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.

Welcome to Molotov Now! This is Sprout, and this is Charyan, we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, and thank you for joining us on this first episode of the podcast.

Today we are going to be talking to you about some local issues we are having with millionaire real estate developer and slumlord Terry Emmert. Terry has made a name for himself on the Harbor by buying up just about every single property for sale in the county for pennies on the dollar. Hailing from a very affluent gated community in the Portland area, Terry has come to Grays Harbor County looking for opportunity – Opportunity Zones that is.

What is an Opportunity Zone?

This Trump era tax policy allows developers like Emmert to essentially buy small towns wholesale and use those properties as tax shelters to defer and even eliminate their capital gains taxes on those purchases. This means that the empty derelict buildings you might see in an old logging town that could be used to house all manner of community projects or cooperative housing would instead get a new coat of paint and then continue to sit empty until they can find renters able to afford them. This puts small towns at risk of gentrification from rich developers moving in to steal these properties from the community and start charging absurdly high rents, pushing current residents out onto the streets or to another more affordable town somewhere else. We will delve deep into Emmert’s story, who he is, where he comes from, and what he seems to want with the Harbor. Spoiler alert: It’s not good! Then we will be connecting the dots between this one local developer and the trend of opportunity zone based fraud, property hoarding, wealth accumulation, and gentrification happening across the country.

These people have a direct impact on our lives as we see thousands forced to move onto the streets because of rising rent, leading to a so-called housing crisis. Still many more are living unhoused on the streets, at friends houses, or in their cars. Terry Emmert and his actions call out for our scrutiny at this time as he grabs up property after property while people die in the streets for lack of shelter. These people have names and addresses and if we don’t take action to stop this systemic abuse of power then they will not stop until every working class person is evicted and pushed out to make room for the sort of hollow and vapid boutique shopping, upscale dining, high end luxury apartments, and the increased policing that goes with these small minded spaces post gentrification.

So we have a full show for you today and cant wait to dive into some of the bullshit going on here in Grays Harbor County. We have a monthly radical news roundup coming up, but first, we here at Molotov Now! have to pay our bills somehow so please check out this message from our sponsors.

NEWS

In Local News:

• According to the article by The Harbor Rat Report entitled “Despite previous court ruling, City of Aberdeen refuses to find adequate space for homeless encampment”. Three years after the city evicted people from their long time home on the banks of the Chehalis River in 2019, and forced them into a small parking lot behind city hall, promising to find them a permanent spot in 30 days, the city is still at a standstill in deciding on which of its MANY land holdings could be repurposed to a permanent encampment for the unhoused residents of the city. The agreement between the residents of the former river camp and the city stemmed from a court settlement in which the city was told to find a suitable permanent spot.
• Our local Chehalis River chapter of Food Not Bombs is looking for volunteer cooks and mobile food delivery drivers. If you can lend any assistance please reach out to them on Facebook or at crmutualaidnet@riseup.net. They are also continuing to hold their weekly community meal behind the Aberdeen library on Sundays at four PM.
  This is a free event, open to all and anyone who wants to come is more than welcome to join. You can show up with a dish or donations or simply a hungry belly.
• The date is November 21 and at the time of recording there is still No Emergency Cold Weather Shelter for the hundreds of people on the streets of Aberdeen facing what looks like a brutal winter with no place to get away from the elements and no way to safely heat themselves. Although the grant funds for the shelter come through the county the Aberdeen city council recently voted to not have one in the city limits of Aberdeen, making the prospect of anything materializing even slimmer. The reason the city council cited was concerns raised about the impact on the local business community. At least 13 people have died already this year on the streets on Aberdeen all of which could have been prevented with adequate housing. Now the city is refusing to allow even a temporary emergency shelter within it’s boundaries. The city continues it’s illegal practice of stealing and destroying the personal property of people camping on the sidewalks in downtown Aberdeen. These sidewalks are designated as OK to camp on by the city’s own map. Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is running a winter fundraiser to buy warm weather gear for our comrades facing the repercussions of the city’s malice, check them out on social media for more information.
• All this as a new police chief and a new crop of officers at the Aberdeen police department has increased their harassment of local organizers and volunteers and recently cited a Food Not Bombs volunteer for “impeding traffic” – a common occurrence for cars dropping donations or distributing food and supplies to people living at the River St camp. We spoke to the organizer who received the 140$ ticket and they had this to say about the ordeal,

I was delivering meals to tents. The officer watched me leave the car and did not do anything or say anything until I started the car then he yelled at me and turned on his lights. I thought he gave me the thumbs up when I left the car. This is clear targeting because later the same night I went to camp to pickup a few people to get them warm and another officer pulled me over for no tail lights when in fact I have tail lights. He gave me a verbal warning. Yesterday I took someone to pick up his blankets and I was followed by APD. This is their show of force either because I am known to help this population, my other half, or a combination of the two. The city had been trying to force this population out, maybe this is the way to force them out. I also had turned my car off to conserve fuel. And had a difficult time finding my keys. [the incident] took about 2 to 3 minutes.

Our home collective Sabot media launched its new website and announced many new and upcoming projects:

• The Harbor Rat Report is a grassroots journalism project updating the Grays Harbor community on stories around radical rural resistance, political direct actions, community organizing efforts, housing advocacy projects, and much more. We see a distinct lack of credible investigative reporting on topics of vital importance to our community. We will investigate and write the stories that aren’t being told in this capitalist media landscape.
• We are the inky ones. Flashing eyes in the dead of night. Our claws are sharp, and our wit is sharper. Start yourself a Black Cat Distro today and join us in this revelry by printing this stuff yourself. You could give it to a friend, leave it at a bus stop, wheat paste it behind a dumpster, fill your personal library, sell it to raise money, wad it in the neck of a glass bottle and throw it to sea, use it as tinder for a fire somewhere fun, tie it to a rock and throw it through a police station window, become ungovernable. You can join us, we print posters, stickers, & zines. When sabot media makes content we sneak in the night to seize it and make it our own. We chop it up, rearrange it to our liking, and then hit Control P. We toss this garbage all over town in the hopes someone will read it and get inspired. whoops, it looks like we are out of time. Solidarity comrades. Sabot out!
• Aberdeen Local 1312 is our connection to the capitalist forms of social media on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, & TikTok as well as decentralized forms of federated social media such as Mastodon. Through these platforms we intend to share everything from long form videos to short digestible nuggets of content, right down to the dirty core of an idea – the meme. We’re fighting the propaganda war on an unfair battlefield, but it still has to be fought. If we wish to win the battle for a free internet, we must change the battlefield. We need to work together to shift our movement as a whole onto the federated internet. So long as our personal connections remain on their servers our Union and our movement, can and will be deleted. This is the goal of Aberdeen Local 1312 & The Agit-Prop Memer’s Union. Everyday our data and information is stolen and sold off for profit, leading to some of the most violating and deceptive practices by social media companies and advertisers. Just as we must decentralize power and the means of production, so to must we decentralize the internet. Why should social media companies profit from our labor!? Its time seize the memes of production!
• The Saboteurs takes us on the journey of a wild cat named sabot and his companions, both human and animal. We see how a fictional character might partake in praxis on the streets of their city. The critters of the forest aid sabot in his wanton destruction of the old world. They watch gleefully over the ashes as something new begins to take root. Join the pack of militant creatures as they make their way into this bright tomorrow.
• Ask Annie is a column where an organizer from the Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network answers your questions on local current events, how to’s, organizing tips and tricks, and much more. Annie spends her days out helping people on the streets and often gets asked the same questions over and over, often about resources or how people can get engaged in their community. We figured our audience would benefit from being able to have these questions asked and answered in one convenient spot. So send your emails our way and we will make sure she sees them.
• The Communique is a seasonal newsletter that combines stories of regional rural organizing efforts & political resistance, along with local history, art, and poetry to update our comrades in the wider culture of resistance. We feel a lack of representation in what has become a one way relationship between rural and urban radicals. By connecting our stories to the struggle for liberation across the globe, we aim to foster a culture of learning and bridge the divide between the two in order to strengthen the bonds of solidarity between all our communities. We are putting together our winter solstice edition of the newsletter and requesting artist and author submissions to sabot_media@riseup.net with the heading “newsletter”.

In other news:

• Club Q Shooting – Sprout here in post, this story happened after we finished recording but it was important enough that we felt like we had to address it. Late on the night of November 19, just before the start of Trans Day of Remembrance, a mass shooting occurred at Club Q, an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States. Five people were killed, and 25 others were injured, 19 of them by gunfire. The accused, 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, was thankfully stopped – not by police – but by people inside the club who disarmed and then beat the shooter. This comes in the midst of increasing attacks against the LGBTQ+ community, both from the Republican party and from far-Right actors. While more information is coming out all the time, we do know that the shooter’s grandfather is a MAGA Republican in California and his own father when interviewed espoused anti-gay views. People who knew the shooter have also reported that he often used anti-gay slurs and a video has also emerged of the shooter and his mother shouting racist slurs at an airport. The wider Right has responded by attacking those who stopped the shooter for attending an LGBTQ+ event in the first place while doubling down on attacks on the LGBTQ+ community. Across the US, people held vigils and rallies in solidarity, denouncing the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ attacks and threats by groups like the Proud Boys against Pride and beyond.Anarchists and militant queers and trans people also dropped banners, held vigils, and in Colorado Springs, vandalized the front entrance to the anti-LGBTQ+ group focus on the family, writing, “Their Blood Is On Your Hands, Five Lives Lost.” Focus on the Family is most well known for raising millions to attack same-sex marriage and promote the horrific practice of “conversion therapy.” A statement from the anonymous group who take credit for the vandalism stated:
  

  It is important to us that you understand why Focus on the Family must be held accountable for the ramifications of their hateful theology. You have likely seen the onslaught of anti-trans legislation, of which Focus on the Family is a huge proponent, both in funding and propaganda. With an alarmingly expansive network, they work closely with powerful entities, such as the DeVos family, to promote and fund this anti-trans legislation. Focus on the Family’s goal is to eradicate queerness. Tactics they use to achieve this include indoctrination, media saturation, falsified research, and conversion therapy. We encourage you to continue to investigate the many examples of their culpability, which can be found front and center on their own website.

  The first call for help from Club Q came just a few minutes before midnight at 11:56 pm. on Saturday night, according to CSPD. Richard Fierro, a veteran and former Army officer, who was at the club to see a show with his family, he recalls seeing the shooter’s muzzle flash, and initially diving for cover with his friend. Fierro and another club attendee, Thomas James, took down the shooter, took away his gun, and beat him with his own pistol until police arrived. Fierro said the next day that he “simply wanted to save the family that I found.” “If I had my way, I would shield everyone I could from the nonsensical acts of hate in the world, but I am only one person,” James said in a statement released Sunday by Centura Health. “Thankfully, we are a family and family looks after one another.”
  Some right-wing media figures and influencers have doubled down on the use of inflammatory rhetoric against the LGBTQ community. The rhetoric mirrors what LGBTQ advocates have warned about for months, most notably false claims that children are being sexualized or “groomed” by LGBTQ people and events. They have also tried to blur the reality of whether or not the Club was actually a gay bar, and call into question the hate crime element of the charges since the lawyers for the gunman have reportedly told the court that they wish to be referred to by the pronouns They/Them. The shooter reportedly heard about the Club event he shot up from the account Libs of TikTok. Libs of TikTok — the name of a social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms run by a woman named Chaya Raichik — has catapulted from a relative unknown to a right-wing media force. Raichik mostly reposts videos, photos, and screenshots designed to stir the ire of her followers, touching upon everything from COVID to conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking rings. Yet the vast majority of her output now concerns the LGBTQ+ community, calling out teachers for sharing their pronouns with students and hospitals for offering gender-affirming care to adolescents. Regardless of the motive or the identity of the shooter this was an attack on the safety and very existence of all LGBTQ people. The reactionary liberal response has predictably been calling for less guns when as radicals we know that the real answer is LGBTQ people being able to arm and train themselves as we cannot expect the state to protect us. The refrain from the aftermath of the shooting has been, “We Protect Us”. This is not a mere slogan.

• In Tacoma, Washington, local high school students shut down a far-Right, anti-trans event organized by TERFs. A tweet written by IGD states: “Looks like high school kids in working-class town of #Tacoma shut down anti-trans rally. “Deep Green Resistance” leader Lierre Keith was in attendance. A month ago Keith appeared on show alongside Keith Preston, a white nationalist who speaks at conferences with Richard Spencer.”
  Terfs off our Turf held a counter protest Nov 13th to oppose the TERF gathering planned for the same day on the capitol steps in Olympia WA.
• In Portland, Oregon despite threats online by far-Right trolls, antifascists held a successful forum and speaking event at a local bookstore. Only one person arrived to disrupt the event though there may have been others who were outside. The situation was handled swiftly, safely, and everything went as planned.
• In Eugene, Oregon hundreds turned out to oppose Proud Boys and neo-Nazis, and defend a community drag event at a local pub. Antifascists helped protect the space from attempts by the far-Right to attack the crowd and eventually sent the fascists running to the cars. For more information on these stories check out the podcast This Is America from It’s Going Down.
• The Center for Especifismo Studies is putting together a militant kindergarten in January. Join them online for a 15-week seminar on anarchist theory, strategy, and militancy using the text, Social Anarchism and Organization by The Anarchist Federation of Rio de Janeiro. Audiobook and study notes are available. If interested please email especifismostudies@gmail.com
• Free them All requests comrades to assist in planning a campaign to address Mental health wait times in WA state prisons:
  • Joshua Marsh spent eight months this year in the Grays Harbor County Jail before receiving court-ordered restoration treatment at Western State Hospital. Hundreds of defendants across Washington state remain in a legal limbo, jailed until a psychiatric bed opens up, as wait times balloon in violation of a federal court settlement. in January of this year, police officers had been dispatched to a local grocery store twice within an hour because of Joshua Marsh. Officers issued him a trespass notice and noted Marsh’s conversation was “nonsensical.” Police were called again after Marsh was found climbing onto a semi truck parked outside. By that evening, Marsh was booked into Grays Harbor County Jail, accused of assaulting officers. He would spend eight months there, waiting to be transferred to a state psychiatric hospital for mental health services. Marsh, who still had yet to face trial as of November 6th, is one of hundreds of defendants across Washington state who remain in a legal limbo, jailed while waiting for a psychiatric bed as state hospital wait times balloon in violation of a federal court settlement. Four years after that settlement, referred to as the Trueblood case, the Washington Department of Social and Health Services — the state agency in charge of getting people into mental health services — is still struggling to meet required time frames. In fact, wait times are getting worse, costing hundreds of people in jails, and their loved ones, weeks or months of their lives. The settlement includes fines, so the failure also has cost Washington taxpayers an estimated $98 million since 2018. The group Free Them All WA is is launching a campaign to coordinate, discuss, and strategize in response to this medical neglect in Washington state prisons. See our show notes for the flier on the event, and for more information reach out to them at freethemallwa@gmail.com. The initial meeting on Nov 19th will be followed by more detailed campaign coordination meetings, RSVP with the link bit.ly/ftastopdochttps://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/wait-times-for-mental-health-services-in-wa-jails-worsen-as-fines-spiral/

• • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​From @QueerSatanic: The atheistic religious corporation “The Satanic Temple” made news again this month after announcing a “Family Movie Night” at a high school in Bedford County​​​​​​​, Virginia. The proposed showing of “Fern Gulley” in February 2023 is part of the Temple’s After School Satan or “ASS” program and, predictably during this new Satanic Panic, the stunt got local media attention and a new cycle of right wing outraged, followed by a liberal backlash pointing out that TST doesn’t worship or believe in a supernatural devil, and has tenets that claim the Temple stands for nice things. However, in reality, TST remains a collection of for-profit and nonprofit corporations owned by just two men: Doug Misicko a.k.a. Lucien Greaves and Cevin [pronounced “Kevin”] Soling a.k.a. Malcolm Jarry. For two and a half years, they have continued to pursue a SLAPP suit against Queer Satanic, four former members. TST also sued Newsweek for writing an article about them suing Queer Satanic, doxed and harassed other former members who have been critics, and even forced a TikToker to record a “retraction video” and apologize on threats they would subject her to expensive litigation as well.
    We will play that recording from that tiktok now, we would advise listeners of a content warning for Distress, Crying, & Mentions of Sexual Assault, if you would like to skip this the audio clip is 1 minute and 43 seconds long we will be playing that clip in 5…4…3…2…1…TST still has not yet publicly stated they don’t plan to still sue her even after she recorded a video reading their prepared statement for her. But ha-ha, The Satanic Temple sure triggers the conservative Christians, right?​​​​​​​ Anyway, our friends at Queer Satanic have spent about $100,000 now for their legal defense, so support them if you can. Link in the show notes.
  • https://campsite.bio/queersatanic
    https://queersatanic.com/today-is-a-good-day-for-the-satanic-temple-to-release-its-finances/

• The American Indian Policy Institute released a POLICY ALERT saying: Indian Country Fights To Protect ICWA: Haaland v. Brackeen to be heard by SCOTUS. On November 9, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard the alarming case, Haaland v. Brackeen. The questions of the case are (1) whether the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) interferes with a State’s power over adoptions and foster care and (2) whether the ICWA unfairly limits adoptions by parents who are not members of the Native child’s tribe. The case is alarming because of its potential to upend the foundations of culture and Indian Law. A decision in the Brackeen v. Haaland case is expected by the end of June 2023.
  • From The Sahan Journal, a non-profit journalism outlet in Minnesota:In an hours-long hearing Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court pressed attorneys about whether a 44-year-old law to shield Indigenous children and families from unjust separations goes beyond the power of Congress.The Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, was passed by Congress and became law at a time when as many as one-third of all Indigenous children were taken from their homes. The vast majority were sent to live with white families or in residential boarding schools.The ICWA grants tribal children the right to foster care placements that favor members of their communities and kin.Plaintiffs in the Brackeen v. Haaland case—three, white adoptive couples and the state of Texas—challenge the constitutionality of the ICWA on multiple grounds. The plaintiffs include Danielle and Jason Clifford of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who tried unsuccessfully to adopt a Native girl after fostering her for nearly two years.
  • Enacted in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act is a Federal law that attempts to protect the well-being and best interests of Native children and families. The law was enacted in response to the staggering rate that Native children were removed from their families and Tribes by state welfare agencies and private adoption groups in the 1960’s. The ICWA prioritizes keeping Native children connected to their community and culture by establishing rules that ensure Native children who are removed from their families are placed with extended family members or Native foster homes. It reaffirms the political status and inherent sovereignty of Tribal nations by recognizing that Tribes have a right to participate in child welfare matters involving their citizens. Removing this protection would likely see an increase in the rates of native children being taken from their families once again. If eliminated, this will cause further events like the 60’s scoop and Indigenous mother’s will be further pressured into giving up their children to adoption agencies. Native children and U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland are under legal attack in Brackeen v. Haaland. The powerful people behind the lawsuit include both Big Oil and the State of Texas. If their attempt to have a conservative-majority Supreme Court overturn the Indian Child Welfare Act is successful, the door will be open to the total elimination of tribal sovereignty. Native Children have the highest rates of being removed from their homes, and placed into Foster Care or given to family members within the Tribe. ICWA was enacted to prevent children, from being given to non-Indigenous families. Who’ll abuse and Manipulate them into feeling shame for their heritage as they have done in the past. The 60’s scoop led to Native children being adopted by Foreigners, in Europe and beyond. That resulted in disconnect and alienation for countless children who were forcibly separated from their families, their lands, and their heritage. Mother’s are often pressured by the State, to give up her kids. Whether that’s at the time of birth, or later down the line. Take action now to stop this horrific attack on Native rights! Please 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. They desire strong federal protection of Native families and tribal sovereignty. This is a small and simple thing you can do to help but more importantly start talking to Indigenous Organizers to learn how we can make steps to take actions against the ongoing White Supremacist Agenda that has devastated their population as it has so many others
• Elon Musk’s recent acquisition of Twitter and the subsequent blow back, mass firings, and blue check mark fiasco has sent the stock price of the blue bird social media giant tumbling.
  The goals Musk set out for since purchasing the company have also changed. He had initially set out to purchase Twitter with 2 clear goals
  1st, to “Protect Free Speech” and 2nd to “Rid the site of Bot Accounts” Now he claims to turn twitter into an “Everything App”. What he means by this is to turn twitter into not only a social networking site but also a messaging app, payments and cash transfer app, digital market place app, and much more. Essentially trying to copy the homework of WeChat a app based in China used by their population for well… everything. However despite all the other issues surrounding his acquisition of twitter, This idea of turning twitter into an everything app just doesn’t hold water. As compared to Facebook’s roughly 3 Billion users or even tik toks 1 billion users only 436 million use twitter.Musk immediately undertook many restructuring steps such as making Twitter private, dissolving the platform’s board, and enhanced his unilateral power as CEO. Musk began with laying off top executives, before notifications were emailed to around half of the Twitter global workforce that they were being made redundant or that their jobs were at risk. A company wide email read in part, “Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email.” A class action lawsuit filed in the US on November 3 claims Twitter locked employees out of accounts, with at least one of the five plaintiffs being “terminated without notice or severance pay”, according to news reports.Twitter has paused its recently announced $8 blue check mark subscription service on Friday as fake accounts exploded. The verified blue check mark was previously only for accounts of politicians, famous personalities, journalists and other public figures that had been verified to be real by Twitter. But the new subscription model, open to anyone able to pay 8$, was rolled out a week after his purchase supposedly to help Twitter grow revenue as the company fights to retain advertisers. “The new service swiftly fell victim to impostors – with users parodying everyone from Pope Francis to George W Bush. The pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Co was forced to apologize and lost billions in market cap after an impostor account tweeted that insulin was free and was promptly called out by Bernie sanders. Nintendo, Lockheed Martin, Musk’s own Tesla and SpaceX were also impersonated as well as the accounts of various professional sports figures. For advertisers, who have put their business in Twitter on hold, the fake accounts could be the last straw as Musk’s rocky run atop the platform – laying off half the workforce and triggering high-profile departures – raises questions about its survivability” the Guardian reports. Many people have begun to question if Twitter might be close to declaring bankruptcy and what that would mean for the social media landscape. We here at Moltov Now! have just the solution for you! We suggest listeners go check out the federated social media platforms like Mastodon to escape the corporate data mining and liberate our internet discussions. Along with these losses Twitter has faced a loss of users as people flock to the fediverse – or the federated social media universe including apps like PeerTube, Pixelfed, and Mastodon. Independent anarchist server Kolektiva has seen an increase in users mirroring the lost followers It’s Going Down saw on Twitter, showing that people went from one app to the other en masse. They also were able to increase the character limit to an impressive 10k to entice people tired of being needlessly limited to 280 characters. Rant away!
• We are getting the cue that its time for a commercial break, when we return we will be reading from a recent article from The Harbor Rat Report and discussing just who this Terry Emmert fellow is that we keep hearing about, stay tuned and- Hey! don’t touch that! Get that god damn cat out of here!
• Hello Grays Harbor and outside listeners! Let us introduce ourselves. We are The Blackflower Collective, and were a new business on the Harbor. We are a worker-owned and operated enterprise dedicated to the creation of a world in which individuals have the autonomy, knowledge and resources to create fulfilling lives and communities free of oppression. Our mission is to learn together the ways in which to healthily relate to each other and our environment. We seek to sustain and nourish our collective through fulfilling work, personal empowerment and equitable compensation while providing a hub for political thought and culture in Grays Harbor County. For a detailed list of our planned projects and goals check out our website at blackflowercollective.noblogs.org

Who is Terry Emmert?

OK so who is Terry Emmert? To answer this we are going to be examining the recent report filed by The Harbor Rat.

Terry W. Emmert is a capitalist from Clackamas, Oregon, a suburb of Portland. He is the founder and owner of Emmert International, an engineering and transport service company, the International Basketball League‘ s Portland Chinooks and the Portland Thunder professional Arena Football League team, and has been hoarding properties in various communities such as Portland, Grays Harbor, and patches of Texas all of which are inside what is known as an “Opportunity Zones”.

An Opportunity Zone is a designation and investment program created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, and signed into law by President Donald Trump, allowing for certain investments in lower income areas to have tax advantages. To qualify, the Opportunity Fund must invest more than 90% of its assets in a Qualified Opportunity Zone Property located in an Opportunity Zone. The property must be significantly improved, which means it must be an original use, or the basis of the property must be double the basis of the non-land assets. Capital gain taxes are deferred for investments reinvested into investments in these zones and, if the investment is held for ten years all capital gains on the new investment are waived.

So long as Terry Emmert maintains the illusion that he is investing into our city and “fixing” these properties up, he is allowed to use them as tax shelters to write off millions of dollars in taxes, taxes that would be going into your schools, your roads and infrastructure, your hospitals, your social welfare services like food stamps, Medicaid, treatment facilities, and yes even your police. All of which, well most, are things that are certainly needed to help lift our people out of poverty. This callous hoarding of properties also hurts the local economy as no businesses can afford his exorbitant rent prices, and other local landlords are able to raise their rents nearly or just as high due to the artificial scarcity being created by Emmert’s capitalist mindset of infinite monetary growth. These actions further entrench our community in poverty and will have ripple effects on crime and gentrification for years to come.

Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It is a common and controversial topic in urban politics and planning. Gentrification often increases the economic value of a neighborhood, but the resulting demographic displacement may itself become a major social issue.

---

When we first wrote about Terry Emmert he owned 45 properties around Grays Harbor County. His assets have grown in the time between June and today to 62 properties. Most are commercial properties in downtown Aberdeen, but he owns many throughout the County. He owns the majority of empty buildings around town that could be housing our homeless community instead of sitting as tax shelters for this shady character. But who really IS Terry Emmert? Most of what we have found written on him have been tepidly critical of his lavish and flamboyant lifestyle and brash behavior, but very little has been written about his business practices, his court record, or his personal acquaintances. We spent months assembling this article outlining a small man with a big wallet. Famous for moving heavy objects, will Terry Emmert be able to move the public’s perception of him from shabby jerk, to small town hero? Let us explore the man who, like it or not, now owns most of our town.

Did you want to buy some property in so called Grays Harbor County? Too late!! Terry bought it all. And at half price too. And he’s far from done by the looks of it. His Realtor, David Quigg & Co, have found him deal after deal and negotiated incredible bulk buys for this high paying client. The average house sells for 17% more than list price these days, according to Redfin’s 2021 Housing Market Update. That’s list price, not assessed value, which is on average far less than the market price. Terry Emmert on the other hand has been able to secure the vast majority of his properties at about 30-40% BELOW assessed value. When having more money to your name allows you to spend less on property that will in turn allow you to spend less in taxes while poor people struggle to live on our streets another winter, its plain to see who public policy is written for. In The Harbor Rat Report you can see a list of the multitude of properties he owns as of the date of publication. This list is an ever growing shrine to his cancerous greed.

---

If Emmert’s quest to landlord over our entire community is not impeded and reversed all the associated public health issues, that are the result of newly homeless populations displaced by Emmert’s obscenely high rent rates, will continue to worsen. Community leaders will seek to correct the woes caused by Capitalist investors such as Terry Emmert, but they will fail to do so as they attempt to solve the problem by bringing in more of the very thing that caused it, venture capitalists.

As venture capitalists such as Emmert continue to hoard property in our city in this manner then the inevitable displacement of the very families that call this place home will happen two fold:

1. The poor will be forced out of the area or onto the streets as rent skyrockets and the lack of jobs paying a livable wage decrease from very rare to non existent.
2. Then even the home/business owners are forced out of town or onto the streets as they are out competed by venture capitalists with more money to bully the community and city hall into accelerating this process of gentrification.

As the city looks to bring in more outside investments into the community by venture capitalists under the guise of revitalizing the city, or gentrification, displacement of what few local businesses we have left will follow. In order to start having business that can meet the high demands of these empty properties, they are either evicted for new businesses or out competed by multi billion dollar companies. As the last of what’s left our original community is pushed to the streets, and the housing crisis reaches it’s peak the venture capitalists that have come to own the town in deeds and on city council will begin to enact their own solutions to the homeless epidemic. They will resort to even harsher punishments mimicking those of our current gentrifies in city hall who collude with Terry Emmert now. For those who dare to be poor and ruin the image of the tourist trap they are trying to make out of our community as they turn it into their corporate empire will surely suffer.

---

Terry’s investments in our county are not without their own inherent risks. There’s so many ways these things can go badly for these speculative investors. Not being a member of the community, and making such public moves as Terry has done, his public image matters a great deal to the residents here. What if he cant find tenants? What if no one will rent from such a slimy capitalist? What if property values start going down? Local crime, vandalism, property damage…there’s a lot to consider before making an investment of so much money. There are always inherent risks to investing and buying up a whole town is bound to pose its own set of challenges. Terry has to improve the properties and show a new use of them, and yet almost everything he owns is sitting as vacant as ever, as derelict as ever. His actions has had zero positive impact in this community. In fact the lack of available spaces for rent, lease, or sale has become a real issue for those wanting to have businesses located in downtown Aberdeen.

This man Terry, who owns eight ranches and a collection of vintage basketball courts, has been snuggling up to the local power structures for some time. Crafting lucrative below market real estate deals through local agents, gaining the local connections to bypass all the pesky bureaucratic hoop jumping, you or I would face. He’s already renting out the decrepit Becker building without even a working fire suppression system. With approval from the local far right and liberal politicians alike it seems like anyone who wants to do anything in our town will now have yet another rich and powerful person to go through.

To be clear, this man has NO INTEREST in building our community, he doesn’t belong to this community… An outside investor – with quite a backstory – now owns an alarming amount of real estate in our town. There seems to be no pattern to his purchases beyond simply owning as much as he can. As mentioned he hasn’t had any positive impact on our town, and conversely has been downright harmful. These buildings have sat empty and unused for long enough, it’s time the people of Aberdeen stand up and take back these valuable resources for the community.

We FULLY oppose Terry Emmert’s takeover of our town for either speculative investing or for gentrifying development. We need housing and community programs, NOT some uber rich playboy from Oregon buying everything in sight so he can flip it for a massive profit once the planned levee project goes through.

---

Terry Emmert is well known bordering on infamous in his hometown of Portland. He owns a racquetball court in Eastmoreland, an affluent neighborhood in inner southeast Portland, that was the subject of a lawsuit against the city brought in 2015, by neighbors of his tennis club, who complained that he was illegally host basketball tournaments bring in unwanted amounts of traffic to the area.  From the Willamette Weekly:

In March, a city hearings officer agreed, ruling that Emmert didn’t have the right under city code to use a neighborhood tennis club to host sports tournaments. But nothing changed. The controversial events  have continued. Neighbors say city officials are afraid to crack down on Emmert, a Clackamas County heavy-hauling magnate notorious for battling city and county bureaucrats in court.

He has been accused of emptying the pool from his club into the nearby river. He has sued many people including Clackamas County for $40 million dollars in 2013 for allegedly denying him his “legal rights to sell and/or develop” his properties. This was over a verbal arrangement he had with the County Commissioners in regards to a highway expansion project to alleviate Portland traffic. According to The Oregonian the county spokesperson said, “The county has provided many benefits and reasonable accommodations to help grow and expand his businesses. Many of the commissioners meet regularly with Mr. Emmert to discuss issues of concern and to keep open lines of communication. Commissioners are disappointed in this lawsuit. Clackamas County intends to zealously defend these claims.” So despite all his privileges previously granted to him by the county he sued them for $40 million dollars.

Besides inducing traffic woes he also has inhibited the free movement of Portlanders by fencing off access points to popular public areas. In 2020 BikePortland.org wrote that, “A property owner’s effort to curb crime has resulted in the loss of an access point to the Marine Drive bike path.” Remarking that, “This isn’t the first time one of Emmert’s properties has intersected with the issues of public access and crime on a popular bike path. In 2012, as owner of the Eastmoreland Racquet Club, Emmert caused an uproar when he closed a popular access point to the Springwater Corridor

The most comprehensive report this far has been by the Willamette Weekly who wrote in 2014 about Terry Emmert’s personal life, sending a reporter to interview him. What turned out to be a slyly critical article on this dirt bag mentions these public controversies and also how Terry is not a stranger to the courts system in his personal life either. He has been sued by multiple people in his employ and business partners too. From the Weekly article Touchdown Terry,”

His court record is littered with lawsuits, fines and penalties.

The state of Oregon has fined him for allowing his water buffalo to defecate in a creek that feeds into a salmon and steelhead habitat. Emmert paid the fine, but maintains the fecal pollution was left by 3,000 Canada geese.

In 2007, his business partners in a Washington County development deal sued him for letting the bank foreclose on their land, then buying it out from under them. That case is still in court; Emmert says it has no merit.

Two years earlier, Emmert settled a lawsuit alleging he and his partners bought a house that had been used as a meth lab, didn’t clean it up, then rented it to a single mother and two children. Emmert says it wasn’t a meth lab, and the renters were suing to get his insurance money.

One of his in-house attorneys sued him for sexual discrimination—he counter sued, and the case is on appeal. Another employee gave a sworn statement that Emmert once fired a secretary because her younger replacement “will really give us something to look at.” (He denies any gender discrimination.)

Another Emmert employee, Michele Matesi, told Clackamas County Sheriff’s detectives in 2001 that Emmert pointed a silver revolver at her face and threatened to kill her.

Ken C. Bauman, a former assistant United States district attorney who has known Emmert for more than 50 years now serves as his attorney. He owns a herd of more than 400 water buffalo on ranches outside Oregon City, as well as a slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant in Sandy.

“The only reason I bought that slaughterhouse,” Emmert has been known to say, “is that it has a 2,000-pound incinerator. And you can fit 10 200-pound attorneys at a time.”

---

So this is the man who brings his greedy LLCs to our town to buy everything he can. Some people will say, “But he bought the properties and that’s his right” but is it? Is it right to use your wealth to influence the housing market so you can get sub-market real estate deals while the rest of us see values rise to unaffordable levels? Is it right to joke about shooting homeless people for fun, and casual blame the homeless for the lack of renters in his buildings when he is now directly responsible for creating those conditions of poverty? We think not. We hope to help cultivate a strong movement of diverse tactics against all millionaire investors like Terry Emmert and his acquisition of our town. We will do whatever we can to resist his plans for us, and as always, the local fascists cozying up to him. In this vein you can expect much more reporting from us on his activities both in our community and in his own life.

Let’s consider, what tactics would best illuminate the threat posed by this type of gentrification? What best helps to mitigate it? As always let’s keep our tactics diverse and creative. Without class solidarity we will continue to fight among ourselves for scraps while the rich buy up everything possible at pennies on the dollar, pay workers starvation wages, then turn around and charge astronomically high rents. There is no housing crisis, there is manufactured scarcity. There is only a capitalism crisis, and grassroots resistance is the only way to stop this incursion of vapid, useless wealth into our community.

The Harbor Rat Report is always accepting anonymous tips and leads for this story or others, just download Signal messenger and use bit.ly/sabottipline to get in touch with us securely. You can also email us with any encrypted email service at sabot_media@riseup.net. Thank You.

---

OK, it looks like we are going to need to go away for a quick break, when we return we will be discussing in more detail about who this Terry Emmert fellow is, how venture capitalists like him plague rural and urban communities across the country, and tactics you can use to fight back against capitalist vampires in your own community. Until we return In the meantime for your enjoyment we present to you from Sabot Medias Broken Records Collection recorded and produced by the “Window Smashing Job Creators” their song, “Paid Protester’s Blues” of the album, “Full Unemployment”  Hit It!

Segment two:

Welcome back to Molotov Now! its time for us to analyze the article we’ve just examined, talk about how Terry Emmert connects to the national housing crisis and talk tactics:

There are three tracts designated as Opportunity zones here in the county. Census tract 2, out of the coast from Ocean shores up to Moclips. Census tract 15 right next to that one which covers most of Hoquiam. The last is census tract 10 which is located in downtown Aberdeen. According to the online OZ database, there are currently 16 opportunity funds with investment goals in the state of Washington. There are 8,764 Opportunity Zones in the United States.

So opportunity zones are a national phenomenon right now. Even Terry Emmert hasn’t been limited to just Grays Harbor County. He has bought similar properties in Texas and his home state of Oregon.

From Investopedia, “President Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law on Dec. 22, 2017, bringing sweeping changes to the tax code. How people felt in principle about the overhauls of more than $1.5 trillion depended to some extent on their opinion of Trump’s presidency.” The law cut corporate tax rates permanently and individual tax rates temporarily. It permanently removed the individual mandate—a key provision of the Affordable Care Act—which was likely to raise insurance premiums and significantly reduce the number of people with coverage. The highest earners were expected to benefit most from the law, while the lowest earners were believed to pay more in taxes once most individual tax provisions expire after 2025.

These were not the results Republican backers of the tax overhaul promised.

Speaking at a rally in 2018 in Indiana shortly after the release of a preliminary tax reform framework in September, President Trump repeatedly stressed that the “largest tax cut in our country’s history” will “protect low-income and middle-income households, not the wealthy and well-connected.” In its finalized form, however, the TCJA cut the corporate tax rate, benefiting shareholders—who tend to be higher earners. It only cuts individuals’ taxes for a limited period of time. It scales back the AMT and estate tax, as well as reduces the taxes levied on pass-through income (70% of which goes to the highest-earning 1%). It does not close the carried interest loophole, which benefits professional investors. It scraps the individual mandate, likely driving up premiums and making health insurance unaffordable for millions. Forbes reported in 2019 that the independent, non-partisan Congressional Research Service released a report showing that the 2017 tax cuts for the richest Americans and corporations did not work. This confirms what anybody who has been looking at the data already knew. Investment did not boom and workers will not see the promised bump in pay . Instead, the federal government incurred massive deficits while wealth inequality increased to its highest level in three decades

A lot of the reporting on the Act leaves out this important OZ section. Just as quietly as it was rolled out it is now being used to buy up small towns all over the country.

Yeah, and you know, this plays into a larger trend of the wealthy avoiding taxes. Now as anarchists we don’t believe that the state should exist. We think we could build a society that doesn’t have poverty, hunger, or homelessness. But under capitalism people NEED social services and those services are directly impacted by those with the most contributing the least. This is a massive tax break that only gets bigger the more you spend.

Robert Longley at Thought Co pointed out that Demographics and the housing market factors alone are rarely enough to trigger and maintain widespread gentrification. Local government policies that offer incentives to affluent people to buy and improve older homes in lower-income neighborhoods are equally important. For example, policies that offer tax breaks for historic preservation, or environmental improvements encourage gentrification. Similarly, federal programs intended to reduce mortgage loan rates in traditionally “under-served areas” make buying homes in gentrifying neighborhoods more attractive. Finally, federal public housing rehabilitation programs that encourage the replacement of public housing projects with less dense, more income-diverse single-family housing have encouraged gentrification in the neighborhoods once blighted by deteriorating public housing.

Gentrification happens when property developers see enough value in a location to start buying up large amounts of property in order to eventually “develop” them into luxury dwellings and high priced shopping. Things that the current residents cant afford. this also drives rents up as more affluent people move to the area because of “buzz” or whatever marketing the developers are using. These newcomers can afford the higher rent and soon enough everyone in town knows they can charge more money by renting their place as an Air BNB or renting it to these new wealthy residents. But what happens to the people who cant afford to stay and also cant afford to move? We see these same trends all across the country right now and they are in no small part because of these opportunity zones.

While many aspects of gentrification might seem positive, the process has caused racial and economic conflict in many American cities. The results of gentrification often disproportionately benefit the incoming home buyers, leaving the original residents economically and culturally deprecated.

These trends will typically provoke violent reactionaries to either crackdown through the state apparatus or take matters into their own hands and commit acts of vigilante violence on people they perceive to be homeless. Some of this should be sounding familiar as we are already a good ways down this path.

The property developer we’ve been saddled with just happens to be a real dirt bag. we have already seen property values skyrocket recently, and we’ve been seeing a steady rise in homelessness. The city continues to promote its tourism plans that just so happen to sound just like the same progress promised by gentrification. Except that promise isn’t for us, its for those who will come next. you know? they don’t want us here, the unwashed masses. We scare them, we make them feel feelings they’d rather avoid. So we have to go y’all.

So the actuality of the situation is that Terry Emmert is trying to charge more money for his crappy buildings than is reasonable given the economics of the area AS IT IS. Doesn’t he realize that Aberdeen can’t afford the rents he’s asking for? Maybe it’s a tactical choice to keep people from filling up his tax shelters and having to retrofit and restore so many dilapidated buildings. Maybe he is waiting until this new crowd arrives looking for exactly what he is offering, a new Aberdeen. Or maybe he just wants to overcharge his tenants for rent while letting his buildings fall apart and never be anything other than a slumlord.

• Wikipedia defines slumlord as, “A slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlord with more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and to tenants that they can intimidate. Severe housing shortages allow slumlords to charge higher rents, and when they can get away with it, to break rental laws.

So you see that when an area becomes gentrified the new residents historically begin to see themselves as the rightful citizens while looking at the more economically depressed original residents as invading THEIR town. This paradoxical reaction to visible poverty is what leads a city under the process of gentrification to increase both anti homeless ordinances and policing overall.

The problem becomes HOMELESS PEOPLE and the focus turns to punishing and essentially banishing homeless people instead of just working to house people who need houses.

This is what the City has been trying to do for years now. Ever since the river camp eviction they have been unwilling to consider any solution that isn’t banishment, which was specifically banned in Martin v Boise. The court ruling that determined it to be unconstitutional for municipalities to punish homeless people for existing in public when there is no alternative shelter location.

The City of Aberdeen routinely manufacture crises like the great trash debate, sanitation services, fire hazards, or whatever else it is. They make the problem so that they can complain about it so that they can push these anti homeless ordinances.

The City of Aberdeen has an ordinance right now that they amended to supposedly align with the “Martin v Boise” case out of the 11th circuit. That means that according to the settlement agreement from the second lawsuit filed against the city over their handling of the river camp, they are not supposed to be forcing people to move if they are in certain areas of downtown marked on a map they distributed once.

Yet every single day people are made to move along by the police, in direct violation of this agreement.

Our local paper of record, The Daily World, has been virtually absent in their reporting on Emmert.

The first article they put out was a bona fide puff piece on him trying to do some much needed PR on his behalf.

Yeah, he didn’t comment in that one but they quoted his realtor, saying, “Quigg is confident that Emmert’s interest is not for the short term. I believe they are looking to be long-term partners in our community,” he said. “Terry wants to stop in every store and talk to people, hear their stories and learn more about the area. “It’s really nice that they’re coming in to learn more about our community and trying to figure out what businesses they could provide to support it.”

They did no background research on Emmert apparently, if they had they would have easily found what we did and perhaps would have been able to push back on Mr. Quigg’s comments.

The second piece, put out after CRMAN and AL1312 started publicly calling Emmert and his agenda out,

yes, and it was far more critical it was titled, “The uncertain future of downtown Aberdeen and Hoquiam” and in it they talked to multiple local business owners about their takes on what Emmert has been doing and what hes trying to charge for rent at his properties. Tectonic Comics owner Michele Conrad was quoted as saying, “With the economy and the population in Aberdeen, you can’t provide enough services or sell enough services to spend that kind of money on a space you don’t know. Nobody can pay all their employees and that rent —nobody has that kind of money to come in and revitalize downtown,” she said. A section of the article called Emmert’s vision goes into an interview with Emmert on his plans for the area. It details Emmert’s uninformed opinions on why his buildings aren’t renting, “Every time we go up to try and rent something, we have people with grocery carts camping in the doorway. It’s been that way for the last year and a half; we’re still sticking in there, and we’re trying to make every stride and change,” he said. “We can buy the property, we can paint it, but how can you rent something cheap when you get people breaking in and causing damage? They need to be prosecuted — period.”

So he blames the poorest people for the fact that he bought derelict buildings in a specifically designated low income area!? That’s WHY he bought here! What did he expect!?

He also attributes Washington state property taxes and the cost of flood insurance to the high rent prices that many local businesses have been unable to meet.

This is crucial to point out. When he mentions the flood insurance there he reveals his hand I think. I believe his plan is to hold onto these properties until our local levee project is completed and then sell his holdings off once insurance drops and property values skyrocket.

This reporting from The Daily World is atrocious. Not only do they barely do any investigating into the matter, but the only investigations they do is talking to local business owners and quoting Emmert at length with no context. Where is the reporting on his background in Oregon? Wouldn’t people here be interested to know that he is infamous for suing the county commissioners down there?

Seems relevant.

We knew we had to step up and start doing our own investigating and reporting on Emmert given the laziness and biases of our local papers.

Proposed Tactic: Be the media you want to see in the world

We saw a need early on for a voice in the local media landscape willing to do investigative reporting and counter reporting on the local paper of record’s puff pieces on Emmert.

Even before we had started this media collective we were releasing our own narrative countering the original softball pieces on Emmert in The Daily World.

We were able to see a definite shift in public perception, and the local conversations around him and his plans here. This lead to some slightly more critical coverage by TDW including interviews with local business owners who had tried renting from him and found the experience and the rent too much to bear. TDW has a habit of publishing insensitive or downright harmful stories on our local homeless population, going so far as to say in their piece, “What to do with the homeless?” quote, “In the last several years, people from the homeless population have created a variety of problems in Aberdeen’s downtown core.”

Punching down in spectacular fashion at the least powerful people in this power dynamic. You can see this in videos like the one put out by PraguerU by Christopher Rufo of the same title as the Daily World Article, “What to do with the homeless” Thought Slime on YouTube has a good breakdown of that video which rings similar to the Daily World

They even went so far as to say about the local camp who have been refused anything more than one toilet for months, “the smell is putrid” as though the blame for that is on the people living in tents with no access to public restrooms anywhere in town.

This type of reporting only parrots the lines Terry Emmert is laying down in his own Daily World article blaming the homeless for all of his business problems too.

We can not let this narrative stand unopposed, we have to be publishing our own reporting on the gentrifiers taking over our towns.

There are ways an ambitious radical could start a grassroots journalism project where they are. Noblogs.org is a free radical WordPress hosting site that has made a world of difference in our being able to make a free website for publishing our work. Go to https://www.autistici.org/ to request an account. A/I (Autistici/Inventati, pronounced [au’tistiʧi]-[iŋ’vɛntati], or [iŋvɛn’tati]) was born in 2001 from an encounter of individuals and collectives of the autonomous anti-capitalist movement interested in technology and active in the digital rights struggle. They provide a platform and tools for digital self-defense addressing the need of secure, free communication and privacy for activists and other individuals.

Another way to get a Noblogs account is to first have an account from Riseup.net Riseup provides online communication tools for people and groups working on liberatory social change. They have multiple tools like a VPN and a secure email service, all of which are free, ask around your radical circles for the required invite code and get yourself a Riseup email.

They also have great resources on security and a list of alternative radical server projects around the world. With this and a slew of social media accounts you too can inform your local community about whats going on in your opportunity zone. If there isn’t an opportunity zone near you then what issues are facing your community? Are you dealing with aggressive police? Corrupt non profits?

There is no barrier to entry here, and the more voices we have telling stories in and about our communities the better.

Our local papers would never go interview the homeless when they can simply copy/paste whatever the police or Mayor says. But those stories are so vital, hearing the personal stories and collective trauma of vulnerable and marginalized people humanizes them in a world where demonization is the norm.

If you want us to feature your story, either in the podcast, newsletter, or article reach out to us at sabot_media@riseup.net and we can help provide you with that infrastructure and signal boosting to get your story out there.

Conclusion:

In conclusion Terry Emmert has found out about our town and the coming levee project that will reduce the cost of flood insurance here and raise property values across the board. That coupled with portions of the county being designated as opportunity zones has sealed our fate of being bought up by wealthy landlords and property developers from outside our community. This puts us in the precarious position of having a majority of rent-able space in the city owned by one individual, a virtual monopoly he has secured in the local real estate market. We now have Terry Emmert openly calling for the eradication of our homeless population and blaming them for the lack of interest in renting his properties. Even after securing his real estate deals at substantially below market value. Even though he has been able to get around the normal health insurance and safety codes that you or I would have to contend with. Even after all the rumors in our small town about his shady business intentions he seems incapable of accepting that he has made a bad decision in buying up our town. We will not be pushed aside in the name of progress, we have a long and storied history of radical politics in this town and we are familiar with the so-called progress brought by capitalist speculation. Volatile markets and exploitative capitalists made and broke this little logging town already. There is nothing left to loose but our chains. We have nothing left to do but to act.

Thanks for tuning in to our first 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 you’re 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.

Shout outs:

• Queer Satanic who are still embroiled in the lawsuit from TST and are always appreciative of any donations to the legal defense funds. their website is queersatanic.com
• Don’t 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.
• We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• Its almost December without shelter in Aberdeen, Winter is coming and without intervention our homeless population is sure to face another harsh winter of hardships and becoming casualties of the state, Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is running a winter fundraiser to buy warm weather gear for the homeless, To donate visit bit.ly/crmandonations.
• 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.
• 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 shownotes
• Thank you to The Window Smashing Job Creators for letting us use their song, “Paid Protester’s Blues” on the program today.
• Don’t forget The Communique is looking for artist and author submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry before December 18th.

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 and check us out @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. If you are able to support you can go to The Blackflower Collective’s Patreon and sign up there. Lots of cool merch is on the way!

That’s all for tonight. Please help keep stray cat populations down, adopt rescues and please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to vote.

Solidarity Comrades,
This is Molotov Now! Signing off

 

 

​

Share this post: on Twitter on Facebook on Google+