While people can participate in demos with their crew, sometimes it makes sense for crews to act together in a contingent or a bloc. The form chosen should fit the context. Here is a collection of tips for acting within demos - some are applicable more broadly, others are more specific to a bloc. The way a demo moves can determine its outcome. While there are situations where moving quickly can be strategic, running blindly in a panic is the worst thing people can do. The police often attempt to disperse rowdy demos, and being able to hold our ground, not panic, and fight back is crucial. ...

Instead of hoping for a bureaucratic organization to do something for us, we can take our lives into our own hands by self-organizing. The formation of a crew is a step in this direction. A crew is a collection of close friends that trusts one another enough to organize together. This means having shared intentions, ideas, and practices, having each other’s backs, and never talking to police. In other words, this means sharing affinity. Some people refer to crews as affinity groups. While who is in your crew can be somewhat flexible depending on what you’re trying to do, it does imply having people with whom to consistently participate in social struggles and develop a more long-term term strategy. It often involves sharing your day-to-day life and knowing people well. This means knowing what is shared, but even more importantly, knowing where real political differences exist. ...

It’s clear that this is no longer just about tuition hikes. The tuition hikes go hand in hand with new user fees for health care, and rising rents, food prices and electricity rates. The tuition hikes come in the context of condos taking over our neighbourhoods, evictions and expropriations for the sake of “development”, immigration officials deporting our neighbours, cops shooting people in the street, and the imprisonment of friends and loved ones. Austerity measures are coupled with increasing repression. Law 78, an attack on the right to organize collectively, is only the most recent example of this. Over 2500 people have been arrested during the student strike and some of them have been exiled from Montreal until their trials. ...

The month of June, 2012 marks two years since the G20 summit in Toronto and the courageous resistance shown to it. It also marks the sentencing of our comrade Charles Bicari to seven months behind bars for smashing the windows of two police cars, two stores and an ATM with a hammer. To mark the occasion, we spent a few evenings spreading anti-system and solidarity slogans with the G20 prisoners in the streets of Montreal. ...

The train signals system was turned on by sabotaging the electric box that controls the signals near an intersection, which eventually prompted the train traffic to be suspended for a moment. This location was carefully picked up, not only for the easy task it was, but above that for the crucial nature of the merchandise it transports, including a lot of filthy oil coming from the tar sands in the West, before this sole railway divides into different destinations such as Sherbrooke city, Bromont’s techno-park (which hosts some of the biggest names in the high-tech industry, including the infamous IBM) and further down on to New England. ...

On Friday, January 6, 2012 the Montreal police killed Farshad Mohammadi – a homeless man and Kurdish political refugee – in the metro. This killing is horrific, but not surprising. The police as an institution exist to maintain power and enforce a social peace necessary to keep capitalism in motion. To this end, they consistently suppress those who don’t, can’t, or choose not to fit into this system. ...

Two banners were hung in Montréal in solidarity with the G20 prisoners. Solidarity with the G20 prisoners / Tear Down the Prison Walls was hung from a building on St. Catherine street downtown. Solidarité avec les Incarcéré(e)s du G20 / Propageons la Révolte (Solidarity with the G20 Prisoners / Spread Revolt) was hung in the St. Henri neighborhood. Flyers were scattered at both sites, and further distributed in the metro system and on the street in the following days. We hope this counter-information action brings a smile to our locked up comrades. ...

Print 8.5 x 11″ | PDF (formatted by Sprout Distro) Contents: The Formation of Crews: A Tactic in Expanding Our Strength and Autonomy Occupation: a do-it-yourself guide Universities as Spaces of Subversion Security Awareness Street Demonstration Tips Why Wear a Mask? Paint Bombs Further Reading

A few reflections on the GAMMA squad Word on the street is, there’s a new police squad in Montreal called GAMMA - short for “Guet des activités et des mouvements marginaux et anarchistes” – whose goal is to investigate and repress anarchist and marginal movements. The following is a series of reflections on this development from a few anarchists. Needless to say, it’s not meant to be representative, but is rather our own analysis of this situation, and can hopefully stimulate some discussion amongst our various circles. ...

On Friday, May 18, 2012, two new laws came into effect in Montréal. Their purpose is to stifle the anti-capitalist revolt that has grown from the more-than 100-day-old provincial student strike. The first is the municipal by-law that forbids the wearing of masks during any demonstration with the penalty of a $1000 -$5000 fine (additionally, if the Federal government’s proposed law comes into effect, wearing a mask in a ‘riot’ could result in up to 10 years of prison). The second is the provincial government’s Special Law (Loi 78) that requires any public demonstration to submit itself to meticulous control by the police to avoid being declared ‘illegal’. Any leader, spokesperson, or rank-holding member of a student association that blocks access to classes or counsels others to do so will be subjected to a fine ranging between $7000 and $35,000. ...

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