Gangsters in Blue

Guest post below by a great activist and good friend, Nate Cox. Check out his blog for his other writings:

March 17th, 2011 I had witnessed my second “sobriety check-point” within in matter of 6 days in my town, of Mechanicsville (within Hanover County). The first checkpoint I witnessed, I was leaving work at around 10:30pm on March 11th.. I noticed the checkpoint at the intersection just adjacent to the shopping center where my work is. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the first check point I had seen since living in the county for 17 years. I didn’t get caught in it, because it was in the opposite side of the road. So I ended up making a quick right and parked in the shopping center to capture some video and commentary of the scene, you can watch that here (includes encounter with police).

However this blog is not about that police check point.. it’s about the check point I witnessed just 6 days after the one mentioned above. I was coming home from a movie in Richmond. It was early only around 8:30pm (St. Patrick’s Day evening). As I was about 2 miles from my County line, on Mechanicsville Turnpike, I was nearing the county line which first requires me to go up a steep hill.. then down the same hill before a long straight-away over a swamp lands. As SOON as I hit the crest of the hill and started down ward.. I noticed something going on. Traffic was backed up 1/4 of a mile at least.. I didn’t see ANY blue lights.. but I could see tons of cop cars and VDOT equipment, cordoning off the lanes down to one lane. I quickly realized it was a massive check point.. I couldn’t believe it. As I was approaching the sign that said “Sobriety Roadcheck ahead: Prepare to stop” Henrico Police I noticed a cop car in the median, facing the direction I was going with no lights on – my assumption was he was regulating �squirters�. I took a picture of the traffic jam, and the check point sign, and then as I passed the sign I maneuvered my car though the traffic cones that had been placed and made a u-turn. I was shocked to see I did not get pulled over by the cops, for which later, after talking with Henrico Police Internal Affairs is supposedly �illegal� to do.

So I went home and made it home successfully but not before immediately facebooking about the checkpoint. I was furious and sick to my stomach � two things that fire me up quick 1) Illegal Wars 2) The Police State. I was determined to do some Cop Block�ing! I was home for a matter of minutes before I ran down do CVS to pick up some sign making materials. I made a sign with glitter paint that said �Police Ahead� and another one that said, �Do Not Consent�. I grabbed cameras, flashlights, my glock 26 and my signs and headed back to the check point. I parked my car and proceeded to start signwaving at around 10pm. I was standing in the road, in the direction that people would get caught up in the check point, about 1/8th � 1/4th of a mile from the top of the hill where you at that point would see the check point. There IS, one last chance to make a U-Turn at the very top of that hill.

So I sign-waved, about 30-45 minutes into it, a cop flashing his blue lights came up from the opposite direction and made a u-turn where I was posted up and sorta blocked off the road while he questioned me from his car. I got about half of that encounter on video About 20-30 minutes after that encounter, with the cop who never ID�ed himself.. another cop (quite possibly the same one) came and parked his car in the parking lot I was standing in front of by the road. He immediately got out of his car and whipped out his cell-phone and began what appeared to be shooting video. As you�ll see in the video, he never ID�ed himself either.

Thirty minutes after that encounter with the cop, a buddy of mine finally met up with me to help me sign wave and shoot video. We walked over to the top of the hill where we could seee the checkpoint at around 12:20am. We shot some video recapping the situation and noticed after we shot the video they were taking down the roadblock. I�m not sure if we had anything to do with it or not. But I DO know we had a dozen or two cars honk (in support), wave, thumbs up, and even turn around before they made it to the checkpoint and even some thank you�s.

I�m disgusted at the police state we live in. I did what I did to raise awareness and to educate people of their rights. The Police have no authority over me. I own & govern myself and take responsibility for my actions. Just because they have swore an oath to do X,Y,Z.. doesn�t mean they have additional rights as I do, or are immune to the law. We�ve got to not only educate ordinary citizens of their rights when encountered by cops, but we need to try, and educated cops of what their job is supposed to be! USE DISCERNMENT in what laws you enforce! Do NOT enforce �crimes� in which there is NO victim, �No Victim, No Crime.�

Large of amount of credit for knowing my rights when encountered by cops go to websites Cop Block and Flex Your Rights.

Richmond Activist Nate Cox Cop Blocks Police Checkpoint is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"

The Austin police (APD) pride themselves on their “Groceries for Guns” campaign. They claim that removing guns (most of which are dysfunctional) from “the streets” will lower crime. Unfortunately, that is just not true, and John Bush with Texans For Accountable Government (TAG), was there with fellow activists to Cop Block the APD. They sat outside the police campaign and bought guns for $110 cash, which was $10 over what the police were offering. Doesn’t matter to me that the police ‘collected’ more guns, this video is a textbook ‘Cop Block’ and the best I’ve seen in a while. My hat’s off to the Austin Crew for such a powerful video. Watch them put a major Cop Block, Austin Style, on the police in the video below.

This second video is what the local news station reported about the event. Do you notice the difference?

An Armed Society Is A Safe Society.

• What's Wrong With Woodrow Wilson? Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-11). A: He was a fucking fascist, that's what's wrong. (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

• Modesto Police Shoot Francisco Moran and Rita Elias. Modesto Anarcho!'s MySpace Blog (2010-10-04). On Friday night, Rita Elias, 31, died after off-duty sheriff's detective Kari Abbey, shot and killed her after an hour long argument. Kari Abbey, a 6 year veteran to the force, and a detective of four... (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

• Under Surveillance America. Darian Worden, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-09-16). Federal Bureau of Investigation files indicate that Ernest Withers, prominent photographer of 1960s Civil Rights activism, was also a federal informant. According to the Washington Post, he provided photographs, scheduling information and biographical sketches on Civil Rights leaders to the FBI. Whether Withers was trying to cash in on information... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Nothing new under the sun. John Markley, The Superfluous Man (2010-10-06). Contemporary American politics makes a great deal more sense in light of the realization that Barack Obama's most devoted fans and fiercest critics are united by a shared delusion: the belief that Obama is really, really interesting.How this manifests among his supporters is apparent enough in the starry-eyed adulation he... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Homesteading in Haiti: Very Adverse Possession. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-12). Emily Troutman reports from the hills near Port-au-Prince: Six months ago, this land was nothing but crickets in the grass. Now, it's Haiti's new frontier, a landscape of squatters whose greatest hope is a home of their own. Gray and blue shacks and shanties extend for miles. Small gardens and... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Event: The Prospects and Ethics of Political Reform. justino, DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-09-27). What: As we near election time, candidates for office will inevitably present themselves as an alternative to the status quo that plagues us. But what types of reform in practice, if any, are consistent with a libertarian political philosophy? The first article we will study is Ron Paul’s “My Plan... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Event: ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’ Movie. justino, DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-09-22). What: 1919 Hemphill, a local DIY collective, is hosting a screening of the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) as part of its long-time movie series Conscientious Projector. A recipient of numerous international awards, the film documents the turmoil Christian families with a gay child face and “sometimes... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Grieving Student Suspected of Using Marijuana Reinstated. DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-10-12). Narco-Statism Vs. Compassion and Human Decency (Cont'd) (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Getting Away With Murder. Center for a Stateless Society (2010-10-12). Cops are here to keep us safe. (Cont'd) (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• What's Wrong With Woodrow Wilson? Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-11). A: He was a fucking fascist, that's what's wrong. (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

• Modesto Police Shoot Francisco Moran and Rita Elias. Modesto Anarcho!'s MySpace Blog (2010-10-04). On Friday night, Rita Elias, 31, died after off-duty sheriff's detective Kari Abbey, shot and killed her after an hour long argument. Kari Abbey, a 6 year veteran to the force, and a detective of four... (Linked Monday 2010-10-11.)

• Under Surveillance America. Darian Worden, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-09-16). Federal Bureau of Investigation files indicate that Ernest Withers, prominent photographer of 1960s Civil Rights activism, was also a federal informant. According to the Washington Post, he provided photographs, scheduling information and biographical sketches on Civil Rights leaders to the FBI. Whether Withers was trying to cash in on information... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Nothing new under the sun. John Markley, The Superfluous Man (2010-10-06). Contemporary American politics makes a great deal more sense in light of the realization that Barack Obama's most devoted fans and fiercest critics are united by a shared delusion: the belief that Obama is really, really interesting.How this manifests among his supporters is apparent enough in the starry-eyed adulation he... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Homesteading in Haiti: Very Adverse Possession. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-12). Emily Troutman reports from the hills near Port-au-Prince: Six months ago, this land was nothing but crickets in the grass. Now, it's Haiti's new frontier, a landscape of squatters whose greatest hope is a home of their own. Gray and blue shacks and shanties extend for miles. Small gardens and... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Event: The Prospects and Ethics of Political Reform. justino, DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-09-27). What: As we near election time, candidates for office will inevitably present themselves as an alternative to the status quo that plagues us. But what types of reform in practice, if any, are consistent with a libertarian political philosophy? The first article we will study is Ron Paul’s “My Plan... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Event: ‘For the Bible Tells Me So’ Movie. justino, DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-09-22). What: 1919 Hemphill, a local DIY collective, is hosting a screening of the documentary For the Bible Tells Me So (2007) as part of its long-time movie series Conscientious Projector. A recipient of numerous international awards, the film documents the turmoil Christian families with a gay child face and “sometimes... (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Grieving Student Suspected of Using Marijuana Reinstated. DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-10-12). Narco-Statism Vs. Compassion and Human Decency (Cont'd) (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

• Getting Away With Murder. Center for a Stateless Society (2010-10-12). Cops are here to keep us safe. (Cont'd) (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-12.)

My first audio commentary for the Center for a Stateless Society. Check it out, over there.

Tweet, tweet! I'm a dangerous anarchist bird!

I’ll probably be producing a couple of these per week, with Brad Spangler backing me up both as writer and as alternate reader.

It’s a bit creepy voicing this, given the arrests of Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlaeger, and the raid on Madison’s home, since I was doing much the same thing for a couple of evenings: listening to Pittsburgh-area police scanner traffic over the internet, and repeating interesting information to several relevant hashtags on Twitter.

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I am absolutely tickled to learn that I was “largely responsible for organizing the riot[s]” in Pittsburgh around the G-20 summit and related protests. From Flopping Aces, crossposted from Peter Lajoie’s blog:

Another Anarchist who was largely responsible for organizing the riot from Twitter was Mike Gogulski of nostate.com. A self-described, “Future stateless person,” Gogulski is an unabashed anarchist who no longer lives or works in the U.S. but has vowed to overthrow the current system of society. Through Twitter on his cellphone he was able to coordinate fellow protesters’ movements by tweeting where police officers were, where they were going, and what they were planning to do. Anyone who wanted to see these tweets just had to look at a feed entitled “#resistg20.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed possible to exhibit astounding levels of cluelessness by picking up a few scattered bits of information, and then doing your own little paint-by-numbers in between.

For Peter’s benefit, I’ll point out a few things wrong with what he wrote:

Rioting policeman assaults citizen at G20 protest in Pittsburgh. Photo by Foo Conner.

• The “riots” were almost entirely police riots. With the exception of some property damage (reported to have been largely caused by a single person), nearly all of the violence was either committed or instigated by police. No shock here. Protest is now a national security threat.
• I don’t have a “cellphone”. We call them “mobile phones” over here in Slovakia.
• I wasn’t a protester.
• I don’t do vows.
• I’m already a stateless person.
• I don’t know anyone who was involved in the protests.
• If I’ve ever been to Pittsburgh, it was only because the city was en route to someplace else.

What I was doing for a large number of hours was monitoring a Pittsburgh-area police/fire/EMS radio scanner linked up to an internet audio feed, and then repeating information I heard there to Twitter. For example:

• # (scanner) “All TAC Teams: Meet @ 5th & Oakland Ave” #resistg20 #g20 6:14 AM Sep 26th
• # Corrected: (scanner) arrest reported at Bouquet and Forbes #g20 #resistg20 6:13 AM Sep 26th
• # (scanner) arrest reported at (uncopy) and Forbes #g20 #resistg20 6:13 AM Sep 26th
• # (scanner) “hammer and anvil up on tennyson … clear the tower” #g20 #resistg20 6:10 AM Sep 26th
• # (scanner) one SWAT commander called “Oscar Mike”, code for “off air, in action for a while” http://bit.ly/2h2or4 #g20 #resistg20 6:08 AM Sep 26th
• # (scanner) “Waiting for booking team for 9 people now” (loc unknown) #g20 #resistg20 6:05 AM Sep 26th
• # (scanner) “Large crowd forming at Oakland and Forbes” “Bringing LRAD down for dispersal” #g20 #resistg20 6:01 AM Sep 26th

And so on. Some of these tweets were picked up by others on the #resistg20 hashtag and who had followed me, and repeated to others, some of whom may have been subscribing to their tweets or hashtags via their mobile, er, cell phones.

Who knows what effect any of this had. Hopefully, getting information on police movements, plans and locations out via Twitter to a few folks on the scene helped some avoid getting gassed, beaten, subjected to head-splitting sonic weapons emissions and/or arrested.

Related posts

• Rejecting Authority at Police State Checkpoint (0)
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• About (0)

Feeling safer yet, America?

How’s that Obama-charged hope working out for you?

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Pittsburgh Indymedia G20 channel.

Twitter users to follow: @g20actionalert, @resistg20. Hashtags: #resistg2o, #reportg20

Live streaming police/fire/EMS G-20 ops radio traffic from Pittsburgh area here.

G-20 protesters in Pittsburgh 24 September 2009

Resistg20 organizing hub, comms hub. (Lovely, one of their Twitter accounts has been suppressed)

Recent tweets from @resistg20:

1. 40 cops, w/ bus, headed towards friendship park #resistg20

2. From #Pittsburgh to #Greece, fuck the police.

3. A comms facility was raided, but we are still fully operational please continue to submit reports #resistg20

4. RT @heidilore: RT @resistg20 37th and butler, police deployed smoke and gas #resistg20 #g20

5. denny and liberty has 200 protesters rallying #resistg20 #g20

6. Standoff with pigs #resistg20

7. 37th and butler, police deployed smoke and gas #resistg20 #g20

8. TEAR GAS

9. police threatening chemical dispersal at 38th and liberty #resistg20

10. police have given a dispersal order at 36th and liberty and no can hear the order #resistg20 #g20

11. g20pgh: police have given a dispersal order at 36th and liberty and no can hear the order

12. march heading south on 39th #resistg20 #g20

13. no way to get from “strip district” to downtown. use 16th st bridge #resistg20

14. Water cannons on lm38th and liberty. Be careful #resistg20

15. Please remember to Call in your reports to 412-567-1420 as we are having trouble receiving sms. Good luck out there! #resistg20

16. student march has ended at arsenal park #resistg20 #g20

17. student march is making a left onto liberty, police helicopter overhead and cops on the streets watching #resistg20 #g20

18. student march is making a left onto liberty, police helicopter over head and cops on the streets #students and #workers SHUT THE CITY DOWN

19. Police are staging at 21st and smallman near arsenal park #resistg20

20. police staging at 21st and smallman near arsenal park #resistg20 #g20

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It’s not often I feel compelled to write a book review, but reading Gene Callahan’s Puck was quite an adventure!

Described simply as “A Novel” in its subtitle, Puck is really something quite more than that. A fictional story, yes, but also a tour of some of the “weirder” aspects of Gene’s universe — and mine.

Pick, pock, puck!

I won’t try to describe much that goes on, save to say that the story takes places in two parallel(?) universes, and sometimes in the spaces between them. You got your swords ‘n’ wizards fantasy adventure, you got your romance, you got your mystery and intrigue, you got your modern psychological drama, you got your science fiction — everything, indeed, that one could ask for in a modern novel.

But there’s more…

Puck is a book on several different levels. It’s loaded with references to mythology, anarchism, religious traditions, history, the odder bits of physics and a whole bunch of classical literature to boot. I consider myself a fairly learned guy, but Mr. Gene has been treading this planet a bit longer than I have, and his learning shines through brilliantly. To paraphrase another great novelist: this book is like a mirror; if a monkey looks in, no Korzybski looks out.

From page 105:

[Doc and Sophia] shared several passion-filled years, but by the time Doc was finishing graduate school — when the loudest political voices in the Village were proclaiming that AIDS was a government plot against the gay and minority communities, and were fighting pitched battles with the police over control of Tompkin’s Square Park — he had grown disillusioned with what he had come to regard as the posturing of bored, rich kids. It wasn’t that he had no sympathy for their grievances, but rather that he now perceived their activism as more a palliative for their own boredom and frustration than as a real attempt to address the injustices that were their purported motivation. He suspected that their protests were a contemporary manifestation of the same impulse that had motivated Uncle Franz’s Cabala studies. The radicals he knew seemed to believe that if only they could arrange their political slogans in accord with some occult formula, then the ruling elite peacefully would release the reins of power, liberate the masses, dismantle the military-industrial complex, and sow flower gardens over the obsolete missile silos.

Read with caution, ready to remember just how flimsy your paradigms are, and just how liable they are to slip, like flimsy masks, off the face of reality.

Puck you! Puck me! Puck everyone!

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