Rolling Thunder ISSUE NUMBER SEVEN / SPRING TWO-THOUSAND NINE / A NEWS FLASH FROM THE CRIMETHINC. EX-Workers’ COLLECTIVE an anarchist journal of dangerous living We are not delicate, not China that belongs in the cabinet But experimental material To be shot into space Perish in flames And discover new passages Out of this world. “Defiance and resistance are illegal. Therein lies the salvation of man. Everything illegal necessitates integrity, self-reliance, and courage.” –Emma Goldman ARREST US. No Time for Introductions Table of 2 Errata DRAG US BEFORE Contents 3 Glossary of Terms Breaking News 8 Going It Alone: Anarchist Action at the DNC and RNC 32 We Are All Legal Workers: Legal Support at the RNC and After GRAND JURIES. 35 How to Dance on the Grave of Capitalism: Perspectives on the Economic Crisis 40 We Got This Shit Tonight: Oakland, January 7, 2009 44 The Riots in Greece and the Insurrections to Come RAID OUR HOUS- we fight because there are things in this world inside of us 51 How to Organize an Insurrection worth not giving up Arts & Entertainment because faced with such horror ES. SHOWER US we have to be our own hope 69 Music as a Weapon: The Contentious Symbiosis of Punk Rock and Anarchism we fight because we are fucking losing, we are dying 75 Beyond the White Punk Ghetto: WITH PEPPER and there is so much more than this Straddling the Divide between Music and Resistance -one of the reckless ones Recipes for Disaster facing felony charges from the RNC 84 Small Town Organizing for Anarchists SPRAY. IMPRIS- Scene Reports 90 Winona: Making of a Scene Report Postscript ON US. SHOOT Stories from the RNC Resistance US. THERE IS 106 NOTHING YOU CAN TAKE FROM US THAT WE DO NOT FIRST OB- TAIN ONLY BY RESISTING. Rolling Thunder Issue Seven, Spring 2009 T.O.C. 1 to us—as if we or anyone could be qualified to utilize them on Acephalous › NO PLEAS FOR FUNDING behalf of our whole readership—we urge you to launch your Having no head; e.g., a horizontal federation of own magazines and projects. Often, would-be radicals set out autonomous collectives, or an anarchist after Glossary of Terms Rolling Thunder is written, illustrated, edited, designed, and to build monolithic structures intended to represent everyone’s an uprising distributed entirely by volunteers. It is not funded by grants, interests; such projects inevitably fail to be equally accountable lucky number seven sponsors, donations, advertisements, or subscriptions; in an to all. As anarchists, we believe it is better to decentralize power Anarchia › era when even corporate print media is losing ground to the by fostering networks of equals. We don’t want to build up this A disorder resulting from too much freedom, internet, we pay for this magazine by selling copies at no more particular project as an institution—we want to change the world. first identified by physician and professor Benja- Balaclava › than the costs of production and transportation. We invite read- min Rush. A devout Christian, Rush was one of On October 24, 1854, English, French, and ers to contribute writing and artwork and to distribute copies, Of course, we can’t do it alone. The rest is up to you. the Founding Fathers of the United States and Ottoman forces fought Russian troops north but rather than appeal for everyone to entrust their resources is still regarded as one of the most important of the port of Balaclava in one of the major pioneers in the field of psychiatry. In a review conflicts of the Crimean war. The British man- of the e≠ects, as he saw them, of the events aged to halt the Russian advance,* but when of the American Revolution upon those who the British commander ordered the cavalry to participated in it, he observed: prevent the Russians from carrying o≠ the guns The termination of the war by the peace in they had captured, the commander of the Light 1783, did not terminate the American Revolu- Brigade misunderstood him. Believing him to ROLLING THUNDER: A JOURNAL OF DANGEROUS LIVING tion. The minds of the citizens of the United intend for the Brigade to prevent the Russians States were wholly unprepared for their new from moving their own guns, the commander situation. The excess of the passion for liberty, launched a suicidal frontal attack through a ISSUE SEVEN, SPRING 2009 Rolling Thunder inflamed by the successful issue of the war, P.O. Box 494 valley surrounded by Russian artillery. Body text set in Whitman, titles and captions set in Flama, [email protected] produced, in many people, opinions and con- combined with images by the Paul F. Maul Artists Group. Chapel Hill, NC 27514 www.crimethinc.com The Light Brigade was utterly decimated, duct which could not be removed by reason and the commander cantered back alone to nor restrained by government. For a while, they threatened to render abortive the good- enjoy a champagne dinner on his yacht in the ness of heaven to the United States, in deliv- Balaclava harbor. The Heavy Brigade, which ering them from the evils of slavery and war. was commanded by his estranged brother-in- The extensive influence which these opinions law, had been ordered to follow—but it had had upon the understandings, passions and halted at the edge of the valley, its commander morals of many of the citizens of the United not seeing any point in squandering his troops Errata #4 States, constituted a species of insanity, which as well. The commander of the Light Brigade I shall take the liberty of distinguishing by the was hailed as a hero, while his brother-in-law An editor who subsequently worked with the authors of the story beginning on name of Anarchia. #2 p. 43 brought it to our attention that they are prone to inaccuracies. Su∞ce it never recovered his reputation. to say, if you are doing research for an academic report on the city of Bu≠alo, * This initial British success gave rise to the expression An hour after our second issue went to press, we discovered a structural flaw in this is not the first source to cite. “the thin red line,” from which is derived the more recent figure i. the crossword puzzle on p. 101. The clue to #1 across reads “The contraction Antidepressants › custom of referring to the police as “the thin blue line” The valley of death a year of the ischiocavernosus muscles will make a penis ___ and can create an Nowadays, it’s too much to ask to be happy. But More importantly, it came to light during the first week of September 2008 separating civilization from chaos—or the ruling class later, still strewn with orgasm”; the answer, obviously, is “ERECT,” but there is an extra space at the that the primary contributor to the Urban Exploration recipe beginning for the right price, you can be anti-depressed! from justice, depending on your vantage point. cannonballs beginning. Worse, we could not simply go through and black out the extra on p. 69 was not only an urban explorer but also a federal informant. This space from every issue, because #2 down begins from the second space: we individual, who first appeared at the 2006 CrimethInc. convergence under would have had to renumber every single word in the puzzle. In despair, we the name “Andy” and operated inside the RNC Welcoming Committee later racked our brains as to whether there might be another correct answer that as “Panda,” is responsible for framing Matthew DePalma, whom he met at could fill the six spaces and accommodate the necessary “E” in the second the 2008 CrimethInc. convergence, on charges of “felony possession of a one; sadly, the best we could come up with was “GETBIG.” destructive device,” and for collecting intelligence against numerous other targets of federal repression. Now that we know he has a more powerful agency looking out for him than our own, we no longer feel obliged to #3 protect his privacy; if you run into Andrew Darst (see figure i.), feel free to congratulate him on his work. On p. 14, it was alleged that the agent provocateur “Anna” was sleeping with one of the three young activists, including Eric McDavid, whom she managed to set up on conspiracy charges. This was based on faulty intelligence. Techni- cally, the four were sleeping together in the wiretapped cabin she rented to entrap them, but there seems to have been no sexual activity beyond Anna leading McDavid on. An insinuation to this same e≠ect appeared in the “Letter to Infiltrators” on p. 5 in issue 4; we’ve since learned better than to trust anarchist gossip, even regarding the machinations of the government. That issue also included an o≠hand jab at Clamor magazine, which had un- critically run a screed from an avowed authoritarian communist excoriating the publishers of Recipes for Disaster—and this magazine—for not being authoritarian communists. Unfortunately, the publishers of Clamor showed no better business acumen than they showed editorial judgment, and the figure i. magazine collapsed immediately thereafter. Though we stand by our conviction #5 that those who quote Mao approvingly do not deserve space in publications aimed at liberation, it was not our intention to bring Clamor to a sticky end On p. 3, it was stated that the expression “Quincy punks” derives from a Brit- by printing the witticism on p. 99. ish television show. In fact, the show was produced in the United States.