Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Anti Police and State Violence Coalition Meeting / Cop Watch Training

ANTI POLICE & STATE VIOLENCE COALITION PLANNING MEETING (APRIL 2ND)



with TRAINING from

COP WATCH ON POLICING THE POLICE

Join us at our next organizing group meeting to discuss and carry forward our strategies to end state and police violence.

Know Your Rights:

Training will include:

What are your rights to observe the police?

Tactics on how to COPWATCH or patrol the police

Know your rights during an arrest

Share your experiences and questions

Educate yourself on ways to ensure your safety while patrolling

Create awareness about these tactics with your community

7-9pm Thurs, April 2nd

at 3465 W 8th Street , Los Angeles CA 90005 2nd Floor (KIWA Offices)

Friday, March 20, 2009

Class Struggle Anarchist Conference New York 2008 Pictures


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http://picasaweb.google.com/miskomakade/ClassStruggleAnarchistConference#

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Revolutionary Culture at the Food Program / Cultura Revolucionaria en el Programa de Nutricion

The Food Program of the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities is every Sunday in McArthur Park in Los Angeles at 1:30 pm on Parkview between 7th and Wilshire.

People that participate have created relationships with each other, and a revolutionary autonomous model and culture.

A participant of the food program reads an allegory about the "change" in president/emperor and police terrorism after he watched the film, "We're Still Here, We Never Left."

=================================

El Programa de Nutricion de las Comunidades Autonomas Revolucionarias es cada Domingo en el Parque de McArthur en Parview entre la 7 y la Wilshire.

Los participantes han creado relaciones entre ellos, tambien un ejemplo autonomo revolucionario, y una cultura revolucionaria.

Un participante del programa lee una alegoria sobre el "cambio" de presidente y el terrorismo de policia despues de ver el documental, "Todavia Estamos Aqui, Nunca nos Fuimos."




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwhlF7cBC_g



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPn0GKxf1O4

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Video from the 1st Annual Los Angeles Bookfair December 13, 2008



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH0TDh_v-UQ&eurl=http://comment.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewComments&friendID=284764922&feature=player_embedded

Friday, March 13, 2009

Punx is Gentrifiers

Punx Is Gentrifiers
Breaking it down and getting a clue about your role in displacing others.

By Michelle Zenarosa


So you wanna start an infoshop? DIY space? Punk haus? Or maybe you just want to instigate ‘punk night’ at the local dive bar? Well let’s trace the usual steps taken to make this happen…

You probably don’t have much money, so you look towards an area that you can afford. You have found a sweet spot, close to all the local hotspots, and you fill out an application to rent. You look like a much better renter than the people who rented before you and the landlord doesn’t seem to care one way or another, so s/he hands you a lease and you couldn’t be more excited about how promising your new life is looking.

Fast forward a little bit. It’s a warm night in town and you’re out on the rooftop reflecting on what has happened since you set up shop. Suddenly you realize how much has changed in such a short time: a whole new set of affluent faces have moved into the neighborhood. A new yoga studio, an art gallery and an upscale pet boutique have even staked their territory down the street.

What has happened isn’t some new trend—it’s called gentrification. The European Commission’s building design and construction program describes it in more definite terms as the “unit-by-unit acquisition of the housing of low income residents, industrial or commercial property by high-income residents for art, cultural, fashion or other high-status use.”

Contrary to popular belief, gentrification it is not a normal market phenomenon. Displacement means force. It entails harassment and violence, especially of tenants. By initiating and/or contributing to gentrification, you create the potential for landlords to displace tenants.

The main problem with gentrification is displacement, but that’s not the only consequence. When poor residents get displaced it’s nearly impossible for them to find adequate housing because of the reduction in cheaper housing stock and the nonexistent attempt to re-house them in the richer suburbs.

Gentrification, in one form or another, has been displacing indigenous people for hundreds of years. There is a long, complex history of white folks claiming land as theirs whenever they see it fitting to their desires, profit and convenience. And it isn’t unique to just your region, it’s a dangerous wave that is happening everywhere and fast. But the good news is that it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the beginning of the end.


What You Need Is A Little R&R
No folks, I’m not talking about rest and relaxation. I’m talking about Responsibility & Resistance. The first step to countering the gentrification wave is taking responsibility. “But it’s not my fault,” you say? Regardless of the intention, the reality is that when gentrification occurs, even your mere presence contributes to the displacement of the indigenous residents-- not to mention the destruction of the spirit of the existing community. Just because you don’t have a working relationship with corporate scum developers, doesn’t mean you aren’t an active participant in gentrifying a neighborhood. Complacency and taking advantage of a poorer neighborhood at the expense of its residents is just as bad!

But don’t get discouraged—that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to move out ASAP. There are ways you can consciously resist becoming a gentrifier while continuing to live in the neighborhood you live in.


Turning Intention Into Action
Once you become aware of and accept your role in gentrifying a neighborhood and decide you want to do something about it, there is a vast number of ways you can prevent or at least minimize displacement.

Even though it might seem like you are fighting a huge invisible monster, don’t let it make you feel like you are powerless. There are concrete ways to combat gentrification before the wave hits. But it’s going to take some work. Here are some suggestions:
-Determine the needs of the community. Use your diy skills and flier! Hold a town forum and invite everyone to discuss options, concerns and needs.
-Identify potential areas of contention. This means properties like run-down, dilapidated or abandoned buildings that are usually deemed undesirable land. Developers often wait until these properties are dirt cheap so they can buy it and re-develop as expensive luxury condos. Other properties to look out for also include the other side of the spectrum: buildings being bought-out by large chains. If a Borders or Barnes & Noble is looking to buy out the local bookstore, organize to resist that change from occurring. Making sure native businesses can continue to afford rent in the neighborhood is another key part to the puzzle.
-Contact local government. After the community knows what it wants (i.e. community garden, recreation center, low-income housing) and there is available land, let your city councilmembers know what’s going on and steer them in the direction of the community.
-Brainstorm for financing strategies. Build alliances with nonprofit organizations, potential investors, and even landlords or private developers to create proactive financing tactics.
- Work with existing development proposals. If it looks like that huge condo complex is going to happen, try to minimize displacement by making sure that local government sets aside a percentage of the development for affordable housing, living wage jobs, parking and/or open space. You can even negotiate for monetary assistance to local nonprofit community organizations or for implementation of rent control policies.

And if you’re looking for less-intensive ways of resisting, get creative! Don’t forget about the neighborhood you live in when you’re arranging the next event at your house or infoshop. When you are consistently bringing outsiders into the mix and isolating yourselves from the actual community you are in, you are contributing to gentrification. Instead of having that political prisoner-writing event, maybe one night you can hold a puppet-making workshop for the neighborhood kids and have a parade or puppet show for the community. Or perhaps for the next vegan potluck you hold at your house, you can invite your neighbors too. The best way to counter gentrification is to keep the life and bonds of the existing community strong and alive. Instead of conflicting with one another, reinforce each other.

Of course every community has its own specific needs and unique cultural vitality and these are just some ways to approach gentrification and best time to start organizing is at the beginning of it.


The Revolution Is LOCAL
…And it needs to happen now, in our neighborhoods. There’s obviously more than one way to gentrify a neighborhood and punks aren’t always the catalysts. But it’s classic for a structure like an infoshop or a punk-affiliated cafe to be the first sign of imminent gentrification. Nevertheless, punks can and do have the means to break the cycle. After your neighborhood gets gentrified and you are priced out, think again before helping to gentrify yet another neighborhood. Now that you have the knowledge, don’t let it happen again. Make responsible and well thought-out decisions to make sure you can do the most to secure the community you will move into next. There is absolutely no reason why people who have worked so hard to build their lives and improve their neighborhoods should not be able to stay there.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Birthday Pics

Pictures people made for my birthday

Slinging Rocks at Cops Palestinian Style

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I drop bows on Obama

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Tune in to Revolutionary Programming on KillRadio.Org

Tune in to Revolutionary Programming on KillRadio.Org

Radio RAC L.A.
Tuesdays 9pm-12am
Radio program from the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities
revolutionaryautonomouscommunities.blogspot.com

Radio Rokoto-Bomba
Wednesdays 10pm-12am
Punk Rock y noticias libertarias de todas partes de Latino America

Ecos De Libertad
Fridays 6pm-8pm
Radio Project, music and updates from members from Amanecer - for a popular anarchy.

Black Riders
Saturdays 10pm-12am
Playing Conscious Music and Taking Calls from the Community

More radical and anti-authoritarian programming coming soon to killradio.org, bringing you info from the streets, the community, and the struggle.

The RAC Food Program and You

The RAC Food Program and You







Comrades, Companoera/os,



The crisis, which drove many of our people from their homes to seek work so as to feed their families, has arrived here. Work is much harder to find, wages are not raised, workers are fired and more work is heaped upon those left who still have jobs.



In addition to the economic strain, migrants, and even those that resemble migrants, along with blacks and other people of color will be unfairly targeted and blamed. “They are taking our jobs,” it will be charged. “We are paying for Their children in our schools, hospitals, parks and jails.” This ‘Us’ versus ‘Them’ as if we are in some way different, in some way less, when it was our work, and the work of our brother and sister fellow workers, regardless of race or nationality or language, who labored and built all that we see. When it is our work and the work of our fellow workers which would and could labor and build a new world with new schools, new hospitals, new parks but no jails. A new world for all to see.



When there is little or no work we must turn to ourselves. This is the mission that our group, Revolutionary Autonomous Communities (RAC) has undertaken since November of 2007 and continues every Sunday at 1:30 PM at the south-east corner of Wilshire and Parkview, in MacArthur Park with some 15 –20 members of our community helping to sort and package and distribute food, to over 150 people, that RAC members have solicited.



How can you help?



1$ buys a pound of beans at the grocery store. 1$ buys more than 2 lbs when we put our money together and purchase beans in 50 lb sacks. Same with rice. The purchase of corn in bulk will bring the same savings. Donate to the Food Program what you can and watch your dollar double.



Plastic Bags have to be purchased and this takes donated money away from the purchase of food. Save and bring your plastic bags on Sunday.



Help unload the trucks.



Help bag the beans and rice.



Notify us if you have fruit trees that can be harvested.





To donate to the RAC Food Program:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=3639082

Pay Pal



http://revolutionaryautonomouscommunities.blogspot.com/

Blog



Radio RAC LA
Tuesdays 9PM-12AM
http://killradio.org/












rac@lists.riseup.net





Revolutionary Autonomous Communities' Food Program
Revolutionary Autonomous Communities' Food Program

The Revolutionary Autonomous Communities has created a food program where we are empowering ourselves and others to become self-sustainable.

The Food Program is a mutual-aid project where people are organizing and distributing food in their own neighborhoods. This is not charity, we do not believe that change will happen this way. This is self-empowerment, where working class neo-colonies are feeding themselves, and organizing to feed themselves.

We feel that this system is killing our people by what the corporations feed us or don't feed us. At the same time there is an abundance of healthy food that goes to waste. They would rather let food go to waste than allow the prices of food in the market to drop. Then they disconnect people (all indigenous and colonized people) from the land, which a free and independent people need to survive. They centralize power and resources in the hands of the few, this is how they keep oppressed people dependent on a white-supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist-imperialist system.

RAC's Food Program is a way that we can work with supporters and other organizations to feed healthy food to our communities. We want people to connect with each other, to pick up and distribute the food amongst themselves. We will support, help connect people and to supply whatever resources we can. Through this process our goal is to connect our communities and to take them back. Our overall goal is to regain our necessary connection to the land. We need land to survive, and the land belongs to us, not the colonizer. We want to relearn how to truly be self-sustainable.

Support our Food Program.

Help Pick Up Food.

Help Distribute Food in Your Neighborhood.

Donate to our Community Mutual-Aid Program.

Get Organized!

Take Back Our Communities and Take Back the Land!

All Power THROUGH the People!

-Revolutionary Autonomous Communities

rac@riseup.net
revolutionaryautonomouscommunities.blogspot.com

You can join us every Sunday at 1:30 PM. Meet at the SE Corner of Wilshire and Parkview in MacArthur Park.