An Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living
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Rolling Thunder ISSUE NUMBER SIX / FALL TWO-THOUSAND EIGHT / A CAPER OF 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. “Whoever does not seek the unforeseen sees nothing, for the known way is an impasse.” –Heraclitus table of contents warning shots we know everything is priceless . Introduction 2 Glossary of Terms 4 letters Rob los Ricos on Prisoner Support 10 features The SHAC Model: A Critical Analysis 11 The Importance of Support: 29 Building Foundations, Sustaining Community A World of Wings and Cries: 40 Swedish Anarchists Build Their Own Autonomous Zone Occupation and Preoccupation: 57 Opening Up Public Universities in Bogotá Gift Shops at the End of the World 65 scene reports New York City 69 fables “The secret to harvesting the The Six Most Beautiful Minutes 82 greatest abundance in the History of Cinema and the greatest enjoyment from existence is this— living dangerously! old news Build your cities Anarchists Traveling Through History: 84 on the slopes Bakunin Escapes of Vesuvius! Anarchy in the UK: 88 Send your ships into The Poll Tax Rebellion uncharted seas!” –Friedrich Nietzsche reviews Q and When the Prisoners Ran Walpole 97 and . The Black Freighter 100 The Money Machine 104 Rolling Thunder Issue Six, Fall 2008 T.O.C. 3 mistake—you’re supposed to count down, so everyone knows in the park, nothing out of the ordinary would have happened. when the count will end—but on “THREE!” perhaps thirty Instead, a very small number of people succeeded in shifting people are running over the grass away from the police, and the options that confronted everyone else around them—and everyone falls in behind them. In a few seconds hundreds of faced with new choices, many people acted di≠erently than people are sprinting across the park to the intersection at the they would have otherwise. Had the initial group been more far side, at which police have not yet massed. numerous or better prepared, the transformation might have The crowd pours into the street. The obligatory road closed been correspondingly more dramatic. sign appears and is dragged into the intersection. The energy In taking on the powers that be, we don’t need to be prepared in the air is electric now, in contrast to the malaise and uncer- to win a war with them—we don’t even necessarily need to make tainty of a mere ten minutes ago. As soon as the stragglers catch all the right decisions or formulate the most airtight plans. We up, the crowd lurches forward, turning the wrong way at the just have to change the context in which others make decisions, corner, and heads o≠ away from the nearby shopping district. to precipitate situations with unforeseen conclusions—so that They make it exactly a block and a half before another wall what a few initiate, many may continue. of police forms in front of them; a few seconds later another police line traps them from the back. The nimble ones slip out Anarchists are specially equipped for this kind of experimen- the edges, but the rest—perhaps a hundred—are penned in. tation because we have nothing at stake in the preservation The police shut down several blocks, lining the streets with riot of the current order. In the words of economists and gentri- cops, bike cops, mounted cops, paddy wagons, and armored fiers, we are risk tolerant: having little to lose, we can a≠ord cars, and commence beating and shooting pepper balls at the to throw ourselves into the unknown and see what happens. detainees before arresting them. Those who must succeed in everything they undertake have The story should end there, but it goes on. An hour later sev- to be careful and conservative; nothing new or exciting ever eral hundred more people, most of whom were not involved in comes from them. Perhaps ninety-nine percent of our projects the march or even at the park, have gathered at the intersection are dismal failures, but whenever we achieve a breakthrough, where the road closed sign appeared. A crowd of African- it’s historic. EXPERIMENTAL MATERIAL American youth are chanting “FUCK THE POLICE!” at one Our successes can be dangerous—when you try something side while a mass of street kids and middle class citizens stare and it works, it’s easy to get trapped in attempts to repeat it. down the police lines and shout denunciations. Spray paint How many new models have we invented over the past decade, True to form, we completed this issue in the up their hoods and masks and hesitantly begin adorns the walls: POLICE STATE. FUCK A PIG. A helicopter really? At our best, we treat ourselves as experimental material, midst of the demonstrations at this year’s Demo- chanting: “A! Anti! Anticapitalista!” A little air circles overhead, scanning the crowd with its spotlight, but this thrusting ourselves into uncharted territory and returning with cratic National Convention in Denver, at which horn gives a feeble toot. They begin walking in just riles everyone up more; the atmosphere is getting increas- new innovations. This issue explores some recent attempts to anarchists are attempting to reinvent mass mo- a tight little knot. ingly volatile. People of all walks of life are showing up to ask develop alternatives to the standard anarchist approaches we bilizations. Every day endless meetings, false Who are these lunatics? What are they what’s happening; strangers who never would have spoken inherited from our forebears. Some of these alternatives have alarms, tense stando≠s, narrow escapes; every thinking, masking up and linking arms with otherwise are debating anarchism, police brutality, and what become standard themselves, like the SHAC model; others, night, while the others sleep or carouse, end- hundreds of riot police surrounding them and to do next. Nearby bars have closed their doors and business is such as the approach pioneered by the Swedes who built a social less editing and deliberation. Next issue we’ll undercovers at their elbows? This is not the disrupted throughout the district. Democratic Party delegates center from the ground up in despair of ever being able to defend be able to report on all this in depth; for now, Seattle WTO protests, when the few cops on are unable to pass through the area; some are trapped in the a squat, have yet to be tested outside a single community. the following anecdote must su∞ce. duty had their hands full dealing with a hun- parking garage of their hotel. This goes on for hours and ap- Through everything, we should constantly be honing our A couple hundred people have gathered in dred thousand protesters; these kids are the pears all over the news. skills to support each other. Living dangerously can take a lot of a park downtown: some for dinner with Food only ones doing anything this evening, and Later, when the participants assess the march, some rate di≠erent forms, and taking risks all the time can be exhausting Not Bombs, some just hanging out, and some the whole city is militarized. What can they it a successful disaster: from a tactical standpoint it was a even apart from the batons, pepper balls, and prison terms. We in tentative response to a call for a black bloc possibly hope to accomplish? catastrophe, but it somehow created an environment in which need to do a lot more to care for one another than just linking issued a month earlier but never adequately But others join them. Soon there are a few the dissent submerged in downtown Denver boiled to the arms when it’s time to charge the police. It’s not easy being organized. Armored police are positioned in dozen, in varying degrees of black attire, and surface. If everyone had been sensible and simply dispersed experimental material. groups of a dozen all around the park and the then several dozen more. The chant picks up surrounding streets, outnumbering the young momentum, but this just makes the whole en- people sitting around with black sweatshirts terprise seem more suicidal. They make it as in their laps. A vehicle was supposed to deliver far as the road, and the nearest squadron of banners, but word comes in that the driver has police forms a line blocking their path. There’s been detained and the car impounded; there nothing for it, the die is cast: they march, awk- don’t seem to be any scouts or communications ward and ill-prepared, straight into a shower networks ready. Rumors circulate about some of pepper spray. other convergence point. A full hour passes Coughing and choking, the crowd stumbles without anyone taking any initiative; even the back to the grass. This should be the end of ROLLING THUNDER: A JOURNAL OF DANGEROUS LIVING police seem to lose interest. it, but the numbers keep growing as curious Rolling Thunder [email protected] ISSUE SIX, FALL 2008 P.O. Box 494 www.crimethinc.com Finally, when most people have drifted away onlookers push forward for a better view. Sud- Chapel Hill, NC 27514 and it seems certain that nothing is going to hap- denly someone is shouting out a count, and Body text set in Whitman, titles and captions set in Flama, combined with images by the Paul F. Maul Artists Group. pen, a few people—perhaps ten or fifteen—pull others join in: “One! Two!” This is yet another Back cover art taken from Seth Tobocman’s You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive.