We took it upon ourselves to redecorate a gym on the North Side that is commonly frequented by zi0nists. Our crew left two messages on the second story walls of the outdoor bleachers reading: ABOLISH “ISRAEL” and فلسطين حرة (Free Palestine in Arabic). May those zi0nist cowards be reminded with every breath, in every space, that their genocidal project is coming to an end. May every zi0nist coward never know a moment of peace for the rest of their miserable lives. May every prison wall fall and every prisoner know freedom and justice– from Chicago to Palestine: abolish these blood-soaked empires, and free them all!
Jack is being held in Fulton County Jail on chargse related to the Stop Cop City and Defend the Forest movement. Please write to him to let him know he is loved and supported! Please remember to address envelopes to ‘John’ but you can refer to him as Jack inside the letters.
Jack loves rock climbing, history, Pilates with Nicole, Buddhism, poetry, vegan prison recipes, hip hop, straight edge, punk, carpentry/diy construction, sewing, he wants to hear anecdotes that felt special to you from just everyday things. You could write about a sunset or a wholesome gathering or a way a song made you feel.
His birthday is coming up on March 1! Let us celebrate him!
Early on January 27th, comrades gathered to honor Tortugita by wheat-pasting posters on the building and gluing the card reader outside the bank shut (although the tap function remained available, for anyone who was wondering). A belated day of the Forest Defender, may the pigs never expect us when we are always late. Viva Tortugita, may Bank of America stop funding ATL or cumble, and long live the struggle.
Bank of America branch locked in response to BOA funding: Mountain Valley Pipeline, Cop City linked to Tortuguita’s murder, and the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Chicago, Illinois — A Bank of America branch was locked and windows wheatepasted with flyers containing links to the bank’s abhorrent acts of cruelty. People are calling on BOA to drop its funding of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a 303-mile pipeline described as “a scar across Appalachia.” The MVP will supply fuel to the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. RAAP is operated by BAE systems, which supplies the Israeli government with weapons used to murder Palestinians. BOA also funds Cop City, the 85-acre militarized police training compound that the Atlanta Police Foundation is attempting to build in Atlanta, GA. Construction for Cop City desecrates and bulldozes the Weelaunee Forest, the largest urban forest in the United States, dubbed one of the lungs of Atlanta.
“While I do not live in Appalachia, as a descendant of Appalachian migrants, the destruction of mountains, communities and ecosystems in Appalachia for the purpose of supplying fuel to an ammunition plant that supplies the Israeli Occupation Forces with weapons used to kill the indigenous people of Palestine enrages and disgusts me. The struggles of ordinary people across the world are interconnected, and Bank of America funds so many causes of environmental destruction and human suffering and death.” an anonymous Midwesterner said.
This action was taken in solidarity with Appalachian’s Against Pipelines, a direct action campaign of pipeline fighters opposing MVP construction on the ground. Block every path! No pipelines through Appalachia, or anywhere! Solidarity forever! Stop Cop City and Free Palestine!
P.S. IMPORTANT ADDITION:
Some of the flyers used in this action state “SHUT ELBIT DOWN!” This is due to Bank of America’s documented financing of a $500 million dollar loan to Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer. Elbit Systems Ltd. has been the centerpiece target for the direct action campaign led by Palestine Action, which has produced hard hitting actions that have included lots of red paint, smashed up offices, and other creative tactics. Palestine Action’s bold attacks have resulted in some very clear successes in England, where they have forced Elbit to shut down two of their facilities through these sustained direct actions.
The bank BNY Mellon has recently been identified by the U.S. offshoot of Pal. Action as a target and has seen some similar clever tactics deployed against it in recent months. However, BNY Mellon offices are often tucked away in suites or skyscrapers. It can be more difficult, by design, to interrupt their business of death dealing and capitalist $$$ swapping. Bank of America, on the other hand, perpetuates its business in much more accessible locations and exists almost everywhere: in small towns and cities, in skyscrapers and surrounded by the cul-de-sacs of suburban sprawl. One can easily imagine BOA as a supplemental target to BNY Mellon because of its similar financing of Palestinian genocide through Elbit. One can also easily imagine actions like this one, or with other tactics in play, could be taken at BOA branches all over Turtle Island.
QR code on the wheatpasted flyers leads to this link for more info:
On February 8, Chicago Police broke into the First Trinity Lutheran Church community center (commonly known as the Orphanage) and detained and cuffed two volunteers hoping to arrest, illegally evict, lock out and board up the building at the behest of a real estate corporation determined to sell the church. At the time of the intrusion, folks were busy preparing and organizing for the community meals, clothing drives, youth programming, and various other mutual aid services provided out of the space. After dozens of comrades and concerned neighbors converged to defend the space, the predators and parasites retreated in defeat. This is at least the fourth time in the past year that real estate agent Brandon Banks, of Coldwell Bankers and Spacematch Inc, brought cops on false pretenses to break windows and bust down doors, only to eventually leave after realizing that incorrectly leveraging the law to harass, punish, and halt community-led mutual aid was not going to work. The Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) who had hired Coldwell Bankers to sell the place sent a email on Feb. 5 to CPD directing them to arrest any “trespassers”, some of whom had been a part of First Trinity for over a decade.
Contact the ELCA and let them know: the community is not for sale! Fire Coldwell Bankers! Stop police harassment! Folks are pulling an immense weight providing free food, clothing, space to warm up, arts and activities for kids, providing sanitation supplies, and sending books to prisoners. The church has no business harassing that!
Let Them Know! -> Tom Anderson tanderson@mcselca.org 773.248.0021 hit 0 ask for Tom Anderson or Bishop Curry
First Trinity Lutheran Church has been an important part of the neighborhood for 130 years and continues to host projects at its community center such as Midwest Books to Prisoners and El Comedor Comunitario, providing essential services like free food, clothes, educational materials, and a safe environment. While many churches across Chicago are now utilizing their buildings for mutual aid projects addressing ongoing housing and humanitarian crises, the Metropolitan ELCA is shamefully failing to fulfill their Christian obligations to stand with those in imminent need. This past year, a new First Trinity administration was installed by the ELCA to force what they concocted as a “Holy Closure” of the church despite the community’s continuing needs, hopes, and potentials: shutting down programs such as the “God’s Closet” free store and the Trinity House LGBTQ safe housing, they forced a highly contentious and likely illegal vote after scrubbing the vote roster to exclude the people directly running services at the church, including even the resident church pianist of 17 years who would have cast the deciding vote. Now that the ELCA owns the building, they are refusing our good-faith efforts to discuss the future of the space, instead sending police to bully and arrest us for “trespassing”, forgoing civil eviction proceedings in hopes of selling out a social center to gentrifying developers for more than a million dollars.
The greedy banks and corrupt church institutions want these buildings completely emptied and devoid of community, to sell to some prospective investor who would demolish the buildings and erase history. This process repeats itself across our stratified city driven by ruthless capitalist forces, who violently evict people and de-root community, raze down and gentrify the land, and in a final mockery, install some cruel cold sterile building, to host alienating commerce and soulless condos, for the singular purpose to generate profit. The Church trying to cash out on community coupled with the failure of imagination to meet the needs of the moment is blasphemy against the spirit. ELCA would like for this to happen quietly and out of the public eye, a silent death as they pocket the check. While the purportedly “progressive” Church talks about prison reform and human rights, they contract cartoonish bankers and predatory police to aggressively attack the community doing the exact work the Church claims it supports. Alternatively, we are already bringing into fruition a thriving social center, a world in which many worlds fit, where the intersection of abolitionist struggles against the prisons meet with the struggles of immigrants facing fascistic xenophobia and neoliberal indifference and brutal austerity. We refuse to be thrown away into society’s prisons and carceral shelters: we will defend each other, and we will not allow profiteering real estate corporations and soulless church institutions sell out the community.
We’re asking people to call on the ELCA to demand they stop the police harassment, to drop the contract with Coldwell Bankers, to interrupt the legacy of using Christianity to abuse power. Leviticus 25:35 says it plainly: “If one of your brethren becomes poor, and falls into poverty among you, then you shall help him, like a stranger or a sojourner, that he may live with you.” And in Hebrews 13:3:“Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.” Hebrews 13:3.
For more information, contact orphanagecollective@proton.me
¡Defender el orfanato! Demanda de la ELCA: ¡Alto a la policía que amenaza al Primer Centro Comunitario Trinity!
El 8 de febrero, la policía de Chicago irrumpió en el centro comunitario de la Iglesia Luterana de la Primera Trinidad (comúnmente conocido como el Orfanato) y detuvo y esposó a dos voluntarios con la intención de arrestarlos, desalojar ilegalmente, cerrar y tapiar el recurso comunitario a instancias de una corporación inmobiliaria decidida a vender la iglesia. En el momento de la intrusión, la gente estaba ocupada preparando y organizando las comidas comunitarias, las campañas de recogida de ropa, los programas para jóvenes y otros servicios de ayuda mutua que se prestan en este espacio durante la actual crisis migratoria. Después de que decenas de compañeros y vecinos preocupados se unieran para defender el espacio, los depredadores y parásitos se retiraron derrotados. Esta es al menos la cuarta vez en el último año que el agente de bienes raíces Brandon Banks, de Coldwell Bankers y Spacematch Inc, trajo policías con falsos pretextos para romper ventanas y derribar puertas, sólo para finalmente irse después de darse cuenta del uso incorrecto de la ley para acosar, castigar y detener la ayuda mutua dirigida por la comunidad no iba a funcionar. El Sínodo Metropolitano de Chicago de la ELCA (Iglesia Evangélica Luterana en América), que había contratado a Coldwell Bankers para vender el local, envió un correo electrónico el 5 de febrero a la policía para que detuviera a los “intrusos”, muchos de los cuales llevaban décadas formando parte de First Trinity. Póngase en contacto con la ELCA y hágales saber: ¡la comunidad no está en venta! ¡Despide a Coldwell Bankers! ¡Alto al acoso policial! La gente está haciendo un esfuerzo inmenso proporcionando comida gratis, ropa, espacio para calentarse, arte y actividades para los niños, proporcionando material sanitario y enviando libros a los presos.
La Iglesia Luterana de la Primera Trinidad ha sido una parte importante del barrio durante 130 años y sigue acogiendo proyectos en su centro comunitario como Midwest Books to Prisoners y El Comedor Comunitario, proporcionando servicios esenciales como comida gratuita, ropa, material educativo y un entorno seguro. Mientras muchas iglesias de Chicago utilizan ahora sus edificios para proyectos de ayuda mutua que abordan las crisis humanitarias y de vivienda en curso, la ELCA metropolitana incumple vergonzosamente sus obligaciones cristianas de apoyar a los más necesitados. El año pasado, una nueva administración de First Trinity fue instalada por la ELCA para forzar lo que ellos inventaron como un “Cierre Sagrado” de la iglesia a pesar de las continuas necesidades, esperanzas y potenciales de la comunidad: cerrando programas como la tienda gratuita “God’s Closet” y el alojamiento seguro LGBTQ Trinity House, forzaron una votación altamente polémica y probablemente ilegal después de borrar la lista de votos para excluir a las personas que dirigen directamente los servicios en la iglesia, incluyendo incluso al pianista residente de la iglesia durante 17 años que habría emitido el voto decisivo.Ahora que la ELCA es propietaria del edificio, rechaza nuestros esfuerzos de buena fe para debatir el futuro del espacio, y en su lugar envía a la policía para intimidarnos y detenernos por “allanamiento”, renunciando a los procedimientos civiles de desalojo con la esperanza de vender un centro social a promotores gentrificadores por más de un millón de dólares.
Los codiciosos bancos y las corruptas instituciones eclesiásticas quieren estos edificios completamente vacíos y desprovistos de comunidad, para venderlos a algún posible inversor que los derribe y borre la historia. Este proceso se repite en toda nuestra ciudad estratificada, impulsado por fuerzas capitalistas despiadadas, que desalojan violentamente a la gente y desarraigan a la comunidad, arrasan y aburguesan la tierra y, en una burla final, instalan algún edificio estéril, frío y cruel, para albergar un comercio alienante y condominios sin alma, con el único propósito de generar beneficios. El intento de la Iglesia de sacar provecho de la comunidad, unido al fracaso de la imaginación para satisfacer las necesidades del momento, es una blasfemia contra el espíritu. A la ELCA le gustaría que esto sucediera en silencio y fuera del ojo público, una muerte silenciosa mientras se embolsan el cheque. Mientras la Iglesia supuestamente “progresista” habla de reforma penitenciaria y derechos humanos, contrata a banqueros caricaturescos y policías depredadores para que ataquen agresivamente a la comunidad que hace exactamente el trabajo que la Iglesia dice apoyar. Alternativamente, ya estamos haciendo fructificar un centro social próspero, un mundo en el que caben muchos mundos, donde la intersección de las luchas abolicionistas contra las prisiones se encuentran con las luchas de los inmigrantes que se enfrentan a la xenofobia fascista, a la indiferencia neoliberal y la austeridad brutal.
Nos negamos a que nos arrojen a las cárceles y a los centros de acogida de la sociedad: nos defenderemos los unos a los otros y no permitiremos que las empresas inmobiliarias especuladoras y las instituciones eclesiásticas desalmadas vendan a la comunidad.
Pedimos a la gente que haga un llamamiento a la ELCA para exigirle que ponga fin al acoso policial, que abandone el contacto con Coldwell Bankers, que interrumpa el legado de utilizar el cristianismo para abusar del poder. Levítico 25:35 lo dice claramente: “Si uno de tus hermanos se empobrece y cae en pobreza entre vosotros, le ayudarás, como a un forastero o a un extranjero, para que viva contigo”. Y en Hebreos 13:3: “Acordaos de los que están en la cárcel como si estuvierais con ellos en la cárcel, y de los maltratados como si vosotros mismos estuvierais sufriendo”. Hebreos 13:3.
the activist, the organizer, the temporary roles and identities thrown on in the heat of the moment, they’re all a plague. they stare starry-eyed at the potential for revolution while evading that threshold and invent ways of keeping “the organized” from crossing it themselves. what often holds social eruption at bay isn’t the state per se but the gutlessness of the politically savvy shouting revolutionary slogans from behind megaphones and banners paid for by hedge funds. fraudulent fronts of the university-educated, in fear of their own downward mobility, corral the blossoming anger of The Community and shovel it into campaigns and movements that ultimately lead to polling booths and job opportunities. victory is quantitative, measured by crowds and tempered by funding. these are the essentials of the activist method. direct action, insurrection, social war, these are all questions of method for the anarchist, and what sometimes gets misconstrued as anarchist method is actually easily controllable political activism that cannot, by it’s very nature, deliver us from civil society. the sit-in, the die-in, petitions, phone banks, door knocking, longwinded egomaniacal speeches before the march to nowhere, voting. civil in nature and never threatening to the social order. the activist is always down to plan the next protest without considering the near futility of it all, just to say they’re “doing something”. in attempting to change the world one often neglects to change themselves. *really* change themselves. politics becomes a new wardrobe to try on for a brief period before abandoning it for more familiar clothes: a house, a career, and the nuclear family. the necessary break from “straight life” never happens. and as quiet as it’s kept, many anarchists don’t experience that break, either.
amongst the social anarchists there’s always chatter about the action or the demo, but what largely goes undiscussed are anarchist ideas and anarchist desires, our cosmic make up, what must be understood *first* in order to experiment with truly freeing ways of being in the world. how we get there is a fair but useless question to ask if we can’t talk about where “there” is and what it consists of. while we should be cautious of incessant talk of efficacy and logistics (insurrections aren’t built upon the brains of military commanders nor on the backs of a self-appointed vanguard doing The People’s fighting for them), we should balk at those determined to never even express their ideas. those hungry for armed struggle but tongue tied about their desires are never comrades for long because, eventually, straight life (or marxist-leninism) calls them home.
so let’s actually talk about anarchy, the beautiful idea.
the emancipation of all from the strictures of mass social organization, economy and governance. liberation from total domination. propulsion toward a life without measure.
an almost 231 year old philosophical tradition that’s, for some, just another way to flirt with activism, and for others is what can best be described as a pure yearning for absolute freedom. how any of us arrived to this place is wide and varied and celebrated. the variety of perspectives is what makes the anarchist space so vibrant. 100 definitions per 100 anarchists is vital because it’s how we renew our ideas and avoid becoming staid and conservative. anarchy is not a rigid political program but a lifeway that should be put into practice at every opportunity. anarchism is that practice. the anarchist that practitioner. “nobody is free until we’re all free,” truly but, in the here and now, we must experiment with what our freedom can look like in the event we ever clasp our hands around it, and we cannot begin to experiment until we are able to articulate it.
so then let’s talk about actual anarchy.
this is not about the stone or the bomb. it’s about understanding what total refusal of authority means and how it further shapes our ideas and desires, which should then define our activity. it’s about starving for new ways to relate to one another, ourselves, and the earth; actual affinity. it’s about our principles, no longer the faint glimmers of a mirage racing a setting sun but that which becomes the sun itself. it’s what ushers us out of the shadows of daily life and into direct, meaningful conflict with it’s commodification. to fight against the capture and massification of the individual without sanctifying the hideous, alienated rendering of that individual under capitalism. where ‘we’ and ‘me’ are neither dialectical nor in contradistinction. this is about completely severing the imagined ties between the activist, the organizer, and the politician, and the anarchist. this is lines drawn between the liberal doldrums of the abolitionist and the impatient clamoring of the insurrectionist. it’s about denying the snails pace of the civil and political and embracing a chaotic immediacy lest the sun burn itself out and leave us in the cold grips of an authority we fight tooth and nail to destroy.
the activists will flounder and die when their movements lose steam and they run out of acolytes. in these instances it’s not up to the anarchists to sweep all of their refuse into our camp by smoothing our edges to seem appealing. soon enough, we will meet those that desire a break from the domination of the world we know, and from there we can begin to experiment, not only with what, but with how it means to be free.
JANUARY 10, WILLOW SPRINGS, IL – CHICAGOLAND: HOME NOISE DEMO IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINE AT HOME OF ERICA LORD, CHIEF FIDUCIARY OFFICER FOR BNY MELLON MIDWEST, PRIMARY FUNDER OF ELBIT, PRIMARY SUPPLIER OF ARMS ISRAEL IS USING TO COMMIT GENOCIDE
I. THE ACTION Around dinnertime on a Wednesday evening, an autonomous group visited the home of a BNY Mellon Bank chief fiduciary officer, Erica Lord, in the quiet wealthy suburb of Willow Springs. BNY Mellon Bank is a major funder of the largest weapons manufacturer supplying Israel, Elbit Systems, and is the sole manager of the Friends of the “IDF” fund. Their shares in Elbit were valued at over $13.4 million this fall, and they increased their shares in Elbit by over 20% directly after October 7th.
The group made noise, chanted, played music and let Erica and her neighbors know that she is profiting off the genocide & mass death of Palestinian people. Body bags representing the 30,000 Palestinians who have died in the US-backed genocide were thrown on her lawn. Flyers were handed out to passersby to alert them of their neighbor’s complicity in ethnic cleansing. Erica’s family was in the house and packed up to stay elsewhere within an hour of the group’s arrival. Two Willow Springs police who arrived on the scene early on departed with the family, leaving the house unattended and open to additional decorations to cement the message that a war profiteer resides there.
We must continue to ceaselessly confront those who allow this genocide to continue– at their places of work, at their homes, their churches. No peace, no business as usual, for those who value their blood money over life. We don’t know how they sleep at night, so let’s not let them.
II. PLANNING
Prior to the action, a small group of comrades picked a target on the basis of Palestine Action’s target map. Of the targets listed, only BNY Mellon has sites in zhigaagoong (Chicagoland). BNYMellon’s actual offices are largely on anonymous floors of various skyscrapers, but finding BNYMellon employees on LinkedIn or through press releases about the Cool Community Work That BNYMellon Employees Are Doing wasn’t too difficult. From there, a single search on whitepages was enough to find an address. This address was then confirmed to be correct through surveillance of location.
This sorted, these comrades made a simple flyer containing the name and address for a meetup location, asking people to meet there at a given time for a noise demo in solidarity with Palestine, more details to be given out in person, please send this image along only to trusted comrades on signal. Wear grey bloc and a mask. This was sent along to comrades to disseminate.
The first group of comrades then made a banner, cardboard signs, flyers to hand out, and fake bodybags (trash bags filled with trash and wrapped/shaped by duct tape), and prepped a few chants.
On the day of the action, everyone met up at the location, walked over to the house, and shouted away. Post action, the police weren’t even around, and comrades dispersed without difficulty.
III. LESSONS LEARNED
Things that went well:
– The call to action was disseminated only a few days before the planned action. Even so, more than a dozen people showed up, which is plenty to make some good noise.
– This house had a driveway in the front only, so the family had to drive through/past the crowd and confront them to get out.
– The crowd refused to engage with the cops, leading the cops to eventually just leave. This included a cop who insisted on “checking in” on the protesters by asking if they were cold, if they would like coffee, etc.
– Folks autonomously took advantage of the opportunity to decorate without any centralized organization.
Deltas:
– Meeting on a small bit of grass nearby instead of somewhere more out of the way like a park meant that comrades felt leery about standing around in one place long enough for much of a pre-action orientation or chit-chat. Despite a call for grey bloc, comrades present were mainly wearing all black, and looked a bit suspicious all huddled together outside in 20 degree weather.
– Miscommunication with the location scout who was not present at the action, as well as the absence of a formalized process to confirm target addresses, meant that comrades at the action weren’t 100% sure that they were actually at the right house, which made it hard to really go hard.
– It is unclear if Erica herself was at home at the time of the action, or just her family. While the latter being the case would not mean the action was for naught, it would have been nice if she was definitely there.
– It didn’t feel like everyone present understood the precise connection to Palestine. In the future, going more in depth about the target during the huddle, about who they are and how they’re participating in the genocide, would help everyone present feel more in-sync.
