Hello from Inhabit. Two weeks ago, SWAT teams raided three Atlanta homes in the early morning. After dragging several people out of their beds by their hair and photographing them half-dressed, they arrested our friend Jack and charged him with arson.
This shocking raid comes after RICO charges were filed against 61 participants in the Stop Cop City movement last August. The RICO accusations were added to an already absurd series of domestic terrorism charges against another 42 forest defenders, caught sitting in trees, going to a music festival, or wearing muddy clothes—dangerous acts committed at the same time as the Georgia State Patrol were busy murdering Tortuguita.
When the forest raids first occurred and the charges filed, it seemed obvious that the movement’s enemies didn’t understand what they were dealing with. To call tree-sitting “terrorism” felt like a desperate and ridiculous gesture. In fact, it was a specific strategy with a clear objective. This early wave of charges sought to turn a large, decentralized protest movement, carried out by many different people in many different places, into the expression of a conspiratorial core of masterminds behind the scenes. Isolated persons could be handpicked and held responsible, and the threat of serious charges could intimidate other people from participating.
The strategic failure of these repressive tactics is apparent. Besides being anachronistic and illegal, the government’s approach had the opposite of its intended effect. The movement became larger and more widely supported throughout the last year. Its creativity increased, its heterogeneity multiplied. The major Block Cop City demo brought new crowd tactics. Widespread acts of sabotage targeted the network of contractors and funders of the project. Petitions for an electoral referendum circulated, and needed money flowed into the Atlanta Solidarity Fund.
It thus became necessary for the movement’s enemies to adapt. First with their attempt to turn any activity in support of the movement into “an act in furtherance of the conspiracy,” and second with the despicable raids on forest defenders’ homes that just happened. Both innovations, so to speak, express the desire of the state to catch up to the movement’s continuing and creative popularity. By turning anything done in support of the movement into a conspiratorial gesture, by turning anyone who commits their energies to the movement into a potential object of police violence and legal jeopardy, the authorities hope once again to give the movement a clear epicenter, to assign its driving force to particular people in a particular place, whoever and wherever that may be, and to drive everyone else into fearful quietude. We believe this too will fail.
It is unthinkable to the police and political class in Georgia that a movement like Stop Cop City could have become so powerful and inconvenient without a centralized group driving events forward. That people of all walks of life could rise up and act courageously in defense of what they love—delaying, halting, and sabotaging a hated project for three years straight. That people could exist at all, who didn’t accept their nightmare vision of the future. And that they could be, in fact, anyone and anywhere.
With each thoughtless and violent measure they take, sympathy and support for the movement grows. Forest defenders just left a beautiful four-day gathering near Tucson, Arizona where they shared skills, made plans, and targeted pro-Cop City banks. Brave friends in Lacey, Washington disrupted groundbreaking ceremonies and construction at the site of their own proposed Cop City. Reports of sabotage from around the country continue rolling into anonymous movement websites.
To make clear what is happening in Atlanta, we offer two features this month on the current repression of the ongoing movement to Stop Cop City. One article summarizes the raids and calls for support for Jack, and the other features a discussion of the RICO charges between an activist and a lawyer. It is our hope that these articles will help our friends and comrades orient themselves in the face of the latest legal assault, and that we may all do everything we can to support Jack and those who love him.
Free Jack
Please show our friend Jack your love and support
Jack is a beloved local organizer, carpenter, punk musician, rock climber, and self-motivated student of history, religion and politics. He loves sewing, vegan food, Zen Buddhism, straight edge, and poetry. Jack is a longtime political activist who has never shied away from standing up for what is right. Now we must stand up for Jack.
An Introduction to ‘RICO’
Experts weigh in on a new tool of repression in Atlanta
What is particularly egregious about this prosecution is that the “enterprise” or “conspiracy” being targeted isn’t a criminal organization—it is a broad social movement. Essentially, the State is charging people for their connection to the movement against Cop City. While some of the “overt acts” allege property destruction or other crimes, much of the indictment is based on First Amendment protected activity.
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This text has been syndicated from Inhabit: Territories.