State Repression and Bail Fund Organizing in Atlanta

We talk with folks from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and  Anti-Repression Committee about the tactics of State repression and bail fund organizing within the struggle to Defend the Atlanta Forest. 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is it could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. This
episode is going to be a bit of an update
and an interview regarding the Defend the Atlanta Forest and
Cops City movement that's been ongoing for almost two years now.
If you're unfamiliar with the topic, I made a three hour,

(00:27):
two part deep dive last May titled on the Ground
at Defend the Atlanta Forest that you can find up
on the it could Happen Here feed and I've been
doing random updates, like in our History of the Old
Atlanta Prison Farm episodes from last August. But the t
l d R is that the City of Atlanta and

(00:48):
the corporate funded Atlanta Police Foundation are trying to tear
down a large section of the Woolwanee or South River
Forest into Cab County to construct a massive, ninety million dollar, militarized,
state of the art police training facility, complete with a
mock city. On top of that, Ryan millsaps Black Hall

(01:10):
Movie Studios are planning to cut down an adjacent section
of the very same forest to expand their film production
studio in a shady land swap deal that's currently the
subject of a lawsuit. The past couple of weeks have
seen a massive increase in the intensity of repression efforts
by the state and local police inside Atlanta and Decap

(01:33):
County against the Cops City movement and people in the
forest encampments trying to prevent the construction of the police
training facility. Last month, on a December there was a
raid on the forest by a task force of local,
state and federal law enforcement. Police were shooting pepperballs, rubber

(01:53):
tipped metal impact rounds, and tear gas canisters into the woods.
They destroyed treehouses while people were still inside, and tour
part other infrastructure, like the communal kitchen that was built
inside the forest to support the encampment. Police fired chemical
weapons at tree sitters, arrested multiple people, and pushed others

(02:15):
out of the forest at gunpoint. One of the things
setting this apart from previous raids is that six people
have now been charged with domestic terrorism as well as
a number of other felonies. The people charged were initially
denied bail and essentially held as political prisoners for trespassing
in a forest, with the terrorism enhancement charge added on top.

(02:39):
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation alleges quote several people through
rocks at police cars and attacked E m T s
outside the neighboring fire stations with rocks and bottles. Task
Force members used various tactics to arrest individuals who are
occupying makeshift treehouses unquote. The Georgia Department of Homeland Security,

(03:02):
which was formed as the result of a seen bill,
which is also responsible for the expanded definition of domestic terrorism,
has chose to designate the Defend the Atlanta Forest as
quote domestic violent extremists unquote, which has led the state
Attorney General's office to also get involved in the case.

(03:25):
I think it's worth mentioning that this seventeen domestic Terrorism
Bill was first passed by the Georgia legislature in response
to the neo Nazi Dylan Roof mass shooting at Emmanuel
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which killed
nine people. So now we have this law allegedly created

(03:47):
in response to a murderous white supremacist targeted attack against
black people, now being used for the first time as
a bludgeon against anti racist protesters who are fighting again
the expansion and further militarization of police facilities. This is
a reminder that any expansion of state power will always

(04:09):
come down the hardest on people who are actually pushing
back against the power structures of the state, like the police.
After being held in jail for two weeks, on December,
the six people were finally granted bail, but as of
two days later, the jail was refusing to comply and

(04:30):
release someone, instead saying that they will be quote held
well the prosecutor add additional charges unquote. This abnormality was
soon resolved and by December all six people charged were
released on bail thanks to the Solidarity Fund, everyone who donated,

(04:50):
and people working jail support. Our interview today will be
focusing on the jail support aspect and bail Fund organizing
and for note, this interview was conducted prior to the
release of the Forest Defenders. With me here today is
James and Ralph. James is from the Atlanta Anti Repression

(05:12):
Committee and Ralph is from the Solidarity Fund. Greetings, thank you,
thank you for joining me here, thank you for having us.
Good to be here. So first I would like to
see if, if if either of you have any kind
of extra input on what's happened the past few weeks
and how you think, I mean, I can't I can't

(05:32):
quite ask you why because you're obviously not not the police,
but like, what what might be some reasons for some
of the some of the increased repression and to use
extremely extremely high charges being levied at people at this
point in the movement. Yeah, they are extremely high charges.
They're really unprecedented charges in the state of Georgia. I

(05:53):
don't think that does the best in the entire questions
based I've really ever seen anything like this being used
against protest series and I think the reason why it's
pretty clear. And I think that that reason is because
there's been an extremely effective social movements that's involved thousands
of people from Atlanta and from across the country over
the last year and a half two years that have

(06:14):
brought a serious challenge against a very unpopular proposal from
the city to build a police mega mega compounds. And
I think that the police and various other agencies that
they're working with, the Atlanta Police, the Atlanta Police Foundation,
the Georgia Bureau Investigation, that the Cap County Police Department,

(06:37):
all of these different agencies, I think at this point
are are are really frustrated. And I think that really
shows up in the charges that they've given people, because
where we're talking about are people who have been literally
pulled out of tree sets. Like this is the most
like classic example of you know, non violent direct action
civil disobedience you can think of, and you have people
who are allegedly being pulled out of tree sets in

(06:59):
charge with them to terrorism, and I think that really
shows it's both very very scary in terms of the
severity of the charges, but it also has like an
element of just being a little ridiculous in in terms
of using these types of charge. You know, they make
you think of like you know, the school shootings or

(07:20):
you know, like nine eleven or something like this, like
like these are the sorts of things that come to
mind when you think of domestic terrorism. And yet what
we're talking about here is people who are allegedly being
pulled out of out of tree sets after you know,
being shot at with pepper balls and tear gasper and
um hours on end before they before they were pulled down.

(07:41):
And I think that then the point of that is
to scare people. It's because they are having a very
difficult time, um gaining any sort of public support or
sympathy for this project. And I think they're they're just
really out of out of loss, and so that what
they need right now is they need to scare people.
They need to shut down this special isn't it by
whatever means that they have available, And right now they're

(08:04):
The technique that they're employing is just fear. And so
the point of this is to have a chilling effect.
It's to say that anybody who is protesting, who is
a part of this social movement, could be liable to
extremely extremely heavy charges. And that's what they're banking on.
They want people to be scared. They want to separate

(08:24):
out people from from the movement who feel like they
can no longer participate because the charges or the potential
repression is too severe. They want to be able to
scare away people that support the movement by saying, look,
you're supporting a terrorist movement. You're supporting something that is
h extreme to to some crazy degree, but we know
what the what the the real extreme position here is

(08:46):
that they know that the city doesn't want this. They've had,
you know, countless protests and all sorts of different different
examples of just public outcry into this projects, and they
proceeded with it anyway, and so now they're forced to
be in this aste where they gonna have to they're
gonna have to use whatever sort of are they uh,
violence or force or like extreme charges to shut it down. Yeah,

(09:10):
the Atlanta Police Department since has had a huge, like
the largest in the country by percentage, budgetary increase granted
by the city. And this was done after the most
amount of public comment there ever was in the history
of city council, which was all done to say, to

(09:31):
lower the police budget, to to defund the police as
it were, and to send put that money to other use.
And then the second most amount of public comment the
city Council has ever received was seventeen hours of public
comment were over sevent the respondents were saying to not
build cops city. They the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Atlanta

(09:53):
Police Department in the City of Atlanta, does not listen
to the popular will from below from the people that
they edge to represent. But all of this pressure, the
pressure to to charge non violent protesters with domestic terrorism
is coming from their corporate their corporate sponsors. It's coming
from BB and T, It's coming from BAC of America, A,

(10:16):
T and T, Equifax, the Arthur Blank, Arthur Blank, who
is the billionaire who runs home Depot. Uh, it's it's
coming from the people they actually represent, which is their
corporate backers. They're there seven months behind on this project. Uh,
grass Field and Gory, the company that is the general
contractor who also funds the APF. They're all certainly behind doors,

(10:40):
being like, what's going on. We're seven months behind on
this project. Why have we not broken ground yet? And
they're still being denied the land the land of sturbants
permits because there they can't get their own act together.
They can't prove that this would be an environmentally friendly
thing to do because it's simply escent. It's leveling over

(11:01):
acres of land of forested land. And instead they just
try to use brute force because that is what the
state knows how to do. They know to use brute force,
and then they want to put up trumped up charges
onto onto onto random people who they are trying to
tend the whole movement on when the movement is thousands

(11:24):
of people all over the city and all over the country. Yeah,
from like the from some of the recent some of
the recent hearings, and based on the based on the
DHS documents, they're they're really trying to do the thing
where they frame an autonomous, decentralized movement as a group,

(11:48):
and if you're part of a group, that means that
you're you know, involved in in, you know, the domestic
violent extremist group, which is just not how these types
of things work. It's same thing that the right has
been trying to label things like quote unquote Antifa as
for years. Some prosecutors and cities around the country have

(12:09):
tried to try to charge people with similar kind of
domestic terrorism or like gang violence charges due to their
involvement with the Antifa group. Um, And it's the same.
It's the same tactic here and trying to frame a
decentralized movement as like an organized group of people. And

(12:30):
it seems like one aspect for why this is happening
is like, like some of you have have mentioned, it's
it's in the form of like a deterrent. Right, They're
trying to scare people away, saying that if you associate
with this movement, we could we will charge you with terrorism. Right.
It's it's it's it's this, it's this thing to try
to push people away, UM, try to try to try

(12:50):
to prevent anyone else from from organizing in any capacity
or just showing up on like just just showing up
to the forest. It's it's it's pretty comical, but it's
also quite quite frightening and in some ways, which is
which is part of the intention, part of why I

(13:17):
wanted to talk with with both of you here today
is to kind of discuss the role of both the
Solidarity Fund and Anti Repression Organizing UM and just discussed
the role of that and in how they support like
activism movements and how they support UM land defense movements

(13:37):
like like like in the case of Defend the Atlanta Forest,
And yeah, what what what kind of what the role
of of this type of organizing is in AH, in
the context of this this type of activism. I guess, uh,
let's let's start with Let's start with the Solidarity Fund,
because that was you know, one of the things that

(13:57):
I saw in the aftermath of these charges in the
raid is a lot of calls to doing it, to
doing it, to the Solidarity Fund to help people out
who have been hit with these outrageous charges. So, uh,
I guess A Ralph, we talked a little bit about
some of some of you know, what what the Solidarity
Fund is and and uh and kind of how how

(14:20):
this how this type of organizing operates. Yeah, for sure.
So the Atlanta Solidarity Fund formed just to have a
bit of context for the organization. We formed in two
thousand sixteen in the lead up to a um count
counter demonstration against uh some Ku Klux Klan members who

(14:41):
were trying to burn a cross on Stone Mountain in
two thousands sixteen. This was like after a sequence of
them having protests there after the Dylan Roof massacre, and
people organized a counter demo, and we thought it would
be intelligent to form a bail fund in case anyone

(15:01):
got arrested, because in the past bail funds in Atlanta
like refused to bail out anyone who they like deemed
as committing crimes that they deemed violent. Uh. And we
wanted to create a veil fund that does not discriminate
against activists based on what the state alleges that they
did or did not do. And we formed in that

(15:24):
and like after that, we would at different protests throughout
the years, we would buil people out. We would fund
raised to get them lawyers and we would support them
however we could, like organizing court vigils um and court support,
and then and also suing the police like countersuing them
for when they did like agree justus acts of police

(15:45):
brutality or intimidation. And then in with the George Floyd uprising,
we went from being a like small bail fund to
um getting widespread support. We got tens of thousands of
people donating money to us, and in Atlanta, over nine

(16:06):
people were arrested by the police that summer, and you know,
we supported all of them, all the ones who are
not giving signature bond. We bailed out all the ones
that were given signature bond, and all the other ones.
We got them lawyers and we have been supporting them
every step in the way. A few of them have
sadly gone to prison, and we support them financially while

(16:30):
they're in prison. Were like putting money on their promissary
every month, and we uh pay like help them out
with their phone calls, and we set aside money for
when they get out there. You won't just be in
destitute poverty, which is like what usually happens to people
who have to have sit in prison UM and in

(16:52):
the case of the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement, we've
supported it UM through anti repression by when people get arrested,
getting them lawyers, failing them out and UM when there's
been like door knocks or whatever from law enforcement agencies,
we have lawyers who will represent them as well, because
oftentimes those people aren't given charges, but they're being intimidated

(17:15):
by law enforcement, and when you get a lawyer in
between them, that intimidation normally stops. UH. And we also
do jail support for anyone who has to like when
they get in jail, they have a number that they
can call us and we can help get them out UM.
And for the six people who are currently charged with

(17:36):
domestic terrorism as at the time of this recording, they're
currently locked up and we are supporting them and we've
hired lawyers to advocate for them at their bail at
their next bail hearing UM and hopefully we will get
them out and they will not have to sit in
jail during their pre trial. We're a volunteer organization, like

(17:58):
none of us are paid to do this. UH. We
do this because we believe in UM the power of
like liberatory social movements and we want to support those
movements and give them strength. Yeah, because I would say,
I think I think a lot of you know, relatively
big cities around the state's how some form of jail

(18:22):
support organization, whether it be formal or informal um And
it's it's this type of organizing which happens kind of
on the periphery of a lot of these types of movements, right,
It's not it's it's not the it's not the like
excitement of throwing back a tear gas canister at a cop.

(18:43):
It's it's all of the things that happen afterwards that
can can assist people who are who are facing like
in some cases, very significant state state repression. And it's
definitely it's not it's not the most flashy work, but
it is, I would argue as pretty crucial to any

(19:05):
to any type of like functioning like system that allows
protests to happen as a part of democracy, is a
part of you know, long term revolutionary strategy, whatever kind
of whatever kind of ideology you have, These these types
of these types of like peripheral jail support and bails
fund organizings. It's definitely just as crucial as a lot

(19:26):
of a lot of like the on the ground support
stuff like you know, bringing water bottles or you know,
helping up people in the moment totally, Like every movement
needs a rear guard, Like it needs people like the
people who are out protesting and organizing there on the
front lines, and we're able to be the rear guard

(19:47):
or like when the state does attack, like we're able
to like not have them be completely taken out of
the field, Like they're able to get back and we're
able to support them and able to keep people safe
from like police repression and from what essentially amounts to
like legal kidnapping and like torture in the carceral state. Yeah,

(20:10):
and I mean in some cases, like in Portland, that's
it's very much was a legal kidnapping, something that people
are still are still dealing with on the on the
on like the jail support side and helping people out
with with you know, making sure that the state cannot

(20:31):
get away with stuff like this um because they the
thing they want the most is for nobody to push
back on it, because that means they have permission to
do it in the future without you know, without any
possible consequence or even even like even like any like
attempt at consequence. How could so I know like that Nope,

(20:53):
A lot a lot of cities have have jail support stuff. Um.
A lot of this is also run on donations. What
are what are some ways that people could could assist
in these types of things? Um? Obviously people can donate
to bail funds um. And I think there's a lot
of I mean, even even just showing up outside of

(21:18):
jail or prison after these types of events is something
that that happens a lot in terms of in terms
of ways to kind of start getting plugged in in
this in this type of like peripheral bail fund and
jail support organizing totally. Yeah, I mean people should should
donate to their local bail funds uh and even become

(21:38):
like reoccurring donators. But people can like join jail support teams.
There's like we in Atlanta, we have a training and
it can get you trained on how to be a
jail support person. And yeah, we have like once you're
plugged in, you can like do jail and jail vigil
like for when people get out so that they're not alone.
Jails are often not always, but often like in like

(22:01):
remote areas of the city or even outside of the city,
so like it can be hard to like get get
a bus back, so you can offer them rides back.
You can get plugged into do in court support and
like currently the six people charge of domestic terrorism are
like being denied bail. Hopefully that will change. But in
the case of like people being held, Uh, you can
write post cards or letters to people and let them

(22:24):
know that there are people on the outside who support them.
If you're in an area that like doesn't have that
doesn't have a group that um helps people out who
are like who are having to sit in jail, Like
you can put money on their commissary uh directly, and
you can write to them, and you can send them books. Uh.
And in the sense of like people showing up pretty

(22:46):
immediately outside of the jail, Like it is really inspiring. Uh.
What happened the day Uh in the evening after the
six after the first five people were arrested. Uh that
that evening, like a crowd of dozens of people showed
up outside of the Cab County jail and had a
noise demo to like make noise outside of the jail

(23:07):
to let the five know that they were not alone
and that there's people outside who support them. Now, I
think we will shift the conversation over to James. James,
you're with the Atlanta Anti Repression Committee. We've already talked
about the role of these ridiculous charges as a repression method.
Could you briefly explain what the Atlanta Anti Repression Committee

(23:29):
is and its role in the periphery of these on
the ground decentralized movements. Yeah. Sure, So the Atlanta Antire
Repression Committee is a group that started in in the
aftermath at the George Floyd protests, and we started because
we recognized that there was a need for a kind

(23:50):
of specific type of uh antire repression work to be done,
which is to say that there's a lot of um,
you know, it's like the bulk of anti repression, and
you know that the single most important thing is keeping
people safe, right, and so what that entails is a
lot of legal defense for people that are arrested, people
that are incarcery, to people that are imprisoned as a

(24:11):
result of their activity and protest movements and social movements, um,
fighting for you know, liberation. That said, um, there's also
a whole a whole other type of work that needs
to be done, which is the sort of what we
like to call political defense. So in other words, we
want to see these movements continue, we want to see

(24:32):
these movements grow, and we want to see these movements
be the powerful. And a part of that is understanding
the specific mechanisms of repression and fighting back against the
narratives that are being used against protesters in the media.
So a lot of what we do is media work, um,
because there's a lot of things that you know, once
you're once you're arrested as a part of a protest movement,

(24:53):
there's a lot of things you can't say, um, But
there's a lot of things that need to be said, um,
namely that people that have been arrested, whether we're talking
about people in the Black Lives Matter movement or in
the Defensive Forest movement today, are fighting for a just cause.
These people should be doing what they're doing, and that's
something that that that needs to be spread as as

(25:15):
far and wide as possible. Um. And so we do
a lot of media work to to to justify and
support not just the individual protesters, but the things that
they're fighting for. And then we also do a lot
of essentially research and analysis to understand the overall patterns
of repression as they play out, and and so that's
something that's like that's really interesting, particularly in this case

(25:38):
because you know, I said, we've never seen this before
in Georgia, but we have seen this before. We've seen
exactly these tactics be used against you know, protesters in
the Standing Rock movement. We've seen it used in the
Green Scare, against the Earth Liberation Front, against Earth First.
We've seen these movements like over and over again come
up against this this giant wall, which is these these

(26:01):
sorts of charges accusing people of terrorism. And so part
of what we do is analyze what those what those
strategies are and try to publicize them, try to help
people to understand, um, because it's it's the the agencies
that were up against the all these different wings of
the state and their corporate factors. As Ralph was saying,
they have an institutional memory. They are able to look back,

(26:24):
you know, twenty years in the past and be like, Okay,
there was a social movement over here, um, and we
were able to stop it because we did this, this
and this, and they're able to have that that sort
of memory to go back and look at those tactics.
And part of the goal of depression is to cut
people out of social moments, to cut off this sort
of generational understanding of the dynamics of repression. And so

(26:44):
we want to we want to increase our our capacity,
as people who are invested in seeing social movements succeeded UM,
be able to understand these sorts of repressive tactics and
develop strategies against them. And I say that because we
see repression as being a part of social movements. There
are no social events that are successful that don't encounter REFRESHIMAN.
So we have a we have a strong need to

(27:05):
be able to understand the specific mechanisms of state repression,
how they were, how different agencies work, how the specific
laws work UH, and to be able to disseminate that
information for and why, both within movements and also within
the mainstream media. At the public event, one of the
sheriff's involved in the involved in the raid against the

(27:26):
forest offenders UH suggested that because because one of them
is from California and is in Atlanta, that makes him
a terrorist. This is utterly absurd, Like we live in
one country like we're allowed, we have the freedom to travel,
and we have the unlike the police, we regular people

(27:50):
have solidarity and can and have empathy and can see
our own interests in other struggles that take place elsewhere,
and that it is a noble thing to be like
I have to go somewhere support to participate. Uh. And
this is not something that should be discouraged. And this
is not terroristic. This is a sign of the beautifulness

(28:15):
of human empathy and the ability to see yourself in others.
And this is what the police lack. That's That's definitely
something I wanted to bring up at some point because
this is this is a tactic that we've seen both
the Atlanta Police, Foundation of the City Council and you know,
right wing propagandists like Andy no have have have tried
to frame this, have tried to frame this in terms

(28:38):
of like the the outside agitator's angle um there. And
you see in all of and all of the all
of the arrest reports um that that that get published,
one of the things they emphasize is that the that
people arrested, some of them have been born in other states.
They always they always mentioned the state that this first

(29:00):
and was born in um, which is just a ridiculous
notion that people don't have the freedom to move around
the country. Uh, absolutely absurd that that that that people
don't have the freedom to move around to places and
choose where where they want to live. So they're framing
they're framing people who are arrested that were that happened

(29:23):
to be born in other places. They're they're they're they're
using this as a in terms of like the outside
agitator angle to be like people are are coming into
Atlanta to try to you know, so chaos and disorder
within our city. Um and look they're they're pulling out
people from all from all around the country. Then they're
trying to you know, frame it in this like very
conspiratorial lens um. And that's just that that is that

(29:45):
is that is something that I've also noticed and and
found to be uh a quite interesting tactic. I mean,
I would they definitely wanted to be an effective strategy
in terms of the outside agitator angle of of you know,
people coming coming in from out of state to get
to get involved in this group, this this Antifa alligned

(30:07):
to terrorist group. As someone like Andy no would say, Uh,
And it's it's it's it's purely it's purely a propaganda
tactic because it relies on the notion that people can't
move around the country and decide where they want to live, uh,
which obviously, which obviously is an absurd notion. Um. And
I think as as as you said, it also kind

(30:28):
of you know, the other side of this is that
it highlights the kind of the beautiful nature of being
able to choose where you want to go and choose
to get involved in things that you feel are important,
even if they aren't in the current place where you
are living. Just to add a little bit to this,
like it's crazy, because it's like the when you read

(30:48):
the reports in the news of the people that they arrest,
they always make it a point to talk about people
from out its own and they always seem to omit
the people that are from Atlanta that they've arrested. And
not that I'm advocating that they should be publicizing, you know,
these people at all, but it's just to highlight that
what they're doing is a propaganda tactic. And I think
it it has has really fallen on their face in

(31:10):
Atlanta because you know, Atlanta is a city that's famous
for the civil rights movement. Like we're talking about freedom writers,
we're talking about people from all over the South, from
all over the country coming to you know, Martin Luther
King went to Solma, he's from Atlanta. You know, this
type of this type of logic just doesn't really doesn't
really seem to work here, and it's really bizarre to
see them try to use it over and over and

(31:31):
over again. It's really just like a failed playbook at
this point, within the context of both how the repression
against they defend the Atlanta Force movement has evolved and

(31:52):
where it's at now with what's happened in the past
few weeks, and then also considering the types of analysis
of past ecological and resistance movements that we've seen, how
do you see some of the repression by the state
evolving as the Atlanta four stuff continues. Well, I think
that that overall, with respect to social movements, we've seen

(32:14):
an increase in this this type of charge that as
Ralph was sort of getting at, it's it's a it's
it's a it's a type of charge that criminalizes your
participation in in a in a group or in a
social invement um. And so if you look at the
specific warrants that are used again some of these people
that they just arrested, um, you know, I'm thinking of

(32:34):
one in particular where it goes into detail and it says,
this person is accused of being a part of a
domestic violence a domestic violent extremist movement called Defend the
Atlanta Forest, and they're responsible for all of these acts
of all of these different crimes from trespassing to UH

(32:55):
to arson or whatever, you know. And so they lump
this all together or they say that an autonomous social
movement is a coherent organization. And then they say that
the individual that they arrested UH confirmed their participation in
this group called Defend the Atlanta Forest by sitting in
a treehouse and wearing camouflage. This is absurdum, because there's

(33:23):
there's no evidence in in this in this example that
this particular person or any of these people have anything
to do with any of these other crimes that they
are alleging were a part of this movement. So what
they're doing instead, they know that they can't arrest them
for that, But what they're doing instead is they're coming
at it from this legal angle, where they're saying, this
movement as a whole is a discrete group. This group

(33:44):
is an extremist group, and so your participation in anything
that seems like it's a part of this group is
criminal in and of itself, and in this case, terrorists
in and of itself. And this is a really disturbing
trend that we've seen in over the last few years,
with the increase in the use of conspiracy chart is,
with the increase in the use of rico charges, racketeering charges,

(34:04):
and the point of all of these different legal strategies
is to hold people accountable for crimes that they did
not do. And that's exactly what we're seeing now with
the six people that they just arrested. They want to
hold these people accountable and make them martyrs for an
entire movement that's involved hundreds and thousands of people doing
all sorts of things criminal or otherwise. And that is

(34:25):
a disturbing trend um and and it's it's especially disturbing
because if you look at the way that the the
laws written in Georgia with respect to domestic terrorism, so
that's an that's an enhancement charge. It means that you
have to be arrested for another crime, for example, in
in in the in the example of the people that
they just arrested felony trust passing, they add in a
domestic terrorism enhancement charge to it. And the justification for

(34:47):
this domestic and domestic terrorism enhancement charge is to basically
saying that they were attempting to change governmental policy by intimidation,
which is an interesting way of staying protesting is illegal.
All protests involves trying to change governmental policy. That is

(35:07):
what protesting is, and what they what they are attempting
to do now with these charges is to reframe that
entirely and say that that is terrorism and that is uh,
you know, it's sort of it's we're on a tricky
slope right now, because it's like, on the one hand,
we need to recognize that these charges are absurd and
they very likely won't stand up in court because they're
very clearly unconstitutional at the very least, So we need

(35:29):
to not be afraid of them on the one hand,
and to show how absurd they are. On the other hand,
we should take this as a serious threat to social
movements all across the United States, in all different sorts
of fields and areas and different different types of fights
for for for different different sorts of things to say like, wow,
this is a huge, huge stretch that they're trying to

(35:51):
pull here because they have seen like in the last
few decades, like a tremendous amount of polarization in America
all sorts of social news ments that involve you know,
Black Lives Matter was twenty million people. Are these people
all terrorists? And and so that's why it's important to
pay attention to what's happening now in Atlanta with the
struggle to attend the Atlanta Forest and the charges that
they're putting against these people, because if they can succeed

(36:14):
with this type of charge, that's a very very dangerous
precedent for people who are part of all sorts of
social movements, and not just the left wing either. You know,
there's a part of this that's like since the January
six the you know, so called insurrection, however you want
to however you want to characterize that, there's been a
tremendous push by the federal government too to crack down

(36:36):
on social movements. They see this as like threats to
into their stability that there are you know situations where
there's thousands or millions of people who are participating in
in all different sorts of social movements and they need
to send a clear message that people should not be
out protesting. Thank you both for talking with me today. UM.
Where could people both learn more about your respect to organizations?

(37:01):
And then also how can people support force defenders who
are facing the increasingly harsh state repression. You could visit
the just like Google or look up on any of
the major social media platforms Atlanta Solidarity Fund UH and

(37:22):
you could read go to our website UM. And if
you want to support any force defenders who are facing
serious charges, UM, you donate money or you could write
write them UM postcards or if you could send them
books that they've requested UM and when court dates are.
When court dates come up, we'll probably publicize those so

(37:45):
that people can come out and UM show show their
support and solidarity the people facing charges. And you could
come out to UH do court support and you can
get involved in the movement yourself if you UH feel
so inclined now, Yeah, and I'll just add to that.
The Aliena Entire Repression Committee can be found on Instagram.
You can look it up. Uh, and and just generally speaking,

(38:08):
this is something that people need to talk about. So
any chance that you have to talk about to explain
what's happening in Atlanta, to put a giant light on
this situation, because everybody needs to be paying attention to
this because this is not just uh, you know, as
as as people and that defend the force women say,
it's not just a local issue. Their national and even
international complications for this type of stuff. And and that's

(38:28):
also true with regards to repression. If they can succeed
with these charges here, that's a that's a major death
blow too to all sorts of social movements, and they'll
they'll be trying to export this tactic elsewhere. We think
it won't stick, but we think it's extremely important for
people to be talking about it and to make this
uh the national issue that we recognize that it is.

(38:52):
Some of those links we will also be putting in
the description below. The day that this episode is being
released just happens to be Martin Luther King Junior Day.
And also it's the last day in a weekend of
solidarity to stop Cops City. This past weekend, there's been
events gatherings, actions, and rallies in Atlanta and across the

(39:16):
country in support for the Stop Cops City movement and
the six individuals facing domestic terrorism charges. On Saturday, I
saw pictures of a huge banner hanging outside of a
squat in France in solidarity with Atlanta and struggles to
defend the Atlanta Forest. It seems the extremely high charges

(39:37):
in Georgia have not dissuade people from across the country
from engaging in direct action. In December, at list construction
offices one of the contractors working on Cops City were
attacked in Manhattan and Michigan in solidarity with those arrested
defending the Wilani Forest. On January five, a construction site

(39:59):
and office is for Brassfield and Gory, the main contractors
currently working on Cops City, were attacked by anarchists in
South Florida, according to a statement published on the website
scenes dot no blogs dot org, and just days earlier,
another post on the site claimed credit for setting fire
to a Bank of America in Portland. Bank of America

(40:20):
is a major contributor to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Both
of those statements referenced the domestic terrorism charges. You can
check out Defend the Atlanta Forest at Defend the Atlanta
Forest dot org and most major social media sites. You
can check out scenes dot no, blogs dot org for
more stories of direct action on the front lines, and

(40:41):
of course you can check out the Atlanta Solidarity Fund
at a t L Solidarity dot org. There you can
donate to bail funds and help people currently facing state repression.
That's all for us today, See you on the other side.

(41:01):
It could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone
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Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot
com slash sources. Thanks for listening.