Iron Snowflake

On the 13th of November the Block Cop City march faced off with cops near Weelaunee Forest. The cops lacked the courage or maybe the strength to fight the banner wall protected wedge formation at the lead of the march shield to shield. Instead, they opened up with tear gas and flashbangs. This failed to end the march-and 8 protesters got through and locked down to construction equipment.

Perhaps the cops learned to forget close quarters battle and use area effect weapons instead when they trained jointly in Israel with the IDF? There too, the IDF lacks the courage to fight in the tunnels, so instead they are trying to destroy all of Gaza under a storm of bombing.

Anyway, at Weelanuee Forest today, the wind caught the gas and blew some of it back on the cops, who had not masked up. This is an inherent risk of chemical weapons and cannot be avoided, going all the way back to World War I. Both sides retreated from the contaminated air and both regrouped.

Cops continued to fire tear gas in at least one location as marchers headed back. A menacing threat of mass arrest did not deter the march from holding together all the way back to their starting point.

All this chaos distracted the cops-and 8 protesters slipped past everything, penetrated all police defenses, and locked down to construction equipment at the Cop City construction site.

This is an automatic VICTORY for Block Cop City, as they achieved their stated goal of entering the site and holding a civil disobedience. The fact that even ONE person reached the site and locked down is an automatic defeat for the police, as they failed to prevent all protesters from reaching the site much less locking down to it. Anything the cops do after changes only the price not the fact of this heroic victory over what looked like insurmountable odds.

Suck it up, Atlanta Police Foundation, you LOST today. Tort will NEVER be forgotten, Cop City will NEVER be built!

Same video (by Our Rights DC) on Mastodon if this proves too intense for archive.org (which does not have a content warning system that works without requiring logins)

On the 11th of November, protesters horrified by Israel’s wholesale slaughter in Gaza held a die-in at the White House, complete with what appeared to be dead children in burial shrouds. This was on the day the death toll in Gaza(population is 1/2 children!) passed 11,000.

Note that Nov 11 (now Veteran’s Day) was originally called Armistice Day, marking the cease-fire that ended the brutality of World War I. This would be a good time for another ceasefire!

On the 11th of November, another big Gaza march took over Tampa’s riverwalk, this time adding boats with the Palestinian flag and a sound system.

On the 9th of November, Palestine solidarity protesters gathered at the Boca Raton, FL offices of Israeli arms maker Real Time Laboratories. Supporters of the IDF (some in IDF T-shirts) counterprotested. The entire rally was very tense, sparking several partial running charges down the block and four arrests. All arrestees are now out, one of them without charges.

Just getting people out of the protest site afterwards was difficult: for both sides to withdraw at once is known to kick off some of the most intense confrontations at similar showdowns between fascists and anarchists. In the end, cops had to order the pro-IDF side to leave first and clear the are, after some of the Gaza solidarity protesters sat down and refused to forfeit the field to them.

This as extreme-right figures in Israel are calling for the use of NUCLEAR WEAPONS against Gaza!

On the 5th of November, Palestinians and supporters in Tampa, Fl held a march for Gaza along Fowler Ave near USF.

Like the previous week’s march, hundreds turned out to show their support for Gaza in the face of an all-out attempt at genocide. Israel’s Interior Minister has called for the complete expulsion of every man, woman, and child in Gaza. Already over 9,000 people out of a population somewhere over two million in Gaza have been killed by Israel’s bombing. That is equivalent to the toll in the United States if 9-11 had used nuclear weapons in NYC and led to about 1,350,000 deaths in the US assuming a US population of roughly 300 million.

On the 5th of November, one of a great many Gaza solidarity protests was held in Rockville, MD. Extremist supporters of Israel showed up to counterprotest. They tried to shout down the rally, called for the extermination of all Gaza residents and called for turning Gaza into “a parking lot.” Not satisfied with hate speech and open calls for genocide, they got physically pushy with at least one of the pro-Palestine protesters. Cops separated them from the person they were shoving but took no other action against the attackers. Fascists normally don’t arrest Fascists so this is no surprise.

As assaults go, this was low level as the extremists didn’t wade in hitting everyone with flagpoles etc like the Proud Boys at J6, but it’s still an assault. Until now, Israel supporters had quite sensibly avoided Palestininan protests in the DC area. That might be changing-or this may just be an extremist outfit disconnected from their larger community. The latter is to be hoped for but the former is possible. There was more serious fighting on the first weekend of protests both in South Florida and in Washington State. The hate speech was as bad as anything one would expect to hear from the worst hard fascists in the whole US. Overt calls for exterminating the entire population of any community dredge up the very worst memories of 1940’s Europe.

10PM: Unicorn Riot video: Cops clear Penn Ave to push protesters further from White House 1 min 21 sec

7 PM: The big march has wound through the streets around the streets near the White House. As the march ended, a crowd lingered near the White House until cops pushed them back. Not far away, the McDonald’s closest to the White House got graffiti and a smashed window. McDonald’s is on the list of top US corporations targetted for boycotts by the BDS (Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions) movement for their involvement in Israel’s apartheid regime

3:30PM: Nuno Marques footage shows huge crowd at Freedom Plaza

3PM: Our Rights DC footage from Freedom Plaza

3PM: Pro-J6 fake media personality “Glorybeefreedom” spotted at growing crowd for main march. Seems to be in agitator not fake media role at the moment

1:35PM: report of police hassling incoming protesters with signs or wearing kheffiyah on the Metro. This stopped as protesters density on trains grew

1PM: Protesters create memorial to children murdered in Gaza by indiscriminate bombing, “between the lamp posts” on Penn Ave at the White House. Cops threaten arrest but protesters called their bluff. Video from Unicorn Riot’s footage 1 min 45 sec. From Mastodon as the footage was just too intense for archive.org. They don’t seem to have a content warning system that works without a login wall so I had to pull it down from there

On the 29th of October, antiwar and pro-Palestine activists including many Palestinians gathered in Tampa for a die-in followed by a big march that dominated the Tampa Riverwalk.

On the 28th of October, DC’s antiwar and pro-Palestine communities again took to the streets, for the third Saturday in a row of big marches in solidarity with beseiged Gaza. This march went to the State Dept’s 22nd st entranceNote that as this is written, Israel has invaded Gaza with ground troops, and the ground war has begun.

Also on Oct 28, theneo-Nazi “National Justice Party” showed up at the White House in an attempt to jump on the pro-Palestine train. DC’s Nadine solo counterprotested them before folks from the main Gaza march could reach the scene

Video below is by Our rights DC of Nadine counterprotesting the Nazis:

On the 26th of October Extinction Rebellion DC locked down at a Washington Gas “Project Pipes” construction site, shutting it down until they could be extracted.

Note that what would have been a second day’s disruption of the North American Gas Forum on Oct 25 was scrubbed in favor of supporting Gaza solidarity protests

Washington Gas is attempting to replace all of their rusting, rotting network of gas pipes in DC, at a projected $4.5 billion cost. The project started in 2014 and has been underway since.

Extinction Rebellion DC wants to stop the spending on Project Pipes, use the leaks as a reason to shut Washington Gas down entirely, and instead see the city fund a wholesale replacement of then-useless gas stoves and heaters with electric. This would require heat pumps and induction stoves to be more efficient than gas as a heat source, but as a technology is proven.

CCAN is also opposing the project, calling out it’s estimated $27,000 per household cost.

It is unknown to this author whether repairing all leaks that are known or could be found (to fix the distribution pipes until gas suppliers are shut down), would be cheaper or more expensive than replacing all of Washington Gas’s pipes. It is known some of them are in truly awful condition.

Some have said a subsidized transition to electric would cost less than the $4.5 billion project and be a more reliable long term investment. Again, it is unknown to this author if the math works. Certainly Washington Gas won’t fund it, probably would have to be a city project as it involved the underlying infrastructure of the entire city.

Project Pipes is funded by Washington Gas jacking up the price of residential gas, meaning DC residents (renders included) are effectively forced to invest in a project that could be made useless by a climate-forced transition off of gas in just a few years. Investors might not be interested in this project, so DC’s ratepayers are forced to act as investors instead.

Wealthy condo owners can counter this forced bad investment by cancelling gas service and switching to induction stoves and heat pumps. Less well off homeowners may not be able to afford the up-front costs, and renters though don’t even get this option at all. The rich can afford the all at once cost, the poor cannot and are forced to act as investors in a project of unknown long term viability.

Washington Gas (or more accurately their ratepayers) is in the situation of someone owning a gasoline powered car as gasoline is phased out. If that car has a fuel leak, the leak must be fixed before the car can be used, but this risks investing in a soon to be useless asset. Now consider the scenario if just one shop has a monopoly on repairs or parts and jacks up the price.

The wealthy could tell them to buzz off, buy an electric car, and scrap the leaky gas-burner, Those who do not qualify for car loans cannot and would have to pay for repairs.