I completely share your (sarcastically expressed) sentiments about the threats to Tony Overman and the late night actions at his home.  Thank you for publishing this here and elsewhere.

I just saw Tony Overman a little over three hours ago, on my way into town.  He was headed out to a BBQ and stopped to talk with the police who were running a speed trap on the road we were on (Sgt Partin and Bryan Wyllie).  We all four spoke for a while about the attack on Tony's truck and house and I told Tony I was ashamed this was done in the name of Anarchy.  It isn't anarchist to do this; it is terrorism, the very opposite of respect for autonomy and the very essence of coercion.  Tony and I both use public photography of police, he for his employment and I for my activism.

I didn't take Tony's photo, or a photo of his truck, since he has recently been targeted for being a "snitch" without anything like proof, and I did not want to contribute to that feeling of vulnerability.  I did ask him if the rumors were true that he had given OPD access to his unpublished photos.  He denied that, as did Sgt Partin.  (I don't think that Sgt Partin would necessarily know if Tony had done this - he's not a detective and has not been in the recent years, and thus would not KNOW if Tony had provided photos to detectives or not). I would tend to believe Tony's denial until I see evidence to the contrary.)

All that I do know is that Tony called police when he was jostled during the Nov 2007 PMR actions, and was on 911 in that case and again in April 2010.  But both of these instances were during what Tony perceived as attacks on his person for being a photographer.   I might add that it is important that the people accused of attacking Tony in April 2010 were not charged with that crime, and were not convicted of that crime, and that two other persons WERE convicted of punching a cop who was not punched and kicking another cop who was not kicked.  One of those two convicted persons just happened to be a person who was a "known anarchist" in the car when WSP pulled Phil Chinn over in May, 2007.  We know that was a political frame-up, and we know that Phil got a settlement from that government crime.  We also know that she was charged with PERJURY for telling the truth on the stand in her own defense, though that charge was eventually dropped.

Now we know that the other person accused of assault on an officer in April 2010 (who plead guilty due to not having the resources to prove themselves innocent) has been targeted by OPD and WSP from early April 2011 until the past few days, has been ticketed and stopped in several recent instances, and just got evicted by his Landlord for what the Landlord described in writing as political reasons.


There is a social and political war going on, and not all the people taking shots in that war are working for the sides which they purport to support.

I find it very interesting that the attack by OPD on Scott Yoos became the focus of the news on Wednesday, in reaction to a massive community of support for Scott.  The reaction was the publication, by the police, of detailed police reports containing pre-conviction allegations of criminal acts by Scott, despite this being illegal for the police to release to the media.  It certainly might end the prosecution of Scott (yay!), but it speaks to the political nature of the police response to Tuesday night's challenge to their legitimacy.  And the now the news cycle for the last four days has become a nationally carried story about anonymous "Anarchists" who attacked a journalist in Olympia.  The timing is uncanny.  I feel like it is June 2008, suddenly. 

We should keep in mind, that in that era of intense political targeting of PMR and SDS and Anarchist activists, we had several prominent political crimes pulled by anonymous individuals and a lot of community anger directed at the people assumed to be the authors of those crimes.  We also now know that US Army spy John Towery was a fully 'vouched' member of that Anarchist and SDS and PMR community at the time. 

People who refuse to learn from history are indeed doomed to repeat it. 

We are expecting Stryker vehicles at JBLM in four to six weeks.

  "Accountability is like totally an important part of anarchy. '

   Midnight raids on people's homes, cars, businesses. Black masks so as not to be recognized. Anonymous postings. Try for a different word than "accountability."

    "heroic 'anarchists' ....like the one .....smashing bank windows."

   Did you throw food across the room when your mother told you to eat your vegetables? Where does all this rage come from? Do you just want the world to run according to you? How would you do have it be? Now sensible answers to some of those questions would be 'heroic'.

I find it foolish to insist that Tony was "just doing his job" and that he therefore is above reprisal for his actions.  

Anarchists told Overman to stop taking photographs of the April 8 march against police violence, but he persisted, probably
out of some ridiculous journalist ethic that insists on getting the story/photo no matter what.  For some reason, I think because myths of "free speech"* and media neutrality are so deeply imbedded in the US, most people accept the presence of media at demonstrations and radical events, either passively or sometimes even enthusiastically.  The theory is that we
need the media to help us get our message out.  And certainly it works sometimes, for a little while.  But the mainstream media (which includes The Olympian) will only favorably report on something as long as it does not actually pose a threat to its own interests and the interests of its shareholders, advertisers, and those members of the economic and political elite with which it has symbiotic relationships.

Working for mainstream media is not a "neutral" choice.  By providing content for (and getting paid by) the mainstream media, Overman has clearly shown his support for perpetuating lies and shaping a popular discourse that serves to bolster
the state and capitalism.  Furthermore, Overman's status as a mainstream media photographer makes him a threat to radicals and anarchists.  When anarchists take photographs of demos and actions, they usually choose to blur the faces and other identifiable characteristics of people in any published photos.  The rest are often (and should be) destroyed or hidden.  This way, we can still share images and do our own version of reporting that does not put comrades at risk.  

Overman was told to stop taking photographs of anarchists and he kept right on doing it anyway.
His photographs and testimony have been used by the state to prosecute anarchists.
Perhaps this should serve as a lesson to other mainstream media reporters and photographers.  Probably, it won't.

OH, and another thing.  The author of this post has ONCE AGAIN, like many others before, chosen to separate the "good" and "bad" anarchists into mutually exclusive categories that do not actually gel with reality.  

A note about free speech:
Free speech is a bullshit lie and so is the Constitution.  If you don't know this already, you really need to study a bit. American citizens (which already excludes millions of people within US borders) are "free", at least in the legal sense**, to say or write whatever we like as long as we don't do anything too extreme, like say... advocate for rebellion or insurrection or the overthrow of the government, etc, etc, etc.  

See here: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/718/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_115.html

The PATRIOT Act has, of course, limited our "freedoms" even further.

I'm certainly no law expert, but I think this effectively criminalizes the free speech of most anarchists and other anti-authoritarians, even lots of wholesome left wingers, too.  And, on top of everything else, if it's all well and good and legal to speak about something, but not to act on it, then what is the point anyway?  Pure poetry?

Also, I must wonder if Overman would be such a staunch advocate of free speech for neo-Nazis, other fascists, and supremacists of all stripes.  Maybe he would, maybe not.  But the purest logic of "freedom of speech" suggests that no one should be censored because if freedom is what one wants, the trade-off is allowing others the freedom to express whatever fucked up thing they'd like.  Well, no thanks.  I've seen where that's led. 

For anarchists, freedom is inherently opposed to hierarchy and domination in all forms.  Therefore, our ideas don't fit within the confines of Tolerance and Law.  In fact, our ideas (and many of our actions) are illegal.  So don't expect any arguments stemming from "free speech" rhetoric to hit home with us.  Offer strategic or tactical criticism if you like, but unless you're already sympathetic to an anarchist analysis of the world, including the media, don't expect anyone to be particularly receptive to your castigations. 

**I do not actually consider anything having to do with Law to be even potentially libertarian in nature; quite the contrary.

So many words, so little thought.

Love "In" fighting? 

Fear makes people act in the night. It is the fear created in the minds of people who are very aware that the older generation has sold them a lemon of a future. There is no lemonaid just bitterness as they look upon their families members and society blithely burning up oil and living in their huge homes watching their large television and eating their big meaty foods while the whole ecosystem goes into cardiac arrest. Feeling completely isolated with no path to follow, they dig through historical books and fictional movies looking for some tale of heroism and struggle similar in scope to the one that they feel they must face. The stories of masked folks at night mixed with revolutionaries are more of an influence on young radcals than most alive today. Who can blame them?

Paranoia. A life lived in fear. The folks who write snitch are telling us that they are paranoid, which is a disease that can be cured only by facing fear. They need a lot of love in their lives and guidance from positive influences of folks being corageous and fearless from the left. Love is conflict. Love is community. People act at night because they feel they can't act in the day. Why can't they? A repressive society, scary police, patriot act, cointelpro, surveillance, harassment, fear campaigns, detached people, poor communication, a complacent left that pats themselves on the back while the younger members of society face the real possibility of no future whatsoever.

How can folks tell these young people to have some self control or at least some community respect or awareness when the progressive community is still largely hiding behind their own complacent ideologies or have sold out/ bought in? Thoughtlessness has no place in our community. Everyone has to have an awareness of how our actions or inactions affect others and the broad consequences of those actions or inactions. None of us should be an ideologue against all property destruction, Father Bix cut through that fence and spilled his own blood at Bangor, appropriate property destruction. Some would say spiking trees and letting the news know before any loggers start cutting ensuring their safety, burning down an empty unfinished ski resort, well done and well placed political graffitti all could be considered appropriate, others would be appalled by those examples but few would claim Bix' fence cutting was inappropriate.

If you are doing that stuff you've got to have thought that through and if your target were a target that people would easily recognize as appropriate even if they don't care for your methods. If you are not doing some sort of direct action you've got to have thought that through as to what effect your unwillingness to dig your heels in and push back means in a time of great world wide strife and economic and environmental collapse. If someone had spray painted the Olympian building with something like "The Oly Tacoman Corporatocracy" then we all would have cheered and been very supportive. Why didn't we act instead of leaving it to someone to get it wrong? Why aren't we risking ourselves with vigor and life affirming tiny acts of rebellion?

Today I got the emails between the Olympia Police, and the Olympian Newspaper.  I'm not going to try to summarize them here, but they are very interesting and I'll post the images of them so you can read them for yourself.

I think some of this 'debate' (and I realize that this is an inexact term for what transpired above) will have to re-frame in light of what the emails reveal about OPD / Olympian cooperation.