Outlaws have always worn masks
The Zapatistas
January 3, 2013
The Zapatistas, an indigenous army in southern Mexico, rose up on
January 1, 1994 to protect their territories and communities from the
damaging effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement and
capitalism in general. They have fought with guns, with protests, with
their words, with solidarity projects, with radio stations, and more.
And through nearly… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Boston Tea Party
January 3, 2013
Although disguising themselves as Mohawk–perhaps a symbol of
resistance and insubmission–was a serious act of indecency, given the
colonialists’ role in the genocide against the Mohawk and other
indigenous nations of North America, their defiance of the British East
India Company and the British government was well founded, and their
decision to mask their identities… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Interior Minister Puig
January 3, 2013
The most infamous Catalan Interior Minister since the days of the
fascist dictatorship in Spain, Puig’s first act in office was to get rid
of the provision prohibiting police torture. Since then, he went on to
brutally evict the massive encampment in Plaza Catalunya during the 15M
movement (one of the direct precursors of the… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
Mayor Bloomberg
January 3, 2013
Michael Bloomberg: Billionaire, politician, New York City mayor,
evictor of Occupy Wall Street, sexual harrasser, and promoter of
pacifism. In 2004, he made the news for offering museum and hotel
discounts and a slew of other bribes to protestors coming to oppose the
Republican National Convention, on the condition that they identify
themselves as peaceful… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
Zorro
January 3, 2013
This folk hero, originally from the comic books, takes the side of
the poor peasants and fights against wealthy landlords and the soldiers
and mercenaries working for them. He has to wear a mask to protect his
family from retribution. “When freedom is a memory and justice is
outlawed, the just must become outlaws.”
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Wildcat 1968
January 3, 2013
In May, 1968, hundreds of thousands of French workers and students
rose up in the biggest wildcat strike to ever halt the economy of a
Western country. Fewer people wore masks in those days, as the police
were less likely to use cameras to track down rioters, although the
massive crowds themselves granted everyone anonymity.… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
V
January 3, 2013
In the original comic book, V is an anarchist, and when he dies the
people mask up and start fighting against the state. When Hollywood got
their hands on it, they turned him into a liberal and the mass of
people at the end just march peacefully, like spectators, to watch the
fireworks, while the… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Jean Quan
January 3, 2013
Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, who presided over the brutal eviction of
Occupy Oakland, repeatedly used a strategy of dialogue and
pacification to try to keep the movement from growing out of hand. She
asked the encampment to appoint representatives and discuss ways to keep
the movement peaceful, and even tried to call on the nationwide Occupy
movement… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
Slave insurrections
January 3, 2013
Slaves plotting revolts against plantation owners and colonial
governments often used codes, secret meetings, and masks to protect
their identities as they organized, carried out revenge attacks, or rose
up and fought for their freedom.
Posted in: Masks throughout history
The Oakland Commune
January 3, 2013
Out of the whole Occupy movement in the US, Occupy Oakland was
probably the most successful in challenging the so-called 1% and
creating new forms and spaces of social organization. They disrupted
business as usual, put into practice self-organization by poor people on
a huge scale, and helped launch a historic general strike. Because
anarchists… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations
Gene Sharp
January 3, 2013
Undoubtedly the most successful and best known proponent of
nonviolence in the last two decades, Gene Sharp received funding for his
doctoral dissertation from the Defense Department’s Advanced Research
Projects Agency, and his Albert Einstein Institution received grants
from the International Republican Institution and the National
Endownment for Democracy (the international agencies of the Republican… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
The Autonomen
January 3, 2013
Anti-authoritarian anti-capitalists who arose in Italy and Germany
in the ’70s and ’80s, squatted abandoned buildings to create collective
housing and social centers, fought against fascists, resisted the
anti-immigrant deportation regime developed in the European Union,
obstructed gentrification and sabotaged companies like Shell Oil in
response to their support for apartheid, police states, and ecocide,… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
The Defense Department
January 3, 2013
In terms of resources, the Pentagon may be one of the biggest
promoters of pacifism on the planet. The US Defense Department, along
with the Rand Corporation, the Ford Foundation, the International
Republican Institute, the National Endowment for Democracy, and probably
the CIA, have a long history of supporting nonviolent movements
worldwide. During the Cold… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
Robin Hood
January 3, 2013
Robin’s hood may have been to hide his identity. In some popular
portrayals, he is masked, in others, he simply hides in the forest. In
any case, this lower class bandit, who fought against the greed of the
Church and the landlords, who robbed the rich and gave to the poor, has
inspired people—including a… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
The Stimulator
January 3, 2013
In another example of how little evidence conspiracy nuts need in
order to make serious accusations, one blogger claimed that the
Stimulator, a popular–and anonymous–anticapitalist TV show host who
often speaks out in favor of social rebels who take up arms or practice
self-defense, must be a government agent. His proof? The fact that the
Stimulator… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations
Mondays in the Sun
January 3, 2013
All throughout the end of the ’90s and the early ’00s, shipyard
workers in ports across Spain, from Cadiz to Gijon, blocked highways,
occupied their worksites, and fought with police, in response to massive
layoffs. It was one of the strongest labor struggles in Spain since the
transition to democracy, and inspired the Javier Bardem… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Tampa Police Chief
January 2, 2013
Jane Castor, Tampa’s Police Chief, got props from the mainstream
media for presiding over a peaceful Republican National Convention in
2012. Working closely together with NGOs and pacifist-inclined
protesters, she made sure that no negative incidents that could have
disrupted the Convention or given the city a bad image took place.
According to the Tampa Bay… [Read more…]
Posted in: Pacifists Are Cops
The Asturian Miners
January 2, 2013
In 2012 in Asturias, Spain, tens of thousands of miners, along with
their family members and supporters took to the streets to defend their
jobs in the face of neoliberal cutbacks. Because they knew that
peaceful protests have never accomplished anything, they also blocked
highways and trainlines, carried out sabotage, and fought with police
who… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Soy compañero!
December 31, 2012
During an anti-austerity protest in Madrid on September 25, 2012,
an undercover police officer dressed in black was tackled and beaten by
fellow cops as he cried out, “I’m a colleague!” The youtube video of the
event is hilarious, showing how stupid and brutal the cops are, but it
was immediately seized on by pacifists to… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations, The Man Says
The French “ninja”
December 31, 2012
One of the biggest newspapers in France, Le Monde, spreads the
accusation made by Stalinists that an anarchist who kicked a protestor
trying to stop another anarchist from smashing a bank was in fact a
police infiltrator. It turns out, the rioters were not “false
anarchists” but real people angry at the banks. The supposed… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations, The Man Says
Vancouver Olympics
December 31, 2012
Even though Vancouver protestors had agreed to a diversity of
tactics in advance, many liberals subsequently denounced the Black Bloc
for property destruction, subsequently accusing them of being racist,
sexist, and infiltrated by the cops. Harsha Walia, of No One is Illegal,
took apart these accusations one by one in a subsequent debate. Here
is… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations
Canada criminalizes masking
December 12, 2012
A new Canadian law will punish masking more harshly than rioting.
The government wants us to mask up? Really? After decades of combative
liberation movements by indigenous people, anarchists, and others
successfully using masks to protect their identities while fighting back
against the wealthy and their guard dogs, the Canadian government has
passed a new… [Read more…]
Posted in: The Man Says
Mexico City rioters are cops?
December 5, 2012
Offering no evidence other than that other “commentators” have made
the accuasation, a US newspaper spreads the claim that rioters in
Mexico City are police infiltrators. This accusation was originally
made, also without evidence, by left-wing and NGO-paid activists who see
the anarchists and the common people rioting in the streets as a pesky
competitor… [Read more…]
Posted in: The Man Says
Mexico City riots, December 2012
December 5, 2012
Mexico City, December 2012 After major protests and riots in Mexico
City, following the election of rightwing presidential candidate
Enrique Pena Nieto, Democracy Now (December 5, 2012) broadcast the
unsubstantiated accusation that the rioters were police infiltrators.
Absurd, because Mexico City is known for a strong anarchist movement,
along with thousands of other people who believe in… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations
Protect Yourself
December 5, 2012
Sometimes, it is necessary to go against what the mainstream
considers “acceptable”, to break the law in order to do the right thing.
Those who mask up and smash corporate property or riot in the streets
have decided that the system needs to be abolished, that the laws are
oppressive, or that those who make… [Read more…]
Posted in: Protect Yourself
The Barcelona Starbucks
December 5, 2012
After the general strike and riots of March 29, 2012, the
mainstream media in Spain described a Starbucks that got torched as a
“small coffeeshop”. This is a really common trick, to describe a
multinational as a small, family owned business. If a small business
truly is smashed in a riot (and this rarely happens),… [Read more…]
Posted in: False Accusations
The protestors of Tahrir Square
December 5, 2012
The protestors of Tahrir Square. They often wore masks to protect
themselves from tear gas or from being identified by the police as they
took to the streets to topple the Mubarak dictatorship. Contrary to the
media, they have not won or given up yet, and they continue struggling
against the new democratic government (because… [Read more…]
Posted in: Masks throughout history
Why they don’t want us to wear masks
December 5, 2012
Is the Black Bloc a police tool? From the Arab Spring to the
student protests in Montreal to the Plaza occupation movement in Spain
to the Occupy movement in the US, people are giving up on
pacifism… http://violentanarchists.wordpress.com/about/
Posted in: Uncategorized
When the provocation is real
December 5, 2012
It’s true that real provocateurs exist, and we need to protect
ourselves from them. While targeting Occupy Cleveland, the FBI sent an
infiltrator to rope some kids into a plot to blow up a bridge. A few
years earlier a paid FBI informant manipulated her lover into supporting
her plot to blow up a dam… [Read more…]
Posted in: The Man Says
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