The State is a Racket – Repression in the Battle to Stop Cop City
Channel: subMedia
Date: 07/11/2023

Updates from the Stop Cop City movement in light of recent RICO charges. Supporters will be mobilizing for a Block Cop City gathering from NOV. 10th-13th, 2023. Check out blockcopcity.org/ for more info.

The Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organizations or RICO Act has had a long and sordid history as a tool of state repression in the United States. Originally intended to dismantle large organized crime groups like the Mafia, this set of laws criminalizing membership in organizations engaged in “racketeering activity” has been applied to groups as diverse as the Black Liberation Army, the Puerto Rican independence movement, Donald Trump, and Atlanta elementary schoolteachers. 

By levying trumped up charges and attempting to hold the entire movement culpable for specific actions, proponents of Cop City had hoped to divide and conquer by separating the more militant segments of the movement from their broader base of support. But thanks to the steadfast solidarity of the Stop Cop City movement, this has so far been unsuccessful.

As the first 61 RICO defendants are arraigned, the movement holds its breath. Public support is needed now more than ever. There’s still time to join the Block Cop City gathering in Atlanta from Nov 10th through 13th, or organize an autonomous solidarity action near you.

Cop City will never be built.

#DefendAtlantaForest #StopCopCity