An Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living
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Rolling Thunder ISSUE NUMBER EIGHT / FALL TWO-THOUSAND NINE / A SORTIE FROM THE CRIMETHINC. EX-WORKERS’ COLLECTIVE an anarchist journal of dangerous living Capitalism presents us with two paths to defeat: Either to accommodate ourselves to every injustice, Taking each imposition lying down As if we could sleep on its bed of nails, Or else to throw ourselves away In useless gestures of isolated defiance— To take arms, as they say, against a sea of troubles, Not so much to end them As to be done with our miserable existence. Hardest of all Is to fight where we stand, for ourselves and together As if we might even triumph: Not to die fighting, but tolive that way— Courageously, graciously, joyously. “One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.” –A.A. Milne LOVE Table of LIKE Contents YOU’VE NEVER Prolegomena 3 Cautionary Tales 4 Glossary of Terms Let every wasted seed of desire Become a beautiful flower 10 Naming the Journey Watch it unfold hour by hour LOST And rise higher and higher Features We pay for our lives with our deaths Everything in between should be free 12 Say You Want an Insurrection: Putting the “Social” in Social War – Lack, “The Gay Revolutions” 36 Thinking through Perpetrator Accountability FIGHT From Our Overseas Correspondents 44 Chile: From Popular Power to Social War Scene Reports LIKE 62 San Francisco Reviews 82 La Commune 1871, De Stad Was van Ons, Os Cangaceiros Old news WE’VE 88 The Blurred Trail of the Cangaceiros in the Social Pampas Fiction NEVER 94 Madge & Pansy WON Rolling Thunder Issue Eight, Fall 2009 T.O.C. 1 Cautionary Tales Anarchists have a reputation for running the red lights of history—a practice that can get you where you’re going faster, but can also get you killed. We’re not sure we believe in history, let alone in red lights, but there’s something to be said for looking both ways before you take the street. Much of the material in this issue deals with the risks and pitfalls of violent confrontation with the state. This is not because we want to talk anyone out of confronting the state—on the contrary, the reason to talk about it is to make sure that it goes as well as possible. We address ourselves to the few who risk throwing their lives away gratuitously not because they are fools, but because in many respects they are the best of us. In a world even our oppressors admit is unjust, unsustainable, and headed for catastrophe, it makes sense to seek out the others who have already made up their minds to act regardless of We are thrilled to announce the availability of the consequences—who have made their peace with the possibility of prison time as well as the inevitability of death, for whom the only remaining Rolling Thunder Subscriptions question is how to get the most out of their lives. If only there were more of them—if only our most pressing task were simply to restrain each other! This is a magazine for those who have made up their minds to act, for whom all that remains is to work out the question of how. Revolutionary action can take many forms, from street fighting Four Issues in Two Years and sabotage to long-term infrastructural projects and accountability processes; there are as many $22 U.S. / $25 Global forms of struggle as there are hierarchies to oppose. We hope to cover a wide range of options in these pages, to equip readers at di≠erent places in their lives and also to emphasize that no one approach can succeed in a vacuum. This is also a magazine for people who haven’t finished making up their minds, who are still trying Get two years of Rolling Thunder direct to you and save $10.64 in the U.S. and $44.60 for to work out where they stand. Chances are you’re global versus ordering one at a time. Subscription copies are the first to be mailed out getting one side of the story loud and clear from when a new issue arrives and are dispatched via expedited mail (3-5 days U.S., 7-14 Global) the ones who own practically everything. Perhaps instead of slow-poke economy mail. Get it while it’s fresh and never miss an issue! you can find the other side of the story here. ROLLING THUNDER: A JOURNAL OF DANGEROUS LIVING Get more info and order online at Issue Eight, Fall 2009 Rolling Thunder P.O. Box 494 Body text set in Whitman, titles and captions set in Flama, [email protected] www.crimethinc.com/rt combined with images by the Paul F. Maul Artists Group. Chapel Hill, NC 27514 www.crimethinc.com 2 ¬ Shameless Advertising ¬ Issue Eight, Fall 2009 ¬ Rolling Thunder Extra credit: During what years must the story on page nine have taken place, if the old Florentine is to be trusted? Rolling Thunder Issue Eight, Fall 2009 Prolegomena 3 As Abraham Lincoln famously declared, “The another. Class interests are not fixed or predict- Coke › factions within it. In times of upheaval, radicals focus on what sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a defini- able, either; counting on one class of people, A solid fuel made by heating coal in the absence of air; an il- they are doing, arguing about tactics and strategy; in such periods, tion of liberty.” That is to say—the lexicogra- let alone one demographic, to lead the struggle legal stimulant derived from coca leaves; a corporate beverage sweeping tides often wash people from one camp into another, pher presides over a field of struggle no less against hierarchy is bound to disappoint (see including coca ingredients.* Comparably addictive and deleteri- blurring boundaries and shifting stances. On the other hand, significant than the workplace or the street. In Revolutionary Subject). Other factors, such as ous in all three instances. when there is little going on, all the exciting verbs of resistance that spirit, we are pleased to present the eighth ethnicity, culture, and privilege, also determine stabilize into nouns; then, radicals di≠erentiate themselves by installment in our glossary of terms. a person’s standing in hierarchical society, and Couple › adopting static ideological positions. Such positions serve as a consequently how likely he is to associate his A safe, non-reactive romantic configuration. Chlorine is a poison sort of compensation: unable to live out the resistance they de- interests with the interests of those in power. gas and sodium an explosive metal, but together they make table sire, frustrated revolutionists satisfy themselves by constructing Ninety years after his betrayal and murder at salt. In monogamous circles, singles are seen as unpredictable speculative taxonomies of utopia (see Hypertrophy). Yet this tends Glossary of Terms the end of the Mexican Revolution, Emiliano elements: lacking something, they may take dangerous steps to put o≠ the general public, who know that the vast possibilities Zapata returns to life somewhere north of the to get it. Even the government appears to regard singles as a of life cannot be encapsulated in mere isms. part the eighth Rio Grande. Immediately, he sets out to raise potential liability—there are financial incentives for getting Such factionalism was famously satirized in the March 1913 another army and resume the struggle for agrar- married. Couples, on the other hand, can be trusted to keep issue of The Masses: Apparatchik › ian reform. He accosts the first mestizo he sees, each other in check. “A Syndicalist, you know, is a Possibilist Anarchist, just as a So- Professional revolutionaries are to revolution an a≠able grad student at the nearby university: cialist is a Possibilist Utopist, but a Syndicalist is an Antistatist, as professional wrestlers are to actual wres- “Discúlpeme, señor. ¿Dónde se encuentran los Drapetomania › whereas a Socialist is a Statist and a Political Actionist, only an tling. To take the analogy further, episodes campesinos del pueblo?” A mental illness causing African slaves to attempt to escape, Antimilitarist and Pacifist. I’m a Collectivist Revisionist myself. such as the Spanish Civil War show that, as “Campesinos? I’m not sure we have any described in 1851 by physician Samuel Cartwright in his report Now, it’s a funny thing, but my brother claims to be a Hervé- in professional wrestling, the outcomes of campesinos, exactly. Actually, come to think “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race.” Not surprisingly, ist, and says he’s a Possibilist Sabotist, but at the same time an struggles involving professional revolutionar- of it, you’re in luck this afternoon! It’s just a Cartwright prescribed whipping as the most beneficial treat- Extremist Communist and a Political Actionist… I don’t think ies are typically fixed in advance. couple blocks away—here, I’ll show you.” ment. One can’t help but wonder what perspective the passing that’s a possible thing, do you?” “Muchas gracias,” answers the revolutionary of time may give on the disorders diagnosed in our own era. “I thought he was a Chiropodist,” I said. Applause › general, taking in the general import of the of- A time-honored means of politely silencing a fer and touching the brim of his sombrero. The Faction › Indeed, whatever he may have fancied himself, we fear the person who has made su∞cient demands upon two stroll along the sidewalk, passing cell phone One might speculate that there is an inverse relationship between fellow in question was simply a chiropodist with a big vocabulary.