Holding in my heart: each and every person (except the police) who was at a music festival in the Weelaunee Forest one year ago today. Those performing. Those dancing and reveling. Those resisting. Those doing logistics and care. Those mourning Tortuguita. Those savoring moments of reinspiration and respite, joy and connection. Those looking out for others.
Especially those brutalized, arrested, and detained that day, and now facing heavy yet absurd charges.
Cops ruin everything, from March 5, 2023, in Atlanta, to yesterday among Appalachians Against Pipelines, to March 5, 2024, in Gaza, to all the days in between.
Courts aren't any better, even when they purport justice or rule something "a genocide." Prisons and militaries, states and borders, continue apace, churning out death.
We know this.
(At this point in human history, everyone should.)
What we too often overlook amid the despair, intensity, and trauma of these times is: we are the ones who make music. Even when it feels a whisper. Or when we feel as if we're humming alone or singing aloud with only a few friends. Our tunes float from forests and rivers to mountains and seas, in melodic forms that no cop, court, or country can see, hear, or comprehend. They take the shape of everything from rituals of resistance to jail solidarity and collective defense, to our many imaginative direct actions, dreamy do-it-ourselves spaces, mutual aid through asundry disasters, and communal care, to our ability to find cracks of possibility even when their walls seem impenetrable.
Still, anniversaries can feel hard. Our bodies remember, even if our minds try to block them out.
Let's all hold all of those (except the cops) who were at a music festival a year ago in our hearts, and others grappling with the state's crackdown on @stopcopcity as a movement, until all the charges are dropped, #UntilAllAreFree—everywhere.
(photo: #ACAB Palestinian solidarity sticker seen recently on Stone Mountain in so-called Georgia; while they last, these stickers are free at @community_books_ga)
I could use some comradely help, knowing that at least some of you beautiful people will come to my aid.
I’m looking for print media contacts who, in turn, I can reach out to with a press release for a warm-and-fuzzy antifascist project. (Yes, sometimes we have wins here and there, including adorable ones!)
I’ll be sharing the actual project soon—stay tuned to my IG and you’ll hear way too much about it in the coming weeks. For now, though, I’m trying to get all the anarchic ducks in a row, so to speak, and that includes a solid list of radical, progressive, and friendly mainstream print media folks.
After all, who doesn’t need some good news these days, particularly when it involves kids, possums and a unicorn, and metaphorically in this project, beating fascists at their own game? (How’s that for provoking your interest, even just a little bit?)
Email me (cbmilstein [@] yahoo) with any and all media contacts—the more specific, like solid writer and/or editor names, the better.
"Abolish private property" doesn't mean we're coming for your toothbrush. It means no one should be allowed to hoard the things everyone needs to survive and thrive. #Capitalism isn't a law of physics. It's a human decision. We can make other decisions.
The police officer is the most prominent example of a simulacrum in modern society. Cops as most people know them not only don't actually exist, but they never did. Most people learned everything they think they know about cops from a torrent of pop culture copaganda that never reflected reality.
Die Zusammenarbeit mit Cops und sei es nur mit einer einzelnen ist für mich unvorstellbar. Spätestens dann bin ich raus und meine Solidarisierung ist dahin.
I'm an #anarchist 🏴 because #systems of coercive #authority have never been anything more than protection rackets. People with #power have always violently robbed us while claiming that what they steal is payment for protecting us, but they've always been the ones who hurt us the most.
Today's #police officers with guns and tanks are no different from the feudal lords with swords and horses of centuries past. It's all just gangs of armed men stealing what the rest of us build and lying about honor and service and the need for protection they don't even provide.