The Beautiful Idea: Mass Deportations Loom as Trump Moves to Amass Power; LA Mutual Aid Groups Organize as Fires Burn

Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea, a new project from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We’re bringing you interviews and stories from the front-lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.

On today’s show we feature our Behind the Barricades roundup of movement news, events, and updates. We then speak with Autumn from Nor Cal Resist, about the looming threat of mass deportations and then look at the attempt by the incoming Trump administration to consolidate executive power. We then sit down with a member of the Black Rose Anarchist Federation in Los Angeles, to talk about the unfolding ecological disaster in Southern California and how mutual aid groups are mobilizing.

Music: Seaside Tryst, Breakaway, Evolve “Reality Guerilla” and “Nightmares/Dreams,” and David Sandström “1968.”

Transcript

Behind the Barricades News Roundup

In Smyrna, GA, “A small but dedicated group of protestors rallied [outside] the headquarters of Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor responsible for [building] #CopCity,” demanding that they drop the contract.

The Seattle Solidarity Network continues to hold demonstrations outside of a local restaurant in protest of wage theft and to demand back wages.

The Montreal Autonomous Tenants Union reported on a recent action outside a landlord’s home, reporting “On Friday December 6th, the Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union (SLAM) came together in the north of Montreal to pay a collective visit to a landlord’s extravagant water front property. We gathered in support of a fellow tenant who [became] unhoused after the city condemned her apartment.

The wealth of landlords is built with the wages we are forced to give up to remain housed. This wealth was on full display as SLAM members set up our banners in front of the landlord’s home, and took to singing and chanting.

Picket lines like these are a demonstration of power, tidings to the landlord’s neighbourhood, and a message that this tenant isn’t in this fight alone anymore. Power needs to change hands. Protests at our landlords’ homes – especially if they become common and second nature – go a long way in cementing the beginning of a shift in power.”

In Tacoma, WA, members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) joined La Resistencia as part of a “Car brigade action at the Northwest Detention Center…in support of the Abolish Prison Slavery week of Solidarity called on… by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak.” Hunger strike actions remain ongoing inside the facility.

In Montreal, The Anti-Eviction Brigade…carried out a leaflet display in front of [a real estate speculator’s] office…[who is]…famous for his eviction practices…he has made a specialty of targeting homes inhabited by vulnerable people, pushing them to leave through harrassment and threats, then renovating and drastically increasing prices. “The homelessness, the broken lives, the suicides. All these slices of life that are just stories for some. For us, communists, anarchists, inhabitants of the working class neighborhoods, we experience the sufferering of our class, brothers and sisters in our flesh. Anyone capable of the minumum of empathy should do the same. Owners, even the worst of you are covered by the political system that absolves itself of all responsibility. You are protected by the bourgeois justice of the TAL and the cops are your armed wing. We will not beg anymore, we will do everything possible to prevent you from harming ours at 4750 Ontario or elsewhere. War on landlords!”

Also in Montreal, the IWW mobilized to support postal workers on strike. Local Wobblies reported, “IWW members [gathered to] help our striking comrades from the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) to blockade [a] sorting plant… The line of stalled trucks was impressive!…inter-union solidarity is one of the best weapons of the workers’ movement.”

Pro-choice activists in Florida are dealing with repression after facing charges for writing graffiti on an anti-choice center.

As the Civil Liberties Defense Center (CLDC) wrote:

Florida politicians, federal prosecutors, and anti-choice religious extremists… sought to use the FACE Act for the first time against pro-choice activists for very minor criminal mischief (graffiti).

The FACE Act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) was enacted in 1994 to protect doctors and patients from the upwelling of murder, fire-bombings, and violent assaults perpetrated by the violent anti-choice/religious extremist movement during the 80’s and 90’s. The four reproductive rights activists in the Florida case were federally prosecuted for spray-painting the outside of three “crisis pregnancy centers” (fake “clinics”) in Florida in June 2022, following the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The Florida Attorney General and one of the fake clinics also filed separate federal civil lawsuits against the four, alleging civil RICO and FACE Act violations; fortunately, we were able to get those two civil lawsuits dismissed.

Amber Smith-Stewart and Annarella Rivera were both sentenced to 30 days in federal custody and 60 days of house arrest; Caleb Freestone was sentenced to a year and a day in prison; and Gabriela Oropesa was just convicted after going to trial and will be sentenced in March 2025. The four remained steadfast to their political ideologies, non-cooperation, and solidarity with each other and their communities, despite the fact that their extreme prosecutions were unexpected in severity.

Follow South Florida Anarchist Black Cross and Ft. Lauderdale Food not Bombs for more updates and ways to support prisoners.

In New York, on December 12th, “NYU students and professors were arrested after they bound themselves together and blocked the school’s library in Lower Manhattan during a pro-Palestine protest,” demanding divestment from Israel.

In New Jersey, on December 14th, “Protestors [marched] on…City Hall following revelations that the logistics giant Maersk has been shipping thousands of tons of military cargo to the Israeli regime from the Port of Elizabeth, NJ.

Pro-Palestinian protesters wrote, “The people will forever stand against war profiteering, we have the power to take action and enforce a people’s arms embargo against war mongers and weapons companies. Join us in the streets of Jersey City to send a clear message to Maersk that the mask is off, they have been exposed, and we will not stand for it!”

In Emeryville, CA in the bay area of California, a communique claimed responsibility for vandalizing an office belonging to Maersk over it’s role in helping to carry out the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

An anonymous report posted to Indybay stated:

The night of December 8th, we attacked Maersk’s Emeryville office because they are merchants of death…They ship military cargo for the Zionist entity to use in their genocide of Palestinians. This includes parts for the F-35 jets bombing Gaza right now. We did this autonomously, in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance…Workers like us have no military to defend our interests or stop this genocide. This is because the merchants of death, like Maersk and United Healthcare, control the state. They grow rich on our taxes and suffering, while we fight to pay for basic needs. Every bomb dropped makes them richer, and us poorer.

If the government will not stop arming Israel, then regular working people will…We call on you to join us. The veins of imperial capitalism are open, fragile, and poorly guarded. Their supply lines of death can be choked.

As Unicorn Riot reported:

The parents of slain forest defender Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Paez Terán [have] filed a civil rights lawsuit against three Georgia law enforcement officers they say are most responsible for the death of their child in January 2023.

Nearly two years after police killed Terán, and a year after the state refused to bring charges against any of the state troopers responsible, Tortuguita’s parents are still seeking answers and accountability for the death of their 26-year-old child.

Tortuguita’s mother and father, are suing Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Ryan Long as well as Georgia State Patrol troopers Mark Lamb and Bryland