Held every summer in Detroit, the conference brings together a vibrant and diverse community of people using media to incite change: filmmakers, radio producers, technologists, youth organizers, writers, entrepreneurs, musicians, dancers, and artists. We define “media” as anything you use to communicate with the world. You are a media-maker!
Allied Media Projects defines media-based organizing as any collaborative process that uses media, art, or technology to address the roots of problems and advances holistic solutions towards a more just and creative world.
The Allied Media Conference is a collaboratively designed event. Conference content is curated with care every year by 100+ volunteer coordinators of tracks, practice spaces, and network gatherings. The conference features over 300 hands-on workshops, panels, film screenings, Detroit tours, art and music events, strategy sessions, karaoke, bowling, collaborative art and more!
As members of the racist far right group “Proud Boys” host a so-called “free speech” rally in Washington DC on Sunday, June 25, activists, antifascists, and members of marginalized communities will host their own “Really Really Free Speech Rally” speakout across town at DC police headquarters to call attention to the hypocrisy of the far right’s rhetoric on “free speech.” Organizers of the speakout at police headquarters will host speakers from communities that are actually having their rights threatened, such as immigrants, Muslims, brown and black people, women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, indigenous people, and others who hail from marginalized communities. Speakers will also include representatives of those who were arrested during the J20 protests at the inauguration of Donald Trump.
“We intend to demonstrate that, actually, we are the ones having our rights to free speech imperiled, despite the fact that the far right throws around the term ‘free speech’ all the time,” says Daryle Lamont Jenkins, Executive Director of One People’s Project. “While we are monitoring what the Proud Boys are doing, after the dramatic events of the past several weeks, we feel it is important that the public hears our concerns.”
While rallies have been held by the far right purport to promote free speech, they have been revealed to be more of an attempt to provoke physical confrontations with those they politically disagree with. Recently, the country has grown alarmed after an attendee of a Portland “Free Speech Rally,” Jeremy Christian, fatally stabbed two people on a train. Many right wing commenters have either failed to condemn Christian’s actions or offered often-anonymous endorsements of his deadly violence. At a so-called “free speech rally” this past weekend in Portland, police violence, euphemistically called “closing” a park and “seizing” items to include a large, harmless puppet that was central to the protest, incited self defense measures by activists, to include throwing projectiles. Mainstream media has widely been vilifying antifascist counter-protesters while ignoring the fact that Portland police have actual Nazis in their ranks, such as Captain Mark Kruger.
On the Facebook event page for the Proud Boys DC rally, they are encouraging attendees to bring “protective gear” while one person asked what would be the “legal blade size I can carry on my hip In DC”, to which the main organizer Colton Merwin told the person he would message him privately. Another poster noted later in the post that police will confiscate any knife they find. Concerns for the safety of families and visitors to DC in light of this have been raised.
The speakout at police headquarters is being organized by an ad hoc group consisting of dozens of experienced organizers in the Washington DC area, to include anarchists, communists, socialists, antifascists, and other left-leaning and anticapitalist individuals. Those who have been invited to speak include members of marginalized communities who face extreme repression every day on the streets, have been targeted by hate crimes, and are facing a crackdown on dissent from the state.
“The struggle against fascism, and the protests at the events of the far right, this has never been about free speech,” said Lacy MacAuley, member of the DC Antifascist Coalition and new Program Director at One People’s Project. “We resist precisely because they have already spoken, and we have listened, we have heard them, and we recognize that they are mobilizing to violate our rights. Protesting them is not an act of violating their rights, it is an act of defending our own rights – such as our basic right to exist.”
The speakout is planned for Sunday, June 25, 12 PM – 3 PM at DC Metro Police headquarters in Judiciary Square, Washington DC, and will feature speakers, music, and entertainment.
# # #
CALL TO ACTION – Released by organizers
We won’t let the right-wing steal our free speech. We won’t let the police steal our right to protest. We won’t let the state steal our right to exist. Marginalized people, activists, and workers face escalating state repression. Communities combating capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression need freedom of speech and protest to protect themselves. Take away our ability to exist and organize openly, and the door to fascism opens wider.
In January, over 200 activists were arrested and are facing unjust and outrageous charges as a result of the #DisruptJ20 protests at Trump’s Inauguration. Freedom of expression for marginalized communities has never been guaranteed in the United States, and state repression is only getting worse—nationally under Trump, and locally under the newly confirmed police chief, Peter Newsham.
Join us for a speakout against fascism and state repression at Washington DC Metro Police Headquarters on Sunday, June 25, at 12:00 PM.
Who are antifa? Antifascists are all those who oppose authoritarianism and totalitarianism. We are people of color who resist the injustice and oppression of racism every day. We are the Kurdish grandmothers who bake bread for the resistance in Turkish Kurdistan. We are LGBTQIA and gender-nonconforming people whose lives have become a battleground. We are the immigrant communities who raise our voices against the deafening anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country and elsewhere. We are the indigenous people who have been fighting oppression since the first invaders arrived in this hemisphere. We are women who struggle against inequality every day. We are activists arrested, charged, and persecuted for speaking out against oppression. We are everyone facing repression under newly-appointed DC police chief Peter Newsham. We are everyone who believes in freedom and consent. We all have a common interest in opposing fascism.
As antifascists, we must stand together to confront state repression in our own communities. We are the ones who are in danger of having the state take away our free speech, as they raise the price of dissent to an impossible level. We are the ones being brutalized by police as they wage their wars on drugs, on the poor, on being black in Amerikkka. We are the ones who face threats from the militarized right wing, as shown by the tragic death of Richard Collins III on the campus of University of Maryland, the shooting of antifascist Josh Dukes, a Trump fan outside a Milo Yiannopoulos event in Seattle, and the brutal police killings of black Americans throughout the year.
The right wing can have their sham “free speech” rallies, but we know they are mobilizing to deny even the right to exist to those who don’t look like them. They can wave their flags, as if they have forgotten that their stars are stolen indigenous land and their stripes are the blood of the poor and the enslaved. Unlike the right wing, we actually are facing state repression and we have a legitimate fear of our speech being taken away—repression that the fascists hypocritically endorse. We must rally together to show all that we won’t be silenced, and we won’t let the state or the right wing mobilize to take our right to assemble, our right to protest, or our right to exist. We will rally at the headquarters of one of the worst suppressors and deniers of speech—the police.
All of those who struggle against fascism, against racism, against state repression are invited to join us!
Freedom of Speech! Freedom from Police! Resist Fascism!
NOTE: The speakout at police headquarters is being organized by an ad hoc group consisting of dozens of experienced organizers in the Washington DC area, to include anarchists, communists, socialists, antifascists, and other left-leaning and anticapitalist individuals. This Call to Action was created by a media committee of that ad hoc group and consented on by the larger group. Those who have been invited to speak include members of marginalized communities who face extreme repression every day on the streets, have been targeted by hate crimes, and are facing a crackdown on dissent from the state.
For the record, there are some neo-Fash that want to come and hassle this event, to which antifa put out a call to oppose them if they try anything. From the organizers:
WHY WE MARCH
Donald Trump has been in violation of the Constitution from the day he was sworn into the office of President.
We cannot abide a Congress that turns a blind eye to the constitutional breaches of our Commander in Chief. We demand that Congress does its job and commences with impeachment proceedings immediately.Donald Trump’s extreme disregard for the Constitution is a profound subversion of the Office of the President. Neither do we feel our country is in safe nor able hands, and we will not quietly ride out a tenure that threatens our democracy and way of life. We demand that Congress stop enabling President Trump through an embarrassing and potentially catastrophic charade of normalcy. The future of American Democracy rests in their hands.
On Sunday, July 2nd, we march to demand Congress DO THEIR JOB and remove Trump from The White House.
WHAT: IMPEACHMENT MARCH
WHEN: SUNDAY JULY 2, 2017 10AM
WHERE: PEOPLE’S PLAZA NEAR LIBERTY BELL (Market Street Side)
If you’d like to help make this march happen please visit:https://goo.gl/forms/
#ImpeachmentMarchPhilly #ImpeachmentMarch #Impeach45
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GROUNDS FOR IMPEACHMENT
President Trump must be impeached under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution for Treason, Bribery, or High Crimes and Misdemeanors, in particular:
(1) Obstruction of Justice. Article 2, Section 1.8. of the Constitution Sets forth the oath of office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will do to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In his conduct of the Office of President of the United States, Trump in violation of his oath faithfully to execute the Office of President of the Unites States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in his duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice in that he:
1a. Interfered with the Department of Justice of the United States and Federal Bureau of Investigation by dismissing officers and investigators conducting investigations as to his illegal activities, including Preet Bharara the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Salley Yates, the Deputy and Acting Attorney General of the United States, and James Comey, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1b. Made false and misleading statements the people of the United States to deceive the people that investigations as to his misdeeds and those of his subordinates were and are being conducted thoroughly and completely with regard to his misconduct and the misconduct of his subordinate
1c. Failed to provide information regarding General Flynn’s dealings with the Russians to the House Intelligence Committee.
(2) Violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause Article I, Section 9, Clause 8
[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.
The framers of the Constitution created this clause to ensure that US officials would not be corrupted by gifts or payments from foreign powers, yet President Trump receives a constant stream of cash and favors from foreign powers and their agents.
Inconsistent with the practice of all modern era Presidents and the expectations of the public, he has refused to place his business assets into a blind trust in which he would have no control over the assets and decision making of his businesses, but instead, directly and/or through his family continues to control his businesses and receive business revenues. The single largest tenant of Trump Tower is the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a wholly state-owned company. The Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority office holds a lease with Trump Tower. Foreign diplomats and foreign embassy events at Washington’s Trump International Hotel. More than an obvious conflict of interest, receipt of any monies by him or his businesses under his control of him or his family from any foreign government or representative of a foreign government is a present or emolument in direct violation of the United States Constitution.
Trump has financial relationships with businesses and governments throughout the world, including Turkey, the Philippines, India, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Brazil, Bulgaria, and Viet Nam. Most importantly, he has financial dealings with Russia and China, the extent of which are largely unknown and will remain so as long as he refuses to release his tax returns as has been done by all modern era Presidents, a promise upon which he reneged.
These conflicts of interest have not only enriched Trump, buy have undermined our national security.
(3) Violation of the Free speech rights of the citizens and the press.
Has denied access to the White House by certain members of the press and publicly villified the press by calling them enemies of the people in violation of the First Amendment Rights of the people and his duty to protect the Constitution of the United States.
(4) Treason. Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution defines treason in part as giving “Aid and comfort” to our enemies.
By condoning hacking by the Russian Government of a major political party and encouraging dissemination of hacked materials for purposes of political gain and by condoning unauthorized, unsecured meetings with Russia and other governments he has breached the security of the United States.
(5) Libeled and slandered the former President of the United States with criminal intent.
Trump maliciously and intentionally maligned President Obama by accusing the former President of wiretapping him. Making a false allegation of a crime is a crime.
(6) Issuance of a travel ban in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment and the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments.
6a. The order singles out persons because of their religious preference in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
6b. Because the order bans individuals from specific Muslim countries, it establishes a religious test in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
6c. The travel ban gives the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security almost unlimited powers without procedural protections in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Please check back for more updates.
White supremacists are particularly ticked off at the City of Charlottesville, VA. That’s because the city has spent the past several months stripping away public tributes to the Confederacy. It hasn’t made the “Heritage not Hate” crowd all that happy either, but when it comes to protests and rallies, they have pretty much let the “Heritage IS Hate” crowd have their go at it while they say nothing.
Ever since some white supremacists came out with tiki torches a few weeks ago to defend a statue, a few other groups have been feeling their oats. Enter the Loyal White Knights, which is probably the most visible Klan group in recent years, even while they don’t really amount to anything.
While the Klan plans to have a rally on Saturday, people on our side are planning to come out to oppose them. Leading that effort is the group Showing Up for Racial Justice – SURJ Charlottesville who will have a “Community BlocKKK Party” at Justice Park (formerly Jackson Park – as in Stonewall) just before the Klan gets there, ending just after they leave.
This rally will be a precursor to Matthew Heimbach’s “Unite the Right” rally at Emancipation Park (formerly Lee Park – as in Robert E.) on August 12.
So yeah, we will have a busy summer – and let’s face it, in Trump’s reign, we expected it. We don’t think these MAGAts expect how badly they will lose though!
Tamika Mallory, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour are three names that just flat out give the right wing nightmares. That’s because they are the ones who organized the Women’s March last January and that was a shot across the bow towards a lot of conservatives who can’t seem to get over the fact that they need to start leaving people alone. Well, after one time teabagger Dana Loesch starred in an National Rifle Association (NRA) video that came off as a declaration of civil war in the United States, it became pretty obvious that leaving people alone is the furthest thing from the conservative mind, and that video pissed people off particularly given how it came after people called on the NRA to at the very least make a statement regarding Philando Castile, a black gun owner, was shot and killed by police with the officer responsible not seeing any punishment – something that we would expect the NRA would jump up to decry in the first place but now seemingly intent to ignore this time around. In fact, the NRA is doubling down on their Declaration of War video, making more videos in defense of it while attacking those that have called them out on it. So now Mallory, Perez and Sarsour got something for their asses. They are taking this shit offline and making it IRL. On Friday a march and rally against the NRA will be start in Fairfax at their HQ which will be the beginning location for a 17 mile march to DC that will take 18 hours and will end with a rally at the Dept. of Justice HQ. No this is not about gun control, because let’s face it, these recent issues with the NRA suggest that issues in general with this organization are much bigger than that. Contrary to what Loesch said at the end of her hate video, Wherever these women are is truly freedom’s safest place!
Friday, July 14th
9:00 am – gather at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, VA
10:00 am – Rally will begin
12:00 pm – Marchers will step off
*the march will be approximately 18 miles and take several hours.
Saturday, July 15th
10:00 am – Vigil and rally at U.S. Department of Justice, Pennsylvania Ave NW
The Group Islamberg Friend or Foe? is hosting a “Ride for Homeland Security” that is targeting an isolated Muslim Sufi community near the Delaware River in the Catskills. In the past, Islamberg, which is in Thompkins, NY, has been threatened by various right wing individuals, most notably Robert Doggart of Tennessee, who was convicted a few months ago and sentenced last month to almost 20 years for plotting to build a militia that would attack the community. And this ride has happened before last year , but that only brought out 5 bikers to over 400 counterprotester, and well…that’s just embarassing. So this time, Gavin McInnes’ Proud Boys are jumping into this crap. The ride was announced in The Official Proud boys magazine, repeats disproven allegations that the community is associated with terrorism. The announcement promises to have “Proud Boys, and Alt Knights, and Red Elephants, and Oath Keepers, and III%ers, and Veterans, and Bikers for Trump, and Gays for Trump, and Republicans, and Libertarians, and Democrats”. The Alt Knights are a branch of the Proud Boys that specializes in an apparently relishes street fighting. And as their announcement noted, militia groups want in as well. The primary event announcement originated on facebook and appears to have been created by a III% supporter.
The community of Islamberg was created over thirty years ago by Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani in order to house mostly African American Muslims escaping poverty and inner city problems in New York City. After a rocky start, the relationship with the town has been positive. But that doesn’t matter when you have a political agenda that does not jibe with reality. Enter the Proud Boys. The neo-Fascist group calls itself a “Western Chauvinist fraternal organization” but their actual structure and praxis is more like a street gang. Their initiations, like many other violent gangs includes “being punched in” which for them is being beaten while reciting the names of 5 breakfast cereals. Their 4th degree initiation which makes you an “Alt Knight” is to get in a violent fight with an “antifa”. They don’t differ much from the many gangs that inflict violence on neighborhoods throughout the US, and their penchant for their jokey style of going about their day to day is no different from the “ludicrous initiations, the baffling of public curiosity, and the amusement for members” that Albert Stevens in his 1907 Cyclopædia of Fraternities said defined the original Ku Klux Klan. The neocon Bikers for Trump is generally a group for Trump supporters to posture as tough guys, but they have reportedly participated in violence against protesters during the Inauguration and they may have played a part in violent removal of protesters during the Trump campaign. The Oath Keepers and III% have participated in the many “March against Sharia” events this year and they have provided armed security for right wing events, even neo-Nazi ones like the one recently held in Pikeville, KY.
Let’s be real: the bottom line is these groups wish to bully a small Muslim community in the Catskills. While their call asks people not to commit crimes against Islamberg, they say in their Facebook announcement they are doing this “as American Patriots prepare for what promises to be a Holy War”. The risk is that that they will attract people and inspire people who will not follow their guidelines as we have seen with Joey Gibson’s “Patriot Prayer” in Portland, or that they will provoke violent individuals like Jeremy Christian who murdered 2 people also in Portland who tried to stop him from harassing a Muslim woman on a train. People of conscience need to stand against this cowardly bullying tactic. Hopefully this years bigot biker ride will be as much of a flop as last years but let’s not just assume that’s the case.
It was first announced on Stormfront and immediately it started going through the antifa circles, so you know that AmRen 2017 is going to be met with opposition. They know it too. That’s probably why the theme of this year’s conference is “Turning the Tide”, That’s not just a reference to what they think might be happening during Trump’s reign. It is also the name of a popular antifa publication by Anti-Racist Action L.A.-People Against Racist Terror! That’s a good sign that they are picking a fight, particularly with antifa, but after years of going it alone throwing Jared Taylor & Co. out on their asses from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to the Washington, DC area to Charlotte, NC, antifa are finding out that thanks to the Electoral College giving Trump the White House they are joined. Significantly. So Montgomery Bell Park Inn just might find itself with the biggest anti-AmRen rally they have seen since AmRen had been hosting conferences there in 2013.
Now for those who don’t know, this is at a conference center at Montgomery Bell State Park. It’s 45 minutes from Nashville, Tennessee and there is no public transportation there. They chose this location not just because it is a public facility – which means by the way that the public has a right to be inside the conference center that we should say has a great restaurant – but because it is so remote. That’s not going to deter folks this time around, and the fact that this is taking place in the summer as opposed to the usual spring outings they have, expect that even more.
BEER! PIZZA! SOLIDARITY!
More than 230 people were arrested during an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march in Washington DC on January 20 (J20), Inauguration Day. Many of those arrested, including members of the Industrial Workers of the World and its General Defense Committee, are now facing up to 80 years in prison. Fighting these charges comes at considerable expense, but we will not allow state repression to proceed without resistance.
In order to raise funds for the J20 defendants, the New York City General Defense Committee is hosting a radical pizza party at Rebecca’s in Bushwick. Come for the solidarity, stay for the drinks, pizza and jamz. There’ll be FREE PIZZA from Norbert’s from 4 to 5 PM, so show up early!
If you can’t make it in person, please consider donating online and sharing this event and appeal widely: https://www.crowdrise.com/gdc-bail-fund-for-j20?pc=fb-pc-code
The third in a series of rallies in Charlottesville, VA by White Supremacists to protest the removal of Confederate memorials will take place on Aug. 12, and this one will be organized by local bonehead Jason Kessler. This one however might be particularly interesting because it is basically a call for every neo-Nazi and neo-Fascist that we have been seeing all over the place to come out to what is now called Emancipation Park, and they pretty much answered the call at this point. Of course, being that one of them is Matthew Heimbach and his Traditionalist Worker Party, that means due to the coalition of boneheads he and the National Socialist Movement and League of the South cooked up, that means those two groups are coming as well! This just might be the first time we have see the likes of Richard Spencer – who just stepped down as Executive Director of the White Supremacist National Policy Institute – rubbing elbows with National Socialist Movement’s Jeff Schoep! The fact that in-the-beltway, suit-and-tie Nazis are perfectly fine with being seen with the uniformed ones (and in the case of Spencer, especially given how much he said they hated him) has definitely been noticed not just by antifa, but also by a community that has grown weary of one rally after another by this crowd. And they have been planning to play with this crowd for a while now. Hell, they are even urging people to call the hotels that might be booked by Nazis attending! Failing that, however they are planning to be out there before during and after the Nazis show and they want those who support them as they work to dismantle memorials to white supremacy to come out and join them in confronting those that are upset about that. Considering that 1500 came out to oppose the Klan on July 8 when they came out, and Spencer and his crew were opposed in a clandestine attempt to hold a rally holding torches May 13, this one does not bode well for those pushing neo-Fascism coming to defend the neo-Fascism of yesteryear.
From SATX4:
“This is Texas Freedom Force” (TITFF) has decided that they would like the monument of white supremacy– the Confederate statue– in Travis Park to stay. They are masquerading their white supremacy behind the notion of “preserving history.”
SATX4 will not stay silent in the face of white supremacy. History of white power belongs in a museum, not in the heart of our city. Let’s show up and show San Antonio that we will not stay silent nor will we tolerate white supremacy and hate. Join us at our counter protest to continue to petition the removal of the Confederate statue.