Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Posted in Audio, Austin, Journalism, Occupy Wall Street, and Video
Last weekend, I talked with photojournalist Zach Roberts of VisuNews about my recent essay on why we need to stop protesting at empty buildings and become more strategic about our activism.
We also talked about our work as journalists, and our involvement with past movements like Occupy Wall Street.
Posted in Gonzo Notes, and Occupy Wall Street
Over the weekend of Halloween in 2011, 38 people were arrested at Occupy Austin, the local outgrowth of Occupy Wall Street, a national, mostly anticapitalist movement targeting systemic inequality and corporate influence. I wasn’t involved in the movement yet, but this incident, and a certain social network, set off a chain of events that launched my journalism career.
I joined Twitter in 2009 after attending a technology and sex conference in San Francisco. I noticed everyone using their phones and laptops in a new way to communicate with each other about the conference, even if they hadn’t met before. So I was virtually watching two years later, when dozens of people got arrested in my town in a single night over sharing food.
Like most Democratic cities, officials voiced initial support for the activists camping at Austin City Hall, until two things became clear: one, that Occupy was not focused on pushing the Democratic Party’s agenda or candidates, and two, that the movement made the city’s growing poverty problem impossible to ignore by bringing unhoused campers to its front door. After that, they tried every possible trick (constitutional or otherwise), along with escalating police violence, to dismantle the encampment and undermine the networks springing up around it.
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
Over 5 years since the election of Donald Trump and the rise of the powerful white supremacist movement he empowered, the mainstream media still struggles to fact-check fascists.
It always interests me which organizations get the benefit of the doubt from the mainstream media.
I (and many others) have written about how the mainstream media tends to take the words of police at face value. Reporters often use whatever language makes police seem blameless after violent interactions.
Just like cops, right-wing fascists frequently get platformed by reporters who fail to ask vital questions.
Which brings us to an article by Asher Price, an Austin reporter for Axios.
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
I don’t write about books often, and usually I stick to good ones, but I feel this needs to be said: “It Came From Something Awful” is a book that, at minimum, needed more fact-checking before publication.
Though the book came out in 2019, author Dale Beran is back in the spotlight because of the January 6, 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Beran is seen as one of the experts on 4chan, and 4chan is seen as a key origin point of What Just Happened ™.
When I dug into the book, I found out this argument represents the first third of it at most, and my problems with the latter chapters make me call the whole thing into question.
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
Inspired by Common Ground in New Orleans and Occupy Sandy and numerous other community-led relief efforts, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief cultivate “autonomous, decentralized, and liberatory disaster relief.”
I’ve featured multiple Mutual Aid Disaster Relief publications in my Virtual Gonzo Zine Library. Most recently, I put “Lessons Learned” in the “Winter 2020” edition of the VGZL. I reached out to MADR by email, and they answered collectively. I found their answers so eloquent, I wanted to present them here in Q&A format rather than editing them into a formal interview-style article. I’ve only lightly edited the responses for clarity and brevity.
Kit O’Connell: Any advice for handling armed fascists or right wingers that show up in disaster areas trying to “patrol” “prevent looting” guard against “antifa” etc?
Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street
After watching the coup, I keep imagining the feeling of breaking through. The rush. The giddy high of taking space.
Like so many antifascists, I saw something like this coming. I wasn’t surprised, but I was still shocked at the sight of a war-helmeted christofascist raising his fist in the air as he stood atop the heart of American political power.
And I keep coming back to how good they must feel. These nasty fucking fascists, white supremacists, and Qsuckers are riding one of the biggest highs of their lives. And that makes them even more dangerous.
