Ottawa: Navigating the Ins and Outs: GLBT Partner Assault

Across Canada this is National Victims of Crime Awareness Week. In Ottawa Mayor Larry O'brien has proclaimed Victims of Crime Week from April 26th to May 2nd. On Friday, May 1st the Ottawa Police GLBT Liaison Committee will be putting on an information exchange between Community and Police named Navigating the Ins and Outs: GLBT Partner Assault.

There will be many guest speakers from Community Groups, Victim Services Groups, Police Services and the Crown's Office. It will include four workshops An Introduction to GLBT Partner Assault, Intersectionality and GLBT Partner Assault (Race, Ethnicity & Disability), The Legal Process A to Z and, Critical Incident - Critical Situation Teams. There will also be a Keynote Speaker, a Panel on Reporting and an Information Fair.

It is being held at the Richelieu-Vanier Community Centre at 300 Avenue des Pere Blanc. From 8:30 to 3:30 and there is free registration as well as refreshments provided. To register simply go here, anyone is welcome to do so.

Mexico: Trotsky's Remains Stolen?

I am curious as to the validity of a news story being disseminated by Anarchist groups. A anarchist group in Mexico has claimed to have stolen the ashes of Leon Trotsky, one of the main leaders of the Russian Revolution and prominent contributor to Marxist theory. He was critiqued by contemporaries for harming people especially by anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman. To complicate matters more, the anarchist group, have claimed to have made his ashes into cookies and have sent those cookies to groups that follow Trotsky and some other anarchist groups. Whether this is true or not I frankly have no idea, but a very interesting story whether true or false. If you have any information as to the validity or lack of please comment.

Here is the broadcast by the anarchists which is circling:

"Eighty eight years of the day Trotsky directed the suppression of the anarchist uprising in Krondstadt, a group of bandits scaled the walls of his former house in Mexico City during the late hours at night. We broke the lock on his mausoleum and we expropriate the content inside it: a silver large vase that bears the inscription of his name, wrapped in the red scarf that he carried around the neck, containing the ashes of the corpse inside. We replace with care the lock in the monument with a reproduction that was similar in the appearance and escaped into the night.

The vase along with its content then was taken far away to a place where the vase was discarded and the content (a combination of ash and bone) were baked in cookies. These cookies then were sent, along with a letter that explains our actions, to newspapers, to organizations of Trotskyists, and to the groups of anarchist around the world.

While we will not repeat everything of our full letter, briefly we propose to give new light to the idea that history does not end with the past and still a small group of bandits can give new direction to fights thought long to be frozen in the time. We want to expand the fight to include dead objects of the past that hold hostage us in the present.

Nevertheless, if Trotsky is right about the history, we do not determine anything, but we are only characters whose actions were written in the revolution of October. As was his destiny, coincidentally, to come to be a cookie.

The ones that receive these cookies have a decision. Through time, the act to consume enemies have been seen as a way to absorb their powers. On the other hand, consuming the body and the blood of the dead person as a sacrament have also been a form of worship. We would want to indicate that, at any rate, the result is always shit.

For those a little delicate, we have tried them, and although they be a little sandy, they are delicious. The green dots, by the way, they are just candies."

USA: St. Paul Police Arresting People without Cause

Throughout St. Paul where the Republican National Convention is convening Police services have been arresting, detaining people, breaking in doors with guns drawn without any real charges. They are taking "pre-emptive" raids on protest organizers and even media members. Many of these raids have been done without warrants or correct warrants as well as using automatic weapons. Breaking into private homes without warrants is obviously illegal, but that hasn't stopped police and FBI members having done so.

Groups that have been targeted are Glassbead Collective, Food Not Bombs, the RNC Welcoming Committee, I-Witness Video, Communities United Against Police Brutality, Permibus and Democracy Now!. Democracy Now is an independent news organization which is on over 700 tv and radio stations. The host Amy Goodman and two producers were unlawfully arrested tonight while legally reporting and filming the protests. The incident was caught on film as shown by submedia.

For more information see the Democracy Now! report from before Amy Goodman was arrested, the newsweek blog by Starhawk on the PermiBus as well as submedia who has three reports. DNC Dispatch #3 RNC EMERGENCY DISPATCH #1, RNC Dispatch #2

UPDATE: Democracy Now Host Amy Goodman and producers were released last night. For full coverage watch their report. In the same series of arrests a Associate Press Photographer and other press were also violently arrested.

Video: CIA cocaine round up

I've discussed with some people about the CIA's dealing in drugs, primarily cocaine and heroin. It seems many people still have never heard this story despite it having been exposed time and again over the past two decades. Here are some good videos for those who do not know the story.

Recent Video about a CIA plane which crashed in September 2007 with 4 tons of cocaine.



A Guerrilla News Network Video about the history of the CIA drug trade including government whistleblowers.



A Guerrilla News Network Video of Gary Webb who uncovered much of the CIA dealing in drugs. He has passed on now but here is his story about the CIA drug story and about investigative journalism.

Alberta: Suspected Neo-Nazis Firebomb House

This is a story that I only heard today. In Calgary a home of two Communist Party Members was firebombed using molatov cocktails on February 12th. The couple and their four children were able to escape the home, but the home itself was badly damaged. Neo-Nazi white supremacist group members are suspected of causing the crime. The couple Jason Devine and Bonnie Collins believe the reason they were attacked was due to their strong Anti-Racism activism and workshops done around Calgary.

Alberta has had some of the strongest support for Neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements. Though other parts of the country have certainly experienced these movements as well, including white supremacist marches on Parliament Hill during the early 1990s where members were attacking people in the streets and giving the heil to the Canadian Anthem. Alberta however, is one of the few provinces where actual organized groups are active in comparison to unorganized racists here and there. As Neo-Nazi groups in the past few years in Alberta have actually held demonstrations. A great post on one of the groups The Aryan Guard can be found at the Anti-Racist Canada blog.

Activist Image: Organised Crime

This was made by my drumming buddy at the Apoplectic Press, which produces many great things. He turned them into stickers which traveled the continent. It was loved so much that the organizers of Seattle in '99 made a full billboard of it. Makes you think. Who is the bigger criminal the person who steals for their family, or the corporate executive and powerful bureaucracies?