Anarchists in Washington, DC

Helping to Organize the DC Metro Area to Mobilize and Shut Down the Democratic and Republican National Conventions

The inaugural meeting of DC’s Unconventional Action chapter will be hosted to talk about the response, mobilization, transportation, presence and – most importantly – action of people from DC and the surrounding areas.

*WHEN*: Sunday, March 16th at 2:00pm
*WHERE*: Mt. Pleasant Library
3160 16th Street, NW
(downstairs big meeting room)
close to Columbia Heights Metro

What is Unconventional Action:

Unconventional Action is an emerging network aiming to complement the work of local organizers in Denver and the Twin Cities with regional organizing throughout the rest of the country. Our goal is to build a horizontal, inclusive framework for protests that will disrupt the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions. We are currently organizing meetings, propaganda, and consultas in our communities and encourage those in other regions to do the same.

via DC Anarchist email list

On February 28 in Lane County Circuit Court the re-sentencing hearing for Jeffrey Luers took place in front of Judge Billings. This followed an Oregon court of appeals ruling in February 2007 that Luers original sentence of 22 years 8 months by Judge Lyle Velure was illegal, and the appeals court remanded the case back to Lane County Circuit Court for re-sentencing. Following the appeals court decision, negotiations have resulted in the decision today to reduce Luers sentence to 10 years, bringing his release date to late December 2009.

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Stop Using the Phony "War on Terrorism" to Criminalize Free Speech!!

An Injury to One is an Injury to All!!

Jamie "Bork" Loughner, a housing activist, and disabled worker, who has relied on public housing for safe and affordable shelter, was arraigned on a politically inspired charge of possessing a false explosive device in Orleans Parish Criminal Court on January 29th, 2008. The Orleans Parish District Attorney filed the felony charge against Loughner in response to her participation in the December 19th protest that temporarily halted demolition of public housing apartments at the B.W. Cooper Housing Development in New Orleans. The demolition work at Cooper is part of an ongoing plan by HUD, the New Orleans City Council and the New Orleans Mayor — and the real estate and other corporate interests they represent — to destroy 4,500 easily made habitable public housing apartments in storm devastated New Orleans.

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Please join us for a publication celebration for Jules Boykoff’s new AK Press book, Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States.

Friday, February 8 at 8:00 pm ~ free
Bridge Street Books
2814 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20007

Bridge Street is located in Georgetown next to the Four Seasons Hotel. Five blocks from the Foggy Bottom Metro (blue & orange lines). Call (202) 965 5200 for more information.

Jules Boykoff is the author of Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States, The Suppression of Dissent: How the State and Mass Media Squelch USAmerican Social Movements (Routledge, 2006), Once Upon a Neoliberal Rocket Badge (Edge Books, 2006), and Landscapes of Dissent: Guerrilla Poetry and Public Space (co-authored with Kaia Sand, Palm Press, forthcoming). He lives in Portland, Oregon and teaches political science at Pacific University.

Escape Empire Presents:

Friday, March 7th - doors 7:30 p.m. - show starts 8:15 p.m.

Ghost Mice (Plan-it-X Records)
Erik Petersen (of Mischief Brew)
plus two more to be announced!

St. Stephens Church
1525 Newton Street NW, Washington, DC 20010.

$5-10 sliding scale to benefit Briana Waters
sponsored by the Brian Mackenzie Infoshop

The night before the 2008 National Conference on Organized Resistance

Escape Empire Anarchist Event Series presents:
A talk and discussion with Cindy Milstein:
Anarchy in the USA: The Love-Hate Relationship with Presidential Elections

Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008 at 5:00 pm
At the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop
1426 9th Street NW, Washington DC 20001
dcinfoshop@mutualaid.org or 202-986-0681
A free event — donations encouraged to benefit the Insitute for Anarchist Studies.

Nearly as early as Hillary or Obama, anarchists were hot on the campaign trail. Plans to resist the 2008 U.S. presidential elections were afoot in 2006.

As German Jewish anarchist Gustav Landauer once observed in relation to “anarchist assassination politics” that they “proceed from the intentions of a small group… following the example of the big political parties. …What they are trying to say is: ‘We are also political.’ …[Yet] these anarchists are not anarchic enough.” His comments apply to electoralism too: being political is the right impulse, but the tactic(s) and indeed the focus are wrong. Certainly, in the United States, presidential elections represent rare moments when many people “participate.”

But why the anarchist fascination with something that’s far from anything we’d recognize as politics? And why, if we choose to engage, do anarchists frequently use strategies that mirror statist and/or liberal forms, or are simply unimaginative? Perhaps, in zeroing in on presidential elections, we aren’t anarchic enough either.

Cindy Milstein is an anarchist activist and educator from Vermont. She has been involved with the Institute for Social Ecology, and is currently a board member with the Institute for Anarchist Studies and a co-organizer of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference. She is also a collective member of the all-volunteer Black Sheep Books in Montpelier, Vermont.

Mobilizing Resistance Against the 2008 Republican National Convention
Panel Discussion; Anti-RNC Infoshare; Short Films

Tuesday, January 29 at 7:00 PM
at the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop
1426 9th Street NW, Washington, D.C.
(near the Shaw/Howard University metro on the Green Line)

On September 1-4 of 2008, the Republican Party is coming to Minnesota to celebrate their latest conquests in global domination and exploitation. Let’s make sure that this time the fear-mongers will be met with their own biggest fear: people mobilized, organized, and taking the future back into their own hands.

Join experienced local activists, organizers from the Twin Cities, and other curious folk in a discussion about how activists in DC can begin to organize resistance to the Republican National Convention.
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As part of the build-up to the Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities (R.N.C) and Democratic National Convention in Denver (D.N.C), Unconventional Action-Frederick is hosting two days of workshops, skill shares, and discussions about emerging strategy and tactics on January 26th and 27th in Frederick, MD. We are holding one of many events dedicated to organizing for the coming resistance against the R.N.C and the D.N.C.

Unconventional Action is an emerging network of radicals, anti-authoritarians, and anarchists. Our goal is to build a horizontal, inclusive framework for protests that will disrupt the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

Also see:
RNC Welcoming Committee (RNC protests, Sept. 1-4 in Minneapolis/St. Paul)
Re-create 68 (DNC protests, Aug. 25-28 in Denver)
Frederick, MD Peace Community

For more information please e-mail unconventionalfrederick (at) gmail.com

Don’t miss the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop’s annual Winter Holiday Sale!!

December 14, 15, 16

20% OFF EVERYTHING*
(*= excluding Slingshot Organizers, Food Items & Art stuff)

That means all Books, CD’s, DVDs, T-Shirts, Records and more are 20% off! Even sale books too!

We’ll be open 12-9 on Fri/Sat and 12-7 on Sunday.

Plus we’ve received a ton of new books from AK, thoroughly restocked our anarchy section, and stocked up on favorite titles as well as new stuff.

Also, we’ll have copies of the new album from Defiance, Ohio (on No Idea Records) later this week.

Hope to see you soon, and thanks for another year of support.

Your friends at the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop

submitted by Potomac Earth First!

Honor the Fallen, Remember the Snitches, Resist the GreenScare

On December 7, 2005, The F.B.I. and local law enforcement began a round up, of alleged environmental and animal rights activists. This attack was not just on radical environmentalists this attack was on the entire environmental movement and American people. Like the Red Scare in the 40’s, 20’s, and turn of the 20th century the radical left was attacked in the same way which lead to an over all weakening of the progressive movement.

On December 7th we ask you to organize your college campus, community, or what ever it maybe to hold an event in solidarity with those who have been rounded up by the F.B.I. Be it demo at the local police department, movie on radical environmental, animal rights activism, (Behind the mask and Pick Axe are two good examples) or letter writing campaigns.

On December, 8th 2007 Potomac Earth First! is calling for a Green and Black anti-authoritarian march to the FBI Headquarters to demand that these alleged activists be freed and all charges dropped! We will be starting Farragut Square and marching to the F.B.I headquarters from there at 1:00 p.m. Look for the Green and Black Flags of Potomac Earth First!

For more information please e-mail: potomacearthfirst [at] gmail.com

download a flyer for the march (jpg)

Meetings are held on a rotating schedule in DC, Frederick, Sheperdstown and possibly Hagerstown or Baltimore. Email the above address for more info.