An Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living
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Rolling Thunder issue number one / summer two-thousand five / a broadcast from the CrimethInc. Workers’ Collective an anarchist journal of dangerous living A fault line runs through every society, through every community, through every human heart. On one side is obedience; on the other, freedom. On one side is cowardice; on the other, compassion. On one side is despair; on the other, action. Sometimes the boundaries shift as gains are made or lost— but however things appear, that fault line is always there. Most everything you can read nowadays is published from one side of this divide. This magazine hails from the other. “Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” –Henry Louis Mencken “ see you, and I know that my dreams are right, right a thousand times over, just Ias your dreams are. It is life The first step must be the secession of intelligent pioneers from this society. table of and reality that are wrong. I understand it only too well, your dislike of politics, your ONE ANARCHIST, ONE REVOLUTION despondence over the chatter Contents and antics of the parties and the press, your despair over the war, the one that has been and Opening Salvo the one that is to be, over all 2 Living Dangerously that people think, read, and 3 Invitation to Participate build today, over the music 4 Reader Survey they play, the celebrations they 5 Glossary of Terms hold, the education they carry Letters on. Whoever wants to live and 8 Live from Jail Following Georgia’s G8 Protests... enjoy his life today must not 9 ...and Rightfully Incensed about a Poster Design be like you and me. Whoever Brand News wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead 10 Demonstrating Resistance: Mass Action and Autonomous Action in the Election Year of gold, creative work instead Commentary of business, passion instead of 26 The Art of Politics insipidity, finds no home in this 29 Forget Terrorism: September 11 and the Hijacking of Reality trivial world of ours.” 31 Deschooling: Unlearning to Learn -Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf 37 We Are All Survivors, We Are All Perpetrators: Redefining Consent Testimonials: Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous 42 Report from the Field: Where Sugar Comes from, and What to Do about It 45 Now That’s an Occupation!: The Workplace as New Frontier of the Squatting Movement 51 What I Do for a Living: Memoirs of a Survivor of Molotov Cocktail Friendly Fire And from Our Overseas Correspondents… 58 International Report: France Old News 62 The Ghost of Propaganda Past: The Woman Rebel 63 Biography in Brief: George Francis Train, “The Great American Crank” 65 The Secret Lives of Cab Drivers: Nestor Makhno and Anarchy in the Ukraine Art Before anything else is possible, the revolutionary must win back her 71 Plan Colombia: Art and Narration from the Beehive Collective own life and psyche from the occupying powers of fear and despair, Uh, Fiction… and from the daily forms capitalism and hierarchy take: the wasted 80 The President and the Beggar time of employment, the deception of corporate media, the damage 81 Otto Poetry of abusive and controlling relationships, the isolation and passivity of 85 Featuring the Latest from R. Butcher, Author of Stone Hotel suburban routine. She must make of her existence a daring adventure, Believe It or Not, Games! a heroic journey away from all she has known and into the arms of those 87 The Village, the Latest Diversion Sweeping the Anarchist Community with whom she will be safe in the most dangerous undertakings. Recipes for Disaster 91 How to Fuck the Police: Organizing a Copwatch Program, Handling a Police Raid Revolution demands and creates a new kind of person, who acts and 96 Handbook for the Traveling Houseguest: Never Give Traveler Kids a Bad Name Again! develops outside the mass. Don’t follow or seek followers—find your Recipes for Dinner equals. Don’t just seek numbers—seek to multiply yourself. 98 Vegan French Toast, including a complementary eulogy More Obituaries 101 Andres Raya And there’s more! 103 Reviews, featuring Laura Kipnis’s Against Love 108 Comics Don’t Submit—contribute! Send us writing and artwork for pub- ourselves (after all, the home team always lication! That’s right, we want photo essays bats last) in the time-honored tradition of documenting the inflammatory graffiti that radical journalism. appears mysteriously in your neighborhood, Send us material for review! Send us your 1 Should this not be the case, you need only persuade a local library to order this publication, witty true stories of fighting the law and win- ‘zines, books, compact discs, websites, whatever take up a collection in your community to ning, on-the-spot reporting on and analysis it is you’re doing; we’ll toss them in a teeter- purchase a communal copy, or learn to do of life and resistance in any of these occupied ing pile of neglected review submissions, from without spurious representations of radical territories, excerpts from unpublishable nov- which we’ll occasionally seize an item at ran- activity in favor of real-life participation in it. els, the heart-rending poetry you wrote as a dom to exalt or ridicule, according to our fancy. precocious teenager, how-to tips on cutting- Hurry to get your releases in to us before our If you weren’t in Miami in November of out? Has anyone gotten word yet from the civilization, to be David against Goliath. We edge vegan recipes and scamming techniques, embittered reviewers finally start taking antide- 2003 to see it for yourself, no superlatives I folks in that other meeting? Listen, I heard are, in fact, a rebel alliance, come together crossword puzzles teeming with unfathom- pressants and lose their edge, so to speak. could string together would convey the dra- about something that might interest you . to contest the empire in all its power and ably obscure subcultural references, naked As per the old anarchist notion of free- ma in the air at the protesters’ convergence Dozens present bear facial and neck tattoos: excess; this is the great story of our time. polaroids of your ski-masked lover(s) pissing dom of association, we feel entitled not to center the day before the Free Trade Area of circled As, flaming hearts, grenades; this Some years ago, in childhood, I won- on police cars . if they’re up to scratch, we’ll run any submission we don’t care to—but the Americas ministerial. is not a single-issue reform campaign, but dered what had become of such great stories, print and distribute them so thoroughly you’ll that said, we do want this to serve as All the same, try to imagine it: night has full-scale tribal war. Many will snatch their what we had in place of the epic deeds and be guaranteed an F.B.I. file of your very own! an open forum for all adventurers, fallen, and a fierce wind is buffeting the vast few minutes of sleep on this concrete floor struggles of ages past I read about in books. Send us letters! Help out by identifying malcontents, and insurgents, and tarpaulin stretched high over the shadowy tonight with welfare-issue bags of liquid There must still be some among us who incorrect or disputed details in our writers’ that means we need you to use it lot outside, which is bustling with activ- pear for pillows, if they sleep at all. Every know no better than to believe the televi- accounts, or suggesting points of departure as one. Please, please don’t leave ity—knots of friends in heated discussion, few minutes another truck or van pulls up sion commercials that proclaim joining the for readers to learn more or get involved, or all the fun to us (and don’t throw tables at which grizzled volunteers serve free bearing five or ten more brave souls from up army to be the greatest adventure possible countering absurd arguments with cogent, me in that briar patch, either), or food to long lines of starving, sleep-deprived to two thousand miles away, come to give today, who don’t realize how beautiful and nuanced ones. We’ll respond with lengthy make us have to take any more protesters, generators droning noisily around whatever they have to offer in the struggle even glorious life can be when we cast off rebuttals or, worst case scenario, disavowals time out from our exploits to write a great trailer of supplies. Up on the roof, for a free world. fear and subservience and embark upon ad- of responsibility, reserving the final word for about them than we already do. hooded anarchists stand watch, smoldering A police helicopter swoops low overhead, ventures of our own outside the ranks1. eyes gazing out from behind black masks to its spotlight scouring the lot, harshly illumi- So, this magazine. Here we will chart scan the distance for signs of a feared preemp- nating us in the midst of our frenzied activi- what we experience and what we learn, as tive strike; at the gate, below, organizers with ties; we shiver, but most don’t try to rush out we set out to liberate ourselves, to live dan- two-way radios allow protesters to pass while of its path—being here at all means being gerously. Living dangerously means risking is a semiannual publication of the CrimethInc. glob- holding at bay two suspicious men in Guard- under scrutiny from every direction, means the consolation prizes we have for more Rolling Thunder al underground, an international conspiracy of reprehensible adventurists and ian Angels uniforms with video cameras.