History of the Harbor’s Homeless Pt 2

Download and Subscribe: RSS

Find us on Itunes, IHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please like, rate, and review us. Tell your friends about it. To support us use the Blackflower Collective account on Patreon.

Outline:

S: This is Sprout,

C: and this is Charyan, and we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

S: In part one of this episode we covered the articles written by The Daily World chronicling the moves the city made to evict the homeless from their long time community at the River Camp. This part of the episode will be a continuation of that story but with a switch to reporting from The Harbor Rat Report, then still publishing as CRMAN. This will help us bring the other side of the story to bear, since The Daily World is usually quite biased against the homeless. We have been in conversation with the homeless since we began our work, and it is those perspective which now influence the reporting more than the quotes from police and the City officials. Through this we get more of a sense of the anger inherent on the side of those being oppressed and traumatized by the City. We hope to tell these stories with more in depth interview in future reporting. One of the most humanizing activities we can engage in is story telling. Telling the stories of those on the streets can bring them into focus as an actual person and not just some abstract drug user or mental health patient they don’t know.

We have a couple articles to cover in this episode about our local far right fascists and their efforts at securing seats on city council, and the county commission in order to eradicate the homeless from our town. We will hear about their denial of a local low barrier shelter and how they sent back millions of dollars in state funding for the project. We will be discussing our communities reactions to multiple winters here in the Pacific Northwest. As well as far right reactions to the multiple manufactured crises such as garbage, porta pottys, and needles.

C: Oh also that transphobic Star Wars shop that went viral in that video and brought in Proud Boys from as far as Oregon. Fun stuff.

S: Yep, that was an alarming experience tog o through. We never expected to have to deal with that level of paranoia about our group’s actions, or that much participation by actual fascist street gangs from outside our town. Truly remarkable. So along with these articles detailing the rest of our story bringing us to the present day we’ve got music from Days n Daze and The Window Smashing Job Creators again this episode, and please stay tuned for our monthly radical news roundup after this brief message from our sponsor.

News:

Welcome back to Molotov Now!,

Before we begin to dive back into the articles depicting the recent local history of the homeless we have a quick update on recent News

In Washington State

Federal judge in Washington State dismisses Salem, Mass. corporation’s SLAPP suit for the second time

Seattle, Wash. – For the second time in nearly three years of litigation, a federal district court in
Washington State dismissed all claims made by The Satanic Temple against four of its former members.
The Court found that, the federal claims having been previously dismissed, it lacked jurisdiction to hear
The Satanic Temple’s remaining state law claims.

“We appreciate Judge Richard Jones confirming that the First Amendment still exists in this country,”
defendant David Johnson said. “Religions are not immune from public criticism.”

After a schism in March 2020 in the Washington State chapter, the Temple alleged that then-social
media manager Johnson used what had been the local chapter’s Facebook page to post criticism of the
Temple and how its leaders’ actions had not lived up to TST’s own stated tenets and values. This criticism
came in the form of news articles, other former member testimonies, and past actions by TST co-owners
Cevin Soling and Doug Misicko. Misicko has also used the public pseudonyms “Doug Mesner” and
“Lucien Greaves” for the Temple, while Soling initially used the pseudonym “Calvin Soling” for the lawsuit
and uses “Malcolm Jarry” for the Temple.

“We’re not the first people The Temple has tried to bully or abuse into silence,” defendant Leah
Fishbaugh said. “We were determined not to let The Satanic Temple intimidate us.”

In initial court filings, the Salem, Mass.-based for-profit corporation United Federation of Churches
LLC dba “The Satanic Temple” tried to allege they were victims of defamation. The court dismissed the
defamation claim with prejudice in February 2021 citing First Amendment protections, but the remaining
claims were dismissed with leave to re-file. TST did so in March 2021, adding new claims, revising others,
and dropping one. In April 2022, the Temple’s attempt at reconsideration failed and all remaining federal
claims also were dismissed. In June, TST’s lead counsel Matt Kezhaya admitted on his Reddit account
that he needed to come up with “a credible justification that it is not-impossible [sic] a jury could legally
award at least $75,000 in damages” and that he hoped legal defense costs squeezed “every last penny
from [the defendants’] living corpses, and anyone that gives [them] the time of day.”

“The Satanic Temple accused us of forming ‘a competitor organization’ to their religion based on a
Facebook comment saying, ‘The Satanic Temple 2: Electric Boogaloo,’ so the outcome was never really
in doubt,” defendant Nathan Sullivan said. “But, like the old saying, ‘You can beat the rap, but you can’t
beat the ride,’ this SLAPP suit did what it was supposed to do for them.”

SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” frivolous lawsuits with no legal merit
designed to threaten targets into not criticizing the plaintiff. Such lawsuits stifle public debate or dissent,
particularly when brought by well-resourced plaintiffs.

“This has been a strain on our families, on our personal relationships, on our financial security, and on
our physical and mental health,” defendant Leah Fishbaugh said. “I’m ready to finally have my life back.”

As of December 2022, total legal costs for the defendants exceeded $100,000.

In a report by the Walla Walla Union Bulletin

The trial of Brandon O’Neel, the man accused of shooting a law enforcement officer in the face in September, has been delayed to March 21.

O’Neel, 37, of Walla Walla, was in Walla Walla County Superior Court in front of Judge Brandon L. Johnson on Wednesday, Jan. 4, for a pretrial hearing because his trial was originally scheduled to start Jan. 24.

His attorney, Julie Carlson Straube, requested more time, but said she did not want the trial pushed back too far. She asked for a new date in March.

Walla Walla County Prosecuting Attorney Gabe Acosta, who took office Jan. 1, also said he wanted the delay because he just took the case over from retired Prosecuting Attorney Jim Nagle.

O’Neel is charged with first-degree attempted premeditated murder, first-degree assault with a deadly weapon, attempting to elude police, threatening to bomb with intent to alarm and harassment with threats to kill.

First-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault are Class A felonies with a maximum penalty of life in prison. Threatening to bomb is a Class B felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. His other two charges, Class C felonies, carry maximum sentences of five years in prison.

O’Neel is accused of stopping his vehicle near Washington State Patrol Trooper Dean Atkinson Jr.’s police vehicle on West Poplar Street, getting out and shooting the trooper multiple times in the hand and face, according to court documents.

Earlier on the day of the shooting, Walla Walla County Sheriff’s Office deputies evicted O’Neel from his Walla Walla apartment.

According to court documents, an eviction summons application filed by the apartment’s property management company cited an alleged threat by O’Neel to “execute any cop or manager” who tried to evict him.

In a post made by the Facebook account Expose Fascism Walla Walla

In Other News

Libs of TikTok

Stochastic Terrorist Chaya Raichik The woman behind far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ social media account LibsofTikTok revealed her face during an interview with Tucker Carlson on December 27. In an article published by Queer Insider.

The woman behind far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ social media account LibsofTikTok revealed her face during an interview with Tucker Carlson on Tuesday (December 27).

The account, with the help of various far-right GOP members, built a rapid online following for posting out-of-context clips, featuring people deemed to be “on the left” (a lot of queers, basically), framed in such a way to ridicule and/ or paint its targets in a detrimental way.

In the hour-long interview, Carlson began by playing a video shared by the LibsofTikTok account, featuring mostly teachers with colourful hairstyles discussing personal pronouns and non-gendered concepts in classrooms

“That’s information that you should definitely have but have never had until Libs of TikTok bothered to put it in one place and show you, and for doing that, the person who runs Libs of TikTok has been the focus of a lot of hate and many threats. So many that the person has remained anonymous until today,” Carlson said as he introduced Raichik.

Ahead of the interview, Raichik jumped on Twitter to defend sharing people’s videos in a way that frames them negatively, saying: “Posting publicly available videos isn’t harmful, hateful or dangerous. You know what is harmful though? Confusing kids about their identity, stealing childhood innocence, exposing kids to adult sexual entertainment, giving kids porn in school, and sterilizing and mutilating kids.”

After the interview aired, Raichick shared a screen capture showing Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk, having liked the tweet.

Shortly after the Carlson interview aired, social media users began sharing an article by Chad Loder, who identified Chaya Raichik as being among some since-prosecuted insurrectionists on January 6th, during the Capitol Riots.

“Today Chaya Raichik, a professional bigot whose anti-LGTBQ posts have been blamed for threats on children’s hospitals, revealed her face for the first time in an interview with Tucker Carlson, in which she called the LGBTQ community a cult”, the article reads.

“My analysis of video footage leads me to believe that Chaya Raichik was not merely present near the Capitol on January 6th, but that she trespassed on restricted Capitol grounds that day. In the rest of this article, I’ll walk you through the evidence I used to draw my conclusion, so that you form your own opinion.”

For more information on the evidence of Raichiks involvement in the January 6th Inssurection go to

[Needs Bit.ly]

https://newsletter.extremism.io/archive/did-chaya-raichik-trespass-at-the-capitol/

Oklahoma has released a new bill requiring forced detransitioning of Transgender Adults under 26 years of age.

As reported by Erin Reed

A terrifying new bill was released late Wednesday night in Oklahoma that would ban gender affirming care for a huge number of people. Oklahoma SB129 would ban gender affirming care under the age of 26 years old. Gen Z would be entirely banned from gender affirming care under this bill. This prospect is terrifying because Gen Z has been the most open about transitioning and a bill like this would medically detransition a huge portion of Oklahoma’s transgender population. This comes after other states like New Hampshire and South Carolina saw bills filed to raise the age of transition to 21, and places like Florida utilized a sham medical board to ban gender affirming care under 18. Slowly, states are moving towards an outright ban on being transgender – it is for these reasons that people have begun calling the attacks on gender affirming care an attempt at genocide.

Adult medical detransition bills have been a hypothetical escalation until recent weeks. Anti-trans organizations such as Genspect and Transgender Trend started pushing for 18-25 year old bans this year. Up until recently, the closest we have come was a representative in Missouri musing over increasing the age of the bill to 25 years old – a decision they declined to make. These earlier discussions of 25-and-under bans and indications in committee hearings in states across the United States lead me to make a call several months ago that at least one state would attempt to ban gender affirming care for this age group. If this bill passes, it would be the harshest anti-trans bill ever passed.

Oklahoma has already been on a downward trajectory for transgender rights. Anti-trans bills have been filed and passed in the state multiple times this year. One bill threatened to defund hospitals if they provided gender affirming care for trans youth. The hospital relented and stopped offering gender affirming care for this population. Other Oklahoma bills that have passed include banning all trans youth from bathrooms that match their gender identity as well as a sports ban.

Gender affirming care saves lives. One study in JAMA showed that gender affirming care reduced the risk of suicide by up to 73%. The consequences of banning this care, especially for such a large population, are horrifying. It would outright cause an increase in the death rate in the trans community via suicide. Mental anguish from withdrawal of gender affirming care and re-feminization or re-masculinization would be too much for many transgender people to take and the community would face one of its worst mental health crises leading to real physical harm.

Bills like this are designed to do two things – stoke fear in the trans community, and turn up the temperature to banning gender affirming care entirely by shifting the Overton window. Even if these bills don’t pass, they help drive trans people out of the state or back into hiding. Likewise, they make it easier for “moderates” to then react with banning the care for “only those under 21” or “only those under 18.” It is easy to see this effect when just 3 years ago, the main debate was over transgender people playing sports – now we are looking at states attempting to eliminate their transgender populations entirely.

The movement of the Overton window continues to threaten all transgender people in the United States. Texas recently released a resolution calling for an end to gender affirming care entirely. These bills are designed to be passed as anti-trans voices take over the Republican party – people like Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, Tucker Carlson, and Matt Walsh have turned their huge audiences on the trans community in a moral panic unlike anything we have ever seen. It is imperative that we show up and stop these bills, both in Oklahoma and around the United States.

Its Going Down reported

On New Year’s Eve, anarchists, abolitionists, and angry community members across the so-called United States, Canada, and the world, all took part in yearly noise demonstrations outside of jails, prisons, detention centers, and juvenile hall facilities. Several communities used noise demonstrations to highlight ongoing campaigns and denounce recent deaths inside various facilities, such as in Tucson, AZ and Norman, OK. In Brooklyn, NY, for two nights people marched and rallied, protesting the 19 deaths that took place throughout 2022 on Rikers Island. In central California, people across the state converged on Corcoran prison, the site of ongoing organizing on both sides of the prison walls.

“For more information on this story check out the Article Noise Demos Ring In New Year Against Backdrop of Increasing Police Violence and Growing Prisoner Resistance” by Its Going Down.

Other recent IGD headlines include:

Community Defends Library Event in New York Against Violent Police, Proud Boys and Neo-Nazis

In Contempt #24: Mumia Pushes for New Trial, Updates on Antifascist Prisoners, Support #StopCopCity Arrestees

Inside the Wood Street Commons Fight Against Displacement

and Crimethinc has published an excellent year end review called, A Year To Endure, on their website crimethinc.com.

https://crimethinc.com/2022/12/30/2022-in-review-a-year-to-endure

Segment One:

S: When we left off this story we had just entered the period of our story in which anarchists had started organizing the local food not bombs chapter among other things like starting the mutual aid network. Our local mutual aid efforts began in 2020 during the George Floyd uprising. The project Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network was born out of the Black Lives Matter rebellion in so-called Seattle. We started by helping the folks at the Feed The Movement table in Captiol Hill. We hit upon wraps as a good hand held and transportable method, made a few deliveries to CHAZ, and haven’t looked back. We have been making regular deliveries ever since to various groups in the local area. We wanted to extend our solidarity and our food to our own area, as many here remain incredibly food insecure. So to that end we organized a local chapter of Food Not Bombs. These efforts continued after the uprising as fire season hit followed by a brutal winter leading into the beginning of the pandemic, there has been crisis after crisis ever since.

After a particularly cold week during which zero institutional assistance was offered to the homeless, the Harbor Rat reports in February 2021.

Polar vortex catches many unprepared, including mutual aid groups

Over the weekend of February 13th a polar vortex swept through the region bringing freezing temperatures and threatening the unhoused community in town. This was not technically a surprise since winter occurs literally every single year and Grays Harbor Emergency Management was citing The National Weather services reports on potentially lethal temps as early as February 9. As of February 12th we were on the phone to CCAP trying to figure out how to get more spaces opened up to shelter folx on an emergency basis. We learned a lot in those talks and were somewhat deflated to learn that neither the city or county had any plans to open up more spaces. There is only one cold weather shelter in town, ran by Coastal Community Action Program (CCAP) and funded by Grays Harbor County (GHC) with a capacity of 25 people. The contract specifies this minimum capacity and its minimal hours of operation. Despite receiving thousands of dollars for this facility it remains apparently understaffed according to CCAP. This under staffing is what contributes to its low capacity, since GHC imposed stricter restrictions on the ratio of sheltered individuals to staff following a COVID positive test there earlier this year. This test, the restricted spaces, and a general lack of trust in the institutions running the Cold Weather Shelter (CWS) have led to it being under utilized as a shelter. The county’s own estimates put the number of unsheltered people living in the county at anywhere between 500 and 3,000 people. They delineate, define, and qualify between types of “homeless” from “literal homelessness” to “unstably housed“. Split apart these numbers range from roughly 500-700 people who are literally homeless and  3,000 unstably housed. Needless to say the county’s 25 bed shelter is insufficient to shelter even the lowest estimate. On the evening of February 12th with the snow piling up to dangerous levels we at Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network stepped our work into overdrive – donations were requested and received, we distributed all the hot food we could, and we provided cold weather gear to those unable or unwilling to go to the shelter overnight. We told our friends we would check back on them in the morning and left them out in the snow. We were caught unprepared by this weather event and did our best to get rally and provide and learn from the experience. We here at Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network are not yet at a capacity of being able to open and run a shelter, so we refocused our attention on our previous mutual aid work distributing food and supplies to the unhoused where they are at. We learned that transportation is one of the largest hurdles to folx utilizing even the current CWS, since it is difficult to move all of ones belongings that distance each day. A 24-hr shelter, zero barrier shelter would solve this issue, and a 24 hour shelter run as mutual aid and not institutional charity would be even better. But until radicals can effectively address the root causes of these material conditions no amount of cold weather shelters will be enough to shelter us all. Capitalism will continue to evict us onto the streets for being poor and then harass those in snow-covered tents in the middle of a pandemic, housing crisis, and snow storm. As the police did during and after this extreme weather event.

S: So you can see from this article that when we first got started even we were caught off guard by stuff. We realize no one is perfect all the time, and mistakes happen. The thing is the County Emergency Management office is not made up of first time volunteers figuring stuff out as they go. These are supposed to be professionals who know what to do during a crisis, right? How could they be caught off guard by this?

C: And you can also notice how one part of the county is either not talking to the other part, or the county commisioners deliberately ignored the warnings from Emergency Management and the National Weather Service.

And what was the plan with the 25 bed shelter?

S: That was the minimum amount they could provide by contract. why would they not go above and beyond that? why has 25 beds become the norm? We have hundreds of homeless people in need of shelter in the winter months.

C: Yeah but 25 beds? For 500-700 people?

S: Well and like you said if someone gets kicked out of the place they are staying being unstably housed there is another person fresh on the streets who is going to go to this shelter and be told what? sorry were full? in a snowstorm?

C: Wow it really makes me want to get the Blackflower Collective project up and running so we can start to offer the sort of resources that are actually needed in this town.

S: The City of Aberdeen has been on a crusade against the homeless for years now, they routinely generate their own problems, one of the most infamous around town is the garbage along the streets. From The Harbor Rat in 2021:

Local outrage over garbage devolves into dehumanization of unhoused community

The latest round of reactionary outrage over the “garbage” that has steadily been accumulating in and around downtown Aberdeen began as a Facebook post by local business person Kellie Carlson Daniels. Mrs. Daniels had enough of the wrappers and shoes strewn about her city and decided to do something about it. She began snapping photos of pieces of garbage lying around town, this soon lead her to the unhoused community behind City Hall. Soon she had abandoned the garbage documentation escapade for bigger game, taking highly intrusive and exploitative photos of the private spaces where these folx live. Going so far as to enter the camp and take photos of peoples living quarters trying to document…garbage? Once back in the comfort of her house these photos were posted to her account and the comments section opened up to a whole new interpretation of the term “garbage”. As conversations ensued, it became more and more clear that the garbage that most people truly seemed upset with were the human beings being subjected to a disgusting lack of shelter in our community. The familiar “garbage” talking point only provided so much cover, as people in a comment thread locked from public input let their thoughts be known.  While some blamed city officials, past and present, others simply blamed the unhoused folks who have daily concerns about where to sleep and eat, not for operating their own garbage services. All this “social media chatter” especially from business leaders, led to the smallest of actions by elected officials. They hired two temporary workers to clean up the streets until another plan can be thought of. It also contributed to an article on The Daily World about the so-called “garbage problem”. This thread on Facebook soon turn just as toxic as the last; with a photo of peoples homes, not garbage, credit of Kellie Carlson Daniels. The previous mayor Erik Larson even commented to remind everybody that the current mayor had CUT the clean up program after taking office, only to reinstate it now. So, in short a right wing mayor was elected, he cut a program that helped clean the city streets of garbage, the people who voted for him didn’t appreciate the marked increase in garbage and complained to have him reinstate it. A fine example of electoral politics if ever there was one. What we need is not partisan politics, but mutual aid. Reacting to the amount of money the city allocated for the temporary workers some suggested the unhoused folx clean up the streets of their city, or face some sort of banishment from the city. Perhaps not realizing that while the unhoused will clean up after themselves if given the proper resources, they are not responsible for cleaning up all of downtown as they are certainly not the only people littering. As evidenced by the cleaning done by them today after being provided dumpsters by the city and garbage bags by us at Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network. Most people tend to clean up after themselves, but it’s hard to DIY a dumpster or garbage truck. The final form of this whole debacle was not calls for the obvious solutions of providing people with the tools and resources to take care of themselves and their community, but dehumanization. The issue here is not unhoused individuals, its not even garbage, the issue is the systems we live in that demand the lowest possible wages and the highest possible rents, all the the service of profit. It is clear that neither left wing or right wing politics are sufficient to solve any of the problems we are facing today. In fact they have been largely responsible for creating and perpetuating the systems that oppress us all. There is no doubt that the bureaucracy will grind on as it has for so long, leaving many in its wake. We do not need them.

The Local fascist in town seized upon the issue of trash and attempted to use it as a site of organization to bring in people interested in simply cleaning up their town while introducing them to anti homeless narratives and taking exploitative pictures of their escapades into people’s tents and camps. From a report filed in March of 2021:

Local anti-homeless / anti-addict hate group “Save Our Aberdeen Please” was out on the streets on Sunday, March 14 for a photo op with local right wing politicians. They have couched their exploitative actions with the language of “cleaning up” “their” city. With many making comments alluding to who they might consider to be a part of “their” town. Well it was a great performance, and that’s all it was. They snapped a bunch of dramatic and shocking staged photos as they always do. This PR stunt was clearly meant to recruit people and get likes, rather than actually address any of the issues that lead to such conditions. Once again there will be harmful policies enacted, creating a situation they can again react to with outrage and use as fodder for more fear mongering. I think we can all agree that litter of any kind is not good. It can be unsafe for those coming into contact with it. It can get into very sensitive ecosystems that deserve our care. No one is advocating for more litter, and this is the point. All involved would appreciate the city doing its fucking job and cleaning up trash around town. But if your critique of the problems stop at the surface then we will never get into the roots of the problem and begin to address them. Garbage is not the problem here, the problem is that so many of our neighbors experience homelessness and addiction. The garbage is supposed to be collected by the city we pay to clean this place. The city seems perfectly happy to let this relatively minor issue get so big it becomes the boogeyman the right needs in order to gather support for their anti-homeless crusade. A deliberate confusion of the problems, their causes, and their solutions are a part of the clever strategy being employed by this group. This is a deep ceded problem with very complex and nuanced solutions, admittedly not as easy as simply picking up trash. What we need is an organized community and working class solidarity. That is, seeing the people around us who are out of work or out of doors as our friends and neighbors. “There but for sheer luck goes all of us”. If the system can treat them like this, what’s to stop it from crushing you and your family next under its ever expanding need for shareholder profits.

S: So this really starts to reflect the anger that we were seeing at camp at the time. People felt like after the city evicted them from the river and told them they would have a new spot to go to, then being locked in this stupid parking lot behind City Hall for waaay too long. They were all exhausted and done with fighting the city over stuff. They were angry at the fact that nothing was being done and there was no clear avenue to take action.

C: How much are these efforts really about cleaning up the city when the only time you do this is when you do these big photo ops. What is cleaning up a small part of the city going to do long term?

S: Well in their frame of reference they ARE cleaning up the city.

C: Well yeah if you are following what their interpretation of what the garbage is, which as we have seen from previous articles how “garbage” Has become a dog whistle for local reactionaries to refer to and dehumanize our houseless population. For those unfamiliar a dog whistle is a strategy of communication that sends a message that the general population will take a certain meaning from, but a certain group that is “in the know” will take away the secret, intended message. This often involves code words. This is employed heavily on the right and popularized through famous Dog Whistles such as “States Rights” in reference to support of slavery or The Southern Strategy Era of politics.

S: Well they weren’t done, in fact this was the beginning of small groups of them going out and doing this regularly.

They assembled again the next month, this time sporting the new tactic of invading campsite and snapping photos like Mrs. Daniels was doing of people in their tents, this is also when Wes Cormier starts his blog, after our second article:

Our friends at Save Our Aberdeen Please will be returning to the steps of Aberdeen City Hall on Sunday April 25th at 1PM for another round of their exploitation and misery porn. On top of continuing to stage these so called clean up events they have begun to display a few new tactics. Apparently, they have found some folks’ camps and invaded them. Taking incredibly exploitative and potentially illegal photos of people in their homes. Yes, you heard that right, these fucking people are going around snooping on people as they lay in their tents! What would you do if these women were at your house snapping photos of your messes? Opening your house up, without your consent, to be judged and analyzed by assholes online whose houses probably aren’t much cleaner. Our friends on the streets have told us about constant harassment by people driving by, as well as the police and WADOT. With some drivers coming by so regularly as to be recognized. Not to mention the very real possibility a deranged right winger escalating into causing real harm. The dehumanization from this group has now been paired with the tactic of documenting known locations of vulnerable people. This puts them in great risk of facing more harassment or attacks from SOAP followers, many of whom display a range of shittiness from callous disregard for human life, to calls for real violence. In late March, as though in response to our previous article on SOAP, a weekly blog appeared from Wes Cormier, seen here contemplating deeply the moment to moment struggle of someone living in a tent. Besides typing a small 7 sentence Facebook post and trying call it “news” this blog seemingly serves as the SOAP/GOP propaganda outlet. He has published a puff piece for SOAP and its “leader and activist – Kacey Morrison”, able here to capture a photograph with slightly less garbage in it than usual.

C: This is already getting scary for folx at camp, to have a stranger in their space like that snapping photos, its just a recipe for disaster.

S: The article also details the laws surrounding personal privacy and legal protection afforded to everyone with a home, whether it is a tent or a house. The same constitution that protects you in your home protects people in their tents too. The next target for these SOAPists was the local needle exchange ran by Wilapa Behavioral Health, who drives in weekly from the next county over to operate a needle exchange in Grays Harbor County.

C: Because the county commissioners Jill Warne and Kevin Pine voted to end the county ran needle exchange after previous efforts to protest it, and run for office against it were successful.

S: From the piece Get Clean Or Die, it’s time for the Harbor to gentrify:

Soap is at it again. They have been feeding their buddy Jill Warne unfounded rumors about the big scary exchange that helps keep poor people safe. In this article we will hear what Jill has to say to the City of Aberdeen about what she’s been hearing and debunk every single point she tried to have.

The claim that WBH doesn’t require a one to one exchange of dirty needles for clean needles is false. This would be apparent to anyone who had actually attended it and talked to WBH staff about the process and seen it in action. The disturbing part is that both concerns she brings up have the same answer. Let’s examine these supposed problems individually in more detail:

Why would people pickup that many clean syringes?

It is because people have been harassed and intimidated by her supporters at every exchange. From shouting Shame! and other hurtful things at people, to open carrying pistols, to forcing people to walk past their protests to attend. This has led to a sharp reduction in overall use of the exchange as well as to the generous folks picking up dirties from multiple people, which is allowed by the program, and returning with clean needles, thus reducing the number of individuals exposed to the cruelty of Save Our Aberdeen Please.

Why is this exchange located in the parking lot of an addiction treatment center?

Again it is because of constant SOAP harassment in previous years leading to the treatment center being the only place willing to host the exchange. Not to mention that harm reduction and treatment services are often paired together.

So we can see that both these problems are manufactured by Jill Warne and her supporters and a substantial part of the community of Aberdeen are aware of their agenda and do not wish to see in enacted. Perhaps, instead of making wild assumptions based on the biased reports of her supporters she should come to the exchange herself and see how it works. She could also speak to her partner Kevin Pine, who actually attended the exchange and AGREED that it was one to one. Maybe she could simply consult the most recent science that is clear on the effectiveness of harm reduction services. If they ever had any actual alternatives to propose that would fall in line with their constant insistence that they care about addicts then it might be worth a listen. When someone utters the ultimatum of “GET CLEAN or DIE” it makes it hard to see how that can be true.

Oh, The Needles!

Grab those pearls, take a seat, pull up your fainting couch, prepare to gasp. Drug users need needles.

You might not like to hear it but the science is clear that needle exchange work to both combat disease and reduce use.

On a local level, in a recent city council meeting Council member Francy, who does regular clean ups of the water ways and areas around town, reported finding less than 20 syringes in his most recent clean up. This, plus all the children playing daily in the various parks around town, leads this author to ask the obvious question, “Where TF is SOAP finding all these needles?”. The ONLY thing this group ever says is what about our kids? our kids cant play in the parks. Yet, a simple drive around this town would say otherwise. Really, take a drive around town and see for yourself if there are kids playing in parks again.

Its also not at all shocking to know for a fact that this hate group TARGETS the unhoused and their encampments exclusively, reporting them to their rabid base as well as the city. Yet, another drive around this town will demonstrate all the places nowhere near a homeless encampment that are filled with trash SOAP doesn’t seem to care about. Anyone can take a photo of a stack of needles you’ve collected and claim foul but there is ZERO actual evidence. But when your buddies are in positions of power, you don’t need anything but rumors.

Here’s the Plan

So the agenda is clear, use your hate group to rally the base and get Pete Schave elected Mayor of Aberdeen. Use him to help close TASL as soon as possible, without any alternative, as was once promised. Then get Jill Warne and Kevin Pine elected commissioners to both end the county’s needle exchange and prevent a shelter from opening. Then Kacey Ann Morrison, Debi Ann Pieraccinni, Melvin Taylor, Antara Croft, and David Lawrence all run for City Council to stack the council for the Christian Neo-Fascist right. That way you can advance your agenda of cleansing Aberdeen of the dirty and poor to make way for tourist centers, and corporate retreats, Tesla charging stations, etc. This crowd is even oppose the new Quinault Treatment Center which is supposedly the one thing they advocate for…TREATMENT. If it didn’t serve their agenda to complain about the exchange setting up in the parking lot of GH Treatment Solutions then they would likely be opposed to it as well.

S: So here we can see the pay off for these ghouls on the far right who pushed to get these two jokers elected to the county commission. Neither had any political or public administrative experience, they were elected on a platform of doing whatever it takes to push the homeless out of town or kill them trying.

This whole thing stemmed from a letter to the City Council in which Jill Warne actually said that people are going to get clean or die and it’s that simple. She seems to accept this brutal logic and the consequence is that our elected leaders think that there is only two choices in the matter.

C: They always try to couch their criticism in the idea that if only you did things through the proper channels and only take the route they prescribe to stability through treatment centers, then they would be appeased. Their recommendation is “Pulling Ones Self Up By The Boot Straps”, because they understand as well as anyone that it is physically impossible to pull ones self off the ground by pulling on your own boots. That is where you can begin to see the root of their opposition to the treatment center just as much as anything else, even when it’s treatment they are constantly saying that’s what they want people to be forced to do but only through their channels if it were a white fundamentalist christian program instead of one ran by the Quinault Nation then their attitudes about it might be different.

S: Yeah they’re big thing is forced treatment and forced labor essentially. They see these people as simply unproductive and want to squeeze them for all they’re worth. They believe falsely that everyone who is on the streets in unemployed and addicted to drugs. This stigma is a persistent talking pointof those not fully educated on the situation or those who know but don’t care. One reason why this reporting effort was started in the first place.

C: The year of 2021 was a busy one for us as we grew our network substantially and added new projects like feeding people seven days a week with mobile delivery. It was also busy for the local far right fascists as they began, and were more or less successful in their campaigns for city council seats. As winter approached CCAP decided not to run another cold weather shelter and conveniently forgot to let any other service providers know until the last minute. Luckily a small local nonprofit called Whole Harbor stepped up and ended up running one of the most successful and controversial shelters in recent memory. You’re never going to please everyone, but we saw many people sheltered there who said that they had never had such a pleasant experience at a shelter. Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network provided direct aid on a nightly basis to the shelter until it’s closure in May. In April though we saw a fire at the occupied parking lot located behind city hall.

S: From the Habor Rat:

In March of 2020 the City decided to close TASL and the COVID-19 eviction moratorium prevented them from immediately throwing all those people back onto the streets. They did not do this out of a concern for their well-being but at the threat of a lawsuit from the attorney general.

Since then they have been setting policies and doing whatever they can to kick people out and reduce the population living there as much as possible. They have also stopped accepting applications to get a tent there, so whoever was there at that time is all they’re letting in. This is a clear move to effectively close the shelter while not facing any legal consequences.

They are also prohibited from evicting people from TASL because they are incapable of providing alternative shelters. So you can see that the same people pushing to close TASL are also working against that end by pushing to hold up the shelter. They don’t want a camp cause its not a shelter, they dont want a shelter cause its not housing, they don’t want housing cause of the money. What do they want?

It is necessary to say that the TASL was only meant to be temporary with an original timeline of 30 days. We can see below from the Daily World at the time that the City intended to set up a long term location to camp at, they even bought the very property that people had set up at by the river. None of this has happened. Since the inception of this project the City of Aberdeen has neglected the camp. Despite showing up at $100 per month in the TASL budget, they have not offered laundry service for anything beyond the first few weeks. There has never been a safe and adequate way for residents to heat themselves. Still, if you ignore the $18,600 per month (which we absolutely will not be ignoring) to police the small camp, its a quite reasonable monthly expense for the City. Unfortunately, the promises made to the people they tore out of the riverside community they had built up organically were never kept. This is not at all shocking as we know by now that the state doesn’t function to take care of people, it serves the rich at the expense of the poor.

This poor management, neglect, and lack of services led to a few health and safety issues at the camp in the months preceding the fire. After almost two years of being exposed to the elements every tent frame has broken, and although the canvases are largely fine this leaves the occupant of the tent responsible for figuring out some temporary solution to the problem. Many tents do leak, requiring tarps to be used over the tents. The tents, when working perfectly fine, were never meant for long term habitation and are constantly having to be vented because of all the condensation. This condensation, plus the extremely wet weather we have here, has lead to black mold forming on the pallets below the sleeping area of the tents. The worst tent was completely cleaned and bedding changed out by the community there but to replace and clean the entire camp is beyond what they are capable of.

Speaking of wet weather, we cannot talk about the experiences of those living outside without discussing winter. This winter in particular was especially brutal, the weather was cold, and COVID-19 added additional hardships and limitations for the resident of TASL. The winters we get out here may not be the Siberian Tundra but temperatures regularly reach literally life-threatening levels. People living at TASL have not been allowed to have any safe and reliable way to heat themselves. This makes TASL one of the most dangerous places an unhoused person can live, elsewhere they might at least be able to warm themselves and avoid fascist harassment. So, faced with the proposition offered by the City of just freezing to death, people resisted by surviving and using what resources they had to provide each other heat throughout the winter. Without proper infrastructure in place less safe methods of heating were employed in order to not die. Even so, at least one resident suffered from frostbite this winter.

***To be very clear, the cause of the fire is still unknown. As of the publishing of this article no results have been offered from the investigation conducted by the fire department. This author does not assume that the residents or their methods of survival contributed to the fire in any way. That said, the right wing response has been largely reactionary and to heap all blame on those with very little power in the arrangement between them and the City. So this article will address those rumors while trying to remember that no cause has yet been determined.***

So, from the ground up, we have moldy pallets, broken tent frames, leaking tents, dangerous living and heating conditions, deadly cold temperatures, on top of months of poor planning, management, a lack of services, and neglect by the City. This is the situation going into April when just before 7AM on Thursday April 1st, a fire broke out at TASL from an unknown cause. Many started placing the blame on the heating methods employed by the residents of the camp. Whether propane tanks, or various extension cords, they took to social media to spread false rumors. None of them seemed to question why the resident of TASL were using such undesirable methods of heating as they were. Because if they had they would realize that people cannot be forced to freeze to death by their government (these are small govt people right??). People have the right to exist and to take action to survive. When the City didn’t provide a safe and adequate way of heating the residents of the camp throughout winter they set up the conditions for this fire, and consider how much deadlier it could have ultimately been. Following the fire the city moved in with cleaning crews and further traumatized the residents by throwing away many people’s belongings, evicting one resident, and removing the tents from a few of the residents. The person who lost their belongings to the fire was so traumatized they decided on their own volition to leave the camp. The City did actually replace the one single tent that was damaged. Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network mobilized a campaign to pressure the City to replace every tent and the platforms beneath them to no avail.

S: This is another cycle we see every year. Each winter there is a rash of fires as people desperate for warmth turn to burning whatever they can to stay alive such as propane, alcohol, hand sanitizer or garbage. It’s sad and unfortunate that people would punch down basically to blame to homeless or poor housed people for using unsafe heating methods, when there isn’t always a safe alternative.

C: At this point in time the parking lot is just essentially being squatted, right?

S: Yeah, this is after the original attempted eviction which failed and was successfully resisted by the network and the campers. The city was mad them for being in the parking lot, after uprooting them from their homes and putting them in the parking lot to begin with. So this is when campers have been occupying the lot for a while and managing it themselves.  So shortly after this is when Pete Schave destroyed all those pallets that were brought in to build shelters for people.

C: Ya that’s right, in fact check out this clip of Pete Shcave talking about that very event in a council meeting shortly after the attempted eviction. Pete Schave lies about over 4 completely different and made up issues in a matter of less than 20 seconds, truly a man that could give even Trump a run for his money. Sabot Roll the clip [Cat Noises] wait, wait a minute, how did you get in again, get out of here!

So here Pete Schave lies on 5 specific issues

S: So now we get back to that proposed shelter, or last we had heard there was a study for the need for a low barrier shelter. Well apparently they came back with 45 beds is what the need is somehow, and then after this the county put out it’s call for proposals for the shelter and Chaplain’s on the Harbor applied for the grant and submitted a proposal. So this is the fall out from them discussing that ad nauseum and the two fascist commissioners dragging their feet and stalling to the point where the money for the project was returned to the State.

Grays Harbor Commissioners met on Tuesday 4/20 and on the agenda to discuss was the Chaplains on the Harbor bid for a 44 bed Shelter for Aberdeen. However, commissioners Jill Warren and Kevin Pine through their non action, created NO progress for our community members sleeping on the streets. Instead Kevin shared that “Shelters don’t work.” Which is really confusing because the urgent need & solution is pretty simple. Humans sleeping on concrete. A shelter takes them up off the ground & gives them safety. Kevin, how does that “not work”? Leaving OUR people on the streets is a better option? Jill? Seriously… 44 beds that’s it. That would cover a very small amount of what is actually needed yet silence is what you had to give us all?

One commissioner showed up & spoke up on behalf of PUBLIC SAFETY & THE PEOPLE which was appreciated by many. A statement was read into the public record signed by 124 of “Aberdeen’s finest”. It wasn’t a surprise that none of their concerns were the health, safety or well-being of the population dying on our streets but instead they were focused on money and retaliation. It’s also not a surprise that their narrative fits Jill’s and Kevin’s. You know Jim Walsh, Jill, Kevin, same thing. When the City & it’s citizens support something fully, a qualified organization meets the requirements to handle it, the state hands over 1.1 Million dollars to fund it and still these two took no action. That’s not only reckless and inhumane, it shows as clear as day the people they are serving and it sure as shit is not the population of Grays Harbor.

When we have people with this control putting politics above whether people live or die, it’s a huge issue, a life and death issue. We can’t be quiet about the inhumane treatment of our neighbors. This is our home, all of us together. When someone is hungry, you add another seat at the table. You don’t kick them while they are starving and make them watch you eat. This inaction on the part of the commissioners raises quite a few new hurdles for the project going forward. One hurdle is clearly funding, those behind the proposed shelter will undoubtedly start looking at legal recourse as well as alternative funding options and will update us as news comes in. Our group is far more limited in its funding options, but the city does own many plots of vacant or otherwise unproductive land, including the original river side property. A second hurdle is the rising threat of far right fascists and their escalating threatening and harassment of the unhoused and their advocates. A third hurdle is the contingent that has arisen in opposition to the unhoused population. These people are on an escalating trajectory of violence, including documenting and publicizing known camp locations, drive by harassment of unhoused people, threats and harassment of folks at the needle exchange, and now formations of a “neighborhood watch”.

S: So the commissioners were basically not taking any action on this proposal as a way to block the project. I think they knew that simply voting no would be a bad look but if they asked stupid questions long enough, they knew the project’s funding would eventually fall through.

C: Yeah 1.1 million for a year round shelter sent back because two individual didn’t understand how to do their jobs.

S: Thats a lot of money to turn down because you are worried that too many people might be sheltered. Their main concern was the low barrier aspect of the shelter

C: Low barrier not no barrier, they were trying to act like it would be a virtual trap house with people doing drugs on site and shit.

S: Yeah that was a rumor going around at the time, that basically low barrier meant that there would be no rules and no laws. Like literally people were worried that this would be some no go zone for police. They were literally asking if there would be any rules for the shelter.

C: Of course there’s going to be rules, all that low barrier means is you don;t have to be sober, and why should you have to be sober to access county funded shelter? If the catholic mission wants to make its own sober rules they are able to because they are a private organization with private funding. But if this shelter is going to be fully funded by the state through the county then it has to be accessible to everyone.

S: That doesn’t mean that anything goes and rules and laws don’t apply.

C: No it simply means that people can’t e kicked out for refusing to take part in additional services or because they are active drug users. This is what they tried to make it sound like people would be able to actively use while at the shelter.

S: Well they acted dumb, but I really don’t think it was stupidity. It seems to targeted and to aligned with what they were elected to do for me to believe that they don’t know exactly what they’re doing.

C: No these actions are clearly deliberate, if they hadn’t been elected to do precisely this i could see it, but given their history and the context of their seat on the commission it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.

S: Ok, you ready for Star Wars? This one is a big one to get through. In August our small town went viral when a trans city councilwoman walked into a local Star Wars novelty shop and confronted the business owner over a transphobic sign he was displaying at his shop.

As mentioned in her post below Tiesa entered the store on Wednesday and her interaction was filmed. She was there as a private citizen, the fact of her position on the council was brought up by Don in a snide jab about her gender transition. She can be seen backing away from Don’s approach and upon being asked to leave she promptly did so. Don couldn’t let this go though, word around town would suggest he is probably not used to being called out on his bullshit. So naturally he followed Tiesa out onto the sidewalk he apparently thinks he owns and is always littered with his junk. He asked her what her sexual organs were and his behavior was even challenged by an onlooker who was simply passing by at the time.

From Tiesa’s Facebook Page:

There is a store downtown that I used to think was pretty cool, even though the owner had some wild beliefs. But, today I learned that he put up a sign that was a direct attack on me personally as well as every trans member of our community.

So, I went down to just see if this was real and if so I was going to grab a picture and leave. The business owner had other plans which are in the videos.

We have the right to be who we are and no one gets to belittle us, ever!

#transwomen #lgbtqia #humanrights #transrightsarehumanrights

This post was shared with our group shortly after being posted to Tiesa’s personal page. Wednesday evening was when some local residents started suggesting and circulating calls for an action outside his shop on Saturday August 7th at 10AM. Our group reached out to the people making these suggestions to try and form a plan for what seemed like something with a potential for violence from the local reactionary right. We asked for consent in sharing the call for action on our public page and received it.

Early Thursday, August 5th – Unbeknownst to us the story appears on Stormfront.

We woke up on Thursday to a new landscape, one in which the story had been picked up by Seattle news outlet King 5. One in which the right wing reaction had already gone far beyond what we had originally expected. Not expecting any announcement of our little protest on air, we were excited to see a major outlet like King 5 provide exposure to the story.

Thursday, August 5th, 3:31 PM – CRMAN Facebook:

UPDATE – We have been informed that KING 5 will be airing a segment covering this developing story at 4 PM. Please consider turning up to watch the broadcast and share this story as widely as you can.

Thursday, August 5th, 4:00 PM – King 5 aired their segment live on air, mentioning the grassroots calls for action inaccurately as a protest planned BY Tiesa in a move that can only be called irresponsible. WATCH KING 5 COVERAGE HERE. A short while later a corresponding article and Facebook post was made. Both went viral immediately.

Thursday, August 5th, 4:52pm – We were made aware of and shared the moving and brave story of a woman who had survived years of abuse at the hands of this man, as a runaway, and growing up into adulthood. This story was the watershed moment of us receiving many tips from all over town about Don’s storied past. We posted:

CRMAN: An incredible show of strength from this survivor of abuse at the hands of Don Sucher at Sucher & Sons Star Wars Shop . Thank you for sharing your story, this is clearly an individual with a HISTORY of abusive behavior.

The response to all these events on social media was, unsurprisingly, toxic and disgusting. Many of the usual white nationalists, holocaust deniers, TERFs, and other reactionaries showed up to attach themselves to this situation. We do not engage in such conversations and these cowards were silenced by our moderators. Although we certainly were not surprised by the reaction online nor the possibility of some local assholes showing up armed again, as we have seen in the past, we never expected what happened next.

Even with the low level of risk presenting itself as Thursday drew to a close CRMAN tried to impress upon those calling for actions the importance of transparency and that we felt the situation called for a full cancellation in the name of safety. It may have felt like a bit of an overreaction at the time but come midday Friday we would all agree that canceling, as best we could, was the only safe move. We at CRMAN also realized that simply posting a cancellation on our page wasn’t going to reach everyone the original call did, and even if it did some would undoubtedly not take our advice and choose to show up anyway. There was also the danger posed to our unhoused community who were also aware of the situation and seeking justice, but couldn’t simply “avoid the area”. The decision was made internally for a small team of medical responders would show up and observe the crowds, moving in for triage and extraction as best we could if the need arose. We began to coordinate with regional mutual aid and street medics groups to get as much support as possible for the day of.

C: Friday August 6th, 10:50 AM – Tiesa took to her City Council page to post the following clarifications based on the already shifting narratives being perpetuated on the right in mostly local comment threads on the related posts on Facebook.

Friday August 6th, 11:00 AM – Despite NOT having organized this protest, we had decided the previous night to do whatever we could to “cancel” this “protest” after King 5 announced LIVE ON AIR that there would be an action outside his shop at 10 AM on Saturday, August 7th, and that Don was assembling his supporters to counter. With that, the local group of trans supporters and families waving signs that was planned ballooned into some sort of antifa-commie-battle in the way-gone conspiracy laden minds of some on the right. This broadcast made its rounds and before long the right wing outrage machine had spun itself up into high gear taking the usual narrative and trying to flatten our complex local situation to fit their pre constructed narrative.

Friday August 6th, 2:00 PM – We quickly started receiving messages from all over about the potential for violence from the growing mass of angry and well-armed assholes. This new information was not contained to the hellscape of social media bots and trolls, this time they included many credible threats and stories of people planning to come in from halfway across the country. As mentioned above there had been alternative plans made to hold space off-site as a safe alternative but support for that was pulled around 3PM on Friday. We adapted our plan many times throughout the day on Friday and by the end were resigned to getting the word out as best we could to STAY AWAY if possible. We also realized that our unhoused neighbors do not have that luxury and live and congregate in that area. Our priority was keeping them any anyone else who still showed up as safe as we could.

Friday, August 6th, 3 PM – The story officially went national, appearing on MSN, the WA examiner, NY Post, and Steven Crowder ran the story along with many similar but smaller right wing outrage generators. What started as a local and peaceful dispute between two residents in this small town grew in the minds of some on the right to be another boogeyman. A reason to issue their call to arms in defense of this poor veteran’s endangered shop. The penultimate nod to how big of a trigger this was and the type of people being triggered was the stories appearance on the infamous white supremacist hate site Stormfront. Stormfront’s wikipedia can do a better job explaining what its all about for the unaware. The following screenshots are alarming and should be viewed with discretion but do a SHOCKINGLY good job of illustrating both the typical arguments from Don’s supporters as well as the typical audience for this sort of drivel. All from the internet’s most famous white supremacist hate site. Let’s look closer at that which is hard to view and be aware of where these arguments originate and fester the next time we hear it from the mouth of a fellow family member, church congregant, or friend. There is a reason why these avowed white supremacists latch onto and advance certain narratives.

Our focus soon turned to emergency response, not that our small collective was prepared for that any more than we were prepared for anything else we’ve ever done. But we made a plan with what we had and aimed to be able to extract any individuals who found themselves in the harm’s way. Our hearts overflowed with what we did end up having though as it expanded to include many instances of regional and national solidarity. One comrade from Atlanta spent their free time doing some valuable internet sleuthing for us and also was able to shut down a group text that Don set up. His son also set up a GoFundMe…for funds I suppose. Never hurts to capitalize off of the situation.

S: Saturday, August 7th, 8:00 AM – The day of, we were in place to observe and respond to emergency situations. We knew that regardless what we asked people to do in regards to avoiding the area that a certain number of dedicated people would still show up. There was no presence outside the store around 8 AM, by 9 AM a small group of 4 or 5 had begun to form in front of the store. At this time they did not appear to be proud boys or militia but had American flags and some small signs. We remained mobile throughout the day and soon we noticed a small group of people showing up to support the trans community as we had expected. They were approached by and engaged in conversation with people headed to and from the store. Nothing violent but, as the anti trans crowd grew and more and more out of town plates started showing up and the proud boys uniforms became prominent among the crowd, many disgusting signs were seen as well as harassment shouted at these demonstrators.

Saturday, August 7th, 10:00 AM – As the now cancelled start time of ten approached, our group was relieved to see that the situation seemed to have been de escalated by the attempt to advise people to stay away. While perhaps 150 people flowed in and out of the “support the child molester side” there was no mistaking that there was no threat for them to defend against. They had engineered a threat and responded unnecessarily to a threat existing only within their minds. Around 10:30 the majority of the pro-trans group had congregated at nearby Zelasko Park, just down the road. We did observe one person stay, by themselves, feet planted in one spot, smiling with their sign at passing traffic and sneering fascists, in the very middle of everything – ALL. DAY.

Saturday, August 7th, 11:00 AM – Things slowly started to clear out as the people expecting a fight who didn’t get it probably had to get back down to Portland to terrorize that poor city more. Our local anti homeless/ addict hate group ‘Save Our Aberdeen Please’ (SOAP) was of course present from the get go and even went out of their way to clear up any confusion online as to where they stood on supporting Don.

Saturday, August 7th, 3:00 PM – It had cleared out enough that our crew took a break and ran our normal mobile route to get out the news of the day to those living outside and to warn them about possible violence from blue-balled proud boys looking to beat up on the local unhoused after the sun went down. We dropped off some supplies to a few places and decided things were calm enough to have the normally scheduled community meal at Zelasko Park we have been doing every Saturday for months now. We tailgated it up with some pizza, soda, and the basic hygiene supplies we normally carry with us. There was a wholly unrelated wound that needed some tending too, and we finally connected with the pro-trans sign holders who were STILL THERE, long after the out of town unfriendlies had given up and gone home.

Saturday, August 7th, 5:00 PM –We offered some food and made connections, talking with them about the day and the different dynamics of the last few days. What we discovered was that as soon as the threat to our city was gone and people felt safe to do so, those out to support the trans community made their voices and car horns heard in support of the remaining demonstrators. People stopped and yelled out their windows about bad experiences with Don or just shouted thanks for showing up. Some even parked and stood with them until it was time to go. We all watched out for each other as we made our ways to our vehicles. Everyone made it home safe – shaken, more or less traumatized, and in ever present danger from the far right for simply existing – but safe and alive.

Saturday, August 7th, 8:00 PM – Immediately that same night we began the process of sharing resources for recovering from trauma and compiling the timeline of events that served as the backbone for this article. We searched through EVERY article from EVERY outlet on this story. Turns out most “reporting” is just copy pasting the King 5 article or the Washington Examiner, but they showed a timestamp of the progression of this stories journey around the world. The overriding assumption we had been working on was that King 5 was the first outlet outside of our hyper local area to pick up the story and announce the time and place of the protest to the wide world. We were wrong. It turns out after looking at all the timestamps it appeared on Stormfront hours before appearing on King 5. In other words, it appeared on Stormfront before it left the Harbor. When we examine the thread from the explicitly white nationalist white supremacist website we can that it appears for the first time at 7:41 AM on August 5th, it wouldn’t appear on King 5’s live broadcast until 4 PM that same day.

This is not altogether surprising since our area is ripe with Neo-pagan fascists and Neo-nazis. It also fits the pattern of these message boards not being the place where right wing talking points end up, but often where they originate. This phenomena of right wing narratives and conspiracy theories originating in Neo-nazi corners of the dark web and making their way to the average American dinner tables is starting to be more well understood and well documented. John Oliver famously did a whole segment on the white supremacist to Tucker Carlson pipeline. This well funded hate machine picks up a narrative from the sort of places where people aren’t afraid to say “its the Jews” and it gets bounced around the lower level Andy Ngo/Steven Crowder grifter types, where the language must be first coded to talk about capital A “Antifa” and “BLM” or the “Democrats” instead but the overall narrative stays the same. The timeless chant of the oppressor:

Be scared, the reason you have so little is because of those with less power than you, not more. You think you have complaints now, oh just wait, if you don’t support me you could have even less. These people who disagree with us aren’t even real people, Americans, etc.

Well we think your politics are boring as fuck!

C: After being laundered for a more mainstream audience, primed for years to look forward to turning their outrage to a new manufactured problem delivered to them by FOX, it makes it’s way to Tucker Carlson and BOOM, that’s how you get white supremacist narratives at your dinner table. Our group actually ended up being called out by Andy Ngo on his twitter. For those who are unaware Andy Ngo, who we have it on good authority is the type of person who leaves their brights on as they pass you, is also a low effort troll on the far right. He is famous for his doxxing of antifascists and leftists and so called Antifa. It’s hard when EVERYONE is Antifa though. After loosing his job at the Quilette for witnessing the Proud Boys planning a violent attack on Portland activists and doing absolutely nothing to stop or report it. He now poorly edits The Post Millennial (think Der Stürmer meets VICE News) and is known to love a nice cold milkshake on a hot summer day. He sees antifa as a boogeyman, a shadowy organization that controls all dissent and all opposition to those whose political leanings could well be described as fascist. He probably checks under the bed each night, poor guy. Andy Ngo uses Antifa as a tool to code for more standard white supremacist thoughts as well as stirring up the outrage trolls of the far right to harass, threaten, intimidate, and doxx people he deems to be Antifa.

S: Him and others like him helped create the narrative that our group was “Antifa”, either some invading force from Seattle or Portland. Or perhaps an outpost located in Aberdeen itself. They also created out of whole cloth the idea that what was intended (and ended up being the case) wasn’t a small local affair, some sign waiving in support of our trans community, but in fact Antifa coming into Aberdeen to destroy this poor veteran’s business. They accomplished this feat in less than 24 hrs. The participants in this network all live in Grays Harbor. As previously mentioned the “counter-protesters” did not. So, an outside force of armed and violent people descended on our town in order to “save” this man from a supposed outside force coming to descend on our town – a wholly manufactured narrative they themselves created. They supposedly came to defend his free speech as well. That means that a small group of people in a small city somewhere can ask their friends on Facebook to join them down at the corner some weekend to express THEIR free speech and demonstrate support for THEIR firmly held beliefs and some group of out of towners looking for a fight might very well come into their town to shut it down. That’s what they did. They came to intimidate US, harass US, and scare US into NOT coming down to enjoy the very same “right” they are supposedly standing to defend. The hypocrisy doesn’t end there. We mentioned previously that SOAP made an appearance. For a previous history of this local hate groups actions and rhetoric regarding their dog whistles of “Cleaning up Aberdeen” check out our previous reporting in them here, here and here. From the poor and homeless to the LGBTQ2IAX+ community they see us as dirt that needs to be scrubbed of the face of the earth. They see us as a virus, not their peers, not their family, not their neighbors. They have completely dehumanized us for many years, and now we see the results. This SOAP presence included city council candidate Kacey Ann Morrison, who has left us all with no more misgivings about where her political alignments are – fascist street gangs to say the least. On top of dodging questions on her socials about Jim Walsh and antisemitism, she has taken her politics to the next logical step.

C: Kacey Ann is saying that because Tiesa sits on City Council here in Aberdeen that she was, and presumably always is, automatically acting in her role as councilwomen and therefore the actions in the video must constitute government interference in business.

S: Well we have news for you Kacey, Wilapa Behavioral Health is a business too.

Are we to believe that you and Debi Ann plan to stop interfering with their business if/when you are seated on the City Council? What a joke! First of all, legally speaking, any council member can simply state their intentions to act as a private citizen and that seems to be enough. But in regards to Kacey Ann – This is a person who has been standing outside of the local needle exchange in town, now operated by a private business, protesting with signs for the entirety of the program. So they think its fine for them to show up to harass and intimidate both clients and staff of the businesses they don’t like, and its OK to hold a protest outside of it EVERY WEEK if they don’t like it. But if anyone else wants to do the same thing they call the militias in. We all know her desire to get onto city council and “Clean Up Aberdeen” is spurred by her anti homeless, anti addict hate work. I doubt anyone sincerely believes that she or any other SOAPists will be leaving the good folks at WBH alone as soon as they take their seats on the council.

C: Ironically, after this super spreader event during the height of the pandemic Don Sucher became sick with COVID and eventually had to close his shop shortly after the protests. despite their attempts to protect this old man, it is possible this event led to his catching COVID. We have not heard or seen from since. The storefront is now owned by Terry Emmert. This shop was one of two recent buildings owned by Emmert to burn down over the last few weeks here in Aberdeen. As mentioned on the part one of this episode, it is house fire season on the Harbor. In Facebook comment threads people have already started blaming the homeless, as per usual. Everything in this town gets blamed on them cause they are an easy target.

S: So in the end these proud boys showed up for a few hours and probably got this guy sick, he ends up closing his shop and now its a burnt out husk owned by Terry? Hilarious turn of events. When you own that many buildings there are bound to be some mishaps. Maybe Terry was trying to get some insurance payouts for a few of his decrepit buildings.

C: Hey if those buildings cant be opened up and used for the community then fuck em. Who cares?

S: Well, yeah a lot of those buildings could be housing people right now, we could open them up and start running community centered programs out of them at a grassroots level. Let the community have them for whatever it needs. Leave those decisions up to those who it affects.

C: Thats exactly the thing that the politicians can’t help us with, these aren’t policies we need them to enact on our behalf. These are ways of reorganizing our lives so that we spend our efforts meeting the needs of our communities, not slaving away so our landlords can profit off of us.

S: They can’t do it, it’s really not their job and even if they  happened to be so inclined they would never be able to do it anyway. That isn’t how things work is the refrain you’ll get from normies when you suggest these sorts of actions, Oh that’s not realistic, that’s not how things work. Which is more of an acknowledgement of the problem than an excuse not for acting. We need big swings, we don’t need incremental progress. We need organizations that can spur the kind of grassroots community building that we need to strengthen and educate ourselves enough to be able to take such bold steps towards our new world.

Conclusion:

S: We can see many cycles within what we’ve talked about today. We can see that every year there is a scare campaign by local businesses in regards to the homeless. Every year there is push back against the emergency cold weather shelter by the same far right actors. Every year a different agency applies to hold the shelter because of the craziness of the last years shelter. Every year there is an increase in deaths around the winter months.

We saw politicians flip flopping on issues and making hasty decisions. What started as a liberal Mayor’s misguided attempt to “solve” a problem has devolved into a years long debacle that has ended up even closer to the same train tracks, and in even worse conditions. This move to evict a long term stable camp has resulted in more people being displaced, more right wing scaremongering, more deaths, and worse living conditions. A grassroots, self managed community was destroyed by the state that day when the bulldozers came, and despite multiple and continued promises to offer the dwindling former residents some remediation or some sort of long term solution to where to live, the City of Aberdeen has made no tangible efforts to do anything that would materially benefit the people on the streets.

C: Why should we tolerate this system that allows for rich developers like Terry Emmert to hoard over 60 properties, mostly derelict and vacant, while our friends and family on the streets suffer in a camp under a bridge and split by train tracks. The current situation was only ever temporary to begin with, as was the place before that. What people need is some stability, a place to call home, a place they know they can stay and build something of a life for themselves and not be subjected to the cruelty of the State. No ethical person would allow humans to starve and die in the cold while all these potentially habitable buildings rot from neglect.

S: This happens because of our legal system protects property rights more than it protects it’s citizens. It prioritizes capitalist interests by not taking these abandoned buildings for community use instead letting them just get bought up by gentrifiers like Terry Emmert who will eventually align with the city to eradicate the current population, especially the poor and unhoused, to make room for the following population of newcomers wanting to live in a modern tourist trap rendition of a quaint logging town with some cool musical lore, lots of craft beers, and plenty of shitty art. The city spends money on watering its rows of pink flowers each summer while mutual aid volunteers make sure camps are stocked with water.

C: This is the system we have but it cant be the system we assimilate into. We have to do more than simply fill gaps being left open by the state and non profit sectors. When they realize we will perform this role then they will count on us fulfilling it in their calculations. Our mutual aid risks being co opted into the very system we should be resisting. We are not here to prop up the system of oppression that gives others authority over our lives and our communities. We have to mount resistance: grassroots direct action to start to organize our communities. If we simply hand out food, supplies, and care we risk becoming charity. We must remain ever aware that our free labor will be exploited by those who we allow to do so.

S: Whether public or private, home and land occupations have been a mainstay in radical political tendencies from the beginning. The ability to use your mere existence, your very presence to make a strong political statement has always interested the most radical among us. Why shouldn’t we continue to learn from and improve upon the tactics of occupation to suit our current needs? The buildings in this town belong to us, they are resources of this community, not commodities to be exploited for the financial gain of a few. We can make our presence known in a multitude of ways, by slapping up posters that draw attention to Terry Emmert, the struggles of the homeless, or other local issues. Learning from previous attempts to open and hold buildings so that we can avoid the mistakes of previous generations. Starting to plan out which buildings would be suitable to occupy and then organizing our communities to be able to both open, hold, and most crucially, maintain a building or land occupation. These are the radical projects that anarchists need to be undertaking.

C: There are also many cunning ways to stay in vacant houses undetected, for a different approach. We will need confidence, and lots of organizing to undertake the type of occupations we need to undertake. Not a mere symbolic victory over the city or police, but a real sustained movement that can maintain and self govern a space long term. We don’t need to rush into breaking into buildings, what we need is to build the community infrastructure, the organized people necessary to run such a space. We need to ready ourselves to take these buildings.

S: There are also many collectives working toward securing land enough to offer tiny homes to low income individuals around the state and the country. Or even just space enough to hold meetings, and hand out food consistently. These sorts of spaces can be used as precursors to the type of long term occupations necessary to bring any material comfort to the afflicted. If you are local we invite you to check out our comrades at the Blackflower Collective as they are working towards precisely this model of tiny home eco village with a supportive social center. We will discuss their plans and think about what sort of role an LLC like Blackflower can play in the struggle for our liberation in the next episode.

Outro:

C: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Molotov Now! We hope you found it informative and inspiring. Our goal with the podcast is to reach out beyond our boundaries and connect the happenings in our small town with the struggles going on in major urban centers. We want to talk to you if your a big city organizer, we think we have a lot you can learn from, and we know you have much to teach us. If you would like to come on the show please email us at sabot_media@riseup.net with the header “Molotov Now!” and we will be in touch about setting up an interview and crafting an episode to feature you.

S: We want to give a shout out to our friends at:

• The John brown gun club who showed up to help provide security for our local drag show in the wake of ongoing national terrorism by the far right.
• C: Queer Satanic, Who after winning in court, are still raising money to pay for their legal fees from the failed lawsuit levied by TST are always appreciative of any donations to their legal defense funds. their website is queersatanic.com
• S: Dont forget to go to bit.ly/lakotalawicwa and sign the petition by the Lakota Peoples Law Project telling Joe Biden and attorneys for the Department of Justice to do everything in their power to protect the Indian Child Welfare Act and defend Secretary Deb Haaland.
• C: We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their continued support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• S: It is the heart of winter and we still are without shelter in Aberdeen, without intervention more and more of our homeless population are becoming casualties of the state, Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is still running a winter fundraiser to buy warm weather gear for the homeless, To donate visit bit.ly/crmandonations.
• C: Kolektiva, the anarchist mastodon server, is growing faster than ever thanks to Elon Musk’s stupidity as many activists close their accounts for bluer skies as can be seen in the fluctuation of followers over on IGD’s socials, join at kolektiva.social (spell kolektiva) and follow us and other online activists on decentralized federated internet.
• S: Thank you to Days N’ Daze and The Window Smashing Job Creators for letting us use their songs on the program today.
• C: Dont forget The Communique is looking for artist and author submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry before March 6th for our Spring Equinox edition.
• S: Thank you to Pixel Passionate for producing our soundtrack, please check out their website at www.radicalpraxisclothing.com and check out their portfolio in our show notes

Remember to check out sabot media’s new website for new episodes, articles, comics, and columns. We have new content all the time. Make sure you follow, like, and subscribe on your favorite corporate data mining platform of choice and go ahead and make the switch to federated social media on the kolektiva mastodon server today @AberdeenLocal1312 for updates on Sabot Media projects such as The Harbor Rat Report, The Saboteurs, Ask Annie, our podcast Molotov Now! and many other upcoming projects.

That’s all for tonight. Please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to cast your votes at those who deserve them.
Solidarity Comrades,
This is Molotov Now! Signing off

Share this post: