Adventures of a Gonzo Journalist
Alex Reid Ross wrote up a detailed account of the nazi attack on the Houston Anarchist Bookfairfor Alternet (it’s also been picked up by Raw Story).
I appreciate that Ross got so many quotes from others at the fair, including organizers, and that he highlighted the involvement of some well known white supremacists like William Fears and Robert Warren Ray, a.k.a. Azzmador:
On Sunday, I attended the Houston Anarchist Bookfair with my educational collective, Oh Shit! What Now? We offered a selection of zines and I taught my class on antifascism, called “Punching Nazis.”
Actual nazis from “Vanguard America” (recently rebranded as “Patriot Front), the same nazi party responsible for the death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, attacked the bookfair during my class, and only the quick work of the volunteer security team kept the people inside safe from their attacks. Zach Despart, editor of the Houston Press, interviewed me about the incident:
I’m appearing this Sunday at the Houston Anarchist Bookfair along with my educational collective, Oh Shit! What Now? I’ll teach a revised version of our class, “Punching Nazis” from 11:15am to 12:15pm at MECA Houston (1900 Kane St) on September 24, 2017. The event is free and open to the public.
Posted in Act Out!, Austin, Creative Commons, Journalism, and Video
With all the leftist bickering, in-fighting, both-siding, my anti-war prayers are bigger than yours bullshit, it seemed like a good time to highlight a leftist success story — particularly as it takes place in a bastion of right wingdom and frequent contributor and gonzo journalist Kit O’Connell was there to document it.
So yes — the Lone Star State is perhaps the last place where many of us would expect to see a broad coalition of left leaning groups successfully fight off the hateful Republican agenda. But that’s what just happened during a recent “special session” of the Texas legislature.
Special sessions are a loophole written into the Texas Constitution to allow the state government to conduct emergency business, but in this case the only emergency was that Gov. Greg Abbott had failed to oppress transgender people by passing a version of the so-called “bathroom bill” during the first part of the year. The Governor drew up a 20-point plan of hate for his month-long session, ranging from an attack on public workers’ unions, a pile of new restrictions on abortion, the bathroom bill, and even a bill that undermined the ability of cities to collect taxes to fund social services.
Then, to the surprise of even the people involved in the organizing to resist Abbott, activists working together across issues managed to fight off all but a handful of Abbott’s proposals, in an extraordinary display of the effectiveness of intersectional activism against seemingly insurmountable odds. At a time when some of our fundamental rights are under attack, the success of activists in one of the most politically conservative of states should give us all renewed faith in the power of movement building.
Posted in Act Out!, Journalism, and Video
In a recent episode of Act Out! inspired by Hurricane Harvey, Eleanor Goldfield looks back at disaster relief and disaster capitalism after Hurricane Katrina. From there, she pivots to a critique of Chris Hedges recent garbage take on antifa, using my recent article on antifascist disaster relief as evidence that antifascists are building a more just world through mutual aid in addition to fighting nazis in the streets.
Posted in Audio, Gonzo Notes, Journalism, and Ministry of Hemp
The Industrial Hemp Farming Act, is a bipartisan effort before congress to legalize agricultural hemp. However, it’s deeply flawed in its current form. And a recent study on CBD oil shows many people are giving up prescription pharmaceutical or over-the-counter drugs in favor of CBD.
Finally, who are the antifascists? What is black bloc? Why do activists wear masks? And how are antifa getting involved in Harvey relief efforts?
