On the 15th of April, pro-Palestine protesters across Turtle Island shut down freeways, bridges, and arms contractors. Thousands more participated in protests from coast to coast.
Orlando did not sit out this wave of protests. Answering the call from the A15 global organizers, protesters gathered at the Post Office, calling for a refusal to pay taxes that fund this war and a total blockade of the US economy. One of the chants asked taxpayers “how many kids did you kill today.” A speaker explicitly called on people to refuse to pay taxes that fund US bomb deliveries to Israel and to refuse to participate in the economy funding the genocide. Just off to the side were the bike cops who have been dogging pro-Palestine protests in Orlando for months now.
Until now, the IRS had not appeared on pro-Palestine radars in this way. This is not good news for those who profit from genocide.
Elsewhere, a Lockheed-Martin office in Virginia (near Washington DC) was shut down. I-95 was closed by a direct action team in Philadelphia while a big march took the streets downtown. At least one road to PortMiami blocked was blocked by protesters at the price of 7 arrests. Northrup Grumman got access to their Parking lot shut down in S Charlotte. In Minnesota, Wells Fargo got their windows smashed, and an Amazon distribution center was blockaded.Tesla got shut down in Fremont, CA. Chicago’s O’Hare airport was beseiged behind a freeway blockade for 2 1/2 hours at the price of 40 arrests.
Tampa FL managed to blockade Zack and Ashley, holding southbound traffic into the city for about 15 minutes. That one I could have been at, but with Twitter blocking 3ed party frontends I had zero notice of it until now. nitter.poast.org just managed to get back in it seems
For every major blockade there could easily have been a dozen or more smaller protests, as the whole community responded at once from coast to coast. Today’s actions large and small, spicy and otherwise were all about the same thing: putting genocide under a siege of our own. The combined total of all these protests and direct actions put some serious points on the board for Gaza.