Things are really heating up this week out in Cop City, Atlanta. Protests are reaching a critical breaking point and members of law enforcement believe they’re close to eradicating the opposition. When Israel does what the police in Atlanta are currently doing, we rightfully criticize it as oppressive and fascist. When an entire community’s opposition to police expansion is steamrolled and ignored, when forest land is razed and replaced by a violent, militarized domestic police academy, these are the hallmarks of an empire in rapid decline.
Police in Atlanta killed a protestor a few weeks ago in the process of clearing the forest, and now pigs are rounding up protesters and legal observers and charging them with domestic terrorism. Felony state domestic terrorism charges were filed against 23 protesters this weekend, after police say they chucked bricks, rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at officers near the site. Even the Southern Poverty Law Center was affected, as an attorney at their office who was legally observing was also arrested in the forest.
Following the fatal shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, the Department of Homeland Security released a bulletin warning of growing concerns of escalating violence directly connected to opposition to Cop City. The bulletin said that since the fatal shooting, suspected domestic violent extremists "have cited the incident as justification for violence." This is exactly the type of behavior and explanation employed by apartheid Israel’s military. Swarm a community, commit acts of violence and oppression, and then respond with an even heavier hand when the community inevitably reacts negatively to the violence.
As a result of the protesters’ actions, several pieces of construction equipment at the site, including tractors, were destroyed by fire and vandalism, delaying the destructive process, if only marginally. Hope is dwindling, but every rebellious act brings us closer to the fall of the police and military industrial complex.
Side Items
Healthcare Co-Pays Are a Killer: Four Americans who traveled to Mexico last week to seek health care got caught in a deadly shootout and were kidnapped by heavily armed men who threw them in the back of a pickup truck. This nightmare unfolded in Matamoros, a border city of Tamaulipas where missing people often go uncounted because the cartels have a history of taking bodies with them
Purim Pogrom: What better way to celebrate Purim, the Jewish holiday commemorating the saving of the Jewish people from annihilation, than attacking and destroying Palestinians and their property? Israeli soldiers were filmed dancing with Jewish settlers on the streets of Huwara, where illegal Israeli settlers attacked five members of the same family. The Palestinians were hospitalized after the attack in the northern occupied West Bank, just a week after settlers rampaged through the village
Where is Ja?: (We’re talking about Morant, not Rule). The young Grizzlies superstar filmed himself on IG Live over the weekend waving a gun around. Generally this kind of behavior doesn’t end well in the NBA, but the revelation that the video was taken in Colorado suggests that Morant got onto a team plane carrying the weapon with him. One of the most exciting young players on one of the most exciting young teams has now stepped away from the team as the league conducts an official investigation. The Grizzlies organization has not given a definitive timeline for his return, but things could quickly go south for Morant