Author: Conflict MN

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

156 years: Remembrance of Dakota 38(+2)

Mankato, MN—On December 26th, 2018, a tripod with a noose around an Abraham Lincoln figure was erected at so-called “Sibley Park.” The banner dropped from a nearby railway bridge reads “Hangman’s Park” with a large noose in the middle of the banner. “What happened to our ancestors here and afterword was a heinous crime against humanity, and was apart of an inhumane campaign to remove and ultimately eliminate Dakota people from the newly formed state ‘Minnesota.'” We mourn for the 40 Dakota people who were hung today 156 years ago, but also the hundreds of prisoners who were kept against their will, and thousands of Dakota people held captive and forced to march out of Minnesota. Where we stand is named after General Sibley, who played a major role in the Dakota wars of 1862 and with Abraham Lincoln’s support, sent 38 Dakota men to be lynched in the largest execution in United States history” says a masked ALD member.
During 1862, tensions were high between Dakota people and the settlers that forced themselves onto Dakota territory. The treaties made with the Dakota’s restricted people to land that was not sustainable for survival. These unfair treaties were often not understood by signatories, but through bribery and warfare, the United States Government forced signatures to documents that left Dakota people with no choice, other than to fight for survival. The Minnesota regiment took orders from Gen. Sibley who Governor Ramsey told the regiment to carry out with atrocities against Dakota people that if happened today, would be considered a genocidal and ethnocidal act.

“There is not an accurate number of the lives lost during the westward expansion of the colonial state, and so we tied red prayer ties to the top of this tripod to represent the blood that was shed, as well as the deaths President Lincoln, Governor Ramsey, and General Sibley, are responsible for. These men are war criminals and should not be celebrated.” said another masked ALD member as the tripod is erected. Echoes of “Blood is on your hands” and “Dakota 38 = genocide” are chanted by people who have gathered around the tripod. People hold signs reading “Remember Dakota 38 +2”.

The aftermath of the war led to an immediate formation of a military commision that sentenced over 300 Dakota to death by hanging. Most of the Dakota being tried, did not speak English, nor did any have any counsel defending them. Also, the military commision consisted of those who had fought in the war against the Dakotas and had obvious biases against the people who were being tried. In retrospect, many believe the military commision was illegitimate, but that did not stop Abraham Lincoln from reviewing the convictions, as it was a “military proceeding”. Abraham Lincoln was commander and cheif, as well as an established lawyer. He knew the illegitimacy of the military commission and could have proceeded differently, yet instead of releasing them all, he sent Dakota men to hang for crimes that were likely not commited by the Indigenous capitives. Four thousand settlers came to Mankato town square to see the Dakota men executed, and in the process, 2 other men were hung that day by “mistake” totaling 40 including an adopted white man. Their bodies were temporarily buried by the Minnesota River, (where Reconcilliation park now is) then their bodies were exhumed and sent various places for “scientific research”. This event is just an example of the hundreds of battles and injustices that took place accross the Western Hemisphere during the invasion of colonial forces. Till this day, Indigenous people of Turtle Island and elsewhere are continuing to fight for our ancestral homelands as we have always done.

Wopila,

Anti-colonial Land Defense

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

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In the early hours of Christmas morning, Santa visited De Roma Art Glass. But Santa didn’t leave any presents, instead he super glued the locks.

De Roma Art Glass is owned by the most notorious neo-nazi in Minneapolis, Julius De Roma.

No holiday cheer for fascists.

Solidarity with all those fighting fascism and authority worldwide!

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

On December 22, a small, but spirited, gilets jaunes (or yellow vests) demonstration took place outside of the Alliance Française of Minneapolis/St Paul, which acts as an honorary consulate where there is otherwise none located in the state. They were closed during their posted open hours, likely out of fear that the neon hot class hatred had spilled over the Atlantic and seeped its way into the great lakes. Sadly, we cannot currently fulfill this terrifying image, nor do we delude ourselves into thinking we can simply velcro on a yellow vest and “voilà” what is felt there can be transposed and materialize here. We believe there is something at stake within the #giletsjaunes in France. The cracks in the mode of governing that is neoliberal capitalism find a response by the fragments, by the partisans vying for strength in its crisis, of which even the police as a party may even be counted. The situation has the potential to be answered in either revolutionary or reactionary terms. And thus, even if our contribution is primarily symbolic we aim to give strength to those who see in this (even the momentary) a dissolution of private property through looting and sharing, to build along lines of what is common despite difference rather than a desperate and false unity of nationalism, to destitute the police who seek to uphold an order which should in all respects be shattered.

The far right recognizes what is at stake as well. They have been attempting to use the gilets jaunes as a trojan horse to center nationalist anti-immigrant sentiment, making it appear pervasive within the movement. Piggy-backing off this movement, rallies in Canada and the US were called for this weekend. This put us on our toes, perhaps making us more discerning, though also less comfortable than at a demonstration where everyone who comes are those who are expected, more immediately legible. When several cars of the three percenter militia movement members showed up, one which was a minivan with don’t tread on me decals, a three percenter logo and a yellow vest taped to their back window made it immediately clear what side of this moment they were on. Despite one stubborn shithead, who kept foaming about Soros and other anti-semitic conspiracy theories, all of them were pushed out, shouted down and left dejected. One even was heard while leaving saying in dismay that “it’s over guys, antifa has taken over.”

Many of us were feeling a bit bored and about to call it a day before this confrontation, but the conflict energized the crowd who then decided to march through the streets chanting “tout le monde déteste la police” (everyone hates the police) and “gilet jaune, fuck Macron”, among others. We marched through the streets of the north loop of Minneapolis, a kind of desert filled with condos and boutiques with a banner at the front that read “loot the rich.” This went on until we were nearly run off the road by an enraged citizen, delayed for just a few moments of their hated commute, who then called the cops after they were punched and their car kicked while dangerously pushing their car through the crowd.

In the complexity of the situation currently taking place in France we do not deny that there are many elements that repulse and terrify us. However, we are much more terrified of a time, which could be not far from now, where we have ceded the terrain rather than contested the situation in all its mess. Revolutionaries looking only for a mirror of themselves stay home, we must fight in the open!

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

On December 19th, Trump announced the U.S. Military would withdraw from Syria. There have never been any illusions about the goals of U.S. presence in the region—their own geopolitical influence. However, their withdrawal will leave the Rojava territory vulnerable to further assault, particularly by the Erdoğan regime in Turkey.

Our support for the Rojava revolution is not blind. We are not devotees of Öcalan, nor did the de facto alliance with the U.S. sit well with us. Despite whatever misgivings about the struggle for liberation in Rojava, we recognize that our abstention from a messy conflict is the surest way to see the revolution wilt. If we wish to see autonomous ways of living take hold in Rojava—or anywhere—it is through our complicity with those doing just that, not denouncing an impure movement. Any heterogeneity will contain reactionary elements, disengagement will only serve to further marginalize ourselves.

Defend Rojava!

Long Live The Revolution!

Death To Fascism!

Death To All States!

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

To our friends across the pond facing a lifetime prison sentence, we send you our love, our rage, and our unyielding solidarity. Their jails and their borders will never contain us.

Free the Stansted 15!
Until every border and every prison is a faint memory

From Evict DeRoma

Over the weekend of December 8th, flyers were posted at multiple locations in Minneapolis warning of the presence of white supremacist landlord Julius DeRoma. DeRoma owns multiple businesses in the city and is landlord to many more. His businesses include Club Jäger in the North Loop and DeRoma Art Glass in Lyn-Lake. Flyers were posted at these locations, along with DeRoma’s house in southwest Minneapolis. Pictures are included below.

Julius DeRoma was outed as a white supremacist last year when news broke of his financial contribution to former KKK Grand Wizard and white supremacist politician David Duke’s 2016 Senate campaign in Louisiana. After DeRoma’s contribution to David Duke came to light, his bar Club Jäger saw employees quit en masse while performers cancelled shows, ultimately forcing it to close for several months. HUGE Improv and Legacy Glassworks, both renting properties from DeRoma, issued statements denouncing their landlord’s racism.

However, this year DeRoma reopened Club Jäger. He also quietly contributed money to Patrick Little, another virulent anti-semite who campaigned for a Senate seat in California this year, and who helped inspire the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. It’s clear that DeRoma thinks he can continue to support white supremacists without consequence.

These flyers are a signal to DeRoma that his actions will indeed have lasting consequences. There is no tolerance for white supremacy in Minneapolis or anywhere else.

#EvictDeRoma

From Earth First! Newswire

From Earth First! Newswire

On the 15th of Nov. Anti-colonial Land Defense and Anonymous worked together in the continued struggle against Enbridge and the proposed Line 3 to send the message that Enbridge “stay out of so-called Minnesota with new line 3 and cease all work”! Right before business hours began the collective blockaded the Enbridge office entances with banners reading “NO ENBRIDGE ON STOLEN LAND! NO LINE 3!” to disrupt the continued racist resource extraction and the write off idea that these genocidal companies embrace as “business as usual”. Conveniently for Enbridge to work right across the street from the City Police Department who in-turn for a paycheck protect these genocidal companies usually and quite often with physical force and/or forced detainment/arrest.

The group then took to the streets and held space at an intersection to show the public that we are willing to our bodies on the line to create a better world without racist resource extraction. That the feeling of being stuck in traffic is a small taste of what our comrades/relatives in Ojibwe/Dakota territory feel. Indigenous and allies alike feel our concerns about Line 3 have not been heard. Even after mass public outcry, the MN PUC granted permits to allow a new Line 3 to be built through over 300 miles of Minnesota. The Traffic was not blocked to gain support from drivers but to mirror to some how it feels to be in powerless situation. An angry pro pipeliner began shouting before driving their vehicle from behind us straight through our banner. Luckily no one was injured but the interaction is a reminder of how far people benefitting from racist resource colonialism will go to protect big oil and it’s affiliates.

A close call with something that could’ve been more tragic we will not be scared or threatened into being silent but we will overcome and March forward because the risks personally involved for us are a fraction of the lives that have already been lost and will continue to be lost in the fight for a better world.

To those in the area come out and support our communities! Together we will not let Enbridge continue its colonial genocidal resource extraction and profiteering that negatively affects the livelihood of Indigenious Communities, the sacredness of water, and the ecosystem.

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

In the early morning, on Thursday, November 22nd, 2018, a tipistola was erected on the entrance to the John A. Blatnik bridge in Superior, Wisconsin. Eight poles were used to represent the four directions that blocked the entrance to the bridge. This blockade erected represents not allowing Enbridge and their new Line 3, as well as other forms of racist resource colonialism from entering so called “Minnesota”. A banner was draped across the front of the tipi and it reads “Thanksgiving = Genocide”, as well as “No pipelines, No Borders”. “Today, we take action to honor the millions of indigenous people who were murdered by settler colonialism. We have an obligation to stand up for what is right and acknowledge our ancestors who sacrificed for us to be here today.” says an Anti-colonial Land Defense member as the tipi goes up. 

Many know this day as “Thanksgiving” which is observed the 4th Thursday of November. The story behind the observed holiday is not the story told in history books. The Mashpee Wampanoag were the 1st Indigenous people to find the English pilgrims starving at the shores of what is now called Massachusetts. Fast forward less than 400 years and the descendants of Indigenous people who taught the European refugees how to survive in so called “America”, are now at risk of losing control over lands they consider home, the lands they have lived on pre-colonization. The thanksgiving story is problematic because it is a fallacy; the truth is that in 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival. In the predawn hours the Indigenous people were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared “A Day Of Thanksgiving” because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered. 

The current administration, (as all colonial administrations before) threatens tribal sovereignty and vigorously undermines treaty rights, Indigenous rights and environmental concerns that ultimately will be our demise if we continue to let our truths be silenced by their genocidal acts of mass assimilation. We do not need a fascist regime occupying indigenous homelands to uphold their end of the treaty or swear by the bible in a fictitious setting like a court room to live the way we always have pre-contact. Bringing our concerns for our lives, water, lands and the future generations to their colonial injustice system places the ball in their court. From the colonial heteronormative patriarchy, to racist resource extraction, to the epidemic of murdered missing indigenous womXn, we continue to see the foreign systems that’s have oppressed our people since 1620 when a “migrant caravan” crossed the ocean searching for “freedom” and “prosperity”. We can see first hand in our communities the atrocities that have taken place causing multi-generational trauma, the continuous Indigenous erasure and white washing of history, and the oppression that takes place to this very day. Yet, still we also see resilience, strength, and compassion in our communities. Our cultures, ceremonies, and languages continuing regardless of the tactics used by the “united snakes of ameriKKKa”. We have been here since time immemorial, and our migration routes all across the western hemisphere were established long before European settlers arrived on these shores. We stand in solidarity with our Quetzal & Condor relatives from Central and South America, who are migrating North for whatever reason it may be, because they deserve access to their homelands. Many of the Indigenous peoples lineage comes from south of the Imaginary Border of the United States Government.

We ask that you educate yourselves on whose ancestral homelands you benefit from and live on, find out ways you can become a better ally for indigenous people and their causes, and stop celebrating holidays that are based on genocide of Indigenous people. 

From Earth First! Newswire

On Monday, November 19th, the Minnesota Public Utility Commission denied the petition for reconsideration to grant the certification of need for the proposed Line 3 pipeline project. The youth climate interveners were supposed to be allowed to speak earlier this morning and the PUC disregarded the young people and continued with their plans to allow Enbridge to contaminate waterways, disrupt sensitive ecosystems and put thousands of peoples lives at risk, while Enbridge profits from the omnicide of everything in Line 3’s path.

Over 330 miles of pipe will cross through Minnesota, affecting the land of 3 treaties made with the United States government, where tribal members retain the rights to hunt, fish, gather, hold ceremony, and travel. This pipeline threatens the Great Lakes, which is home to one fifth of the world’s fresh water, and some of the most delicate soils, aquifers and pristine lakes in northern Minnesota. Enbridge pipelines had more than 800 spills in the U.S. and Canada between 1999 and 2010, leaking 6.8 million gallons of oil. The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has put our lives in jeopardy by approving this pipeline in June and has disregarded any acknowledgement of the treaties that ultimately formed the state of MN.

The PUC’s vote not to rescind its decision was to be expected and we stand in solidarity with thousands of Minnesotans and Indigenous communities who have made it clear they do not want this project in our backyards. We have a duty as the public to hold the commissioners accountable for their actions, as they continue to approve projects that neglect our environment and the health and well-being of future generations. We can not continue to allow these institutions to condone and approve projects that affect not only our homes and families, but our futures. There were two banners that were displayed along Interstate 35 in Duluth after the PUC did not rescind its approval of the Line 3 Project, though one was removed almost immediately. They read “Public Utility Commission Colony, No Line 3, 4, 5, 6, 7” and “PUC commits genocide, No Line 3”.

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

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Over the weekend of November 9th, several properties owned by Julius DeRoma were attacked. Club Jäger, Hansa Corporation, and DeRoma’s home were subject to dozens of rotten eggs being flung at the targets.

DeRoma’s Club Jäger has had several problems since reopening after being exposed as a political contributor to the former KKK Grand Master David Duke. Some of those problems involve infestation of pests, other than Nazi scum.

Julius DeRoma has several ties to Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and has contributed to several fascists including Patrick Little, a vehement White Nationalist that supports violence against Jews. Patrick Little was also in contact with Robert Bowers the fascist that murdered 11 people at the Synagogue in late October. Julius DeRoma has hosted holocaust denier David Irving in 2012. Our struggle to combat fascism doesn’t stop here, and our campaign against DeRoma has only just begun.

Solidarity Means Attack.

With Love & Rage,

An Unruly Crew of Twin Cities Anti-Fascists

Anonymous submission to Conflict Minnesota

I’ve spotted these over the past few weeks on the Pioneers statute in NE Minneapolis. That statue is tagged fairly often so if I don’t see anyone else post it—I will pass along anything I see.