general strike Detroit

URGENT - Pre-May Day Police Raids in New York City

anon.  Mon, 2012-04-30 09:42

This morning around 6:30am at least two houses were raided by NYPD detectives. In both cases, the cops used the pretext of spurious arrest warrants to gain access to apartments of local anarchists. The warrants were for individuals unconnected to those homes, but allowed cops access to one and apparently justified them forcibly breaking into another.

After entering the apartments the police searched them, intimidated the residents, and ran their identification. In one of the instances, an anarchist organizer was taken into a separate room and interrogated by detectives about past actions and upcoming plans for May Day.

It awaits to be seen if more houses were subject to raids this morning. Regardless, this ‘preemptive strike’ by the NYPD was clearly a coordinated effort to intimidate local organizers and fish for information.

This news comes on top of reports that over the past weeks hundreds of cops have been drilling on Randall’s Island in anticipation of May Day. Those in the NYC area should be aware of these pig tactics and take any necessary precautions in the hours leading up to tomorrow’s activities.

If there was any doubt how seriously the pigs are taking our efforts then those doubts can be put to bed. But if they think that intimidation and harassment can stop us, they have another thing coming.

Tomorrow they won’t be raiding innocent individuals in their beds, they will be up against tens of thousands of angry New Yorkers who have had enough of their bullshit.

May Day means no work. May Day means no shopping or housework. And May Day means revenge.

FTP/ACAB!

-Some Brooklyn Anarchists

anon.  “URGENT - Pre-May Day Police Raids in New York City.”  Anarchist News Dot Org.  1 May 2012.  (http://anarchistnews.org/content/urgent-pre-may-day-police-raids-new-york-city)

a May day civics lesson

Diane Gee

1 May 2012


I am keeping my 13 year old son home from school today, to learn a real civics lesson.  We are going to Occupy Detroit for May Day, join in the March and General Strike.

Our voices will be loud, here in the shadow of the closed factories, joined with so many others in what was once the largest Union City on the country.

Before we go, I will read to him and speak to him of the struggle for worker’s rights.  We will talk about what the UAW once was, what it meant in terms of Civil Rights too.  We will talk of the history, from Pinkertons railroad murderers to miners being killed enmasse. I will tell him of the dust bowl and Woody Guthrie and Eugene Debs.  

We will speak of his teachers, what is becoming of his schools, and how they are killing education to stop that Union and privatize the very source of knowledge.

I will tell him, though that May Day originated in Australia trying to get an 8 hour work day, it really grew legs in Chicago in 1886 when many died in a demonstration for worker’s rights there.  I will tell him how, in the US the powers that be decided to try and defuse this movement by creating “Labor Day” and make into a celebration of a long weekend and Summer’s beginning - but that International Worker’s Day will always remain May Day.

I will tell him how, in 2007, the police attacked a peaceful demonstration in California by striking men, women and children; many of whom were immigrants - some “legal” some not, but how these brave people managed to mostly shut that city down for a day.

He already knows why I cannot find work, and probably never will at 49.  He knows I deserve better, his teachers deserve better and he deserves a better future.

Today, we put our bodies on the line for our rights.

Excuse the short essay - but I wanted to inspire any of you on the fence about this to do the same.

Gee, Diane.  “A May Day Civics Lesson.”  The Wild Wild Left.  1 May 2012  (http://www.wildwildleft.com/diary/2759/happy-may-day)