Notices by CrimethInc. Ex-Workers (crimethinc@todon.eu), page 2

"Before 1914, the earth had belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits, no visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling them that before 1914, I travelled from Europe to India and America without a passport and without ever having seen one."

-Stefan Zweig

Borders as we know them are a recent concoction.

The passport system as we know it dates to the First World War. ICE was founded in 2003 as part of the so-called "War on Terror," a disaster for freedom in every way.

These institutions are neither timeless nor beneficial nor inevitable.

https://crimethinc.com/borders

At the turn of the century, during the movement against capitalist globalization, we used to say that it was a travesty that products could move across national borders more easily than human beings.

The solution is not to impose more controls on products as well as on human beings.

The tariffs are not intended to benefit the United States economy, nor the capitalist class as a whole. They chiefly benefit Donald Trump and his lackeys, functioning as a tool with which they can punish adversaries and negotiate for personal gain.

This is a hallmark of authoritarian rule.

The arbitrary and autocratic state policy exemplified by these tariffs is emerging as a consequence of the tremendous disparities in wealth and power that the neoliberal world order produced.

The solution is not to try to go back to neoliberalism, but to abolish capitalism.

https://crimethinc.com/work

Those who seek to oppress us are not invincible.

Whatever power they acquire, whatever technology they employ, they make mistakes, they overlook vulnerabilities.

And they are motivated by bigotry and greed, which are not the most powerful forces in the human spirit.

https://crimethinc.com/ActionResources

The Anti-Deportation Collective

Fighting the Machinery of Deportation in France in the 1990s

http://crimethinc.com/AntiDeportation1998

In this stirring first-person account, a participant recounts scenes from the movement against deportations in Paris in the late 1990s, including efforts to blockade the trains via which the police transported captured immigrants to the border.

As Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their lackeys scapegoat the undocumented and kidnap immigrants who oppose genocide even when they hold green cards, it is a good time to study how people have resisted the violence of the state in other times and places.

Every Tesla is a surveillance device. This is worth knowing regardless of whether you plan to engage in protest activity.

This chart shows the locations and ranges of the cameras, presuming they have an unobstructed view.

Fashion tips for preserving your privacy around Teslas:

https://crimethinc.com/fashiontips

To prepare for the next election, Turkish autocrat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sent police to arrest his chief political rival and 100 other political adversaries.

This is the model Trump is importing to the United States.

For background on the roots of Turkish fascism:

https://crimethinc.com/TurkishFascism

On this day in 1871, French troops sided with the people that they were sent to repress against the generals and the oligarchs who sought to dominate them. This set off a revolutionary chain reaction that changed the course of history.

Such things do happen.

https://crimethinc.com/arch18

The Israeli military is bombing Gaza again, unilaterally breaching the ceasefire. Hundreds of people are already reported killed in Gaza.

They are not doing this because the Israeli government was not able to use diplomacy to achieve the goals that made them agree to the ceasefire.

They are doing this because, having achieved those intermediate goals, they are now in a position to resume the genocide, which is their chief goal.

Let no one make excuses for this attack. The Israeli military has already killed hundreds of Palestinian children for every Israeli child who was killed on October 7, 2023. They have already destroyed the schools and hospitals and rendered millions homeless.

This is genocide for the sake of colonial land theft, pure and simple.

Some background:

https://crimethinc.com/Gaza2024

Dictatorship by used-car salesmen.

Declining profit rates have driven capitalists to focus on market speculation. Both Elon Musk and Donald Trump have made their fortunes chiefly by hype.

Now they are perpetrating this scam at the highest level of political power, using the instruments of the state to promote their products. Elon Musk is transferring $100 million to Donald Trump in return for this car commercial.

But what goes up must come down. The more wealth and power they concentrate in their hands, the clearer it is to everyone else that the system that elevated them deserves to be destroyed.

https://crimethinc.com/busdriver

Without the ever-escalating violence of amoral mercenaries, it would be impossible to preserve the disparities in wealth and power that make it possible for men like Elon Musk to buy up elections while millions go hungry.

Abolish billionaires. Abolish the police.

https://cwc.im/cops

We keep hearing a binary narrative in which criminal oligarchs are undermining the rule of law.

It would be more precise to identify three camps:

—centrists who fetishize the rule of law as a good in and of itself;

—oligarchs aiming to overhaul the current courts and laws to be even more brutal;

—and those who reject both camps in favor of real freedom and equality.

In the first camp, we find those who believe that a certain amount of self-determination is acceptable, as long as it falls neatly within whatever laws happen to be on the books. They are also at ease with a wide range of ruthless self-seeking oppressive activity, provided it complies with the law.

In the second camp, we find those who are determined to consolidate power in their own hands, regardless of what laws happen to be on the books. Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and their various capitalist and fascist backers aim to replace the current laws and courts with something even worse.

In the third camp, we find those who believe that regardless of what laws happen to be on the books, no one should be able to dominate anyone else—whether by hoarding access to resources or wielding the instruments of state repression.

There is no excuse for tyranny.

https://crimethinc.com/becomeananarchist

One year ago today, Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gate of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC as an act of protest against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

The scale of the tragedy in Gaza exceeds anything we can understand from the United States. Aaron was determined not to passively accept it.

Today, in Aaron's memory, let us pledge ourselves once more to solidarity with Palestinians—to fight against genocide, ethnic cleansing, and all forms of colonialism.

In this memorial, we share Aaron’s summary of his anarchist politics, with testimony from his friends.

https://crimethinc.com/AaronMemories

In Aaron's own words:

"I am an anarchist, which means I believe in the abolition of all hierarchical power structures, especially capitalism and the state… I believe that any hierarchical power structure is bound to reproduce class dynamics and oppression. Thus, I want to engage in egalitarian forms of organizing that produce horizontal power structures based on mutual aid and solidarity."

In the words of one of Aaron's friends,

"Aaron has permanently changed the fabric of your being. You know this because for the rest of your life, you will wrestle with the thought of what you will sacrifice for the liberation of others."

For eight years, liberal politicians and pundits have counted on legal strategies to stop Donald Trump. Now that Trump has gained control of the executive and legislative branches of government and is consolidating control of the judicial branch, this isn't just naïve—it's counterproductive. It is past time to stop legitimizing the means they will use to repress resistance and focus on strategies that make use of the power we have when we act together, directly.

https://crimethinc.com/becomeananarchist

Eight Things You Can Do to Stop ICE

https://crimethinc.com/StopICE

We've produced a guide detailing many different ways you can act to prevent ICE from tearing families apart and terrorizing your community.

This is also available as a PDF for printing. Please circulate these widely!

You can extinguish tear gas canisters!

Wearing heat-proof gloves, submerge the canister in a wide-mouthed water jug containing baking soda, dish soap, and/or vegetable oil—3 tablespoons of each per liter of water.

Cover the top with one hand, just enough to keep the gas from getting out, and shake the jug.

Never seal a bottle containing an active tear gas canister—you don't want it to explode.

One role you could play at demonstrations is to show up prepared to protect your fellow human beings from toxic gas, in case the mercenaries deploy it.

You can learn more here:

https://crimethinc.com/RiotMunitions

Thirteen years ago today—during a demonstration in Oakland, California, one participant demonstrates the proper meaning of "armchair anarchist." 🏴

https://crimethinc.com/contradictionary

If you're being forced out of the military on account of your gender as a result of Trump's return to power, we invite you to enlist in the real struggle for freedom. This is more honorable than fighting on behalf of those who hate you—and it's a fight that we cannot avoid.

https://crimethinc.com/transban2

Allies: The best way you can support trans people is by ensuring that none of us ever has to join the army in the first place. Help us fight for access to health care, community, camaraderie, self-respect, and options for survival that don’t come at the expense of others’ survival. We shouldn’t have to hire on as mercenaries for the biggest armed gang in the world to get those things.

Others in the trans community: The best way we can fight for our own liberation and the liberation of all people is to create a world in which the US military does not and cannot exist. When we legitimize the US military, we are legitimizing the very weapons that politicians like Trump will employ against us. The purpose of institutions like the US military is to impose control by means of coercive force; they have always been used against those on the margins of society. Participating in these institutions is no way to achieve self-determination: the stronger they are, the less assured our own freedom will be.

I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his payroll.

I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man’s door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

You may have seen this image of Elon Musk's Nazi salute projected onto Tesla's Gigafactory in Berlin.

But you may not know that last year, anarchists occupied the adjacent forest to block the expansion of the Gigafactory and used direct action to shut down electricity to it.

Read all about it:

https://crimethinc.com/TeslaGermany

There are concrete things we can do to resist.

Elon Musk made the Nazi salute twice at Trump's inauguration.

Musk bought Twitter to reinstate Nazis. He supports the German fascist party AfD. He has spread antisemitic "replacement" rhetoric.

Yet the ADL is making excuses for him because, like them, he supports the genocide of Palestinians.

Unsurprisingly, fascism looks a bit different this time around than it did a century ago. But it already has its Henry Ford, its autocrats, its scapegoats against whom to direct anger, its sacrificial violence.

We should have no illusions about what we're up against.

https://crimethinc.com/sacrificialviolence