Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

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Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby elfismiles » Wed Apr 11, 2018 1:05 pm

Have been watching this situation develop over the last year or so ... :starz:

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The Battle of the Blue Cat Café
How an anti-gentrification boycott became a proxy war between the radical left and the alt-right.
By Michael Hardy / Issue April 2018
https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/the-b ... -cat-cafe/

Gray’s brother Paul, an Austin security guard and Iraq War veteran, became curious about the protests at his sister’s cafe. Over lunch with their mother, Rebecca mentioned that the protesters could get out of hand, and Paul offered to come by, observe, and ask them to clear the property if need be. She accepted. “He’s in security, he’s gone to war,” she says, describing her thought process. “He knows how to manage crowds when they get out of hand. That’s what he does for a living.”

In June 2017, Defend Our Hoodz members learned that Comedy Central was planning to film the pilot episode of a new show called Power Couple at the Blue Cat Café and announced a demonstration to disrupt the shoot. But when the protesters showed up at the cafe, they learned that the shoot had been called off. Instead they were confronted by Paul and three of his friends. A video shows a tense standoff between the four men, one brandishing a baton, and a group of protesters in bandannas and balaclavas. It’s unclear who struck the first blow, but in the ensuing melee—which was not captured on video—one of Paul’s friends was hit in the head and began bleeding, according to the police report. Police officers called to the scene used a stun gun to subdue a protester, and two demonstrators were charged with aggravated assault and evading arrest.

Soon after the clash, Defend Our Hoodz found an interview Paul had given to the alt-right podcast Exodus Americanus a week before the incident. Identifying himself as a “far-right militant,” Paul described how his sister, a “sweet . . . beautiful young white lady,” had been menaced by Mexicans and communists. “They hate her simply because she’s white,” he told the hosts, before inviting listeners to come to Austin to help defend the cat cafe. Rebecca claims that she rarely sees her brother and was unaware of his far-right connections. “I’m just so mad that he wasn’t honest about what his agenda was,” she says. (Paul could not be reached for comment.) Defend Our Hoodz posted a link to the interview on Facebook. “It has never been clearer,” the post reads. “Blue Cat Cafe, on the ruins of Jumpolin, is a safe space for nazis and white supremacists.”

To cope with the ongoing protests, Gray stepped back from full-time management of the cafe and began seeing a therapist. She says she was diagnosed with PTSD. “They want to drive me insane and mentally cause so much stress in my life that I lose it,” she says. Still, she refuses to accede to the protesters’ demand that she close the cafe. “I put every dollar I had into this. It’s not like packing up an apartment and moving away.”
Illustration by Christopher DeLorenzo
Maneki neko

Although cat cafes have popped up around the world, they are particularly popular in Japan, where many apartments do not allow tenants to have pets.

When pickets and bullhorns failed to drive the Blue Cat Café out of East Austin, anti-gentrification sympathizers set out to destroy the business’s online reputation by spamming Yelp, Facebook, and Google with negative reviews. “Avoid this place unless you want to donate to their racist cause,” read one post on Yelp. “Smells terrible, the food is garbage, and the owner’s brother is a nazi,” wrote another commenter on Google. Reviewers claimed to have seen depressed cats, diarrheic kittens, and worm-infested water bowls. (There is no evidence that these claims are true.) Hoping to cut off the cafe’s source of cats, which were provided by a network of shelters, Defend Our Hoodz encouraged its supporters to file complaints of animal abuse with the Austin Humane Society. The tactic worked: in October, the Humane Society announced that it was ending its two-year-long partnership with the cafe, though it did not endorse any of the allegations of abuse. “We are truly saddened by the current neighborhood conflict,” a statement from the Humane Society reads. “The conflict has nothing to do with AHS and is not good for animal welfare in an animal-loving city.” Other animal shelters in the greater Austin area have continued to lend cats to the cafe; Gray declined to reveal their names, fearing that they too will be targeted.

Defend Our Hoodz sees the Humane Society’s decision as a major victory in its campaign against gentrification, proof that its brand of aggressive protest works. “The boycott, we didn’t see it as something symbolic,” the Defend Our Hoodz spokesperson says. “If somebody crosses the picket line, they are accountable.” Just after Halloween the group posted a photo on Facebook of a dimly lit street overlaid with the words “Make Gentrifiers Afraid Again.” “Halloween is over but that doesn’t mean gentrifiers can’t be scared the other 364 days a year,” the post read.

Although it continues to organize protests against the Blue Cat Café, Defend Our Hoodz is also looking beyond Austin. On Facebook it frequently supports anti-gentrification struggles in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York and has made common cause with radical anti-capitalist organizations across the country, such as the Red Guards, a self-described “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collective.” Delgado says that Ledesma hijacked the group for his own purposes. “There’s no people from the barrio in it anymore,” she says. The Defend Our Hoodz spokesperson says some East Austinites remain in the group but admits many live elsewhere: “We never claimed to be from East Austin. Defend Our Hoodz—I mean, that’s plural. My community is Austin. My community is the Chicano community. My community is who I choose to side with and who chooses to side with me.”


Masked Man Confronts Austin City Council Over Gunmen Outside
Armed Antifa members intimidated reporter at Kate Steinle memorial
Infowars.com - March 22, 2018
https://www.infowars.com/infowars-repor ... ed-antifa/

Masked Man Confronts Austin City Council Over Gunmen Outside

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYgI9LfHI0

Communists Terrorize Small Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVERKg9c-6E

Protest breaks out at East Austin cafe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSZ0M51AFeA

Feb 11, 2017 Protest at Blue Cat Cafe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWPFPXX9r44

Blue Cat Café vandalized with anti-gentrification graffiti, super-glued locks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCQvuZp7Ew

FIGHT GENTRIFICATION
Defend Our Hoodz / Published on Jul 6, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jc5FIvxHeI

UT Professor Threatened By Armed Antifa Group Found Dead
by Tyler Durden / Fri, 04/06/2018 - 17:09

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A controversial University of Texas professor who was repeatedly threatened by Antifa over a domestic violence incident from 2016 was found dead in his home on Thursday. The cause of death is unknown.

Richard Morrisett, 57, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of strangling his girlfriend off campus, which prompted outrage from a coalition of UT parents. In response to the incident, UT President Greg Fenves announced in a Thursday letter that employees who commit crimes off campus could face discipline, even if found not to pose a threat to campus safety, security or other operations.

Armed extremist Antifa group, "Revolutionary Student Front" repeatedly threatened Morrissett following the incident, defacing the door of his lab with graffiti reading "GET Out Morrisett OR ELSE" and "WATCH YOUR BACK RICHARD."

As one of several militant Antifa groups detailed by watchdog organization Far Left Watch, Revolutionary Student Front Austin is affiliated with armed extremist Antifa group Red Guards Austin.

Revolutionary Student Front – Austin is a self described “revolutionary anti-capitalist student movement” that organizes at the University of Texas – Austin. This militant student group recently made headlines for holding self-defense training on campus and tweeting about killing police officers. Earlier this month they published a comprehensive document outlining their so-called “Revolutionary Mental Health Program (RMHP)”. This 13,000+ word document covers the formulation, goals, failures, and successes of this program and why the ultimately decided to end it . Below are some of the more alarming excerpts from this document:

Their stated goal for this program was to address the mental health needs of student and to ultimately recruit and radicalize students with mental health issues in order to “make them into active fighters”:

“The primary goal of this program was to address the mental health needs of students in a way that would primarily serve to politicize and strengthen them, to become more committed to revolution and more capable of carrying it out.”

Through many hours of discussion with students while tabling and at our public meetings, and through regular contact with disgruntled students, we uncovered numerous pressing needs facing the general student body and working-class students alike. From this point, we sought to determine a site of struggle that would appeal to the sections of the student population most ripe for radicalization and to develop a plan to address those needs in a way that would politicize these students, with the goal of course being to make them into active fighters in the revolutionary class struggle.”

They also admit that this idea was partly inspired by the Socialist Patient’s Collective (SPK), a German neo-Marxist group that attempted to re-frame “mental illness” as a product of capitalist oppression and believed that the sick formed a revolutionary class of people who could be radicalized to join their cause:

“Over the winter of 2016 and in the early spring of 2017, the leadership of RSF spent a significant amount of time studying the work “Turn Illness into a Weapon,” which recounts the experiences of the Socialist Patients’ Collective (SPK) of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1970. “

Here they explicitly outline that every project they do is designed to “recruit fighters”:

The goal of every initiative and program launched by a revolutionary organization should be for the purpose of recruiting fighters into its ranks and forging them in the fiery furnace of class struggle.

Here they suggest that some of their own organizers suffer from mental illness:

Orienting recruitment toward those suffering from qualitatively more intense mental illness, a population whose conditions in general serve as barriers to reaching the point of being continuous fighters (we say “in general” because many of the best organizers in the revolutionary movement and our organization also suffer from these conditions) does not accomplish the task of drawing from the most advanced sections of the people.

Throughout the document there are multiple pictures of armed communist militants, quotes from communist revolutionaries and dictators, and repeated affirmations to their commitment to political violence and preparation for war:

“Because our forces can only be built through the militant, violent struggle against the enemies of our class, we know that these fretful cowards will never reach that point. Making war will prepare us for the war to come, rally around us and bring into our ranks those who realize the necessity of violence to achieve a classless society free from exploitation, and unmask the real enemies of the people. We reaffirm our commitment to the principle of revolutionary violence that is necessary to confront the enemies of the people”

...

The knowledge that prison or death awaits us as revolutionaries aiming to destroy capitalism should be enough to encourage us to develop our organization in a thorough and well-rounded manner

And the document concludes with an unapologetic promise for more political violence:

“The actions to come in the following year will draw clear lines in the sand between revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries. We will make no apologies for the necessary violence of our struggle and will spare no sacrifice for the battles to come because we are revolutionaries committed to the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a classless society. We live for the people, we fight for the people, and we die for the people. This is what it means to be a revolutionary and this is what we uphold from this point until the final dying breath of capitalism.”

So let’s unpack this. A heavily armed communist militia group:

openly supports a communist dictator who brutally killed millions of people
openly advocates for targeted political violence against “capitalists”
openly encourages armed insurrection against the U.S. government
openly recruits at the University of Texas at Austin
openly admits to targeting students with mental health issues to become “fighters”
and openly admits that some of it’s own organizers suffer from mental health issues

UT President Greg Fenves released a statement regarding the professor's death Friday:

Professor Morrisett’s death is a tragedy. We support his family and loved ones as they grieve during this time. We recognize these are difficult times on campus and the university will offer all the support we can to students, faculty and staff members.

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04- ... found-dead



Controversial UT professor who pleaded guilty to domestic violence found dead
Richard Morrisett, 57, was found dead April 5, according to Plohetski.
Author: Shawna Reding, Kalyn Norwood
Published: 10:55 AM CDT April 6, 2018
Updated: 6:17 PM CDT April 6, 2018

The University of Texas professor who pleaded guilty to a domestic violence incident from 2016 -- causing outrage among parents for the school's "lack of action" -- has died, KVUE's and the Austin American-Statesman's Tony Plohetski confirmed.

Richard Morrisett, 57, was found dead in his home April 5, according to Plohetski. The cause of death has not been released yet.

Morrisett pleaded guilty to a felony charge of strangling his girlfriend to the point that she saw "stars," KVUE's news partners at the Statesman originally reported. The incident happened off-campus, but a coalition of UT parents called SafeHorns believed university leaders should have disciplined the tenured professor.

While a student said she did not agree with what he did, she's sad to hear about his death.

"It's just really sad and I hope everyone learns from this and gets to move on and learns, 'Yeah we can move past it' or you know, make changes so that won't happen again," said Courtney Bates, a student.

The university is also speaking out about Morrisett's death, calling it a tragedy.

"We are really viewing this as a tremendous tragedy," said Shilpa Bakre with the University of Texas. "At this point, we're not really focused on the protests and things that surrounded (him). We're focused on the fact that there was a loss of life."

She went onto say, "these are challenging times on campus and so as a university we're really trying to come together to provide as much support as possible to the faculty, staff and students as they work through this process."

Morrisett served as a professor with the College of Pharmacy. He had been with the university since 1997.

RELATED:

Parents outraged by UT's lack of action in professor assault case
http://www.kvue.com/news/local/parents- ... /512680628

UT building vandalized after controversial professor assault case
http://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/ ... -514918443

Morrisett's criminal case prompted a new policy at UT. UT President Greg Fenves announced in a letter Thursday that school employees who commit crimes off campus could be subject to discipline, even if officials find they are no threat to campus safety, security or other operations.

UT President Greg Fenves released a statement regarding the professor's death Friday:

Professor Morrisett’s death is a tragedy. We support his family and loved ones as they grieve during this time. We recognize these are difficult times on campus and the university will offer all the support we can to students, faculty and staff members.

http://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/ ... -535911162



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Communist students vandalize WWI memorial at UT-Austin
Kassy Dillon, Massachusetts Campus Correspondent
@kassydillon on Mar 08, 2018 at 2:43 PM EDT

The "Revolutionary Student Front," an unofficial group of communist students at the University of Texas at Austin, decided to mark International Women's Day by vandalizing a fountain on campus.
The RSF recently had its Twitter account suspended for "promoting violence," but has not toned down its rhetoric, stressing "the necessity of organizing women for revolutionary violence" in its latest posts.

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10620

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SXSW / Piñata Demolition / Gentrification & More

Demolished East Austin Piñata Shop Is the New Center of Austin’s Gentrification Debate
by Dan Solomon, February 17, 2015
http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/ ... ion-debate

Austin Landlords Demolish Piñata Store For SXSW, Call Mexican Tenants ‘Roaches’
By Cindy Casares, March 16, 2015
http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-iss ... sxsw-party

Jordan French, the Landlord Who Demolished the East Austin Piñata Shop, Has Been Forced to Resign From the Company He Started
by Dan Solomon, March 26, 201
http://www.texasmonthly.com/daily-post/ ... ced-resign

A little more about Austin’s Status Labs…

Texas Firm Admits to Bribing Journalists for Coverage
By Patrick Coffee on Sep. 12, 2014
http://www.adweek.com/prnewser/texas-fi ... age/100376

PR pitch: We’ll pay you to mention our clients
Allen Wastler | @AWastler
Thursday, 11 Sep 2014
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101993331
http://jimromenesko.com/2014/09/11/pr-f ... r-clients/

SXSW “Brain Hacking” Experts Promote DIY Mind Control
Using parts from Radio Shack! by Kit Daniels | Infowars.com | March 17, 2015
http://www.infowars.com/sxsw-brain-hack ... d-control/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZRAkQPLyOA

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SkyNet Lives! #StopTheRobots @SXSW
http://rigorousintuition.ca/board2/view ... 47#p563947
http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/285216 ... ay-we-live (Video)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015 ... /24777871/ (Video)
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/stop-robots-pr ... ce-1492126
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/drinking-cof ... 03609.html
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/14/anti-r ... d-at-sxsw/
http://www.infowars.com/rage-against-th ... he-robots/
#StickerGate “Whites Only” Gentrification

Austin Mayor Steve Adler: ‘White people’ stickers appalling, offensive
March 18, 2015
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/crim ... sug/nkY7f/

Why I did it (Video by Adam Reposa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGzSBslnIQQ
http://www.dwibadass.com

Adam Reposa’s Crazy Awesome “I’m a Lawyer, Get Outta My Way” Advert (Video)

Austin lawyer Adam Reposa says he put up ‘white people’ stickers
By KXAN News Published: March 20, 2015
http://kxan.com/2015/03/20/austin-lawye ... -stickers/

Stickers and their Discontents, March 20, 2015
http://equilibrionorte.org/2015/03/20/s ... scontents/
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby American Dream » Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:38 pm

Not much to love here, not the neo-maoists, not the gentrifiers, not far right shit stirrers, not zero hedge Antifa/red-baiters, not Alex Jones.
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby elfismiles » Wed Apr 11, 2018 2:58 pm

American Dream » 11 Apr 2018 18:38 wrote:Not much to love here, not the neo-maoists, not the gentrifiers, not far right shit stirrers, not zero hedge Antifa/red-baiters, not Alex Jones.


Yeah, just the poor putty-tats caught in the middle ... love the kitties.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axgFo7QazQo
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby American Dream » Wed Apr 11, 2018 3:03 pm

The broad and sloppy use of the term AntiFa to describe as an all purpose descriptor for enemies of the far right is getting old and tired, too.
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby yathrib » Wed Apr 11, 2018 3:30 pm

There is a thing called economics. Obviously the stores that were displaced by the Blue Cat Cafe did not have enough business to survive. That is a shame. But protesting and threatening people does not make unprofitable businesses profitable.

This misunderstanding is also rife among well-to-do white people with Ivy League degrees who presumably should have taken an economics class at some point in their pricey educations... Example: the brain trusts in my general area who circulated a petition to keep the local Barnes and Noble open. What would have kept it open would have been not using it as the showroom for Amazon, geniuses. But you couldn't be bothered for that.
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby elfismiles » Fri Apr 13, 2018 4:56 pm

Firstly, I wouldn't say that the pinata store didn't have enough business ... the store was bulldozed suddenly during a dispute (and its clear the owners wanted the pinata store tenants out as they had big SXSW plans for the site) and the store owners eventually won a settlement and are in operation down the street at a new location.

That said, I should clarify and mea culpa to my glaring errors in my original info dump post; I was conflating the "Defend Our Hoodz", "AntiFa" and "Revolutionary Student Front" groups - mainly becuz of the aggressiveness and tactics. I really have no idea how affiliated / how much crossover there may be.

Also, so far, there are no indications of "foul play" with the abusive UT professor's death ... none yet reported publicly anyway.

Anyway - more thoughts and info as they come...

yathrib » 11 Apr 2018 19:30 wrote:There is a thing called economics. Obviously the stores that were displaced by the Blue Cat Cafe did not have enough business to survive. That is a shame. But protesting and threatening people does not make unprofitable businesses profitable.

This misunderstanding is also rife among well-to-do white people with Ivy League degrees who presumably should have taken an economics class at some point in their pricey educations... Example: the brain trusts in my general area who circulated a petition to keep the local Barnes and Noble open. What would have kept it open would have been not using it as the showroom for Amazon, geniuses. But you couldn't be bothered for that.
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Sat Apr 14, 2018 7:00 pm

It was your earlier posting about the Blue Cat Cafe that prompted me to post the article on the extraordinary number of evictions occurring in the USA. I understand the gentrification issue well enough. She clearly is a gentrifier and like many before her, mistakes urban settlement without weighing its downside - displacement of those whose community it is to far removed more affordable locales.

I believe it was an unwise business decision by her and her partners. Surely, they must have been aware their new landlord was the same character that bulldozed the joint next door - while it was still rented and doing business.

And pardon me, but fuck her and her Nazi brother. Having Nazis defend your business will win you no friends from the neighborhood you want to serve - or is it really the incoming new residents you seek to serve? Another poor business decision. Ms. Gray being oblivious to her brother's Nazi activities is not believable.

And Defend Our Hoodz is doing this community a disservice and their target, a foolish choice, as it is a business all communities will benefit from and one all should support. Their behavior was appalling, and they caused real harm, and the police surely could have arrested them for criminal trespass.

It's one thing for people living outside a neighborhood becoming gentrified to support a protest against gentrification taking place within that community or even joining in, physically participating. But some of these protestors come across as nothing more than hoodlums looking to cause trouble. If I was a community leader in that community, I'd officially disenfranchise from any affiliation my organization had with them.
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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby elfismiles » Mon May 07, 2018 11:10 am

The latest ...

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Austin Is Stepping Up Its Fight Against Gentrification
But it may be too little, too late for the city with a history of inequality
Dianna Wray On assignment for HuffPost
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ea ... 3485e6637a

City authorities have come up with a new plan to try to help residents at risk of displacement as well as those already forced out. In March, Kathie Tovo, representative and mayor pro tem for Austin City Council, penned a resolution to create a “right to return” ordinance, aiming to prioritize access to affordable housing for residents with generational ties to East Austin and other gentrifying parts of the city. “We are losing these longtime residents. We have to use everything in our toolbox to help them,” said Tovo.

How the ordinance will work in practice is still unclear. The Austin city manager now has until May 25 to come up with wording that fits within state laws and the federal Fair Housing Act, which forbids decision-making based on race.

Clues may be found in a similar “right to return” scheme launched last year in Portland, Oregon. The city is offering down payment assistance to people with long-term ties to the rapidly gentrifying city, who have been displaced or are at risk of displacement. It scores applicants on a points-based system, with top priority given to people whose land was seized by the city government.

However, that scheme also indicates the potential challenges of such a policy. Of the more than 1,100 people who applied, Portland only has the funds to help 65 families. So far, just a handful of people have successfully used the program to secure homes.


Emotions high as residents weigh fighting East Austin gentrification
metro-state
By Johnathan Silver - American-Statesman Staff
Image
Librado Almanza confronts a protester wearing a mask outside of a town hall conversation about gentrification in Austin on Sunday. NICK WAGNER / AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Posted: 7:25 p.m. Sunday, May 06, 2018

Highlights

Residents participated in a forum in East Austin about how to address the problem.

Others quarreled outside the meeting with masked protesters about how to address the issue.

Already struggling to bear rising costs of living in the historically black and Hispanic east side of Austin, members of the community said at a forum Sunday that they fear their culture, homes and schools are being taken away through gentrification. Making CodeNext — Austin’s controversial attempt to rewrite the city’s land development code — a reality would make matters worse, they said.

“It’s been heartbreaking,” said Susana Almanza, an activist in East Austin who described changes over the past 60 years. “It destroys a lot of the social fabric. … There was a very rich community of peoples of color.”

She said the discussion Sunday at Southwest Key Programs addressed how the community can “mitigate the displacement and gentrification.”

A number of ideas were floated ahead of a May 24 City Council meeting and the June 2 CodeNext hearing. Many organizers and community members expressed support for a six-point plan that includes establishing a living wage for the city, funding a trust for low-income housing and adopting a policy that gives certain residents the right to stay where they live and return in the community.

Other policy ideas included reparations and relocation for black and Hispanic residents and “other vulnerable communities” before CodeNext is implemented, and preserving and expanding construction of affordable homes for people of less means.

Community leaders stressed organizing to understand and respond to neighborhood concerns.

“This is a really good time to be talking to your neighbors and finding out if there is a neighborhood association, or if there is a contact team,” said Carmen Llanes Pulido, executive director of GO! Austin/VAMOS! Austin, in response to a question about how to address rezoning concerns.

Nelson Linder, president of the Austin NAACP, said that before the city addresses new land development policies, its leaders should first understand the issues affecting black and Hispanic communities.

“CodeNext is not designed to address gentrification,” he said. “Since it’s going to be the zoning for the next 100 years, you would think they would want to address the disparate impact of current policies on black and brown people.”

As members of the community gathered for the forum, protesters in masks were blocked from entering the meeting, causing several confrontations outside.

Protesters identified themselves as Defend our Hoodz and Revolution Student Front via flyers slipped onto car windshields. Members of the disruptive group refused to identify themselves personally and never removed their bandana masks.

Police arrived to break up the confrontation and dispersed the masked group. After the officers left, the group returned, and shoving and yelling ensued as tense emotions rose.

Officers returned and dispersed the group again.

Both groups have said they oppose forces gentrifying the city, especially in East Austin.

In response, Community Not Commodity, one of the forum’s organizers, denounced organizers for getting physical, saying, “We respect these individuals’ passion and agree that the city of Austin isn’t doing enough to fight our community’s gentrification crisis, but we were not going to allow the same thing to happen today.”

“Gentrification and displacement are forms of aggression, but Community Not Commodity and the other organizations who hosted today’s event will not engage in violent tactics to combat these problems,” the organization said in a statement. “They must be solved through civil discourse. You can’t bring all parties to the proverbial table when you’re intent upon overturning it.”

https://www.mystatesman.com/news/local/ ... SV6JK1BrL/


Community leaders hold discussion about Austin's gentrification crisis (VIDEO)
One topic of discussion was the People's Plan, a six-step resolution to help save East Austin communities from gentrification and displacement.
Author: Pattrik Perez
Published: 5:22 AM CDT May 7, 2018
Updated: 5:25 AM CDT May 7, 2018
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local ... -549533222

Community leaders hold forum on East Austin gentrification (VIDEO)
By Jordan Hicks | May 6, 2018 @9:37 PM
http://spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/austin/ ... ification#

Edit To Add:

MAY6 - Real Solutions for Austin's Gentrification Crisis
Public · Hosted by Community Not Commodity and 2 others
Sunday, May 6 at 2 PM - 4 PM
Southwest Key Programs
6002 Jain Ln, Austin, Texas 78721
https://www.facebook.com/events/1559034 ... 000962532/

Community Not Commodity was live — attending Real Solutions for Austin's Gentrification Crisis at Southwest Key Programs. (VIDEO)
https://www.facebook.com/communitynotco ... 448729568/

FLASHBACK to previous recent

Serve the People - Austin (VIDEO)


... and the response to criticism ...

https://www.facebook.com/servethepeople ... 8739720645

Serve the People - Austin
April 7 at 5:08pm ·

We would like to take an opportunity to respond to some criticisms of the disruption of the Project Catalyst meeting posted as live video on our page.

1. "You sound like a fascist when you say people can’t have a platform to speak." We absolutely believe that there are people, including developers and fascists, who should not be allowed a platform to speak. Our goal is not to uphold some set of moral values like the golden rule. We are a political organization with political objectives. We have seen how shutting up fascists across the country has been successful at undermining their agenda (look at how Richard Spencer or Milo Yiannopoulos have been effectively made irrelevant through disruptions). We and others are applying that same tactic to the anti-gentrification struggle here in Austin. The mindset of developers is the exact opposite of ours. We want things that are mutually exclusive: they want to make a profit, we want to protect working class communities. Their profit necessitates displacing those communities, and so we honestly don't give a shit what they have to say. We do not dream of a world where developers, fascists, and everyone else all give each other a chance to speak. We are striving for a world with NO developers and NO fascists, and the first step towards that is refusing them the right to speak.

2. "These people represent violence and that's not cool." Yelling or cursing may be somewhere on the spectrum of violence, but it is surely on the opposite side of the spectrum compared to the widespread violence that has been and continues to be carried out against the working class communities of Austin in the form of police brutality, school segregation, displacement, etc. As far as representing violence in Austin, how can our taunts and jeers compete with the land theft, mass destruction of homes, and cultural erasure that gentrification leaves in its wake? Critics who label us violent would probably agree that gentrification is also violent, so why do they reprimand us for our "violence" and not the agents of gentrification (like developers) for their violence? Frankly, we believe it is because they don't believe gentrification can be stopped, whereas trying to defame a small group like us seems more doable. To side with us means to go against the current, to fight back against the powerful capitalists, politicians, and hipsters that make gentrification possible. Taking up that struggle demands discipline, courage, and resolve. Siding against us means aligning with the status quo and joining the ranks of those who believe that gentrification is inevitable, that power is forever sanctioned to those who already have it and cannot be found among the people, and that those facing displacement should be content with exile if they can get some chump change to make up for dropping the lives they have made for themselves in Austin. Taking that road is seemingly safer and doesn't take much effort. Finally, we believe there is a fundamental difference between state-sanctioned violence and violence done in self-defense against an oppressor. It is right to rebel!

3. "You are the gentrifiers! Respect your elders!" - We take this criticism to mean that some people who were causing the disruption don't look like the people who are historically from the neighborhood, and that white activists should follow the lead of older people of color. It is true that some of our members are white and that some did not grow up in Austin. However, if we were gentrifiers, why would we be so outspoken against gentrification? Once again, the answer to the contradiction of this criticism lies in the assumption that putting an end to gentrification is impossible. To them, our struggle appears to be a hopeless cause that can only serve to sabotage their ability to negotiate for the crumbs that the system currently offers. For a more comprehensive outline of why we believe reversing gentrification is possible, please read Free The Land (https://issuu.com/defendourhoodz/…/digitalgentrificationzine), which we co-wrote with Defend Our Hoodz - Defiende El Barrio - Austin, but suffice it to say that we are following the historical models of communities around the world (many of whom are not white) who have successfully fought back against their oppressors.

As for respecting elders, our policy has always been that above all, we respect a person or a group based on what they do, not what they look like or what they say. In particular, one comment said that we should respect Susana Almanza, the president of the Montopolis Contact Team and the director of nonprofit PODER. We are aware of community work that Almanza has done in the past that has earned her a reputation, including her environmental study that helped close the Holly Power Plant that was polluting the surrounding working class communities. We are also aware of her more recent work, like how she undermined the Cactus Rose community from organizing against their displacement (instead of supporting a resolution the community association had drafted, she accused outsiders of writing it and instead proposed her own resolution that put a modest price tag on the cost of relocating the residents) or how she facilitated the speedy displacement of the Thrasher Lane Mobile Home park. A former Thrasher tenant was quoted in an Austin Chronicle story as saying that Almanza was on the side of the developers during the negotiations (https://www.austinchronicle.com/…/life-after-gentrification/). Almanza may have once been a fighter for the community, but for whatever reason her current politics reflect cynicism and opportunism that we absolutely do not respect. Her misguided leadership has corrupted many activists in Austin, many who have the potential to be true fighters for the people. We hope that by exposing her shady dealings and criticizing her dead-end politics we can liberate some of these folks out from under her wing.

4. "You are alienating the community by being so aggressive!" We no doubt expect that some people will be alienated by our tactics. If you watch the video, you can see some people leave. However, you can also see in the video many people from the crowd calling out the developers false promises and eventually yelling the developers present out of the building. These expressions of people power would not have been possible if the meeting had gone as planned. We recognize that the revolutionary movement is still in its early stages in Austin, and we also know it will take many years to build that movement to a size that is actually capable of enforcing real change. With that in mind, we hope that our tactics now will inspire the leaders of tomorrow. We are not trying to corral working class people to city hall for a public hearing for a short-lived and empty demonstration of people power. We want longlasting and explosive people power capable of fundamentally changing society. We do not wish for this idealistically either. We know from historical example it is possible to organize for more than small concessions. We want to go all the way. We want to organize working class leadership that will liberate us from the gentrifiers and the capitalists who back them. We are not interested in band-aid solutions. We want to cure the disease. At this meeting, we and others pulled the veil from what appeared to be a cordial presentation among equals to show its true nature: predators (the developers) baiting their prey (the people). Yes, we know that our loud and proud manner of speaking scared some people away, but we also know that those who remained had an opportunity to see developers and their agents treated for what they are: enemies of the people. Understanding that we have class enemies and identifying who they are is a crucial first step in traveling the revolutionary road.

Finally, we would also like to acknowledge that in addition to the criticisms on the post, many commenters voiced support for the action and also shared their experiences of fighting gentrification. The overall positive response to the action emboldens us. The developers of Austin should be quaking in their boots, because this is just the beginning.

https://www.facebook.com/servethepeople ... 8739720645


Evict the Landlords, Displace the Developers, Free the Land
Published on Sep 19, 2017

Serve the People - Austin and Defend Our Hoodz - Defiende El Barrio - Austin have joined forces to write a zine articulating the dangers of rapid gentrification and its destructive effects on the working class' way of life. We challenge the exploiters’ definition of gentrification as the inevitable growing pains of a "prosperous" city. We view it as an intentional scheme to accommodate development and fill the pockets of all involved: city officials, greedy developers or the planners behind "CodeNEXT." Before it’s too late, we must let go of our trust in these gentrification collaborators. We are the ones who ultimately must take back our homes, our culture, our communities, and our hoods. Download the full PDF here: http://bit.ly/2xbVVgU

https://issuu.com/defendourhoodz/docs/d ... cationzine

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Re: Austin's Armed AntiFa / AntiGentrification / Murder?

Postby elfismiles » Mon Jan 14, 2019 12:50 pm

With the following as preface...

elfismiles » 13 Apr 2018 20:56 wrote: . . .I should clarify and mea culpa to my glaring errors in my original info dump post; I was conflating the "Defend Our Hoodz", "AntiFa" and "Revolutionary Student Front" groups - mainly becuz of the aggressiveness and tactics. I really have no idea how affiliated / how much crossover there may be.


... am posting this here even tho it may be inappropriate to conflate the "Defend Our Hoodz", "AntiFa", "Revolutionary Student Front", and "Red Guards Austin" groups ...

USA - Elections No! Revolution Yes!
November 11, 2018
https://www.newepoch.media/single-post/ ... lution-Yes

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ETA: Chinese Lantern Salute by Red Guards Austin last October...

USA - Red Guards Austin: Election Boykott Speech
October 13, 2018
https://www.newepoch.media/single-post/ ... ott-Speech

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