#1
Post rating: +++++


So far in the alt media there is an overwhelming concentration on the flashy aspects of the Twin Cities uprising that started on Tuesday. It makes sense, the rocks being thrown, protesters being hit in the head with rubber bullets, boog boy fascists with AK-47s, and burning buildings are much more in line with our media culture than the long, slow, and grinding work of committed and dedicated communists on the ground doing thankless tasks. I hope to illuminate some of this background information for people so you can begin to apply these same tactics and bring this information into your communities to create solidarity actions like we've seen all across the us.

The story of the twin cities uprising began much earlier with the murder of Jamar Clark in 2015. Jamar Clark was a black man murdered by the police, most likely on the ground while handcuffed. Protests were organized by BLM and this was the birth of TCC4J, who has been truly at the heart of mobilizing this movement and doing the grunt work. Intermittent protests went on for months, with the end result being that no charges would be filed. This was the birth of a mass org, TCC4J (Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar). Since the birth of TCC4J, there have been dozens of black men killed by the twin cities police. Protests and community work have been done for each one including the celebration of birthdays for the killed each year, bringing in national speakers to the university to talk about racism and police repression, events on the days they were murdered, and organizing for the prosecution of the police for months. Attendance for these events has ranged from a dozen people to thousands, all the while the organizers on the ground have been tirelessly working to build the political education of people around why mass action against the police is necessary. One of the most powerful aspects of these events is the families of the killed is the involvement of family members in the movement to bring their stories and humanize the victims.

One of the most impactful of these was the work done to organize against the murder of Philando Castile. Castile was pulled over in a routine traffic stop, he notified the police officer that he was legally concealed carrying a firearm, and within 30 seconds the police officer started shooting up the car. A video from the passenger went viral as it clearly showed that this was a police crime. There were multiple protests, community meetings, and acts of civil disobedience planned against this event by TCC4J with thousands of protesters showing up. The officer in this case at least had charges filed against him, was found not guilty, but the city of St Anthony paid 3 million as part of a civil lawsuit.

Another major spark was the movement around freeing Myon Burrell, who was jailed for life by Amy Klobuchar so she could build a "tough-on-crime" image for re-election on shitty evidence.

It is known that the MPD illegally held Myon despite requests for his mother and legal representation. It is well known that Klobuchar chose to use an unreliable jailhouse informant to convict Myon, ignoring statements of two other suspects that Myon was not present.

After the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned Myon’s conviction based upon flawed, missing and false evidence, Klobuchar chose to try Myon again, because she was unwilling to lose a “victory” in her fight on crime. After Klobuchar became a senator, it was Mike Freeman who oversaw Myon’s second case, which found a conviction based upon Freeman knowingly using the same flawed evidence and a biased judge.




During what was supposed to be Amy's last public appearance of her campaign, TCC4J and other activists took over the stage and sound system and protested for hours, forcing Amy to cancel the event.

On the national scale, there is organizing being done with the National Alliance Against Racist and Police Repression, a rebirth of a movement from the 70s to free political prisoners and organize for community control of the police. Last year, there was a foundational conference with almost 1,000 attendees who have been working to build up similar organizations in their communities. There is a national day of protest called by NAARPR for this Saturday, so check to see if you have anything going on locally: https://naarpr.org/updates/cities-join-the-call-for-national-day-of-protest/

One of the incredible shifts that has happened with the murder of George Floyd is that the killer cops were fired within 1 day of the event, this is considerable progress from 5 years ago where they refused to even press charges against killer cops. That day, a protest was called for and organized a march from the murder site to the precinct with a coalition of disparate groups united around getting justice. Once at the precinct, there was a separation of space for those who wanted to escalate against the police and those who didn't. The detail of the events at the People's Republic of Target and Autozone will be covered by other sources since that's way sexier, so I'll let other people fill in the gaps here.

One of my favorite chants from this movement is: "Indict, convict, send these killer cops to jail! The whole damn system is guilty as hell!" This is centered on both the immediate demands while condemning the entire police and prison system and calling for community control of the police. The story of what's going on in Minneapolis isn't a reaction to one night, this is the result of years of work, community organizing, and political education to get people to normalize and support radical actions against police and political figures when they commit crimes. The real story is that this shows how mass organizations with dedicated communists at the center can create real political change with a very small base of activists.

#2
Post rating: ~
Thanks for posting this
#3
Post rating: ~
thanks for this, very informative
#4
Post rating: +
If You Knew What This Patch Meant You Would Know I'm On Your Side: The Boog Boys



In the vein of the last post, I think there's already a bunch of great content online about the boog boys, but I wanted to throw in some additional insights and things that I don't see being covered on other media. The short version is that there has been an alt-right, /pol/, and fashy-influenced organizing done online to co-opt the popular struggles and manipulate them to their own ends. The general ideology is pretty amorphous since it is based around right-wing meme culture. They want to create the conditions for a "boogaloo", a mass uprising against the us government. Within these groups, people range from libertarianish to your more standard turner diaries white supremacist. Online, the boog boys are your pretty standard racist meme culture shitheads. They call all black people "joggers" after the murder of Ahmed Arbery, they talk about shooting cops so that way the crowd gets shot up, they are basically a meme version of The Base. They want to incite an acceleration towards race war so they can establish a new society after a ritualistic violent cleansing of society. However, a lot of their propaganda also highlights police brutality against black people, in a shift from previous tactics. I hate to link to bellingcat, but they actually put out a pretty in-depth examination of the movement here

One major feature of the Jamar Clark protests is that there were white supremacists with guns who joined the protest, but were kicked out of the protest since they were obvious infiltrators. They didn't really make any attempt to say they were there in support, they just kinda showed up and were intimidating before being forced to leave. This tactic has changed in recent years, especially if you look at the events of other protests around the country. From Incendiary News on the Denver infiltration:

https://incendiarynews.com/2020/01/30/denver-psl-and-dsa-allow-fascists-at-anti-war-rally/

On January 2, over a dozen fascists attended the anti-war protest hosted by the Denver, Colorado branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) under its front ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) along with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) at the state capitol building. Even after being warned repeatedly by antifascists at the rally, the event organizers from PSL and DSA ultimately did nothing to remove the known fascists, eventually marching side-by-side with them as the fascists held signs with PSL’s own propaganda.





On Tuesday, about 20 out of 20,0000 people that showed up were white men with AKs and other guns carrying "big igloo" flags and wearing patches. They were approached almost immediately and asked to leave at the site of the murder of George Floyd before they explained they were there to protect the protesters. They told protesters "If you knew what this patch meant, then you would know I'm on your side." They ended up taking pro-BLM signs and sticking to the outskirts of the protest, but weren't formally kicked out. Once the march to the third precinct started, this group split up with some staying with the permanent protest at the murder site and the other going to the precinct (about a 45 minute walk away).

There were other infiltrators that the left-wing community identified from previous actions who acted as plants and provocateurs who were kicked out of the rally early on.

After most people left to march, there were a bunch of shots fired at 38th and Chicago by unknown people, the boog boys that stayed back ran and hid when the shots started being fired. So much for protecting the protesters, right? I haven't seen much news coverage of this, but I think this combined with everything else going on is part of some larger planned strategy to escalate violence against protesters and police. Police came and arrested a few of the men with rifles, you can see the youtube video here:



At the precinct site, there was a guy with a big igloo flag taunting cops and several of the members were working to increase tensions on the ground. I didn't see them breaking into any buildings, they mostly spent a lot of time taunting police and waving their flag. There was a guy with a skull mask that is popularly used by neo-nazis who was running around throwing shit at cops.

One big lesson to take away is having people on your marshal and tactical team dedicated to identifying and kicking out infiltrators. I'm seeing a big trend within online left circles calling white leftists to show up with rifles at these protests to protect protesters, so it is going to get tougher to identify these people. The people organizing these protests aren't asking white people to show up with rifles, so it is basically white adventurism from people who want to pretend they are John Brown.

Edited by pogfan1996 ()

#5
Post rating: +
There is a rally at the Hennepin County Government at 5 PM today to demand that all 4 killer cops are jailed and there is a car caravan Saturday nationally organized by NAARPR. Over 1300 people have signed up so far on Facebook for the Minneapolis event, the parking lot that is going to be the starting point can hold maybe 200 cars so it is going to paralyze the city. The NAARPR event is to free prisoners from prisons, jail killer cops, protest the murders of people by police, and ending slavery under the 13th amendment.

One other really awesome part of this is that there have been 4-5 concurrent rallies and protests going on for 2 days straight, so the cops aren't able to coordinate as well. They are running out of tear gas, rubber bullets, getting confused on the police scanner, and have trouble prioritizing which action to take. National Guard has been called in as well and police have started carrying AR-15s.

Edited by pogfan1996 ()

#6
Post rating: +

pogfan1996 posted:

I hate to link to bellingcat, but they actually put out a pretty in-depth examination of the movement here



what's this? a bellingcat article finding connections between nominally moderate groups and radical extremists?

#7
Post rating: ~

dimashq posted:

pogfan1996 posted:

I hate to link to bellingcat, but they actually put out a pretty in-depth examination of the movement here

what's this? a bellingcat article finding connections between nominally moderate groups and radical extremists?



i actually recognize the journalist, his whole thing these past two years is speculating on an imminent civil war in the US.

#8
Post rating: +
thank you for the interesting posts pogfan1996
#9
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
Reminder to Amerikans: Your Government Wants You to Die
#10
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
I’m glad the far right is still operating on the sovereign citizen movement principle of, the necessary and sufficient conditions for revolution are dating Yuffie at the Golden Saucer with the right materia equipped
#11
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
hey you know what the oppressive Amerikkkan police hyperstate hates. They hate yanking out their guns and firing ten thousand bullets into everything, killing everyone. They hate that shit. It’s their one weakness
#12
mt.real
Post rating: +
I put this on the front page, let me know if you have a preferred bg image
#13
mt.real
Post rating: +
This guy is staying on top of the police scanner if anyone would like to have access to that:
#14
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: ~
Here’s proof of the Target’s fate
#15
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +

piss posted:

when all of the white peopl are at the funeral of the gas station mourning we can walk up and be really snarky. like. "oh boy! not the gas station! fuck! god... danng!!!!! fuck! i love gas station!" but then be like, secretly, making fun of them


#16
Post rating: +
Breaking news: the mob has left the Target and is swelling in size, advancing toward Super Target
#17
Post rating: +
Here's a Bellingcat guy wigging out at his computer while presenting himself as a hard-boiled war correspondent because the YPG took him around to interview some shopkeepers one time. "The flames... burning... I've got to do something... FUCK" *dramatically begins updating map for the cops*

#18
Post rating: ~

trakfactri posted:

Breaking news: the mob has left the Target and is swelling in size, advancing toward Super Target



another victory for amazon

#19
Post rating: ~

trakfactri posted:

Reading your posts has made me feel good things about the people of Minneapolis who seem like really amazing, wonderful people who are doing amazing, wonderful things.


#20
lies half the time
Post rating: +
weoo weoo
thats the sound da fire truck would have made, if they had even sent one to put out the 3rd precinct as it burned
#21
Post rating: +


say what you will about the amerikkkan president, when he threatens protestors with summary execution at least he goes to the effort of making it catchy with a little rhyme
#22
mt.real
Post rating: +
This is the news, livestream here
#23
lies half the time
Post rating: ~
grayzone republished this relevant article from 2016 that sheds some more light onto the recent history of pigs being pigs in minneapolis

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/29/minneapolis-police-george-floyds-white-power-biker-gang/
#24
Post rating: +
Leaving this here in light of that article:



#25
Post rating: ~
dean blunt's record label

https://twitter.com/worldmu58997540/status/1266293994692030465

edit: he took that down and posted this lol

Edited by Flying_horse_in_saudi_arabia ()

#26
Post rating: +
#27
Post rating: +
#28
Post rating: +
cops were definitely escalating shit on purpose, started the "looting", probably planned to abandon the police station
#29
Post rating: +
#30
Post rating: +
I don't fully trust that as a specific ID but there's zero chance that this wasn't a provocateur of some kind--the way he shows up, methodically breaks windows over the objections of everyone around, then books it?
#31
Post rating: +
walking around with a fucking umbrella, come on
#32
Post rating: +

againstthemoon posted:

walking around with a fucking umbrella, come on



That’s not necessarily that crazy, there were tons of people with umbrellas because it was raining a bunch throughout the day and especially at night

#33
Post rating: ~
Lolol
#34
[account deactivated]
#35
Post rating: +
There’s a national day of action tomorrow, so check if your city has something going on

https://naarpr.org/updates/cities-join-the-call-for-national-day-of-protest/
#36
Post rating: +
Umbrellas can be useful but... that guy's a fucking cop!!
#37
Post rating: ~
to be fair i think there's a 10-15 percent chance it's a non-uniformed nazi
#38
Post rating: ~

thirdplace posted:

to be fair i think there's a 10-15 percent chance it's a non-uniformed nazi



yeah we already said he’s a cop

#39
Post rating: +
that's why i specified the non-uniformed part! i'm not owned!
#40
Post rating: +

thirdplace posted:

to be fair i think there's a 10-15 percent chance it's a non-uniformed nazi


I've seen people scrutinizing it and apparently an ex-girlfriend identified that dude as a cop with enough confidence that she's now scared of retaliatory cop harassment. someone got a really good pic where you can see a lot of his face even through the gas mask (GOOD SKILLS, GOOD TACTICS) and it matches up pretty convincingly with the face of the cop in question.

it's still all just internet chatlogs at this point but y'know, looks as credible as those can get. he's a cop. they're systematically using teargas to direct and gather people, then wherever people clump up they're sending officers in stereotypical "black bloc" costumes to smash things and immediately leave. persistent pattern, deliberately discrediting the protestors and using violence to turn the people of the city against them.

e: oh lol cman already posted the stuff further upthread, i'm so behind

Edited by shriekingviolet ()