Download 'em, print 'em, and post 'em up!

I came across this poster a few days back, on the Phoenix Anarchist Coalition website, and thought they were very well done in outlining the problems of gentrification. They're available for download, along with other variations on the theme of "You Can't Vote for/against." I'd love to start seeing these all over Tempe, and any area people and neighborhoods are getting screwed by developers. Click on the poster below to download:

Photo of the day

Tempe residents protesting against the Mosaic condos at a party thrown by the developers to attract potential investors and other assorted rich scum. A few of the attendees getting tipsy sipping on the free margarita's had conversations with demonstrators, apparently the demonstrators have the gift of gab as a few folks said their minds were changed and they would not be buying any condos at the Mosaic, or in Tempe in the future. Good.

Love from the Repub, and confronting yuppies this weekend!

First of all, a unlikely "props" to the AZ Republic's Katie Nelson for posting a link to this fine blog in her own yesterday.

Secondly, I received the following in an email yesterday from a group calling itself Tempe AYA (Anti-Yuppie Action) issuing a call for a demonstration this Sunday, below is the invitation I received from some dedicated anti-development homies:

Anti-Yuppie Action invites all Tempe residents and working people who are fed up with seeing our neighborhoods destroyed by the Yuppie development invasion to join us this Sunday to confront those who would see us uprooted from our neighborhoods and our lives for their selfish, greedy lifestyles. Join us this weekend to let the developers and yuppies know that they're NOT WELCOME in Tempe!

Here's what's going down:
The new Mosaic lofts will soon be built on the NW corner of Ash Ave. & University, the site the co-op was located on, the building will stand 22 stories tall, and as a monument to the yuppie triumph over Tempe. If you're like us, your sick of all the construction that doesn't bring jobs down here for folks like us or improve our economic standing. Nope, it pushes folks like us out of the neighborhood, evicted house by house, apartment by apartment, and even our beloved locally owned business get the boot. Why? For the wealthy and super-wealthy to make Tempe their new playground, apparently Scottsdale and Phoenix just weren't good enough.

So, the Mosaic developers are throwing a booze party for potential buyers of the condos this Sunday (from 2-5 PM) at the Macayo's on 3rd and Ash Ave. Tempe's unwelcome potential new residents will be slurping down the margaritas with their rich pals, chauffeured around on a tour of Tempe by a trolley.

We'll be meeting up at the Southwest corner of Ash Ave & University from 1-1:30, then walking down to the Macayo's to have a working folks' (un)welcoming party (and mobile BBQ, expect some hotdogs, and pork and beans) for future Mosaic residents. We'll be out there having a good time (but making their's a bit more unpleasant) from 2-4, COME ON OUT!!!

Click on the flier below for more info:

More signs your town is going to shit...

A Tempe news round-up:

Possible nepotism at Pappas at issue
"Embattled county schools chief Sandra Dowling is fighting allegations that she hired her kids to work for the school district that she created. But Dowling wasn't the only top county school official with a relative on the district payroll. Three people with family ties to southeast Valley politician Ben Arredondo, who was Dowling's deputy at the time, have worked for the district for homeless and troubled kids."

Developer of W Hotel plans chain in Tempe
"The developer behind the swanky W Hotel plans to start a new hotel chain in downtown Tempe. Constellation Property Group wants to work the new hotel brand into a pair of condo towers it’s about to start building at the site of a former Arizona National Guard Armory at Fifth Street and College Avenue.
...
Constellation originally called the project the Armory lofts, which it considered a placeholder name referring to the military building that once stood at the site. Now, it’s called Stadium Towers. It includes a 20-story, 225-foot building and a second tower of about 15 floors."

$70 million office building slated for US Airways’ lot in downtown Tempe
"A major Valley developer has set its sights on Mill Avenue with plans to build an eight-story office building on the US Airways headquarters campus in downtown Tempe The $70 million project — called Tempe Gateway — will sit on 3.5 acres at the northwest corner of Mill Avenue and Third Street just north of a future light-rail stop. Under development by Opus West Corp., Gateway is part of a long-standing agreement by the city and the airline to build out the site. “We’re happy to do it,” US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant said. “The city’s been good to us.” "

Proposed Wal-Mart stirs Tempe residents
"Wal-Mart's announcement to open a second store in Tempe has unleashed an outpouring of public dissent. It would take over a Mervyn's at a strip center on the northwestern corner of Rural Road and Southern Avenue. The plan has raised ire from neighbors in every direction. Community members are gathering, creating e-mail lists and planning to circulate petitions and build opposition Web sites."

Tempe's art revolutionaries: Killing private property one wall at a time

A new anti-property art piece by Disposable Hero, located near the entry to Casey Moore's

Reclaiming public space or attacking private property? Time after time of seeing working folks' evicted, their former abodes razed, and then high end condos put in their place, I've lately been more attracted to the entire scrapping of the concept of private property. Not so much because I enjoy dwelling on the negative, but just to settle shit with the rich once and for all. No more of the "We're reclaiming public space for all the people," just so the rich can take it back later and resettle it with their developments. Let's get with it and get to work on killing private property, so that we are no longer in the position of arguing the false dichotomy of advocating for public space, while all space is constantly enclosed upon.

Developers have not only their money to buy their influence in city hall, and their yuppie art culture to woo the cowards at the newspapers, but they have the actual ability, through their ideology of enclosure, which is so pervasive, to create and define space at their whim. They make physical boundaries real and protected with the stroke of a pen, so easily is land under control and protected for them, either by the boundary lines of fences or the watchful eyes of public and private police forces and surveillance cameras, that to challenge the institution seems insane. In order to take their power away from them, a power that destroys the fabric of working class communities and local culture for the benefit of a few with money, we must resist in many ways, though writing is one fashion (the pen is mightier than the sword, etc.), it is not an effective tool for change when no one is watching or listening. The fight against gentrification in Arizona will be read, seen, heard, and felt- and this battle has already begun.

Valley anarchists attack a BMW on Mill Ave. during the May
Day 2002 protests against the yuppification of Tempe

The attacks against property, the monuments of economic inequality, are varied in tactics and intentions. Worth noting are the conscious acts of rebellion against the rich in the form of protests against development and gentrification, smashing out of windows, gluing of door locks, and/or leaving spray painted messages are but a few ways this resistance manifests. Some may recall the wild demonstrations on Mill Ave. in 2002 and 2003 against the influx of yuppies and their new colonies (namely the Brickyard), these two events (along with many other demonstrations, graffiti, and street art) polarized the dialogue locally into two camps, pro and anti, virtually erasing the middle ground.


A short film of Disposable Hero and other local artists make use of an empty wall.

One form that I have taken a particular interest in has been the dramatic appearance of art work that is posted in public, or on private property, intended for the enjoyment of all. Northern Tempe has been the scene of a renaissance over the last few years, as hanging cardboard heads from telephone wires, large wheat pasted poster on electrical boxes, and sidewalk and walls covered in stencils pieces has become the norm. Out of all of these new creative expressions filling the streets, making any bike ride down Farmer Ave. a visual treat, there has been one series of work that is impressive, more than anything, for the sheer volume of output. The artist, Disposable Hero, has been busy wheat pasting posters, putting framed art to walls with glue guns, and nailing painted scraps of wood to public and private walls for years, much to the delight of this writer. He/she has joined the likes of the infamous NG graf crew as the forefront of AZ street art, much to the chagrin of local developers, who would love to present a spotless, homeless free Tempe to their potential yuppie investors. A place where art is contained in galleries, poverty is shuffled out of sight into the waiting handcuffs of a cop, and words like "artisan" can be thrown around to "dirty up" these multi-million dollar developments when none of the new residents have any skills that resemble what artisans are capable of.

Fuck that. Let's give 'em hell, because at the end of the day, they don't give two shits about you or me, or even want us near their big money fortresses, unless the city invites us all down for a not-so free music, beer, or fireworks festival, at which we are quickly shuffled out of the area so that the bars can continue to serve the legions of ASU zombies and the yuppies can get back to their "urban experience."

On a related note: The Forever in Control graffiti art show is going down this weekend, I recommend hitting it up and seeing the future colors of your city's streets.

If the heat doesn't kill you...

Loads of great news for Arizonans this week, in addition to Arizona taking the honor for being the 3rd most dangerous state in the country (which I honestly think is pretty cool, keepin' the west wild and all that, we were only outranked by our neighbors New Mexico at #2, and Nevada at #1), the enemy of all that is good and kind, industrial capitalism, has really gone the distance to put Arizona's economy ahead of the people.

In line with the long history of such actions, groups of rich guys have been running shit in Arizona for as long as there has been an Arizona. The successful effort to change the AZ constitution to make us a right to work state was a good showing of their everlasting political muscle, most of the 22 states with such a law have it on the books as a statute, but not AZ, nope, it's in our constitution! It's beyond obvious they have increased their struggle against human freedom and welfare, after all, workers having no rights on the job wasn't enough, another drop in the bucket for these guys. So, what do you do when you're a millionaire who lives on the other side of the country, and have made your fortune by you and your buddies' companies destroying Arizona's unique bio-region and annihilating anything that resembles workers rights for your profit, then what?

You kill every one.

LOOKIN' GOOD: An Open Pit copper mine in Bisbee, Arizona

The Arizona Repub reported today on the devastating news that our state has leapfrogged the rest of the country in our toxic emissions:

Tens of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals were released into Arizona's air, water and land in 2005, a 15 percent jump from the previous year, according to a federal agency.

Toxic releases nationwide went up 3 percent during that time, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency. But as mining has grown in Arizona, so has the presence of toxics in the environment.

Mines and metal facilities were responsible for the majority of the 65.2 million pounds of toxics released in Arizona.

Copper mining has grown in Arizona as international demand for the metal has soared. The waste rock and ore left over from a mine often contain toxic metals.

The data come from the Toxics Release Inventory, a company-reported national database that details where and how toxic chemicals get into the environment.

While the seemingly unstoppable march of industrial development continues with it's toxic goosestep, there are those who fight to stop the total destruction of our state and fellow residents' lives. Just this past weekend a demonstration was held on the Chandler/Gila River community border against local scumlord Romic. Their operation is, according to their own website, a "world class hazardous waste management!", but it stinks of racism to this writer, as the Gila River indian community (it should be noted, by this I refer to the people, not the tribal government) has struggled for years to shut this and other polluters down in the Gila River area.

BURNIN' DEATH HERE: Romic's Gila River plant

GRACE (Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment), a grassroots Gila River organization, is calling for Romic to shut down for good after a toxic plume was discovered underneath the Romic plant contaminating nearby water, and after members of GRACE were allowed to inspect the Romic site, finding evidence of mishandling of the waste all over the facility. Over 70 people participated in the demonstration, from different tribes, as well as residents from across the valley concerned for our collective health.

It is this sort of collective action our state needs if we want to continue to brag about our sunsets and mountains, but ten or fifteen years from now, when it's too late for both our state and (sadly) the world, our tumor ridden asses will have no one to blame but ourselves.