@Ilovethebomb@RightHandOfIkaros The higher level politicians are better defended. It is often necessary to strike at targets that are both high value and soft. For every general secure in their fortress there are a dozen war profiteers just begging to be dragged to the front to clear their own mines.
@Ilovethebomb@ThatWeirdGuy1001 Some protests are instead designed to raise the cost of an abusive behavior so the rich ruling class will buy less of it.
Don't waste time trying to speak truth to this kind of power, speak power to oppressors instead. Make sure they understand that we can match ANY level of escalation on their part.
This is how we killed Huntingdon "Life" Sciences: the public already opposed vivisection, but vivisection was on both sides of the ballot.
@CrypticCoffee
As for me, I will never, ever use any site that demands a drivers license or a face scan to get on. I'd sooner totally disconnect from the open Internet and move all my work to the darknet only.
@CrypticCoffee Counter to that is obvious: DO NOT USE legal access modes, use Tor instead and access only sites that "block" the UK instead of complying.
Hopefully most porn sites will do exactly that, like Pornhub already did to US states that demand driver's license uploads (including Utah and Arkansa). When they attempted to comply with such a demand from Louisiana, open traffic from there dropped 80% and presumably VPN and Tor access jumped.
This told all porn sites that it's not worth the programmer time to even attempt to service legal traffic from such jurisdictions. Block non-Tor/non-VPN connections and enjoy immunity.
Best of all, it only takes ONE jurisdiction on the whole planet that won't censor porn to make these measures globally ineffective. Crack anywhere, play everywhere. This gives new meaning to saying "fuck you" to the government.
Any attempt by the UK to block Tor will fail: China can't reliably block it, and the Great Firewall of China has far more resources than "Hadrian's Firewall." Trying to jail people for using Tor would be nearly as difficult and would also face the legal obstacle of jury nullification. This will go the way of the failed 21 drinking age and 55 mph speed limits in the US.
As governments try to crack down on porn, on dissent, and on criticism of their Great Leaders, the clearnet will be of declining importance (possibly used only for shopping) and the darknet will become more important. Embrace the power of the darknet...
@tetris11 Slow yes, but if you download videos rather than stream them, slow is much less of an issue.
Even the US is not capable of watching all Tor exit and guard nodes. The UK sure as hell is not. The Torproject by the way is always looking for and decommissioning malicious Tor nodes, so the risk to any one user is low.
The usual way to attack a Tor user is to get them to connect to Tor to destination site you have compromised with javascript ON, then send a malware installer to the real target's computer. The installer then downloads a rather standard payload that tells the computer to phone home on a non-Tor connection. The widely reported 2013 incident used a Windows-only payload, today they probably add iOS and Android. Stock android that is. If it was reasonably practical for cops to see through Tor they would not put so much effort in seeing around it instead.
Things like the Silk Road takedown were very time consuming and labor-intensive, and required a lot of old fashioned exploits and unskilled admins at the targets. In other words, Tor, Signal, anything else running on an untrusted device also become untrusted. Silk Road was still brutally difficult for the cops, and that was a major, motivated investigation that unlike UK or Utah porn cops wasn't going to run into a stone wall of non-extraditability or lack of jurisidiction on someone with zero local "business presence."
BTW, do not use Google Fiber to connect to Tor to use Google privately, because if you do, Google can see your device directly(being your ISP), and see the one exit node they are talking to, allowing a confirmation attack.
The "RICO" charges against the heroes of Stop Cop City are one of the worst attempts to bury our people alive in the dungeons of the US since the failed J20 prosecutions stemming from Trump's first (and hopefully only) Inauguration.
At J20, the Enemy sought to prosecute all who were trapped in the kettle on identical charges whether they smashed a Starbucks window, marched in the Bloc, or were a legal observer. No distinctions were made.
The single most important factor in defeating this prosecution was solidarity: NOT ONE PERSON took a cooperating plea or otherwise snitched. Jurors knew a vote to convict was a vote for Trump, and prosecutors gave up after one slam-dunk acquital, two hung juries, and being sanctioned for submitting video that had been tampered with as "evidence." They had no other evidence, the judge had disallowed their "Pinkerton Liability" as a sanction going forwards, so prosecutors threw in the towel and dropped all remaining charges.
The J6 prosecutors learned from this, and charged J6 fash with individualized offenses limited to those who either entered the Capitol or used physical force on the cops.
Now in Atlanta prosecutors are going back to collective punishment, this time using a RICO act meant for use on things like the Mafia. Normally I would call this a declaration of war, but that ship sailed when they murdered Tort. This is the murderers of Tort, back for another bite at people's lives. They are saying "we are going to crush all opposition to racial and predictive policing no matter what it takes."
The start date of the "conspiracy" is named as the day George Floyd was murdered, even though that took place over 1,000 miles from Georgia and Cop City was first proposed as an answer to the Uprising.
They think if they use enough force and brutality they can deter all future counterattacks against Cop City and police brutality alike. Deterrence however only works if people expect to be arrested or otherwise detected. That mostly works on candlelight vigils through civil disobedince not physical direct action. As I've said a million times before, if protest is outlawed, only outlaws can protest.
Let's look at the past record of Cop City cases. Number of arrests for any kind of physical direct action after the complete defeat of police and destruction of the construction staging area on March 5: zero.
Instead, they arrested music festival participants-CIVILIANS. Same collective punishment used by the US in Vietnam and Russia in Ukraine when military defeats and embarassments (e.g Kerch Bridge) were answered with air raids on cities.
Now, with the project reeling, Atlas Consultants driven off the project,and Brasfeld and Gorrie under siege, once again they have zero arrests for any individualized act of physical direct action whatsoever. Instead, they engage in the lawfare version of terrorism, striking again at the same defendents victimized by prior arrests unrelated to any form of underground direct action. They are just like Putin, and they are fishing with grenades for something they can never catch on hook and line.
It is also possible this indictment has as its main purpose "balancing the scales" with white GOP voters after the indictment of Trump for essentially the same offenses.
As much of a gangster as Trump is, even he should have been charged with insurrection and (in Georgia) with offenses related to election tampering without invoking RICO laws out of the (money making illegal business) context they were written for. Use of RICO in any political context (even Trump) sets dangerous precedents, though nobody expected this would only take days to bite everyone.
Book burners scream for removal of disfavored books at Polk County School Board Meeting
On the 5th of September, at a sparsely populated meeting of the Polk County, FL school board, book burners came out of the woodwork. They are working from a script by so-called "Moms4Liberty" in which they find a book with the most "pornographic" passage they can, and read it out of context in school board meetings seeking to get the books banned. One of them even whined about how Polk County is behind many other counties in banning books!
They were countered by LGBTQ speakers, one of whom called them out as the Nazis they are, warned of the danger posed by the GOP's "Project 2025," and called out school board member and felon Rick Nolte for his role in recent Fascist proposals before the Board
Bayside Blvd in Tampa got flooding enough for water to enter some houses. This is one of the lowest lying parts of Tampa. Storm surge peaked at LOW tide, so the city caught a break. Still plenty of streets flooded and that sort of stuff.
Area that took a direct hit is lightly populated-but heavy on mobile homes. We have to worry about the safety of those who stayed, AND about the safety of the lands of those who evacuated from redevelopment
Official word on the storm is to forget evacuation and shelter in place if you are in the bullseye: time has run out if you are a "day person" as by sunrise the storm will be coming ashore at maximum power.
Unstated in this is the viability or lack therof of a night evacuation on near-empty roads as the rains and winds ramp up. Once it gets heavy drivers cannot safely exceed 35-40mph, though to simply go from the shoreline to an inland city that should be enough. To get north into Georgia via I-75 to higher ground from Big Bend may still work if and only if you leave NOW.
I should be OK where I am, over 100m from the point of impact, but we have heavy rain and some lightning where I am. If waterlogged ground lets go of a tree with weakened roots anything can happen. A Cat 4 is no joke
Jacksonville protest against Saturday's racist murders calls out DeSantis as a Nazi
On Monday the 28th of August, what was to be a commemoration of MLK's March on Washington in Jacksonville, FL instead turned into a furious protest
against Saturday's murders-and of Fl Governor Ron DeSantis. The Governor is being considered responsible for the shootings. He is being called out for all but soliciting the murders with his steady drumbeat of racist laws and propaganda.
Marchers and speakers called ou DeSantis as a racist, a white supremacist, and an out and out Nazi. While march organizers asked everyone not to engage any counterprotesters or hecklers, not a single Proud Boy or member of any other fascist group other than the cops dared to show up openly.
On Sunday, the 27th of August, Fl Governor Ron DeSantis had the nerve to shot up at a vigil for the three African-Americans murdered by a white nationalist the previous day. He was roundly booed for as one speaker at the Monday August 28 rally described, "offering thoughts and prayers with the same mouth he used to fan the flames of white supremacy."
DC Drag Defenders hold ground, defeat attempt by street preachers to push through
On the 26th of August, drag defenders kept a sold-out drag show at Aunt Helen's in Washington DC safe, defeating an attempt by hatemongering street preachers to invade at least their space if not the venue behind them.
Defenders deployed umbrellas to shield families with children from the potentially doxxing cameras of the Christian extremist preachers and their allies.
Near the end of the show, the attackers crossed the street and in what appears to have been a determined attack started pushing and attempting to break the line of defenders. Several umbrellas broke under the assault, but determined defenders held the line. The show was uninterrupted, and all attendees and performers kept safe.
It seems that street preachers and Christian hate cults are playing a major role at least on the East Coast if not nationwide in harassing drag shows and Pride events. It was hate preachers from another "official street preachers" style outfit that showed up on August 13 at an all ages drag event in Lakeland, at St Petersburg, FL Pride, and assaulted a child at Pasco Pride again in Florida.
Far right, Nazis show up as Polk County School Board kills proclaimations.
The proposal to eliminate ALL proclaimations from the Polk County, FL school board passed with the extreme right supporting and LGBTQ+ activists objecting.
LGBTQ+ activists called out they hypocrisy and religious bigotry of those favoring the vote to abolish all proclaimations so as to avoid the Pride proclaimation. One also called out the felony committed by School Board member Rick Nolte. He accepted an over $5,000 cash campaign contribution, a 3ed degree felony in Florida. As expected with ruling class "just-us," his punishment was a $1250 fine.
One of the hard Fascists was photographed in the seats wearing Nazi Germany's 1939 Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds. Probably the Nazi equivalent of a store bought SEAL trident as the actual medal was awarded only ONCE and five more captured by US troops. While the wearer did not speak, the swastika in the center of the Iron Cross in this medal makes his loyalties clear.
Video begins with videographer arguing with a DeSantis, pointing out that DeSantis (as a theocrat) is to the right even of the Nazis, and that an attempt to impose a Christian Nationalist theocracy would end in civil war. Right-wingers were later reminded by the same videographer that they would be fighting a war of choice with nothing even to gain, while their opponents fight a war of survival.
Not only is it essential to remove this, but this one looks like it might be worth tearing down for parts useful in things like pirate radio transmitters.
I didn't know the cops were THIS clumsy, I could do better myself putting a tracker on a Proud Boy's car
Lakeland, FL drag defenders DEFEAT Christo-Fascist attempt to halt drag show
On the 13th of August, one of Momma Rose's drag shows proceeded unobstructed inspite of attempt by two Christian nationalist groups to besiege and halt it.
Defenders held the property line, forcing the police to keep the attackers at bay on the sidewalk. One was using a bullhorn, unlike others using bullhorns at protests in Lakeland he was NOT arrested, only ordered to shut it up.
Two main groups showed up: some out of town Fundies from Oklahoma, and the same Christian nationalist cult that assaulted a child at Pasco Pride back in February.
Some of the latter have a considerable history of violence, including an open sexual assault case. One said "I like pushing people" and proceeded to do exactly that.
Also present was a 3%er militia member who admitted to being present at the J6/2021 assault on the US Capitol.
Florida's climate change amplified heat and sun proved more powerful than their alleged faith, and they soon began to melt away. When the last of them left, the drag show was still going on strong, with none of them getting in. All of the drag show attendees and the Queen got in and out totally unopposed.
Christian Nationalists threw everything they had at this drag show short of bats or firearms, and they were utterly defeated. Their objective was to halt the show, the show was totally unobstructed, so they lose and we win.
On Monday, July 10, Atlas released an official corporate statement that they were no longer working with Cop City.
They are the third corporation to dump this project like the hot rock it is, after Quality Glass and Reeves Young Construction quit much earlier in the campaign.
Protest held for Tampa 5 at the courthouse before court hearing on the case
On the 12th of July, protests were held all over the US for the Tampa 5, who were beaten, arrested, and charged w felonies for a peaceful protest at the University of S Florida on March 6.
One of these protests was directly outside the courthouse, and the defendents spoke to the rally before going inside for what sounded like a status hearing.
The original incident was a brutal police response to a peaceful protest inside the University of S Florida President's office.
Despite many videos of the police brutality, prosecutors attempted to offer a plea bargain where the victims of the brutality would be expected to "apologize" to their uniformed assailants. All of them refused the "deal." In response, additional felony charges were laid on, increasing maximum theoretical prison time for some of the defendents to 20 years.
The Tampa 4 case, the Florida 4 case, and the Tallahassee Occupy warrants are all trial runs for wholesale repression of all peaceful protest in Florida-and nationwide. DeSantis is a Fascist, and this is what Fascists do. Only thing is, if protest is outlawed, only outlaws can protest.
Stop Cop City protesters force Mayor of Atlanta to cut a speech short
On the 29th of June, Weelaunee Forest's defenders showed up at a speech given by Atlanta's Mayor Andre Dickens at a firehouse. As protesters chanted and peppered the Mayor with questions, he abandoned his speech, cutting it sort.
In possible deference to this being at a firehouse, "if we don't get it burn it down" was reverted to the older "if we don't get it shut it down."
This is similar to Climate Defiance actions in DC and elsewhere that have forced much of the Biden cabinet to flee or cancel public appearances, in one case hiding behind a row of garbage trucks
On June 23, U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell issued an injunction against enforcement of FL's drag ban while the case goes through the trial process. He stated this law is " specifically designed to suppress the speech of drag queen performers." This is not the end of the case, but it means the legal challenge is deemed to have merit and like so many pre-Dobbs abortion bans will likely be struck down without ever having been enforced.
You hear that Chris Nelson? You hear that DeSantis? We are going to have drag tomorrow in St Petersburg Pride, and there is NOTHING you can do about it!
Many cities and counties have cancelled Pride events in FL due to Gov DeSantis's blustering threats and the drag ban he rammed through Tallahassee (effective July 1). Not Polk Pride in Lakeland: Polk County's LGBTQ community stood their ground (as other FL law calls for...) and defied the Governor's threats with a full featured outdoor drag show. The only interference came from Christian fascists who did not arrive until after the drag show was over.
Same Christian Fascists who assaulted a child at Pasco Pride show up at Polk Pride
On the 17th of June, a Pride festival was held at Munn Park in Lakeland, FL. The same street preachers from a Christian/Fascist cult who assaulted a child at Pasco Pride back on Feb 4 were back, and again attempted to disrupt the event.
The Fascist train did NOT run on time, they arrived after all the drag performers had finished. That's right DeSantis, we had a drag show outdoors in public at Polk Pride and there's nothing you can do about it! Fl is a "stand your ground" state-and that's exactly what Polk County LGBTQ+ folks did on June 17.
Chaos in Miami, protester charges motorcade after Trump's arraignment on 37 Federal felonies
The scene in Miami was quite the zoo, with someone reminding everyone that "Trump threw the J6'ers under the bus" and DC's own Nadine with a "Trump indicted" banner calling for locking him up forever.
There were fights and showy scenes like someone with a fake pig's head with a US flag in it, but the star of the show was a heroic warrior who burst forth from the crowd as Trump's motorcade was leaving and blocked the road.By his own reports about 20 cops tackled him but his point was made. He was in 1930's style jail stripes and even a mock ball and chain.
Miami and the world got a break though: with Trump indeed having thrown the J6'ers under the bus, not enough Proud Boys and 3%'ers showed in in Miami to do anything about the indictment much less launch another coup attempt. Although one counterprotester had to threaten to draw a gun to deter a group beating, no serious physical violence occurred.
Just enough Proud Boys and Moms4Liberty goons went to Miami to permit pro-LGBTQ speakers to control the floor at the Polk County School Board's meeting that night, which was supposed to be a major Fascist target.
Defenders of Lakeland Women's Health Center protest ribbon cutting for fake clinic next door
Antiabortion extremists have developed a nasty habit of opening fake clinics loaded with Bible propaganda next to abortion clinics. On the 16th of March, one of these fake clinics next to Lakeland Women's Health Center in Florida held a ribbon cutting ceremony. The ceremony drew an angry and noisy protest from defenders of the legitimate clinic.
The pairs of real and fake clinics are becoming reminescent of the pairs of opposing castles that were often built along European rivers that formed front lines between contending powers, especially in France. All clinics in places like Florida with religious extremists dominating the state government are effectively under siege.
THIS is Rod Webbe's video of himself confronting the entire Patriot Front unit en route to Boston's "Satancon" on a subway train.
One warrior vs the whole Fascist mess, locked in a subway car for a verbal cage match that could easily have become more.
Originally posted to Birdchan but finding it there took me (and potentially you) hours due to Elon Musk turning off search access for those not logged into Twitter accounts. I refuse to hold an account there, would sooner treat the server as down as I do Facebook.
Police tech isn’t designed to be accurate — it’s made to exert social control (truthout.org)
Just Stop Oil activist jailed for six months for taking part in slow march [UK] (www.theguardian.com)
UK porn watchers could have faces scanned (www.bbc.co.uk)
Looks like UK is going the same way as a few states. Spare a thought for us. So messed up this increasing surveillance state.