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News & Blogs Five 'Anarchists' Arrested For Allegedly Plotting To Blow Up Ohio Bridge

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Pheonix

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many junkies will ruin someone's life for a dime of dope.

$6000 is a big score for a junkie he will probably have a heart attack shortly after he gets his money, either that or he will get robbed and beaten.
 

venusinpisces

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the fbi set them up absolute case of entrapment and coercion. the scumbag informant is a pos junkie.
If the allegations are true, then they set themselves up with their willingness to take the lives of all the innocent people who would have died when the bridge collapsed.
 

iSTEVEi

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If the allegations are true, then they set themselves up with their willingness to take the lives of all the innocent people who would have died when the bridge collapsed.

Thats what I thought; The informant said he could get the explosives and they then went along with it... At least thats how I read it.
 

Eager

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If the allegations are true, then they set themselves up with their willingness to take the lives of all the innocent people who would have died when the bridge collapsed.

1. Its pretty presumptive that you assume anyone would have been hurt in a bridge collapse that didn't happen. Given the track record of direct actions carried out by anarchists in the US, as well as these individuals prior criminal records, (which are all we have to go on) there is nothing to suggest they intended to kill anyone. Indeed, many direct actionists go to great lengths to avoid injury to innocent bystanders, and neither of these individuals have murderous priors.

2. Its also really shitty that you're making excuses for state entrapment. They didn't "set themselves up"; it was an FBI informant who concocted the plan. There is absolutely no reason to believe any of this would have transpired if it were not for the role of the state in orchestrating every bit of this.

And this definitely isn't the first time the state has done this... http://www.pbs.org/pov/betterthisworld/film_description.php

The only thing to be concluded from this incident is that the state has once again manufactured terrorism in order to prosecute it. If a land owner tells someone to tresspass on his land; he cannot then justifiably shoot them for trespass and claim his act as self-defense. He is not only complicit, but wholly responsible for the act occurring in the first place. The state isn't any different.
 

crow jane

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douglas-l-r-joshua-anthony.n.jpg


HAH. need I say more?
 

venusinpisces

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1. Its pretty presumptive that you assume anyone would have been hurt in a bridge collapse that didn't happen.
The only reason no one was hurt was because they were too incompetent to see the plan through, and thankfully so. Unfortunately, few details about the incident were given but it would be pretty hard to blow up a bridge without risking the death of a few people at the very least, and likely a lot more if the bridge was also a road as many bridges are. There is no city in the country where bridges don't provide shelter to local homeless populations so there is simply no excuse for such a blatant disregard for human life. Their actions reflect negatively on both the anarchist and Occupy movements as a whole, so my perspective is one of calling out gross irresponsibility which threatens to discredit productive forms of political dissent. You know, the kind that is actually about helping people instead of furthering justifying the military police state.
 

soapybum

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So the bridge being built wasnt a blatant disregard of animal life and the natural ecosystems around it? Its not at all a question of them being incompetent, it was entrapment and if the FBI never got involved they would've not even had the materials to try to blow up the bridge. Simply put, it was a setup to give a bad face to anarchists on MayDay to divert attention from all the other events that were going on.
 
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Beegod Santana

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Trumped up conspiracy charges, max 15 yrs, 10 yrs of that is for use of explosives which will probably get dropped in court. These kids will most likely all be home free in 5 yrs if not 18 months. Looks like two of them aren't even being charged. Sounds like they where talked into it for sure, but they still decided to go for it. Shoulda stuck with taking down some signs... I don't really see how blowing up a bridge was delivering a blow to capitalism. The state tends to hire private contractors (usually ones with old school connections) for jobs like that. Some good ole boy woulda made another million fixing that bridge and the taxpayers of Cleveland and Ohio woulda been even more fucked.

The dumpsters are gonna be pretty damn empty if they can't even get food on the supermarket shelves, still a little early for early crops in Ohio, longer commutes result in higher petroleum consumption... Guess I'm not really getting these kids' angle.
 

venusinpisces

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So the bridge being built wasnt a blatant disregard of animal life and the natural ecosystems around it?....Simply put, it was a setup to give a bad face to anarchists on MayDay to divert attention from all the other events that were going on.
The bridge wasn't being built. It was already there. Attempting to blow up the bridge served the exact purpose you stated, giving a bad face to anarchists, not protecting local ecology.
 

Eager

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The only reason no one was hurt was because they were too incompetent to see the plan through, and thankfully so. Unfortunately, few details about the incident were given but it would be pretty hard to blow up a bridge without risking the death of a few people at the very least, and likely a lot more if the bridge was also a road as many bridges are. There is no city in the country where bridges don't provide shelter to local homeless populations so there is simply no excuse for such a blatant disregard for human life. Their actions reflect negatively on both the anarchist and Occupy movements as a whole, so my perspective is one of calling out gross irresponsibility which threatens to discredit productive forms of political dissent. You know, the kind that is actually about helping people instead of furthering justifying the military police state.

Again, you have no knowledge of the plan, so your presumptions of guilt and your legitimization of state violence is unfounded. For all you know, these kids planned to divert cars and any homeless populations before blowing up the bridge. And that is if they even seriously planned to see the bombing through.

As far as homeless populations living under bridges being jeopardized; there is nothing to base that on. But lets assume for a minute that a homeless person was accidentally killed in the bridge explosion that didn't happen. Why would the blame automatically go to two kids who unwillingly killed a homeless person while unknowingly carrying out a plan originating from the FBI; and not the capitalist system which willingly forces people to live under bridges for survival and knowingly provided plans and convinced individuals into participating in the act in the first place? Why does the state, even in the minds of so-called "radicals", have a legitimate monopoly on violence?

And what provides bad publicity isn't individuals acting freely to destroy property; its those "anarchists" who sympathize with state policing and institutions of power to create some sense of community with the respectable middle classes; rather than creating affinity with those people who have the same class interests in getting rid of capitalism.

If this bombing had actually happened, respectable citizens everywhere, would be writing senators about this "atrocity" of destroyed infrastructure or shedding some crocodile tears for the accidental death of some homeless person they would have refused to give money to when they were actually alive; but do you think the average poor person gives a fuck? Of course not. The city destroys the infrastructure in our neighborhoods all the fucking time, and there isn't a fucking thing done about it. And sorry if we don't show too much outrage over some kids getting condemned for accidentally killing a homeless man carrying out a plan the state put them up to; when police willingly kill our friends every fucking day with little or no repercussions.

ALSO: I'm really sick of people diverting the blame of the police state to people who break the law. THE STATE and THE STATE ALONE are responsible for their actions. If a rape victim refuses to be complicit with and resists a rape; it is NOT the victim who is responsible when their attacker responds by "escalating" his assault on them. The rapist, like the state, is wholly responsible for both the preconditions and the escalation. Self-affirming power does not give one a justified use of violence.
 
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Eager

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Trumped up conspiracy charges, max 15 yrs, 10 yrs of that is for use of explosives which will probably get dropped in court. These kids will most likely all be home free in 5 yrs if not 18 months. Looks like two of them aren't even being charged. Sounds like they where talked into it for sure, but they still decided to go for it. Shoulda stuck with taking down some signs... I don't really see how blowing up a bridge was delivering a blow to capitalism. The state tends to hire private contractors (usually ones with old school connections) for jobs like that. Some good ole boy woulda made another million fixing that bridge and the taxpayers of Cleveland and Ohio woulda been even more fucked.

The dumpsters are gonna be pretty damn empty if they can't even get food on the supermarket shelves, still a little early for early crops in Ohio, longer commutes result in higher petroleum consumption... Guess I'm not really getting these kids' angle.

Actually; you have to look at things from perspective. These were just two teenagers; who would have effectively closed down a major bridge for a long period of time (months to years); disrupting the flow of capital at least somewhat.

It generally takes hundreds to thousands of the same "peaceful" protestors, who rush to discredit this kind of action, to accomplish this same goal for only couple of hours until the police come.

Now imagine the impact, nationally, if instead of just two uncoordinated kids from Cleveland, all those hundreds of thousands of "peaceful" protesters blocked a bridge for an hour until the police carried them away, broke off into twos and blew up bridges or other important infrastructure important to the function of capital...

Like the peasant women who stormed the Bastille during the French Revolution; you'd have the entire power structure at your mercy.

You can argue all day whether it was a tactical plan; but it isn't any less tactical than the impotent mass marches and vigils that happen in nearly every city across the world that plead to their oppressors for mercy.

Individual political violence won't get us far, but neither will collective reformism.

And this is precisely why the system of capitalism (and those who economically benefit from it existing) win every time we falsely try to categorize any illegal form of political upheaval as ineffective. Do you honestly believe that the means to overthrow the system, will also be legally protected by it? I'm not advocating violence, but I am advocating tactical diversity. I'm sick of hearing about the people we're alienating when people break windows or set cop cars ablaze. As long as we keep "activism" as purely symbolic or moralistic as possible, we alienate ourselves from engaging in any struggle.
 

venusinpisces

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Again, you have no knowledge of the plan, so your presumptions of guilt and your legitimization of state violence is unfounded....As far as homeless populations living under bridges being jeopardized; there is nothing to base that on. But lets assume for a minute that a homeless person was accidentally killed in the bridge explosion that didn't happen. Why would the blame automatically go to two kids who unwillingly killed a homeless person while unknowingly carrying out a plan originating from the FBI....And sorry if we don't show too much outrage over some kids getting condemned for accidentally killing a homeless man...
If you go back and actually read my posts you will see that there was no presumption of guilt. What I originally said was that, if the allegations are true, then the actions they took are indefensible. The act of blowing up a bridge serves no practical purpose whatsoever besides painting all anarchists as dangerous threats to society. Personally, I have witnessed green anarchists frothing at the mouth talking about how necessary it is to make attacks on the power grid in order to take down civilization. This statement went unchallenged by a large group of people back at the green anarchist conference back in 2003, and I find this perspective to be repulsive, not only because destroying civilization means there would no longer be engineers to prevent nuclear meltdown, thus ensuring widespread ecological catastrophe, but also because the number of people who are dependent on industrial civilization means that removing power supplies is equivalent to genocide. Of course, nothing these kids did remotely approaches the level of competence necessary to accomplish anything close to widespread destruction, but for some reason the ideology behind it is one that is still tolerated by many anarchists even while more practical solutions such as building ecovillages are ignored.

Clueless people like to romanticize the idea of a "zombie apocalypse" but, when it comes down to it, the people who will be the most harmed by industrial collapse are the people at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Think Hurricane Katrina. Have you looked into the after effects of industrial collapse in New Orleans? Basically what you have is huge numbers of poor people who were forced to leave homes they lived in for generations, as well as a whole lot of poor people who died from preventable illnesses. So, if I seem a little less than tolerant of your statement, "And sorry if we don't show too much outrage over some kids getting condemned for accidentally killing a homeless man.", it's because that attitude fits into a greater context of sheltered anarchists who are more than willing to sacrifice the lives of working class poor people for a cause that will serve no one.
 

Beegod Santana

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Actually; you have to look at things from perspective. These were just two teenagers; who would have effectively closed down a major bridge for a long period of time (months to years); disrupting the flow of capital at least somewhat.

Actually capital would've kept flowing. People would keep driving to work, trucks would keep delivering goods, it would just take that much more petroleum to do it. Blue collar working families would've been most affected. The bridge would've been rebuilt on the backs of the tax payers (probably with fundraiser $ too) to the benefit of some already rich contractor. Like I said, the small fish would get fucked, and the big fish would profit.

Not too mention that a large march shutting down a bridge will get support because the COMMUNITY is demanding it. When five individuals attack your town (especially ones without roots there) it's considered terrorism.

I love how you blissfully ignored all my points. Not too mention your complete denial of reality.

Must be nice to have your head that far up your ass. The real world can never touch you there.
 

scatwomb

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I am sure their idea had a few goals.

1) To temporarily disrupt the flow of capital.
2) To destroy a bridge in a "natural" area.
3) To spark similar actions across the country.

Like Eager was saying, we have no indisputible reason to think that the destruction of this bridge would have led to the death of anyone. As was mentioned, most (all?) actions by green anarchists mitigate human death to the best of their ability. They could have easily called the National Park Service and said "there is a bomb on the bridge, it's going to go off in 20 minutes." NPS would have had enough time to divert traffic/close roads, etc. and the loss of life would have been easily mitigated.

I am hoping the 5 guy's lawyers will fight this on the grounds of entrapment. It started off as 5 self-described anarchists wanting to throw smoke bombs of of buildings in Cleveland, a relatively innocuous and kind of silly tactic to disrupt the flow of capital on May Day, and turned into "LET'S BLOW UP A FUCKING BRIDGE" after the STATE got involved. Kinda disgusting.

Fuck the State. And fuck Statist sympathizers.
 
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