This is an update of some of our activities for the month of November, 2024.
One of us talked to a mutual aid group about ham radio. About 50 people were in attendance. Recorded audio of the talk is being edited.
A member from the Great Lakes region passed their Technician’s exam.
Blackblogs.org went down for about a week in November. These things happen even to the best of services. But due to a perceived increase in instability of IT infrastructure across the wider Internet, we have decided to mirror this site on anarchistrrl.noblogs.org. We may also mirror the site in some Smolweb form such as Gemini or a BBS as well, but mostly just for fun.
Crimethinc has an excellent article on an Anarchist response to hurricane Helene. Excerpt about radio below:
Radios, especially ham radios, are another important means of communication that should be arranged in advance with people who already know how to use them. Our mountainous terrain limits the distance that radios can broadcast, but it would still have been helpful if we had possessed ham radios.
ID: BW SSTV mage distorted by Baofeng UV-5R clipped to the top of a wooden fence.
That ridiculous looking 42.5 inch collapsible antenna sold by Abbree is actually pretty good, at least for RX. This makes sense as it’s approximately 1/2 wave on the 2 meter band.
Following the police murder of a comrade at the Weelaunee Forest, we endorse the statement which can be found below.
As for our own words, we support the rights of people to communicate freely and to enjoy nature. We oppose mass surveillance and the Carceral State. Aside from that, we love trees. They hold our antennas.
We call on all people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.
On January 18, in the course of their latest militarized raid on the forest, police in Atlanta shot and killed a person. This is only the most recent of a series of violent police retaliations against the movement. The official narrative is that Cop City is necessary to make Atlanta “safe,” but this brutal killing reveals what they mean when they use that word.
Forests are the lungs of planet Earth. The destruction of forests affects all of us. So do the gentrification and police violence that the bulldozing of Weelaunee Forest would facilitate. What is happening in Atlanta is not a local issue.
Politicians who support Cop City have attempted to discredit forest defenders as “outside agitators.” This smear has a disgraceful history in the South, where authorities have used it against abolitionists, labor organizers, and the Civil Rights Movement, among others. The goal of those who spread this narrative is to discourage solidarity and isolate communities from each other while offering a pretext to bring in state and federal forces, who are the actual “outside agitators.” The consequence of that strategy is on full display in the tragedy of January 18.
Replacing a forest with a police training center will only create a more violently policed society, in which taxpayer resources enrich police and weapons companies rather than addressing social needs. Mass incarceration and police militarization have failed to bring down crime or improve conditions for poor and working-class communities.
In Atlanta and across the US, investment in police budgets comes at the expense of access to food, education, childcare, and healthcare, of affordable and stable housing, of parks and public spaces, of transit and the free movement of people, of economic stability for the many. Concentrating resources in the hands of police serves to defend the extreme accumulation of wealth and power by corporations and the very rich.
What do cops do with their increased budgets and their carte blanche from politicians? They kill people, every single day. They incarcerate and traumatize schoolchildren, parents, loved ones who are simply struggling to survive. We must not settle for a society organized recklessly upon the values of violence, racism, greed, and careless indifference to life.
The struggle that is playing out in Atlanta is a contest for the future. As the catastrophic effects of climate change hammer our communities with hurricanes, heat waves, and forest fires, the stakes of this contest are clearer than ever. It will determine whether those who come after us inherit an inhabitable Earth or a police state nightmare. It is up to us to create a peaceful society that does not treat human life as expendable.
The forest defenders are trying to create a better world for all of us. We owe it to the people of Atlanta and to future generations everywhere to support them.
Here are some ways to support the defense of the forest in Atlanta:
Donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund to support legal costs for arrested protestors and ongoing legal action.
