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

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Stop the Imminent Deportation of Lucy Francineth Granados in Montreal “Sanctuary City”

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Mar 232018
 

Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info

At 6am on Tuesday morning, 20 March, CBSA burst into the home of Lucy Francineth Granados, an undocumented woman very active in the Non Status Women’s Collective of Montreal. The CBSA officers used completely unnecessary force, injuring Lucy’s arm, which is visibly swollen. Lucy is currently in the Laval Detention Centre and faces imminent deportation to Guatemala. A detention review hearing was held Thursday at 12:30, with a support rally outside.

They refused to release Lucy. They plan to deport her on Tuesday, 27 March. We must redouble our efforts!

Protest Friday, 23 March at noon at City Hall: Plante speak out!
https://www.facebook.com/events/349480625555973/

Solidarity Across Borders and the Immigrant Workers Centre are calling on Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale to suspend the deportation until Lucy’s pending immigration application is accepted, demanding that Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen accept her immigration application before she is deported, and asking Mayor Valérie Plante and the City of Montreal to publicly support Lucy and stop her deportation in light of their Sanctuary City policy.

== Background ==

Lucy is the sole financial support for her three children. They live in Guatemala with their grandmother and depend entirely on the remittances sent by their mother for all their basic needs (food, shelter, school fees, etc.). If Lucy were deported, her children would immediately lose their sole source of financial support.

After being threatened by the Maras, Lucy traveled alone through Mexico on the infamous La Bestia train to the US and later to Canada, her husband having died. Her refugee application was refused but she remained in Canada undocumented in order to be able to continue to support her children. She has lived in Montreal for 9 years.

Last summer Lucy filed a humanitarian application for permanent residence in an attempt to regularize her status. In January, a CBSA officer informed her lawyer that Lucy’s file would not be studied unless she turned herself in to face deportation. However, Canadian immigration law says that the Minister must study all humanitarian applications inside Canada; the CBSA officer’s misrepresentation was illegal. Neither Immigration Canada nor CBSA have responded to her lawyer’s request to clarify the situation and activists are calling on the Minister to investigate the CBSA officer and bring charges if warranted (1), fearing that such actions could prevent undocumented migrants the possibility of regularizing their status.

According to Immigration Canada, Lucy’s file is in fact being evaluated, and a response would normally be expected imminently if she were allowed to remain in Canada. Unless Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale intervenes to suspend the deportation, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen expedites processing of her file, or the City of Montreal takes its responsibility seriously, Lucy will likely be deported before her file is determined.

Source: Solidarity Across Borders and Immigrant Workers Centre

Contact:
solidaritesansfrontieres -at- gmail com

Background: www.solidarityacrossborders.org

 

March 25: Anti-Racist, Family-Friendly Demonstration in Quebec City! Get on the Bus From Montreal!

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Mar 212018
 

From Montréal-Antifasciste

Anti-Racist, Family-Friendly Demonstration in Quebec City!
Sunday, March 25, 2018

Get on the Bus From Montreal!
Buses leave at 9am and return in the evening.

Community groups in Quebec City are organizing a family-friendly Demonstration Against Racism this coming March 25, part of a Festival Against Racism. Quebec City has been a center of activity by anti-immigrant, racist, far-right groups and protests, but local community groups continue to take to the streets to denounce racism, hatred and intolerance. Let’s join them in solidarity and support, as part of a Quebec-wide movement.

Transportation from Montreal is being organized for this coming Sunday. We will leave at 9am sharp and return in the evening. We ask for a $10 to $20 donation to help cover bus costs, but this is sliding scale, so pay-what-you-can (no one turned away).

-> Please reserve a space on the bus at the following link BEFORE this Friday, March 23 at 1pm: https://goo.gl/forms/IUQTuzPBcbnMNvms2 <-

We will only reserve a bus (or buses) if there are enough pre-reservations, so please reserve in advance.

The full callout for the Quebec City demo is included below (in French).

– The Montreal-Quebec City Transport Collective
(contact: solidaritesansfrontieres@gmail.com)

+++++++++

Manifestation familiale contre le racisme (Québec)

fb: www.facebook.com/events/2063643907215982/

Le RÉPAC 03-12, le Comité populaire Saint-Jean-Baptiste et le Festival contre le racisme s’associent une fois de plus pour appeler la population à participer à une manifestation familiale à Québec le 25 mars. Marquons la fin du Festival contre le racisme en prenant la rue pour lutter contre la montée du racisme.

Trop longtemps nous avons laissé grandir la peur de l’autre, le repli identitaire et les préjugés. Nous ne pouvons plus détourner le regard ou faire semblant de ne pas entendre. Entre la xénophobie à l’endroit des demandeurs et demandeuses d’asile Haïtien.ne.s, l’attentat à la mosquée de Québec et l’annonce de l’annulation de la consultation sur le racisme systémique, nous pouvons nous inquiéter et nous indigner. La responsabilité nous incombe à tous et à toutes de prendre la parole afin d’arrêter la dérive.

Le dimanche 25 mars, Place d’Youville à 13h, joignez-vous à nous!
Unissons-nous contre le racisme!

Ont signé cet appel :
1. Regroupement d’éducation populaire en action communautaire de Québec et Chaudière-Appalaches
2. Comité populaire Saint-Jean-Baptiste
3. Bail Québec métro
4. Maison des Femmes de Québec
5. Carrefour d’animation et de participation à un monde ouvert (CAPMO)
6. La Table de concertation du Mois de l’histoire des Noirs de Québec
7. Union des Africains du Québec et amis solidaires de l’Afrique
8. Association générale des étudiantes et étudiants du Cégep Limoilou
9. Le Syndicat des professeur-e-s du Collège François-Xavier-Garneau
10. ROSE du Nord
11. L’Union étudiante du Québec (UEQ)
12. Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ)
13. Le Filon
14. Regroupement des groupes de femmes de la Capitale-Nationale (RGF-CN)
15. Centre des femmes de la Basse-Ville
16. Réseau des EtudiantEs NoirEs & Afro-DescendantEs de l’Université Laval
17. Ligue des droits et libertés – Section Québec
18. Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU)
19. Association de défense des droits sociaux de la Rive-Sud (ADDS Rive-Sud)
20. Comité des citoyens et des citoyennes du quartier Saint-Sauveur.
21. Mouvement d’éducation populaire et d’action communautaire du Québec
22. Collectif pour un Québec sans pauvreté
23. AmiEs de la Terre de Québec
24. Conseil central de Québec Chaudière-Appalaches (CSN)

Les groupes qui souhaitent joindre leur voix à cet appel à la mobilisation peuvent le faire en écrivant à repac@repac.org.

 

Disruption of the Parc-Ex Borough Council Meeting to Denounce Gentrification

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Mar 192018
 

From Parc-Ex Contre la Gentrification (Facebook)

On March 13, we went to the Villeray-St-Michel-Parc-Extension borough council meeting in order to prevent the elected officials of the borough from granting Ron Basal a permit to continue the development of his luxury apartment project in Plaza Hutchison. After the council refused to consider the appeal of residents in Villeray who opposed the Taxi Diamond condo project, we decided to disrupt the meeting, so that Ron Basal would not receive his permit. We were brutally forced out of the room by the police, and two people were arrested and charged. The borough council then approved the permit for the Plaza Hutchison construction, in an empty room, with Basal sitting in the front row.

We have pursued all of the available administrative and political channels, but those have only led us to an impasse. It is time now to take to the streets, instead of trying to work with a system we don’t believe in. If the mayors find this messy, that is too bad for them. We are disgusted, but not surprised by the lack of initiative, openness, and lack of political will demonstrated by borough mayor Fumagalli. Fumagalli has demonstrated that she won’t dare to take even the slightest risk in denying a simple permit, even when facing an issue with such grave consequences for the community. Writing a communique to say that she opposes the project, despite having voted for approving the permit, is an insult for the tenants of the building who have been evicted, as well as to the residents of the neighbourhood. She accuses us of making the council meeting unsafe, but the only weapons we had to oppose the police batons were toy trumpets and noisemakers. The two people arrested, brutally forced to the ground and handcuffed for having tried to make their voices heard would have also liked to feel safe.

We also reject Valérie Plante’s proposal to invest 17 million dollars in projects to promote “social mixity” in Parc-Extension. Social mixity does not benefit everybody; it’s just a polite term to make gentrification easier to swallow. In fact, such projects only result in the allocation of public funds to build housing for the wealthy- and actually furthers the process of gentrification by introducing them to “newly discovered” and “exotic” neighborhoods. We refuse to support the displacement of working class people of colour from our neighbourhood for the benefit of a new wave of richer and whiter inhabitants.

If the mayor and the councillors have thrown in the towel on this project, we cannot. We cannot abandon the struggle to preserve a community space that has been the heart of our community for decades. We will not allow gentrification in our neighbourhood. Together, we will continue the struggle!

March 15th: Anarchists Clash with Police

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Mar 162018
 

From subMedia

Anarchists clashed with cops during the march against police brutality. This was the 22nd installment of the march — and along with MayDay, it’s consistently one of the most militant demonstrations that takes place in the Canadian city each year. People attacked the cops with flag poles and fire extinguishers filled with paint. Corporate stores and banks had their windows smashed, but the police managed to protect the studios of TVA – a right-wing TV network that published a fake news story that stoked anti-Muslim sentiments in Quebec City. The police violently charged at the crowd, seriously injuring one person and arresting three. Three cops were also injured.

Two Queen Victoria statues vandalized with green paint

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Mar 152018
 

From the Collectif de résistance antiraciste de Montréal (CRAM)

[Early this morning, the Collectif de résistance antiraciste de Montréal (CRAM) received a weblink to an anonymous communiqué which is cut and paste and shared below, including video and photo links. We encourage you to share widely in your networks.]

Video: https://vimeo.com/260188932
Photo: i66.tinypic.com/9se2k7.png

March 15, 2018, Montreal — Two landmark statues to Queen Victoria in Montreal were vandalized last night, a few days before St. Patrick’s Day. Both the Victoria Memorial in downtown Montreal as well the bronze statue on Sherbrooke Street at McGill University were both covered in green paint. The statues were unveiled in 1872 and 1900 respectively, more than a century ago.

The presence of these racist statues in Montreal are an insult to the self-determination and resistance struggles of oppressed peoples worldwide, including Indigenous nations in North America (Turtle Island) and Oceania, as well as the peoples of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, the Indian subcontinent, and everywhere the British Empire committed its atrocities.

The statues are also an insult to the legacy of revolt by Irish freedom fighters, and anti-colonial mutineers of British origin. The statues particularly deserve no public space in Quebec, where the Québecois were denigrated and marginalized by British racists acting in the name of the putrid monarchy represented by Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria’s reign, which continues to be whitewashed in history books and in popular media, represented a massive expansion of the barbaric British Empire. Collectively her reign represents a criminal legacy of genocide, mass murder, torture, massacres, terror, forced famines, concentration camps, theft, cultural denigration, racism, and white supremacy. That legacy should be denounced and attacked.

We are motivated and inspired by movements worldwide that have targeted colonial and racist statues for vandalism and removal: Cornwallis in Halifax, John A. Macdonald in Kingston, the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, the resistance to racist Confederate monuments in the USA, and more. We are also inspired by the recent action in Montreal, in November 2017, against the John A. Macdonald Monument (background: http://bit.ly/2DtJgcd; video: http://bit.ly/2pdPA2s).

Our action is a simple expression of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist solidarity, and we encourage others to undertake similar actions against racist monuments and symbols that should be in museums, not taking up our shared public spaces.

Communiqué by the Delhi-Dublin Anti-Colonial Solidarity Brigade, shared anonymously.

No Good Cops

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Mar 152018
 

From subMedia

In the lead-up to the annual demo against police brutality, several vandals set out to remind everyone that the problem is not a few bad apples. Anarchists don’t want nicer cops, we want to abolish the fucking police. ALL. COPS. ARE. BASTARDS.

#ftp #acab #nogoodcops

From #HoMa to #HamOnt: The secret is to round up your loser friends.

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Mar 122018
 


Anonymous submission to MTL Counter-info. To donate to The Tower’s renovation fund, click here. 

These thugs are no better than the anarchists.

Don’t they know the financial burden that their vandalism will have on the Tower’s landlord?

Don’t they understand that boarded up windows will bring down property values in the neighbourhood around the Tower??

Engaging in this kind of violence just creates lawlessness, and legitimizes the destruction of private property.

When we heard that the Tower got attacked, we had to show our love. Not only because we love anarchist social centres, but because we also live in a city where (as far as we can tell) small hip business owners exist solely to steal your wages, fondle cops, and sell you overpriced shit sandwiches. Fuck the class traitors, fuck the gentrifiers, fuck the police, but still no fucks at all given to broken windows.

Imagine being so mad about another anarchist social centre getting attacked, that you round up your loser friends, cover your faces, and take a siiiiick photo in solidarity.

Staying Solid through the Flurry: An Anarchist Perspective on the Kirkendall Riot

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Mar 112018
 


Solidarity with The Tower! The Hamilton anarchist social centre has faced several attacks since the events on Locke Street. To donate to The Tower’s renovation fund, click here. 

Read The Tower’s statement on recent events here.

From North-Shore.info

I wasn’t there on Aberdeen or Locke that night. I don’t know who was, and I’m not interested in knowing who was. I don’t necessarily think it was the most strategic or timely action in Hamilton’s history of resistance, but I certainly don’t condemn it. Far from it. I think it was brave, I think it was well-executed, and I think it was a meaningful and justified act of political action against a neighbourhood that sits way too comfortably on a mountain of unearned privileges, and that flamboyantly basks in the luxuries afforded by a destructive and exploitative system.

What happened on Saturday night in the Kirkendall neighborhood was both complicated and beautiful.

That riot1 on Saturday has caused an absolute frenzy of activity in Hamilton, from face-to-face conversations to social media outbursts to organized acts of solidarity to a truly mobbish lust for punishment and retribution. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being invested in a police operation to catch the people who did it. The tower has been attacked 3 times in as many days. I have spent countless hours on social media, read every article in every media outlet, and talked with dozens of people about it. The profound failures of emotion, of reason, and of basic journalism in this town have been stunning. While my face-to-face interactions have mostly been filled with nuance, emotional vulnerability, and politically interesting conversations, I’ve found little but malignant nonsense online. I’ve had moments of feeling literally sickened by things I’m reading. People in this city are showing their true stripes, and it’s not pretty.

Tattered Relationships

I am an anarchist born and raised in Hamilton. By anarchist, I don’t mean someone who sits behind my computer and occasionally makes broad proclamations about politics, I mean I spend a lot of my time acting and organizing against all forms of unconsensual hierarchy, domination, and most passionately, against the pillaging and destruction of this planet. I despise with every fibre of my being the ecocidal, patriarchal, white-supremacist, capitalist system that has imposed itself on this world, and that has subsumed so many aspects of our lives. I fight against the tendrils of that world wherever I can find them.

I also spend a lot of time trying to nurture and build something different. Trying to build community around radical ideas (ones that address the root of the problems), to model those ideas in our relationships, in our organizing spaces, and in our various projects. But those kind of constructive projects have limits, because in truth the only way for us to meaningfully do any of those things is to resist and ultimately destroy the systems that dominate us. They’ve got police and militaries and extensive propaganda networks and jails and judges all designed to make sure that nothing different emerges. We can’t just build new worlds. We need to destroy the systems that prevent other worlds from existing.

I am also a part of the broader Hamilton community. Maybe I’ve served you a bottle of Export at a local bar/venue, maybe I’ve taken care of your disabled uncle, maybe we regularly chat while I buy apples from you at the farmers market or maybe I even sold you organic produce once when I was working on a farm. I have a thousand “community pals” in this city, people I say hi to and share a general sense of warmth and camaraderie with. I like that about living in Hamilton. In some ways it can feel nourishing and comfortable.

One of the things that really challenges me about the riot last weekend is the extent to which it’s fractured a lot of those relationships. People know my politics, and know I have some association with the anarchist scene in Hamilton, and already I can feel the chill. I’ve had three interactions with people since Saturday who suddenly didn’t want to say hi, didn’t want to share a moment of warmth with me. They’re too upset with anarchists. They need someone to blame so they’re blaming everyone they can link to that word.

It’s absolutely juvenile.

So yes, it hurts to think that my wider social fabric in this city has been tattered a bit. It feels less comfortable here. But here’s the thing about radical politics, the kind of politics that seeks to fundamentally change the way human beings organize themselves: It’s never comfortable. And that’s what the riot in Kirkendall is about for me.

It’s about making people uncomfortable.

It’s about bursting a bubble.

The Value of Discomfort

Let’s talk about bubbles.

The majority of North Americans live in a bubble of privilege; Generally speaking, the global north amasses its privilege on the exploitation of the global south. We benefit but we don’t have to see what happens on the other side. Settlers in North America live in a bubble of privilege amassed through the colonization of this land and the displacement, enslavement, and murder of Indigenous peoples. We continue to benefit from colonization, but we’re not often made to see the historical or ongoing impacts of it. White people live in a bubble of privilege amassed on the enslavement, exploitation and incarceration of brown and black people. Onwards and onwards.

Until we get to a neighbourhood like Kirkendall. Most of the people in Kirkendall live in a dense cluster of bubbles. A complicated and overwhelming mandala of unearned privileges2, colored with apathy and framed on all sides by bourgeois morality3. And it’s very very comfortable in bubbleland. We’ve all seen those mansions on Aberdeen, we’ve all seen the luxury cars parked on Locke, we’ve all seen the cupcake boutiques: the people in that neighborhood are living decadent and comfortable lives. Whatever sob stories they’re telling right now, just remember that they’re living larger than the vast majority of Hamiltonians. It’s not that they don’t care about other people or even systems of oppression – lots of them donate to charities and advocate for living wages and compost all of their organic waste. They’re just not willing to let anything disrupt the comfort of their bubbles.

I think it’s fair to say that the people in Kirkendall felt deeply uncomfortable last weekend. Something unpleasant snuck into bubbleland, wrecked havoc on some material objects, terrified some bystanders, and dissipated before those stealthy hamilton pigs could restore order and comfort.

Good.

How You Came to Care About A Doughnut Shop

Did I mention I hate capitalism? I hate the way it organizes communities into efficient work forces to funnel money up the pyramid. I hate the way it alienates us from our capacities and desires and forces us to commodify our passions. Capitalism forces us to rely heavily, if not entirely, on a system that is not only killing the planet, but is pitting humans against each other and rapidly stockpiling all of the wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. Everyday capitalism makes us serve the system that is crushing us.

Because it’s so pervasive, widespread and cutthroat, capitalism has colonized nearly every aspect of our lives. Everyday I make concessions to a capitalist system, not because I want to perpetuate it, but because it has literally stamped out every other option (exterminate the buffalo, toxify the water, displace and murder every non-capitalist community, use every conceivable method of torture to subdue rebellious populations, etc.). One of the most mind boggling and heartwrenching things about capitalism is that, because it has so thoroughly colonized us, it can cause an otherwise smart and creative human being to identify deeply with a silly business plans. That doughnut shop becomes more than just a way to survive in capitalism, it becomes who i am and what i stand for. We all need to hustle in a capitalist system to stay alive, to keep food on the table and heat in the ducts. Some of us come to identify with those hustles, some don’t. I feel really fucking sorry for the people who identify themselves so deeply with their hustles. There’s so much more to this life than the ways we navigate capitalism. There’s so many more interesting and urgent things to rally around and defend than broken windows in bourgeois neighbourhoods. Capitalism sucks the passion out of people and replaces it with an allegiance to a system that has been violently imposed on us.

For me meaningful passion can only exist outside of capitalism, ideally against it.

But Small Businesses!!!

One of the things that makes me laugh the most in the social media outcry this week is the assumed universality of consumer activism as a meaningful political strategy. 20 years ago leftists became really fixated on big businesses like starbucks and walmart as the main enemies in the battle against neo-liberal globalization. But since then a lot of us have realized that that is a horribly shortsighted and deeply unsatisfactory set of ideas. We don’t hate chain stores, we hate capitalism. We don’t believe for a second that better shopping habits and local organic grocery stores are going to help us radically redefine life on this planet. Those kind of approaches are placebos and security blankets for people who want to care about the world but prioritize comfort before all else. People who really like life in bubbleland but just want it to be more wholesome and less corporate. So they shop local, eat organic, bike to work. The bubbles remain unchanged, the decor is a bit more eco.

I believe that all employers are entering into an inherently exploitative relationship with their employees. Even the most respectful, well-paying, well-intentioned employer is rendering surplus capital from those they hire. I’ve been a boss before. I didn’t like it, but it was a good hustle. I didn’t come to identify with it, and if the people who worked under me ever organized against the company, I would have jumped ship on my position immediately and joined with them. I know where I belong when it comes to social agitation – aiming anger up the pyramid, not down.

Opening a small business is a hustle that inevitably perpetuates capitalism, and businesses geared specifically towards people with a lot of money (essentially every business on Locke Street) are actively shaping landscapes to be more accessible to rich people and less accessible to poor people. Gentrification is a word to describe class war – the endless movement of wealth in ways that rearrange spaces for rich people at the expense of poor people. Poor people are displaced, policed, pushed into more and more toxic environments, imprisoned, and forgotten. They are occasionally talked about by politicians looking to cash in on some of that sweet liberal sentimentality, but it never amounts to more than a few bed-bug infested low-income units and a photo-op.

People in Kirkendall and other privileged, middle-and-upper class neighborhoods in Hamilton never have to see the violent impacts of gentrification. They never have to feel the precarity, the fatigue, the terror, the frustration, the illnesses, and the despondency. They eat $5 cupcakes and read articles written by other affluent people about revitalization.

It’s not that anyone likes areas to remain poor. It’s not that we like derelict buildings or shitty fast food. It’s that moving wealth into a neighbourhood only attracts more rich people, it doesn’t fundamentally change the conditions of the people who live there. Because capitalism isn’t designed to float all boats, it mostly just becomes a process of shuffling poor people around based on the whims of rich people. Don’t be surprised when working class people stand their ground from time to time.

To Those in Kirkendall

When people attack your businesses they are trying to pop your bubbles. Make you uncomfortable. Tell you to fuck off. Because with every cent you move around your neighborhood you are creating and recreating a capitalist world that will always have poor people and that will always enact violence upon them. When people attack places like The Heather, a truly repugnant operation, it’s because that place is a Trojan horse filled with exorbitant food prices, evictions, and police.

Remember how it felt when your window got smashed? That’s how it feels for us when a rich business opens up on our block. It’s an attack. A window getting smashed is aggressive, the movement of capital is violent.

The world you are creating with your businesses may feel pleasent to you, it may create spaces that feel lovely and safe and eco to you, it may feel like part of some collective attempt to make the world a little bit better. To me and many others it is the opposite. Locke street is a nightmare. I want to fight against a world where that kind of bubbleland is possible. Where people can daily ignore their mountains of privilege while patting themselves on the back for all the hard work they put into their hustles. Because right across town are people hustling twice as hard and getting nowhere. Because right across town your friends and your money are helping to remake other neighbourhood in the image of this one. Your friendly, progressive bubble is exclusive, exploitative, and viral.

And if you came from a poor background, fuck you even more. Because there is nothing admirable about climbing the economic ladder and joining the apathetic upper classes. Under capitalism your upward mobility always comes at the expense of someone else. Always.

I have no doubt that it’s hurtful and scary and infuriating to have something that you poured a lot of time and energy into destroyed. Your car or your house or your business. I know some of you and I don’t think you’re all awful people. You’re just standing on the wrong side of a line. If you had any integrity or meaningful convictions you would use the attention brought on you this week to talk about your privilege, to talk about exploitation and poverty, to talk about capitalism, to talk about how revealing it is that people are willing to risk their lives to smash your bubble of comfort. Your sentimentality is garbage, your waves of solidarity from other rich and middle-class folks are nauseating, and your cries of surprise and confusion are laughable. If you’re surprised that people are angry about affluence, about gentrification, about bussinesses (big and small) that offer delicious organic treats to rich people while the rest of us wait in line at food basics for pesticide smothered produce, you’re not paying attention.

This world is literally on fire with people furious about the pyramid scheme of capitalism – did you think you were immune from those flames?

Staying Solid

For the lefties and radicals who’ve been running their mouths on social media: Do you remember who you were last week? I do. I remember you sharing that meme about how “The First Gay Pride Was A Riot”. I remember you glorifying uprisings all over the world. I remember you repping your “Riots not Diets” patches. I remember you swept up in drunken ecstasy at the radical hip hop show, chanting along to lyrics about fighting against capitalism, letting all of that hard hitting truth flow through your body and dissipate into a hungover burp the next morning. So what happened? Did it feel good to front a little political anger, to rep a little radical aesthetic? And now that the liberal peace of your corner coffee shop got ruptured you’re squealing all over facebook? Now that you know someone who owns a business that got smashed up you’re queasy about the idea of radically confronting capital? The truth is that an overwhelming majority of people who rep radical politics in some part of their life don’t actually stand for anything. They stand for edginess, righteousness, and for publicly absolving the guilt of privilege (white, middle-class, able-bodied, male, etc.). They venture forays into exhilarating forms of resistance, rarely put their bodies on the line, and almost never do anything that might actually threaten their long-term comfort, privilege, and stability. And in a way that’s okay. I’m glad to see who those people are right now. But I also know that’s not all of you.

Let me say this clearly: I think it’s okay if you don’t condone the tactics used on Aberdeen and Locke street that night. If you think it was pointless, unstrategic, or misdirected that’s fine. Let’s talk about that (in secure and respectful ways). But don’t let yourself be someone who dissolves like a sugar cube in a warm glass of liberal sentimentality over a small riot in a rich neighborhood. Step back from the newspapers, step back from social media, step back from your own community for a second if you have to, and ask yourself: where do you want to set your stakes in this kind of moment? Are you more angry about a group of masked people who made a significant escalation in a war against gentrifying businesses, rich people, and capitalism, or are you more angry about gentrifying busineses, rich people and capitalism? Even if you think the action was foolish, don’t let your response be another fucking voice in the shrill miasma of liberal nonsense. Stand by your own politics, and talk with the people close to you about your opinions. Just because people are scared, just because relationships are threatened, and just because you know someone who was affected, it doesn’t mean you have to check your opinions at the door. Doesn’t mean you need to distance yourself from things you held dear last week. Backing away from the radical scene now, backing away from your critiques of gentrification now – it’s true cowardice. Yes, it’s terrifying to speak out against the frantic current right now, when people are threatening to stab anyone who was involved; when friends and family are asking us invasive and accusatory questions; when hundreds of liberals and alt-right goons are tripping over each other to collaborate with the police (they always did make good bed-buddies); when it feels like small businesses are suddenly the most important and revered projects in the world. But you’ve been building a radical analysis of this world for years – I know you have enough pith in your values to withstand this flurry.

Stay solid. Don’t get wrapped up in the sentimentality. Speak your mind. And for fuck’s sake stop snitching. Talking to the police, insinuating to your friends or on social media that you know who did this, asking people to step forward, all of that is completely inexcusable behaviour that risks getting people thrown in jail for years. Remember jail? Remember that system of colonial repression that needs to be abolished entirely before any of us can be free? Right. That’s where people are going if you keep fucking talking. Are you really feeling that protective over those businesses and luxury cars, or are you just wrapped up in some toxic momentum? Next week the headlines will dissipate, the tides of social media righteousness will turn, and those of us who have been resisting systems of domination will continue to do so in solidarity with each other.

1 I’m using the word riot here even though people of all stripes will probably object. I’m describing 30ish people who met in a park in an affluent neighbourhood, beat back the police, and blasted music on the streets while smashing windows and hurling eggs in plain view of bystanders. If it wasn’t a proper riot, it was at least riotous, so I’ll use that word for convenience.

2 Unearned privileges, not in the sense that you don’t bust your ass for your paycheck, unearned in the sense that capitalism doesn’t afford everyone the same rewards as you for the same amount of work. Not unearned in the sense that nothing hard has ever happened to you, but in the sense that the opportunities and chances afforded to you are rooted in long histories of patriarchy, colonization, racism, etc.

3 e.g. the kind of morality that suppresses very real tensions in society with politeness, that uses the language of “equality” and “respect” to disguise gross imbalances of power, and that understands legitimate social action to be anything that doesn’t rock the boat.

Hamilton: Ungovernables and Yuppie Tears: A Saturday night on Locke St

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Mar 072018
 

From North-Shore.info

Text received as an anonymous submission

Every day — whether it’s the landlords charging ever more rent for ever shittier apartments, the boss pushing you to work harder, the business association lobbying for more cops, or just the Audi that cuts you off in rush hour — the rich make our lives worse. Every day we have to deal with their attacks on us, but every once in a while we can find a way to strike back.

On Saturday night, I met up with a group of people in the Durand neighbourhood, strolled along Aberdeen and up some of the side streets attacking the luxury cars and mansions we found there, making noise with a portable sound system and loads of fireworks. The march then turned down Locke and attacked as many yuppie businesses as we could before deciding to disperse. The police say we ran from them, but I didn’t see a single fucking cop after they were chased off up on Aberdeen.

To all the undoubtedly sincere and principled anti-capitalists on the internet who wonder why the Starbucks didn’t get smashed but all the poor, sweet small businesses did, it’s only because it was just a bit too far north. My one regret from the evening.

As the comrade Kirk Burgess explained on Twitter:

“Imagine being so mad about gentrification; that you round up some loser friends, cover your faces, and run riot in one of the city’s most affluent neighbourhoods. Throwing bricks at homes and businesses. You’re disgusting.”

That’s more or less it Kirk, me and my loser friends.

All my worst bosses have been small business owners — the problem isn’t the size of the business, it’s that the relationship is exploitative. When someone decides to be a capitalist, making money through their investments rather than through their labour, their position relative to changes in the city becomes fundamentally different. Gentrification, as an example: when rents go up, it means they make more money (rather than lose their home); when prices go up and rich people move in, it means a chance to sell luxury goods (while we work for minimum wage); when more police and surveillance come in, it secures your investment (while we get harassed and pushed out). They are getting rich because our lives are getting worse.

Sure, small business owners may work long hours, but even if I’m putting in 12 hour days next to my boss, and we both scrub the toilet, the fact that they own and I work means our relationship to the work is totally different. When business is good (or when they manage to crowdfund), they’re taking out a new lease on a car or signing a mortgage on an investment property while my check is eaten up by rent, bills, and the grocery store. I’ve got no option but to show up tomorrow while their ability to enrich themselves increases.

Fuck the rich. Fuck capitalists (even the ones who sell high-end baked goods). And to all of you who want to complain about violence, remember that the only reason these parasites get to keep their hands clean is because most often their attacks just look like business as usual.

Should we continue writing letters hoping Jason “I-want-an-Apple-store” Farr will do something? Or believing that somehow Andrea Horwath will stop kissing the Locke St BIA’s ass? Or we could trick ourselves that the solution to economic oppression is more innovative startups, or charity? Should I just keep smiling at the rich jerk in hopes that he’ll give me a bigger tip?

Locke St was downtown’s first gentrified street, its “success story” as Mayor Fred might say, the surrounding neighbourhoods the first to see the rent hikes that have since come to dominate so many of our lives. Turning the tables and finally counterattacking Saturday night helped me to shake off some of the fear and frustration that build up when you’re trapped in a hopeless situation. May the rich remember that they are still within the reach of all the people they fuck over.

Mainstream media links:

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/03/04/mob-dressed-in-black-damages-vehicles-smashes-storefronts-on-hamilton-street.html

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/hamilton-mob-mischief-1.4561615

Announcing North-Shore.Info in So-Called Ontario

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Mar 072018
 

From It’s Going Down

The following is an announcement for a brand new counter-information website, North-Shore.Info, in so-called Southern Ontario, Canada.

North Shore Counter-Info is a platform for publishing news, analysis, and events, as well as facilitating discussion and encouraging collaboration. We aspire to provide a space for strategic reflection, engaged critique, and thoughtful debate from an anarchist and anti-authoritarian perspective in Southern Ontario.

In the spirit of overcoming isolation and creeping feelings of hopelessness, we want to build stronger regional networks by sharing resources, publicizing activities, and putting us in communication with each other. In absence of trusted and well-used spaces to share information, it can feel difficult to build intentions, seek out accomplices, and take action. Without platforms to exchange radical ideas about the current context in our towns and cities, it’s easy to be discouraged from putting in the work to build an analysis of what’s possible here. The limits of social media and corporate news are huge, and their logic completely counter to liberatory discussion.

By no means will a website fix all these problems, not even close! However, we believe that creating a shared infrastructure for communication is a small step towards developing new ways of relating to each other and understanding our place on this land. In doing so, we hope to contribute to building a decentralized and creative force capable of meaningfully pushing back against the state and capital in this area.

Where we are:

Geographically, North Shore Counter-Info is based out of and primarily concerned with the north shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario – from the Detroit river to the mouth of the Saint Laurence, as well as further north up to the shores of Georgina Bay and along the Ottawa river. Put differently, this is the area from Windsor and Sarnia in the West, across London, Hamilton, and Niagara, through the GTA and extending to Ottawa and Cornwall in the East, not forgetting Kingston, Barrie and Peterborough along the way. There are more than 12 million people living in this area, spread over 140 thousand square kilometers.

This area encompasses the traditional territory of a dozen or more indigenous peoples, including Ojibwe, Haudenosaunee, Chonnonton, Wyandot, Mississaugi, and Algonquin peoples. Some of these peoples were decimated during colonization, while others were displaced to reserves in or near their traditional territories. There is enduring resistance by indigenous groups and individuals throughout the region, ranging from negotiations with the state around land claims (such as the massive Algonquin land claim in Eastern Ontario) or for treaty recognition (such as the 1701 Nanfan treaty with the Haudenosaunee) to defense of particular lands or opposition to specific toxic industries (such as in Aamjiwanaang First Nation), to broader challenges to the existence of settler-colonial society. Colonization and indigenous resistance are a crucial part of our local context, and we evoke it (briefly and incompletely) as a reminder that as we conspire to resist this knowledge must be at the forefront.

Who we are:

The collective behind this site are anarchists, meaning that we organize ourselves based on autonomy, solidarity, and mutual aid, and in opposition to all forms of domination. Although we don’t see this project as exclusively for people who call themselves anarchists, we believe that anti-authoritarianism is a key part of any struggle that interests us. This means we aren’t very interested in attempts at replacing one powerful person with another, building ‘the party’, or in reforming the current economic and political systems to be more equitable and representative.

We’re excited about struggles in which people build their capacity to self-organize horizontally, without leaders, and take direct action. That is, struggles where people do for themselves what they want to see happen, rather than petitioning to outside forces or pressuring the powerful to do it for us.

There’s not tons of content on there yet, but with your submissions we can build a platform that can support and connect projects across Southern Ontario.

https://north-shore.info