Thousands march to oppose police repression in run-up to NATO summit
PopoutThe following post is borrowed from Chicago Indymedia
Chicago saw thousands of people in the streets Saturday in the run-up to the beginning of the NATO summit. with the afternoon's boisterous but peaceful protest marches marred by sweeping police violence.
Protests began in the morning, when people gathered at the Irving Park Brown Line public transit stop to don hospital gowns and canvas the local neighborhood, then assembled at noon for the “Healthcare not Warfare!” action. That protest marched on the house of mayor Rahm Emanuel to protest his closure of half of the city’s
from 3 anonymous OWS Occupiers in Chicago:
We vociferously condemn these unacceptable and cowardly attacks, and know that the people are beginning to awaken from the falsified dream of liberty in a nation thats find itself in a newly authoritarian police state which crushes any dissent and defends the war machines of internatonal violence and global capitalism, instead of the human beings it feigns to represent. Yet we will not be so easily fooled by these tactics. The actions by the Chicago Police Department were carried out tonight with the calculated intent of provoking and generating fear within our collective into a reactionary state. This is a police tactic that is used to distract our focus and to spiral us into downwardness and negativity. We must resist these feelings, for we lose our autonomy in reacting to the script they have written for us, and without steadfast descipline in the face of the arm of state repression. We have to be serious and disciplined in order to not fall into this trap. It is EXACTLY what they want from us. We know that this is a panicked attempt to postemptively justify to the people the astronomical amount of our public resources that have been wasted on the exorbitant number of police on the streets, the unlawful and intrusive surveillance & unjustifiable home raids, and the Orwellian fear being propagated by the puppet corporate media. Our organization will not be provoked into a state of disorganized rage, for we are well aware that is exactly as they wish to manipulate us. It is no better, nay, it is worse to fall into their cheap and predictable trap than it is to subserviently subjugate ourselves to obeying the orders of authority.
This national convergence represents an incredible and unique opportunity to bring together a diverse spectrum of activists in a unified front of resistance unlike any other seen in over a decade. Tomorrow, we enter the stage with a righteous fire in our hearts at the injustice done to us and our comrades on these streets just a day before. Yet we will not be overriden with heightened emotions that cloud our judgement. We recognize this attempt at coercion as yet another manifestation of systemic oppression, and remain autonomous individuals who will not be ordered around, explictly or implicitly. Instead, we channel our anger, our pain, our compassion, our despair, and our passion for a better world without this oppression into our messaging and our actions.
Comrades. Let us take a deep, deep breath together. Let's heal together, and then work together to make tactical decisions that are arrived at out of truly free and autonomous choice, not dictated by authority. Be safe, look out for one another, organize in small, accountable groups of affinity and trust, Stay calm, and remember why we traveled to Chicago - to stand in the face of a war machine that acts recklessly beyond transparency and accountability to the people it affects and claims to represent - and to say we want a world free of war and oppression.
Solidarity forever.
-Anonymous
#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
#NONATO
#NATOSOLIDARITY
#NATO3
Chicago saw thousands of people in the streets Saturday in the run-up to the beginning of the NATO summit. with the afternoon's boisterous but peaceful protest marches marred by sweeping police violence.
Protests began in the morning, when people gathered at the Irving Park Brown Line public transit stop to don hospital gowns and canvas the local neighborhood, then assembled at noon for the “Healthcare not Warfare!” action. That protest marched on the house of mayor Rahm Emanuel to protest his closure of half of the city’s
An Open Letter to Our Comrades
from 3 anonymous OWS Occupiers in Chicago:
COMMUNIQUÉ #246
On the eve of the feast of the cabal of hypocrites, otherwise referred to as the 2012 NATO Summit, the people of Chicago have undergone a grave injustice at the hands of the violent police state. The Chicago Police's actions today, May 19th, were a brutally violent attack on our bodies and on our rights. An absurdly large police force was deployed in order to intimidate and provoke a peaceable assembly, and resulted in unbridled, militaristic attacks on activists demonstrating against NATO, inflicting several serious injuries - including broken noses, bloodied eyes, and a particularly sickening incident in which a dedicated comrade was belligerently run down by a police van.We vociferously condemn these unacceptable and cowardly attacks, and know that the people are beginning to awaken from the falsified dream of liberty in a nation thats find itself in a newly authoritarian police state which crushes any dissent and defends the war machines of internatonal violence and global capitalism, instead of the human beings it feigns to represent. Yet we will not be so easily fooled by these tactics. The actions by the Chicago Police Department were carried out tonight with the calculated intent of provoking and generating fear within our collective into a reactionary state. This is a police tactic that is used to distract our focus and to spiral us into downwardness and negativity. We must resist these feelings, for we lose our autonomy in reacting to the script they have written for us, and without steadfast descipline in the face of the arm of state repression. We have to be serious and disciplined in order to not fall into this trap. It is EXACTLY what they want from us. We know that this is a panicked attempt to postemptively justify to the people the astronomical amount of our public resources that have been wasted on the exorbitant number of police on the streets, the unlawful and intrusive surveillance & unjustifiable home raids, and the Orwellian fear being propagated by the puppet corporate media. Our organization will not be provoked into a state of disorganized rage, for we are well aware that is exactly as they wish to manipulate us. It is no better, nay, it is worse to fall into their cheap and predictable trap than it is to subserviently subjugate ourselves to obeying the orders of authority.
This national convergence represents an incredible and unique opportunity to bring together a diverse spectrum of activists in a unified front of resistance unlike any other seen in over a decade. Tomorrow, we enter the stage with a righteous fire in our hearts at the injustice done to us and our comrades on these streets just a day before. Yet we will not be overriden with heightened emotions that cloud our judgement. We recognize this attempt at coercion as yet another manifestation of systemic oppression, and remain autonomous individuals who will not be ordered around, explictly or implicitly. Instead, we channel our anger, our pain, our compassion, our despair, and our passion for a better world without this oppression into our messaging and our actions.
Comrades. Let us take a deep, deep breath together. Let's heal together, and then work together to make tactical decisions that are arrived at out of truly free and autonomous choice, not dictated by authority. Be safe, look out for one another, organize in small, accountable groups of affinity and trust, Stay calm, and remember why we traveled to Chicago - to stand in the face of a war machine that acts recklessly beyond transparency and accountability to the people it affects and claims to represent - and to say we want a world free of war and oppression.
Solidarity forever.
-Anonymous
#OCCUPYWALLSTREET
#NONATO
#NATOSOLIDARITY
#NATO3