This Is America #189: Rent Strike Grows in Eugene, Midwest Dual Power Conference, Trump Faces Indictment

IT'S GOING DOWN

Welcome, to This Is America, August 15th, 2023.

In this episode, we speak with two organizers of the Midwest Dual Power Gathering, taking place in Chicago next week. We then speak with Candice King, a resident of Eugene, Oregon who is currently on rent strike, along with a local anarchist who is helping organize eviction defense. We talk about how the rent strike is growing and the community that has been fostered around the defense of Candice’s home in the face of a recent failed police eviction.

A struggle between a property management company and tenants who have stopped paying rent to try to get the landlord to sell the property heated up Friday morning as protestors held a demonstration inside the company’s office. https://t.co/4MN15nawof

— KEZI 9 NEWS (@KEZI9) August 4, 2023

We then turn towards are discussion, where we unpack the most recent Trump indictment, what it means, and what is says about the lengths in which the Republican party pushed for an authoritarian takeover of the State in 2020.

All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!

Living and Fighting

The struggle against Cop City in so-called Atlanta, Georgia continues, with the city government attempting to throw a wrench into attempts by voters to get a referendum on the facility on an upcoming ballot. In court, the city of Atlanta has attempted to claim the “referendum [is] “invalid” and a “futile” effort,” but a recent ruling has allowed the collection of signatures to go forward, as activists now boast to having collective over 80,000.

https://itsgoingdown.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/10000000_1468240474022006_2909281583258015646_n.mp4

Struggles against other similar projects are also spreading. In Michigan people wrapped up a week of action and educational events against the expansion of the Camp Grayling military base. In the bay area, people also mobilized to demand the halt to the construction of “a $42,000,000 mega complex and gun range in the heart of the City of San Pablo, directly behind a children’s library. The Mega complex “Cop Campus” will train officers in urban warfare, repression and murder. We are in a economical crisis and before community needs are even being met, an immense amount of money is being wasted into a completely unnecessary cop playground.”

Doom to the pipeline!! Footage from yesterday's walk ons, which stopped Mountain Valley Pipeline construction in Montgomery County, Virginia for multiple hours. 👏👏👏 #NoMVP #NoPipelines pic.twitter.com/6sKmtxSgtV

— Appalachians Against Pipelines (@stopthemvp) August 10, 2023

Actions also continued against the Mountain Valley Pipeline, with protesters continuing to disrupt work on the project.

In Portland, fast food workers with the Burgerville Workers Union, part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), walked out on strike at one store in late July after contract talks with the company broke down. In response to the strike, corporate attempted to send in scab workers as strike actions and protests continue. Meanwhile in Berkeley, wobblies are rallying at a recently unionized store by the IWW against the firing of one union member. For more info and how to participate in a call-in campaign in support, go here.

Workers and union supporters are out here turning around replacement workers and talking to the community!

Show support to our defense fund! We're just getting started. Corporate went after our members? We're not taking this laying down. HR wants a fight, you got one. pic.twitter.com/XY8zgBCvUj

— Burgerville Workers Union 🍔 (@BVWU_IWW) July 29, 2023

Far-Right troll Andy Ngo has again lost in court, according to the Civil Liberties Defense Center:

After seven days of trial, a 12-person Multnomah County (Portland) jury found no fault against [tw0] activists…in a lawsuit that was filed three years ago by conservative provocateur Andy Ngo. Ngo sought over $300,000 for a variety of alleged incidents involving many people between 2019 and 2021.

The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Ngo, in an attempt to weaponize the legal system against the right-wing boogeyman of what he has labeled “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”). Ngo lumps together into his version of “antifa,” a wide range of social justice advocates, even including people from the moderate “Wall of Moms” – in an apparent attempt to gain access to personal information about those he perceives to be leftist activists and to make personal profit from patreon and other social media platforms. To use a term he often uses, he committed “lawfare.” His original complaint named individual people for “assault,” “battery,” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” as well as alleging an Oregon civil racketeering (RICO) claim against Rose City Antifa.

Two weeks before the trial, a Multnomah County Circuit Judge ruled that Rose City Antifa could not be sued because it is not a discrete legal entity, and dismissed the state RICO claims.

In Alabama, prisons across the state went into lockdown as national guard troops, SWAT teams, and a host of law enforcement descended upon William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility “after an incarcerated individual took a guard hostage in the middle of the night.” According to the Alabama Political Reporter:

The individual suspected of taking the correctional officer hostage is Derrol Shaw. According to a source, Shaw got into an altercation with the guard and took a gun and the officer’s vest. However, it is against ADOC policy for officers to have guns at the facility, but it is unclear at the moment how or why the officer had the weapon…Shaw posted two videos on Facebook Live of himself while wearing the officer’s vest…

Shaw expressed in his Facebook Live videos that he is just “fed up” with the conditions inside the prison citing the constant chaos, violence and deaths, even of his own friends. Shaw also said that ADOC is upholding white supremacy and that the prison system is just “modern-day slavery.”

As highlighted in our recent In Contempt column, several new political prisoners need support! Long time community activists in Pittsburgh Peppy and Krystal are facing federal charges over alleged participation in a demonstration against transphobia. Donate to help out with legal fees here. You can also write to Peppy at:

Butler County Prison
c/o Brian DiPippa
#42322 PO Box 9156
Seminole, FL 33775-9156

Indigenous land defender Victor is in need of support after being arrested in Atlanta during a music festival in support of the Stop Cop City movement. Victor, has now been transferred to ICE custody, and a support site has been set up for him here. Write to Victor at:

Victor Puertas
095610252
6B 215B
P.O. Box 248
Lumpkin, GA 31815

South Chicago ABC and Chicago IWOC are organizing support for Hybachi Lemar, an anarchist organizer who is currently held in the Cook County Jail. To support Hybachi, go here.

The support crew for antifascist prisoner Alex Stokes have now set up an online store selling fundraising merch. Write to Alex at:

Alexander Stokes Contompasis
DIN: 22B5028
Upstate Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 2001
Malone, NY, 12953

Also, antifascist prisoner Ben Varela has been moved, and his new address is now:

Benjamin Varela #434577
Cedar Creek Corrections Center
CC18U
Post Office Box 37
Littlerock, Washington 98556-0037

Upcoming Events

• August 16th: Live music, tabling, presentation on revolt in Chile. Pittsburgh, PA. More info here.
• August 17th – 20th: Midwest Dual Power Gathering. Chicago, IL. More info here.
• August 19th: Fash Free Festival, Portland, Oregon, Colonel Summers Park, 12 PM – 5 PM.
• August 26th – 27th: Seattle Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
• September 8th – 11th: Bash Back! convergence. Chicago, IL. More info here.

• September 11th: Running Down the Walls, Philadelphia, PA. More info here.
• September 17th: Running Down the Walls, Los Angeles, CA. More info here.
• September 17th: Running Down the Walls, Brooklyn, NY. More info here.
• September 30th: Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
• October 1st: Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. Oakland, CA. More info here.
• October 21st: Pushing Down the Walls, benefit for political prisoners. Los Angeles, CA. More info here.
• November 11th – 12th: Boston Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
• May 4th, 2024: First Annual Upstate Anarchist Bookfair, Binghamton, NY. More info here.

It’s Going Down

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