Filler Distro || Pittsburgh Anarchist News, Analysis, DIY Publishing & Distribution

Anonymous submission, received on 03.23.19
Photos ripped from twitter, @notthreefifths & @jacobcbpaul

Please send funds to the Rose family through CashApp:

$AntwonsMother

No one is surprised.

Michelle Kenney, Antwon’s mother, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “It isn’t what I hoped for, but it’s what I expected.”

A white cop can shoot a black kid three times in the back and get away with it. Of course the “justice” system would never incarcerate officer Michael Rosfeld of 1519 Hudson Street, Verona PA 15147.*
[*house recently went up for sale]

“I hope that man never sleeps at night,” Michelle Kenney said of Mr. Rosfeld. “I hope he gets as much sleep as I do, which is none.”

The following is a short list of what I saw in the streets of Pittsburgh last night, which only includes the later action in East Liberty. I did not include powerful moments of collective mourning and outrage—if you wanted to read about those, just show up next time and live it instead.

1. On the way there, I encountered several groups of people who seemed liked they were looking for the action but couldn’t find it (looking confused, scrolling furiously through social media, etc). My friends and I just told them to follow the helicopters or the police caravans speeding by—a reminder that this isn’t as obvious to others as it may be to “us.”

2. The action began by shutting down intersections near the Target on Penn. This allowed time for the protest to grow in size before beginning to march and getting harder to people to track down.

3. Many crews, medics, and organizers brought free food, drinks, handwarmers, etc, but I noticed two separate street corners where a few boxes of supplies were left behind. Shopping carts or bike carts are probably a good look for next time.

4. People stormed yuppie restaurants, which was cool… except most of the yuppies used it as a selfie opportunity and even pretended to join the protest for a few minutes before returning to their meals.

5. Out of several hundred people, I noticed maybe 20-30 masked-up folks dispersed throughout the crowd. However, there was never an actual “black bloc” to speak of—for whatever reason, we were unable to stay tight and form a visible presence. Without a bloc, there’s no focal point in the march for potential accomplices to cohere around. Instead, militants remained isolated and easy to police. We should make every effort to find each other and roll together. Side note: I usually remember to bring extra masks but forgot this time, which sucked ‘cos several folks actually asked me for some.  Don’t forget to bring goodie bags.

7. In my experience, a trashcan only gets knocked over once somebody realizes that the bloc has formed and they want to start hyping shit up. Wasn’t the case this time, but shout out to that kid anyway.

8. A lot of people seemed to get really pissed as soon it became clear that nothing was going to pop off. How many more kids are we going to let the pigs murder before we actually shut this shit down? This is not the time to be another jaded critic commenting from the sidelines. It’s better to at least show up, even if you’re pessimistic about what can be achieved.

It should go without saying that I don’t speak for anyone but myself. I hope other people write better report-backs than this.

– some kid

Originally published by
Torchlight — Anarchist News from Pittsburgh

Friday saw more protests over the police murder of Antwon Rose in East Pittsburgh. The evening’s action started conventionally enough, meeting at the Wood Street subway station downtown at 5:30, and stepping off around 6. At least 200 people took the streets, marching slowly through downtown and stopping frequently to block intersections while holding speakouts. A trailing caravan of cops accompanied the march, but they weren’t doing anything yet. More cops on motorcycles circled, blocking off intersections as marchers approached, and causing even further disruption to rush hour traffic.

From downtown protesters made their way over the Sixth Street bridge toward PNC Park, where a Pirates game was getting under way. After stopping on the bridge, and again in front of the left field entrance, to give the fans an earful, marchers took General Robinson over to the Seventh Street bridge and back downtown for what was meant to be the finale. Surrounded by police vehicles in Market Square, almost exactly two hours after first taking to the street, organizers with bullhorns led the group in chants of “We’ll be back! We’ll be back!”, clearly intending to send everyone home.

It didn’t quite work out that way. While some people drifted off, a smaller but highly determined group closed ranks and headed back out. Brandi Fisher and another woman with a megaphone held them up at the edge of Liberty Avenue to make a long passive-aggressive speech about how people could do what they wanted, BUT the cops had tear gas, and they should think of the children, and they were all likely to get arrested. The crowd listened respectfully until the speeches were over, and then rolled out onto Liberty.

They headed back toward the ballpark, at the same slow pace, and with the same police accompaniment, but the target was a little different. Instead of taking a different bridge back to town the march kept going on General Robinson toward the I-279 on ramp. Our correspondent takes up the tale:

“I ended up staying with a smaller group who didn’t want to take the highway, so we hung back to blockade the intersection at General Robinson and River Street. A couple of motorcycle cops stayed with us, and a legal observer came running back from the main group a few minutes later. We had just enough people to hold the blockade, so we did that for a while and then headed north past the Giant Eagle and kept going on Cedar. When we got to East Ohio we found a pleasant surprise – the main group, who had gotten off the highway at the East Ohio exit and come back to us. I swear it was bigger than when it left. I don’t know if people just jumped in off the sidewalk, or some of the folks who had left earlier came back or what, but either way our numbers were back close to what we started with.

We stayed at East Ohio and Cedar for a while blocking the intersection. A couple of big vans full of riot cops pulled up, and the cops got out and lined up in two columns looking menacing. That was it though. When we started moving again they had to stuff themselves back in the vans before they could follow us. We had about ten minutes with no cops except a couple of motorcycles and a few really obvious undercovers who had been tagging along all night.”

The march arrived back at the ballpark in the top of the 11th inning of a 0-0 game between Pittsburgh and the Arizona Diamondbacks, and promptly blockaded the intersection at General Robinson and Federal. The riot cops did the same thing they had at East Ohio, and had an even longer delay following the march when it moved down to the home plate entrance. They still hadn’t caught up by the time the march continued to the parking garage on General Robinson. Our correspondent again:

“It was really confused. People were yelling about splitting up to blockade both entrances to the garage. A few people went around the corner and pulled some loose crowd control barrier fence sections into the street. Some asshole in a black Mercedes pushed through the crowd and turned the corner with a bunch of people screaming and hitting the car. Other people at the barriers picked them up to swing at the car, which actually made it easier for the asshole to break through and escape. A couple of cops came running up on foot but all they did was put the barriers back on the sidewalk. It was really lucky nobody got hurt.”

The game was finally over by the time the police arrived in force, but many of the fans stayed in the park for Fireworks Night. The riot cops piled out of their vans yet again, and arranged themselves in a diagonal line across the intersection of General Robinson and Dorsett, blockading it more thoroughly than the march had. Marchers held their ground, lining up across both streets facing the cops. A rear line of foot cops, sans helmets, stood facing away from the protesters toward a couple of drunk white guys yelling on the sidewalk, as the fireworks began to go off in the background. A tense standoff persisted throughout the fireworks display and continued as the crowd leaving PNC Park began to thin out. By that time Pittsburgh police chief Scott Schubert was on the scene, as was a contingent of Pennsylvania state police. A line of cop cars stretched all the way back to the ballpark, and news crews were posted up wherever they could get a good view.

And finally, the marchers did again what they had proven adept at all night – moving on just as it looked like the cops were maybe going to do something. This time though, it was really over. Marchers filtered out past the cops on the sidewalk and took the street again near home plate entrance, but the chanting was quieter, and there were no more blockades. By midnight everyone arrived back at Market Square and dispersed.

Related counter-information:

*the image below should read East Pittsburgh police officer…

Originally published by Torchlight PGH — Anarchist News from Pittsburgh

Torchlight received the following reportback from an anarchist who attended the first rally for Antwon Rose on Wednesday evening. There was also a larger rally and march Thursday night that blocked Parkway East for over five hours. The reportback has been lightly edited for spelling and grammar, but is otherwise unchanged.

It’s Going Down has posted another reportback from the same rally.

I got there late, about a half hour after the 6 PM start time. There were about 300 people there, most of them young and Black, rallying at an intersection. I recognized some people I knew, but not as many as I would have hoped ordinarily. East Pittsburgh is a pretty long way from where most of the anarchists live, and the protest was called with only a few hours notice.

The rally split up into a couple of groups, one in the intersection and another further up Electric Avenue (yup, Electric Avenue). The second group seemed louder so I gravitated in their direction. A bunch of people were screaming at the cops, especially this one pig in a white shirt. There were cops there from a bunch of different towns, including a few I hadn’t even heard of. None from Pittsburgh though, and I didn’t see any state cops either. The cops who were being screamed at backed off slowly and made a line across the road, but eventually pulled back to the sidewalks.

The other group was bigger but less confrontational. At one point a white unmarked cop SUV tried to drive through the big group and people started screaming and lined up to block it in. All the cops from Electric Avenue came over and surrounded the thing while it did a slow three point turn and finally left. That was as intense as anything got while I was there. After the SUV left some people started yelling at a few kids in black bloc about violence, which seemed kind of ridiculous when you think about what we were protesting.

Pretty soon after that people mad a giant circle in the intersection of Electric and Braddock and seemed prepared to stay for a while. Then the clouds started gathering, the news helicopter dippe out, and it began to rain hard. People clustered under a railroad bridge that runs over Electric and a few people sat down in the middle of the road. It seemed ilke the rain was thinning out the crowd though, and I eventually headed out because my ride was leaving.

Nobody seemed very well prepared, including the cops, but I guess that’s not surprising. I saw a couple of green legal observer hats, but no marked medics. A few people were there in black bloc, but in my opinion that wasn’t a great place for a bloc. They stood out more than if they had just worn regular clothes. The cops were mostly hands off. The Allegheny County pigs showed up, but they didn’t bring their horses. Nobody was in riot gear. The only crowd control weapons I saw were these assault-looking rifles that I think fire rubber bullets. Some cops from Monroeville had those, but they put them away pretty early. Except for the SUV incident they didn’t seem to be doing anything to provoke people.

The rain definitely took a lot of the fight out of the crowd but even before that people seemed more about grieving and venting their anger at the cops than throwing down. There’s going to be another protest downtown tomorrow at noon at the county courthouse, so we’ll see what happens there.

***

Related counter-information:

*the image below should read East Pittsburgh police officer…

This report back is meant to show how protest marshals, imposed structure and hierarchically organized groups can prevent cohesive direct action, organic resistance, and collective decision making.

On July 6th, 2017, an attempt to escalate an action regarding an incredibly pressing issue was co-opted by socialists. During rush-hour traffic, about 40 people gathered to participate in a direct action against the Medicaid cuts and “Trumpcare.” Elderly people, disabled people, trans people, a few anarchists and plenty of socialists came together to stage a die in outside of Senator Pat Toomey’s office.

In the pouring rain, we blocked a busy intersection downtown, while laying in the street with tombstones symbolizing the deaths that Trumpcare may cause. While those who could were lying in the rain, 15 marshals in bright orange jackets, most of whom belonged to the DSA or Socialist Alternative (a top-down, nationwide organization that campaigns for policy reforms and is very eager to sell you their newspapers) scrambled to find people to order around. There was some confusion in the crowd that was seemingly caused by the unnecessary visual dichotomy of those with authority (orange vests) and those allegedly without it, (due to their lack of orange vests). Despite this, the die-in was a beautiful and powerful spectacle. After being told to get up, still charged with some adrenaline and energy, the crowd felt that the action shouldn’t be over. Led by elderly and disabled people, the crowd filtered into a lightly trafficked street. While beginning to start up chants, we heard shouts from the self designated marshals to stop the march. Even though there was absolutely no police presence, “leaders” with megaphones and socialist t-shirts shouted “You’re going to get arrested!,” ordering non-affiliated individuals to stay on the sidewalk.

Naturally, authoritative commands from socialists in bright orange jackets split up the once unified crowd of people. But many of us were determined to go on. Among the crowd that kept marching were the most vulnerable people, as well as the people who were most likely to be affected by the new potential legislation: a person in a wheelchair, a person with a walker, a cancer survivor, many elderly people, and a handful of young people unaffiliated with any party. Trailing behind on the sidewalk yelling at us were the young, able-bodied members of Socialist Alternative and the DSA insisting that our marching and chanting was not worth the risk of arrest by the invisible police presence. While urging people that arrest was unlikely, an elderly woman annoyed with the crowd’s hesitance said to a friend of mine “I came out here for a protest, what the hell is this?” It was bureaucratic bullshit and an amazing example of imposed hierarchies thwarting the ability and power of natural, collectivized direct action. The members of SA and the DSA, with their megaphones, fancy jackets, and fancy well-printed signs were able to garner the support of more than half of the march.

In the end, about a dozen people stuck with it. The risk seemed pretty low since there was not a police car in sight, and no calls for dispersal, despite the socialists’ warnings. Perhaps it’s worth noting that even if there was a threat, a few people were prepared for arrest when going into the action, but could not even gain contact with the city police due to the aggressive over policing of the socialist marshals. While turning the corner to reach the starting point of the action, many of those still marching spoke of staging a sit-down occupation of the lobby of Pat Toomey’s office building. On the sidewalk, trailing just behind us were the frazzled socialists and their manipulated squad of people. Before we were able to enter the building, Socialist Alternative demanded that they be heard once again. At this point in time, they announced their official withdrawal from the action. “I gotta protect my people,” one member said. By the time they were done collecting their signs and megaphones, a singular police officer entered the building and assisted the lobby staff in locking the doors. The rest of us looked in each other’s eyes, defeated and fucking pissed off.

I actually pity the activists working under the authority of Socialist Alternative and similar organizations. They simply follow orders and conform to pre-established structures, which blinds their ability to see the reality of a situation. It prevents them from thinking for themselves, participating freely and experiencing that magic rush that comes from organic, collective power. And anyways, people who are manipulated, manipulate people, it makes sense.

It could be cool to have a discussion about what happened during this day, but members of Socialist Alternative spend more time selling their organization than talking with people about any campaign, ideology or personal/political matter. If they were to spend less time desperately trying to get me to sign an email list or a buy a paper, perhaps we could have meaningful conversations that would prevent things like this from happening. Perhaps we could have mutual respect and it would actually mean something when they repeat words like “comrade” and “solidarity.”

Some Filler for the autonomous kids.

Hey, Democrats, we need to talk… hmu later?

In the aftermath of Hillary Clinton’s embarrassing loss to Donald Trump — someone who had widely been regarded as the most un-electable candidate in the history of presidential politics — millions of liberals have stepped out of their yoga classes and re-emerged in our social movement spaces. And they brought their bad politics with them.

– Return of the Liberals : The Tactic Police Strike Back

The Pitt College Democrats are holding a “solidarity rally” on campus this Saturday at 2pm. The event, which will provide a platform for multiple politicians, was ostensibly organized in order to “show support and solidarity with marginalized groups in a peaceful rally.”

Frankly, we call bullshit.¹
It’s Valentines Day, and the Pitt College Dems are still a little heartbroken after finding out that love doesn’t actually trump hate. In hopes of soliciting even the slightest interest in their failed neoliberal party, the PC Dems are now flirting with those Bernie-bros that they alienated mere months ago, probably dropping some shit pick-up line about the political realism of their “strategies” “against” Trump.

Struggling to maintain their relevance in the wake of the largest mobilization of our young lives, the PC Dems are now co-opting the (already opportunist) political aesthetic we typically associate with the alphabet soup of socialist and communist parties that hang around Pitt’s campus. Armed with some new slogans (occasionally substituting “resist” for “I’m with her”), a vague injunction to a moralistic do-somethingism (so long as there is no action plan that goes beyond talking to your politician of choice or asking politely for a march permit), and some sleek new fliers, the PC Dems are preparing an ambitious new campaign: BORE THE RESISTANCE TO DEATH.

At the end of the day, the Democrats still uphold the system we oppose, a system that is built on the violence of white supremacy, heteronormative patriarchy, imperialism, capitalism, and the myriad other hierarchies that dominate life here in the heart of the Empire.

But these are all things that anarchists have been saying for years. This bit of Filler is a call to inject some tension back into the political discourse on campus. Is it time for Reform, or Revolution?

In that spirit, Filler is excited to announce our very first public contest, a breakup story decades in the making, your new favorite Valentine’s Day rom-commie special… 

Breaking Up with the Democrats!

Crew-up, or go it alone! The individual, affinity group, or organization that pulls off the most creative, intersectional, funny, or disruptive intervention at the PC Dems’ rally this Saturday will receive their very own bag of goodies and a personalized Valentine’s Day card. All participants will get a love note, but only one direct action will get the goodies! If your crew wins the grand prize, so far you’re looking at some rare zines, free stick-and-poke tattoos, antifa stickers, gift cards, free meals, and more TBA!

Contest Guidelines:

1) Avoid taking actions that put bystanders at risk of police violence.
Obviously, there is no guarantee that any direct action won’t piss off the pigs, but keep in mind that this contest’s goal is to generalize conflictuality and subvert the Democrats’ attempts to pacify the movement – not to kick off the insurrection in a crowd full of liberal snitches and hostile media, let alone families with children or people who already experience a greater risk of violence in this system of (hetero-normative patriarchy, white supremacy, imperialism, capitalism, or any of the myriad other hierarchies that dominate life here in the heart of the Empire).

2) Seek accomplices, not allies.
Be conscious of the way liberals weaponize identity politics in order to pacify and exploit marginalized communities. Don’t let some “respectable,” self-appointed community leader silence you or speak on your behalf just because they share part of your identity and the oppression that comes with it – I sure as hell didn’t vote for Milo to be LGBTQ Nation’s person of the year. Likewise, don’t let liberals get away with snitching on you or delegitimizing your action just because you’ve decided to use your privilege to take the kinds of risks that some of your comrades might not be able to take.

We know that fronting as an “ally” to an entire group of people is absurdly problematic, as it assumes that everyone within that community shares the same beliefs, interests, capabilities, needs. We know that when Democrats call for “privileged allies” to follow the instructions of “community leaders,” they are really trying to tell you to obey their tokenized mouthpieces. Instead, we urge you to listen to (and deepen your relationships with) your trusted friends and comrades who are fighting this system all the harder just because of who they are.

3) Pics or it didn’t happen!
Don’t forget to claim your action in some way! You could take (non-incriminating) photos or video footage, or you could send us a communiqué to show off some of that sexy prose and radical perspective you’ve been working on, or maybe even just hand out and/or throw fliers in the air that explain your action – whatever works, just make sure to do it!

We recommend using Tor and guerrilla mail together if you want to submit your contest entry anonymously. Send your submissions to FillerCollective@riseup.net! 

Endnotes

1) Don’t get us wrong, it’s great that more students want to get organized and stand in solidarity with one another. What’s bullshit is that the Democrats are suddenly acting like they’ve been anything but a leech on liberation movements in this country, and students hoping for change are getting sucked right back into the system.

Democrats are responsible for breaking a new record in migrant deportations under the Obama administration. Democrats deployed the National Guard to suppress liberation movements such as the Movement for Black Lives. Democrats passed legislation expanding the power of the surveillance state and the executive branch, creating the authoritarian structures now wielded by an egotistical proto-fascist. Democrats bomb civilians and children just like Republicans do. Democrats gentrify our cities and unironically praise the socially-conscious business ethics of Starbucks and Whole Foods. On campus, the PC Dems also have a strange habit of publicly defending the Pitt College Republicans and denouncing direct action.

Their complicity with the Obama administration should speak for itself, but over the last few months the Pitt College Democrats have been fronting as if they represent some sort of relevant opposition to the system. Some really cool folks are getting involved, but their good intentions are continually sabotaged by the reality of our situation: the Democrats are part of the problem.

There is no denying the severity of our situation. The systemic and violent oppression of women, people of color, the LGBTQ* community, the 99%, neurodivergent folks, and countless other marginalized identity groups is about to escalate. It’s time we escalate in return.

Late last night, around a thousand Pitt students and Pittsburghers flooded into the streets. Some of us answered The Fourth Wave‘s call to action, others gathered spontaneously. We built barricades to obstruct the police tails. We attempted to occupy the Cathedral of Learning and Hillman in order to shut down campus and create a hub for organizing sustained resistance. We wrote this shit mad drunk at 5am because fuck this noise about “tolerance” – it’s time to revolt!

We are three pissed off queers, and we do not speak on behalf of anyone but ourselves. We hope that many, many more of you release statements, communiqués, strategic proposals, and calls to action so we can build a dialogue and figure out where we go from here. That 1am march was lit af, but we have work to do. Change is not a television show where two racist millionaires desperately try to convince their audience that the other is more racist. Change is not a woke-ass facebook post. Change is a rupture in the spectacle of what they call peace.

To Our Friends,
To the hundreds of kids that spontaneously gathered in opposition to a Trump presidency last night, we’ve spent our entire college careers looking for you! It figures that we’d meet only briefly, sharing no knowledge of each other outside of a collective moment of militant passion and defiance. We don’t know where you hang out, or what you do for fun, or how you balance the uncertainty of the future with the anxiety of the everyday. But we want to. We hope that someday soon we’ll find each other again, if only to enjoy another chance at cheering each other on as we confront the political manifestation of a Fox News article’s comments section.

But we also hope to know you by more than our shared practices of self-defense and intolerance of bigotry. Imagine what we’re capable of should we meet again on our own terms? The administration and its police recognize the threat: that’s why cops have been profiling and harassing any students that even look like they might oppose Trump, that’s why Vice Provost & Dean of Students Kenyon Bonner sent out a super sexy photo of himself with a plea for students to tolerate the rise of fascism. There’s a question that they’re scared we might ask: what if instead of endlessly talking about tuition hikes and their inherent racism and classism, or the terrible wages of Pitt workers and adjunct professors, or Pitt’s investments in environmentally destructive industries, or the administration’s utter inaction in the face of campus rape culture, or the fact that this election is trash… what if we instead decided to do something about it ourselves? No more dead-end negotiations and debates, no more polite “thank-you’s” for the free t-shirts and the new recycling bins and the years of indentured servitude spent working off student debt and the promise of a stable life in a perpetually shrinking job market, no more wishing Bernie was here to save us. What if we started taking concrete steps towards actual fucking revolution?

We could take over the lobby of Posvar and convert it into a Free Store, where we would share and exchange textbooks, toiletries, clothes, food, ideas, tactics, strategies. We could throw parties in Market, taking turns cooking free food for students, workers, and faculty alike, and then doing our own damn dishes afterwards. We could finally unclench our fists and pass around a fat-ass blunt on the rooftops of a newly autonomous dormitory, because this really could be our campus if we keep creating more situations that attract those that are ready to fight. If only for a few days, we could create another world here and now, become the long-awaited, uncontrollable crisis of priorities that forces those in power to make real changes—like students are doing in Montreal, Santiago, London, Oaxaca, Athens, Paris, Rome…

In the meantime, we look forward to screaming our hearts out by your side, laughing and crying because holy shit those ignorant fuckbois preaching hate actually won…

[our lazy asses reworded most of this from “Fascist Scum, Off Our Campus!” after last night’s events…hopefully other people will take the time to write something original]

[photo cred to The Pitt News]

CW: discussion of anti-trans violence

This past Friday the 8th of April, Pitt lent its spacious dining room in the O’Hara Student Center to Reverend Scott Stiegemeyer. He is a Lutheran pastor who often uses the pulpit as a means of furthering a transphobic agenda that would see prayer and crocodile-tear “compassion” take the place of life-saving hormone treatments and surgeries that allow many trans individuals to feel at home in their own skin. Even before the event, Stiegemeyer’s crusade against the “sin” of deviation from his interpretation of the Judeo-Christian creation story by making our bodies match our minds could be gleaned from his numerous writings and interviews available online.

Thus, a large contingent of the Pitt community was deeply concerned and angered that Stiegemeyer would be welcomed by the administration to speak on campus. Around 100 transgender individuals and cisgender “allies” showed up at the event, outnumbering the rest of the attendees. Still the Reverend went on with his brazen diatribe against trans bodies based on the idea that an unseen entity has the sole right to decide who is male or female, with the ecclesiastical class as God’s gender police. Early on, Stiegemeyer told an anecdote, in rather poor taste, about a child disfigured by a botched circumcision who was raised as a girl but later decided he was a man. He seemed to imply that this story reflected the experience of most trans people; that transition is something brought about by external forces of confusion, malice, or sin. Thus he concluded that we, as trans people, were “disordered”. Quickly he amended this, saying that everyone was disordered because of original sin. And in a way he is right. All of us, cisgender and transgender alike, are caught up in the cultural disorder of enforced gender norms. But the source of that disorder is not original sin. It is something the church is far more familiar with: the patriarchy.

A small contingent of trans people and their cisgender accomplices stood up in defiance, refusing to sit in silence until the “Q&A” period. We saw that this hate speech contributed to the same internal angst and suicidal tendencies the Reverend says saddens him deeply. We raised our trans flags and banner with a battle cry of “Your God Can’t Control My Body.” Immediately self-appointed “peace police” within the body of “protesters” sprang into action, demanding that we sit down and continue to take Stiegemeyer’s bullshit while our trans siblings die every day through murder and suicide. With at least five cops present at the event other than the “volunteers,” we decided to leave the space with a chant of “No Justice, No Peace, No Gender Police.” Though we didn’t stay for the Q&A session, our friends who remained inside told us that most of the questioners saw Stiegemeyer as the wolf in sheep’s clothing he was and asked some very pointed questions to expose his thinly veiled hate speech.

Those who stood up to oppose us played directly into the hands of the Reverend’s ilk. By presenting themselves as the “respectable” LGBT community, they took the side of the Reverend and the cops against those who were not willing to be silent in the face of the war against our trans bodies. They forget the war cry of ACT UP’s fight against AIDS during the 80’s and 90’s: Silence Equals Death. Only those “allies” who are not directly threatened by hate speech against trans people and the violence against us it engenders have the option to remain silent without potential deadly consequences. When our fellow queer folk call for us to be quiet, many trans people are greatly upset. Instead of joining our mutual enemies in attempting to snuff out our rage, we’d prefer you to accept our methods as equally valid to other forms of struggle so we can all take on our adversary in our own ways. We see you as potential accomplices in our liberatory project, and would much rather fight beside you than against you.

Speech that can bring bodily harm is not “free speech.” Even if Stiegemeyer has no personal malice towards trans people, his de-legitimization of gender transition is an invitation for others to engage in even harsher attacks on our experiences and our bodies. Make no mistake: we trans people are in a war for survival whether we like it or not. We are dying by the hundreds and thousands. This society wants to kill us, either physically to erase us entirely, or rhetorically to be “born again” as good law-abiding cisgender men and women within patriarchy. The only way for us to survive and thrive is to transform the social landscape by dismantling patriarchal structures and ideas in our communities. To that end, we must regard the priests of patriarchy not as partners in a “dialogue” but as an enemy force to be smashed.

Nor should we allow the self-appointed peace police to colonize the trans experience that had its birth in the insurrectionary street battles of Stonewall with demands that all us angry trans folk quiet the fuck down and assimilate into the trendy bourgeois white gay male culture. The waning of the AIDS crisis from public view and the passage of marriage equality are not grounds to retire direct action as a means of queer liberation. Far from it. That time will not come until the murder and colonization of trans and queer bodies and the heteropatriarchal artifice that enables it comes crashing down in flames.

Fuck gender cops, peace cops, all cops.

Love and rage,
An angry-as-fuck trans girl

By Raghav Sharma

I Got Arrested for Calling Michael Hayden a War Criminal

And I’d do it again.

On tour for his new book, the four-star general and former head of the NSA and CIA recently spoke at his alma mater of Duquesne University, a mere 20-minute bus ride from my own school. Having learned of the event just a few days prior and unwilling to let Hayden speak unchallenged, an anti-war friend of mine sought me out to help disrupt the event any way we could. There are multiple tactics small groups of activists can utilize to deny a speaker their unimpeachability: banner drops, storming the stage, silent sign-holding, Q&A session hijacking, chanting. It was these last two strategies our squad sought to employ.

Upon arriving in the ballroom, our hopes for the Q&A were dashed. Rather than employing the traditional process of providing microphones to raised hands through facilitators in the crowd after the speaker finished, Hayden’s session was conducted by having audience members write their questions on index cards before the event for his associates to filter through for objectionable content. This served to confirm what many activists — including Occupy co-founder Micah White in his new book The End of Protest — recognize: authority figures have managed to subvert nearly every form of dissent, whether as complex as a massive rally or as basic as a Q&A.

So we improvised. Rather than waiting for a readily co-optable opportunity to speak, we created a conflictual space within Hayden’s shameless recounting of his crimes to express our opposition to the man most responsible for the modern-day NSA. Surrounded as we were by hundreds of people who laughed at Hayden’s off-hand joke comparing CIA torture methods to his own treatment by nuns at a Catholic school, we sought not to convert our ideological opponents but rather to express and establish as a matter of record an attitude towards Hayden contrary to that held by his fans and admirers both in the audience and outside the hall. And for the high crime of shouting over a former government official, my associates and I were dragged out of the ballroom by men in suits who we later learned had been lurking in the back of the room.

We were taken outside the building, where I was cuffed to my friend by the assistant chief of Duquesne’s private police. We stood idly by as he and a uniformed officer discussed what they were going to charge us with. It was around the fourth or fifth time they referred to our supposed crime as “disrupting a meeting” that I realized they had nothing on us. Not for a moment did I regard what we had done as a moral crime, but the realization that I hadn’t violated the law emboldened me and instilled a degree of confidence that would prove immeasurably valuable for the interactions that were to come. Another uniformed cop joined his brother in blue and led us to the parking lot, where my friend and I were split up, handcuffed individually, and put into two separate police cars departing for the station.

I would be astonished if either man believed “disrupting a meeting” was an actual crime. The intention with which they bandied the phrase about was likely an attempt to make us fearful enough for our individual futures that we would comply with the questions they asked us about each other. Upon arriving at the station, my friend and I were led into an interrogation room. In an hour-plus conversation, the officers offered up such gems as “the Constitution is dead” and a lecture about my disrespect for the men and women who died defending my right to speech, the latter of which rang as hollow as the former did true while I sat handcuffed to a wooden bench for talking at the wrong time. After demanding ID and sitting down to fill out the necessary forms, the officers began their interrogation.

The nature of their questions followed an easily-recognizable pattern, coached in a game of good cop/bad cop so blatant I couldn’t help but grin. They would begin with abstract statements intended to get us talking. For the good cop, this meant asking us what our intentions were in disrupting Hayden. He even offered his own take on contemporary America in response to our critiques, giving rise to the aforementioned Constitutional obituary. The bad cop chose to deride us and our cause. We didn’t respect Hayden or his service, or the service of all soldiers, we didn’t respect the gravity of the War on Terror. I’ll admit: we took the bait the first few times. We engaged in conversation with the officers, who continued the discussion for a little while before lifting elements from our responses to transition into specific questions. Questions about our friends. Questions about activist groups we associated with. Questions we answered vaguely, if at all. Awkward silence. Rinse and repeat.

Before long this game grew stale for all involved. At one point a detective entered the room and asked the officers if we’d been read our Miranda rights. I urge anyone looking for a good laugh to request the video footage from the camera in the corner of the room and watch the look on the face of the officer who brought me in. After asking us in vain to submit written statements regarding our motivations, the detective told us we could go. No charges were filed but the case is being forwarded to my school’s disciplinary board and the Allegheny County District Attorney while my friend and I are now legally prohibited from setting foot on Duquesne’s campus. We were led to the door by the assistant chief of police, who pointed us towards the nearest bus stop and sent us on our way.

Having wondered my whole life what my first political arrest would be like, I left feeling an abrupt sense of negation. It was as though I had spent two hours of my life completing a closed loop. No crime so no charges, no changing the minds of any person on either side. But that was never the point. Subjectivity’s straitjacket leaves us all standing with our backs turned orbiting Truth. Can I call Michael Hayden a bad man, or Assistant Chief Sippey, or the audience applauding my arrest, when their entire lives had led them inevitably to our confrontation just as mine had?

Subjectivity also weighed heavily on me as I considered what might have happened had I dared to be daring in a black body, or had my gender identity not conformed to what was listed on the state ID I presented. Born with a level of privilege most of the world cannot imagine, I was relatively sheltered from the consequences of my actions before I even acted. I shudder to imagine the draconian punishments I would have suffered had I publicly decried as a war criminal the head of Turkish or North Korean intelligence.

But those men aren’t doing book tours. Officials of overt autocracies lack the means to subdue their populations through anything but fear and violence. The subtle strongman is a man of the people, and thus those who hide their hegemonic aspirations behind the banner of democracy must at times prostrate themselves before the public. So they give us a vote while conducting their business behind closed doors. They distort their crimes through the lens of patriotism and posit that everything is relative; that had we known what they know, we would have done the same. Loss of life and liberty becomes relative to the value of security, the moral inviolability of human rights relative to the motives of the terrorist.

Recourse to relativity cuts two ways, however, and jingoistic posturing is the only salve capable of soothing the wounds of cognitive dissonance. To deny America’s role in perpetuating some of the world’s most profound depravity is to dismiss en masse the perspectives of those whose lives are crushed under our eternal march to liberate the Earth. The emotional impact of violence remains the same whether its survivors curse suicide bombers or drone operators. On what grounds can we rationalize the fear of Afghan children gazing at a clear blue sky?

Freed from the grasp of nationalism, if we are to accept subjectivity as an objective element of the human experience, we have no choice but to combat the apocalyptic consequences of our lifestyle on the lives of so many around the world. Our struggle may very well be in vain. The opponents of liberty own the banks and the factories. They control the schools and have the press hanging at their every word. The guns and bombs and surveillance networks are on their side. But struggle is defined by seemingly insurmountable odds. To stand against ideological totality demands a competing absolute and an army willing to lay their lives on the line in service of this ideal. What the cops interrogating me feared most was that they had only arrested two of us. They fear a nonviolent coalition committed to rejecting the order police protect and making manifest a new order based not on violence and coercion but rather consensus and peace, human dignity and the potential of a species freed from deprivation and terror. And so long as the old order stands, it our duty as its opponents to stand firm, screaming at its face.