Anarchist Counter-Information in Durango, Colorado
On the morning of August 22nd, a banner was dropped in solidarity with the #PrisonStrike rebels in our community of Durango, CO (occupied Ute and Diné territory). We send our love and rage to those resisting modern-day slavery inside the State’s incarceration apparatus. You are not forgotten.
Abolish Prison Slavery!
Abolish All Prisons!
prisonstrike.com for more info
for more solidarity actions, check out It’s Going Down.
September 1st, 2018 – 1PM-3PM
September 2nd, 2018 – 1PM-5PM
Windom Room, Durango Rec Center, 2700 Main Ave., Durango, CO
Free admission – all are welcome!
The Mutual Aid Disaster Relief (MADRelief) Training Team is visiting our community. Currently MADRelief is on a national capacity-building and educational tour. They will explain how natural storms turn into unnatural disasters through dangerous new forms of “disaster capitalism” and “extreme resource extraction,” and train diverse affinity groups on principles of grassroots direct action humanitarian aid and crisis response, covering a wide range of topics such as “Principles of ‘Solidarity, Not Charity,’” “Scouting, Mapping, and Understanding Your Community’s Resources,” “Building Power in Collaboration,” “Overcoming Trauma Together,” and “The Logic of Logistics.”
The reality of the climate chaos which is already redefining our future, coupled with rapidly escalating inequality and the civil political unrest that follows, is only worsened by a failing model of crisis management and aid programs centered around political opportunism and disaster capitalism. The time is right for developing a trained and empowered standing network of organizers and volunteers who can help communities rebuild with a vision centered on local community control, collaboration and innovation, and political, economic and social sustainability. MADRelief is developing a community of grassroots crisis responders, continually growing in size and efficacy, which will be at-the-ready to assist and empower communities to overcome natural and unnatural disasters – from hurricanes to hate rallies, from mudslides to mine waste spills – and to transform these tragedies into opportunities for collective liberation.
MADRelief envisions a new form of humanitarian aid, one that is participatory and empowering. One that exemplifies the principle of “Solidarity, Not Charity.” Founded by an already very active network of radical humanitarian aid workers experienced via Common Ground Relief, Occupy Sandy, the Standing Rock Water Protectors, and the long history of diverse movements seeking to make a better world possible, MADRelief is organizing a new network to facilitate inter-community disaster preparation and grassroots direct action humanitarian aid and crisis response . This tour is the first step in a “training campaign” that will strategically and progressively build necessary skills and shared knowledge in local groups that are a part of the rapidly-growing MADRelief network.
MutualAidDisasterRelief.org
facebook.com/MutualAidDisasterRelief
twitter.com/MutualAidRelief
instagram.com/MutualAidDisasterRelief
Further reading:
The Need for Mutual Aid Disaster Relief
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief as Antidote to Corporate Colonialism
Dreaming With Our Hands: On Autonomy, In(ter)dependence, and the Regaining of the Commons
5:30-7:30PM, Tuesday, April 11th, 2017. Room 130, Noble Hall, Fort Lewis College, 1000 Rim Drive, Durango, CO
This Spring #NoDAPL water protectors and the Water Protector Anti-Repression Crew will be facilitating trainings across Turtle Island sharing knowledge about resistance to the grand jury convened against water protectors at Standing Rock. We want to build our capacities for strong movement defense against state repression.
Strong movements and interdependent relationships make attempts to shut down our struggle obsolete. Let’s build our capacity for defending our movements together!
This two-hour workshop is open to all who have participated in the movement at Standing Rock, those who have supported the efforts on the ground from their homes and territories elsewhere, as well as all those who wish to continue fighting on the many frontlines that continuing emerging across Turtle Island.
The fight isn’t over at Standing Rock, as nearly 800 Water Protectors continue their battles in the courtrooms with some facing federal felony indictments that carry a potential of 15 years in federal prison. The grand jury convened against water protectors continues as does the resistance to it. As extraction becomes the norm and the government ramps up its repression against those who stand in resistance, this workshop holds valuable information for those who struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, earth liberation and a future without oppression.
PLEASE CONTACT WPANTIREPRESSION@PROTONMAIL IF YOU’D LIKE TO HOST A WORKSHOP IN YOUR TERRITORY OR COMMUNITY!
Join us in Durango, Colorado to celebrate May Day / International Workers’ Day. Event details TBA.
To get involved in organizing the event, please attend the Durango Autonomous Assembly (General Community Organizing Meeting).
Seeking speakers, presenters, workshop facilitators, tabling, etc.
Contact us for more info! dirtyhands (at) riseup (dot) net
Some background:
Most people living in the United States know little about the International Workers’ Day of May Day. For many others there is an assumption that it is a holiday celebrated in state communist countries like Cuba or the former Soviet Union. Most Americans don’t realize that May Day has its origins here in this country and is as “American” as baseball and apple pie, and stemmed from the pre-Christian holiday of Beltane, a celebration of rebirth and fertility.
From It’s Going Down:
Tonight, in so-called Durango, Colorado, two banners were hung in solidarity with water protectors facing police brutality and grand jury resistors standing up against state repression. The banners were deployed from the roof of a prominent downtown building as a parade approached, led by police blaring their sirens in an authoritarian reminder that the state is always ready to bring their force to bear. The banners, one reading “Water is Life”, the other, “Divest” (both tagged with “#NoDAPL”), are a small token of support, a statement to let you all know we are out here with and for each of you. In the face of repression, we stand together and fight. To all those on the front lines, we are out here for you in love and rage.
Stay strong. The Southwest sees you. Your comrades see you. The world of resistance sees you.
From Wild Roots Feral Futures:
We are very happy to announce that, for the 9th year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June (exact dates & location to be announced). WRFF is an informal, completely free and non-commercial, and loosely organized camp-out operating on (less than a) shoe-string budget, formed entirely off of donated, scavenged, or liberated supplies and sustained through 100% volunteer effort. Though we foster a collective communality and pool resources, we also encourage general self-sufficiency, which lightens the burden on communal supplies, and which we find to be the very source and foundation of true mutual sharing and abundance.
We would like to begin by acknowledging that Wild Roots Feral Futures takes place on occupied/stolen indigenous territory, primarily of the Nuutsiu (occasionally spelled Nuciu or Nuchu, aka “Ute”) people, as well as Diné [“Navajo”], Apache, and others. In recognition of this reality and as a first step in confronting it, we seek to establish proactive working relationships with those whose stolen land we gather upon, and open the space we temporarily gather in to the centering and amplification of indigenous voices and struggles. Our understanding is that any community of resistance that doesn’t center the voices of indigenous people and put their leadership in the forefront is a movement that is part of the problem. [Read more here…]
We would like to invite groups and individuals engaged in struggles against the destruction of the Earth (and indeed all interconnected forms of oppression) to join us and share your stories, lessons, skills, and whatever else you may have to offer. In this spirit we would like to reach out to frontline community members, local environmental groups, coalitions, and alliances everywhere, as well as more readily recognizable groups like Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and others to come collaborate on the future of radical environmentalism and eco-defense in our bio-regions and beyond.
We would also like to reach out to groups like EF!, RTNA, and the Ruckus Society (as well as other groups and individuals) in search of trainers and workshop facilitators who are willing to dedicate themselves to attending Wild Roots Feral Futures and sharing their skills and knowledge (in a setting that lacks the financial infrastructure to compensate them as they may have come to expect from other, more well-funded groups and events). We are specifically seeking direct action, blockade, tri-pod, and tree climbing/sitting trainers (as well as gear/supplies).
Regarding the rewilding and ancestral earth skills component of WRFF, we would like to extend a similar invitation to folks with skills, knowledge, talent, or specialization in these areas to join us in the facilitation of workshops and skill shares such as fire making, shelter building, edible and medicinal plants, stalking awareness, tool & implement making, etc. We are also seeking folks with less “ancestral” outdoor survival skills such as orienteering and navigation, etc.
Daily camp life, along with workshops, skill shares, great food, friends, and music, will also include the volunteer labor necessary to camp maintenance. Please come prepared to pitch in and contribute to the workload, according to your abilities. We encourage folks who would like to plug in further to show up a few days before the official start of the event to begin set-up and stay a few days after the official end to help clean up.
Site scouting will continue until early June, at which point scouts and other organizers will rendezvous, report-back their scouting recon, and come to a consensus regarding a site location. We are also planning on choosing a secondary, back-up site location as a contingency plan for various potential scenarios. Email us for more info on getting involved with scouting and site selection processes.
WRFF is timed to take place before the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, allowing eco-defenders to travel from one to the other. Thus we encourage the formation of a caravan from WRFF to the EF! RRR (caravans and ride shares can be coordinated through our message board at feralfutures.proboards.com.
We are currently accepting donations in the form of supplies and/or monetary contributions. Please email us for details.
Please forward this call widely, spread the word, and stay tuned for more updates!
For The Wild,
~The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers’ collective
Email: feralfutures(at)riseup(dot)net
Activists and scholars working within the realm of challenging the current punitive criminal justice system are welcome to submit for the 2nd Annual Transformative Justice, Prison Abolition & Anarchist Criminology Conference. This conference influenced by scholar-activism is structured around challenging and abolishing punitive justice, while promoting community-based alternatives such as restorative justice, transformative justice, community circles, healing groups, and Hip Hop battling. This conference welcomes all those interested in providing performances, workshops, lecturers, teach-ins, roundtables, and film screenings. Topics of interest include prison abolition, prisoner support, critiques of political repression, police abolition, de-colonialism, abolition of zero tolerance policies and the school to prison pipeline, all forms of academic repression, corporate repression, state terrorism, all things pertaining to youth justice, total liberation, intersectionality, horizontalism, LGBTTQQIA, mutual aid, disability liberation, Black liberation, indigenous sovereignty, racial justice, animal liberation, environmental justice, green anarchism, anarchism, and justice. This conference also welcomes all forms of art and music for social justice such as Hip Hop activism.
Join us in Durango (location TBA!) for the 2nd Annual International Day of Trans Prisoner Solidarity. We will be writing letters to trans prisoners and more! Stay tuned for updates!
Jan 22, 2017 marks the second annual international Trans Prisoner Day of Action and Solidarity. If you are on the front lines, doing this work every day, then Jan 22 is a day to celebrate and honor your actions. For everyone else, this is a day to collaborate, be an accomplice not an ally, to prioritize, act, protest, resist, raise awareness, and reach out to trans prisoners, forging new relationships and dismantling the isolation of prison. We encourage you to host a letter writing night reaching out to trans prisoners, hold vigils for those in our communities who have been taken by State violence, to plan an event, organize speakers, screen films, invite presentations, and give workshops to spread the word on the experience of trans prisoners, share knowledge, and build strategies of resistance. Have dance parties and raise funds for people and groups already doing amazing work. Take action. Let’s join together and show our conviction in supporting each other and ending prisons once and for all.
Continue reading “International Trans Prisoner Day of Action & Solidarity”
3-6PM, Sunday, Jan. 15th, 2017 in the meeting room at Durango Joe’s, 732 E. College Dr. in Durango, CO
In light of the recent presidential election and the upcoming Trump presidency, we are reaching out to community members and organizations in hopes of opening up honest dialogue and forging connections and networks of support in our community.
In the face of shifting social, economic, and political environments we know we are not alone in feeling that now is a great time for communities to be learning about and working towards becoming communities of resistance, communities of resilience, ready and able to support and protect ourselves and our land bases.
We are aware of many individuals and groups getting together, talking, and planning and we are inviting you all to a monthly Durango Autonomous Assembly (Community Meeting), a space for folks to come together to collaborate on projects, campaigns and broaden the struggle (inspired by the Denver Autonomous Assembly).
The second Durango Autonomous Assembly (Community Meeting) will take place on Sunday, January 15th, 3-6PM in the meeting room at Durango Joe’s coffee shop.. We are hoping that if we can get around one table we can learn about each others goals and projects and how we can support each other, as well as begin discussing community-wide initiatives. A portion of this first assembly will be dedicated towards discussing and organizing the #DisruptJ20 Inauguration Day General Strike & Protest in Durango, CO.
The format of the meeting will be generally very free. We will come prepared with a basic agenda and hope to keep our organizing within the framework of the St Paul Principles.* To be clear, we believe that diversity of tactics is paramount to change and we are very focused now on exploring how we can create informal structures at a grassroots level that can exist and be powered outside of and regardless of systems and institutions.
Contact: durango-solidarity [at] riseup [dot] net
*St Paul Principles
1. our solidarity will be based on respect for a diversity of tactics and the plans of other groups.
2. the actions and tactics used will be organized to maintain a separation of time or space.
3. any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of fellow activists and events.
4. we oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance,
infiltration, disruption and violence. we agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.
Inauguration Day General Strike & Protest in Durango, CO!
Durango Autonomous Assembly, Jan 8th!
(Stay tuned for more info, coming soon!)
#DisruptJ20: Call for a Bold Mobilization Against the Inauguration of Donald Trump on January 20, 2017
From It’s Going Down:
On Friday, January 20, 2017, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States. We call on all people of good conscience to join in disrupting the ceremonies. If Trump is to be inaugurated at all, let it happen behind closed doors, showing the true face of the security state Trump will preside over. It must be made clear to the whole world that the vast majority of people in the United States do not support his presidency or consent to his rule.
Trump stands for tyranny, greed, and misogyny. He is the champion of neo-nazis and white Nationalists, of the police who kill the Black, Brown and poor on a daily basis, of racist border agents and sadistic prison guards, of the FBI and NSA who tap your phone and read your email. He is the harbinger of even more climate catastrophe, deportation, discrimination, and endless war. He continues to deny the existence of climate change, in spite of all the evidence, putting the future of the whole human race at stake. The KKK, Vladimir Putin, Golden Dawn, and the Islamic State all cheered his victory. If we let his inauguration go unchallenged, we are opening the door to the future they envision.
Trump’s success confirms the bankruptcy of representative democracy. Rather than using the democratic process as an alibi for inaction, we must show that no election could legitimize his agenda. Neither the Democrats nor any other political party or politician will save us—they just offer a weaker version of the same thing. If there is going to be positive change in this society, we have to make it ourselves, together, through direct action.
From day one, the Trump presidency will be a disaster. #DisruptJ20 will be the start of the resistance. We must take to the streets and protest, blockade, disrupt, intervene, sit in, walk out, rise up, and make more noise and good trouble than the establishment can bear. The parade must be stopped. We must delegitimize Trump and all he represents. It’s time to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and the world that sustains us as if our lives depend on it—because they do.
