The Hamilton Institute

With the rise of Donald Trump’s malignant right wing troll army and the extension of Toronto’s tentacles into every cavern of our cities, the anti-pipeline movement in Southern Ontario has been spread a little thin this year. We’ve pulled off a couple work-stoppages, some night-time sabotage, and made our best effort at storming the closed-door meetings of the NEB, but on the whole we’ve lacked a coordinated strategy. But we felt it appropriate that on the eve of 2017 and at the tail end of Enbridge’s Line 10 pipeline expansion plan, we deliver one more message to the shareholders, architects and cheerleaders of this cross-continent calamity.  

(Continued)

This antifascist poster has been turning up int he streets of Hamilton the past few days. It offers some analysis of the group Storm Alliance that will be holding rallies in various cities and at the border on September 30th. A local group of far-right losers decided to call themselves Storm Alliance and to try to hold a rally in town that day as well, but they quickly took down their event page and it’s unclear if the local event will even happen. Still, it’s concerning that they are trying to hide their racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric behind language about poverty and mental health, a sensitive subject in this city like in many others. It includes a link to a page where you can leave tips about far-right activity in your neighbourhood — it’s right on the sidebar of the home page of this site. Full text of the poster below.

PNG file for printing

Another Head on the Far-Right Hydra

This month, a group calling itself Storm Alliance will be holding rallies throughout the region. Locally, they claim to be concerned about poverty and mental health, but even a quick look at their history and politics shows that this is just another racist, anti-immigrant demonstration hiding its true colours.

This group emerged from a split within another far-right group, The Soliders of Odin, inspired by a Finnish neo-nazi group. It’s not that Storm Alliance has a problem with white supremacist politics, they just disagreed with how open to be about their views.

Though they change their name every few months, the underlying views of those who today participate in Storm Alliance are the same. They say that white Canadian society needs to be protected from immigrants — we say that their racism has no place in Hamilton.

Groups like Storm Alliance want to trick us into believing that we’re poor because of support being given to migrants. This lie not only encourages hatred of vulnerable people, but also covers for the politicians, landlords, bosses, and investors who profit from poverty. The far-right, as usual, is firmly on the side of the rich.

New Face, Same Beast

Against Storm Alliance and the Far-Right

For Decentralized Antifascist resistance

Do you see signs of far-right organizing in your neighbourhood or have information about groups in the city? Go to thehamiltoninstitute.noblogs.org and click the Far-Right Tips link on the right side.

The buzz has become impossible to escape. Business associations speak of “renewal”, while expensive restaurants celebrate “revitalization” and local politicians promote “redevelopment” as the city gives large grants to Toronto entrepreneurs to set up shop in town. This is all accompanied by a media blitz presenting Hamilton as a land of opportunity for the rich. With every passing day the meaning of these words becomes painfully obvious – in practice they really just mean increased misery, hardship, and displacement. Real estate agents, property management firms, investors, and business owners amongst others, reap huge profits as many of us who have called Hamilton home struggle to get by in the changing city. This is a fundamental reality of capitalism and is not surprising. What is surprising, is that those who celebrate and profit off gentrification continue to do so openly without regularly feeling the anger of those who their narrow self-interest harms.

This summer, we took a few small actions to remind the profiteers and boosters of gentrification that their presence in our neighbourhoods is unwelcome. Between June and August 2017, we carried out a series of simple attacks against businesses and entities that seek that seek to attract rich people and investors, encouraging the kinds of rapid rent increases that have already displaced thousands of people. (Continued)

In the first few hours of February 1st, individuals in Hamilton, Ontario answered the call to be ungovernable in resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline and the secretive Grand Jury deliberating on the fate of Water Protectors south of us. It is imperative that we continue to show solidarity inside and outside of the legal system as the State’s strategy will always be divide and conquer. As those who seek to poison the Earth and profit from her exploitation attempt to secure their place in power, those of us with capacity to resist must seize the opportunity. We need not (& must not) choose one avenue for action, but pursue all of them in all ways. Today, we resist the Dakota Access Pipeline and ALL pipelines by hitting the banks who fund them – specifically TD Canada Trust – where it hurts. Which we interpreted to mean literally hitting their ATMs with hammers… and jamming up the card slot with spray foam. Tomorrow, we make our voices heard that Muslim refugees are welcome here. Friday, we go Nazi punching.

For the eighth consecutive year, anarchists in Southern Ontario gathered to ring in the new year with a series of noise demos outside prisons in the area. We do this to demonstrate our opposition to the prison system and the world that maintains it, and to remind those on the inside that they are not forgotten.

We started our night off at the Niagara Detention Centre – an institution known for extreme overcrowding, inmate suicide, and hunger striking migrants. In the pouring rain, a crowd of 35 people gathered and marched along the perimeter of the prison. A full marching band in balaclavas played, while others set off fireworks and chanted. A handful of screws tried rushing us off the property but were met with insults and disregard as we finished our loop and left without incident.

From there we headed to Hamilton’s downtown Barton Jail, where our numbers doubled. Infamous for particularly egregious conditions, the prison was recently in the news for losing its heat for weeks in the middle of a cold spell. Stories circulated of temperatures dropping so low that water was freezing in the cells and inmates were forced to wear socks on their arms in attempts to stay warm.

An annual stop for our noise demo tradition, this year we wanted to make more of an effort to communicate with those on the inside. We produced a short video and using a handheld projector played it on loop on the side of a building visible from inside the jail. Prisoners were seen cupping their eyes, looking out their windows to read the messages on the wall.

Balaclavas, fireworks, and paint bombs were distributed before we started, and year after year people have come to expect this and join in on the fun. The prison and prisoner transport vans were covered in paint, people chanted and held banner that said “Turn up the Heat” and after a ton of fire works were lit, we left on our own terms.

Against prisons and its world,
The Anarchists

Video also available on Its Going Down