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

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Call to Demonstrate on May Day: You are not alone!

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Apr 032018
 

From the SITT-IWW

Gathering with food and speeches at 2:30 pm at Parc Metro. Departure of the neighborhood demonstration at 4:00 pm.

Followed by the CLAC anti-capitalist protest downtown.

As workers, unemployed, students and tenants, our best defense against those who exploit and abuse us is solidarity. That is why the Industrial Workers of the World (SITT-IWW Montreal) invites you to gather and fight together in Parc-Extension on May 1st.

Our struggles are multiplying on several fronts at the same time. Just like the attacks on us. Strikes and lockouts are muted by the power of the courts, the public sector privatizes and burns its employees, our wages stagnate while our rents increase, racist speeches become commonplace to the delight of the ruling class. Holding the G7 paralyzes a complete region for wealth and power to move the planet. And all that, while the bosses and politicians share the profits.

But no matter what, we fight! Community groups take to the streets to denounce social inequalities. Tenants from working-class neighborhoods are mobilizing against gentrification. Women denounce and take public space with #MeToo. Anti-racist solidarity networks are multiplying to counter the rise of the extreme right. Nurses say, “Enough is enough!” and refuse to wear themselves out in silence. The most precarious workers are organizing and solidarity is on the rise.

We are not as isolated as bosses and politicians would like us to believe. We are not just pawns that will vote and watch as the bosses decide our fate. We fight to make ourselves heard. And that’s why we must go beyond corporatism, stand together and make the bridge between our struggles, that’s our strength!

It is with this spirit of solidarity that the SITT-IWW Montréal invites you to demonstrate on Tuesday, May 1st, in the Parc-Extension neighborhood, on the occasion of the International Workers’ Day, to chant all together: WE ARE NOT ALONE!

We invite all unions, groups and organizations to endorse our call and write to us.

Tower Defence: Holding Space Against the Far-right

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Apr 032018
 

Anonymous submission to Northshore Counter-Info

On Sunday, March 25th, various far-right groups from South-Western Ontario organized what they called a “Patriot Walk” up Locke St. in Hamilton. This was ostensibly a show of support for small businesses on the street who had their facades shattered during a mini-riot a couple of weeks earlier. The far-right hoped to capitalize on bourgeois outrage in Hamilton to put forward their ultra-nationalist form of anti-leftism, but their internal disfunction and overall shittiness, along with antifascists in the area being on point, led them to failure at every step of the way. First, their internal discussions in preparation for the march were leaked on Anti-Racist Canada the week before their event was scheduled to take place. This included a bunch of typical crap about how tough they are, but also developed into a discussion of paying a visit to The Tower, Hamilton’s anarchist social space, that had already been attacked several times in the weeks following the riot on and around Locke. Their plan for Locke seemed to be to walk up the street en masse buying things at shops while not flying their more obviously fascist symbols, just sticking with the Canadian flag. For The Tower though, they seemed more intent on initiating a confrontation.

The ARC text spread widely throughout Hamilton and led to a significant mobilization in response. Hamilton Against Fascism (the local arm of the RCP  started to channel mass anger against the Trump election and the far-right) called a counter rally for the same location as the Patriot Walk but an hour earlier so they could claim the park. The Hamilton District Labour Council and their group Shut Down Hate also called a rally that in solidarity with HAF’s counter-demo that advertised the possibility of staying on the sidewalk away from any possible confrontation.Although anarchists in Hamilton have attended HAF rallies, we mostly haven’t chosen to organize around them. Although we have different reasons, we aren’t very excited about antifascism as distinct from other anarchist practice and especially not with the demo/counter-demo ritual. On this occasion though, with the direct threat against The Tower, many anarchists in the city decided to organize to defend the space.

What follows is based on several people’s experiences of the day, from doing intel in the park through defending The Tower during two attacks by fascist groups.

It seems like the ARC text substantially disrupted the far-right’s plans; some of the organizers seemingly didn’t even show up. As well, local organizers with the Soldiers of Odin privately called up some people and arranged to meet an hour earlier two kilometers away. About a dozen of them gathered with flags at the south end of Locke, visited a few places and posed for a photo op. They were claiming victory on the internet before their scheduled march even started. Even certain prominent far-right activists like Ronnie Cameron didn’t know about the change of plans and were left hanging.

A couple groups of pals were at Victoria park for the demo and counter-demo; some arrived early and stayed separate from the march to identify attendees while others participated in the counter-protest. The crew that stayed separate wanted to gauge the numbers and energy of the far-right in order to assess the threat on The Tower, as well as to follow different groups in order to get good photos and record license plates. At first, they described the park as being pretty disorganized, with no clear camps, but when HAF showed up with their signs and banners, people there for the counter-demo quickly flocked to them while others literally rolled up their Canadian flags and left (while being photographed and followed). It seemed there were a few dozen “patriots” there for the rally, but they never succeeded in gathering.

When it became clear that the far-right wasn’t going to rally at the park and had gathered at the other end of Locke, HAF tried to march up Locke St and a crew went with them. The march was prevented from moving any further south than King though by a massive police deployment. One person described it as the largest police deployment they’d ever seen in Hamilton. This was a surprise because in spite of the typically fairly rowdy demos in town, police had been fairly hands off since the scuffles on May Day 2014 when the police repeatedly charged with their horses. The Hamilton police were reinforced by cops from Waterloo region and Toronto, with about a hundred of them out.

“I started paying close attention to the cops because they were more interesting than the demo, which felt vaguely uncomfortable from the moment I’d joined it – something and yet nothing to do with the large police presence. As the demo moved, we were flanked on the right/south side by bike cops and on both sides by ERT/riot police carrying plasti-cuffs. Police cars, prisoner transport vehicles and more riot police in carter vans followed behind, most times at a distance. As we’d approach an intersection or other opportunity to move south, the flanking bike cops would move into position in front of an already existing and positioned police line comprised of ERT/riot police who would exit from Carter 10-passenger rental vans, and mounted police. By the time we were halfway to the next opportunity it would already be blocked off. […] We had zero chance of out-pacing them in this regard – which left out-maneuvering or brute force if we were serious about getting to Locke street, both unlikely to succeed based on the various participants comforts, experience and goals resulting in a very tentative, unusual energy.”

The crew that stayed back split up, sending some people up to Locke, but the folks who stayed behind also described the tentative energy of the crowd. At one point, some HAF people tried to push through a police line and they saw about ten or fifteen people immediately leave the march. About a hundred and fifty people attended the counter-demonstration(s), and although that’s great to see, that so few of them had any street experience and that a significant portion of them weren’t prepared to go against the police should give us some pause. The counter-demo model has succeeded in mobilizing crowds of people at different times and definitely represents a step forward in terms of building an analysis of the far-right, but when it comes to going beyond symbolic protest, very few are prepared to do more than hold signs. It’s also just a funny situation where so many people came out to oppose a group that was seeking to support businesses vandalized by anarchists. It’s been a complicated month.

To my knowledge, this is the first time riot police have been deployed in Hamilton in the last twenty years and it’s worth considering why they chose to bring out such a response. Likely it’s that stories of police being driven back by rioters, unable to defend the rich on and around Locke, have put them on the defensive and they needed to at all costs prevent another disturbance in that neighbourhood (home to several local politicians and city planners). As well, the police were also tasked with managing the Around the Bay race that day, which led to them calling for reinforcement from Toronto, where deploying riot police preventatively is standard practice.

Soldiers of Odin at Donut Monster

The most notable image of the day though didn’t occur near the park, but was rather a group of literal fascists, the Soldiers of Odin, known for the anti-immigrant neighbourhood patrols and their fixation on Norse mythology, happily buying donuts from Donut Monster. Donut Monster was the most successful out of Locke St businesses damaged in posing as tragic victims in order to attract clients, and every politician in the city raced to take a selfie in front of their boarded-up windows. Their owners, good liberals all around, advocating “Refugees Welcome”, opening their doors to a fascist gang stands out as a demonstration of the contradictions embodied in the whole silly “support for small business” campaign.

Meanwhile, across town…

There were people at The Tower all day, starting from about 11am. Although the far-right march was scheduled for noon, we were concerned that the ARC post would cause them to change their plans. As well, we’d seen stories from the US where fascist crews, organized for confrontation, became more dangerous after the rally they’d come to attend was canceled or shut down. We had at least thirty people in the space all day, anchored by locals.

Through all the “post-Locke” shit storm, The Tower’s line has been that nothing changes – anarchists in Hamilton have always stood for unpopular ideas that included direct attacks on the property of the rich and we never expected to be loved by them or their defenders. There was a full day scheduled for Sunday and The Tower didn’t intend to change a piece of it: open hours from 12-5, Feminist Action Hamilton had a meeting from 5-7, and the screening of the new episode of Submedia’s Trouble was from 7-9. So rather than close the (now reinforced) doors, we prepared to confront the far-right in front of the space.

Various groups from out of town dropped by throughout the day to offer support, and though the mood overall was a bit tense, we had lots of food and defending a space for 10 hours is a great way to get to know the people there with you. As people arrived, we talked over the plan as it stood – if the people out front saw the far-right coming, those inside would come out and set up a reinforced banner in front of the stairs. A few people were on point to be on the front line in de-escalation mode, insisting that the far-right isn’t welcome here and that they should leave, while others would stay behind them to back them up should it go in a more physical direction.

The police started obviously positioning themselves throughout the neighbourhood around noon and the Proud Boys showed up around 1pm. About 7 of them approached from the west and we confronted them as planned. About 10 minutes after their arrival, a group of about a dozen disorganized Soldiers of Odin arrived from the east. It’s possible this was their attempt at a flanking maneuver, a response to a facebook post made by HAF after a previous demo about the importance of strategy. This post seems to have really bothered some of the military-obsessed far-right clowns and I guess this was their chance to show they could have strategy too. But unfortunately, when one side of the pincer shows up way later than the other, the effect is somewhat blunted. As it was, the Soldiers of Odin’s main contribution was to be outraged that we were blocking the sidewalk, because what if someone with a scooter needed to get through.

The police deployed in enormous numbers at this point and as the whining about the sidewalk only increased, the police escorted those very proud boys and those heroic soldiers of European society through the foot-wide section of sidewalk we weren’t using, through the intersection and up the street. They were weirdly hands-off with us, barely even trying to speak with us (which is just as well as we wouldn’t have had anything to say), not even to comment about how we were all masked, which is technically illegal during anything considered a protest.
It seems that at this point all the fash went back to Charlene O’Farrell’s house over on Tisdale St South, took a group picture in front of a swastika, then got very drunk.

Hours later, Feminist Action Hamilton was meeting in the backroom at The Tower planning some workshops when they heard the banging on the window, dropped their discussion, masked up, and prepared to confront a crew of drunk Proud Boys, most of whom are from Brantford, Ontario. These guys at first claimed to be there “just to talk” but that quickly degenerated into gross misogynist invective from Tim Kelly, ranting about how tough he is from Joey Broken-Nose, and some true stupidness from Nazi-sympathizer-turned-Proud Boy Filip Zetilov about the white race and how we were betraying its legacy of conquest. Most of the far-right groups in Canada aren’t fascists – this article does not use those terms interchangeably. The Proud Boys, at least here, have generally just presented as far-right liberals, in that they want to push for anti-immigrant, anti-women politics within a more authoritarian electoral framework that limits the defensive rights of historically oppressed people (their “freedom-from) in favour of the freedom-to of those groups that have historically benefitted from injustice. However, their rhetoric on Sunday was clearly a more open fascism – calling for leftists to be killed, women to be raped and returned to the kitchen, championing race and conquest as a basis for social order, glorifying the apartheid government of South Africa… We tried to use the same strategy of solidly and calmly refusing to let them pass, but they insisted on escalating things and we ended up in a fight. I don’t say this to be like “they started it!” as if it’s somehow more virtuous to fight back than to throw the first punch. I say this because our goal was to avoid a fight even before we saw the police presence in the city that day. The Tower is our space in our own neighbourhood and though we masked up for the day, we’re here all the time and are well known to folks around. All this also meant we weren’t going to back down, but we would have preferred if those drunk losers just let of some steam spouting their garbage and then left.

So they got their fight. We had each others’ backs, the people most in the thick of it did great and it’s always satisfying to see someone who just called you a race traitor get punched in the face a few times. Big gratitude to the people who stepped up and took the physical risk to fight these assholes. The cops, who were still waiting in the neighbourhood, intervened again at this point, arresting two people as the Proud Boys and Soldiers of Odin took off up the block. Those arrested were quickly released, with Joey earning himself a ticket for public intoxication in addition to the busted face. The Proud Boys then hung around in a parking lot nearby video taping themselves for a while before Joey, concussed and just having been ticketed for being super drunk, hopped in the drivers seat and gave his scintillating reflections to Ronnie’s camera during the drive home. One of the most surreal parts of all of this was the collision between far-right politics and reality TV. The Proud Boys at least seemed to be mostly there just to star in Ronnie Cameron’s live stream, and Ronnie was constantly shouting out things like the number of people watching live and others there would stop yelling racial slurs to turn and do an aside into the camera as though they were preparing for a challenge on Survivor. To engage with people, whatever their ideas, for whom the representation of their actions on the internet is so much more important than the value of what they’re actually doing is very depressing, but when it’s an avowed white nationalist like Ronnie running the show, it’s positively vile. Let this disgusting spectacle be a lesson to all those who attend demos to film or take pictures rather than participate fully, lest you end up like Ronnie Cameron deleting videos you just spent hours making because they reveal you to be a fool.

News of the scuffle spread quickly online and lots of new people dropped by to help defend the space, including a sizable crew from HAF who made the effort to come out in spite of already having had a long day. It all wrapped up just in time for the screening of Trouble, aptly on the subject of revolutionary organizing against patriarchy. About fifty people stuck around for the screening and discussion while some Tower regulars went and chatted with the neighbours to explain the situation.

We encouraged everyone to leave in groups and make sure they weren’t followed and set a meeting time for a few days later to debrief and think about what we could do better or differently in the future. Because although the day was a fiasco for the far-right, it doesn’t mean they won’t try something annoying like this again.

Against the rich and their defenders!

Solidarity with Montpellier: No fascists on campus

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Mar 312018
 

From BASH-UQAM (Facebook link)

Antifascist comrades from several Montreal campuses joined together recently to express their solidarity with students in struggle, in Montpellier and elsewhere, who are facing the fascist scourge.

Whether on our campuses or in the street, fascists are not welcome.

Fuck fascists everywhere

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Mar 312018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

During the night of March 18th, as a response to the Soldiers of Odin going out to promote themselves during the Saint Patrick Day’s parade, we destroyed the car of the provincial president of the S.O.O., Kathy Latulipe. We found her gray HHR Chevrolet, (licence plate W69 K2M), parked in a small street in the Villeray neighbourhood. We painted “FUCK S.O.O.” on the side, smashed out all the windows, and slashed all the tires.

That same night, we also smashed out all the windows of the car belonging to Montreal director of S.O.O., Stephane Blouin. We found his blue CX5 Mazda, (licence plate G54 HTB), parked in front of his house at 2553 rue Fletcher, in East Montreal.

A few days later, we doled out the same treatment to Simon Arcand’s car. He’s the amateur videographer for the S.O.O. We found his car parked in front of his house at 4965 rue Laurentien, in Drummondville.

Soldiers of Odin is a racist and fascist group. They have no place in this world, and we will fuck with them every step of the way, by all means necessary.

Fuck fascists everywhere.

[Pictured from left to right: Stéphane Blouin, Kathy Latulipe, Simon Arcand]

2018 Anticapitalist May Day – corner of Sherbrooke/Amherst, 6PM

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Mar 292018
 

From Convergence des luttes anti-capitalistes (CLAC)

Now as before, they are rich because we are poor.

The financial masters of the Western world and seven of their political puppets will meet later this year at la Malbaie. They will fight to continue the exploitation of the global South and the pillaging of natural resources. The G7 will be a magnificient circus, paid for by our own exploitation. Paid by those who break themselves at work, by cut to social services, to education, to healthcare, to human dignity. A circus which will encourage free work given by unpaid internship, which will support the staggering profits of real estate moguls forcing us outside our homes. A circus whose sole goal is to promote an immoral statu quo. Imperialism and colonialism will be celebrated, at the expense of those who produce most of the world’s wealth. But it is not too late to fight back.

We cannot stop to dream for a better world. There will be hope as long as there are people dreaming of solidarity between all people. Our duty is to quench the flames of hate, and to carry that dream to everyone. Facing despair, it can be easy to turn against each other. After all, our neighbors are easier to reach than our exploiters.

This ease is taken advantage of by shameless profiteers, which exploit the divisions between us all to flee with their ill-gotten loot. For an ounce of political capital, fake news are published against migrants, hiding the awful exploitation they face in their home countries from quebec and canadian companies. Bombastic statements are made for the rights of native peoples, but noone gets offended when they get assassinated in plain day by notorious racists. People get worked up for the free speech of idiots spreading calls for genocide. Obvious lies are distributed at face value, from a smiling far-right who hides its assault rifle.

They are rich because we are poor. Two years ago, 130 persons owned as much as half the poorest of the world. Last year, this wealth was within the hands of 85 persons. This year, they are only fifty. Fifty misanthropes, isolated, which try to shove their vision of the world down our throat. Fifty against the whole world. We might be poor, but at least we are poor together.

After 132 years, there will be, once again, an anticapitalist MayDay, because this world is still unjust. But, unlike those fifty rotten leaders, we will come together in solidarity.

On May 1st, 2018, we meet at 6PM on the corner of Sherbrooke and Amherst!

Time and place: 
Tuesday, 1 May, 2018 – 6PM

Poster and flyer: 
PDF icon affiche_v3.pdf
PDF icon tract.pdf

Treaty Camp: Security Shows Up at the Blockade

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Mar 292018
 

From subMedia

Update from the Treaty Camp blocking Alton Gas in so-called Nova Scotia. Security guards hired by the company went to the camp and attempted to serve Mi’kmaq water protectors with verbal PPAs (trespassing warnings). People a the camp let them know that this is stolen land, and folks mobilized quickly in support of the water protectors.

Demonstration Against the Police in Maniwaki

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Mar 282018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

As part of the week against police brutality, the Outaouais region mobilized like every year to create a series of events denouncing the violence of the Gatineau police and the SQ. This year, community organizations from the region and activists also decided to rent a bus to go to Maniwaki in support of two families that have faced the violence of SQ officers. In 2015, Brandon Maurice was killed, shot by an SQ cop, and in 2018, a friend of the Maurice family, Steven Bertrand, was shot in the dead by a courthouse guard who refused to let him leave to smoke a cigarette.

We chose to say loud and clear that the police is nothing but an instrument of the state that abuses its power, all while protecting the rich and fascists.

In Maniwaki, as in many regions patrolled by SQ pigs, it’s young men just out of police school that end up in these postings they don’t want. These assholes show up in these regions, knowing nothing of their reality, which doesn’t interest them. As a result, in Maniwaki as elsewhere, the cops are cloaked in impunity when they murder, bully, and systematically profile the most oppressed. We refuse the colonial attitude of these cops just as we refuse silence on the disappearances and assaults on indigenous women.

All we have left is to defend ourselves against the police. We have no confidence in them, nor the justice system, nor their fraternalist deontology.

Fuck the police state that represses poor and marginalized people and political activists. Fuck these armed pigs that enforce a climate of social insecurity. Fuck the guard dogs of the state, the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system. Antifascist as long as necessary, and until they have disappeared absolutely: NO JUSTICE NO PEACE, FUCK THE POLICE!

Hamilton: What Are We Fighting For?

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Mar 272018
 

From Northshore Counter-Info (anonymous submission)

I rarely read fiction. I regret that truth and so every few months, when I get given a book of dystopian sci-fi or imaginative history, I stumble through it halfheartedly. I know that fiction has a lot to offer in terms of expanding our realm of possibility, of inspiring creation of new worlds. Someone near and dear to me once advocated for changing my reading habits by explaining that non-fiction changes what we know but fiction changes how we think. And yet, I find myself falling back into the practical guides for non-monogamy, the exposés of political corruption, the treatises on decolonial feminism. I’m driven by the internal desire to dismantle systems of dominance and hierarchy. If I can learn enough about them, maybe I’ll be better equipped to aid in their destruction. Theory to practice to theory to practice.

Of course, I don’t have to choose between fiction or non-fiction. I can let my tastes and desires ambulate between the two genres. Perhaps one day, when the problems of the world feel less urgent, I’ll gravitate towards the creative potential of fiction. But for me, right now, things do feel immediate. And grave. And aggressive. I feel as though there are battles to be fought on all fronts and me and my comrades are standing back-to-back in a circle with swords drawn. To those who say this rhetoric is alarmist, I say you’re not paying close enough attention. Or maybe living too much inside your bubble.

My politics mean a lot to me. I take them very seriously. A casual friend date with me nearly always involves discussions of autonomy or gentrification or land reclamation. I most often have weeks where I have more organizing meetings than alone time. I won’t partner with someone who doesn’t share my principles, primarily because I need to be able to confide in them and lean on them during the inevitable periods of my life where state repression will play a role. I live and breathe my convictions. But my beliefs aren’t a static set of ideas, they’re a dynamic and beautiful tapestry of truths that evolve with the introduction of new information and experiences. The only constant in this world is change, and that’s a good thing. I want this world to change.

While sometimes victory shared alongside friends shifts my politics by figuring out what works, I’m more often changed by failure – figuring out what doesn’t. The root of transformation is conflict. Friendships become stronger when arguments are resolved and commitment to the relationship is confirmed time and time again. We have a name for those shallow relations who only stick with us through the good times – fair-weather friends. We have a tendency as people to shy away from what feels uncomfortable and lean into what feels nice. There is nothing wrong with this inclination and I believe we are well served by listening to our intuition. The problem arises when these sensations are then attributed a moral value. Happiness and harmony and calm are seen as “good” things and sadness and anger and discord are seen as “bad”, instead of simply two sides of a coin. There is no way to understand joy without despair. There is no way to know peace without conflict. Hurricanes serve a valuable purpose for the sea. Forest fires are very good news to blueberries, but less so to squirrels. It’s important to remember that creation often necessitates destruction.

I do not believe that we can build a society within capitalism that rejects hierarchy and oppression, or that said society would someday grow to naturally overtake the state resulting in an anarchist utopia. My visions of the future necessitate destruction of the current order. When I raise my fist at cries of smashing the state, I literally mean as much. Sometimes that destruction looks like taking down ideas, sometimes it looks more like taking down buildings. The world is going to change whether we like it or not, the only control we have is in shifting it’s direction. I am not afraid of a drastically different world or the transition and I’ll spend my life trying to convince others to embrace the unknown in the same way. It’s going to be okay, we’re in this together. So along we go as organizers, as anarchists, as friends, traversing the tricky terrain of putting thought into action. And then something happens. Specifically, the Locke St Riot. But we can speak about this in more general terms as well.

This isn’t the first time tactics and strategy have sown division in our circles, and – we can hope – it won’t be the last. I understand the reaction from the business class in Hamilton, and I understand the reaction of my fellow anarchists to the bloodthirsty and immediate embrace of mob violence. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay to seek safety. But it’s not okay to write off the action as bad, or the principles behind the action as bad, because you associate your feelings of fear and discomfort and confusion as bad. I’m not writing this to ask you to accept what happened uncritically as a show of solidarity. I’m writing this to implore you to step into the confusion as an opportunity to clarify and grow your own politics. There are infinitely interesting and important questions that arise in the wake of the Locke St Riot.

Feelings of discomfort are valuable tools in assessing where we feel unclear or inconsistent in our political analysis. They help us to identify what questions we need to be asking ourselves. Am I truly willing to see the property of the wealthy seized or destroyed? To what extent do I actually support the destruction of Canadian society? How much of my own comfort am I willing to sacrifice in pursuit of a new social order? And maybe most importantly, am I prepared to accept violence as part of the revolution? Because what happened on Locke St shouldn’t be reduced to simple property destruction. There were people eating in those restaurants and sitting in cars and those people were afraid. While there was no threat to their personal safety, they also had no way of knowing that.

These are concepts that I wrestled with in the days and weeks after the riot. I came to the conclusion that I was okay with a moment of social disorder that caused some people to feel afraid. To the larger questions, posed above, the answers would read: yes, totally, most, and yes. My politics do not condemn violence as universally bad, as never the answer. My politics see the rich being afraid as inevitable. These are unpopular answers with a large segment of Hamiltonians. Living a politic that sees as much value in destruction as creation is a difficult position. And at some point putting those politics into action is going to lose us the favour of huge swaths of the population. Not everyone in this world stands to gain from a future free from oppression. Redistribution means taking from the rich, not waiting for them to give it up willingly. Direct action means doing it ourselves. And before you get ahead of me, I’m not trying to say that everyone needs to mask up and loot Locke St or lock down to a bulldozer. All revolutionary work is important, including that which remains behind the headlines. I am, however, saying that we need to remain committed to our politics and to each other even in times of great turmoil. Especially in times of great turmoil. That means not jumping ship as soon as liberals pick up pitchforks. It means not throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It means defending our spaces and our ideas. What happened on Locke St wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t some glorious moment of revolution. It was messy and provocative and emotive. It was human. And it wasn’t about creating a new world in the same way that the majority of our organizing is. It was about the urge to destroy that which oppresses us, to fight back, to defend against the gentrifying onslaught on our neighborhoods. It was about creating space. Because that is the role that destruction plays in creation. It creates space for new ideas and conversations, and sometimes new buildings, new societies, new life.

It is possible to defend destruction in its own rite. But I would argue that it is easier in the context of protracted struggle. As someone who is committed to lifelong anarchism, I see moments of destruction as necessary to make room for the project of creative growth. I can even see them as beautiful. But maybe underneath it all, what happened on Locke St makes you uncomfortable because you see the downfall of capitalism as a lofty aspiration and not a real goal. Perhaps you realize, on some level, that you would be satisfied with more equitable treatment and access under the current system. That what you are really fighting for is a bigger piece of the pie. I argue that those are feelings you have a political responsibility to explore. If you decide that your unease with the riot was grounded in a belief in pacifism, then argue it. But maybe you realize that you’re just a little scared. Scared of coming to terms with what your politics really mean. Scared that living your beliefs will inevitably lead to the loss of your security. It’s okay to be scared. Fear can cause us to freeze and it can cause us to run, but it can also cause us to fight. And that is what I’m asking for. Don’t pontificate on social media, don’t denounce The Tower, don’t try to force anarchism into a pacifist box – step into the struggle and hold your friends tight. Talk about tactics. Sharpen your politics. Prepare yourself for what comes next.

A recent article in the local news ended with flimsy conjecture about the meaning of the flaming, crumbling tower that acts as the symbol of our local anarchist social center. With just a bit of digging, the author could have discerned that it was a reference to The Tower tarot card. A card that represents upheaval. The flaming tower embodies a moment of reckoning for an order built on false pretenses. It represents a revolutionary moment that clears the way for something new to rise from the ashes of the old. It is conflict embodied. It is something we should all embrace. For the problem isn’t the existence of conflict, but our inability to process it in a healthy and constructive way. Moving through conflict together is what builds trust. It’s what builds communities. On the other side of conflict is connection, commitment, and courage. I’m going to keep fighting because it’s what I believe we need right now. We need to make space. But know that I hope to live to see the day where the need for destruction has passed, where the oppressive systems which keep us down and divided have been dismantled, where we have space to create new worlds. I hope you’re standing next to me. I hope to imagine fantastical utopias and see them as possibilities. I hope to read fiction.

A Window Smashed at TVA after March 15th

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Mar 262018
 

From Corporate media slightly altered, anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

The TVA building was the target of an act of vandalism over the night of Thursday to Friday [March 16th]. A window facing De Maisonneuve Boulevard was shattered. A good reminder that possibilities of attack don’t exist only in demos, during which it is not always easy to act due to the large numbers of cops.

Just before 3:30am, three masked individuals walking on the boulevard broke the window using blunt objects, then rapidly left the scene.

The police does not yet know whether the incident is linked to the demonstration organized by the Collective Opposed to Police Brutality, which took place Thursday evening.

G7: Jus Parabellum – The Teach-In!

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Mar 262018
 

From the Réseau de résistance anti-G7

Saturday, April 21, 2018 – 09:30 to 17:00
2149 Mackay

The teach-in will take place on Saturday, April 21st, from 9:30AM to 5:00PM at the SCPA, at 2149 Mackay (near the Guy-Concordia subway station). The planned schedule is:

  • 9:30AM : Opening of the doors ;
  • 10:00AM : Room 1 : Anticapitalism and G7 ;
  • 12:00PM : Dinner ;
  • 1:00PM : Room 1 : Street medic Introduction Workshop / Room 2 : Legal Self-Defense Introduction Workshop ;
  • 3:00PM : Room 1 : Safety in Protest Workshop ;
  • 5:00PM : End.

Note that the workshops will take place in French. A self-defense (Muay Thai) workshop will also take place, but you must first confirm your presence at rrag7-legal@antig7.org

“Jus para bellum” or, literally, “just, prepare for war”. If we do not know the total costs of the 2018 G7 Summit taking place on June 7-8-9th at La Malbaie yet, the sole cost of security will reach at least 300M$. All this money could have supported our miserable public services, so how can we react when we see all this spent on repression and control, solely to fight us?

We can only hope that the Summit protests will go well, that the G7 leaders will have no other choices than to listen to us and to take seriously the future of humanity, instead of the massive capital gains of businessmen and businesswomen which follow them like dog shit. But to see all this money spent on military hardware, on spying on people, on propaganda to justify repression, this dream for a fruitful G7 might only be wishful thinking. The G7 leaders are getting prepared for war, there is no place of the naïve, we must do the same.

Therefore, the Réseau de résistance anti-G7 (RRAG7) organize a teach-in day for the people interested in getting prepared to protest the G7 Summit. The objective of this teach-in is to inform everyone on their rights and what they can do to protect themselves. We will be happy to transmit the basic tools to confront the State and its two arms: the police and the judiciary system.

The G7 leaders are fighting us, let’s fight the G7 leaders,

The G7 leaders are fighting us, jus para bellum.