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Montreal Macdonald Monument vandalized with paint, in solidarity with anti-pipeline Indigenous Land Defenders

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Jan 162020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

-> Photos: https://postimg.cc/gallery/odqgsg22/

January 16, 2020, Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal — Earlier this morning, a small group of anti-colonial artists attacked the Macdonald Monument in Montreal with blue paint, marking at least the 12th time in the past three years that the statue has been attacked in such a fashion, with clear anti-racist, anti-colonial motivations.

We undertook our action in solidarity with frontline Indigenous Land Defenders, who continue to oppose and resist the construction of pipelines on their traditional lands. We are thinking specifically of the Wet’suwet’en and Secwepemc, among others, who for years have maintained on-the-ground opposition to the construction of the Coastal GasLink (CGL) and Trans Mountain projects on their respective territories. They are not involved, directly or indirectly, in our action, but we vandalize the John A. Macdonald statue as a simple message of anti-colonial support from across Turtle Island. We encourage others to do the same.

We hit the Macdonald Monument, but our message is specifically for Justin Trudeau and the federal government (which is directly responsible for Dominion Square and its monuments in downtown Montreal). John A. Macdonald was an open racist who advocated the genocide of Indigenous peoples. While Trudeau pays lip-service to reconciliation, the reality is that the corporate-capitalist imperatives of pipelines and resource extraction trample over any meaningful and respectful engagement with Indigenous nations.

The full force of the Canadian state — militarized police, court injunctions, criminal charges, exclusion zones, police checkpoints, and compliant mainstream media — are currently being deployed against Indigenous Land Defenders (and their accomplices) on the frontlines of anti-pipeline resistance. The least we can do is symbolic gestures of solidarity; what we non-Indigenous residents of Turtle Island NEED to do is engage in meaningful acts of economic disruption. Let’s get going!

– Some Montreal anti-colonials.
info: MacdonaldMustFall@riseup.net

To Settlers, by Settlers: A Callout for Rail Disruptions in Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 142020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

It’s important to know that settlers have written this. We don’t have the lived experience of any Indigenous person, including the Wet’suwet’en. We do write from a place of heart and affinity within this struggle – personal, political, and/or relational. In that we feel responsibility to act against the systems and corporations that harm the people and land within it. We acknowledge our settler responsibility and complicity in this, and look for opportunities and strategies that align politically as a way to enact solidarity. This does not mean we speak for them, or should be closed to critiques.

First, let’s address that for various reasons there has sometimes been a lack of clarity around what is being asked for by folks out west.

We want to gently remind friends reading this that some individuals have been restricted in providing any kind of direction or encouragement – or even speaking against the project. The gag is set by court orders which wield the threat of financial ruin and the loss of a ten year land-based healing project for an entire community. We remind ourselves that the people we may put into “leadership” positions may not want to be experiencing the pedestalization and fetishization of expectant settlers wanting firm answers – at great risk – on behalf of many.

Within and outside of this struggle, settlers are consistently directed to take responsibility for their fellow settlers and the ongoing processes and harms of colonization. As settlers hearing that, we are compelled to act in defiance of – and take an offensive position against – the state and industries that are willing to kill for profit, and pretend to be doing so in our interests.

We also want to acknowledge the lingering hopeless feeling that some of us felt when, after a decade of affirming a hard line, chiefs allowed for the Unist’ot’en gate to be opened. We know you know that compliance under threat of violence is not consent, but consideration exists even beyond that, like the RCMP delivering veiled and not-so-veiled threats to Chiefs at their homes in the middle of the nights. We encourage curiosity about whether hopelessness and disappointment went both ways here; to what extent did the low numbers of supporters who couldn’t or wouldn’t make it out after a decade of promise have impacts on positional outcome and aftermath? The writers of this personally take action when we feel at our strongest – rested, fed, grounded, encouraged, and supported. So what is our complicity – as settlers or allies or supporters who weren’t there or weren’t taking action from afar – in that gate opening?

Despite all of this the Wet’suwet’en never stopped asking for support and solidarity actions, and never stopped occupying their territories. And earlier today, the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters have again taken a physical stand to protect the Yintah, their way of life, and living for generations to come. They defend their very existence against the imperialist violence and colonialism of the Canadian state on behalf of private entities, and reject Canada and CGL’s authority and jurisdiction over their unceded lands.

We stand with them and are prepared to enact solidarity.

Further, we aim to inspire you to act friends & comrades!

Anarchists, comrades, radicals and likeminded folks in so-called Ontario have a longstanding history of solidarity actions with, for, and inspired by indigenous blockades and land projects. The enactments of support have been beautiful and courageous moments that have built lasting networks and relationships.

Dream big and help make it happen again!

The last year on the territory has seen large swaths of trees clear cut, wildlife displaced, a man camp established, artefacts and trap lines moved and destroyed, and the installment of an RCMP staffed “industry protection office” on unceded lands. The year also unveiled to all that the RCMP is prepared to kill Indigenous peoples to carry out the will of corporations.

Further, in a move that deliberately continues a legacy of genocide against all Indigenous peoples, justice Marguerite Church recently approved an interlocutory injunction against the Wet’suwet’en making it illegal for them under colonial law to defend their own lands against industry or Canada, as an invading Nation. Her decision states that “Indigenous law has no effectual place in Canadian law.” The injunction will allow for the destruction of Gidimt’en camp, cabins throughout the territory, and presents risk to the healing lodge.

Unsurprising and absolute imperialist bullshit.

Do you need more reasons? We didn’t think so.

Which leaves us with what we do.

As geographically distant allies the logical conclusion is that we will likely never get explicit, widespread permission or an “official” thumbs up (and we should certainly strive to understand our inclination to ask or want for those things), but with a few considerations we can get a fair sense of what’s needed, and wanted.

1) The intensity of the current situation. Today, Wet’suwet’en hereditary leadership have gathered to take a final stand and remove industry from their territory as a way to prevent further destruction of the land and water, ensuring their safety and livelihoods. Legal challenges have failed, and this is perhaps “it” – the final possibility of protecting their Yintah.

2) With this development will come new, increased and incensed calls for solidarity actions.

3) Actions that have received support or excitement previously include large militant disruptions such as highway and port blockades, occupations and attempted shutdowns of pipeline facilities, and the closure of a Shell terminal. No actions have yet been denounced.

4) Previous requests have included guidance to respect the agreements and responsibilities of the territory you are on, to respect the land, water, and life of it, and to honour and centre Indigenous messaging.

There is no shortage of existing opportunities, but thinking back to what we’ve seen work in this area, what is relevant, and what is strategic and what can embrace many tones and tactics, we think of rail disruptions.

Rail traffic creates excellent opportunity for state and economic disruption; infrastructure is so sprawling it’s relatively indefensible – particularly outside of cities. Geographical features create thousands of natural bottlenecks across Turtle Island which lend themselves as targets for maximum effectiveness using a broad range of methods. Historically even short disruptions – by actions or rail strikes – have had large economic impacts. After just two days of a recent rail strike the Federal government started drafting emergency legislation out of concern for the economy. In 2012, a 9 day disruption dropped the local GDP by 6.8%.

Imagine allies disrupting and damaging rail infrastructure and bottlenecks in Northern BC between Kitimat-Chetwynd-Houston-Stewart; it would orphan pipe stockpiles in ports, preventing their delivery to construction areas.

There is no need to chase the frontline; we can fight where we stand.

Rail sabotage works as both a tactic and a strategy, and so we’re calling for ongoing rail disruptions in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people who are currently defending their unceded territory from industry and police invasion.

Our suggestions include using copper wire to trip signal blocks, and the destruction of signal boxes and rail tracks – but even large public NVCD groups stopping essential rail lines is better than no action at all. Read on for details, safety tips, and links.

As always, we encourage folks to think about your heart, as well as the longevity of these actions and overall struggle; a gentle reminder that you are being careful with yourselves, fingerprints and DNA – for everyone’s safety – and that repression often follows action.

Prints

Fingerprints can be removed from hard surfaces with isopropyl alcohol. Wipe each item thoroughly in case something gets accidentally left behind or discovered. Store in a brand new, clean bag and only remove if wearing gloves.

DNA

DNA can be transferred in a number of ways. Ensure you’re being diligent; don’t touch your face and cough you’re your hands while wearing gloves. Keep your hair brushed (to remove loose hair) and tied back. Don’t smoke or spit anywhere near your target area. Don’t leave anything behind. Be careful not to injure yourself. Properly dispose of masks, hats, gear, or clothing (bleach, heat, or burn). Rainy days can be messy but good; they can help wash away, displace and contaminate fibre and DNA evidence. Bleach can destroy DNA by keeping it from being replicated in a lab for analysis. Heat and fire also destroy DNA well.

If you’re not sure, be sure.

Copper Wire Method
– DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON SUBWAY TRANSIT LINES; they carry electricity.
– You can use this method when engaging in group NVCD to immediately send a signal to stop all train traffic.

The steel rails of tracks act as part of a track circuit for something called “automatic block signalling” (ABS). A very low voltage is sent through the rails to track sensors to create a loop in sets of geographic blocks. When a train moves along them, the train axle disrupts or shortens the circuit and sensors pick that up to indicate the block is occupied, automatically closing traffic in that area to other trains.

By using a high gage (thick!) copper wire and wrapping it around and then across the rails one can replicate the tripping of the circuit sensors. Note: you don’t need to locate and connect the actual block sensors.

TIPS: the copper needs to be touching areas on both rails that are NOT rusty/oxidized and still conducting. HIGH gage copper wire is necessary. Have a lookout for trains and security patrols. Have a plan before you start wrapping. You may need a small tool to clear some crushed rock under the rail before wrapping the wire. Find a good spot, dig out both rails, and wrap one rail first. Remember as soon as you trip the circuit by connecting the wire to both rails the ABS will be tripped indicating something is up. Get out as soon as you can. Burying the cable with crushed rock, snow or dirt will make it harder to find/spot within the block.

Destroying Signal Boxes

Signal boxes are part of rail circuits. If you walk railways, you’ve probably seen them as large grey shed like structures, or small grey boxes affixed to poles. These boxes are the receptors and interpreters of ABS circuit signals. The casings are metal and typically secured closed somehow, and the small boxes on posts have cables that emerge, trail to the ground and run to the tracks. Since these wires have electrical components we would advise against simply cutting them unless you have a fair handle on electricity. Another method to damage wires and electrical circuits is hot fire. This means more than just dousing the cords in a fuel and walking away – it means building and ensuring a hotter, longer lasting fire. On good way to extend the burn of fibre tinder (cotton fabric or cotton balls are favourites with us) is to add petroleum jelly and work it in. You’ll be able to just light that, which acts as a wick. To increase the heat of a fire you can add rubber from bicycle inner tubes or tires. Getting a small established fire like this going either in the circuit box/house or where the cord enters the ground should take care of the circuits and do a fine job delaying rail traffic by activating the ABS system in a longer-lasting way.

Notes: Practise building this kind of fire to see what’s possible. Burning rubber creates toxic fumes. This is arson – which authorities will investigate more seriously than the copper wire method. Be careful: find a good spot, have lookouts and an entry/exit plan that doesn’t expose you to people, ensure you’re being careful with fingerprints & DNA, properly dispose of any equipment used, have EXCELLENT security culture & practises with your crew.

Destroying Steel Rails

How do you destroy steel rails that hold a lot of tonnage every day? The same way they put them together: thermite.

Thermite is a fuel/oxidizer ratio that can be adjusted to burn hot enough to destroy car engine blocks. It’s not particularly dangerous to mix BUT it does burn very hot, and very brightly so take precautions. This method requires very little on-site time: just place, light and walk away. It also provided maximum physical property damage as the rail or signal box will need complete replacement.

The simplest fuel to use is aluminum powder. This can be collected from older etch-a-sketches or manufactured with (real) aluminum foil in a coffee grinder. The finer the flakes/powder the faster the burn.

The simplest oxidizer to use with aluminum powder is iron oxide – red iron rust. Again, you can collect this and turn it into a fine powder, or easily manufacture it by soaking ‘0000 grain’ steel wool in bleach. Let it sit for a day to create a paste, which can then be dried and used.

You will also need an ignition wick. It takes a hot burn to ignite metal fuel so a lighter won’t work, and a firework fuse likely won’t either. Use either a common fireworks sparkler, or a homemade wick of match heads rolled into aluminum foil. Sparklers may present some risk of early ignition if the sparks coming off them hit the thermite before anticipated.

Thermite Powder

Mix a ratio of 3 parts iron oxide to 2 parts aluminum powder. Cut or puncture a small wick hole on the side of a container (i.e. tin can). Insert your wick a couple inches so that there will be contact with the mixture in the can, and then fill the container with powder. Place and light where needed.

TIPS: unless the powder mix is fine and compacted, the burn will be less efficient and produce less heat!

Hard/Cake Thermite

3 parts iron oxide, 2 parts aluminum powder, 2 parts plaster of paris. Mix the powders together, mix with plaster of paris. Pour into mold (can, etc.), insert wick into cake a couple inches on an angle. Let dry and remove from mould.

Mouldable Thermite

8 parts aluminum powder, 3 parts iron oxide, 4 parts clay. Mix the powders well then add to clay. Insert wick a couple inches. Place where needed and light.

Notes: Because this method damages the rail itself it presents a risk of derailment. To avoid this risk you may want to trip the ABS circuit by applying copper wire across the rails as well (method one). Again, this is a method police are likely to investigate thoroughly. Make sure all items you’re leaving behind are free of fingerprints and DNA. Have lookouts and careful off-camera approaches. Dispose of or destroy clothing and boots. Thermite burns hot and bright – do not stare after ignition. Very fine aluminum powder is reactive to oxygen and can ignite easily. If water (rain, snow, puddles) is added to burning thermite it will cause an explosion that sends molten iron flying outwards. DO NOT try to extinguish burning thermite with water.

Sherbrooke Against the World and Its Prison

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Jan 132020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

To begin our 2020s, with the onslaught of disasters they will bring, in a combative way, our small crew of determined accomplices made a surprise visit to Talbot Prison in Sherbrooke/Nikitotegwak (at the river that forks) this December 31st a little before midnight.

Well hidden in the nearby woods, we waited until the clock struck 2020 to send our New Year’s greetings, by lighting and shooting our festive pyrotechnics towards this freedom-destroying, miserable infrastructure. Quickly we heard coming from the prison enthusiastic cheers from detainees, and we hope that this instant of joyful surprise allowed everyone to momentarily forget the violence of the carceral world and its rotten justice.

Solidarity with the prisoners of the entire world. With particular attention for indigenous people, including the Mohawks and Abenaki to whom the land we’re now squatting belongs, addicts, women and the LGBTQ+ community, people living with mental health problems, houseless people, immigrants and racialized people, marginal proletarians and other subjects over-criminalized, confined, assaulted, surveilled, ostracized, and assassinated by the armed forces of capital.

As a resolution for the decade to come, we have committed to no longer wait to affirm and maintain a relation of permanent conflictuality towards bourgeois and colonial institutions. The Old World will not collapse on its own.

Fuck the Well Sud project of accelerated gentrification and the police repression targeting downtown residents to make space for investors, bourgeois and other tech-industry yuppies.

This police occupation develops and takes root in daily life in a number of ways, from the extension of video surveillance to all of downtown, to municipal laws that discriminate against or advantage certain groups of residents, to supremacist profiling during police controls, to the arbitrary, often violent arrests by the forces of (dis)order. It’s always the same people who pay the biggest price and are systematically targeted. In these spectacular projects that privatize social-collective space, houseless people, drug users, sex workers, marginalized youth, racialized people, and precarious renters are at greater risk than an already perilous average of ending up trapped in the justice and/or prison system.

In response to this repression, we heard that some colleagues used projectiles filled with paint to attack the police training pavilion of Sherbrooke Cégep several weeks ago, and this seems to be just the beginning.

Against the new Laval migrant prison and all other projects aiming to uphold the lethal system of international borders, that leads to people’s deaths by the thousands at sea or in the desert, while commodities have no trouble crossing oceans!
For the abolition of the penal system and the authoritarian and disciplinary institutions of the state!
For a creative and conflictual future!

Réseau Autonome de Sherbrooke -Le-Bol !
[Autonomous Network of Sherbrooke – Enough!]

Tkaronto Solidarity Actions with Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 102020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

On the one-year anniversary of Canada’s armed invasion of Wet’suwet’en territories, and in response to a call for solidarity with Wet’suwet’en people currently facing threat of another attack, a number of actions were taken in Tkaronto.

This report does not intend to claim responsibility for any of the actions and may not have covered everything. We merely hope to summarize actions we are aware of and state clearly that supporters here have their eyes on Wet’suwet’en and are ready to act.

Posters were plastered around a Toronto neighbourhood calling out the hypocrisy of the kkkanadian “reconciliation” narrative and directing attention towards national leaders who are poised to again invade unceded Wet’suwet’en lands.

A message was left at the door of Minister of Indigenous-Crown Relations Carolyn Bennett’s Toronto office.

Activists occupied the offices of AIMco and RBC, two major beneficiaries of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Finally, hundreds gathered and took to the streets in Toronto’s financial district to stand in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en peoples and to tell CGL and its backers to stay the fuck off Wet’suwet’en land.

May these be the first of many more actions. Every opportunity and every weakness of the state should be seized upon. Every skill, tactic and talent we possess should be used to fight this horrific colonial project as hard as we can.

Love and solidarity to Wet’suwet’en land defenders and fuck capitalism and colonialism across Turtle Island.

Hamilton: Simultaneous Rail Sabotage at Bottlenecks in Solidarity with Wet’suwet’en Land Defenders

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Jan 092020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

A decade ago in a move that has inspired many, Wet’suwet’en people reoccupied their unceded territories as a way to begun healing and ensuring the land is protected in the ways she needs to sustain Wet’suwet’en people’s lives, practices, and continued existence in their traditional territories.

A year ago the RCMP violently invaded those territories to provide access for industry.

One week ago, the canadian state criminalized Anuk’ nu’at’en – Wet’suwet’en hereditary law – by granting an injunction which criminalizes Indigenous people and their allies should they protect the Yintah from the destructive forces of industry.

We honour these anniversaries with a giant fuck you to the state.

Early this morning settlers responded to calls of action coming from multiple Wet’suwet’en house groups after they bravely evicted industry from their unceded territories, as well as a call to action for settlers by settlers.

As one small way of pushing back against the colonial violence being enacted by our government we simultaneously disrupted three natural CN and CP railway bottlenecks at strategic locations with the intention and impact of shutting down all rail traffic going in and out of so-called Hamilton. We did this by using copper wires and jumper cables attached to fishplate wires as a way to interfere with the block circuits – see a video here (opens with TOR). The method is safe, easy, relatively low risk, and widely replicable.

CN rail has been and will continue to ship out pipe to storage yards in preparation of construction and have vast, isolated stretches of infrastructure. The first installations of rail had deep, lasting impacts on the colonization of Turtle Island and targeting it today directly effects so-called canada’s economy.

While these actions will only serve as a temporary disruption, we hope it sends a strong message: Respecting Indigenous sovereignty – anywhere on Turtle Island – is not optional. We will not be passive.

We hope others throughout Turtle Island – especially settlers – will join us in ensuring this is only the beginning, and make the Coastal GasLink pipeline untenable to both industry and the state in every way they can.

Dream Big: a Call to Action for the Wet’suwet’en

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Jan 052020

Anonymous submission to North Shore Counter-Info

Where have you gone?

Last January there were so many of you. Of us!

In the streets. Shutting down bridges, ports, highways, railways, centres of capital, fuel terminals, and even storming TC Energy facilities. We were rushing office buildings, hanging banners, harassing politicians, police, courts and more. Informing, engaging, inciting. Undoubtedly meeting late into the nights, kept awake by our dreams. Strategizing. We were angry, passionate, strong, and determined. It was beautiful! Inspiring – hopeful!

What happened?

We’re not done – this is still happening! Force is not consent. The RCMP – the same commanders who argued for lethal oversight – are still in Wet’suwet’en territories harassing people. They’ve had the audacity to set up a temporary detachment in a place they don’t belong, aren’t welcome, and have no jurisdiction over.

Man camp 9A is already operating beyond Unist’ot’en and CGL is hoping to build another, bigger one nearby this spring. Some 100 industry people are currently living at 9A, and more get shuttled in daily with trucks, while others are brought by helicopters that pollute the area with particulates and noise.

CGL and subcontractors are actively destroying the land every day by clearcutting the pipeline right of way and blowing holes through mountains with explosives. The activity has stressed wildlife, pushing them into new areas and onto roads which now have increased human traffic.

None of it should be happening.

This land is unceded Indigenous land.

For anyone who’s been there, the yintah is easy to want to defend and easy to be inspired by.

You drink straight from glacial headwaters of the Skeena-Bulkley system, which are the breeding grounds for 30% of the salmon. Pines tower over you in the sky, collecting and shedding snow into the silence of winter days with soft wooshes as giant ravens tree hop. In August, glacial mountains remain snow-capped, the Wedzin Kwah runs ice cold and turquoise, and blooming magenta fireweed paints the land as bald eagles race the length of the river.

It’s very picturesque – and all of it is a necessity to maintain as-is for the Wet’suwet’en to survive and thrive there. Right now, in these very moments, we all have a chance to help make that a possibility. And people are asking for our help; they never stopped. We did.

Why?

If you stopped because you weren’t sure what camp to support – support them all.

If you’re confused about what’s being asked for;

They need boots on the ground, especially long term boots (there is funding for Indigenous people to travel out there)
Action in line with the natural laws and ally agreements in place for territories on which you would be acting (this is different from permission).
The camps also have individual wish lists on their sites.

If you’re confused about where to start, start here:

Cracks in the Pavement: an informational site that provides tips and tricks for action prep, actions, and security.
https://seedingresistance.noblogs.org/
Another End of the World is Possible: an in depth guide that provides information of examples of resistance against extractive infrastructure.
Weak Points of Canada’s Resource Extraction: a site that talks about natural infrastructure bottlenecks and opportunities
https://mtlcounterinfo.org/weak-points-of-canadas-resource-exploitation-economy/

The alternative to simply not trying (different than ability) is complicity. Many of us enjoy our lives and the privileges within them be it travel, advancing careers, going to class, or leisure time.

This is not a guilt-inducing argument for you to “give it all up for the rev” – it’s an argument for you to prioritize and treat this struggle as you do the other things in your life; jobs, careers, classes, socialization, adventures, and travel. It’s an argument to take this seriously because it is serious and we need to take ourselves seriously; this is people’s actual lives and cultures at risk. This is Indigenous sovereignty and healing. In those this struggle is anti-colonial. And it is also anti-capitalist and anti-state where there’s room for many people taking many actions.

Consider this a call to action.

Consider it a timely encouragement to start building networks and momentum capable of adaptation, risk-taking, and energy capture.

Get together with your crews and start talking:

What are the things that allow you each to take risk? How can you build them and put them in place? How can we incorporate more energy and capacity in our actions without compromising security? What security practises and cultures do we want to make sure are in place as we proceed? What has worked well – here or elsewhere? If elsewhere, can it appropriately translate here?

What is the state? What is it comprised of – physically and symbolically? What are the weak points –they exist! What are the other components and players in this struggle? If capital is driving the project, how do we inhibit either capital itself, or profit?

Sleep tight friends, and dream big. Another end is possible.

All Eyes on Wet’suwet’en: International Call for Week of Solidarity!

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Jan 052020

From Unist’ot’en Camp

TUES JAN 7, 2020 (anniversary of RCMP-CGL raid) until SUN JAN 12, 2020

We call for solidarity actions from Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities who uphold Indigenous sovereignty and recognize the urgency of stopping resource extraction projects that threaten the lives of future generations.

Unceded and sovereign Wet’suwet’en land is under attack. On December 31, 2019, BC Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Church granted an injunction against members of the Wet’suwet’en nation who have been stewarding and protecting our traditional territories from the destruction of multiple pipelines, including Coastal GasLink’s (CGL) liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline. Hereditary Chiefs of all five Wet’suwet’en clans have rejected Church’s decision, which criminalizes Anuk ‘nu’at’en (Wet’suwet’en law), and have issued and enforced an eviction of CGL’s workers from the territory. The last CGL contractor was escorted out by Wet’suwet’en Chiefs on Saturday, January 4, 2020.

We watched communities across Canada and worldwide rise up with us in January 2019 when the RCMP violently raided our territories and criminalized us for upholding our responsibilities towards our land. Our strength to act today comes from the knowledge that our allies across Canada and around the world will again rise up with us, as they did for Oka, Gustafsen Lake, and Elsipogtog, shutting down rail lines, ports, and industrial infrastructure and pressuring elected government officials to abide by UNDRIP. The state needs to stop violently supporting those members of the 1% who are stealing our resources and condemning our children to a world rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

Light your sacred fires and come to our aid as the RCMP prepares again to enact colonial violence against Wet’suwet’en people.

We ask that all actions taken in solidarity are conducted peacefully and according to the laws of the Indigenous nation(s) of that land.

For more information:

Wet’suwet’en Supporter Toolkit

Donate to Unist’ot’en

Donate to Gidimt’en

January 17th – Day of Action to Stop Line 3

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Jan 042020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

From the headwaters of the Mississippi River, a call reverberates across Turtle Island: Stop Line 3!

The Dakota and Anishinaabeg people have lived, died, and cared for the waters in what’s now “Minnesota” since long before the founding of the United States. Enbridge Inc. proposes to place a tar sands pipeline across the lands and waters of indigenous people in northern Minnesota—a project called ‘Line 3’. This pipeline proposes to cross 211 waterbodies, some of the richest wild rice beds in the world, and violate the treaty rights of Anishinaabeg negotiated in 1837, 1854, and 1855. The Minnesota segment of Line 3 is the final holdout of a pipeline planned to send 1M barrels per day of oil sands from Alberta to the western edge of Lake Superior. Line 3 represents a 10% increase in tar sands production.

As the state of Minnesota weighs the final water crossing permits needed to build Line 3, we invite you to join us for a day of joyful, exuberant, and playful public engagement with the possibilities for life without oil. Indigenous, settler, migrant—we all agree: a world of extraction is not the world we want!

When we take action to support the Dakota and Anishinaabeg preserve their homelands and culture, together we open possibilities for reinventing our lives beyond colonialism and capitalism. You don’t have to be part of an organization, a government, or some other structured system to want something else. We want ethical ways of relating to each other and to the earth. This is the only home we have. From January 17th – January 19th we call all beings who want something different to gather and display this desire using the hashtag #StopLine3. From banner drops to rallies to roving street parties to demonstrations to teach-ins, anything that helps spread our joy and defiance is welcome.

The possiblities for another world exist now.

Website: https://lifewithoutline3.home.blog/
Instagram: @WaterIsLifeJ17

New Year’s Light Show for the Prisoners of the Quebec City Detention Center

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Jan 042020

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

December 31th, 2019

Around 7:00 p.m., a group of people gathered in the woods on the outskirts of the Quebec City Detention Center to display their support for those detained. The institution receives prisoners who are serving sentences of less than two years and defendants awaiting trial. The establishment can accommodate more than 710 male prisoners, it is the second largest provincial detention establishment in Quebec, after the Bordeaux Prison. The prison also has a female section which has 56 regular places. At the time of the night visit, about 15 prisoners were in the outer courtyard when fireworks and flares were lit, offering them a bright message of Happy New Year. Enthusiastic wishes and screams were exchanged on both sides before the security tried to control the situation. The action concluded without arrests.

Because we still live in a colonial and racist context where the First Peoples are incarcerated by the Canadian government in a disproportionate way compared to the rest of the population, we want to reaffirm our solidarity by denouncing the jurisdiction of “Canada” on these lands and his hand on life and determination of the people who live there.

We can no longer deny the impact of colonialism!

We salute the courage of Shanet Pilot, a native warrior, who is still incarcerated 3 hours a week in Quebec prison for defending her territory, the Nitassinan, and opposing hydro-Quebec hydroelectric development. Since 2012 that the Government made her pay her “debts” by imprisonment, when at this very moment, Hydro-Quebec only pays crumbs in return for the theft of her territory. SOLIDARITY WITH SHANET PILOT!

The practice of putting detainees in the “hole” in excessive ways is a recurrent practice, which happens here in the Quebec City detention center and which must be abolished, just like prisons. Rapper Souldia recounts his experience of the “hole” when he was 24: “I was taken to the hole for 21 days. It smells of leftover food from the day before, it smells of piss, it smells of shit. The walls are dirty. There’s dried blood, drool. In less than 10 days, you are delirious. ”

Quebec prison has also received the “E” rating from Quebec’s infrastructure society, which means it has the lowest rating and is in very poor condition.

A class action is brought against the government of Quebec to denounce the prejudices lived by the prisoners in this prison. The request, which is led by Samuel Cozak, a former detainee, reveals a measure called the “campsite” where detainees must sleep on the floor in the cell of another incarcerated person, at less than 20 centimeters from a toilet. Cozak also denounces detainees’ malnutrition, unhealthy kitchens and the interventions of officers who are tainted by intimidation, the use of fear and excessive isolation. Also deplored that only one doctor is present per week to respond to the health problems of some 800 prisoners including mental health services.

Another class action is underway in connection with the suicide of Gaétan Laurion who was incarcerated in the infirmary area of the prison under increased surveillance after several attempts to kill himself. At the time of his death, the guard had worked 45 hours in the three preceding days and was sleeping at the surveillance post. The family claims compensation for negligence.

Prisons in Quebec are generally overcrowded, it is estimated that the occupancy rate at Quebec prison is 104%. This has had a major impact on the lives of those who have been criminalized, including the large transfers of detainees, the equivalent of a whole prison displaced every day in the province.

Finally, we would like to affirm our solidarity with trans people and the LGBTQIA2 community who experience all more discrimination in the gendered prison environment and who also face humiliation when the time comes to have to comply with strip searches. A network is in place and is developing more and more to support these people in prisons through written correspondence which serves to create links and even create certain security for these prisoners. We therefore invite you to contact the Prisoner Correspondance Project for more info.

AGAIN A HAPPY NEW YEAR AND SOLIDARITY!
THE FIST IN THE AIR BECAUSE WE ARE ALL BORN TO BE FREE!
NO PRISONS! NO STATES! NO QUEBEC! NO CANADA!

How to Form an Affinity Group

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Jan 022020

From CrimethInc.

The Essential Building Block of Anarchist Organization

Turbulent times are upon us. Already, blockades, demonstrations, riots, and clashes are occuring regularly. It’s past time to be organizing for the upheavals that are on the way.

But getting organized doesn’t mean joining a pre-existing institution and taking orders. It shouldn’t mean forfeiting your agency and intelligence to become a cog in a machine. From an anarchist perspective, organizational structure should maximize both freedom and voluntary coordination at every level of scale, from the smallest group up to society as a whole.

You and your friends already constitute an affinity group, the essential building block of this model. An affinity group is a circle of friends who understand themselves as an autonomous political force. The idea is that people who already know and trust each other should work together to respond immediately, intelligently, and flexibly to emerging situations.

This leaderless format has proven effective for guerrilla activities of all kinds, as well as what the RAND Corporation calls “swarming” tactics in which many unpredictable autonomous groups overwhelm a centralized adversary. You should go to every demonstration in an affinity group, with a shared sense of your goals and capabilities. If you are in an affinity group that has experience taking action together, you will be much better prepared to deal with emergencies and make the most of unexpected opportunities.

This guide is adapted from an earlier version that appeared in our Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook.

Affinity Groups are Powerful

Relative to their small size, affinity groups can achieve a disproportionately powerful impact. In contrast to traditional top-down structures, they are free to adapt to any situation, they need not pass their decisions through a complicated process of ratification, and all the participants can act and react instantly without waiting for orders—yet with a clear idea of what to expect from one another. The mutual admiration and inspiration on which they are founded make them very difficult to demoralize. In stark contrast to capitalist, fascist, and socialist structures, they function without any need of hierarchy or coercion. Participating in an affinity group can be fulfilling and fun as well as effective.

Most important of all, affinity groups are motivated by shared desire and loyalty, rather than profit, duty, or any other compensation or abstraction. Small wonder whole squads of riot police have been held at bay by affinity groups armed with only the tear gas canisters shot at them.

The Affinity Group is a Flexible Model

Some affinity groups are formal and immersive: the participants live together, sharing everything in common. But an affinity group need not be a permanent arrangement. It can serve as a structure of convenience, assembled from the pool of interested and trusted people for the duration of a given project.

A particular team can act together over and over as an affinity group, but the members can also break up into smaller affinity groups, participate in other affinity groups, or act outside the affinity group structure. Freedom to associate and organize as each person sees fit is a fundamental anarchist principle; this promotes redundancy, so no one person or group is essential to the functioning of the whole, and different groups can reconfigure as needed.

Pick the Scale That’s Right for You

An affinity group can range from two to perhaps as many as fifteen individuals, depending on your goals. However, no group should be so numerous that an informal conversation about pressing matters is impossible. You can always split up into two or more groups if need be. In actions that require driving, the easiest system is often to have one affinity group to each vehicle.

Get to Know Each Other Intimately

Learn each other’s strengths and vulnerabilities and backgrounds, so you know what you can count on each other for. Discuss your analyses of each situation you are entering and what is worth accomplishing in it—identify where they match, where they are complentary, and where they differ, so you’ll be ready to make split-second decisions.

One way to develop political intimacy is to read and discuss texts together, but nothing beats on-the-ground experience. Start out slow so you don’t overextend. Once you’ve established a common language and healthy internal dynamics, you’re ready to identify the objectives you want to accomplish, prepare a plan, and go into action.

Decide Your Appropriate Level of Security

Affinity groups are resistant to infiltration because all members share history and intimacy with each other, and no one outside the group need be informed of their plans or activities.

Once assembled, an affinity group should establish a shared set of security practices and stick to them. In some cases, you can afford to be public and transparent about your activities. in other cases, whatever goes on within the group should never be spoken of outside it, even after all its activities are long completed. In some cases, no one except the participants in the group should know that it exists at all. You and your comrades can discuss and prepare for actions without acknowledging to outsiders that you constitute an affinity group. Remember, it is easier to pass from a high security protocol to a low one than vice versa.

Make Decisions Together

Affinity groups generally operate on via consensus decision-making: decisions are made collectively according to the needs and desires of every individual involved. Democratic voting, in which the majority get their way and the minority must hold their tongues, is anathema to affinity groups—for if a group is to function smoothly and hold together under stress, every individual involved must be satisfied. Before any action, the members of a group should establish together what their personal and collective goals are, what risks they are comfortable taking, and what their expectations of each other are. These matters determined, they can formulate a plan.

Since action situations are always unpredictable and plans rarely come off as anticipated, it may help to employ a dual approach to preparing. On the one hand, you can make plans for different scenarios: If A happens, we’ll inform each other by X means and switch to plan B; if X means of communication is impossible, we’ll reconvene at site Z at Q o’clock. On the other hand, you can put structures in place that will be useful even if what happens is unlike any of the scenarios you imagined. This could mean preparing resources (such as banners, medical supplies, or offensive equipment), dividing up internal roles (for example, scouting, communications, medic, media liaison), establishing communication systems (such as burner phones or coded phrases that can be shouted out to convey information securely), preparing general strategies (for keeping sight of one another in confusing environments, for example), charting emergency escape routes, or readying legal support in case anyone is arrested.

After an action, a shrewd affinity group will meet (if necessary, in a secure location without any electronics) to discuss what went well, what could have gone better, and what comes next.

It’s safer to act in chaotic protest environments in a tight-knit affinity group.

Tact and Tactics

An affinity group answers to itself alone—this is one of its strengths. Affinity groups are not burdened by the procedural protocol of other organizations, the difficulties of reaching agreement with strangers, or the limitations of answering to a body not immediately involved in the action.

At the same time, just as the members of an affinity group strive for consensus with each other, each affinity group should strive for a similarly considerate relationship with other individuals and groups—or at least to complement others’ approaches, even if others do not recognize the value of this contribution. Ideally, most people should be glad of your affinity group’s participation or intervention in a situation, rather than resenting or fearing you. They should come to recognize the value of the affinity group model, and so to employ it themselves, after seeing it succeed and benefiting from that success.

Organize With Other Affinity Groups

An affinity group can work together with other affinity groups in what is sometimes called a cluster. The cluster formation enables a larger number of individuals to act with the same advantages a single affinity group has. If speed or security is called for, representatives of each group can meet ahead of time, rather than the entirety of all groups; if coordination is of the essence, the groups or representatives can arrange methods for communicating through the heat of the action. Over years of collaborating together, different affinity groups can come to know each other as well as they know themselves, becoming accordingly more comfortable and capable together.

When several clusters of affinity groups need to coordinate especially massive actions—before a big demonstration, for example—they can hold a spokescouncil meeting at which different affinity groups and clusters can inform one another (to whatever extent is wise) of their intentions. Spokescouncils rarely produce seamless unanimity, but they can apprise the participants of the various desires and perspectives that are at play. The independence and spontaneity that decentralization provides are usually our greatest advantages in combat with a better equipped adversary.

Bottomlining

For affinity groups and larger structures based on consensus and cooperation to function, it is essential that everyone involved be able to rely on each other to come through on commitments. When a plan is agreed upon, each individual in a group and each group in a cluster should choose one or more critical aspects of the preparation and execution of the plan and offer to bottomline them. Bottomlining the supplying of a resource or the completion of a project means guaranteeing that it will be accomplished somehow, no matter what. If you’re operating the legal hotline for your group during a demonstration, you owe it to them to handle it even if you get sick; if your group promises to provide the banners for an action, make sure they’re ready, even if that means staying up all night the night before because the rest of your affinity group couldn’t show up. Over time, you’ll learn how to handle crises and who you can count on in them—just as others will learn how much they can count on you.

Go Into Action

Stop wondering what’s going to happen, or why nothing’s happening. Get together with your friends and start deciding what will happen. Don’t go through life in passive spectator mode, waiting to be told what to do. Get in the habit of discussing what you want to see happen—and making those ideas reality.

Without a structure that encourages ideas to flow into action, without comrades with whom to brainstorm and barnstorm and build up momentum, you are likely to be paralyzed, cut off from much of your own potential; with them, your potential can be multiplied by ten, or ten thousand. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world,” Margaret Mead wrote: “it’s the only thing that ever has.” She was referring, whether she knew it or not, to affinity groups. If every individual in every action against the state and status quo participated as part of a tight-knit, dedicated affinity group, the revolution would be accomplished in a few short years.

An affinity group could be a sewing circle or a bicycle maintenance collective; it could come together for the purpose of providing a meal at an occupation or forcing a multinational corporation out of business through a carefully orchestrated program of sabotage. Affinity groups have planted and defended community gardens, built and occupied and burned down buildings, organized neighborhood childcare programs and wildcat strikes; individual affinity groups routinely initiate revolutions in the visual arts and popular music. Your favorite band was an affinity group. An affinity group invented the airplane. Another one maintains this website.

Let five people meet who are resolved to the lightning of action rather than the agony of survival—from that moment, despair ends and tactics begin.

Printable zine version of this article is also available for download.

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