Nerve City May 17th!

Hello Lovely People Of Richmond!!

We are hosting a house show for Virginia’s finest Nerve City Friday May 17th!

The show will be held at The Wingnut we will keep you updated on time of the show. But this doesn’t happen everyday SO COME OUT!!!!

http://www.myspace.com/nervecity

Roses On My Table: Film by Ethan Silverstein

“A small portrait of the Richmond, Va based Wingnut Anarchist Collective between February and August of 2011” by Ethan Silverstein of Boston, MA.

Roses On My Table from Ethan Silverstein on Vimeo.

Check out this movie our friend put a lot of work into! Keep in mind that not everyone in this film is still a Wingnut resident, or necessarily supportive of all Wingnut projects. Clearly a 20 minute film can’t capture the complexities of our lives. Things aren’t always sunshine and roses. But we hope that everyone in this movie is doing awesome anarchist things and having a great time doing them!

New books in the Library!

8 new books today in the Library!

The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner

The Monster Stick and Other Appalachian Tall Tales by Paul and Bil Lepp

Tales of the Badia Bedouin folk tales from Lebanon by Rami Zurayk

The Living Dead by John Joseph Adams

Bayou City Secrets by Deborah Powell

Classics in Lesbian Studies by Esther D. Rothblum

Midlife Queer by Martin Duberman

and

Instead of Prisons by the Prison Research Education Action Project

Come by and check these books out! Browse our whole collection online at http://www.librarything.com/home/thewingnutrva

Wingnut Buttons!

We now have 1 inch Wingnut buttons, you can get one in red and black or green and yellow. A dollar if you have one, but if not we will give you one for free! On the literature table at the Wingnut!Show your support of the Wingnut Anarchist Collective with a button sure to confuse and maybe even blind!

We Believe In Us vs Them

The Richmond Police Department and the City of Richmond have dropped their lawsuit against us.

Yay?

Sorry, I guess I’m not as excited as I should be.  This is the best possible thing the RPD could have done… for themselves.  Why?  Because it puts this situation out of the public eye as quickly as possible, and allows them to attempt to save face before exposing themselves to even more public ridicule and calls for the resignation of Chief Norwood.  (Not from us – we’d like to give him a “Best Anarchist of the Year” award for drawing so much attention to anarchist projects happening in the city.  Thanks and keep up the good work!)

But there are some other subtler and more interesting things to take into consideration when looking at the RPD’s decision to drop the case.  The court documents we were provided with claimed that the manuals and protocols we had recieved through FOIA “jeopardizes and endangers Richmond’s Police Officers and citizens,” yet one of the statements made to the media in regards to why the case was dropped was that the state didn’t want to “waste resources.”

If there’s one thing cops are good at, it’s protecting other cops.  If the reasoning behind the lawsuit actually had anything to do with keeping the pigs safe, there is NO way it would have been dropped just because it might be a little difficult to win.  The speed with which this case was dropped really just cements the fact that this case was a politically motivated attempt to intimidate a dissident group into turning over documents that we had received through THEIR OWN BEAUREAUCRATIC PROCESS.

Norwood claims that his objective in filing the lawsuit was to get the documents back quickly, but doesn’t even wait for the initial hearing date.  Did he expect us to see the legalese, the statements saying they wanted the documents back, and come rushing to his office crying “OH PLEASE DON’T SUE US, WE’RE SO SORRY!”

WE

ARE

NOT

AFRAID OF YOU

Wingnut TV, CBS 6 – Mark on The Local Anarchists

Some Wingnuts got on the TV talking about anarchy, community, and the upcoming election!

Mark on The Local Anarchists

WRIR Video on the Richmond Zine Fest!

Reporters from local radio station WRIR 97.3 came to the 2010 Richmond Zine Festival and interviewed a variety of zinesters as well as local organizers. It also includes a nice piece on the Flying Brick Library. Everyone who was interviewed did a really nice job talking about a variety of important issues.  Check it out! Support the Richmond Zine Fest, support WRIR, and support the Flying Brick!

The text from the story as well as links to groups mentioned can be found at http://www.wrirnews.blogspot.com

Weekly Wingnut Trash Cleanups!

The Wingnut has been doing neighborhood trash cleanups on Sunday mornings. We have been doing it every other Sunday, but have now decided to do it every Sunday. That way we can get more areas of the neighborhood clean on a regular basis. We welcome other community members to come help us pick up trash. We have orange safety vests, trash picker upper machines, and trash bags. If you want to participate please just come to the Wingnut at 10am on a Sunday morning. That is where we will distribute the equipment. One thing we can always use more of in this effort is trash bags, so feel free to bring some if you have any to spare.

So to reiterate- Sunday mornings at 10am, meet at the Wingnut to pickup trash in Southern Barton Heights. The more people who come out the more of the neighborhood we can clean up. Call 804 303 5449 or email wingnut_collective@yahoo.com if you have any questions.

Success at 2nd Monthly Mobile Food Pantry

This past Saturday, August 14th, the Wingnut Anarchist Collective and the Central Virginia Food Bank teamed up again to bring the Mobile Food Pantry to Southern Barton Heights. The Wingnuts had distributed 100 vouchers throughout the neighborhood during the weeks prior. The day of we set up a literature table with fliers for other community events like the Really Really Free Market, Anarchist Black Cross, and Copwatch. Then we set up all of the food. The menu included chicken, applesauce, butter, creamer, romaine lettuce, cantalopes, raisin bran, oatmeal, fresh corn, crackers, pasta, cornbread mix, green beans, manwich, pork and beans, shampoo and more.

We tally the numbers of folks who come out, and how many people they represent in their households. This month we had more people than last month. A total of 123 households were represented, including 197 children, 254 adults, and 60 seniors, for a total of 511 people represented.

This event is a regular event, which the Wingnuts plan to continue

Conspiracy Tour Reportback

On Wednesday, August 4th, the Conspiracy Tour made a stop in Washington DC.  They aren’t stopping in Richmond, so the only opportunities for folks from around here to see them without traveling TOO Far were last night in DC, or tomorrow night in Carrboro.  I’d say it’s worth the drive, especially if you’re involved in any way with anarchist/anti-authoritarian projects and are unfamiliar with the scope of state repression that has been coming down on our heads in the last ten years or so.

The presentation began with a brief puppet skit about what conspiracy charges actually are.  Basically, someone can be charged with conspiracy to commit a crime if there is planning to commit a crime, and any action is taken in furtherance of that plan, EVEN if the crime is NEVER COMMITTED.  Normally for a conspiracy to exist, more than one person has to be involved, although there are some cases (such as Scott DeMuth’s) where the state will simply INVENT co-conspirators as “unknown persons” in order to charge an individual with conspiracy.
After the initial puppet skit, there was a brief history of state repression in America, discussing such topics as the FBI’s COINTELPRO program and the recent “Operation Backfire” and including information about how these programs gather their information.