be affected by this pandemic, but I also believe many are suffering through this pandemic beyond the medical element of covid itself. If you don’t see this, you probably have a comfortable job or secure existence, because for myself at least, I wonder if the stress from this plague is going to kill me before the plague does.

I encourage people to be vaccinated as well as take precautions to ‘stop the spread’; but the implications of mandatory vaccinations concern me. I am concerned consistently with every opportunity the state may see in the fear caused by the pandemic or generally confusing times; this new precedent of mandatory vaccination worries me as does every crazy-ass thing governments do when people are afraid. It is ok to say this because it is an anarchist position.

Being an anarchist means rejecting the theater of politics. I am part of a movement that in its most sincere form cannot be trapped by the culture wars fabricated to divide us, because such wars are fought on faith that the systems in play will determine who wins. I can never welcome the decisions of the state without questioning them. However, some of us, whether through fear of a never-before-experienced pandemic, or more sadly, the fear of judgment by the liberal establishment, have made these kinds of compromises in position and rhetoric.

In my last article I mostly attacked the right’s use of the pandemic to distract from broader issues such as the hyper-profiteering of the rich during the pandemic, state opportunism in repression and authoritarianism made possible during the pandemic, and rampant inconsistencies exposed by the pandemic when it comes to government regulation. At the same time, as we have learned from governments around the world, lockdowns cannot be a cut-and-dry debate, and the authoritarian opportunism the pandemic has allowed governments around the world is something we should have seen and challenged in the process of breaking away from right-wing counter-revolutionary analysis. We cannot fear the judgment of the liberal and left-wing establishments around the world that have blindly accepted government decisions and who attempt to smear anyone who challenges the government’s decisions as being in league with white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists.

We are anarchists, not a political party looking to appease those whose analysis and ideas only exist within the framework of the existing power structures. We are anarchists meaning we are anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-so on, and so on, because our defining characteristic is being opposed to all facets of domination and exploitation.


Blind support of lockdowns is inherently classist, and not consistent with an anti-authoritarian position. I don’t like to use the term classist, because the mainstream use of this word tends to focus on incidents of class bigotry rather than class society as a whole, and is directed towards achieving “class peace,” rather than pushing for the elimination of class society. With that said, and in order to confront a specific tendency, realizing it or not, there were some fairly offensive classist approaches and tendencies coming from those fetishizing the state’s pandemic procedures.

Take for example people staying at home and posting TikTok videos of fusion meals (prepared magically), pompously letting everyone know they were staying in to help others without acknowledging that this is only possible on the backs of cooks, delivery workers etc. unable to do the same. It’s almost in line with the disrespect shown to workers by the bosses and fascists who wish to challenge the existence of the pandemic sheerly to preserve their sacred free market.

It assumes that others can get through even a week of not working without financial aid, while millions of migrant workers across the world, documented and undocumented, have not been eligible for the emergency pandemic financial resolutions or stimulus packages made by nation-stations and banks.

It ignores the labor and suffering that is necessary for such a meal to be made during these times– the “heroic essential worker” praise at the beginning of the pandemic was temporary and conditional. It reflects the worst of the liberal establishment, both in the USA and copy-cat centrist movements around the world.

Even the liberal establishment’s distasteful promotion of the vaccine as a moral choice, despite the majority of the world still waiting for any access to it, continues this classism. From early on, Americans and eventually Europeans were flaunting their vaccine status as the rest of the world was beseeching the WTO to make generic versions because they couldn’t afford Big Pharma’s price tag. You saw many declaring that the pandemic will soon be over because “we did it,” despite “we” not including much of humanity!

Now, as the western world begins to acknowledge that its approach to the crisis failed, recognition of the possibilities of “a permanent pandemic” only takes into account the conditions faced in the West, not the increases in deaths and looming variants that will continue to spread in the so-called third world, most of which is still waiting on the first world to share patents or non-expired vaccine surpluses.

The inconsistencies and mismanagement of the pandemic shine a light on the inherent flaws of the state. Unfortunately, giving too much consideration to the coercive talking points of the liberal establishment prevents us from countering the fascists who have dominated the narrative around covid. That is why we must find a balance, never allowing ourselves to place faith in the mandates of the state or expect the state to share the interests of anarchists with regards to managing the pandemic.

Drawing lines takes courage, especially on sensitive subjects, but as anarchists we are familiar with controversial approaches. Many who claimed to be interested in saving lives in the USA are now silent as Biden sends people back to work, obeying the demands of the bosses and capitalism. It’s a decision followed by countries around the world due to the pressures covid mandates have put on air travel, the transfer of goods, etc. Saving lives will always come second to saving capitalism on both the left and right side of the power games, no matter if one side minces their words or is willing to budge a bit.


Many who couldn’t “hunker down” and had their livelihoods sacrificed by state mandates are now turning to the right. As I write, truckers are blocking borders and cities in Canada and the USA over vaccine mandates. Blocked borders and occupied cities are typically something I would be excited about, but police and state forces haven’t obliterated these truckers the way they have indigenous land blockades and occupations against pipelines in Canada. The trucker protest crowds are generally of the included, not the excluded. They don’t challenge the broader system of capitalism, and are a generally confusing phenomenon for the status quo since they resemble its base. The convoys in Canada and the USA are quite troubling in light of the political associations and motivations of their founders. Solidarity blockades are also catching on in France, New Zealand, and more countries around the world. We are in conflict with the broader conspiracy theories and fascistic narratives that have helped to form these blockades, but we must counter them on our terms without resembling the voices of the liberal establishment. An excerpt from a recent on-the-ground review of the convoy in Ottawa and some of the liberal counter-protesters complaining against it helps paint a real-life example of why we need to challenge ourselves to counter these fascist events from an anarchist position that has no consideration for liberal approaches:

In the afternoon we check out a counter-demonstration organized primarily, it seems, by residents of downtown Ottawa who are sick of the noise, traffic, and acts of hateful speech, harassment and bullying on the part of some of the protestors. Countering the trucker protest before it becomes a full-blown neo-fascist revolutionary movement is so, so important but I honestly felt zero affinity with this counter-protest in particular. Most of the signs were either calling for more police, complaining about inconveniences like sound and traffic, or making fun of the demonstrators for being unvaccinated and/or stupid. “Honk if you failed civics,” “Self-driving trucks can’t spread covid,” “Ottawa police act now,” “Make Ottawa boring again.” A lady with a wordy sign about how vaccine mandates save lives mistakes me for a member of convoy protest and chastises me for apparently being illiterate, “Did it take you a few minutes to read that one, honey?” I have a graduate degree and no business being this personally offended but I feel a surge of rage at downtown liberal elites who think the problem is that these people just didn’t go to school long enough. We leave before it’s over, just as some of the protestors are engaged in a verbal standoff – antis chanting “Go home dipshits” while convoy protestors chant back “We still love you! Love! Love!” and the police form a stronger line between the two crowds.

-Critical Notes From On the Ground in Ottawa (Regarding the so-called “Freedom Convoy in Canada”).

The emphasis on appropriate and educated semantics and aesthetics that has invaded anarchist movements for years tends to come out of privileged university circles where issues are discussed instead of systems. As a result, we are discovering people on the fringes of our movements who feel connected not by experience and discontent but rather by a shallow connection of superficial identity. While fascists of all backgrounds deserve not a millimeter of space, we should admit allowing liberal mindsets “within” anarchy is a potential reason so many continue to get recruited by the right without even knowing it. Out of fear of resembling the right, we are allowing ourselves to be censored by the liberal establishment.

There are increasing riots worldwide related to lockdown restrictions. In the Netherlands for example, (https://itsgoingdown.org/reflections-and-report-on-the-nov-19-riots-in-rotterdam-nl/) on two occasions since the pandemic began there was some of the most intense rioting the Netherlands has seen in its modern history, mostly by unemployed and marginalized youth struggling in the most unequal country in the European Union. Many liberals, leftists, and even some anarchists dismissed these riots solely due to the ugly spark that may have helped trigger them.

On the days these riots happened, there were disgusting protests. The worst of the worst coming together: new agers, religious fundamentalists, right-wing politicians and neo-nazi/fascists protesting peacefully in their grossly white parades against the vaccines and lockdown mandates. Maybe some of the hooligans stuck around for the riots that followed, but those attending the pre-riot protests events are generally of the included, white, and privileged in the Netherlands, and could be seen denouncing the “hooligans” and “thugs” who came out when the sun set.

Lockdowns were the last straw for huge demographics of youth in the Netherlands who face constant racist violence by police and a second-class livelihood. Many pissed off, unemployed, and disenfranchised youth saw these events as an opportunity to manifest their rage. However, the liberal bourgeoisie and academic folks who dismissed these riots grouped fascists and politicians with unemployed youth of a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds simply because of the timing. How could some of us succumb to such a superficial and elitist approach to understanding a manifestations of social war that should be of interest to anarchists? It is a blurry time for humanity, myself included, but we have got to keep our analysis honed.

Anarchists consider looting the destruction of the sacred commodity, as well as reflecting poverty the looter faces. End of story, this is an anarchist response. However, those who tend to dismiss from the ivory towers of the academic and privileged world may not have the intellect or sincere desire for revolt to even appreciate such a thing. One may not manifest rage in the precisely opportune time or among the prettiest of circumstances, but it is our responsibility as anarchists to see these moments where such ruptures and tensions manifest and, regardless of the judgments of the liberal establishment, demonstrate our solidarity and support.

As anarchists we have to continue to assert our position unconditionally, heightening our voices and communicating our position clearly in order to make it clear to both sides of this culture war that we are not falling for the distractions. We want social war towards liberation.

We have learned a lot since March 2020. Just because we militantly reject the right’s death cult doesn’t mean as anarchists we should give in to the moderate right, centrist, or leftist establishments either. Whether civil wars in history, or Black Lives Matter, Occupy, the anti-globalization movement, or the pandemic of today, we hope the anarchist movement will always remember that “On the one hand there is the path that leads to the institutions, on the other, the way to the streets. These paths cannot co-exist.”

Suggested Reading:

A Retrospective of the Counter-demonstration of 12 February 2022, Opposed to the Demonstration in Support of the “Freedom Convoys”

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Feb 142022
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

We were more than 150 on Saturday morning gathered to oppose the far right, which is currently riding the wave of anger at health measures to advance its political agenda. Among the demonstrators we were confronted with, if the most widely waved flags were those of Canada, others were raising high flags of the Front canadien-français, a far-right ultra-nationalist collective with a Catholic heritage [note: we are told that the flag in question, the Carillon-Sacré-Coeur, is not the flag of the Front canadien-français. The flag dates from the early 20th century in Ultramontanist circles. The FCF was a small group created and dissolved in recent years that appropriated this flag, like various right-wing nationalists.MTL CI]. The extreme right-wing populist of the People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, was also present.

The energy of the counter-demonstrators was very good, despite the sadness of the event. We chanted loudly for hours “A-Anti-Antifascists” and “Neither Trudeau nor covidiot, the solution is not fascist”. Our biggest victory was to deprive the demonstration of all its flag-wearing trucks and cars by blocking the exit to the parking lot. Even in a small, well-motivated group we are really capable of curtailing the movements led by the extreme right.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Despite the situation across Canada, millions in funding from obscure sources, and the spirit of the freedom convoy movement inspired by last year’s assault on Capitol Hill, the SPVM deployed at least as many fascists in police clothing as there were counter-demonstrators to surround us and block any attempt to move. In riot gear, many of them proudly wore “thin blue line” patches. Mixed with rage and sadness, we waited for a long time surrounded by riot cops once the demonstration had left their place of departure. It was pitiful to see so many riot cops putting us in cages without paying attention to the fachos gathering in our neighborhoods.

The situation is extremely worrying. As anti-fascists, we cannot allow the seed that is being sown to germinate. We must organize and multiply counter-demonstrations, let’s be on the lookout for what is being prepared in our neighborhoods. As an extremely well-funded fascist mobilization takes shape and is protected by cops with symbols that have a more than alarming background, putting forward antifascist perspectives in our struggles seems more than imperative.

Photo: André Querry

Ottawa, the Far-Right, and the State: Inside the Convoy Protests and the Unfolding Three Way Fight

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Feb 122022
 

From It’s Going Down

On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two anarchists involved in the Punch Up Collective, a group which is currently mobilizing in Ottawa, the capitol city of so-called Canada, in the midst of an ongoing far-Right protest occupation made up of several hundred vehicles in the downtown area.

During our discussion we talk about the far-Right leadership of the protests, their history of organizing similar convoys and their involvement in a variety of racist and reactionary groups, and how the public, the police, and the State are all responding to the demonstrations, as law enforcement has been giving the convoy free reign of the streets and residents report hundreds of incidents of harassment, targeted violence, and racist intimidation. Meanwhile, anger is growing not only at the convoy, but at police and the failure of the State to respond, as people begin to self-organize and take action. We also look at how the Conservative Party is coming out in support of the convoy; hoping to use it as a wedge to gain more power and influence.

We also broadly cover how the Left has been caught off guard by these demonstrations: from how the current pandemic has negatively impacted organizing and support networks, to how the electoral Left has been slow to respond and terrified of the growing anger on the streets against the convoy. Finally, our guests map out current mutual aid programs and various forms of resistance and talk about the need to take the streets back from the far-Right and hold them. With more convoy protests being pushed for in the US and a counter-demonstration being called for in Ottawa this Saturday, it’s up to us to understand what is happening on the ground and prepare accordingly.

The Whole Orchard Season 2

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Feb 102022
 

From the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC)

The second season of “The Whole Orchard” podcast will soon be available!

This year we’ll talk about anticarceral feminism, police forces on indigenous territories & transformative justice, amongst other subjects. Until then, you can listen to the five episodes of the 1st season by searching “Le verger au Complet” on your favorite podcast platform or by going to the web site.

Love & Rage,
The CLAC.


New Disruptive Action in Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en Targeting Royal Bank of Canada Branches (Again)

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Feb 102022
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

On the night of February 6th, 2022 in Montreal (Tio’Tia:Ke), non-Indigenous allies demonstrated their solidarity with the Gidimt’en clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. The instigators of this action are responding to a call by Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to #ShutdownCanada in response to the invasion of their territory, the Yintah, by the RCMP for the third consecutive year.

We used many different tactics : smashed windows, glued locks and card readers, and spray-painting #FuckRBC on the interior, so all RBC clients were aware of why their bank has been consistently targeted for the past 5 months.

The Wet’suwet’en people are currently resisting the construction of an oil pipeline by Coastal GasLink, a TransCanada Energy company – which is known in Canada for attempting to build the Energy East pipeline – on their traditional territory. Among other things, the construction of the pipeline puts the Wedzin Kwa River at risk, since the pipeline is planned to pass under it. This river serves as a source of water and fish, and is central to the traditional practices of the Wet’suwet’en people.

These were small and easy actions, and we encourage everyone to get together with their trusted friends and test out all the different ways we can fuck with RBC. Several solidarity actions have indeed taken place in different places across so-called Canada, in the last weeks. The call for solidarity actions is ongoing: “The Gidimt’en Clan invites you to organize demonstrations and actions in your region. It also calls to put pressure on governments, banks and investors […] to make a donation […] and to come to the camp.

Solidarity with all peoples who resist! No to Coastal GasLink!