ANSWER Office Raided

[Property Is Robbery]

http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/answer-los-angeles-office.html

The Los Angeles office of Act Now to Stop War and End Racism was raided a few days ago following their involvement in protests against the racist Anaheim PD. 10 computers were stolen along with all the sound equipment. It was either done by right-wingers or the government. As far as I know this is a unique raid that usually only happens to Anarchists or Animal Liberationists.

Does anyone have any knowledge to the contrary (i.e. Marxist groups being raided)?

[Sasha]

redspark collective (kassama affiliated group) got raided a few days before this.

[Property Is Robbery]

Damn.. I guess in a weird way it's a good thing because it means Marxism has become a present threat again.

[Sasha]

well i think its pretty obvious that where western marxist groups abandon fruitless efforts at classical mass-party building for confrontational topic-based grassroots organising (tactics normally more associated with anarchists) the state sees them enough of a threat for this kind of repression.

[Die Neue Zeit]

well i think its pretty obvious that where western marxist groups abandon fruitless efforts at classical mass-party building for confrontational topic-based grassroots organising (tactics normally more associated with anarchists) the state sees them enough of a threat for this kind of repression.

Please. "Topic-based grassroots organizing" is a euphemism for single-issue advocacy, and that's worse than fruitless.

[Leftsolidarity]

Please. "Topic-based grassroots organizing" is a euphemism for single-issue advocacy, and that's worse than fruitless.

Couldn't disagree more. It's how you actually connect with people and the community by helping deal with the problems they face. If you aren't organizing around issues that they care about and affect them, then why even be an organization?

And solidarity with the PSL!

[RedSonRising]

That's quite appalling. Not shocking all things considered, but the blatant and invasive lack of respect for a social advocacy group is unsettling nonetheless.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Couldn't disagree more. It's how you actually connect with people and the community by helping deal with the problems they face. If you aren't organizing around issues that they care about and affect them, then why even be an organization?

And solidarity with the PSL!

National issues are more important, in my opinion.


That's quite appalling. Not shocking all things considered, but the blatant and invasive lack of respect for a social advocacy group is unsettling nonetheless.

The cops are in it for themselves, methinks.

[Leftsolidarity]

National issues are more important, in my opinion.



I don't understand what you are referring to here

[Comrade Samuel]

Reguardless of who did it ANSWER really seems like the last people you would want to pick on if your trying to paint the right or the government in a positive light.

I could see a band of angry right wingers doing it but police probably have bigger fish to fry.

[Leftsolidarity]

Reguardless of who did it ANSWER really seems like the last people you would want to pick on if your trying to paint the right or the government in a positive light.

I could see some band of angry right wingers doing it but police probably have bigger fish to fry.

Why would some band of right-wingers do this? The police have done this so many times that I'm pretty sure that it should just be assumed it is the police. Even a few comments up someone points out how other offices have been raided.

[Comrade Samuel]

Why would some band of right-wingers do this? The police have done this so many times that I'm pretty sure that it should just be assumed it is the police. Even a few comments up someone points out how other offices have been raided.

Psycho did say redspark collective was but he dident Mention by who. I just figured right wingers were such huge fans of war and racism coupled with the fact the police wouldn't investigate it very thoroughly due to ANSWER protesting their unjustifyed brutality. The police probably have more important things to focus on like being racist and spying on us so it wouldent make as much sense to raid a non-violent group especially when their only crime was exspressing their 1st amendment rights. (true you could argue that they are either corrupt enough or our bill of rights meaningless enough to go through with it anyway but if they where exposed by the media they would be in a world of trouble and would likely lose their jobs, serve time in jail ect. so from their stand point does it seem that worth it?)

[Leftsolidarity]

so from their stand point does it seem that worth it?

Yeah, they did it to the Panthers and they never stopped. They do this shit for real.

[KurtFF8]

Psycho did say redspark collective was but he dident Mention by who. I just figured right wingers were such huge fans of war and racism coupled with the fact the police wouldn't investigate it very thoroughly due to ANSWER protesting their unjustifyed brutality. The police probably have more important things to focus on like being racist and spying on us so it wouldent make as much sense to raid a non-violent group especially when their only crime was exspressing their 1st amendment rights. (true you could argue that they are either corrupt enough or our bill of rights meaningless enough to go through with it anyway but if they where exposed by the media they would be in a world of trouble and would likely lose their jobs, serve time in jail ect. so from their stand point does it seem that worth it?)

You also have to remember that this is in the context of the events in Anaheim, where ANSWER was involved, not just randomly sitting around and deciding to raid ANSWER.

[Comrade Samuel]

Yeah, they did it to the Panthers and they never stopped. They do this shit for real.

But where? I could see that in the south where racism is very prevalent among most everybody, that including the police but through most of the country harassing non-violent groups makes you subject to ridicule and in some cases even being arrested. Who reports these inncidents? Are they credible? If so why don't more people know about it and show more outrage about it? I'm in no way denying that it happens I'm just not seeing a clear line from A to B.

[Sasha]

Psycho did say redspark collective was but he dident Mention by who. I just figured right wingers were such huge fans of war and racism coupled with the fact the police wouldn't investigate it very thoroughly due to ANSWER protesting their unjustifyed brutality. The police probably have more important things to focus on like being racist and spying on us so it wouldent make as much sense to raid a non-violent group especially when their only crime was exspressing their 1st amendment rights. (true you could argue that they are either corrupt enough or our bill of rights meaningless enough to go through with it anyway but if they where exposed by the media they would be in a world of trouble and would likely lose their jobs, serve time in jail ect. so from their stand point does it seem that worth it?)

Nah, redspark was raided by the cops in connection with 1st of may property destruction. They where also looking for "anarchist" materials which is quite funny as redspark are maoists. Those raids where probably connected to the FBI/jttf raids this week in Portland/Oregon/Seattle

[blake 3:17]

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Couldn't disagree more. It's how you actually connect with people and the community by helping deal with the problems they face. If you aren't organizing around issues that they care about and affect them, then why even be an organization?

And solidarity with the PSL!

Got to agree with you. Not everything that socialists or socialist organizations do has to be tied to an immediate struggle or social justice issue, but it is a terrible mistake to sit back, wait for an upsurge, and wait for the moment that revolutionaries are appointed leaders by the masses.

@DNZ -- your strategic proposals around building a counter hegemonic cultural/political space are excellent, but they do need to be tied to actual concrete struggles. How, when and where those connections are built is usually a fairly open question. My comrade Nathan Rao has made some very interesting (and accurate) observations on how effective activists get drawn into the various reformist institutions and how that has a negative impact on anti-capitalist struggle. The radicals I know who've handled this contradiction the best are those in the labour movement.

[Rusty Shackleford]

So, hours after ANSWER LA joined in the Sunday protest in Anaheim, Glenn Beck and some other right-wing rags were talking about how ANSWER was agitating from the outside against the police. It is likely it WAS the police because when ANSWER took up Jeremy Marks' case (who was arrested and charged with inciting a riot oy lynch mob for filming a cop shoving a kids head through a bus window) Jeremy Marks' home was raided by the police in LA and everything was thrown about and so on.

Also, The only things that were taken were technical equipment for organizing(computers) and sound equipment like bullhorns and so on.


as for the whole 'single issue' organizing. Struggles pop up everywhere and we must take part to help them if they want help.

In San Francisco were helping the Blueford family but were not trying to 'take over' their fight. by the way the blueford family is ORGANIZED! (Justice for Alan blueford)

And with taking part in struggles that are more focused on one subject, an organization like ANSWER makes connections with people for other struggles as well. It helps to build consciousness sometimes. And regardless, why would we organize against police brutality?

[Jimmie Higgins]

But where? I could see that in the south where racism is very prevalent among most everybody, that including the police but through most of the country harassing non-violent groups makes you subject to ridicule and in some cases even being arrested. Who reports these inncidents? Are they credible? If so why don't more people know about it and show more outrage about it? I'm in no way denying that it happens I'm just not seeing a clear line from A to B.

California has more hate groups than southern states and that particular part of Southern California is known for it's anti-latino racism. Orange County has historically been a higher-end middle class white-flight area but now has a large latino working class population and is where the New Right first gained grassroots traction and power: initiating many of the kinds of city politics which form modern post-Jim-Crow racism in the US: freezing property taxes while moving the tax base out of the urban zones so that there is no revenue for social programs and public eduication and so on. Anehiem is a little like Oakland - a small band of rich people in the hills and flatlands for poor workers - the town is 50% latino but the city government is 100% rich non-Latino land developers. As the Wall Street Journal Noted:


Latinos make up more than half of the city's roughly 340,000 residents—up from just over 30% in 1990.

According to Sgt. Dunn, of 363 sworn officers in the Anaheim department, 249 are white, 82 are Hispanic, 21 are Asian and 11 are African-American.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said Sunday that the disparity between Anaheim's mostly Latino lower-income sections and more affluent neighborhoods, where a large portion of the white population is middle class or higher, has strained relations in the city.

Troubles such as the recent shootings can produce "something of a tinderbox situation," Mr. Kennedy said.

A lawsuit filed in June in California state court by the American Civil Liberties Union contended the city "has long denied Anaheim's Latino residents effective political participation" because of its system of electing council members by a citywide vote rather than by individual council districts. No Latino serves on the city council, the suit said. Since 1870, three Latinos have been elected to the council—though many have run for the office—and no Latino has ever been elected mayor, the suit said.

I would not be surprised at all if cops did this - as pure speculation, my guess is that it was cops, but not "officially". Off-duty cops broke in and took a little revenge and tried to send a clear message not to get involved. Part of the reason that poor working class areas - particularly black and latino - are the ones targeted by cops is because poor people can't contest mistreatment, especially with the whole racist mythology around radicalized crime in the US. So cops can continue to do whatever the fuck they want as long as their over the top repression is targeted rather than generalized - bringing attention, creating solidarity networks outside the community that work with the family members or neighbors is an attack on the cop's ability to get away with this. So the people in the neighborhood get rubber bullets while the city-wide political groups get intimidation or injunctions or other kinds of reprisals typically.

In the past in non-Jim Crow urban cities (the North and California mostly), racism and segregation sometimes took the form of white supremacist vigilanteism - either organizations such as the KKK or white street gangs that would enforce informal racial caste - like preventing blacks or Latinos from using the same beach areas in LA or harassing the few people who moved into white neighborhoods until they left. This is much more rare now in part because the police do this job and have for the past two decades or so. Hell I was once detained by a cop just for handing out fliers about Oscar Grant after he was shot - the cop did that thing where he ordered me into the car and so on without actually charging me or saying he was detaining me and he made up laws when I insisted that I was fully legally allowed to hand out fliers on the sidewalk. So yeah - cops take this shit personally and see it as a personal threat, I would be shocked if it wasn't off-duty cops who did this, actually.