Winter Reflections GREENGREEN ANARCHYANARCHY It is possible that 2004 will be a pivotal year, a turning point. If so, U.S. presidential politics will ISSUEISSUE #15#15 -- WINTERWINTER 20042004 play no significant role. The new movement, generally called “anti- globalization”, is now four years old, counting from anti-WTO Seattle. Though adversely affected by 9/11/01, we may be at or near a “make-or-break” time. Can we go forward against the might of empire on its various fronts, or will we back down and begin to fade? It’s very clear that empire faces resistance around the globe. Even if the capture of bin Laden were to follow the mid-December bagging of Saddam Hussein, the picture would not change. But thank- CONTENTS:CONTENTS: fully neither the theocratic statism of the one nor the secular dictatorship of the other in any way exhausts the varieties of opposition to the dominant powers. The Psychopathology of Work, pg 2 In our hemisphere, the rise of indigenous move- Fawda (An Anarchist Look At the Struggle in Palestine), pg 4 ments, from British Columbia to Chile, constitutes the most important development in recent years. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, pg 8 This varied insurgence is vastly more significant The Way of History — Today, pg 10 than the half-dozen new leftist regimes in South America, which have appeared in response to Impassioned Violence, Justified Violence, pg 11 neoliberal economic pressures. Now they run Recovering From Western Civilization: their respective national economies in no funda- mentally different ways than did the politicians who An Interview with Chellis Glenndenning - Part II, pg 12 preceded them. Electric Funeral: An In-Depth Examination of the Our green anarchy or “primitivism” orientation Megamachine’s Circuitry, pg 16 seeks to learn from indigenous modes, from that which runs counter to the murderous modern world Notes On Summits and Counter-Summits, pg 24 system. Rather than seeking a place in the hive of Riding the High of Cancun and the Dangers of a Crash, pg 27 global production and consumption, we seek a different way of living. Under the Palms of Miami…This Season’s #1 Tourist Trap, pg 29 We face two challenges: to create and implement it’d feel so funny to be free, pg 41 tactics, and to understand the prevalent anti-life Feral Visions: A Journal of an Anti-Civilization Roadshow, pg 42 reality and its motive forces. Creative, effective tactics can only stem from a clear understanding Notes on the Function of the Outlaw as Anti-Role, pg 48 of our situation. In this sense it’s very heartening Resisting the Neoliberal Discourse of Technology, pg 54 that in many quarters, people are engaged in a deeper questioning of all the assumptions behind Reclaiming Thoreau for Anarchy, pg 56 the madness. This exciting quest, looking way beyond Colonization, Self-Government and Self-Determination a failed leftism, inspires a renewed hopefulness and sense of urgency even as the crisis worsens. There in British Columbia, pg,57 may be a way to understand and solve our problems, to live differently, to heal and preserve this beautiful vol. two: The Problem of the Left planet for our children and grandchildren! Back To Basics The web of armed power may now be not much The Nature of the Left, pg 33 more than that. Domination resorts to naked force, having no answers, no real prospects for its future. Leftism 101, pg 34 It has always been the case that we need to think Liberation, Not Organization, pg 37 incisively and act wisely. Perhaps we also need to The Left-Handed Path of Repression, pg 38 be able to see through the system’s image of strength to its rotted, bankrupt foundations. Direct Action Reports Ecological Resistance, pg 20 Sections Anti-GE Actions, pg 22 Welcome to Green Anarchy, pg 3 Indigenous and Campesino Resistance, pg 23 The Garden of Peculiarities, Fragment 18, pg 43 Anarchist Resistance from Around the World, pg 30 State Repression News, pg 49 Political Assassination Attempts in 2003, pg 31 Political Prisoner Listings, pg 50 Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist Resistance, pg 32 Reviews, pg 58 The Wild Ones Fight Back, pg 44 News from the Balcony with Waldorf and Statler, pg 63 Animal Liberation Actions, pg 45 Letters, pg 64 Further Symptoms of the System’s Meltdown, pg 46 Ads and Announcements, pg 70 Prisoner Uprisings and Revolts 53 Green Anarchy Distribution Center, pg 72 Page 1 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE TheThe PsychopathologyPsychopathology ofof WorkWork by Penelope Rosemont Depersonalization and alienation from When the news reports horrible crimes our deepest desires is implanted during committed by children or teenagers childhood via school, church, movies, and trying to be satanists, or superheroes, TV, and soon reaches the point where an or terrorists, or just “bad guys,” we can individual’s desire is not only a net of be sure that these kids lived lives of contradictions, but also a commodity like intolerable dullness, that they were so all the others. “True life” always seems to isolated from their own desires and from be just a bit beyond what a weekly paycheck the larger society that they didn’t even and credit card can afford, and is thus know how or where to look for something indefinitely postponed. And each post- different, or how to rebel in such a way ponement contributes to the reproduction that it might actually make a difference.

oots in a Slav word meaning “work.” of a social system that practically everyone Instead, they picked up some trashy who is not a multimillionaire or a masochist notions from bible school, Hollywood and model of the “chain of command.” It has come to loathe. TV which promised a few minutes of continues the sanction of male supremacy That is the problem facing us all: How to meaningless “excitement” followed by lots as a time-honored tradition dating back to break the pattern of work — of week-to-week of publicity — also meaningless. Each time a mandate of God, no less. In the nuclear slavery, that habit of family, he works at a job, and habits, that addiction of “Work, now? Never, never. I’m on strike.” she works in the home (and addictions; how to detach —Arthur Rimbaud increasingly also at a job). As ourselves from the grip for the children, they are the of Self-Defeating Illusions For Sale, Inc., something like this happens we hear cries family’s private property, and remain so for a.k.a. the corporate consumer state. to “monitor” films more closely, and to ban years after they reach biological maturity. Especially ingrained is that pattern of work- “violence” on TV. Rarely, however, does Children too learn to work, or at least ing for someone else: making someone else’s anyone criticize the bible or the Christian how to suffer boredom. From the earliest “goods,” producing the wealth that someone churches, despite the fact that Christianity age they are taught to obey orders. School else enjoys, thinking someone else’s thoughts — by far the bloodiest of the “world’s great and church teach them the necessity of (sometimes actually believing them one’s religions” — is far more to be blamed. going to and staying at a particular place own), and even dreaming Similarly, one for a prolonged period, even when they

Karel Capek, has its etymological r Karel someone else’s dreams — rarely hears would rather be anywhere else. All the in short, living someone criticism of the classic parental admonitions — “Sit still!” else’s life, for one’s own armed forces — a “Do what I tell you!” “Don’t talk back!” life, and one’s own dream gang of profes- “Stop behaving like a bunch of wild Indians!” of life, have long since sional killers — are part of the education of the well- been lost in the shuffle. whose influence behaved, uncomplaining wage-slave… The systematic sup- on children can- The world today is confronted by greater, pression of a person’s not be anything more earth-shaking, more life-threatening real desires — and that other than baleful. problems than ever before: wars all over, is largely what work And even less massive pollution, global warming, the consists of — is exacer- often does one return of slavery, white supremacy, bated by capitalism’s encounter criti- oppression of women, ecological disaster, incessant manipulation cism of another neocolonialism, state terrorism, the prison of artificial desires, “as intrinsically vio- industry, genocide, cancer, AIDS, the traffic advertised.” This gives lent institution: death-toll, xenophobia, pesticides, genetic daily life the character the nuclear engineering — the list goes on and on. of mass neurosis, with family. Indeed, Ceaselessly bombarded by news reports increasingly frequent at this late date in and sound-bytes of one catastrophe after psychotic episodes. To human history, another, most people have no idea what to relieve the all-embracing boredom of daily this relic of patriarchy is still held up as do, and lapse into paralysis. On the life, society offers an endless array of dis- some sort of ideal. Replacing the extended ideological front, this widespread passivity, tractions and stupefactions, most of them family, the nuclear family as we know it itself a major social problem, is main- “available at a store near you.” The trouble today is an invention of the nineteenth tained by what André Breton called is, these distractions and stupefactions, century. Constructed by white bourgeois miserabilism, the cynical rationalization legal or illegal, soon become part of the Europeans to meet the needs of expanding of misery, suffering and corruption: the

The word “robot”, coined in 1921 by Czech writer The word “robot”, boredom, for they satisfy no authentic desire. industrialization, it reflects capitalism’s dominant ideology of Power in our time.

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 2 Every hour, moreover, countless billions are spent on propaganda, advertising and other mystifications to sustain the delusion Welcome to Green Anarchy that the crisis-strewn society we live in Welcome to Green Anarchy today is the best and only one possible. Issue #15/Winter 2004 What is most important to grasp is that work Issue #15/Winter 2004 is at the center of all these problems. It is work Winter is here. In Oregon, that means We have been debating this change amongst that keeps the whole miserabilist system about five more wonderful/depressing months ourselves and our supporters for more than a year, and have not come to any definitive going. Without work, the death-dealing of darkness and rain (after almost three conclusion, so we figured the best way to juggernaut that proclaims itself the “free already)! It is a good time to reflect on the past year, and plan for the next. It is an determine the most effective format is to try market” would grind to a halt. (“Free inward time to question ourselves, look at our it out. If we feel this change is not beneficial market” means freedom for Capital, and accomplishments, and examine our failures. for the goals of this collective, or in the unfreedom for those who work.) Until the It is a time for strategizing and debate. interest of our readers, we will go back to problem of work is solved — that is, until work the tabloid format. Our content will not is abolished — all other problems will not only In this issue, we have an extensive change, no sections will be cut, and the size remain, but will keep getting worse…. In a section focusing on the anti-globalization and consistency will remain the same. While movement and the demonstrations/battles world too busy to live, work itself has become the cover price will go up slightly for those that have occurred outside economic summits. who order GA by mail (the price increase will toxic, a form of “digging your own grave.” Since Seattle, these events have become the be less for subscribers), we hope to be able Renewed scarcities and engineered most outwardly visible and public forms of to continue to give away as many as before economic crises notwithstanding, society anarchist resistance, but many feel that they locally, to prisoners, and to those who are today has the capacity to reduce work to a have become stale, predictable, ineffective, unable to pay. We made this change in the tiny fraction of what it is now, while or otherwise limited. Some anarchists have hope of providing a more durable and continuing to meet all human needs. It is suggested that we abandon these activities long-lasting piece of propaganda, and to obvious that if people really want paradise for more underground and illegal action, attempt to get the magazine into larger while others wish for anarchists to become on Earth, they can have it — practically circulation through distributors (who would more autonomous, elusive, prepared, and not carry GA in newspaper form due to its more overnight. Of course they will have to over- destructive at these events. Many of us wish flimsy qualities). Let us know what you come the immense and multinational “false to embrace a holistic approach in which we think of the new format. consciousness” industry, which works very are able to successfully strike on multiple We are happy to announce that due to the hard to make sure that very few working fronts, without depending entirely on one demand of our last issue, we had to do an people know what they really want…. tactic or single event. We hope the debates additional over-run of 2000 copies, bringing Work kills the spirit, damages the body, in- in the pages of GA will help further these our print-run up to 7500. For this issue, we sults the mind, keeps everyone confused and and other much needed tactical discussions. have decided to print 9000 copies, with the demoralized, distracts its victims from all the Issue #15 also features a special “Back to anticipation of an increase for our next Basics” section (also available as a pamphlet) things that really matter in life…. Our struggle issue. This increase in demand for GA, and which focuses on “the Problems with the our ability to keep up with it, is exciting to calls for labor organizers of a new kind….To Left” (including leftist anarchists). This is our collective. We feel that getting Green bring about the meltdown of miserabilism we part two of an ongoing series that we hope Anarchy as far out there as possible can only need awakeners of latent desires, fomentors will clarify some basic assumptions and ideas be beneficial for this project, the proliferation of marvelous humor, stimulators of ardent in Green Anarchy and the broader anti- of the anti-civilization critique, and general dreams, provokers of the deepest possible civilization analysis. Our next issue’s “Back increase in anarchist awareness. yearning for a life of poetic adventure. to Basics” will focus on “Re-wilding and Primitive Living”. We look forward to any We need your help! This project can — From “A Brief Rant Against Work,” contributions along these lines. In this issue, not succeed without your help. We are in Surrealist Experiences: 1001 Dawns, we are honored to present the second part always looking for contributions of articles, 221 Midnights (2000) of an amazingly provocative interview with rants, poetry, images, action reports, prisoner eco-psychologist, political activist, and updates, and ideas for future issues. We are writer, Chellis Glendinning. The Winter issue especially interested in articles from indig- also contains: an involved tactical analysis enous and eco-feminist perspectives. Some on the targeting of the techno-grid’s infra- possible topics for upcoming issues include: structure, an update and analysis on the class struggle and the anti-civilization continuing resistance in Iraq, a look at the critique, the phenomenon of war from a Palestinian struggle from a radically anti- green anarchist perspective, a radical look authoritarian perspective, an assessment at the prison industrial complex, and a look of technology in the Neoliberal nightmare, at the connections between patriarchy and and a number of other articles, special civilization. We are always in need of local sections, and of course, a ton of reports on distributors (at any level) of GA, subscribers, resistance from around the world to update and financial supporters. We thank those and hopefully inspire our readers. who have contributed to this project, in any form, in the past. We have a new format! After For the Destruction of Civilization, fourteen issues (and many changes) as a and the Reconnection to Life! newspaper, we have finally decided to publish ConcealConceal DespairDespair in magazine format. This is a trial issue. The Green Anarchy Collective January 1, 2004 ...Move...Move asas AutomatonsAutomatons Our deadline for contributions for Issue #16/Spring 2004 is February 29th (Leap Day)

Page 3 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE alladj

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“Let’s remember the way lay claim to our shock for the lack of light (as, in conclusion, Israel is)? And then, having and life of an aspiring Palestinian head of state been victims of the genocide carried out other people have treated us enclosed within his bunker; and for those who by the Nazis, having suffered infamous try to place the indiscriminate violence of persecution, how could Jews today, who and how they still treat us desperation and the indiscriminate violence recognize themselves in Israel, wear the everywhere, as foreigners, as of institutions on the same level, with the aim butcher’s apron and do to others what they of justifying the latter as a form of defense were forced to suffer in the past? All this inferiors. Let’s guard against against the former; and for those who simply comes into conflict with our security, with our considering what is foreign want this all to end so that they can continue need for order, with our cogent bookkeeper’s to fill their cars with fuel without having to logic that determines our quiet bookkeeper’s and insufficiently known as spend too much. existence. The tranquility of our sleep and of our affairs requires it, state propaganda inferior! Let’s guard against Let’s admit it. Upon hearing the news that confirms it: there is no genocide underway doing ourselves that which comes from the Palestinian territories, the in Palestinian territories, there is only a hunt word that continually comes out of our mouth without quarter in the face of cruel terrorists was done to us.” is not the same one that first comes to our mind. that, due to circumstances that are as tragic —Martin Buber, 1929 At most, our tongues say extermination — as they are fatal, is having harsh ruthless and sometimes methodical de- repercussions for the civilian population At the time in which we are writing these struction and suppression of a large as well. But if this is how things are, lines, the whole world is watching with bated number of people — while our brain what can be said about the numbers breath the events that stain the Middle East thinks genocide — tattooed on Palestinian prisoners, a with blood. We don’t know if the tension the methodical chilling reiteration of one of the most caused by the military occupation of Pales- destruction and nauseating Nazi practices? What can tinian territory by Israeli troops will be so high suppression of be said of the destruction of houses by the time you read these lines, or if the an ethnic, racial and entire villages, again some- pressure from international chancelleries will or religious thing that was practiced have managed to cool the boiling militaristic group, carried against the Jews (specifically, spirit of the Sharon government. out through by English soldiers)? What That which we know, that which urges us the extermination of individuals can be said about all the dead to speak, cannot be exhausted in the facile and the annihilation of cultural values. — women, children, old people humanitarian attitude of blame and indig- Genocide is much more than extermi- — that could surely not be nation. In the face of all that has happened, is nation. But this is a term that we somehow included in the media stereotype happening and is being prepared in these refuse to use, because its use in such a of the fanatical terrorist extolling apparently distant places, we feel only context would undermine the foundations Holy War? As is clear, there are not repugnance for those who live in anguish that of many of the certainties on which we have built many alternatives in the face of the massacre the sanctity of the basilica of Bethlehem could our world, its tranquility and its prosperity. that is going on: either the silence of consent, be profaned, worried that the divine manger How can we call that which the Sharon which is at the same time the result and the could be soiled by Arab blood; and for those government has undertaken genocide after guarantee of social peace, or the questioning who accuse all who protest against the being told over and over again so many times that springs from dissent. But, if it is carried operations of the Israeli state of anti- that genocide is an atrocity of the past, fruit to its conclusion, to its extreme consequences, semitism, as if this state were synonymous of the worst obscurantism, that could not what will this questioning leave us? Will we with the Jewish people; and for all those who find legitimacy in a Western democracy be able to listen to the answers? GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 4 Actually, if the Nazi genocide against the Jews which systematically proceeds to standardize which in the course of history has imposed was the first to be judicially condemned, social relationships. The state does not the customary dilemma: either start walking nevertheless it was not the first to be recognize individuals with differences on the path of productivity or disappear. perpetrated. The history of western colonial between them who are thus unique, but only Capitalist civilization deconstructs and expansion into this century — that led to the citizens who are equal before its authority and destroys all non-capitalist social forms, creation of great empires on the part of the therefore identical. A everywhere imposing largest and most powerful European states — state can only claim the model of the is first of all a succession of systematic massacres to be formed and atomized citizen — of indigenous populations (the greatest of these proclaim itself the basic to democracy — being the genocide of the Native American absolute and exclu- incapable of possessing populations that occurred after 1492). sive holder of power a social existence In a few words, genocide is a weapon that only where and when outside of the abstract the state has always used. And it would be a the population over and homogenizing gross error to think that recourse to mass which it exercises its mediation of money, extermination on the part of the state could dominion speaks its work and the state. If only have happened in the past, when the language, respects Israeli soldiers today ambition to conquer new economic markets its laws, follows its behave in more or less goaded the crowned heads of Europe to customs, uses its the same way toward launch their subjects on adventurous enter- money, practices its Palestinians as German prises beyond their borders. In reality, religious faith. When soldiers behaved to- although the practice of genocide was more this reduction, this ward Jews sixty years readily visible during colonial expansion, it homogenization can- ago, it is not because also occurred — and still occurs – within the not be carried out Jews and Nazis are the borders that a state gave itself in its formu- through formally same as boorish anti- lation as well as its consolidation. peaceful methods, the semitic propaganda The history of the United States is exemplary state uses violence. would have it, but in this sense. Even the glorious and democratic Through genocide, because in every era, United States was born through genocide, that the state merely soldiers are alike. It is carried out against the Native Americans by brings the elimination of the Other to term, the task of the army to destroy everything that an army sent out to protect colonists of an indispensable moment for imposing its might cause the ruin of the state. Hitler held European ancestry in the name of a “freedom” authority and thus realizing the unity it needs. that Jews represented a threat to Germany and obtained by destroying villages and slaugh- If the state was genocidal already in antiquity, therefore tried to exterminate them. Now the tering entire populations of Indians (naturally things certainly didn’t change with the advent problem is not the Jewish people, but rather arousing their resistance that sometimes of capitalism, which tends to always extend the state of Israel. Hypothetically, if things assumed ferocious hues even against the its borders in the ongoing search for profit. The were to be reversed tomorrow, the problem civilian population). We all know how it globalization that is so frequently denounced, would not be the Palestinian people, but its ended: the United States government took in other words, the transnational capitalism state (that would probably try to exterminate possession of all the territory once possessed that is transforming the entire planet into a single, the Jews if it were given the opportunity). by Indians, while it giant supermarket, is a In other words, a solution to the Jewish- allowed the few that perfect example of this. Palestinian conflict will never be able to survived to live on Nowadays, instead be found if it remains within institutional cramped and unhealthy of physically extermi- logic, political mediation and treaties reservations, bewildered nating an indigenous between states. by various kinds of population, it is pref- western consumption erable to culturally After the attacks of September 11, 2001 — since and reduced to folk- convert it after having now in the imagination of the western world, loristic phenomena and economically and the “Arab kamikaze” inspires the same terror tourist attractions. politically vanquished as the “scalping redskin” provoked at the end The European states it. Capitalist society of the 19th century — the government of Israel themselves were the is not only the most has decided to take advantage of the situation first to know the relative formidable mecha- that has been created in order to take another homogeneity of today, nism of production step toward the final solution to the Palestinian but they also had to ever developed by problem. If the United States bombs Afghani- come to terms with the humankind: It is stan and Iraq in the name of the struggle resistance of numerous also the most terri- against Arab terrorism, why shouldn’t Israel ethnic minorities. If the fying machine of raze Palestinian territories to the ground in the Basque or the Irish destruction and name of the struggle against Arab terrorism? question still has some standardization. One can understand how the western currency, it is only Culture, society, states could not help but lean toward fa- because these peoples’ individual, space, voring the Israeli state. How could they struggles have managed nature… everything forbid it from doing what they themselves to extend themselves to our times. is exploited; everything must be exploited. have done (against the Native Americans, But what is it that makes the state intrinsically Here it is made clear why the state gives no the inhabitants of the Indies, the black genocidal? It is its pretence of forcing that rest to social organizations that leave the Africans, the Algerians, not to mention the which is in fact separate into a fictitious unity. world to its tranquil, native unproductiveness. beautiful Ethiopians with their black faces)? The suppression of difference is part of the The fact that tremendous resources lie normal functioning of the state machine, unexploited is intolerable for western culture, (continued on next page) Page 5 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE This is where Arafat, the leader of the Pales- For us, as enemies of every state and father- tinian Liberation Organization enters the land, it is easy to fall into the temptation of scene, he who has been working as a shrewd setting the uprising of the Palestinian masses politician for decades on the formation of a in radical opposition to the negotiations and Palestinian state. Despite the hatred that the even the armed actions carried out by the various Israeli rulers (as well as some Arabs) nurture groups linked to the PLO, in other words, to toward him and the ostracism by American distinguish the Palestinian people from the rulers, Arafat continues to have a central role rackets that claim to represent them. In reality, in the path toward normalization. It is no it is undeniable that the nationalist demand accident that all the governments of the world lives in the hearts of the Palestinian rebels, have urged Sharon not to touch him. They just as it is undeniable that the more spirited have reason. Just as an enlightened boss will military actions have contributed to creating always prefer to negotiate with union leaders the mystique of the martyr in the entire rather than meet with angry strikers, in the population and particularly among the youth, same way, the more intelligent western rulers which has helped to excite the minds and prefer to deal with an enlightened bourgeois generalize the courage that could be seen at like Arafat than with a band of excited rebels work in the first intifada (that of the stones), against modern reason. Despite everything, and that now feeds the second. This does not he remains the leader of the only organization remove the reality that the existence of such capable of enclosing the Palestinian revolt a mystique is, at the same time, one of the within a framework. The PLO draws its clearest signs of the limits of this revolt in strength from its ambiguous nature. With its nationalist form for the social spirit. How could the western states condemn the weapons, the financial power of the Palestinian One can understand how long decades of Jewish state after all that their predecessors diaspora, its international support and its oppression and the lack of any prospects for have done to the Jews? offices in the United Nations, the PLO is an living could be transformed into the love of Not one impediment, not one condemnation. embryo and a caricature of a state, with all death in battle. But understanding does not Only the requests for moderation and mild that this entails in terms of sordid appetites, mean sharing this feeling. The act of blowing criticism. At worst, the application of a few struggles between functionaries, and direct oneself up in the middle of a supermarket sanctions. “If you exterminate the population, oppression and fierce repression of dissidents doesn’t only lead to the suicide of a single the importation of your grapefruits may in the zones that it administers. But since it combatant, it leads to the suicide of the entire possibly be temporarily suspended.” But has not yet formed a nation state, it is also the struggle of the Palestinians for freedom. since the endeavor of genocide against the political organization within which human Beyond being ethically repugnant, it is tacti- Palestinian people is on course and no one relationships con- cally harmful. We are can ignore it, there is only one path left for serve the signs of an not among those who the western governments to follow. To save ancient solidarity. say that its error is that Palestine by transforming it into a state, to One of its leaders, it provokes repression offer the Palestinians the same compensation who will be nothing by the Israeli army, offered to the Jews after the second world war. but a power-hungry which certainly has no When a government exterminates an insub- politician in the future need for such pretexts ordinate population down to its last member, Palestinian state, still in order to carry out its this is a matter that can be justified and is manages to maintain violence, or that it amply justified by the reason of the state. a direct relationship causes the peace treaties History, as we have seen, abounds with with combatants to fail, since there can analogous examples. But in the contemporary who acknowledge be no peace where world, cannibalism between states is not him today. What is oppression reigns. permitted (which explains the haste shown true of the PLO is Rather its error is above by Sharon to definitively “clear out” the even truer for the all in annulling and occupied territories… of Palestinians). If they organizations to adulterating the reasons want to survive, the western democrats insist, which the population for the Palestinian the Palestinians must become like us. It is has dedicated itself struggle behind the rage necessary to help them in such a way that they on the spot. The of desperation. Despite will have a proper parliament, police, cadres of the popular the flags and sacred magistrature, factories, shopping centers, committees are texts in which they get McDonalds, soccer championships, television generally made up of militants from the wrapped, these reasons are universal. The with so many fine soap operas and — why various parties or sympathizers of the PLO, but desperation is blind, capable of great strength, not? — perhaps their own music festival. the totality of the tasks (surveillance of the but deprived of an outlet. Palestinian terrorism “Two people, two states” is the aberrant movements of the army, provisioning, medical — unlike that of Israel, which is an expression slogan that is going around these days as the first aid) is carried out by all, young and old, of power — is synonymous with impotence, panacea for the current conflict. In this way, men and women, and the mysticism of death in in the immediate sense because it is not the Palestinians find themselves between the battle serves as the cement. capable of destroying the Israeli state, and in devil and the deep blue sea; either they Despite being viewed with distrust by the the long run because it will end up alienating disappear from the face of the earth or they Palestinian rebels themselves, and increasingly the solidarity of rebels throughout the world, die under the Israeli army’s stick, or they so after the arrest of numerous extremists as including those in Israel. When they wreak convert to capitalist civilization eating the carrot a sign of good will launched toward western havoc among bus passengers or market- of American and European diplomacy. In either public opinion, the PLO nonetheless remains goers, they are not, in fact, attacking the case, the outcome is the same: the Palestinians the central identifying point of reference for Israeli state, but rather the population. Giving cannot choose for themselves how to live. the Palestinian people. substance to an indiscriminate violence only GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 6 corroborates the accusation of anti-semitism elite. To which of these two classes do the thirst, if this will signal the end of the that is attributed to them, enclosing them more Jewish colonists who currently live within the Palestinian Authority. May the desperation and more in a nationalist dead-end. Clouded occupied territories and are most exposed to break loose with rage, if it will know how to by an understandable hatred, hundreds of Palestinian reprisals belong? They are direct itself against the Israeli army. May our Palestinians are ready to die without asking Sephardic Jews, of course. Just as in past automobiles remain stalled in the middle of themselves how or why or against whom or centuries colonialism also served the European the streets, if this will overturn our resigned for what. The blindness of the method renders states splendidly as a method for averting complicity with the genocide that is going on. them blind with regard to the purpose of the social tensions that existed within them, May the Jewish-Palestinian dispute that struggle as well. This is why one becomes creating an external safety valve, so today the enflames the Middle East change into the either a soldier of the PLO or a social dispute capable of blazing devotee of the Party of God throughout the planet, if this is the (Hezbollah) or the tool of a sheikh only possibility for putting an end to and his zeal (Hamas). This is not, in the slavery that is imposed every- fact, due to any supposed “nature” where by money and power. of the Arabs, a conception that tries the Friends to hide its racism — Arabs, you - know, are reactionary! — behind the of Al- Halladj recognition of cultural differences. For centuries, Palestine has been a Editors’ Note: The word “fawda” crossroads for people, a site of can be loosely translated as thousands of cultures that were able “sedition” and was referred to by to live together without tearing each Mohammed the Prophet as “even other to bits by turns. If it has graver than assassination.” This is become the land of the most extreme the first half of a much longer fanaticism, it is because this situation essay called fawda that analyzes responds to specific interests. And the struggle in Palestine from an while a sixteen-year-old girl blows herself state of Israel finds its national unity in the insurrectional anarchist perspective. The into the sky, the political and religious leaders struggle against the Palestinians. complete essay is available in pamphlet form who indoctrinated her expect to collect these As long as the exploited Jews and Palestinians for $3.00 from Venomous Butterfly interests, fruit of sacrifice as well. Palestinian will not acknowledge their shared condition, Publications, 818 SW 3rd Ave PMB 1237, terrorism thus ends up being useful only to that is to say, will not acknowledge it together, Portland, OR 97204, or from the Green the state: the Israeli state because it allows both of their struggles will be crippled, Anarchy Distro. this state to demonize the Palestinians, and deprived of the possibility of intervening in the We would also like to recommend The the future Palestinian state because it invokes ongoing conflict in a revolutionary direction. Continuing Appeal of Nationalism, a concise the recognition of this state as the only way As for ourselves, in affirming our solidarity and critical look at national liberation to avert the terror. with the oppressed Palestinians, we have no struggles from an anarchist perspective, intention of romanticizing their condition. and Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom, a Naturally, there is a line of rupture between Instead, we intend to show what is universal look at the inherent racism within Zionism, the potential for revolt against the totality of in their resistance and to oppose the pacifism and the condition of an oppressed people a world that has produced unbearable conditions that wants a smooth transition toward the becoming an oppressor. Both essays are of existence for the Palestinians and the eternal silence of the market with the social also available from the Green Anarchy attempt to snatch a niche within this world war against all those who support the genocide Distro. For horrific photographic docu- (the Palestinian state) from this revolt. But of the Palestinians or their institutional civil mentation of Israeli military brutality, this line is subtle and continually changes. It domestication (all other states including the PLO). See: www.alkhilafah.info uncoils inside the base organizations, the As is evident, it is not a question of supporting social groups, the moments of struggle and a Palestinian state. We do not want to find through the individuals themselves, their ourselves one day united with old victims who thoughts, their feelings and their activities. have become butchers, with a national But for now, there is no use in hiding it, it capitalism that oppresses the proletariat on doesn’t have much possibility of taking place its own account, with rulers who were considering the lack of non-nationalist social indulgent in the face of the intifada and later movements with which to associate. Above transformed themselves into bureaucrats, all, the absence of any possibility for common exploiters and torturers. We don’t want to struggle with Israeli exploited must be support a Palestinian state that follows the considered. It would be a mistake to think of example of the Israeli state by drawing the Israel as a homogenous and monolithic society. justification of its future atrocities from the In reality, its structure is forcefully differen- substantial memories of the misfortunes of tiated. For example, behind the beautiful the past. Thus, it is not about forcing the rhetoric about the unity of the Jewish people Israeli state to respect the rights of Palestinians, hides the division between the Sephardic and nor supporting the formation of a new the Ashkenazi Jews (not to mention the Israeli Palestinian state. Rather it is a question of Arabs, the lowest rank on the social pyramid). starting to practice desertion, refusal, sabotage, The former are those who originate in attack, destruction against every constituted Mediterranean lands and form the poorest authority, all power, every state. sector of the population; the latter are those May the Church of Bethlehem get razed to with origins in western Europe and the United the ground if this will serve to free the States and form the political and economic Palestinians. May Arafat die of hunger and Page 7 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Within the Realm of a Dying Sun The U.S. Military Continues to Get Hammered in Iraq!

Here’s our brief, somewhat obligatory, update on the U.S. war Washington Post and other devoted upholders of the spectacle, against the Iraqi people. Or should we be saying: the Iraqi peoples’ certain encoded “information fractals” begin to appear between fight against the bloodthirsty, Amerikan imperialist powers? the lines. One of the most persistently recurring of these Because it is the Mass Media — the symbol system of newspapers, “subtracks” is that the “all-powerful” U.S. war machine is drowning radio, television, magazines, etc., to which most people are in a sea of guerrilla resistance. subjected — that manipulates word and image to create alterations in the reader’s/viewer’s consciousness and implant an unquestioned Iraqi Insurgents Gain a Deadly Edge trust and obedience in the “reality” of what they are seeing/hearing. Thus, CNN or Fox News can string together lines of visual and on the Information Front linguistic associations (mixed together with a mass of contradictory Desperate for a cheap and easy victory in Iraq (and eager to data) to control the thoughts and emotions of those who still butcher the uncooperative, recalcitrant Baathist power structure regard them as objective, neutral “news sources.” By emphasizing there), the U.S. military rained upon their former “lapdog” state the “courageous,” “determined,” and “freedom-loving” coalition with sophisticated instruments of death, their stealth bombers forces of “liberation” and downplaying the vehement resentment darkening the sky like a swarm of locusts. Spouting a mouthful most Iraqis feel toward their occupiers (and towards fellow Iraqi of contemporary military tropes such as “new technology is the collaborators), the government — through the mass media — decisive edge in battle” and “information is the most important paints the world in its own image and dictates the precise force multiplier,” Bush and Rumsfeld expected no serious parameters of people’s perceptual and conceptual assumptions opposition in their drive to realign and tighten up their sphere regarding the naked gangsterism of the New World Order of influence in the Middle East. But the “superiority” of the U.S. and its motley collection of Arab forces is proving to be a deadly mirage bootlickers. in relation to an increasingly organized The chief difficulty in seeing the guerrilla struggle that uses stealth, grisly plunder and bloody feeding spies and surprise to inflict punishing frenzy of the “war on terrorism” for casualties. what it really is (an undisguised U.S. military intelligence and law rampage, in our opinion!) lies in the enforcement officials say that after six fact that most of the information we months of intensifying guerrilla warfare, have access to comes from the mass Iraqi insurgents know more about the media, the penultimate modern control U.S. and allied forces — their style of system. As William S. Burroughs put operations, convoy routes and vulnerable it: “The control of the mass media targets — than the “coalition” forces depends on laying down lines of know about them. Indeed, U.S. intelligence association. When the lines are cut has had trouble simply identifying the the associational connections are enemy and figuring out how many are broken.” People see and hear what Rebels burn police truck during Iraqis and how many are foreign fighters. With local knowledge and the element they expect to see and hear because uprising against U.S. occupation, The Word Lines Keep Thee in Slots... of surprise on their side, the guerrillas Fallujah, Iraq, October 31st. Burroughs advocated launching a are exploiting their intelligence edge to counteroffensive against the “reality studio” of the control machine overcome the “Coalition’s” overwhelming military might. and developed a deprogramming/descrambling technique he Insurgents routinely use inexpensive explosives to destroy called “the cut-up method,” which involved cutting up newspaper multimillion-dollar assets, including tanks and helicopters. articles and re-arranging the sections so that hidden (and in some Using surveillance and inside information, the guerrillas have cases, portentous) messages are revealed. Applying these assassinated many Iraqis helping the Coalition, gunned down a techniques to the nationalistic rubbish of the New York Times, member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, killed the top GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 8 United Nations official in Iraq and twice blasted the heavily Bodies Like Toys, Bargain for Favors guarded hotel in Baghdad where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying. High-tech U.S. intelligence tools such as and the Gift of Sacrifice spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping intercepts have been A classified CIA report recently warned that a growing number of little practical use to the U.S. forces, who are being chopped of Iraqis, convinced that the U.S.-led “Coalition” can be defeated, up piece by piece. The key problem is that Iraqi guerrillas may be inclined to support the Iraqi insurgents. A U.S. official simply have more and better sources than the “Coalition.” U.S. familiar with the report said the pessimistic assessment prompted military officers worry that the Iraqis who work for them, such urgent White House meetings and the abrupt recall of acting as translators, cooks and drivers, include moles who routinely U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, to Washington. In contrast pass inside information back to insurgents. to the “Bush-shit” coming out of the Oval Office (who still claim they are fighting terrorism and thwarting new Hitlers, to whatever In the Shadow of fools they can convince), the new CIA report warns that Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq could soon join hard-line Sunni Muslim Imminent Annihilation opposition groups, swelling the ranks of the guerrilla resistance. Guerrilla forces are still mounting repeated attacks on U.S. “What we see is increasing evidence that we are facing an enemy convoys despite frequent changes of route and routine. One that has a strategy,” says Andrew Bacevich, a former Army colonel frustrated U.S. commander points out that there are only so many and professor of “international relations.” “This is careful planning ways to drive between downtown Baghdad and the International of the thoughtful, logical use of violence in order to achieve the Airport, a trip U.S. forces must make frequently and during enemy’s objective. It does not mean that we lost or mean that we which they usually get ambushed! Insurgents have also mounted are losing; it means the problem with each passing day deepens and devastating attacks after conducting patient surveillance of that if you are supporting the Americans, you are in the gun sights.” major targets such as the U.N In short, Bush’s drive to forge and protect a headquarters in Baghdad, “New World Order” is having a similar result to the elaborately secured Al throwing kerosene on a fire. “It’s an easy task to Rasheed Hotel and military create enemies, The Americans are creating enemies supply trains. in the thousands and free of charge,” says Sheik And they have identified Khalid Amin, a former member of the Iraqi and in several cased killed National Assembly. The Iraqi insurgents have Iraqis helping the “Coalition.” transformed the situation from the one-sided An Iraqi scientist who had slaughter the U.S. hoped for into a different kind provided confidential assis- of “killing zone” where the “Coalition” is now tance to U.S. teams hunting bogged down in a massive trap and surrounded for banned weapons last on all sides. Suicide bombings are on the rise and summer was gunned down as 2003 closes, almost 500 U.S. soldiers have died outside his apartment in in Iraq (and that does not include those Iraqi Baghdad. In early November, targets who collaborate with the occupying forces), an Iraqi security guard with the death count increasing all the time. working with the Army on the secure transport of surplus Iraqi munitions answered a knock on his door and was asked whether One War Can Hide Another he was still helping the Americans. He answered “yes” and was As anarchists, we need to start discussing where we fit into this fatally shot three times in the chest. U.S. intelligence cable traffic conflict and what we can be doing to fight the war machine in between Baghdad and Washington is rife with warnings about our own bioregions. As stated earlier in this article, truly useful Iraqi employees of the “coalition” secretly supplying information information on Iraq and other ongoing conflicts in the world is to guerrillas, according to a U.S. intelligence official and a hard to come by, so we could start by strengthening and expanding high-ranking defense official. our own information networks. We should also recognize that The guerrillas are as skillful at keeping their secrets out of U.S. we’re dealing with a sick and dying system that has a hard-wired hands as they are at collecting sensitive information about social agenda: to grab more territory and power and consolidate “Coalition” operations. By using rudimentary security precautions what they already possess in the midst of a turbulent and rapidly such as avoiding the careless use of cell-phones, the guerrillas changing world. As long as this system (or any other manifestation have managed to keep their attack plans secret. U.S. officials of civilization) exists, blood will flow, torrents of blood. The only have acknowledged that Iraqi guerrillas are sophisticated in way to eliminate the infection of this system is through radical covert tradecraft. They “compartmentalize” information, so no surgery, i.e., decapitation, and that’s why anarchists might consider one operative knows enough to compromise an operation if directing their efforts towards infrastructural sabotage. Remember, caught. They use “cut-outs,” intermediaries who protect the the Empire is shaky, its economies and financial markets are identities of operatives and pass messages. And they often plant dangling on the edge of a precipice, and by cutting off the supply false information in “Coalition” hands. lines that fuel this omnicidal megamachine (the electrical grid, Just such a false lead may have led to the ambush death of a oil pipelines, the computer system) we still have a hope of stopping National Guard military policeman Richard Orengo, in Najaf its engines before it devours us all. It’s time to move from last June. Called to investigate a car theft, Orengo instead walked protest to RESISTANCE!! into a firefight and was killed. “Illuminated by violence, the consciousness of the people rebels against any pacification.” -Frantz Fanon Page 9 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE The Way of History — Todayby Tomby Tom Manning Manning

I hear youngsters refer to the neighborhood, through that says, “this ain’t anything like (Along with “search & destroy” patrols and the “hood” as their... way, “around the way.” what they told me back in North Carolina.” “carpet bombing.”) And I smile and reflect on how things keep com- This ain’t anything like what NBC/GE Every night — ambush. “L” shaped configu- ing around, in cycles or circles. A little bit told you, kid. rations, or formations of men hunkered down in different — a lot the same. Ben Affleck could play this kid, but wait, the bush, in their ponchos, in the dark, in the rain, When I was a kid, that’s what it was, “around this ain’t no fiction. That shit coming out of in their thoughts, ‘til someone walked into their my way,” “over your way.” the small whitehouse ain’t fiction. It’s lies. kill zone. Be they carrying an AK or a hoe, they “Where you been all day?” — “over There is a difference. Back to the pictures. are going down, taken out, wasted, what the Dougies way.” People (civilians) taking cover in caves (not fuck!? They walked into the kill zone, didn’t they? “Don’cha ever come home’n eat? Let us know tunnels?). People on the road in their traditional So don’t tell me about white flags in the where you’re at?” — It’s ok, his grandmother desert. They are just white lies in the scheme made chick soup with rice — leaves’n it. From of things, inside the BIG LIE that comes from real chicken.” “Go wash-up...” the whitehouse, for big oil, big capital gone History repeats itself international, for imperialism. like Yogi Berra said — So bless the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, or “deja vu, all over again.” in a couple of years or less, Iran and Syria, I’ve got a close friend who comes from the and those unfortunate enough to live on top same way as I, or rather, she comes from of all that oil and gas in the Caspian Sea around my way. She spent a good part of her region, and the people of the Balkans, and life as a jury consultant. Picking juries for the Nigeria, and South and Central America. defense in capital cases, and now she’s working Hands off Venezuela! U.S. out of Colombia! with young kids who are in, or headed for, To all the people of those lands that the U.S.A. trouble. She’s trying to make it so they don’t wants in its covetous hands. ever have to think about picking a jury. Get up! Stand up! Grab your white flag and For the kids — she asked me to write a few AK, go to the bush. To the mountains. Breathe words about ‘Nam, in this impending time of in the fire on the volcanoes of Morazon war. That was some weeks ago, and it kind of Province in El Salvador. Burn away the fear shut me down. How do I compare Vietnam and the lies — “BY WHATEVER MEANS to Desert Storm? But now the war is no longer NECESSARY.” Wipe the smoke from your impending, and for those kids tricked into eyes, smash the mirrors of big media. Bring going over there (“Over there, Over there...”) the passion of real Liberation to the streets. it must now seem never-ending. Long nights Free Palestine! Up the Rebels! ¡Vinceremos! and longer days. Amandla! Take back your Freedom. Take it on In ‘Nam we did one year, more or less home, for human dignity and self determination. depending on your misfortune, or luck. I did — — 18 months. “Someone will say it lasts but a clothing with bundles of belongings on their Love Tom [#10373-016, Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048] year, three times four months; I say those are backs and smoke billowing from their homes days and nights that are endless. Every day in the background. Yeh. This is looking familiar Postscript: — twelve hours, every night — seven hundred now, eh? Villagers, herded into the center of Many a time I’ve lain in a dark cell, anticipating, minutes. Every minute — sixty seconds, each their hamlet or homestead by U.S. infantry- knowing that the new day, or, the next shift second with its load of pain and suffering.” men. Some hunched in fear, some on their of guards, was gonna bring trouble... (Written in Polish by an unknown Jewish girl knees, one looking and pointing in defiance. The children of Iraq, who hope and pray found at Auschwitz.) Oh, oh! Doesn’t he know about My Lai? But for a new day, are being terrorized by the There are great pictures coming out of this then, why should he? They were just living night, when the bombs come, when their war. The New York Times has a “special” war their lives when history came to visit. That teeth, and their bones, and their nerves, and section now — bigger than their Sunday and thing that keeps coming ‘round, repeating itself. their dreams are shattered, jarred, startled, Monday sports sections. And this special war The government and media talking head(s) smashed, shocked... Who ever thought of that section has a color, center, photo spread. With keep(s) crying about deception, the ruse, the phrase — SHOCK AND AWE? It’s not just many pictures that the recruiters are gonna low-down dirty trick of hiding behind a white the ones in the muddy boots who should be love. And now the Christian Science flag, then opening up on the enemy instead dragged before the world court. It should be Monitor has gotten into the big, color, center of surrendering. But, how else do you do an the ones in the air-conditioned sparkling clean photo spread act (3/27/03). But their pictures, ambush when you have no bush? When you offices first, the ones with the dirty minds. to me, are more reminiscent of ‘Nam. Look live in a desert country that has been ambushed Thinking about those long nights in the bush at the face of this kid in the convoy picture, by the lies and armies of daddy bush and baby — in the rain, and more recently, long nights “Road to Baghdad” (this ain’t Bing Crosby bush. Yeh, these people have got bushes now, in prison cells. Often times that sun was a & Co.). He looks like the typical “New Meat.” but not the right kind. No olive branches come rescuer, and as often — not.. FNG, fucking new guy, clean uniform, fresh with these bushes. If there were any olive shave & haircut, trying to look stoic, but the branches here, Ariel Sharon will be right “Dawn came on us like a betrayer; It seemed emotions coming through are anything but along with a bulldozer. The United States as though the new sun rose as an ally of our stoic, or static. It is a realization coming lived and killed by the ambush in Vietnam. enemies to assist in our destruction.” —Primo Levi, “Survival at Auschwitz” GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 10 Impassioned Violence, Justified Violence I was having a conversation with a friend of The case of the detention guards seems against almost mine about the topic of revolutionary violence; pretty clear. They were using violence to everyone who is he was advocating for the right to harm or kill imprison people, so some anarchists used working within in self-defense, extended to every government violence—not gratuitously, only what was the system. The or corporate functionary involved in a murder- necessary—to free some of those people. We crux of the matter ous act, and I was trying to articulate why I can call this a justified act of violence, and is that violence is at its cruelest when it is a was uncomfortable with this idea. My friend already we are not dealing with direct self- rational act—statism, Western science, capital had the upper hand—after all, if it is accept- defense, but with violence used for the punishment, and regimes have adequately able to use violence in response to the soldier self-defense of another. So where do we draw demonstrated this principle. When we trace a or corporate mercenary breaking into your the line? Is it also justified to use violence to person’s connections to various corporate or home to evict, imprison, or kill you, why not impede or stop the policy makers, elected and governmental mechanisms of murder and use violence against the general or CEO who appointed, who sent the asylum-seekers to ecocide, trying to decide whether they are a dispatched them? imprisonment? And what about the boards justified target for acts of self-defense, we strip I believe self-defense is an innate right for of the corporations that constructed the them of their humanity, of their essence as living all living things, and I also believe that the detention facility, or manufactured the guns things, and turn them into functionaries of conceptualization or embrace of total pacifism and other tools used by the guards? It power. The greatest violence is done in our is only possible in a colonized, statist society, certainly seems justified—you can’t let the minds, on a metaphysical level, when we long taught to accept the idea of passive grunts on the frontline take all the heat. If the trivialize the pain we may cause by justifying, citizenship and the legitimacy of authoritarian politicians and CEOs are bringing the war to and dismissing it, beforehand. violence. On the other hand, I feel that violence our homes, and the homes of people in the If somebody attacks me, ready to kill me or is wrong, that harming someone, even the global South, isn’t it justified to bring the war cage me, I do not need to trace their connections worst corporate shithead, is at some level a to their homes? The problem is, this would to a larger system of violence, and I do not cause for sorrow, even if they are getting their be justified. In a global system of such need to come to a rational decision as to just desserts. For anarchists, violence is, or ubiquitous injustice and violence, you can keep whether defending myself with force would be should be, problematic on a tactical level as moving the line back and moving the line back justified. If the shit hits the fan, all the cards well. All violence has an authoritarian element until you arrive at the totally justified doorstep are laid out on the table and the democratic to it. It is nearly invisible in the actions of the of a quasi-Leninist, programmatic extermination pretenses of our civil government are cast underdog, until the point of victory when the of all “counter-revolutionaries.” aside in a revolutionary moment, so everyone roles are reversed, and the underdog knows where they stand, I do not need becomes predominant. If violence to construct a justification to prove to is used to achieve the victory, will it myself that the elite and their hired be necessary to preserve the victory? thugs will use violence against me if I Part of the reason I could not let them. Self-defense is a gut hunch— articulate my unease and refute it is an instinct—and to use rationality what my friend was saying is that to decide when violence is or is not I almost agreed with him. After justified is to sedate your instincts and all, just the day before I had to place life, death, and pain in a sphere laughed out loud when I read where they cannot be fully valued. about the two Woomera detention Corporations and governments are guards who had been beaten up killing people every day. Across much by masked anarchists jail-breaking of the globe there is a climate of open some of the imprisoned asylum- warfare. We must fight back. I seekers. On one level it is sad to recognize the possible need to use think about: some poor, dumb violence, to hurt somebody, to free robot “just doing his job,” jaw myself and others. But it should be busted, kneecap smashed, nose an act of passion. I should not preclude bloodied, wondering what the hell just When I realized this, and accepted it, I finally the possibility of feeling guilt or Mitleid with happened—hadn’t he been protecting his had an answer for my friend. The question is an act of preemptive rational wizardry. If, in country, doing what he was taught was right? not where we draw the line to define “justified” the worst case scenario, you must kill someone, But on another, more obvious level, it is violence, but that we are drawing a line at all. you should at least give them the respect of incredibly satisfying to think that not only are This whole global system is attacking us, allowing yourself to cry for what you have some people who were locked up now running killing people, destroying the planet, and the done. And if you can’t feel any compassion, free, but also that a couple of pigs got a taste idea of self-defense, when dealt with at a what exactly are you fighting for? of the violence that they wield every day. rational level, could be used to justify violence - a friend of Green Anarchy

Page 11 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE RecoveringRecovering FromFrom WesternWestern CivilizationCivilization

AnAn InterviewInterview withwith ChellisChellis GlenndGlenndiinningnning -- PartPart IIII

Chellis Glendinning (her friends call her CheChe) is a as his mother I’m so distraught, and I’ve come all this way, and now psychologist, political activist, and writer. Her I’m saddled with this, why me?” And whereas I feel for this sudden books include: Off the Map: An Expedition Deep Into intrusion of a terrible situation that she will have to grapple with, Empire and the Global Economy, which won the there’s a way in which “why me?” — while it’s certainly how she National Federation of Press Women 2000 Book Award feels — I can immediately see that there is no “why me?”. I see it as ’ for General Non-Fiction; My Name Is Chellis and I m a huge kind of snowball that’s just rolling along, and it’s made me In Recovery From Western Civilization; When really reflect on the basic nature of the human psyche. I believe that Technology Wounds: The Human Costs of Progress, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for General our psyches were created as mirrors of the environment around us, Non-Fiction in 1991; and Waking Up in the Nuclear to help us be participants of the whole of the natural world. So if we Age. She has also written for all kinds of news- grow up in, say, a land-based tribal community, our psyches are made papers and magazines and journals. Chellis lives to reflect, for instance, the seasons. Our psyches are made to reflect in Chimayó, New Mexico, and is currently working on the wholeness of the environment, the completeness, the way in which a book about the illicit heroin trade that’s called we are not separated from it. The dark and the light, the unceasing Chiva: the Ups and Downs of a Heroin Village. parade of natural phenomena. The family. The connection to not just The first half of this interview appeared in the the animals and the seasons and the plants, but also the human family. previous issue of Green Anarchy – Fall 2003 (#14) and And so what’s happened as that relationship, that basic split between focused mainly on her life, the work she is involved human and nature, and all the other splits, have come to be — some with in her community, and the direction of her believe as far back as paleolithic times, current writing. others go back to the neolith, others go back II seesee technologytechnology notnot asas thethe to just the industrial revolution — but as that GA: The most intense aspects of manifestation of scientific split has become manifest in our human your work connect the traumatic community, so it has become manifest in the experiences of surviving discoveries that were meant human psyche. within modern civilization. toto bebe discovered,discovered, thatthat wewe thenthen So what if we are to go along with the work Could you briefly discuss how call “progress.” I see technology of Kirkpatrick Sale in a book that he’s writing the complex web of trauma, right now, in which he says that the split addiction, abuse, and dysfunction and those kind of discoveries began when humans stopped being scavengers on a personal level is entwined as existing in the context of a and began active hunting. And that split then with ecological destruction? certain mindset. And this separated us from the great round, from the mindset that produced the sacred hoop, demanding that we begin to Che: Trauma, addiction, abuse and dysfunction mindset that produced the make rituals to try to mend that hoop. If you are being experienced on a personal level. In kinds of technologies that we follow Kirkpatrick’s line of thinking, that’s other words, each person that is harmed in some have today is a mindset of what the beginnings of ceremonial life are deep, cracking-open kind of way, is saddled all about, the effort to heal that split we made with that experience, that struggle. And the separation, of being split off by beginning active hunting. If you look at means to healing that person is through that fromfrom thethe naturalnatural world.world. it from a psychological perspective, it’s the person. However, after a lifetime of exploring beginning of subject/object. Because of the the relationship between the personal and the profound identification that we have with collective, I’ve truly come to see our personal struggles as reflections animals, with other live creatures that are like ourselves, in order to of the basic dynamics of the entire society. So that when a client kill one, we have to objectify, we have to distance ourselves. And comes to me and says, “My son is breaking up his marriage, and he’s indeed, one of the main qualities of a traumatic experience is the an alcoholic, and he’s very aggressive when he’s drinking, and no dissociation, the parceling off of different aspects of our psyche that wonder his wife is leaving, and he’s hitting bottom financially, and previously were kind of elliptical or like a mobius strip inside of us, GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 12 where everything is connected and there are no divisions; suddenly down to picking apart atoms or picking apart genetic material, picking we would have to make that division in order to cage off, to corral apart the body, picking apart everything in sight. And another theme off, the feeling of horror and grief that takes place when we engage in of Western science, and therefore the technologies that spring from the act of killing. it and manifest it, is the theme of universalization, the sense that John Zerzan speaks of a similar event or development in paleolithic everything on this planet is of a piece, and can be picked apart times, when people began division of labor. And again, it requires a universally, and maybe on some level that’s true — earth, water, air, split. Division of labor comes to require a whole different way of fire. But the thought doesn’t translate socially or culturally, because thinking, whereas before, pretty much anybody could do almost every culture, every grouping of human beings and the physical ways anything to survive in the group. There is a split that takes place, a as well as the thought-form ways that they have evolved to survive separation, whereas now these people do this and those people do on this planet are unique. Certainly there are archetypal forms like that, and some people can sing, and some people can go in the spirit the group and the family and the male and the female, but each culture world, and others are to hunt, and others are to take care of the children, is very individual and springs from the particular ecology of the place and that act is not sudden, but it gets rolling, and eventually there where it exists. And so, the universalization is a kind of a basic thought become these major divided arenas existing in the human psyche, so of the beginning of empire — to spread out, to “make it all mine,” to that in today’s world, not only does trauma create those splits in our make it all the same. These are the times we’re living in. We’re living psyches, but those splits in our psyches make us candidates for in the end stage of imperialism, when the entire world is now being perpetrating trauma. So you ask about the web of trauma, addiction, held together and exploited, used, by the technologies that are holding abuse and dysfunction on a personal level and its relationship with it all together. So obviously in a situation like that, a rake and a straw ecological destruction. That kind of a split, it’s really the ultimate in just doesn’t cut it. An arrowhead doesn’t cut it. You need technologies us and them, is the human/nature split. Many writers have explored that express and manifest that view. And therefore, as Gerry Mander the relationship between the personal and the political in this arena, was quick to point out back in the 1970s, technologies are political. and Susan Griffin is one of the So that you need computers that writers who I think has explored can link people up instantaneously it most powerfully, particularly in around the world. You need travel her book Woman and Nature. The that can move people very reflection between themes of, for quickly around the world. You instance, discrimination or violence need satellites, you need tech- against women, against animals, nologies that can look down and and against the ecology, the basic determine where everything is, ecology of our existence. whether it’s where stores of coal So, when a client comes to me are, or it’s where people who are and says, “I’m bereft because my disgruntled and are rebelling are. son is a raging alcoholic and is in So the kinds of technologies bankruptcy and his marriage is that are taking a hold of our lives splitting up, and we all now have today are the technologies of the to take this on,” and then concludes end stage of imperialism, the end “poor me,” that “poor me” is that stage of that manifestation of kind of throwing your hands up universalism in science. And — and I’m speaking very these technologies are very compassionately of this — you destructive, because in order to know, it’s throwing your hands up and saying, “My god, what mow over all of those sustainable, very unique cultures that evolved situations we have to deal with in our lives.” But I would almost at as the human way of surviving on this planet, you need technologies this point say about this moment of grief and shock that it’s more of war so that you can take that basic quality of splitting which I’ve accurate to say, “poor us.” been talking about that possibly dates back to the paleolith, and apply it on the most minute or the most grand levels — for instance, GA: What is the role of technology in this to split the atom, to create a technology that can destroy huge process of alienation and degradation of life? portions of the planet.

Che: You know, maybe it’s a testimony to the essential wholeness GA: How does the system recuperate and use of the human psyche that it’s difficult to answer questions like this. dysfunction and alienation to perpetuate Maybe in a way that wholeness still very much exists. Because it is itself? hard to pick apart one thread or one aspect of this whole dysfunction that’s going on. You know, here’s Kirkpatrick and he comes along Che: When I think about this question, I think about the ways in and he points to the contribution of active hunting. And here’s Zerzan, which the system is ever-dedicated to alienation and universalism and he comes along, and he points out the contribution of division of and degradation and abuse. Trauma, how does it use the resulting labor. And it’s all kind of a whole clock, you know, it’s all of a piece. qualities in the human psyche, which are dysfunction and alienation, But then, the parts of our mind that have been separated off, and the to perpetuate itself? Thus we are very, very needy. The natural stages kind of language that has emerged from that separation, it does make of development to go from being a newborn into being a mature it possible for us to begin to grapple with a fatal aspect of the whole, human being — and I will refer to Erik Erikson’s work here, are not which in this case is technology. being answered in the society that we live in. The first stage of human I see technology not as the manifestation of scientific discoveries development, that the human psyche naturally is drawn to answering that were meant to be discovered, that we then call “progress.” I see in itself so that it can go on to the next stages of development, is the technology and those kind of discoveries as existing in the context sense of belonging, the sense of security. And here you are born not of a certain mindset. And this mindset that produced the kinds of into a chanting, natural birth in nature, but you are born into a sterile technologies that we have today is a mindset of separation, of being room and brought out and slapped, and perhaps you’re even brought split off from the natural world. And in fact, the great discoveries of out of your mother’s body using drugs and metal forceps to pull you out. modern Western science have been about picking things apart, right (continued on next page) Page 13 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE And you come into a family that in many, many cases is a family that of northern Europe that came about through earlier conquerings. is experiencing insecurity, uncertainty, perhaps some manifestation of Maybe it tracks all the way back to the development of active hunting the dysfunction in the form of alienation or abuse, and that need to in northern Europe. Whatever it is, we know that Western civilization come into being held and being welcomed, and feeling the is particularly destructive, and its values and its ways are the juggernaut connection between mother’s breast and the river running by is not of the destruction of life on the planet at this point. answered. And there is not a sense of security. There is not a sense of belonging coming into this world. And then your psyche, in time, GA: In Off the Map, you link imperialism and naturally moves on to the next stage, which is a series of stages that domination to concepts of abstraction, as in have to do with developing one’s sense of will and individuation, maps, borders, cybernetics. Do you see this but you’re not standing on solid ground. So you can’t move into separation from direct experience as the root those stages as a full human being, as of control? we were meant to, And then on top of that, whatever traumas and violence Che: I see it as a root of control in the and discriminations that you experience sense that those who are actively engaged in this society based on who you are in perpetrating the kind of control that and what particular realm of it you are causes so much suffering, so much born into. We become very needy. And destruction, and so much death, are then here comes the media, and here themselves the “way out there” comes the mall, and here comes the manifestations of the kind of alienation military, and they are offering images of parts of oneself, disconnected from the that somehow replace real experiences natural human heritage, which is our that we should be having, and they are connection to our environment, to the offering up the lunge toward artifacts earth. And you can see this separation. and things that we can acquire to make As a psychologist, I’m very attuned to it. us feel better, to make us perhaps feel You can see it — one of the things I more powerful, and we can join the really like to do is when “our” President military, and, by the way, fight for is giving one of his addresses, I like to imperialism, but along the way learn turn on the TV and turn the sound off and to be somebody’s conception of “all look at the body language. And there is we can be.” So that’s, I think, at least an individual who is highly alienated one angle on how the system perpetu- from himself and is clearly enacting some ates itself, because in the system, we need for control that springs from an are — this is another example of all immense insecurity. Now, here’s a little of a piece here — we are so very tidbit, which is that there is a person in insecure. my village in northern New Mexico who was George Bush’s teacher at Phillips- GA: In My Name is Chellis, Exeter Prep School. And while we were you say you are in recovery from Western standing around the post office, this individual tells me about civilization. No doubt, Eurocentric imperialism experiences with George Bush when he was in high school back in has destroyed more quickly and thoroughly the ’60s, and that there was already a haughtiness and an urge toward than perhaps any organized activity in history. hurting other people manifesting in his psychology, a kind of bully Yet all civilization is based on domination nature that was already there. So this curious little tidbit that I picked of the earth and all of its life. What are up at the post office (and I know that there are other people who have some of the specific factors that give Western done and are doing a more extensive psychological analysis or civilization its particularly destructive diagnosis of certain people in power) is quite revealing. quality? But I also see the separation from direct experience — it’s not just the root of control; it’s also the root of acquiescence, because the Che: Because I have lived my life within Western civilization, it’s a more that the people of this planet receive our understanding of the little hard to bring a lot of perspective to this question. Actually, it’s world, receive our knowledge, through a screen, the more that we curious because I just learned from a client of mine, who has family are disconnected from ourselves through these technologies whose in China, that Alcoholics Anonymous and its many offshoots have not hallmark is the expression and the perpetration of alienation, the less made any headway in China, that it just doesn’t fit with the culture. likely we are to respond in any meaningful way. And I think that this So it’s hard for me to propose that one day there might be a book or leads into why it is that the most powerful movements challenging the perhaps there is a book called My Name is So-and-So and I’m in destruction of the planet are not springing from the most industrial- Recovery From Chinese Civilization. Or My Name is Somebody Else ized nations. They are not springing from the United States, nor and I’m In Recovery From Meso-American Civilization. But I do western Europe, nor, say, Japan. Not that there aren’t right-on move- know that Western civilization, perhaps through its vast and quick ments in these societies, but the bulk of people who are highly aware exploration of the world — the “Age of Exploration” in the 1400s and highly conscious of what’s going on in the world today are people and 1500s — and its grasp of so many resources around the world who have learned power relations through direct experience. And (including, by the way, China, a place of amazing biological that is people who don’t have computers and don’t have cellphones, resources), and because of the kinds of technologies that Western largely springing from Third World countries. Just last week, I had civilization was able to develop on its own or to borrow from other the opportunity to participate in a demonstration at the border civilizations, like Chinese civilization, and use for its own purposes. between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico, and I took some cabs to Maybe in some way it was a function of just the timing, that Western get to the demonstration. It was October 11, a Columbus Day sort of civilization came along at a time when other civilizations had developed thing. And I was really taken with the level of sophistication and knowl- certain technologies that could be taken even further. It’s hard to edge of the cab drivers. These were Mexican cab drivers driving cabs really know. Maybe it’s because of the severe wounding of the peoples in El Paso. And their analysis of American power, of corporate power, GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 14 of the source of the murders of so many women, the reasons for to me, and it goes back to the beginning of the women’s movement, poverty in the Third World, were absolutely “state of the art”, but did when we didn’t have access to very much material, and so we were not come from reading literature on the internet, but through direct kind of scraping into some of the early works of women writers in experience. When I speak to my Mexican indocumentado friends here the ’40s and ’50s and digging out Esther Harding and Helen Diner in the United States, they often say, and writers like this, and we quite cold-facedly — it’s even were also uncovering the shocking to me, because I still live ThereThere isis notnot aa sensesense ofof belongingbelonging comingcoming intointo socialist Evelyn Reed, Marie in the world of order, where there thisthis world.world. AndAnd thenthen youryour psyche,psyche, inin time,time, von Frantz, a Jungian. And out is still some semblance of order natunaturallyrally movesmoves onon toto thethe nextnext stage,stage, whichwhich isis of that nascent excavation, that’s being held together in the some of our own writers United States — that the answer aa seriesseries ofof stagesstages thatthat havehave toto dodo withwith devedevelopingloping emerged to comment on is revolution. one’sone’s sensesense ofof willwill andand individuation,individuation, butbut you’reyou’re women’s history and women’s notnot standingstanding onon solidsolid ground.ground. SoSo youyou can’tcan’t movemove spirituality and women’s GA: Your writing style, it politics, like Merlin Stone, seems, has been strongly intointo thosethose stagesstages asas aa fullfull humanhuman being,being, asas wewe who was one of the early influenced by Susan werewere meantmeant to...to... writers, Mary Daly, Charlene Griffin. How much does Spretnak, Susan came out of the work of Griffin and other eco-feminists that tradition as well. Sally Gearhart, Hallie Austen, Judith Plant — influence your work in general? What other these are some of the people who came out of that early exploration eco-feminist authors could you suggest to our in the second wave of the women’s movement. I also love to read readers that could further deepen the anti- and really appreciate the work of Lucy Lippard, who is a very civilization critique? respected art critic who has, in recent years, lent her very intelligent eye into issues of place and ecology; Rebecca Solnit, who is a wonderful Che: Well, I just adore the work of Susan Griffin. She is one of the first essayist; Marjorie Agosin, who writes tremblingly about Latin American writers that I have encountered who writes the way I think. When I read life and politics; Isabelle Allende from Chile; the poet Gloria the work of Susan Griffin — Woman and Nature, A Chorus of Stones — Anzaldua; Joy Harjo - her poetry is a thing of ecstasy in its simple it’s as if my own mind is being reflected back to me. And that had a very connection to the music of the land; and Arundati Roy from India; major impact on my own writing, because the more I read Susan, the Stephanie Mills; Terry Tempest Williams — these are just some of more I wanted to write in a way that reflected the way that I think. the fantastic women writers who are, on some level, writing about Susan also was one of the early feminists to make some very startling the earth, its glories, and our potential for survival against the ravages observations of the society that we live in. It’s really mind-blowing of civilization. to realize that she wrote Woman and Nature, which was, in a very Taped Oct.16, 2003 poetic way, drawing forth the metaphors between woman, animal, nature, and oppression. The work was written in the mid-1970s, so * Off the Map is in bookstores. My Name is Chellis and I’m she was alone in her vision, and it came through her. In Recovery From Western Civilization can be ordered from So what other eco-feminist authors would I suggest to readers that a bookstore or via [email protected] could further deepen the anti-civilization critique? Well, I have a confession to make, and that is that I really do view all feminists as * Also, check-out: U.S. Off The Planet: An Evening With Ward Churchill And Chellis Glendinning, a wonderful docu- eco-feminists, and I view all women writers who are coming from mentation of two speeches delivered by Ward and Chellis on land-based cultures that still exist to some extent but are probably June 17th, 2001, for the two-year anniversary of the anti- being destroyed, as feminists. And so I see them as eco-feminists capitalist insurgency in Eugene. Available from the Green too. But let me just name a few authors who have been meaningful Anarchy Distro on CD or Video (see last page to order).

PagePage 1515 WINTER ‘‘04 ISSUE ElectricElectric Funeral By The Havoc Mass AnAn In-DepthIn-Depth ExamiExaminationnation ofof thethe Megamachine’sMegamachine’s CircuitryCircuitry “In a single superpower world, Our tactics NEED to escalate if we’re going there is a single best target for those to tear this diseased system down – dissatisfied with the status quo. physically – and drag its filthy corpse off the planetary stage once and for all. Critical infrastructures are the best target sets within that best target, Italy in the Eighties: and the electric power infrastructure A Strategy Emerges is arguably the most vulnerable of “These writings appeared in Palermo in the critical infrastructure.” solidarity with the actions where electricity -Lt. Colonel Bill Flynt, pylons of the ENEL company were sawn Office of Homeland Security through in Caorsa and Montato (the central line). These are the latest examples in a It’s 2004 and the planet is under assault by series of acts of sabotage that have been an exterminist megamachine following its carried out for some time now all over Italy. own techno-logic of self-annihilation. This now Why are the police and the judiciary unleashing monolithic power structure, with its vast web such a disproportionate response to this kind of administrative grids and military networks, of action? In our opinion these direct actions is the suicidal unconscious(ness) of patriarchal that anyone can accomplish at any time and history marshalling toward armageddon – the in any place, possibly frighten them more than burning, blood-soaked finale of civilization’s the very formation of a closed armed group. pathological death instinct. Two worlds, This is because the specific armed group is uncompromisingly opposed to one another, controllable due to the programme and logic have come into furious collision: the flowing that it adheres to, while the spreading of acts waters of free life and the stagnant, poisoned of sabotage puts the power structure in wells of techno-industrial civilization. difficulty because anyone can carry out such A storm is gathering, and out of the death acts. It is enough to obtain a hacksaw and rattle of our age a wave of new life is arising: choose a pylon. new anti-authoritarian resistance movements that are awakening to the horror and des- This does not please the Greens, the pacifists or environmentalists because such peration of our plight, movements that are actions undermine their work as politicians ready to throw themselves into open warfare with the techno-industrial system and its tending to homogenize the movement to their practice of platonic dissent. omnicidal trajectory. These new movements Against the high priests of ecology we – born out of a hope for liberation in our Earth’s darkest hour – have inspired millions reaffirm our antagonism and disdain. For we antagonists direct action is an attack against worldwide and have opposed the system the structures producing nuclear energy.” with a ferocity that hasn’t been seen in this -Palermo anarchist group, 1987 country in decades. But one thing many of these new rebel In the late 1980’s in Italy a heated (and movements seem to be lacking is an overall we mean this literally) battle was being strategy, a strategy which calls for and which fought against the construction of nuclear can actualize the collapse of the Death Machine. power plants and the industries and think-tanks If we’re in agreement that our objective is to responsible for producing this technology. shut down the Megamachine, then we need On one side of the struggle were all the various to take a close look at the physical anatomy reformist political forces (Greens, the of the Mechanistic Order and figure out actions Communist Party, “environmentalists”, pacifists) we can take to “level the playing field”. who proposed anti-nuclear legislation and Machines, institutions and “reality” itself are referenda and who attempted to put the socially constructed and are thus amenable struggle on an institutional level, thoroughly to de-construction. The civilization we inhabit integrated into governmental/parliamentary (or more accurately, of which we are prisoners) logic. But an equally important component is an Electrical Civilization and it seems obvious of the struggle was a loose confederation of to us that the electrical grid offers a soft insurrectional anarchists, libertarians and non- underbelly to saboteurs at every turn. Let’s aligned comrades who operated outside and face it: the eleventh hour is approaching, against the institutional framework and who Moloch is feeding on war victims beyond actualized their resistance, not just as block- measure, the genetic structure of life itself is ades at the nuclear power plants, but as a being manipulated by the death merchants of generalized attack on atomic energy. science, and we’re running out of air to breathe…

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 16 In 1986, a vital crossroads in the struggle -During the night between March 12 and of the critique and a broadening praxis that was reached, when anarchists - frustrated 13, 1988, another two pylons were sawn addressed the whole electrical web by which with the constrained “game-playing” of the down: one in the area of Rome Settebagni, we are ensnared. Microwave towers and nuclear reformers – began to develop a move- another in the Cosenza area. The sabotage cellular antennae are now common targets ment against the nuclear project that was was claimed with a letter to the press agency for revolutionary sabotage, as it becomes autonomous and radical. As the Ansa, in which unknown comrades declared them- more and more obvious that our planet is “ProvocAzione” editorial group put it at the selves to be against nuclear power stations. being transformed into an all-pervasive, time: “To the mountains of scrap paper -On April 13, 1988, the day on which the deadly electro-magnetic field where invisible produced by those who support and practice Regional Administrative Tribunal of Lazio emissions and silent currents of cancer course parliamentarian referendums, we propose granted a repeal to ENEL who were asking through our bodies daily. (See this issue’s “Direct direct action, the only possibility of really for work to be allowed to recommence on the Action” news sections for more recent examples.) transforming this society because it points electronuclear plant at Montalto di Castro, out the need for attack against the structures three bomb attacks took place against the You Have the Power, of dominion (including the nuclear ones) and nuclear industry. During the night, paper the objectives to aim at. Our allies and bombs exploded at an ENEL research But the Night Belongs to Us! accomplices are the antagonists and rebels, laboratory and at two firms: the Carlo Gavazzi There have also been several noteworthy because they want to live, not vegetate, Control Co., which produces condensers, and instances in North America of radicals hitting rising up and making a mockery of the the Passoni and Villa Co., which produces the electrical infrastructure “where it hurts”, reformists preaching survival.” It was in this electrical and electronic components. The though they’ve been more sporadic and more social context that new and effective strate- attacks were claimed by anarchist comrades censored by the State. Still, bits and pieces gies against nuclear energy and the power in a leaflet which reached the ANSA press of radical folklore concerning these incidents grid itself began to emerge… agency and Radio Popolare in Milan the next survive in the “oral tradition” of certain -On July 12, 1987, a high tension ENEL day. About a week later, on April 19, another anarchist circles, and the memory of these (Ente Nazionale per L’Energia Alternativa) antinuclear bomb exploded at the FITRE rebellions hasn’t been completely smothered pylon in Cosenza, Italy, was sawn at the base. electronic communications agency in Milan. by decades of establishment propaganda. After having sawn the pylons, the unknown This attack was signed with an encircled A. One of the more interesting (and wide- nightworkers pulled them down, putting out -On June 9, 1988, a main electrical line of the spread) incidents of electrical sabotage in of action an electroduct line of 150 thousand municipal firm of Vicenza was destroyed by North America occurred during the so-called volts. The same fate befell another ENEL flames. A leaflet was published in Sicilia Libertaria “Trouble on the Prairie” which erupted in the pylon in the area of Pec del Brasimone on concerning the attack on this power line: 1970s, during the “energy wars” between September 9, 1987. That pylon, which feeds “We have sabotaged a high tension pylon Minnesota farming communities and both the nuclear reactor of Pec, was also sabotaged above Crotone, where factories pour out toxic public and private electrical utilities. by unknown persons who left a leaflet at the clouds, pollution, exploitation, products as For example, in Lowry, Minnesota, a spot: “No to the nuclear and coal power useless as they are poisonous. THE MAFIA community group named “General Assembly stations, no to war, no to the energy bosses.” OF CAPITAL AND ITS STATES IS PUTTING INTO to Stop the Powerline” organized to stop a -On March 8, 1988, a group calling itself EFFECT THE ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION OF LIFE powerline “right-of-way” crossing through Antinuclear Revolutionaries attacked another ON EARTH! Their accomplices are the politicians, their rural farmland. It was decided by the electrical pylon in Italy. Here is an excerpt parties, trade unions, “men of culture”, community that a “total tactic” would be used: from their communique: “scientists”. The enforced accomplices to their demonstrations were staged, protest letters “On March 8, we cut down a high tension own extermination are the people corrupted were written to State representatives, but pylon in the Cosenza region. In this way we and subjected by the myths of “wellbeing”, the power plans still moved ahead. Then mean to strike at the infamous ENEL gang, “commodity”, “civility”, “progress”. We are foundations and building materials were protagonists in the atomic project in Italy and fighting to free ourselves from this imminent destroyed, and tractors pulled down dozens abroad. We delegate our freedom to control perspective. That can only seriously come of transmission towers as they were erected. our lives to no one and want to destroy the about after the elimination of the exploitation Finally, the State Police were called in, people one they have organized for us now. The misery of man by man and of the environment. were arrested, and the power-plants and of waged work, nuclear death, the increasing So we are attacking with sabotage, with the power-lines were finally constructed and militarisation of our territory and society refusal of consumerism and waste, and say: made operational. But in their 1981 manifesto, itself are the prisons that call themselves stop immediately every kind of industrial the community of Lowry discusses how their social democracy. production and carburation (traffic, heating, confrontation with the government dispelled The nuclear nightmare is an effective industry) that is even slightly polluting, and many illusions they once had about “democracy”: policeman for terrorising the population, all the other processes of plundering of the “We survive. We were not stopped when creating that state of impotence and environment that are just as stupid and homicidal.” we were repeatedly and shamefully betrayed delegation in order to continue to govern -And finally, on October 15, 1988, in the by the politicians. We continue to endure the us. The complicity of the political parties, with mountainous area of “Noce” in the province injuries inflicted by a parade of incompetent words and power games and sweet illusions of Catanzaro, a 150 thousand kilowatt ENEL bureaucrats acting in collusion with the utilities. through referendums, is clearly trying to kill electricity pylon was partly sawn down. At We were not defeated when callous judges the antinuclear struggle and bury it in an the base of the pylon, the Carabinieri (Italian kept deciding that the time and money of institutional field. We refuse this. pigs) found a timer device and some leaflets the power companies was more important The farce of the National Energy Conference which the unknown saboteurs had left behind. than truth, and even more important than their called by the ENEL and the Government, law. The combined brute force of the FBI, the shows the clear will to make a choice decided Since that period of time, attacks on the BCA, the State and local police, and private long ago seem like something to be discussed electrical power-structure seem to be a armies hired by the utilities, has not been in Parliament. Let us spread sabotage over favored tactic of anarchists in Italy. In the 90’s strong enough to destroy us. And we have the whole territory, striking the structures that – alongside the blitzkrieg infestation of survived the lies, the threats and intimidations are bringing about such projects of death.” computers and cell phones – came a deepening (continued on next page) Page 17 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE and deceits, and the arrogant destruction worlds of the internet are completely inter- arcing. In the Gulf and Serbian wars, elec- brought upon us by the power companies them- connected with the Electrical Order that tronically guided “smart bombs” sought out selves. The line went into commercial operation permeates everything that exists, and are electrical power plants and telecommunication two years ago, and we are still survivors! That still reliant upon ancient and recurring themes facilities via artificial intelligence (AI) has never happened before…” tying the diagnostic “health” of civilization software and global positioning systems On July 3, 1981, near Moab, Utah, saboteurs to its sources of energy, war and ecologic (GPS), so as to nullify the electrical command toppled a Utah Power and Light transmission exploitation. Together this infrastructure of the enemy forces. tower carrying 345,000-volt power lines materially represents and sustains the As these recent nation-state conflicts seven miles south of Earth First!’s second have shown us, the first step towards annual Round River Rendezvous. No one defeating your opponent lies in disabling was ever arrested for this action, nor or destroying their sources of artificial for a similar one that occurred a year power. In addition to rioting outside of earlier in Colorado in which 3.2 miles global economic summits, perhaps it’s of power lines were downed after their time for anarchists to look for ways to line supports were sawn through – render industrial civilization inoperative costing the Colorado Ute Electric As- by pulling the plug on its power grid sociation $270,000 in repair bills. (liberals who love their computers and There are a few more incidents of the “networking” opportunities they electrical sabotage in the nineties that supposedly afford us are advised to we know about, but sadly, the practice reflect on the Greek root of the word has yet to really catch on in North “cyber” – kybernan – which means to America (the purpose of this article is control or govern). to discuss this). In 1990, after Earth Day spectacle of otherworldly immateriality while celebrations, unknown individuals calling simultaneously depending upon a physical Objects To Be Destroyed! themselves the Earth Night Action Group made assemblage of wires, plugs and sockets to “It could be that, in the future, people will two consecutive hits in Freedom, California, distribution lines and poles, to transformers look back on the American Empire, the sawing first through two wooden power poles and electrical power plants. Without these economic empire and the military empire, and and then toppling a steel transmission tower extensions – and without electricity – say, ‘They didn’t realize that they were belonging to the Pacific Gas and Electric cyberspace would cease to exist, and so too building their whole empire on a fragile base. Company. This caused a massive power failure would the new global economy as it depends They had changed that base from brick and that cut off electricity for Santa Cruz County upon electrical power, media and technology mortar to bits and bytes, and they never residents for 10 to 18 hours. And in February in order to function. Given the magnitude fortified it. Therefore, some enemy some day 1996, pipebombs were used to attack a SCADA of the telecommunications industry (particularly was able to come around and knock the whole system at a hydroelectric plant in Oregon. the internet) and its criticality to other empire over.’ That’s the fear.” infrastructures, it’s easy to see how the -Richard Clarke, vulnerability of information communications Sabotage: The Way to Success! head of the President’s Critical systems could cripple even the most “imper- The imperialist nature of the power grid has Infrastructure Advisory Board vious” power structure. long been recognized and resisted by An AT&T network failure, for instance, would The U.S. power transmission grid alone indigenous communities as well, but space definitely affect the has 204,000 miles constraints prohibit us from tackling this airline industry, which of transmission subject in too much detail. Among the numerous would have to cease lines served by examples of indigenous resistance to the operations because four regional grids encroachment of the electrical world is the control towers could located across North struggle of indigenous Venezuelans against the not communicate with America: Western state-run company “Electrificacion del Caroni” each other. Computer Interconnection, (EDELCA). In the late 1990’s, the Indigenous viruses – another form Eastern Intercon- Federation of Boli’var State, which encompasses of electronic warfare nection, Electricity the Pemon communities and other native – could easily be Reliability Council of groups, protested the construction of an unleashed with the Texas, and Province electrical line system, fearing that it would lead intent of damaging of Quebec. The grid to new mining settlements, tourism and networked computers has a generating urbanization in their ancestral lands. When their on a global scale, capacity of 800,000 protests were ignored people began including electronic mega-watts and is knocking down electrical towers intended to banking and stock divided into Elec- carry electricity from the Guri Dam in south- markets. In fact, we tricity Generation, east Venezuela to northern Brazil. EDELCA don’t need to look Transmission and reported at least four incidents of sabotage any farther than the Distribution Sectors. in September of 2000, including one in U.S. military for an These sectors con- which seven towers were toppled overnight. idea of how effective tain a nationwide electrical warfare can be. In Serbia, the U.S. network of 5,000 power plants fueled by Silencing Telecommunications: and its Allies tested a “graphite bomb” cruise natural gas, nuclear energy, hydropower A Dialogue With the Problem missile, in which canisters of graphite tape (dams), oil, and coal, as well as a physical network of more than 4000 miles of gas The grand project that is cyberspace is exploded into great nets of ribbon above pipelines, refineries, communication systems, grounded in the mundane realities of what power lines, which then short-circuited the and substations. is required to sustain it. The artificial, virtual electrical grid by causing power spikes and GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 18 The basic structure of an electric power when it cut a vital power line over the Alps. The costs associated with the August 2003 transmission and distribution system consists All of Italy, along with areas of Switzerland blackout in the U.S. are currently estimated of a generating system, a transmission and Austria, were hit by the blackout. And of at $700 million and growing. One week system, a subtransmission system, a course, last August’s huge blackout in the after the U.S. power failure, Georgian distribution system, and a control center. Northeast and parts of Ontario, lasted for separatist rebels shut down the Inguri Generally, the communication between the days, and was the largest single power-out- hydroelectric station (in the zone of the control center system and the field equipment age in U.S. history. Georgian-Abkhazian conflict), when two takes place over utility-owned commu- The strong inter-linkages between industry sections of a 500,000 volt powerline were nications networks. Today, the majority of sectors has also allowed non-humyn rebels damaged by shots from an automatic these networks are based on analog and to strike effective blows against the Empire: weapon. As a result, the Inguri hydroelectric digital microwave technology, station shut down automatically, though dedicated leased leaving all of Georgia without lines, power line carriers, electricity. And indeed, the effica- satellites and fiber optics ciousness of infrastructural sabotage certainly play their role. This has not been lost on the Iraqi field equipment, called insurgents, who routinely engage Remote Terminal Units in attacks on the oil infrastructure, (RTU’s), acts as a clearing directly thwarting attempts at house for incoming data. coalition “reconstruction” and Digital control systems, such undercutting the funding for the as SCADA (Supervisory installation of a CIA-backed puppet Control and Data Acquisition regime. In Basra, circuits running Systems) supervise and underground and belonging to the regulate real-world structures Bechtel Corporation are routinely like gas pipelines, oil refineries, attacked by people who pour gas and power grids. There are on them and set the fuel ablaze. four or five companies, three So welcome to the Wasteland! It’s of them European, that make time to start anew…time to reclaim the SCADA software that’s widely used in the In 1986, in California, a beaver strategically the earthly paradise our ancestors once electric power industry. Most SCADA systems felled a 10-inch thick tree so that it fell across knew… prophecies are coming true as a cycle are running Microsoft-operating software, a major powerline. As a result, 400 residents nears completion… global warming, acid which means they can be manipulated of Cottage Grove and several industries lost rain, advanced ozone depletion… the signs remotely and that their users essentially have their electricity for 3 hours (the victorious of the times are everywhere, so let’s make a target painted on their foreheads. monkeywrencher was not caught!). In 1987, sure that we’re prepared… to finish off the Transformers, microwave towers, and in Ft. Pierce, Florida, two onslaughts by jelly- Megamachine before it can be repaired… transmission substations can often be found fish (unfairly considered by many as one of when the power lines come crashing down in isolated, unpopulated areas. Electrical Earth’s more ignominious species) at the St. and the roads disintegrate… we’ll blend substations will almost always be secured Lucie nuclear power plant caused two in with the pounding rains and move to with nothing more than a lock on an access separate shut-downs (the first jellyfish attack smash the state! gate. Once inside, an experienced saboteur blocked the ocean-fed coolant system of the might destroy an entire substation. High plant, while the second covered the water voltage power lines are run on massive filtering system: the combined financial loss pylons, which are built on concrete founda- to the Florida Power and Light, Co. was more tions but are not designed to withstand than $1 million). And in New York, thousands sabotage. Each pylon has from four to eight of dollars are spent every year to replace cable legs, which are secured to their concrete TV wires that are used as tooth sharpeners foundations by massive bolts. Wrenches, by rodents, much to the consternation of blowtorches and explosives would all be boob-tube enthusiasts. sufficient to destroy the integrity of the entire structure; many of these power lines Lights Out! run through desolate areas and are only As technology advances, so do its depen- inspected once a week by maintenance dencies on other sectors: certain infrastructures crews, usually by helicopter. are the customers of other infrastructures, and Probably the main thing that makes the when electrical transmission capacity is electrical grid such an enticing target is unexpectedly lost, electrical generation must the fact that it’s already falling apart, on its immediately be taken off-line. Otherwise, the own! The 1996 blackout on the West Coast generator’s output will reroute and overload that affected 4 million people from British remaining transmission lines, causing Columbia to Mexico (including parts of the “voltage oscillations” that will ripple through U.S. stretching from Oregon to Wyoming) the power grid and pull down significant was caused when Bonneville Power portions of it. Thus, a well-planned attack that Administration (BPA) transmission lines cripples key energy facilities might severely sagged into tree limbs. Similarly, on hamper the distribution of natural gas and could September 28, 2003, a tree uprooted by easily lead to cascading failures of the power storms in Switzerland was blamed for grid and the telecommunications system. paralyzing electricity supplies across Italy goodnight.

Page 19 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Ecological Resistance From Around the World The Struggle for Life is

Why are you waiting? Non-Negotiable! “But they have everything. They have the organization and the control and the communications and the army and the police and the secret police. They have the big machines. They have the law and drugs and jails and courts and judges and prisons. They are so huge. We are so small.” “Bonnie, you think we’re alone? I’ll bet—listen, I’ll bet right this very minute there’s people out in the dark doing the same kind of work we’re doing. All over the country, little bunches of folks in twos and threes, fighting back.” “You’re talking about a well-organized national movement.” “No I’m not. No organization at all. None of us knowing any- thing about any other little bunch. That’s why they can’t stop us.” - Doc Sarvis, from The Monkey Wrench Gang

July 12, 2003: On September 5th, in Rovereto, the on a fundamental right of all beings Editors’ Note: The destructive effects Eco-War Erupts in Italy! cables of the Omnitel repeater of and must be stopped. of the omnicidal industrial hydra on A militant environmental group call- Mossano were set on fire. On The communiqué follows: the life-support capabilities of this ing itself “Green Core” sent bullets September 7th, in Rovereto again, When all legal avenues of dissent fragile, beautiful third rock from the to the offices of the Tuscany Regional an Omnitel antenna was set on fire. have been undertaken to no avail, sun has placed the (predominantly) Agency in the cities of Pisa, Florence A letter was sent to a local only one option remains. Illegal middle class, mainstream environ- and Livorno, Italy. Accompanying the newspaper after this action, stating: direct action. The people of Michigan mental movement in a tactical bullets was a communiqué reading: “Repeater sabotaged, the WTO is have stated very clearly that we do predicament: Do they really still “In these years you have destroyed also here. Not Pollution, Not control, not want a Perrier Bottling Plant. believe that we have the luxury of our land, now it’s enough. Your peace nor Satellites.” And two days later, We’ve had enough of empty political time to wait for a mass movement, is finished.” in Trieste, the cables of an antenna rhetoric about freedom and justice, or any track record of success to for a cellular telephone company enough of sitting back while our lure us down this path? Do they September 1-7, Italy: were set on fire. most basic rights are handed over really still cling to the illusion that Multiple Attacks Against to corporations. Clean water is one their “legal monkeywrenching” and of the most fundamental necessities, their “non-violent” protests accom- Cellphone Antennae September 21, Michigan: and no one can be allowed to privatize plish anything more than gain brief, In the past few months, there have ELF Claims Incendiaries Left it, commodify it, and try to sell it fleeting media visibility for the been many manifestations of pro- at Perrier Bottling Plant back to us. “cause”, or – at best – create short test in Italy against The Earth Liberation Front Press We will no longer stand idly by term disruption in governmental the infestation of Office recently received a while corporations profit at the decision making (while having little this technology. communiqué from the ELF claiming that they left incendiaries at a expense of all others. To this end, or no effect on the productive pumping station supplying a we have taken action against one of capability of the larger juggernaut)? water bottling plant owned the pumping stations that Perrier The results of technological and by Nestle Waters uses to steal water. On the night of scientific rationalism, the daily st North America Sunday, the 21 of September, the disasters of capitalism, are before (formerly known ELF penetrated the perimeter fence everyone’s eyes, they are in our as the Perrier Group of America) in of an area of land used for canned bodies, on our plates. But the paid, Mecosta County, Michigan. According hunts. This particular location, a “career” environmental activists, to news reports, these incendiaries short distance from Rodney, MI, (who in their own way perversely failed to ignite and were removed near 13 Mile Rd and M20 is home profit from the system’s murderous, from the station without incident. to the pumping stations that supply decimating war on the earth) are too Controversy has surrounded the Ice the Perrier Bottling Plant I Mecosta blinded by the bourgeois ideology Mountain Plant for the past several County. Access to one of the pumping of progress to see the horrendous years, with local environmental stations was gained and timed truths of our crisis. Symbolic mass groups asserting that the bottling incendiary devices were placed. We actions and the far-reaching “program” plant will have a negative impact on will not allow the commodification to educate people, we are told by the local ecosystem. Although the of life to continue. Action must, and these office-bound “experts”, incendiaries failed to ignite, the ELF will, be taken, for it is our only chance. should be the thrust of the environ- has sent a message that the Water for Life, Not for Profit! mental struggle. And NEVER should commodification of water is an attack Welcome to Michigan. ELF we question the despotic reproduction

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 20 and administration of a life-devouring the ELF, who were believed to be under construction in Martinsville, But what life is to be found in this? social organization (conceptualized responsible for a spate of arson Indiana. What follows is what many Some will have us believe that this as “Democracy” by its liberal attacks near Ford’s country home. of us in the Green Anarchy Collective is what should be desirable to us. apologists) that, despite certain Amidst greatly-exaggerated consider to be one of the best ELF Things are just large enough to keep faults and excesses, must go forward. “warnings” from a hysterical FBI communiqués ever released: us looking and shopping. Things are Should these “Eco-reformers” ever and Michigan State Police, just fast enough that we recognize the thralldom of politics Ford stepped up security as never even have to leave our to technocracy, they will say ruefully his car company celebrated cars for most of our trans- that they are at least “buying time”. its centennial, and kept public actions, as we speed off But while they debate, species vanish; appearances to a minimum. to work. Everything is while they compromise, wilderness Finally, on September 21, 2003, convenient and people are shrinks. In response to the paralysis the smoldering fires of revolt satisfied, and for those who and bankruptcy of the mainstream flared up again when the ELF might be discontented with “environmental establishment,” a made their arson attempt on this reality, there is plenty of new generation of Eco-warriors has a Perrier Water Bottling Plant. television to watch. emerged from the underground and The significance of this most Most people are content are providing extremely direct recent action in Michigan lies in with this, but we are not. solutions to the strategic impasse the atrocity it was designed to We know that life does not created by the limited thought confront: the commodification have to be one monotonous patterns of their bungling prede- of WATER, central and sacred routine played out over and cessors. This is a generation reared to all species and life. Water over again. We know that in decaying buildings of a bombed- scarcity – related directly to the places we live can offer out “urban renewal” setting, for industrial agriculture and us much more than Wal- whom even the shriveled nuclear deforestation – is already Marts and McDonalds and family has disintegrated, a generation becoming a life-and-death Chevrons. We know, because who have only known polluted air matter in water stressed areas at times we have experi- and chlorine-treated water, a gen- in Africa, China, India, Mexico enced a break with this eration for whom the apocalypse and the Middle East. We can reality, and know that other has already occurred. count on the “water wars” intensi- On 10/24/2003 in Martinsville, IN possibilities exist. These young radicals understand fying in the decade ahead of us. We we visited a construction site for a And how can things change the necessity to act NOW, regardless extend our thanks and solidarity to new Wal-Mart store. We pulled up really? of, or perhaps more importantly, in the ELF for taking action against the dozens of survey stakes, spray- For us, sabotage may not be a lieu of numbers. The Earth Liberation system’s latest violation of life and painted building walls and machines. means to change any world but our Front is at the cutting-edge of this for illuminating new threats and Sabotage was done to over a dozen own, as an expression of our feelings new movement and has been very assaults on the horizon. pieces of heavy machinery and toward this society. We strike for active in the Michigan vehicles by putting sand in the ourselves, out of our own frustrations, area since at least the fuel tanks, slashing tires, and and rage and despair…as a means spring of 2001, when they cutting engine hoses and of therapy and adventure. Because attacked six Butcher Boy tubes. Before leaving we to not act, or to resign oneself to Meat trucks, vandalized a broke out 20-30 construction such an impoverished life of working McDonald’s franchise and machine windows. and consuming is not good enough torched eight SUVs at a Roy We are overwhelmed by the for us. We are not content and O’Brian Ford dealership. amount of shit society offers intend to express this. These “training exercises” us. We look around and see This society offers us shit…How were followed by one of the our lives displayed in neon can we repay them? best actions yet against the lighting. In one city block E.L.F. timber industry when, in there is a McDonald’s, a July 2001, the ELF torched Chevron, a couple of banks, November 21, Marne, Italy: an office belonging to the and a Taco Bell. Two massive Transformer Torched Weyerhauser Co. in the car dealerships glow in the An electrical transformer belonging Detroit area (see Green short distance, the new SUV’s to the Enel Corporation was sabotaged Anarchy #7 for more details proudly displayed in the front. with fire. A message was left saying on all these actions). 2003 We can even see the old “no to biotechnologies”. saw a new upsurge of Wal-Mart, which apparently struggle as the ELF wasn’t large enough or new November 26, British Columbia: launched a daring field enough to satiate a growing SUV’s Spray-Painted campaign against urban population of consumers. According to a corporate news sprawl in and around Detroit. Federal October 24, Indiana: Everything must be new, and it report, four expensive Sports “anti-terrorist” agents got so freaked ELF Sabotages Wal-Mart must be big. Even the highway Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) were out that they began to claim publicly Construction Site! passing through town isn’t big spray-painted with messages like that the safety of Bill Ford, Jr., the In its 11th known (claimed) action enough. And there is nothing “pollution machine” and “status great grandson of Henry Ford and of 2003, the Earth Liberation Front unique about this specific location. symbol” in Vancouver’s middle- the chief executive of the family car has taken credit for extensive This is life in North America. This class Kitsilano neighbourhood. company, was under threat from sabotage at the site of a Wal-Mart is becoming everywhere. “These people aren’t environmentalists. They’re arsonists.” - Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club Page 21 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE “Terminating“Terminating TerminatorTerminator Technology”Technology”

The Industrial Empire (sneaking along under its euphemism “civilization”) has already died, it simply hasn’t fallen over yet. Its “hybrid” seed is dead. Twenty percent of the agricultural poisons exported from the US to the people of the “Third World” by the transnational industrial elite are so toxic that they can’t even pass the obviously fraudulent and inadequate FDA “tests” for use in the US. The same goes for the GMO “food” that our masters attempt to dump on famine-stricken regions like Zimbabwe, plunging the biotic community even further into apocalypse. That’s all we need to know, for it shows us the future of the empire that would commit such a crime. The elite is so degenerate that they now seek to marinade us all – including themselves – in a carcinogenic, mutagenic chemical froth. Civilization is running psycho-biologically amok and genetic engineering is without a doubt one of the most pressing and immediate threats to the “We and the Luddites are fighters in the same war. Two hundred years continuation of free life on this planet. ago the English elite’s main enemy was the peasantry which lived for For that (and other) reasons, we are committed to spreading the word the most part outside the cash economy and was forever rising up. about each and every incident of anti-genetics sabotage that we hear The elite used the enclosure of land and the mechanization of crafts about, even if those actions are more than six months old. We publish and agriculture to crush the rebellious autonomy of the English poor. these action reports in the hope that it will inspire others to take up the The class was eradicated by physical force and the elite’s technology battle against biotech. Urgency is the call of the day. The juggernaut and forced to become wage slaves in the emerging factories or on the of civilization, founded on technology and domination, refined by farms of the rich. industrial production and consumption-driven empires, is gaining Two hundred years, and many struggles later, the English poor are momentum. The Third World war has already started and its most for the most part wasting their lives in crap jobs or depressed and lethal “weapon of mass destruction” is biotech. Those of us who live in drug-ridden on the dole – their rebelliousness almost totally extinguished, the belly of the beast and have realized this must recognize the imperative our history forgotten. Meanwhile the (now global) elite continues to to act now. wage a war on the class that remains the main threat to its existence – Anti-GE Actions the global peasantry. The relative autonomy and link with the land that fuelled the Zapatistas in Mexico, the Viet Cong in Vietnam and the May, 2003, Casalmorano, Italy: security forces; two Monsanto MST in Brazil has to be destroyed. This is where genetic engineering workers were also injured during comes in. Attack on Machinery the mayhem. “One greenhouse was Fires are set amongst trucks and The relative autonomy of the peasantry has always rested on its ability destroyed. We lost valuable plants to grow its own food without the major involvement of the market. machinery at a Syngenta site. A and are seriously concerned,” said spray-painted slogan reading “No Every harvest farmer can collect the seeds from their crops and re-sow Monsanto India. “We timed the the following year. In many ways, the seed both symbolically and literally GMOs, No Syngenta, No Pesticides, attack for those attending the WTO Sab Biotech” was left behind. holds the key to freedom. Understanding this, the elites’ new technologies in Cancun,” said the Karnataka change the seed from a key to freedom to a key to further slavery. Farmers Association. Monsanto is One of the most important weapons being developed for use against August, Parma, Italy: the only company allowed to sell GMO Crop Torched the rural poor is “terminator technology”. Terminator technology allows GM cotton seeds in India – with a seed companies to sterilize new plant varieties, meaning that farmers A Pioneer Hi-Bred production plant modified bacterium gene to make will not be able to obtain healthy seeds for the following year at harvest. is torched, stopping production them “pest resistant” – through Instead, every year they will have to buy seeds from the corporations. during peak harvest. A spray-painted its joint venture partner, the Like most dominant technologies in this society, genetic engineering is slogan reading “Pioneer pollutes Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company. an ecologically destructive, socially devastating weapon used by the seeds, Fire to GMOs” is left behind. Sales in 2003 were 216% higher elite in its continuing war of expansion against the wild and the world’s than the previous year, which was poor. In this context it is handy to remember that Monsanto was the July 26, Japan: India’s first. producer of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used by America in its GE Soybeans Destroyed war with the peasantry of Vietnam. It is no accident that Chiapas, home Ibaragi – GM soybeans resistant to September 16, Spain: of the Zapatista rebels, is the first place where GM trees are being Roundup Ready herbicide that were Protesters Invade GM Corn Fields commercially grown. being grown by a farmer in the Arunjuez – Spanish farmers and Two hundred years ago the English elite was forced to construct its Yawara prefecture of Japan were ecologists invaded fields of genetically- new technological weaponry – the factory system – in hostile territory. plowed into the soil and destroyed. modified corn to rage against the Night after night the Luddites of northern England laid waste to the “inevitable advance of biotech” in one technology they knew was aimed directly at the destruction of their September 12, India: of the only European countries where communities. Two hundred years later the elite designs its new Monsanto Greenhouse Destroyed GMO’s are grown on a commercial technological weapons thousands of miles from the people who will Bangalore - Indian farmers wrecked scale. Around 80 protesters, some eventually feel the effects. Unable to reach and destroy the experiments a research station run by Monsanto, dressed in white suits that mimicked themselves the peasantry is forced to rely on us to be the long arms of the US firm with a monopoly on the the protective outfits scientists the Third World. We must make this territory hostile again. sale of genetically modified cotton wear to clearing up biological hazards, Under the cover of the mass, masks and midnight we, the new Luddites, seeds in the six of India’s 29 states cordoned off GM plants and painted will continue to fight back in the land struggle that has never ended.” that permit them. At least 29 farmers slogans on walls at three GM trial were arrested by the government’s sites throughout Spain. -from Do or Die #8, June 18, 1999 Civilization is a Toxic Watermelon. GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 22 FORCEFORCE MAJEUREMAJEURE Indigenous and Campesino Resistance September 24: government repression in El Alto, Bolivia’s Gas War Intensifies! this was not viewed as a credible A new cycle of conflict has developed announcement by the radicalized in Bolivia as workers; coca farmers, proletariat. Residents of El Alto indigenous movements and other described the offensive of terror Bolivia:Bolivia: GuerreroGuerrero porpor groupings of the dispossessed unleashed by the Bolivian military as lala defensadefensa deldel gasgas unite to prevent the sale of Bolivia’s a “psychological war implemented gas reserves to the United States from the North-American advisers”. concon unun molotov.molotov. through a Chilean port. At the time In attempting to quell the spiraling of this writing, Bolivia is in its conflict, the President got on TV and “Afghanistan of the Andes, a failed Indians trying to protect their tradi- tenth day of road blockades, with spoke of how “Bolivia is in danger state that exports drugs and disorder.”) tional land and oil companies who large-scale strikes and protests and is being stalked by a huge The government of President want to drill in the Amazon. In the taking place around the country subversive project from outside the Quiroga was a corpse that continued northern Amazon, Indians are suing on Sept. 19. Confrontations with nation, which is attempting to destroy to govern for a few more weeks an U.S. Oil Company over environ- security forces and protesters during Bolivian democracy.” He made further thanks to the support of the American mental damage they say ruined these manifestations resulted in reference to a “union dictatorship” Embassy, but it was eventually their land and made people sick. seven confirmed deaths and over 25 and promised to “repress seditious brought down by the poorest, most Further south, indigenous rebels injuries. In the city of Cochabamba, factors”, adding that the movement rebellious and most dignified people have taken violent action to keep oil nearly ten thousand people took to against him was “an attempted coup of Bolivia, in a convulsed country with firms out of their home. Argentine the streets—a presence not seen funded by the darkest interests in a great tradition of coups. oil company CGC and U.S. since the “water wars” in April of the world.” A public appearance by Burlington Resources Inc. have had 2000. Confrontations began in the “first lady” on October 12 further November 12, Santiago (Chile) government contracts to explore for the town of Warisata, and state reflected the president’s desperation. Masked university students set up crude oil for more than three years security forces began to indis- As the military continued to fire blockades of burning tires outside and neither has been able to drill a criminately fire on the protesting heavy ammunition into crowds of their school in solidarity with an single well. Achar Indians have taken campesinos, while also randomly demonstrators, the First Lady read indigenous Mapuche youth who action against oil development by shooting into homes and schools. the bible aloud on the government was assassinated by the police. kidnapping workers and holding Some of the campesinos returned TV station, begging the public to pray When riot police vehicles showed up strong, rowdy demonstrations, fire with their own weapons and for Bolivia! But such pathetic rhetoric the students attacked them with saying they must protect the with rocks. was no match for the mobilized Molotov cocktails. pristine forest where they’ve lived wrath of the exploited, which has for decades. CGC, which won its October 10-13, 2003: been on the ascent in Bolivia since December, Peru: contract in 1996, halted operations Insurrection in Bolivia as 2000, fortifying its strength and Indigenous Threaten Armed this year after more workers were President Steps Down! clarifying its objectives. Against Struggle Against Oil Companies kidnapped by Indian insurgents. From October 10-13, in the city of the violence of the State/Capital, Peru’s 6,000-strong Achuar tribe, Capitalist analysts say it will be El Alto, a prolonged confrontation the Bolivian exploited defended who live in some of the most tough for Ecuador to attract financial between protesters and state themselves with sticks, rocks, biodiverse land on earth, vowed to investment unless tensions are security forces resulted in 30 dead slingshots, dynamite and guns. end plans by U.S.-based Burlington eased with indigenous communities, and over 100 injured, the great There were several reports of home- Resources Inc., and Occidental who make up nearly half the people majority from bullet wounds. In the made bombs being thrown at cops, Petroleum to drill for oil on the Peru- in the Amazon. past 14 months, Bolivian security and coca farmers from Young Ecuador border. “We will not let them in. We will fight for our lives, forces have killed more than 100 implemented one of the most long- “Hear me, people: We now have to we will lead an armed struggle with people: the largest number of deaths lasting road blockades in October, deal with another race – small and traditional weapons if need be,” in that period of time in recent history, stopping entirely the flow of fruits feeble when our fathers first met them, Alberto Pizango, an Achuar tribal including the years the military and vegetables to the capital. The but now great and overbearing. member, told a news conference. dictatorship ruled the country. Faced iron resistance of the coca farmers Strangely enough they have a The Achuars say their rivers, crops with mounting discontent and growing has angered the US embassy, who mind to till the soil and the love of and land have been ruined by lead violence in the streets, the govern- will most likely try to punish the possessions is a disease with them. and mercury deposits left from past ment announced in mid-October cocaleros for their growing THESE PEOPLE HAVE MADE MANY oil work. Dozens of elderly Achuars that it would freeze negotiations for radicalization and self-determination. RULES THAT THE RICH MAY BREAK have died this year from poisons the sale of gas to Chile and consult (U.S. officials are already worried BUT THE POOR MAY NOT. They take that have leaked into ground water the Bolivian public. But with all the that Bolivia could become the their tithes from the poor and weak supplies. Burlington and Occidental to support the rich and those who won a contract with the Peruvian rule. They claim this mother of ours, government in 1999 to exploit almost the earth, for their own and fence 2 million acres in the Loreto tropical their neighbors away; they deface her rainforest region. with their buildings and their refuse. That nation is like a spring freshet December 10: that overruns its banks and destroys Battle Rages with Ecuador all who are in its path.” Indians over Jungle Oil - Tatanka Iyotake aka Sitting Bull QUITO-In a steamy jungle of winding Hunkpapa Sioux, 1877 TheThe OctoberOctober RevolutionRevolution inin Bolivia!Bolivia! laurel trees and sprawling palms, a battle is raging between Ecuadorian Page 23 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE NOTES ON SUMMITS GA Note: The following was written just before the summit of Power knows that it isn’t so simple. The foreign ministers of the European Union at Riva del Garda, disgustingly realistic proposals of the domesticated Italy, and the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, opposition have nothing to say to the millions Mexico. Most of the GA Collective feels that there is much to of poor people parked in the reservations of the be gained from this analysis of the methods of protest at these market paradise and repressed by the police. There was a bit of confirmation in Genoa: only summits, and anarchist strategies in general. during the clashes and the looting of supermarkets did the youths from proletarian neighborhoods The Illusion of a Center In fact, if summits and counter-summits are so unite with the insurgents. While the White Capitalism is a social relationship and not a frequently talked about, if the representatives Overalls with their festivals appeared as citadel for the powerful. It is starting from this of the Social Forums have come together at the Martians or buffoons in their eyes, those excluded banality that one can confront the question of negotiation table and been flattered by the mass from every political racket immediately summits and counter-summits. Representing media, it is only because, in Seattle first and later understood the language of revolt. capitalist and state domination as a kind of on other occasions, something happened: general headquarters (it’s a thousands of comrades and poor question of the G8, the WTO youth attacked the structures A Gust of Unpredictability or some other such organization) of capital and the state, upset There is no doubt that in Seattle and Genoa, is useful to those who would like police city planning schemes and again more recently in Thessaloniki, a to oppose that managing center by opening up spaces for com- critique without mediation against domination with another center: the political munication, and clashed with and its false enemies was demonstrated. Despite structures of the so-called the uniformed servants. Without the dates being set by the masters, the direction ‘movement”, or better, their this subversive threat—together by reformists in the streets was leapt over. We spokespeople. In short, it is useful with the many insurrectional mention this, even though we were among those to those who propose merely a explosions that have shaken up comrades who maintained that Genoa is change in management personnel. the last few years, a mark of everywhere: that if domination and dispossession Besides being reformist in essence the times we have entered— are in every part of society and in daily life, and purpose, this logic becomes the masters would have noth- attack has no need for dates set by the enemy. collaborationist and authoritarian ing to do with the various We have found the practice of those who, in method, as it leads to central- Casarinis and Agnolettos (1). deserting the stage of the “red zone” and the ization of the opposition. This is Hasn’t something of this sort trap of frontal clashes with the police, moved where the concern of these leftist happened with the unions? with agility, striking and disappearing adversaries, so anxious to make Listened to and bribed by (notably, in this sense, the attack on the Marassi themselves heard by the “masters capital in times of great social prison in Genoa). This powerful gust of of the world”, in investing money conflict with the aim of dividing, unpredictability, this subversive ‘federalism’ of and political hype on the demoralizing and denouncing actions and groups, signified an important summits in which those in power revolting proletarians, in more rupture with the logic of those who centralize more and more frequently set the dates with recent times, they have been put in storage. the enemy in order to centralize the struggle (and them, comes from. In the course of these For the time being, they are forced to again render it symbolic). But we still hold that being summits decisions that were made elsewhere are raise a loud voice against the very attacks of in the place where the enemy does not expect merely formalized, yet this certainly does not the bosses that they themselves once justified you, far from the appointments, is the best disturb the various representatives of the social and ratified. perspective. Even in their most interesting forums; after all, their opposition is also The “Disobbedienti” spokespeople must then aspects, counter-summits limit this perspective. completely formal, consisting mainly of paid distinguish themselves from the bad ones, the Besides, without taking anything away from the seminars in which it is shown that neoliberalism extremists, the violent ones (i.e., those who explosions in Seattle and Genoa, it seems to us is wrong and humanity is right, or, for the more practice direct action) and give political visibility that chasing after such dates is becoming a lively, in some combative performance to the others. On the one hand, therefore, the cliche, and more, a devourer of energy: as soon opportunely agreed upon with the police. The slogans of the Social Forums end up as one counter-summit ends, paradox is that people are called into the streets being perfectly suitable for the preparation for another begins. in the name of another possible world, but with enlightened bourgeoisie: ...let’s get real. The dates are fixed more the intention that absolutely nothing happens. taxation of finance capital, and more by the mass Every time that a more or less oceanic crowd democratic and transparent media, to the point that, as moves peacefully, visibly supervised, it is regulation over global trade, many revolutionaries have proclaimed to be a great victory for the more state and less market, demonstrated, for example, movement. And yet these social pacifiers know critical consumption, ethical against the war in Iraq, quite well that their capacity to pose as negotiators banks, pacifism, etc. On the almost no one has managed with the institutions doesn’t particularly depend other hand, what they sell to express any practical upon the number of people that they lead into with their “democratic solidarity with the insurgents the streets (millions of demonstrators opposed mobilizations” is a valuable commodity: the of Argentina or Algeria. Often more importance to the latest military aggression against Iraq have illusion of doing something against the injustices is ascribed to clashes that involve almost not greatly worried the governments involved of the world. In this sense, counter-summits are exclusively “militants” as compared to authentic in the war), but rather upon the power of a juicy spectacle. The bad few repressed and social and class uprisings. mediation and repression they manage to put into the good ones heard in their just demands: We know very well why many comrades go practice (or to justify) against all social rebellion. end of story? to counter-summits: widespread direct action

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 24 AND COUNTER-SUMMITS and the generalized clash with the cops is only War) to the rationing of electrical energy carried been done to prevent the preceding ones, an possible in mass situations. Since the perspective out without warning. Up to now it is a question incredible acceleration of degradation— have of attacking elsewhere is extremely of successful experiments that confirm what a given power an arrogance without precedence. minoritarian, only in greatly expanded situations comrade wrote in the 1970’s: the people of capital We have seen it at work, for example, in Genoa, can a certain sort of street guerrilla warfare be are a stoic people. They upset traffic circulation, in the beatings, the torture, the murder of Carlo tested. Other actions can be realized at any they put surveillance cameras everywhere, they Giuliani. And it continues. The new police chief moment that are not in any way incompatible install noxious antennas over the roofs of our of Trento is Colucci, police chief in Genoa dur- with certain practices in the streets during homes, they criminalize more and more behaviors: ing the G8 summit, a certified pig. He will be counter-summits. And yet we think that in the no one says a word. managing the summit of foreign ministers of the long run, such a practice limits autonomy of Summits are the concentrated representation European Union that will be held at Riva del analysis and action (in the face of how many of all this, the legal suspension of every right. Garda this September. Do you understand the social conflicts have we “What’s going on?” the message? A Trento committee “for truth and just stood there looking?), average citizen asks, justice” has found nothing better to do than to transforming it in spite of forced to take a detour in invite him to a public confrontation. itself into a sort of extremist order to go shopping. model within the “dis- “Nothing, it’s just the anti- obedient” caravan. Not to globalization people,” the Acid Rain and Fig Leaves mention that it would still woman at the supermarket The foreign ministers who will be meeting in be a matter of asking why responds. Meanwhile, they Riva in early-September must achieve a common on earth power publicizes are even privatizing the platform to present at the WTO summit in so many summits in which drinking water, while the Cancun, Mexico in mid-September. The topic decisions that have already police are everywhere. is the General Agreement on the Trade of Services been made are ratified? But precisely because it (GATS) that anticipates precisely the liberalization All this seems to us to be a great terrain for the is a concentrated representation of a daily of the principal “public services” on a global police to study and experiment with anti-riot situation, the practical critique must be wide- level. Among the many decisions in process, the techniques. A kind of homeopathic treatment: spread and constant, for example through the most scandalous is surely that of the power is inoculated with tiny doses of the virus destruction of video cameras and other systems privatization of water, which may become a of subversion in order to reinforce its immune of electronic surveillance. It is important to map reality for the 144 member countries of the system in view of much broader social plagues. out the locations of the instruments of control, World Trade Organization. It is a process that It must know how the bad ones move and spreading awareness of them and theoretically started a while ago, since seven multinationals organize themselves, and with which good ones supporting the necessity of attacking them. have contended for decades over the concession it is possible to dialogue in such a way that for bottling mineral water, and in the last few nothing really changes. years, over the concession for managing the The New Face of Domination water system as well. The “Trento board for a Power is increasingly brazen. On the one social Europe” also dwells upon the privatization An Experiment in the Open Air hand, the masters know that the current social of water, and on its scarcity due to pollution, as But above all, summits constitute another conditions, increasingly marked by precariousness the mark of the most unbridled neoliberalism. form of experimentation: seeing what level of and dependence on commodities, can be imposed Apart from the usual complaints about the oppression the population is willing to put up only through terror. Such terror is manifested non-democratic aspects of these agreements (as with. Bringing a bit of Palestine, with its check- in the exterior, in the form of war, and in the if those made by individual governments were points, its permanent red zones and its instead subject to who knows what armored patrol cars around every corner, public debates), what is equally into the “rich West”, domination is scandalous in the discourse of the informing its subjects that, until proven reformists is the gap between the otherwise, they are criminals; that amplitude of the disasters that they nothing is secure enough for the police denounce and the solutions that and technological apparatus; that city they propose. planning is the continuation of the On the one hand, they indicate the social war with other weapons. More causes of these disasters to be the than sixty years ago, Walter Benjamin industrialization of agriculture, the wrote in his Theses on the Concept of concentration of populations in History that “the state of exception in increasingly gigantic cities, the which we live has become the rule”. If pollution produced by factories, the this is true, we must understand what waste of drinkable water for industrial links a lager for undocumented immigrants machinery and for cultivation intended to the stadiums into which war refugees for the intensive breeding of animals; are loaded, certain poor and working- in short, the very essence of the class neighborhoods patrolled by the police to interior, in the form of fear for the future (for techno-industrial system. On the other hand, they the various Guantanamos scattered throughout example, fear of remaining without work) or propose: new laws, transparent rules, even citizen the world, some evacuation operations utterly through the increasingly widespread repression participation in the form of short-term treasury disproportionate in relation to the declared aim of social groups. On the other hand, decades of bonds in the S.P.A.’s (2) that privatize water. (entire neighborhoods evacuated in order to social pacification — in which every despicable defuse some implement from the first World act has occurred simply because nothing has (continued on next page)

Page 25 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Thanks to the marvels of progress, there are After long negotiations between the Social whole countries in which a collapse of the Forum and the police force (managed obviously by Response to Our banking system would leave the countryside national leaders), it seems that the Municipality without water, and these citizens, so proud of will make a villa outside of Riva available to the Rovereto Comrades being so, want different laws. Somewhat as if, in Disobbediente and their associates, granting by John Zerzan the face of a downpour of acid rain, one were to them the right to demonstrate (always outside In 2001, many insurrectionalist anarchists suggest covering the head of children with an of town, in deserted streets) through Sunday. of Italy skipped the G-8 summit in Genoa. organic fig leaf. The proposals of the various Riva will be closed, which means that the cops This struck many as regrettable and even Social Forums, reasonable in terms of political will simply block three access roads. The police mystifying, especially so in hindsight, since and economic rationality, are simply crazy from want empty streets; the population must under- the burnt banks of Genoa marked a high point a concrete and social point of view. It is not a stand that Big Brother is not just a televised of public resistance to anti-globalization, a question of denouncing a world in ruins, but transmission. And us? powerful shock wave against the First World rather of snatching the space for resisting and Let’s again take up a thread that comes from powers. In this piece the insurrectionalists the time for attacking. It is not just a question of far away. Gunther Anders wrote in the 1950’s, announce that they won’t be present at the how radical one is in the streets. The point is “Hiroshima is everywhere”, and in the 1980’s, Riva summit either. what sort of life one desires, how much one “Chernobyl is everywhere”. Some rebels against My first response, frankly, was to take their has submitted her or himself materially and the technologized world in the 1990’s said, statement as a cop-out. And yet this article spiritually to an increasingly inhuman and “Mururoa is everywhere” (at the time when the presents some important and challenging artificial social order or, on the other hand, what French government subjected that island in the questions. Here in the U.S., after the unequal relationships one is ready to fight for. Pacific to murderous nuclear tests). Two years ago, contest in Miami, it may be time to re-assess There is no need to go to Riva to oppose the other comrades claimed, “Genoa is everywhere”. our assumptions about the calendar of mass water racket. Those directly responsible for this Because revolt explodes without limits, because protest efforts. absolute commodification (for example, the big the Apparatus expects an enemy that is not there From anti-WTO Seattle at the end of 1999 to businesses that bottle mineral water) are just a and reveals its totalitarian character still more, Genoa in July 2001, a rising tide of increasingly few steps away from us at all times. If the civi- we say Riva is everywhere. We will not be in militant protests challenged the prerogatives lized can’t even defend the water they drink— the streets against the summit of the European of corporate and governmental power. or at least understand that others do so in a clear Union, because with the struggles of these times Summit meetings had to be moved to places and direct way—we can all just go to bed. and those that will be, we have wanted and still like Qatar and the remote Canadian Rockies to In this case as well, it is a long chain of want to strike other paths. Because following avoid the wrath of people in the streets. (Well, dependence and oppression that now presents the logic that “This time it is close to my home” the wrath of some of them. Most remained us with an exorbitant bill. Only through autonomy one does not escape the circle, since summits content to parade their unwillingness to fight.) toward industrial mass society and through open will always occur close to someone’s home. And then came September 11, 2001; and revolt against the state that defends it could Because the real conflict is elsewhere. There are since then, we have largely lost the offensive something different be born. other ways to oppose the armoring of the cities in terms of demos. The visible specter of The same is valid, for example, for the question and the valleys in which we live, ways within “terrorism” has succeeded in changing the of patents, including those on the genetic code. everyone’s reach. We want to free ourselves subject and making people fearful. It has It is simply idiotic to claim protective laws are from the dictatorship of the number and from also, of course, given State power a green of any use in confronting the entry of capital its worshipers. We know this is a perspective light to further militarize police agencies and into the human body. Techno-scientific delirium, that may only give few results in the immediate, provide brutal force against militants and which consists of wanting to transform nature but it is by deciding for ourselves how, where and others, and not only at demonstrations. and human beings into a sort of variable of the when to strike and tenaciously defending our There are many things to do beside Black computer, passed the point of no return some reasons for it that we will cause individual and Bloc actions at summit meetings. No doubt time ago. Any illusion of reforming a science social insubordination to advance. our Rovereto friends are busy elsewhere and that is entirely in the service of power is only address alternatives in other writings. a dismal hoax. The actions that have happened - Some Rovereton [Italy] And yet many of us feel that public expressions in most countries against transgenic cultivation Anarchists of fighting solidarity are inspiring to our or against private and state laboratories that movement and should not be abandoned experiment on the human genome have shown 1: Casarini and Agnoletto are spokespeople of groups lightly. Is it acceptable to allow our global quite well that the critique of mercantile reason behind the Social Forums. masters to convene their banquets of power has no need of spectacular dates. 2: Action associations similar to PACs in the US. (translator) without a challenge? People will very likely More generally, what is euphemistically continue to contest those places; should we described as globalization would be unthinkable simply leave them to their fate? without the material basis furnished by the tech- Cancun was, overall, a success; Miami was nological apparatus. We simply think about the not. 2004 should be a time for us to become things that are presented as principle factors in more creative if we are to continue to engage development and economic and military in staged confrontations. Anti-war folks in conflict: energy and information. This thing that San Francisco in March ’03 were able to take can appear to be an unassailable Moloch is in a lot of the “staged” or predictably choreo- reality a gigantic web formed by cables, graphed aspect out of their effort. Via antennae, substations, trellises and transformers decentralized and highly mobile tactics, that can be easily struck. blocking major streets, freeway entrances/ exits and the like, SF was shut down. For at least a day or two, the anti-war forces were Riva Is Everywhere extremely effective; the police publicly The CGIL will be taking care of monitoring admitted their helplessness in the face of during the counter-summit in Riva. The outgoing such determined new tactics. police chief of Trento has pointed out “rightly” I hope that we can rise to the challenge that the more demonstrators make themselves and learn from what may not be working, into police agents, the less need there will be of rather than give up this or any other arena of the latter. contestation to our enemies.

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 26 RIDINGRIDING THETHE HIGHHIGH OFOF CANCUNCANCUN ANDAND THETHE DANGERSDANGERS OFOF AA CRASHCRASH AnAn OpenOpen LetterLetter toto thethe DirectDirect ActionAction participantsparticipants atat thethe FTAAFTAA protestprotest inin MiamiMiami byby BlackbeardBlackbeard

“Because something is happening, but you don’t know what it is...Do you, Mr. Jones?” -- BobBob DylanDylan

GA Note: The following was written by a participant in that had emerged in Cancun had carried over into our own community, the WTO protests in Cancun, Mexico, as an analysis and that much of what was being discussed about Miami seemed to of that event, and a warning to those planning on suggest a possible replay. The main difference is that this replay would going to the FTAA protests in Miami.It is a thorough likely be a bloodier one. critique of the authoritarian nature of some of these My Experience of Cancun events’ “organizers” and some of the shortcomings of I came to Cancun as part of a three-person affinity group consisting of the anti-globalization movement. myself and two women. We participated as part of the International Black The buzz around the FTAA protests in Miami is certainly encouraging. Bloc (as distinguished from the Mexican Black Bloc), and eventually Many of us have not felt this level of anticipation in North America since clustered with others we met at the convergence spaces. Our initial before the (cancelled) protests against the IMF/World Bank in September, experience was that there was a heavy atmosphere of paranoia and 2001. That, of course, was when our movement scattered, along with the suspicion among the activists present. There were meetings happening rest of the nation, in the astounding blaze of September 11. But it appears constantly, among, supposedly, the Koreans, the campesinos, the Black that two years later we have finally recovered, and the new wave of Blocs, and other affinity groups. While my affinity group was able to send optimism and momentum certainly owes much to the spectacular effect spokespersons to some of the earlier meetings, especially between the of the WTO protests in Cancun two months ago. Images and video of the Blocs, a number of rather confusing things began taking place as the triple-fortified fence being pulled down, by a coalition of indigenous major actions planned for Saturday approached. women, Koreans, campesinos, anarchists, and other internationals, have Meetings were called and their locations changed at the last moment. spread across the world like wildfire and rekindled old flames. The WTO For some reason, this change of information rarely seemed to make it to was shut down again, but this time it was due to a concerted effort of the Black Bloc spokespersons in time. These changes were made by diverse, radical communities, inside and outside of the summit, saying unknown persons for reasons of “security.” Then, the number of allowed together that truly, another world is possible. participants in the meetings began to dwindle, such that entire affinity However, those of us who experienced the dismantling of the fence groups began to be excluded from the increasingly secretive, centralized first-hand know that it was not all ropes and bolt cutters and solidarity. On the meetings. Members of the Mexican Bloc began complaining that the streets, the dynamics between these groups was much more complicated. “representatives” for Via Campesino appearing at the meetings were people The action as a whole was highly controversial, particularly among the they had never seen before. Rumors began circulating among some of us participants, and many walked away from the event feeling disappointed, or that the meetings had been infiltrated by remnants of the PRI. Especially even worse, manipulated. Sadly, this is a story that is rarely heard about the for internationals like us, working well beyond our elements, these actions in Cancun. The version that has triumphed in most activist circles is at accusations could neither be confirmed nor satisfyingly dispelled. best a sanitized one, as conveyed in the romantic narrative Kilometer Zero. When the Blocs came together on Saturday, one thing was certain: we At first I felt frustrated that the more complicated story was not being told in had no clue what was going to happen, nor what had been planned. There my community, at the various screenings and Cancun-debriefing meetings I had been talk of a very early morning meeting that, for some reason, had attended. My frustration grew to anger, and then finally resignation. It began never been communicated to any members of the Black Bloc; however, to seem that I was the only one who felt that the stories being told about the “consensus” that emerged from that meeting was. For many of us, Cancun were glossing over a number of more difficult experiences. I decided including the two women in my affinity group, it was not until the march that perhaps, in the end, it did not really matter so much what people thought to the fence was well underway that we first heard of the “women’s had happened there. It was good that people were feeling inspired, and I was action.” My female comrades were rather forcefully coerced to participate glad that this energy might carry over into a successful action in Miami. in the action. When they raised objections, a high-profile organizer told More recently, however, I have learned that several people in my them that this had been consensed upon, and since they had not been community, particularly those who participated in the Black Bloc in Cancun, present at the meeting they had no room to argue. have adamantly chosen not to go to Miami. Many did not accept the It was not that they or I were fundamentally opposed to the action. It resignation I did, and retain a strong sense of anger about what was highly problematic, however, that on a moment’s notice, I no longer happened, in particular, concerning the action at the fence. Some of us had an affinity group. I joined with the other men in holding the perimeter, recently began discussing this again, exchanging our experiences and which initially had nothing to do with running security for an action but disappointments that we had allowed to go unexpressed for too long. merely defending our own space against, in particular, the group of Maoists We talked about how the basically centralized decision-making processes marching just behind us. (continued on next page) Page 27 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE There was much debate If we forget that we are all organizers in this movement, that we are all at the fence concerning leaders, then the most precious values we hold in common will be lost. the all-women’s space, The better world we are trying to create will escape our hearts and we will both among the women, find ourselves defeated before we have even begun to fight. and between women and It appears to me that the action in Miami on the 20th is a centralized men. As exhaustion began one. No matter how many individuals or groups have been involved in its to set in after more than an planning, the fact remains that a dynamic has been established in which hour of cutting, some the majority of the people who arrive that day will be coming as spectators women began asking for or at best, hopeful participants. But they will not be organizers. male members of their The beauty of decentralized action is that everyone works simultaneously affinity group to join the as an organizer and a participant. This is not only incredibly empowering, space. For various reasons, but it also makes the work of the police exponentially more difficult. No this never happened. The matter how creative the plans for Miami’s actions may be, it is still the complicating factor in this, meeting of two armies: theirs and ours. Most resistance fighters throughout of course, was that most the world have learned that, when you’re up against the U.S. Empire, you of us had not prepared for cannot win on a level battlefield. We, too, must learn the principles of this dynamic, had not guerilla warfare if we ever intend to win. With this comes both greater discussed it beforehand, responsibility and personal involvement. It is easy to “plug into” an action and therefore were rather that others have planned for you. It is much more difficult to plan a small divided as to how to deal action amongst yourself and a few people you know and trust. with the issues that arose. It should also be emphasized that, within our communities, no power I’m not sure how it happened that the Black Bloc formed the perimeter has been taken from us that we have not also given away. It is not only around the Koreans, campesinos and others who tied the ropes to the that I fear the loss of our principles, but also that I feel centralized fence and pulled it down. I do know that many of us were uncomfortable decision-making is leading people into a potentially highly dangerous about it, redolent as it was to the role of police officers. Although many situation in Miami. Many people are on a vicarious high from Cancun, and people are under the impression that the dismantling was a highly I think, are rather naive about what they are going to encounter in Miami. cooperative element including many groups, the scene I experienced was The police in Mexico were restrained to an unprecedented degree. Those much different from this. What I witnessed was a strict division between of us who remember the RNC in Philly know that the situation in Florida the “actors” and the “spectators,” and the vast majority of the demonstrators will be nothing like that. Anyone participating in a centralized action should present filled the latter role. This was not because of laziness or fear, but expect heavy abuse and, most likely, arrest. There is, in my opinion, no because, quite frankly, they were not allowed to participate. And what reason to believe the myth of “the safety of numbers.” makes this even more startling is that it was the Black Bloc that held the Despite the warnings given by myself and others, I believe that most boundaries of this exclusion. people will commit themselves to the centralized actions. As unpopular I don’t think it’s inaccurate to put forward the assumption that many as it may be to say so, I will give my honest opinion that these actions will others and I held at the time, which is that once the fence was dismantled be devastatingly defeated. Many people will get hurt. I hope I am wrong. the battle would begin. And furthermore, that at this time, the perimeter But if I am right, I hope that we can learn from this experience and begin would dissolve, and all would participate. I wonder how many people who to critique these styles of actions and begin to take on more personal have seen Kilometer Zero ask the question: “So what happened after responsibility and self-organizing. There is, of course, a whole other the fence came down?” My guess is a lot. The fact that this is rarely critique of mass actions in general that I will not go into. But I will say addressed is somewhat troubling to me. this: We ARE everywhere, and so are capitalist structures. We are all What happened is this. Many members of the Black Blocs, campesinos, organizers, participants, and fighters. Once we begin to act like it, it is and other militants armed themselves with sticks and other weapons and only a matter of time before the dream we share will be accomplished.

prepared to confront the police that filled the gap. In Kilometer Zero, when ! you see everyone chanting “Lee! Lee,” this was done in direct response ! StayStay safesafe andand strongstrong inin thethe streets.streets. to a woman’s assertion on a megaphone that there would be no confrontation, that this was a “nonviolent action.” From my perspective, HastaHasta lala VictoriaVictoria siempre!siempre! the chant was a much louder response to her artificially amplified voice, communicating that we were prepared to fight. However, many of us made the mistake of internalizing the authority of the megaphone, and chose not to defy the “orders” we were given: to sit down and listen to speeches. Two effigies of the WTO were burned, and then everyone went home. This is how the action at the fence became a “symbolic” one. Comments, Analysis and Warnings I believe it is critical at this juncture to remember the roots of this movement, which are deeply embedded in the anarchist principles of decentralization and non-hierarchical decision-making. As the movement grows, and certain individuals through various means gain heightened visibility, we must constantly struggle ever more diligently to stick to our values and not play the much easier game of follow-the-leaders. The current Collective Book on Collectives’ Process project that can be found online provides a highly relevant piece on “power sharing” [www.geocities.com/ collectivebook/power.html]. I think everyone interested in building a nonhierarchical movement should read it. It describes the subtle processes by which a core group of individuals can manage to seize control, intentionally or not, within antiauthoritarian communities. I encourage everyone to do this exercise. When you think of the term “the major organizers,” who comes to mind? My guess is that if we all did this exercise together, across the United States, we would come up with a lot of the same names. I think we should be extremely wary of this. GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 28 Under the Palms of Miami …This season’s #1 Tourist Trap! by E. Lou Civ To quote a reply about a Miami report on events which have recently (in the U.S. at least) never looked to these summits as the end-all infosop.org: turned out to be demoralizing encounters at the of action, but instead one element of resistance, “On Thursday, November 20th, the Michael hands of well-funded and militarized which also includes the proliferation of ideas, Jackson scandal broke…terrorists bombed a robo-pigs. Often peoples’ preparations do not community self-reliance and self-defense, the British consulate in Istanbul…massive get beyond how to deal with the media (or if instigation of insurrectional moments, protests were held in London for (G)W’s to even deal with them economic sabotage, infrastructural attacks, visit to Britain. So in the greater scheme and more. We must fight in all realms, but if of events for that single day, the FTAA you are going to step into their protests in Miami were a sidethought arena, you must be prepared to to the corporate media and to most either fight or elude your enemy. people who find out about the world Being prepared to fight is a major – most Americans – via corporate proposition and requires physical, media. This doesn’t mean that mental, and tactical readiness. It nothing happened in Miami. It just is no joke. If you want to be a means that nothing extraordinary tourist, pick a location that is not a happened in Miami.” temporary police state. Four years ago, in Seattle, we had the element On November 20th, a handful of of surprise, and still anarchists were anarchists (and a couple “workers”), formed into tight affinity groups and no doubt inspired by or trying to prepared for action. That was then. repeat Cancun, attempted to tear At this point, we will not be able to down the fence which separated Miami,Miami, FloridaFlorida startle the pigs at these events (they the protesters from the meetings, but without know we are coming, and what we sufficient support and motivation, they didn’t in any other way than will most likely do), so we need to be get far. There was also a brief battle with cops open hostility), which groups they will work far more prepared and infinitely more when people finally retaliated after being with, the message they want to portray, and creative. One might consider attacking targets repeatedly attacked – throwing paint, teargas vague tactical ideas. In preparation for Miami, which are not where all the pigs are, perhaps canisters, and rocks at the pigs. Some people numerous “consultas” occurred throughout in a variety of locations throughout that city, made barricades from wood pallets and then the country to discuss tactics and strategy, but or in other cities. Why not take advantage of set them on fire. Mostly, however, acts of what came from this? …a week-long (or weak the fact that most law enforcement for the resistance were minimal and people were and long) puppet march, an eco-block surrounding counties (and in some cases, generally unsuccessful in making much (concerned “citizens” worried about the states) are mobilized in one ten-block radius? happen. This is only the latest defeat for anti- “environment” who wore green), your usual By maintaining our autonomy and not getting globalization activists and anarchists in the assortment of leftists and liberals wanting to sucked into the “mass” approach to street U.S. Some may remember early summer control the “protest”, some people from the resistance, many new possibilities open up. when a similar dynamic (only on a smaller global south (probably the most interesting By roving like autonomous gangs who are scale) took place in Sacramento. So what was and the most affected by the policies of the not tied into one another for action or survival, the point? Why were anarchists mobilizing? FTAA), a padded block (which was made up yet open to joining together at times for What did they hope to achieve? Some wonder of a variety of “non-violent” activists who strength, much is possible. The bottom line, if people even asked themselves these questions wanted to push themselves a little further then again, if you are going into conflict with a before going to these events. It seemed more just sitting down and getting beaten) who larger and more powerful enemy, hesitation out of habit and obligation, then a desire for barely showed up after the police declared can be deadly, or at least incarcerating. As true revolt, that people went to Miami and helmets and padding illegal, and very the saying goes, “…strike fast, strike hard, Sacramento. unprepared militants (most of whom were not and don’t get caught!” To do this, a tight It is time for anarchists to take a hard look disguised or masked, thus severely limiting affinity group is essential, one that can at the motions we seem to be going through. the possibility of illegal action, or at least quickly and effectively adapt and change Why do we continue to fight on their terms? getting away with it). So the outcome was a directions and plans without becoming Can anarchists still play a role at summits in disaster. People got pushed around, corralled, confused and sloppy. There is still a need for the U.S.? Can these events move into gassed, shot at, beaten, and arrested…and for anarchists at these summits, and that is, as insurrectional moments which go beyond the what? So the media could portray them as our Greek comrades say, “…to make total limited and single focus of yet another institution either whiny hippies or terrorists? destroy!” But only if we are looking to of capital? Possibly, but only if we are better At this point in time, many of us are stressing succeed, not merely as a symbolic protest prepared and more strategic. Some people spend the need to reconsider our strategy, or at a accompaniment to their institutions (however months getting together, planning for one day minimum, to be strategic! Most of us have militant it may appear on the surface). Page 29 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE “What we know about capitalist restructuring at a “The Time is Right!” world level today, tells us that there is no other way Anarchist Resistance from Around the World open to anarchists than that of imme- diate, destructive September 26, Greece: intervention. Molotov Attacks Against the Iraqi That is why we are War and Occupation insurrectionists, Thessaloniki – Unidentified assailants why we are against threw Molotov cocktail bombs at a ideology and chatter. National Bank branch before That is why we are launching another two at a nearby against any ideology branch of McDonald’s. The first bomb of anarchism, and caused minor damage to the bank’s all chatter about ATM while the second two sparked a anarchism. The time fire in the McDonald’s branch. These for small talk actions were carried out in opposition is over.” to the U.S. war in Iraq. -Alfredo Bonanno Late September, Spain: Madrid Parcel Bomb Linked with also protesting the trial of members October 11, Switzerland: nailed shut by anti-globalization June Thessaloniki Riots of the armed leftist November 17 Anarchists and Squatters Fight rebels. Pamphlets were left at the Revolutionary Organization. “For as sealed subway stops throughout A small parcel bomb was found in Riot Police! long as you’re going to be burning the metropolitan area demanding the Greek consulate in Madrid but Zurich—More than 600 people forests, we’re going to be burning the release of the Thessaloniki failed to explode. Spanish police (squatters, anarchists, and others) your offices,” said the statement Seven. Two local youths were arrested claim the device was sent by local fought with riot police after an released to the Athens daily news- in connection with this action. anarchists in retaliation for the arrest unauthorized “Reclaim the Streets” paper, Eleftherotypia. “For as long as of several Spanish anarchists during demonstration. Riot police fired tear November 4, Rome (Italy): you’re going to be burning brains, we’re June’s anti-globalization riots in gas and rubber bullets. The rioters Two explosive devices went off going to be burning your houses.” Thessaloniki, Greece. The bomb, responded by throwing rocks. One inside police stations. One was One of the incendiary propane which was concealed in a book cop suffered a leg injury from a defused but the other wounded a tanks used by the group burned the mailed to the consulate, contained stone projectile and was hospitalized. police marshal’s hand. The Italian home of Giorgos Voulgarakis, a a small quantity of gunpowder and Police chased people through the Minister of the Interior, Beppe conservative lawmaker. He was not a detonator. Consulate employees streets of the city and the rebel Pisanu, made comments in at home and firefighters rescued his treated the parcel as suspicious and demonstrators dragged dumpsters parliament warning of the growing wife and four children. The fires also called the police, who sent in a bomb into the street, set their barricades danger of insurrectionary anarchism damaged several cars. All told, the squad to remove and detonate the on fire and pelted the police with in Italy, specifically stating that the “Post-Midnight Slalom” (which device. Nobody has claimed respon- stones. Police continued to use tear informal method of organization defined itself as “a society of sibility for the attack, although the gas and the rebels attacked store used by the insurrectionary anarchists workers for a social uprising”) took bomb was said to have been sent windows and vehicles, causing makes them more dangerous than responsibility for five firebomb from a Barcelona bookshop. Two 80,000 Francs in damage. Only 5 the traditional anarchists. attacks targeting politicians and Spaniards were among the 29 people were arrested. public figures in central Athens in a November 6, Athens and Thessaloniki anarchists and anti-globalization two-day period of time. In the October 23, Milan (Italy): (Greece): dissidents arrested after the June 21 proclamation it dumped in an Athens 101 security cameras were attacked Anarchists bombed three banks in riots during the EU summit in rubbish bin, “Post-Midnight Slalom” throughout the city. solidarity with the Thessaloniki 7 Halkidiki that caused over a million attacked the 2004 Olympics for being in Athens, and to oppose the visit euros in damage to Thessaloniki October 24, Burgos (Spain): “a whore of multinational companies, of FBI chief Robert Mueller, who shops, banks and cars. The locks of three police commissions addressed to doped-up robots.” The and a court building in Burgos, was in Greece to inspect security September 30-October 1: group also demanded that Spain Spain, were glued shut, in solidarity for the upcoming Olympics. Nobody Anarchist Arson Attacks in Greece release five suspected members of with imprisoned anarchists in Spain was hurt, but the banks, particularly Athens – Cooking gas canisters a Barcelona anarchist cell held in and Greece. We know that this action Eurobank, suffered considerable were used to set fire to two political connection with a parcel-bomb attack will not free our kidnapped comrades damage. Simultaneously, 1,500 party offices and the homes of a on the Greek consulate in Madrid. but it nonetheless contributes to the people attended an anarchist conservative politician and a The arson spree of “Post-Midnight diffusion of sabotage, an optimal demonstration. In Thessaloniki a university professor – Giorgos Slalom” targeted two Pasok offices method within reach of all the bank and a Public Works Ministry Veltsos – who is a close friend of and one belonging to New Democracy, excluded, demonstrating that it is car were also bombed in solidarity Greek Prime Minister Costas two of the most powerful and possible to attack the visible with the Thessaloniki 7. The blasts Simitis. A previously unknown firmly entrenched political parties in structures of repression throughout on November 6 bring to over 25 anarchist group calling itself “Post- Greece. the social territories. the total number of firebomb attacks on banks and other build- Midnight Slalom” said it set the fires October 6, Oristano (Italy): Early-November, Spain: ings in Athens and Thessaloniki to protest corporate influence on A fire was set at a municipal police Early morning commuters in since the arrests of the next summer’s Olympics and the office, destroying files and a computer. arrest in June of several rioters during Barcelona found 70 subway entrances Thessaloniki 7. the European Union summit in ANARCHY: An Affirmation of Freedom So Reckless and Unqualified That It Thessaloniki. The group said it was Amounts To A Total Denial of Every Kind of Restraint and Limitation GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 30 November 6, Quebec City (Canada): Anarchists were beaten and sprayed operation that involved more than June anti-EU resistance, were Hundreds of students and anarchists with gas by the pigs. In Athens five 7,000 police and riot officers, released! They had faced serious broke through barricades, clashed banks and an office of the conserva- including helicopters and snipers charges but continued militant with riot police, spray-painted tive New Democracy party were on roofs. Despite state officials support and their own hunger anarchist graffiti and started fires on firebombed (a group calling itself Revo- declarations of “zero tolerance”, strikes forced the government to the Quebec Legislature grounds. lutionary Solidarity took responsibility many young people didn’t surrender let them go, pending trial. Police fired tear gas and the crowd for this action). In the city of Xanthi, to fear and joined the anarchist November 21, Greece: threw objects at the police. The comrades occupied the University demo, spraypainting the walls of An anarchist group claimed respon- students were fighting against department and a municipal radio. Athens with slogans against the sibility for a firebomb attack that rising tuition fees. Olympic games and in solidarity with November 17, Greece: severely damaged a National Branch the Thessaloniki 7. In Thessaloniki, November 10, Thessaloniki (Greece): bank in Athens. Inside the occupied Annual Polytechnic Riots! riots occurred in the area of the A PASOK (the governing “socialist” University of Athens, anarchists set Riot squads fired tear gas to dis- universities, with demonstrators party in Greece) building was attacked up a pirate radio station and sent out perse groups of anarchists who throwing Molotov cocktails at the with a Molotov firebomb. motorcycle propaganda teams. A threw petrol bombs and rocks at police. In the city of Heraklion, 300 small explosive device was also set November 14, Greece: police guarding the U.S. embassy in comrades in the anarchist black bloc off at an Emporiki Bank branch in Anarchists across Greece staged a Athens, during an annual rally held attacked some socialist party thugs. the northern Greek town of Ioannina. number of solidarity actions for the each year in protest of the vital One “special-repression unit” cop Thessaloniki 7, anarchist prisoners support that Washington, D.C. gave who tried to arrest an anarchist was December 3, Cagliari (Italy): from the June European Union to the military dictatorship that ruled beaten and had to be hospitalized. According to a corporate news agency, summit riots, five of whom have been Greece from 1967-74. In Athens, a small bomb exploded outside a November 19, Burgos (Spain): on hunger strike for more than a several hundred anarchists provincial government office at 1 a.m. Three real estate agencies were attacked month and are in the hospital. smashed dozens of storefronts and in the morning. The attack caused and the locks of a court were glued in Approximately fifty anarchists in the firebombed two banks. Police fired damage to the outside walls of the solidarity with anarchist prisoners in city of Thessaloniki, after having tear gas at the hooded rioters, who structure and was allegedly claimed Barcelona, Valencia, and Greece. occupied the offices of the ruling set fire to rubbish bins as they fled. by an anarchist group. It occurred a government party, left the building The clashes in Athens occurred November 19, Greece: few hours after the end of a police and were attacked by the police. despite an enormous security The Thessaloniki 7, held since the summit on “terrorism” in Cagliari. ! Smith pleaded guilty to two Attentados offences at the high court in Glasgow in September. He admitted causing a “breach Justicieros! of the peace” by sending eight “anthrax” and 36 “ricin” Political Assassination Attempts in 2003 letters, as well as sending “Compared with the wholesale violence of capital and government, oil-laced with caustic soda. Smith sent eucalyptus oil political acts of violence are but a drop in the ocean. That so few resist is laced with sodium hydroxide the strongest proof of how terrible must be the conflict between their souls to Mrs. Blair and Margaret and unbearable social iniquities. High strung, like a violin string, they Ashcroft, and to an English weep and moan for life, so relentless, so cruel, so terribly inhuman. In a Liberal Democrat member of desperate moment the string breaks. Untuned ears hear nothing but the Scottish parliament. The discord. But those who feel the agonized cry understand its harmony; they court ruled that the oil could hear in it the fulfillment of the most compelling moment of human nature. have caused serious damage Such is the psychology of political violence.” - Emma Goldman had Smith’s instructions to apply it to the face and hands been followed. October 26, Iraq: October 31, Scotland: Insurgents Fire Rockets at Hotel, Youth Who Sent “Poison” to Prince December 6, Iraq: Aimed at Defense Secretary Wolfowitz Sentenced to Three Years in Prison Paul Bremer Narrowly Escapes Death! BAGHDAD—The hotel where deputy Defense A Scottish youth that sent a letter claiming to BAGHDAD—L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying overnight contain the poison ricin to Prince William (of the civilian official and head administrator in Iraq, during a visit to Iraq was hit by rockets in the thieving Windsor Family), and a bottle of revealed on Friday, December 19 that he’d been early morning hours, wounding a number of aromatherapy oil laced with caustic soda to involved in a guerrilla ambush on his convoy 13 people. Wolfowitz was unfortunately not hurt, and Cherie Blair, was sentenced to three years in days earlier, but said he had not been hurt. The was rushed by security guards out a side door prison. Paul Smith, 17, sent apparently poisonous Dec. 6 attack on Bremer’s convoy was not of the lobby. The assassination attempt occurred letters and packages to politicians and other ruling reported at the time, but a U.S. spokesman shortly after 6 a.m., when three or four explosions class figures after he was supposedly recruited recently revealed that it had occurred on the same were heard outside the Rashid Hotel, where over the internet by an anti-English “terrorist” day Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was Wolfowitz and his delegation were staying. organization. Smith was 15 when he began a visiting the Iraqi capital. Bremer’s convoy was Wolfowitz’s exact whereabouts and location were six-month campaign of sending 44 poisonous near Baghdad airport when the roadside bomb a tightly guarded military secret and the State letters to, among others, the Commons, the exploded and guerillas fired on his armored car. Department is mystified as to how the Iraqi Scottish parliament, the Home Office and the The military media people vehemently assert that insurgents knew where to strike. Although details BBC. At the high court in Edinburgh, “Lord” there is no evidence attackers knew that Bremer remained sketchy shortly after the attack, it Kingarth sentenced him to three years in a prison was in the convoy, calling it “premature” to suggest appeared that rockets hit on the third, eighth and for “young offenders.” Smith had become that insurgents had planned an assassination. 11th floors. Rocket attacks have become quite involved in a sinister and sustained campaign common against a number of occupation and which was calculated to cause and did cause (Compiled by the Guillotine Society) collaborator targets. considerable distress and alarm,” the judge said. Page 31 WINTERWINTER ‘‘0404 ISSUEISSUE EveryEvery HeartHeart AA Timebomb!Timebomb! Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist Resistance “This world is poisoning us and forcing us to carry out useless noxious activity; it imposes the need for money on us and deprives us of impassioned relationships. We are growing old among men and women without dreams, strangers in a reality which leaves no room for outbursts of generosity. We are not partisans of abnegation. It’s simply that the best this society can offer us (a career, fame, a sudden win, ‘love’) simply doesn’t interest us. Giving orders disgusts us just as much as obedience. We are exploited like everyone else and want to put an end to exploitation right away. For us, revolt needs no other justification. Our lives are escaping us, and any class discourse that fails to start from this is simply a lie.” - At Daggers Drawn

September 12, Colorado: October 18, Italy: November 6: demonstration so far of anti-American Torching “Symbol of Patriotism” A device exploded at the front of a Pigs Attacked in Turkish Cities fervor in Iraq. Witnesses said two FRISCO—A giant American flag military police barracks, damaging the In the city of Ankara more than 1,000 soldiers from the 101st Airborne raised as a September 11 memorial main entrance and breaking windows. students attacked police with stones Division were shot as they drove on a prominent mountaintop was October 22, Bolivia: and poles as part of an action against across town in a Humvee. Their vehicle torched, sparking outrage from local Landless peasants occupied the State control over universities. crashed into a wall. Teenagers looted residents and putting law enforcement estate of the former president, who Students smashed police cars in front the wreck and pulled the soldiers out. on “high alert.” Initially placed on Peak had been recently ousted by a popular of a police station and the pigs fired One teenager said that he saw others 1 by Frisco resident Kurt Kizer and insurrection. shots to disperse the crowd. In slamming a concrete block onto the dead men’s faces. Television footage several patriotic friends a few days October 28, Zimbabwe: Istanbul riot police fired tear gas to after the World Trade Center attacks break up a Kurdish youth demonstration. showed the soldier’s bodies splayed University students fighting delays in on the ground as U.S. troops secured in 2001, the flag, standing as a November 9, Seoul (South Korea): the distribution of their grants fought the area. The crowd rage in Mosul was nauseating “tribute” visible in much Hundreds of students and workers riot police, attacked banks and stores, reminiscent of the failed U.S. raid in of Summit County, has been replaced threw Molotov firebombs in clashes looted goods from the university, and Mogadishu, Somalia, in October 1993. on the anniversary of this retaliatory with the police. Riot police assaulted set vehicles on fire—including the Pictures of a soldier’s body being attack on the U.S. each of the last two and hospitalized 43 unruly workers vehicle belonging to the university’s dragged through the streets there years by large groups of nationalistic ( slaves in revolt.) 16 pigs were also vice-chancellor. All demonstrations helped “persuade” the Clinton fools. But apparently someone set the injured in the clash. Earlier in the day are illegal in Zimbabwe unless they administration that it might be a good day-old, 10-by-15 foot flag ablaze, 100,000 workers demonstrated are first cleared by the police. idea to withdraw troops. Few Iraqis bent the pole and left a typewritten against the government crackdown October 31, Canada: were shocked by the brutal mutilation note condemning the U.S. war in Iraq. on illegal wildcat strikes. “This was more than just simple Scotiabank Attacked in Victoria of the U.S. soldiers, and some even vandalism. Whoever perpetrated this From the communiqué: November 17, Pusan (South Korea): gloated. “They are occupiers, and appears to either support (the terrorist On Oct 31st, 2003, a large window Residents of the town of Pusan were this is their punishment,” truck driver attacks of) 9/11 or is just anti-American. and a glass door were smashed at fighting against the construction of Hisham Abed said of the soldiers. It is very concerning,” said Summit the Scotiabank on the corner of a nuclear waste facility, and when This type of anti-occupation attack is County Sheriff Joe Morales. Hillside and Douglas in Victoria, police tried to stop them from taking being repeated in various regions of Iraq. the street they fought back with steel Canada. This was a small attack on December 1, Abidjan (Ivory Coast): September 23: pipes, farming tools and molotov fire- a property owned by the class of Hundreds of youths attacked a French Insurgency in Panama bombs. Residents also used gas people with money and power, the army base. Tires were set on fire at PANAMA CITY—Tens of thousands canisters as flame throwers. Resi- people who profit from our poverty. the entrance of the building and the of union workers took to the streets dents then set fire to the Pusan county - some enemies of the rich, their youths pelted the base with stones. in Panama’s first national strike in office and a community centre. When capitalist system and their government French troops fired tear gas and stun six years. Protesters in Panama City one cop was blinded by a firebomb grenades at the young insurgents. and the country’s second largest November, Dominican Republic: which hit him in the face, hospital city, Colon, clashed with police Pigs Clash With Rock-Throwers staff refused to help him for fear forces, throwing home-made petrol Police fired rubber bullets at rock- of community reprisals. When the bombs, fireworks and rocks at throwing protesters during a general cop was about to be transferred to police in riot gear in confrontations, strike that paralyzed the Dominican a different hospital anti-nuclear which lasted several hours. Republic. Protesters said at least six residents broke into the vehicle and October 16, Santiago (Chile): people were killed and 60 injured in repeatedly attacked the four pigs On the Day Against Multi-National clashes with police and soldiers inside, including the blinded one. Corporations 28 people were arrested around the country. Demonstrators blocked roads with flaming tires and November 23, Iraqi: after a demonstration, during which Mob Mutilates U.S. Soldiers paint-bombs and rocks were thrown marched to protest rolling blackouts at several McDonalds restaurants, and the rising costs of gas and food. MOSUL- Two U.S. soldiers were killed causing five million pesos damage. Soldiers in the capital, Santo and their bodies mutilated by a crowd Masked-up radicals had looted, Domingo, randomly searched vehicles in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in smashed and set fire to a for weapons during the unrest. the most gruesome and blatant public McDonalds in the city of Cordon Troubled waters, ripples, waves... Macul the day before. aggravate the uneasy dreams of those still asleep! GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 32 (SEE LEFTIST PRIMER) More pages were originally included with this same statement, those pages have been cut in the PDF which is why there are missing pages.

Page 33 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE it’d feel so funny to be free i’ve been thinking a lot about rape and rape questions, even if there is no immediate link with the accompanying reassignment of culture lately. reading one-in-four statistics, to the source of the fear. physical security over blame. i want to refuse both the blame and running back over my life and realizing just abstract freedom, almost every time. pick a the limitations of fear now. i want to both start how damn much the way i’ve lived has been fear and you can follow this pattern over and and finish the years of this woman’s life it affected by the basic assumption that i am over again. it’s one reason why us has and will take to expel this shit from not safe ______. that’s the ultimate anarchopunks are mainly white kids with inside me. in that sense, the system has won. defining difference, i think, between those parents who, whether or not we believe they so here is what it comes down to. i personally of us socialized as girls and as boys – we are are a fallback system now, took care that we am much better at coping with something told that, regardless of our identities, didn’t experience true material lack in our negative if i consider it an eventuality, rather strengths, skills, we as vagina-bearing citizens childhoods. we don’t know what it’s like, than a possibility. so in order to free myself are vulnerable. physically vulnerable. we are chronically, to be hungry, so we don’t fear it. from the constant weighing of risk, and from told this by everyone, from veteran uncles and in that freedom from fear we feel bold missing out on a whole host of life experiences to our mothers to radical feminists. it is, in enough to try any number of our stunts. simply because of men’s violence and feelings our culture, fact. the best we can do, we vague, unarticulated, built into the hurry of of entitlement... i’m going to opt for acceptance. learn, is hope for the best and take self- heels over blacktop, or murmured at the i know that i alone cannot change the whole defense classes. water cooler; fear is far more effective than culture enough to make women at large, or now, i grew up more or less apart from brick at keeping people from seeking or myself individually, safe from attack. but what other gender-based limits – i was never seeing, questioning their exploitation, or i can do to bring peace into my own mind is discouraged in academics, hobbies, relation- anything else that approaches the exercise of to assume that i will be raped, and to shift all ships, style of dress, or possible careers based actual freedom. that worrying energy into productively facing on my gender – so i never realized how much had the story gone instead “you are safe, the question: the constant refrain of “you are at risk!” lisa, just as bryn is, just as most men are, to what will my rape be like? affected me as a female until i try to look at make any decision without considering the it’s so much easier to manage fear of the my life with the opposite assumption. possible impulses of known and unknown known than the unknown. accepting the what a beautiful way to restrict women’s men,” i would have lived so fucking eventuality of one’s own rape like a scared movement and sense of their lives’ possible differently. it’s one thing to be robbed, and pregnant woman must face the reality of her scope! to keep them from the feeling of self- another entirely to be raped... gender is impending birth. a sort of women’s lib for sufficiency! to make them fear their own often the deciding factor between those two our modern times. so while i’ve got a great company! to make them dependent on outcomes. lord knows, i would have at least big fuck-you for the culture that makes half every possible facade of patriarchy, from been hitchhiking alone by now. traveling its citizenry live under this fear, or choose to consumerism to police presence to through africa alone, walking across the us, accept something so insipid, and while i gentrification to the reassurance of hierarchy sleeping in alleyways. riding trains in salute those who fight rape culture every day, to a strong military to, on the personal level, solitude. the way i want to live at this point and most certainly while i’ve got some tricks having a man to walk you home so he can is severely limited by the rationale that i am up my sleeve for the men who will try it... walk back alone himself in safety. going to ‘put myself into dangerous situations.’ i am going to trade vague and constant fear when it comes down to it, a person who is why isn’t the responsibility for creating a for resigned preparation. constantly, if subconsiously, under the dangerous situation put on those who would my rape will be awful. but worse would be a influence of fear is going to extend themselves rape? it’s just a rewording of the argument failure to live free, and fully alive, because i was less in all their pursuits, ask less dangerous that a short skirt meant she wanted it, afraid of it.

Page 41 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE archival and contemporary films inspired by the Situationists. The feature, to our surprise, was Erik Gandini’s Surplus, the film we would be showing on our tour. The bookfair was an interesting and well-attended event, and there were many enthusiastic people coming to our table. We were asked to give a workshop on “Anarchism 101”, of course flavored with anti- civilization tones. The organizers said that they had always had “red” anarchists give the workshop, and were looking for a fresh perspective. By the way, Toronto has lots of open-minded anarchists, some of whom have started a “Free University” in which full semester courses are given to anyone interested. They were in the middle of a course on the Russian Revolution (among others) while we were there. The following day, we gave a talk on “Green Anarchy/Anarcho-Primitivism” and enjoyed our last day in Canada. At the border, they made us go into Customs and then searched our car, finding lots of anarchist literature (including the E.L.F. Primer and the Unabomber Manifesto) and lots of videos (Fuck the System, etc). They asked us what Green Anarchy is, and whether it advocates the over- FeralFeralFeral Visions:Visions:Visions: throw of the U.S. government (to which I could honestly say “no” since that would be reformist, AA JournalJournal ofof anan compared to the complete destruction of civilization), scanned through the videos, and Anti-CivilizationAnti-Civilization RoadshowRoadshow scrolled down the Green Anarchy website. Finally, after almost two hours of waiting, they ByBy FeloniousFelonious SkunkSkunk decided to let us back into the country. Over the next few days we gave talks in Buffalo (New York), Brattleboro (Vermont), Portland (Maine), and finally the destination of FERAL VISIONS WAS A MULTIMEDIA SPEAKING TOUR would be able to uphold at least one of those most anticipation, Boston. It was here that we of the Northeast by two eco-anarchists: one of promises), they let me in. Once in Canada, we had our long-awaited debate with a member of the editors of Green Anarchy, from Eugene, rendezvoused with local anarchists, and my the North Eastern Federation of Anarcho- Oregon, and a founder of Wildroots Rewilding fellow Feral Visionary, who wasn’t even asked Communists (NEFAC). It was generally a Project near Asheville, North Carolina. We spent for I.D. when she drove over the border. friendly discussion in which we each gave a almost three weeks on the road, meeting new We headed about two hours northeast of half-hour presentation on our particular anarchist people, discussing anti-civilization theory and Toronto to meet up with Ann Hansen, of the ‘80s visions, followed by a brief rebuttal period, and practice, showing radical videos, and challenging Canadian anarchist group Direct Action. She is a long question and answer session. Being Boston, each other. probably the most unassuming and down-to- the epicenter for North American anarcho- The tour began in conflict with the (Canadian) earth person I have met within the anarchist/ commies, the room was filled with “red” State. After all night on a plane to Toronto from activist world. She is a frenzy of energy and full anarchists, most being respectful and open. We the west coast, I was the only person who was of amazing stories of the underground, prison, came to general agreement that there is some sent to Immigration. I explained that I was there and the work she’s currently doing – prisoner common ground (at least in rhetoric), and it was to meet a friend and hang out for a week and support and advocacy, including a project good to actually debate what one another was then to visit family in the States, but that was with other ex-prisoners to start a post-release in fact advocating, not the cartoon caricatures not sufficient. I was told that I would be sent transitional home for women. We’d been we make of each other in our respective scenes, back home. After being harassed about my corresponding for almost two years, and it was publications, and (most annoyingly) internet “look” and asked repeatedly whether I belonged great to finally connect with a true kindred spirit. discussion boards. It was also a good flushing to any organization (obviously unaware that I She said that she basically identifies as a green out of our differences, which are huge. am anti-organizationalist) and whether I protest anarchist these days, and has not compromised It became clear that the anarcho-communist (to which I finally admitted that I once attended her revolutionary dedication, even on lifetime vision of the world (at least that espoused by a Ralph Nader rally), they phoned the person I parole (never being able to leave the country and NEFAC) is not that dissimilar from what we was to stay with and interrogated her for an under constant surveillance). It was here in have now, complete with technological grids, hour. She did not hold up well, and said I would Kingston (the town Ann cannot leave without factories, and political organization, only more be speaking at an anarchist bookfair! This, written permission from her P.O.) that we gave egalitarian (but for whom?). The idea of added to the fact that neither of us knew each our first talk to a very enthusiastic crowd. infrastructural damage brought fear to the other’s real name, did not help the situation. After a hike and discussions in the woods, we NEFACer. “How do we know you will not come But after two hours of arguing, pleading and headed back to Toronto, where the organizers for our water treatment center?” To which I promising that I would not blow anything up, of the bookfair/conference put on a Surrealist assured him that I didn’t think that it would be burn anything down, or get a job (I knew I Video Showing at a local theatre, which included high on any anarchist’s agenda, but shouldn’t

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 42 we be questioning the world we live in which more talks in Easthampton (Massachusetts), the makes us dependent on this artificial apparatus Free Skool in Albany (New York), Princeton to survive? He was more concerned with tenant (New Jersey), and finally at James Madison strikes, making sure his plumbing was working, University in Harrisonburg (Virginia). After a and the need to grow the federation. Basically, brief stay at Wildroots, a new anarchist land/ they do not want to ask some very serious rewilding project outside of Asheville, NC, I got questions about the overall set-up of this system, back into another flying tin can headed and are only really concerned with developing (eventually) for Eugene. Overall, we were able a new management scheme. The final words of to connect with many old friends, meet many our red friend, was that the vision of living new ones, and share our particular anti-civilization without civilization is just too scary, that we critique with many interested and enthusiastic cannot expect people to join us unless we offer communities. Before leaving Boston, we folks. Hope to see you soon in your bioregion! them security. To which I responded, that the celebrated Halloween at a NEFAC party, which closest thing anyone can offer people as far as I attended dressed up as a zombie worker NOTE: We are always looking for speaking gigs, security goes is either a totalitarian state (complete with work clothes, tools, my unread discussions, or conferences to participate in. Let us know if you can help ([email protected], (socialist, communist, or capitalist), OR, the copy of Northeastern Anarchist, and my Wobbly [email protected], or [email protected]). knowledge and ability to tear down all institutions pin which read “UNIONS, the people who brought We are also beginning to organize “Feral Visions which prevent us from taking responsibility you the eight-hour work day!”). Against Civilization: The 2nd Annual Black and Green for procurement of physical nourishment We went on to give an “Intro to Anarchy” talk Gathering” to take place in Oregon next summer. and satisfaction in our own decentralized at a Consulta Conference for Miami at Yale, and (See page 70 for details.) THE GARDEN OF PECULIARITIES by Jesus Sepúlveda fit in the hierarchical order or the sickness of competition. The subject is capable of relating to all of the other creatures of the planet without the Fragment 18 necessity of standardizing anyone. Recognizing In every epoch militants have wondered what the peculiarity in other creatures permits coexistence. It revolution will be like and what will happen after it dispels the mental module molded by the iron mask comes to pass. Maybe this future—near or immediate— of instrumental reason. If one carefully observes the will not be as bloody or implacable as some peculiarity of another, the subject does not complete prophets have visualized it. Maybe it will be as calm the process of otherization because the understanding as a fertile and fresh stream, as a meadow. Maybe it that the other is as peculiar as oneself, who constitutes will be like a garden cultivated with patience and the subject and the totality, is revealed. To hands that distinguish the peculiarity of every strain recognize that the other is nothing more than an I, of plant. another peculiar being that also exists in the world, The garden of peculiarities manifests itself in a is liberating. way that some confuse with identity. Identity Through otherization, the other is reified, whether conforms itself in a reflexive and reactive way with a human, or the environment. This mechanism of relation to models that integrate dominant reification fragments the internal subject, displaced indentifying categories. These categories form parts from its totality since birth. When the self and of anti-authoritarian movements that oppose of a map: the North-South axis, Latin America, everything conform into one totality, reification resistance to the process of standardization. Africa, First World, etc. These are the symbolic disappears. Then, the subject—which constitutes the However, from a political point of view as well, categories of civilizing order. In the same way, these peculiarity of a being—learns the magic of artistic it is preferable to understand these movements as categories are constructed according to structural appreciation. This subsitutes the module of constellations of peculiarities inhabiting the garden patterns. This is how standardization functions. instrumental reason and poses a new challenge: of reality and resist the sorties of the instrumental Identity then reflects a series of other identities that aesthetic reason. steamroller. The ideological machine of standard- are erected as paradigms, but which in practice are This does not negate the necessity of creating ization homogenizes with its titles of identity. When imposed on the subject without prior warning: identity blocks in order to resist the cutural, the garden dismantles hierarchy, every aroma, nationality, race, class, sexuality, ideology, language, economic, and military penetration of the civilizing every color, every form, every taste and every ripple mother, father, etc. These notions—generally taken order. In fact—from a political point of view— create a landscape whose unique and unrepeatable for granted and which the individual learns almost subordinate identities and liberation movements drive opens the doors to appreciation of beauty. This through osmosis—are the labels of standardization. exist. A clear example are the movements of the subsitutes the module of instrumental reason for an Identity is the act of identifying with something, ethnic minorities in the First World, the indigenous aesthetic vision that radically displaces the utilitarian making oneself identical, whether it be a type, model, movement in Latin America, movements for the and functional logic of the system. It is the first step norm, pattern, level, or reference. Standardization liberty of sexual choice, the feminist movement, the toward the peculiarization of the world. And it not adjusts itself to the model, it typifies. Peculiarity, on workers movement, separatist and anti-neocolonial only opens the mind and disconnects the human brain the other hand, delves into those subjective zones movements, the urban anarchist resistance, the squat- from the machine of ideology, but it also breaks the that situate the subject as a whole that inhabits totality ters movement, movements against neoliberal shop windows of all commercial chains, negates and relates with as many other subjects as there are globalization, the ecological and green movement, authority and shouts with a clear and pristine voice, peculiarities. The notion of peculiarity dismantles human rights organizations, artistic movements, ENOUGH! the structure of power, which promotes homog- rebel movements, etc. In other words, problematizing Translation by Daniel Montero enization and authoritarianism because it does not identity as a notion is arguable from the point of view Edited by Janine Sepúlveda & Jesús Sepúlveda Page 43 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE The Caressing Intrusion of the Beast! The Wild Ones Fight Back! A new wave of animal monkeywrenching has broken out all over Gaia and in recent months, a number of disgruntled, renegade beasts have won small victories against the Industrial Machine and human domination. From seagulls attacking golfers to beavers toppling telephone poles, from rioting zoo prisoners to anti-government monkeys heckling politicians in the halls of the Indonesian Parliament, non-humyn avatars of chaos are revealing the bare essence of the struggle for freedom and wildness, stripped of all intellectual baggage and ideological pretensions. Living in the space between control and chaos, and struggling within the tensions that result from their interaction, wild fauna and flora exist outside the technological matrix in a realm now unknown to most humyns—a realm thats boundaries are vague or non-existent, its contents not entirely mapped and inventoried, and its inhabitants elusive. It is through this clash between civilization and wildness that green anarchists can observe and learn from the guerrilla strategies of our estranged, outlaw relatives, who fight against containment out of an instinctual lust for life and not out of allegiance to abstract ideas or belief systems…

September 19: September 26, Indonesia: for food, he said. “Those who work late hours have Captive Fish Cause Fire At Japanese House Monkey Loose Inside Parliament to be careful when it is dark.” The Wildlife Institute TOKYO—Captive tropical fish are believed to have JAKARTA—A monkey is on the loose inside a building of India says the monkeys belong in the forests, but caused a fire at a Japanese house, fire brigade housing Indonesia’s parliamentary leaders, according deforestation and human settlements are driving officials said, warning against the use of electrical to a report we received in late September. Dozens of them into the cities in search of food. The monkeys plugs near fishtanks. “It is an extremely rare case, government flunkies, including security officers, have become crafty pickpockets, know how to open but the fish are believed to be the culprits,” said an have been unable to catch the feral primate, which refrigerators, and brazenly snatch lunch pails from official at the Nogata fire station in Tokyo. “We was staking out its territory inside a medical clinic government workers. The answer, says the Wildlife assume the fish leapt and splashed water onto an on the eighth-floor of a parliamentary office tower. Institute of India, is to save the forests. Otherwise, extension socket, which was used for lighting the The building itself is home to Amien Rais; speaker “the problem will get worse.” tanks.” The water is then believed to have produced of the People’s Conservative Assembly, and the sparks that ignited the fire. House of Representatives, which is on the third floor. November, Illinois: It is unknown how the monkey got into the legislative Wolf Prisoner Killed After Visitor is Attacked September 23, China: offices. The animal has damaged medical bottles and CHICAGO—A northern gray wolf was shot to death Flock of Birds Delays 100 Flights equipment in the State clinic but everytime security at Brookfield Zoo after it seized the arm of a woman BEIJING—A large flock of swallows, which refused forces try to catch it or chase it away, the monkey who jumped a fence to reach inside its cage, the to disperse for incoming planes at the Beijing climbs onto the ceiling. first time in the zoo’s 69-year history that an International Airport, caused animal attacked a visitor, zoo wardens said. The more than 100 flights to be November, India: 11-year-old wolf (born in captivity and “raised” at delayed. The birds were Monkey Business Now the zoo) was shot once in the chest by a zoo police blocking the air space about the Norm in New Delhi officer after the 100-pound animal clamped down 100 meters above one of the NEW DELHI—In a capital city on the woman’s arm—and refused to let go. A zoo airport’s two runways, making where cows roam the streets photographer driving a golf cart along a nearby it impossible for planes to land. and elephants plod along in access road heard the woman screaming, hurried Air traffic “experts” say that the the bus lanes, it’s no surprise to the scene and called police. A veteran zoo cop birds could have caused the to find government buildings arrived within two minutes and “quickly determined” plane’s engines to malfunction overrun with monkeys. But the that it would take too long to tranquilize the animal. if they were sucked in, which state officials who work there So he instead drew his .45-caliber pistol and fired could lead to plane crashes. This are fed up. They’ve been bitten, point-blank. Though Brookfield Zoo has not had led to airport officials redirecting robbed and otherwise tor- previous animal attacks, it has had its share of flights to airports in other cities, mented by monkeys that animal mutinies. In August 1969, a group of polar some as far away as Jinan in ransack files, bring down bears escaped from their pen across a flooded moat eastern Shandong province and power lines, screech at visitors and headed straight for a nearby marshmallow Zhengzhou in central China’s and bang on office windows. stand. The bears were quickly rounded up and Henan province. “Please do not feed the returned to their cages. monkeys,” implores a sign at September 25, Maine: Raisina Hill, the complex of colonnaded buildings November 11, Pennsylvania: Bear Hunter Attacked by Moose that includes the president’s residence, Parliament, Lone Deer Wages Private A bear hunter from the town of Newry is recovering and Cabinet offices. To no avail. Hindus believe that “Anti-Agriculture” War! from serious injuries after being attacked by a 900- monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god, MILLERTOWN—A deer that chased a farmer for pound moose in western Maine. Jim Osgood said Hanuman, and worshippers come to Raisina Hill about a half-mile is speculated to be the same buck he was bear hunting with a friend when the bull every Tuesday handing out bananas. Last year the that has harassed and threatened other farmers this charged him and picked him up with his antlers. monkeys made their presence felt by hanging from fall. Gene Robbins, a Pennsylvania farmer, says that Osgood was knocked unconscious. Osgood’s friend window ledges and screeching at reporters arriving a seven-point buck chased him out of his cultivated tried to stop the moose from stomping Osgood but for a news conference with visiting U.S. Secretary field and into his neighbor’s garage. Is this the case had to run for cover under a pickup truck. Osgood of State Donald Rumsfeld. “It’s a big problem, of an uppity animal not knowing its place within is now recovering from a broken collarbone and especially in the evening,” says Defense Ministry the human-created hierarchy of species, or could broken bones in his face and is expected to be out spokesman Amitabha Chakrabarti. Monkeys break it instead be viewed as an act of land reclamation? of work for 10 weeks. into offices at night and paw through the files looking

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 44 “I’m on the hunt, I’m after you!” Animal Liberation Actions - Duran Duran Sept 3, UK: HLS Homes Targeted “On Friday night we attacked the house of an F2 Chemicals director in Lancashire who has been visited repeatedly in recent months. Paint bombs filled with red paint were thrown at his house and vehicle despite the presence of security at his house. Until F2 Chemicals and Asahi Glass sever their links with HLS, there will be no stopping the ALF. For the animals suffering and dying inside HLS whose murders are funded and paid for by monsters like this man we will fight until the bitter end, for the destruction of HLS - ALF”

BITE BACK! BITE BACK!

BITE BACK!

BITE BACK! BITE BACK! Sept 4, UK: Fur Farm Feed Factory Arson October 4, Nevada: According to Norwegian media, a fur farm feed producer, Tiger Attacks Roy Horn of ‘Siegfried & Roy’ Fossland Pelsdyrfôr BA in Otterøya, Norway, was attacked by LAS VEGAS—A 7-year-old white tiger attacked Roy the Norwegian ALF, DFF, on the night to Monday Sepember Horn of Siegfried and Roy during a performance 1st. The fur farm feed factory burned down totally and the on the Las Vegas strip on the magician and trainer’s damage is estimated to several millions of Norwegian krona. 59th birthday. The tiger lunged at Horn’s neck about This is the 4th arson attack against fur farm feed producers in half-way through the show and dragged him off Norway this year. stage, audience members said. “He looked like a rag doll in his mouth,” said Kirk Baser, from Pennsylvania. Sept 7, Italy: Arson Attack on HLS Client Emergency officials arrived at the MGM Mirage At about 5:30 am on 28th July 2003, a car was set alight in the Hotel-Casino and treated Horn for massive blood car park adjacent to the Yamanouchi offices in Carrugate, Italy. loss before he was rushed to University Medical This resulted in damage to an electricity box supplying Center for emergency surgery. Horn was talking at electricity to those offices and no power was available to the the time emergency workers arrived but had trouble office for the entire day. Banners were displayed on the fences breathing, Clark County Fire spokesman Bob around the car park with slogans saying ‘stop working with HLS’ Leinbach said. and ‘stop vivsection’. Audience members were shocked to realize the attack was not part of an illusion or magic trick. “We just heard all this commotion behind the October 3: Just Charge It! curtain and you could hear Roy scream. You could Chiron Director Edward Penhoet and VP Martin Forrest have tell Siegfried was really shook up, and he just said, $25,000 charged on their credit cards. New appliances, computer ‘I’m sorry but the show is over, and you know, the equipment, and Celine Dion are overnighted to their homes! show has been canceled.’ Everyone there I think, thought it was part of the act, because no one Dec 13, Russia: HLS Website Hacked really freaked out. When it grabbed him and “We also want to help you very much, but we stay in Russia dragged him off the stage, I thought maybe it was and we are not able to visit UK at this time. So we are focused like some magic trick where they switch a rag doll on electronic attack on HLS. or something.” 1) We are succefully attacked HLS website. You know about it. It is almost unreachable. And we will increase our attack “It’s like trying to control chaos” very soon. -- SantaSanta MonicaMonica FirefighterFirefighter DanDan CaldwellCaldwell 2) We are sucefully attacked HLS e-mails. Currently @huntingdon.com recieve 100000 e-mails per 24 hours. It is fully automatically, so we can do it for a very long time.” Although we have no problem Dec 15, Finland: Fur Farm Storage Burnt to the Ground with subsistence hunting or A fur farm storage building has burned down completely in scavenging (meat eating for Veteli, Finland. The fire department got to the farm at 2:30 pm. survival), as an anarchist where they were able to get the fire under control. The fire collective we are completely department had to get back to the farm later that evening opposed to factory farming, because fire started again. Fire caused tens of thousands vivisection, and the torture and Fall 2003: euros worth of damage. enslavement of other species. Wildfires Incinerate Southern Kalifornia! We also feel that many animal The fragility of Empire was once again revealed Dec 18: Christmas ALF Style - Security Vehicles Attacked liberation actions have strategic last Fall when six major wildfires knocked back “A Christmas message to all those who deal with Huntingdon value to a variety of movements. at least 750,000 acres of civilized sprawl in San Life Sciences from the ALF. We do not rest at this time of year!! This is only a sampling of the almost daily actions within the Diego, San Bernadino, Ventura, Riverside, and ADT provide security for both HLS labs. ADT Secretary in animal liberation movement. Los Angeles counties. The 281,000 acre Cedar Harrow, Middx had cars paintstrippered, locks glued and tyres punctured. Property doesn’t feel pain unlike the animals you For more details on these and fire – the largest individual blaze in California other actions, check out: history – cleansed the earth of 2,232 (mostly upper- help torture. Would you have provided security for the camps of Auschwitz too? www.DirectAction.info, class suburban) homes and 515 outbuildings and Stop providing security for the animals’ hellhole or we will [email protected], served as a fiery reminder that everything is be back. You are on the top of our list. You have been warned. www.SHACAmerica.net , transitory, including the plastic, anthropogenic ALF” and Ark Angel’s web-site. settlements of the techno-industrial system.

Page 45 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE “Can the pleasures we are permitted compare with those spicier attractions, those inappreciable pleasures which are connected to the rupture of social restraints and the throwing out of all laws?” — Poster from the Sorbonne, May 14th, 1968 Give ’Em Enough Rope! Broke Down Engines, Barbecued Kops, and Further Symptoms of the System’s Meltdown August 15, Scandinavia: worldwide, including computers at the Federal which controlled the 50 researchers’ life-support MSBlast Worm Takes Down Major Bank Reserve in Atlanta, Maryland’s motor vehicle systems. The FBI traced the email to an Internet café Scandinavia’s largest bank, Nordea, has become agency and the Minnesota Transportation Department. in Bucharest and helped Romanian police arrest two the biggest European victim of the MSBlast worm. The “Welchia” virus crippled the U.S. State locals—the latest evidence that computer-savvy The bank was forced to close 80 branches across Department’s Consular Lookout and Support System Romanians are fast emerging as a bold menace in Finland after the computer infection found its way (CLASS ), which contains more than 12.8 million the shadowy world of “Cybercrime.” “It’s one of the into servers in all 400 of the bank’s offices. Pete records from the FBI, the State Department and leading places for this kind of activity,” said Gabrielle Simpson, manager of ThreatLab, said: “I’m surprised US immigration, drug enforcement and intelligence Burger, who runs the FBI’s office in Bucharest and they were caught out. From the number of branch agencies. Among the names are those of at least is working with Romanian law-enforcement to closures and the apparent extent of the problem it 78,000 suspected terrorists. The State Department arrest hackers and “avoid the Sept. 11 of doesn’t seem as though this is a one off. It would has invested heavily in the CLASS system since Cybercrime.” Law enforcement documents obtained appear to suggest there was something fundamentally the September 11 WTC attacks, more than doubling by the Associated Press portray a loosely organized wrong with the IT security procedures which were the number of names that applicants are checked but increasingly aggressive network of young in place.” against. One provision of the Patriot Act added FBI Romanians conspiring with accomplices in Europe records, including the bureau’s “violent gang” and and the United States to steal millions of dollars each September 12, British Columbia: “terrorist” database. year from upper-class citizens and companies. Their Police under Siege in Vancouver specialties: extorting cash from businesses after The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is telling October 15, Canada: hacking into their systems, and designing and the corporate media that young men are increasingly Cancelled Punk Show Turns Into releasing computer-crippling worms and viruses. challenging and assaulting Vancouver cops. A Real Riot in Montreal Alarmed officials say the South Pole case underscores Vancouver pig Dave Jones says six cops have been There’s only one news section in Green Anarchy the global impact of this new breed of cyber-outlaw. injured on Granville Street in one month, one of where this item belongs and that’s “Further “Frustrated with the employment possibilities offered whom suffered a concussion when a young male Symptoms of the System’s Meltdown!” Angered in Romania, some of the world’s most talented attacked him. The VPD’s explanation for the rise in by the cancellation of a punk rock concert dozens computer students are exploiting their talents online,” anti-police violence is that kids are being influenced of young people smashed windows and overturned says the FBI and the National White Collar Crime by violent video games that give you extra points cars, setting them ablaze. The young punks rioted Center in a new report. This past summer, Romanian for killing cops. More likely, kids like beating up on after they were told that the groups Total Chaos and pigs (aided by the FBI) arrested six other young cops and that’s why they find the games so The Exploited wouldn’t be performing. Some Romanians in the Transylvania town of Sibiu after they entertaining. Cops have been attacked in several members of The Exploited were refused entry into successfully extorted $50,000 from several leading instances in Vancouver, resulting in split lips, bruises the country by Canada Customs. Hundreds of young American corporations, which were not identified. and loose teeth for the pigs. One major incident broke punks were waiting on the street for about 45 out when two pigs were harassing a panhandler. Four minutes before the fun began. Several then picked men approached the cops and challenged them up material from a nearby construction site and aggressively. When the cops tried to arrest one of the hurled the items at cars and windows. Minutes later, men, they were beaten. In early August police were at least four cars were overturned and set on fire, ambushed and attacked at the Vancouver International flames shooting out the side windows as firefighters Fireworks Competition. On “Canada Day”, youths directed streams of water at them. A one-block area threw bottles at cops in the town of Cloverdale, BC. was littered with 24 cars that had their windows smashed. Some of the rioters grabbed a computer September 23: from one of the stores and hurled it at a car. The Computer Virus Strikes U.S. State Department windows of at least six stores were smashed. @ computer virus has hit the US Department of State, affecting the performance of the government’s October 19, Istanbul (Turkey)—Three cops were IT system that manages visa approvals. (The virus injured by Molotov firebombs in an ambush in the October-November, Pacific Northwest: shut down the State Department’s “Consular Lookout center of the city. Another Molotov firebomb was FBI Investigates the Damaging of and Support System” (CLASS). A State Department launched at the headquarters of the Party of Justice Electrical Transmission Towers; representative reached by Silicon.com sister site and Development. Has Suspect in Captivity CNET news.com would not confirm that the Throughout the month of October the FBI and system had crashed but indicated that IT personnel October 20: police agencies in four western states were looking were working on a problem. The State Department Romania Emerges as New World Nexus for a Spokane, Washington, man suspected of eventually provided more details of the incident; of Cybercrime “tinkering” with high-voltage electrical transmission according to spokesperson Joanne Moore, at 4:30 It was nearly 70 degrees below zero outside, but an towers at several locations in Oregon and Northern am Tuesday morning, the department IT workers email on a computer at the South Pole Research California. Bolts were loosened or removed from the discovered that the “Welchia” virus had infected Center sent a different kind of chill through the legs of transmission towers in at least four locations: their system. scientists inside. “I’ve hacked into the server. Pay Madras, McNary and Klamath Falls in Oregon and Welchia is an aggressive infection released a me off or I’ll sell the station’s data to another country Anderson in Northern California. The FBI very quickly month prior that exploits a software flaw in recent and tell the world how vulnerable you are,” the issued a federal arrest warrant for Michael Devlyn versions of Microsoft’s Windows software. message warned. Proving it was no hoax, the Poulin, 62, charging him with destroying an energy Collectively, Welchia and a related virus, “Blaster,” message included scientific data showing that the facility, which carries up to a 20-year prison sentence. have infected hundreds of thousands of computers extortionist had freely roamed around the server, Poulin became the prime suspect after he was spotted

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 46 driving away from the scene of the California improve their prison conditions. Police planned to November 9, United States: incident in a distinctive gray pickup truck with a white interrogate two leaders of the organized crime gang New $20 Bill Already Being Counterfeited! shell and some system-loving snitch reported his known as the First Capital Command. Only a month after the rollout of retooled $20 bills license plate number. Two weeks later, reportedly meant to thwart counterfeiters, facsimile copies of tired of life on the lam, Poulin surrendered to November 7, Marugame (Japan)—Three 14-year- the colorized currency are popping up everywhere. authorities. Poulin told the Associated Press in a olds and a 12-year-old were arrested and taken into So far, nine people have been arrested nationwide lengthy telephone interview, prior to his arrest, that protective custody after throwing four Molotov in cases involving attempted counterfeits of the new he’d grown tired of “dodging the law.” Poulin said firebombs at the home of the principal of their bill. U.S. Secret Service spokesperson Jean Mitchell he’d tried unsuccessfully to arrange his surrender junior high school. said that at least 200 bogus versions of the new for two weeks, but the Feds gave him too few $20 bill have surfaced. details about the legal circumstances that awaited November 8, Oregon: him. Though Poulin admitted no guilt to the charges Bonneville Power Administration Posts Bullet Wounds KKK Initiation Participant he faces, he said his actions at the transmission Reward in Series of Break-ins JOHNSON CITY, TN—A bullet fired in the air during towers were necessary to “highlight vulnerabilities The Bonneville Power Administration is offering a a Ku Klux Klan initiation ceremony came down and to the power infrastructure”—a system that could reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to struck a participant in the head, critically injuring be breached easily, he added. “We have a situation the arrest and conviction of people responsible for him. Gregory Allen Freeman, 45, was charged with of one person, one wrench. The person in question breaking into a microwave communication site in aggravated assault and reckless endangerment in is 62 years old, over-weight, arthritic, half-blind and western Lane County. Three times in the last year, the Saturday night incident that wounded Jeffery a cancer patient living on a minimum of 12 pills a burglars have hit the facility at Goodwin Peak in S. Murr, 24. About 10 people, including two children, day,” Poulin said, describing himself. Poulin said the the Coast Range, about 10 miles east of Florence. had gathered for the ceremony. The man who was Bush administration’s heavy-handed search for The break-ins have resulted in stolen and vandalized being initiated was blindfolded, tied with a noose terrorists abroad overlooked domestic security weak communications equipment, with losses estimated to a tree and shot with paintball guns as Freeman points. Poulin’s ridiculous ploy to portray himself at $2,200. The BPA uses the site to relay voice and fired a pistol in the air to provide the sound of real as a “true patriot” and “servant of his country” (along data signals as part of its power grid operations. gunfire, Sheriff Fred Phillips said. The bullet struck with his lame civil disobedience-type defense) are The incidents at Goodwin Peak are similar to other Murr on the top of the head and exited at the bottom disappointing, but whatever his real motives, he did break-ins at nonfederal communication sites within of his skull. Freeman fled the ceremony but was indeed prove a point—that the technological infra- a 30-to-50 mile radius. arrested near his home. structure is highly vulnerable, something anarchists might consider. “Let each person proclaim: there is a great negative work of destruction to October 21, New Delhi (India)—A crowd of people be accomplished. We must sweep and clean. Affirm the cleanliness of the attacked a police station after a young boy was arrested be accomplished. We must sweep and clean. Affirm the cleanliness of the and beaten to death by police. 12 pigs were injured. individual after the state of madness, aggressive complete madness of a world abandoned to the hands of bandits, who rend one another and destroy October 26, Jamaica: the centuries. Without aim or design, without organization: indomitable Riot Erupts After Police Shooting madness, decomposition…” MONTEGO BAY—Thousands of Jamaicans rioted —Tristan Tzara near Montego Bay’s airport, burning buses and blocking roads to protest the killings of two elderly men by police in an alleged shootout. Police fired guns in the air and used tear gas to disperse the rioters, who numbered about 4,000, but the crowds regrouped, tossing bottles at pigs and preventing them from moving burned vehicles from the roadways.

October 28, Zhoucheng (China)—Thousands of people broke through a line of 800 police to attack a Communist party office, broke down doors and trashed equipment inside. Citizens were enraged after city officials had confiscated an elderly man’s vending wagon and then run him over, killing him, the day before. 200 people were arrested after the rebellion.

October 29, Palermo (Italy)—Hundreds of people assaulted a patrol of police officers with chairs, sticks and other objects, while they were arresting a boy in the Zen district. Two pigs were injured in the clashes.

November 5: Gangs Assault Police Stations in Brazil Brazilian gang members sprayed two police stations with machine-gun fire in the eighth day of attacks against Sao Paulo’s government. Two men on a motorcycle fired 40 machine-gun rounds at a precinct station in Osasco, a suburb of Sao Paulo, and an unknown number of gang members pumped 14 rounds into a police station in Campinas, 62 miles west of the city. No one was hurt. State Security Secretary Saulo de Abreu said the attacks are part of a drive by imprisoned gang leaders to

Page 47 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE notes on the function of the outlaw as anti-role by Thomas Tripp

THE DAYS PASS AND WE WATCH THEM GO BY co-opted or at the very least is apologetic in our cages and cubicle-cages. From for the lawlessness (I am speaking here of behind a short-order grill we sense the media representations of the outlaw). Every- trickling away of a lifetime. Here in prison one knows that the outlaw is the bad guy. the lucky or soulless are afforded certain And that the bad guy loses in the end. The privileges — the ability to wear pants, for bad guy ends up in prison, and there the roles example, or a pass to roam the yard, itself that he has integrated begin to surface as only a larger cage, with freedom tantalizingly certain assumptions made by the state. close, yet out of reach. The unlucky and alive The prison system is built using certain wonder if the sun still rises and are blinded assumptions as its foundation stones. For by the glare of banal walls. We exist. example, it is assumed that prisoners will Yet even here, in the only dungeons the not only not resist being held captive, but state has to offer, we are assailed by the that we will actually keep the system which fallacy of our culture. We are hounded by holds us captive running. By working in rules and variations on rules and sub the kitchen, or as the plumber or electrician, grounds and genres. Be me! They scream. by mopping the corridors and cleaning the

artwork by Tracy Boothh Buy into me! Buy me and become me! guards’ toilets, by running the visiting room #36.255 PO Box 8509 ND-F-16 SICI Boise, ID, 83707 Why? Why, when everything else has been and working on outdoor work crews, by which have been chosen for us: crip, blood, taken, are prisoners still allowed to receive doing these and a million other things we butt rocker, punk rocker, faux intellectual, magazines? Today, magazines are less are acting as cogs in the machine which the etc. I fear that often, prison anarchists take sources of information than they are state uses to oppress us. We act as both on the label of anarchist as a sort of fashion catalogs of roles, as are mainstream radio, captives and captors. statement, a way to augment the role they television and movies. Today media It is further assumed that we prisoners play. A “punk rock” or “alternative” style functions as a sort of compartmentalized will be so busy fighting and squabbling person listens to the Dead Kennedys, reads entertainment, in which both media and amongst ourselves that we will not have the Beat poets, and holds anarchistic beliefs. assimilator of the media are expected to the time to even conceive of resistance. This A crip listens to Tupac, reads Malcolm X, conform to one or more of a set of assumption, for the most part, is a correct and holds the system to be an inevitable standardized roles [that is, doctor, wife, one. I myself have fallen victim reality. These roles need to be transcended. student, rebel, jock, patriot, etc.] and to the assumption that prisoners We need crips who listen to the Dead to carry out scripted behaviors. should fight prisoners, not the Kennedys and hold anarchistic beliefs, and The media, for the most pigs. How else can two punk rockers bumping Tupac. We need to part, is an enormous guards control a unit of believe that our tastes are not “who we are,” conditioning apparatus 200 prisoners than by and that our tastes are not necessarily those which permeates almost helping to divide them we’ve been conditioned to believe they are. every corner of the into factions, starting We need to step outside the bounds of the American existence. drama and watching the cultural conditioning apparatus, inside of As with schooling, fun begin. And we all do which we’ve lived our entire lives, and the media is used to it. We are so concerned with begin to live the practice of daily personal crush into our heads who’s a rapist, who is a rat, who revolution. And then we need to begin to which roles are acceptable, called who punk and what he propose resistance in our world, and in the which are not; which forms of did about it, that we totally circumstances in which we find ourselves. resistance are acceptable... etc. forget about the gang I propose the outlaw as the anti-type, the Because we are creatures that exploits us daily. anti-role. The outlaw conforms to no standard. of imitation and learn A very close friend of She sifts through the ruins of our culture, how to act by watching mine called this behavior weeding out the GMOs, grasping the real how others act, everything in “engaging in petty yard and leaving the rest behind her in flames. America is scripted. From the tyrannies,” and he is one hundred The outlaw is completely outside the beginning we are inundated percent correct. Mostly our outing system; practicing the art of refusal, finding with images of how to be, and of a rapist or harassment of a rat isn’t the ways to shake the system to its core. every variance is accounted for: rebellion is based on any deep-seated anger — it is Prison is a microcosm of the larger world fine as long as we eventually see the light simply a way of reproducing the dominant around us, and accordingly, most of the and conform, or as long as our rebellion takes power structure in our own lives. It is a bit insanity of American society is reproduced place within the confines of the script labeled of power which we can use to tyrannize behind these walls, with more intensity. “non-conformist.” those with less power than us, or with no Prison is America boiled down to its base The outlaw occasionally slips through as power at all. elements. Materialism, consumerism, a hero-figure apart from the capitalist roles, By the assumptions of the state, we are patriarchy, complacency, racism: all of but usually even the outlaw is eventually reduced to actors playing a series of roles this is going on today in your cellblock. GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 48 In prison, as in America, resistance is rebellion was to protest the lack of educational mostly just a word. A prisoner is “in resistance” opportunities at the prison, and to draw attention or “in revolt” — but what does that mean? to the abuse of prisoners by guards, focusing Does it mean writing an occasional rant for specifically on the racist discrimination against an anarchist publication and otherwise American Indian prisoners. TheThe carrying on exactly as you did when you were The Oregonian called the rebellion a “riot” not “in resistance”? Does being “in resistance” instigated by “white supremacists” when in mean that you can go to work every day and reality the action was the work of several ThessalonikiThessaloniki 77 rob for the pigs, or clean their toilets when American Indian prisoners and anti-racist whites they’re done shitting? How is doing every such as Thomas. Tripp and two other men single thing you’re told, exactly when you convicted for participating in this rebellion call Released!Released! are told to do it, being “in resistance”? themselves the “Children of the River.” The I do not believe in the theory of resistance. other men are: Teewahne Sahme, an American I believe in the practice of revolution. Indian who comes from a family with a history Anything else is a mouthful of empty of American Indian Movement activism, and words. As stated in Against Sleep & Night- David Scalera, AKA Looks Away, also an mare, “the system is open to our refusal... American Indian. Both men were originally sent our refusal can make their system un- to prison on robbery-related charges and have governable.” Every time the prisoners had their sentences extended because of their cooperate with the pigs by going to work, involvement in prison resistance. by fighting amongst ourselves, by sitting The Children of the River have been highly numb and mindless in the TV room, by active in spreading revolutionary consciousness fulfilling our roles, we strengthen and amongst prisoners, and exposing racism and Greece- On November 26, the Thessaloniki 7, arrested during the European Union Economic perpetuate the system — the system which abuse of authority by the Oregon Department of Summit protests in June, were released without holds us down. When we begin to refuse Corrections. For their acts of protest, the bail and under the following conditions: They are — when we don’t go to work — that is Children of the River have been subject to not to leave Greece before their trial, and the 3 when their system begins to collapse. The frame-ups, control unit isolation, and near Greeks should present themselves to a police hole isn’t so bad. Trust me. I’ve done 34 constant harassment. Despite all of this, they have station twice a month. Five of the seven anti- straight months in control units. We, each always kept a positive attitude and they are proud capitalist political prisoners (Syrian-born of us, are the revolution, and must live the of the various reforms that have been introduced Solaiman Dakdouk, Spanish-born Carlos revolution everyday. Refuse to cooperate. at the Two Rivers prison as a result of their actions. Martin-Martinez and Fernando Perrez-Gorraiz, Refuse your role — instead, begin to live. Thomas comes from a working poor family British-born Simon Chapman, Greek-born and does not have financial assistance. Those Spyros Tsitsaa) were on hunger-strike for between 49 and 66 days. According to a recent Special Note: We’re happy to inform you that who can afford to help Thomas can send checks medical report concerning the five prisoners, Thomas Tripp was released from prison on & money orders [made out to “Break the serious injuries were beginning to set in, Friday, November 28, after having served over Chains”], and well-concealed cash, with a note including: respiratory deficiency, hepatic (liver) five years in Oregon prisons. Tom is doing well specifying that the money is for Thomas. tiredness, haemoptysis (spitting of blood), and re-adjusting to life on the outside. difficulty in excretion of urine (dysuria), blue Thomas was originally arrested for drug Send donations to: disease of lower limbs (cyanosis), impairment charges [selling marijuana], and assault charges Break the Chains of the synergic moves of upper and lower limbs, resulting from a fight between a group of young PO Box 12122, Eugene, OR 97440 and swallowing difficulties. Their only demand was that they be released temporarily from prison men. He became highly politicized upon his [email protected] entry into prison, and in January of 2001, was (with or without conditions) whilst they await their For more info on Thomas Tripp and the trials. Their lives were in extreme danger. involved in a major rebellion at the Two Rivers Children of the River, visit the Break the The Council of Judges ruled for their release Correctional Institution. The objective of the Chains website at: www.breakthechains.net after the District Attorney in Athens ordered doctors to force-feed the hunger strikers. The latter move turned public opinion against the state. People were outraged at a decision that reeked of totalitarianism, and even members of Who Is Who? the governing PASOK party came out to demand their release. The solidarity movement in Greece What lengths are deemed necessary versus a society that breeds like put great pressure on the government, with lots rats, feeds like swine, and assimilates culture and individuality like the of occupations, demonstrations, actions and publicity. Once word got out that the prisoners Borg? Because they will stop at nothing, and there will be nothing left. had perhaps only a week to live, even the Where will you be when they aim their nanoprobes at you? An extra in mainstream media began to take an interest. the Star Trek movie and a prime candidate to be droned flying a peace Twenty-eight European parliament members called for the prisoners’ release and Amnesty sign clutching assorted prayer beads or bracing your skull with your International have called for an independent hands to prevent your contraption of some idealistic mediocrity from inquiry. Indymedia Athens stated: “This is a victory of the struggle for dignity and freedom imploding your pulpous Grey matter as the screws of machine language by the 5 hunger strikers, of the other 2 prisoners, cyclone like a soccer bullet down your spine. Where will you be? but as well the thousands of people that stood up for them all over the world! Our passion for (Notes From a Cataleptic Shadow Puppet) freedom was stronger than their prisons.”

Page 49 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE “Like ants in this war dance, if one falls ten more’s in his place to advance the cause.” — Paris, Sonic Jihad SLAVE NEW WORLD! STATE REPRESSION NEWS

Six Anarchists Arrested and and twenty activists are under investigation by an international solidarity movement, they for this alleged conspiracy. All those who transferred him and improved the conditions, Labeled a “Terrorist Cell” were raided are Eco-activists/Eco-anarchists later to be retracted upon another transfer. th BARCELONA: On September 16 , the who have actively supported Marco either He is currently serving 8 years for direct “Guardia Civil” (one of Spain’s police forces) by taking part in demonstrations outside action, but still faces charges for escaping arrested 6 people in the Ciutat Vella neigh- Swiss Embassies or by creating websites and prison and for the death of the border cop. borhood and Horta-Guinardo district. other information about Marco. Marco is expecting the trial to take place this Counter-terrorist legislation has been applied This investigation appears to be concentrating year. After all the years in prison, Marco, who to them, so they are isolated and without on a series of direct actions, which occurred calls himself a green anarchist, didn’t let them legal assistance of their confidence in Madrid. in solidarity with Marco when he was on change his mind about his political convictions. After five days of isolation and interrogation, hunger strike earlier this year. The actions Behind bars, he stayed a political activist; one of the comrades was released with being investigated include an arson attack on by means of writing letters, he organized minor charges and the other five were 1/18/03, against a nearly built chairlift at a a far-reaching network of political and remanded to await trail in prison. There is ski resort, which resulted in 6 million Euros personal relations. an international arrest warrant for another worth of damages. A spray-painted slogan at comrade supposedly related to the case. the scene of the arson read “Free Marco – November 5, West Papua: Those arrested have been labeled “a clandestine Fire to destructors”. The same slogan was Indonesian Military Murders anarchist group” and the government is trying found that same night near a torched phone Six OPM Members to link them with a envelope-bomb sent to mast and a bombed TV tower. More actions It’s been reported that about 200 Indonesian the Greek embassy in Madrid (deactivated followed against phone masts, all claimed (TNI) troops went to the village of Yalengga by police), thought to be carried out in soli- in solidarity with Marco. An anonymous in West Papua at about 3:00 a.m. on November darity with seven prisoners in Thessalonica, supporter of Marco’s stated: “Solidarity with 5. They entered houses and started shooting Greece, and also with many sabotage actions earth warriors will never be stopped by everywhere. 10 people are believed to have referred by police as “Urban terrorism”. police repression.” been killed, at least 4 of whom were civilians, They’ve also been charged with firearm Marco has been moved from Pfäffikon while the other 6 were known OPM freedom possession. Solidarity demonstrations have prison to Kloten (near Zurich). His full postal fighters. The names of those killed we believe taken place in Barcelona, and many other address is still unknown, but letters of sup- to be: fund-raising actions are being prepared. port can be emailed to Marco via Because their mail is limited to 2-3 letters a [email protected] (Please re- • Yosep Gombo • Yonius Wanimbo week, letters of support can sent to the member that no prisoner has access to email. • Samuel Tabuni • Yustinus Murib following address and they will be passed This e-mail address is run by a supporter of • Leenius Telenggen • Nair Telenggen on to the family who might be able to pass it Marco’s who will print off your email and • Tingkap Tabuni • Ararik Murib to them or read it to them: C.L.P.A. c/o C.N.T., post it to Marco by normal land mail. If you • Niur Murib • Ubah Telenggen c/o Joaquin Costa, Barcelona 08001 Spain wish to receive a reply to your email you have to include a land mail address). Some of the names here are different from Sept. 24, Italy: those issued by the Indonesian media and the Raids On Eco-Activists , Who is Marco Camenisch? TNI, who are being accused by human-rights Marco Camenisch Moved In January 1980, Marco Camenisch received a monitors of false reporting. The army is still Italian police from the Carabinieri Special 10-year prison sentence, for direct action against controlling this area of Papua, restricting Operation Branch (ROS) conducted 50 house a pylon and against a power station. In 1981, movement and denying independent reporters raids against suspected eco-activists. The together with 5 other prisoners, he succeeded access to surviving villagers. Contrary to ROS is investigating an alleged conspiracy in escaping from prison, during which a guard some media reports this attack was not to create economic sabotage against environ- was killed. He went underground for ten years. connected to the shooting of a construction mentally destructive creations like skiing In 1989, Swiss federal police claimed he was worker in the Ugima village, which is more resorts, incinerators, mobile phone masts and responsible for the killing of a Swiss border cop. than a two week walk from Jalenga. The TV towers. Marco Camenisch, who is currently After a shoot-out with Carabinieri, he was ar- Jalenga massacre is believed to have been imprisoned for eco-bombings against the rested in November 1992. The Italian State con- precipitated by an informant passing a lead Swiss nuclear power industry, supposedly demned him to 12 years of prison for bodily on to the TNI regarding the whereabouts of leads this alleged conspiracy. Marco’s cell in harm and several direct actions against pylons. OPM soldiers who they believed to be Pfaffikon prison was also raided. This is not He served 9 years in high security prison in responsible for an April 4, 2003, attack on the the first time that Italian police have tried to solitary confinement. Wamena armory; the suspected informant link Marco with alleged conspiracies in a In April 2002, Marco was extradited to Swit- is said to have been paid 50,000,000RP for blatant attempt to try and break his spirit and zerland. In January 2003, after a hunger strike the lead (the TNI have used local Papuans destroy the solidarity Marco gets from his against the bad conditions of imprisonment to snitch on resistance fighters and to create friends and supporters alike. Between thirteen he was suffering, and several direct actions conflict and tensions between Papuans.)

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 50 One of the people murdered in this ambush was Yustinus Murib, a Papuan independence fighter who was a regional commander of the Papuan Liberation Army, or OPM. At least eleven thousand Indonesian troops have been deployed to Papua in recent months, leading to speculation of an imminent large- scale military operation. From October 9-18, 2003, there was an international week of action in support of the West Papuan people, and some decent shows of solidarity took place in England. In Redhill, the offices of Toyota were visited and the entire place covered in red paint (Toyota are responsible for logging in occupied West Papua, a position that marks them out as clear enemies both of nature and of tribal peoples.) Also, a protest against the New Tribes Mission during the “week of action” turned militant, resulting in sensitive documents, floppy discs and computer hard drives being stolen from their Headquarters; keyboards, locks and computers were also damaged and a timed device was left in the toilets which later opened a valve on the sentenced on January 28, 2002, in federal court months of testimony. A few rifled through legal building’s water supply, causing flooding in San Jose, CA. Matt was sentenced to 14 papers. The group’s 59-year-old founder, overnight! The New Tribes Mission exist to months in prison, and 3 years supervised Alexandros Yiotopoulos, listened impassively convert tribal people to fundamentalist release, and Petey was sentenced to 24 months as the judge read out the word “guilty” over Christianity and are currently active in the in prison, and 3 years supervised release. and over. Philippines and West Papua, as well as much of the rest of the world. Their airlines search Dec. 8, Athens: Dec. 18, Kennebunk, ME: for tribes and fly in the missionaries, then, Greek Court Convicts 15 in Teen Serves Federal Time for according to eyewitness accounts from West Papua, fly in businessmen, corporate products 27 Year-Old Underground Group Accidental Arson of Bush, Sr.’s Boat and the military. They are the vanguard of A court convicted 15 members of the radical It was supposed to be simple, breaking into a cultural invasion. leftist group, November 17, on a string of small boatyard and stealing a marine radio to In related news, on November 26, Eco- assassinations, car bombings and rocket monitor police frequencies. But when the two anarchists in Manchester, England stormed attacks that stretched over nearly three intruders, Patrick V., 14, and his accomplice, a conference on “corporate citizenship” and decades. Greek officials said they hoped to Christopher Conley, 19, spotted what they decided to balance out the cheesy “solar decrease the fear of political violence before thought were video surveillance cameras, products” on display by dumping several the summer Olympic Games. Those convicted they panicked and set fire to the building, bottles of fake blood on the BP stall in the included a founder and the chief assassin of burning it down along with several boats and lobby: This action was carried out in solidarity the group, Dimitris Koufodinas. After its first engines. Unknown to them, one of the boat with the people of West Papua whose lives killing, of a CIA station chief in Athens in 1975, engines belonged to former President George are being destroyed by BP. Two people were N17 waged a hit-and-run campaign that Bush, whose summer house is seven miles away. arrested for the action and charged with 5,500 officials said claimed 23 victims, including Within days of the July 2002 fire, Secret pounds worth of criminal damage. We’ve a Greek shipping magnate, a British brigadier Service and other federal agents were at also been hearing about an extraordinary and three other American officials. The verdicts, Patrick’s house. His mother, Denise Collier, video that was smuggled out of West Papua delivered by a judge in rapid-fire style without said they told her that the young men had in early November, from a secret OPM rally comment, brought an abrupt close to a trial “blown up the president’s boat” in what in the remote highlands of the Baliem Valley. that had riveted Greece for nine months, might have been “a terrorist act.” One federal These tapes are pleas for help to the outside with nearly 500 witnesses, 10,000 pages of firearms agent told her that the incident had world and detail allegations of the burning evidence and a carnival atmosphere that at raised “national security concerns.” of villages, the killing of highlanders, and the times threatened to spiral into chaos. The Patrick then found himself in a highly driving of up to 5,000 people into the bush – court acquitted four defendants, including unusual predicament. Instead of being tried without access to their food gardens. This the only woman. Several of the convicted in local juvenile court, he was turned over to video footage offers a rare glimpse into a face life in prison; their lawyers said they the United States Attorney’s office in Portland, region – and a struggle – that Indonesia planned to appeal. tried in Federal District Court and found doesn’t want the world to see, and was The case, while rich in spectacle and guilty. He was given the maximum sentence recently aired on Australian television. symbolism, left much about the group allowed: 30 months incarceration, followed cloaked in mystery, including the question by 27 months of probation. He was then sent Peter Schnell Released from Prison of why the group was able to act with impunity to a maximum security juvenile facility in for 27 years. Greece prosecuted the November Pennsylvania on the order of the federal Peter is back into safe and free surroundings 17 suspects under a new antiterrorism law, Bureau of Prisons. Unfortunately, we don’t and we wish him the best! Matt Whyte and using a panel of three judges instead of a have any current information on where Peter Schnell (aka the Santa Cruz Two), both jury. The prisoners filed casually to their usual Patrick is now being held, but we hope to long-time animal and earth activists, were seats and fell into roles honed over long have it available for our Spring 2004 issue. Page 51 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE The State Takes Its Vengeance POLITICAL PRISONERS WHO NEED YOUR SUPPORT! NOTE: We can not list every political prisoner, so we must prioritize anarchists, anti-authoritarians, eco-defense activists, animal liberationists, native and land rights prisoners, and others we have strong affinity with that are being held captive in North Amerika. In the future, we may have special featured prisoners, which will rotate each issue. The following are being held by the state for politically-motivated activities: Anarchist & Craig Marshall (Critter) #13797662, Native American & Tewahnee Sahme #11186353, SRCI, SRCI, 777 Stanton Blvd, Ontario, OR 777 Stanton Blvd, Ontario, OR 97914. Anti-Authoritarian: 97914. Serving a five-year sentence for Land Rights: Native rights advocate serving additional Bill Dunne #10916-086, Box 019001, setting fire to SUVs to protest the Byron Shane Chubbuck #07909051, US time for a prison insurgency. Atwater, CA 95301. Anti-authoritarian destruction of the environment. Penitentiary, PO Box 1000, Leavenworth, sentenced to 90 years for the attempted KS 66048. Indigenous rights activist David Scalera (Looks Away) #13405480, liberation of a prisoner in 1979. Benjamin Persky #1410212600, serving time for robbing banks in order TRCI, 82911 Beach Access Rd, Umatilla, George Vierno Center, 0909 Hazen St., to acquire funds to support the Zapatista OR 97882. Native rights advocate serving Larry Giddings #10917-086, Box 1000, East Elmhurst, NY 11370. Sentenced to additional time for a prison insurgency. Lewisburg, PA 17837. Anti-authoritarian rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico. multiple years for property destruction Luis V. Rodriguez #C33000, PO Box prisoner serving 75+ years for revolu- at multiple anti-HLS demonstrations. Eddie Hatcher #0173499, ECI, PO Box tionary action. 215, Maury, NC 28550. Longtime 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532-7500. Fran Thompson #93341, 1107 Recharge Apache/Chicano activist being framed Matthew Lamont T90251, Centinella Native American freedom-fighter being Rd., York, NE 68467. Longtime eco- framed for a murder he did not commit. for the murder of two cops. State Prison/ A-5-114, PO Box 901, activist serving a Life sentence for Imperial, CA. 92251 Serving time for shooting dead, in self-defense, a stalker Leonard Peltier #89637-132, PO Box MOVE Prisoners: allegedly planning to attack a white 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048. American who had broken into her home. MOVE is a radical, ecological movement supremacist gathering. Indian Movement (AIM) activist, serving that has been attacked by the Philadelphia Helen Woodson #03231-045 FMC two Life sentences, having been framed Ojore N. Lutalo #59860, PO 861, SBI Police since its inception. Nine members Carswell, PO Box 27137, Admin Max Unit, for the murder of two FBI agents. #0000901548, Trenton, NJ 08625. Anarchist Fort Worth, TX 76127. Serving 27 years were convicted and sent to prison for life and black liberation soldier serving time for robbing a bank and then setting the Andy J. Riendeau (John Two Names) following a 1978 siege at their house in for revolutionary clandestine activities. money on fire while reading out a statement #193786, Dorm 16/Bed 25, Limestone which one cop was killed by another cop. Mike Rusniak DOC K88887, Dixon CC, denouncing greed, capitalism and the Correctional Facility, 28779 Nick Davis One of those nine, Merle Africa, died in 2600 Brinton, PO Box 99, Dixon, IL destruction of the environment. Rd., Harvest AL 35749. prison after being denied medical treatment. 61021. Serving time for stealing a Debbie Simms Africa #006307, Janet police car, and other acts of anti- Holloway Africa #006308, Janine government property-destruction. More information on Political Prisoners & POWs Philips Africa #006309, 451 Fullerton Ave, Robert Thaxton (Rob Los Ricos) can be obtained from the following websites: Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238. #12112716, OSP, 2605 State Street, Michael Davis Africa AM4973, Charles Salem, OR 97310. Long-time anarchist Simms Africa AM4975, Box 244, activist sentenced to seven years in Grateford, PA 19426-0244 SCI Grateford. prison for throwing a rock at a cop in Break The Chains Prisoner Support Group Edward Goodman Africa AM4974, Box self-defense at a June 18, 1999 Reclaim www.breakthechains.net 200, Camp Hill, PA 17011-0200 SCI the Streets protest in Eugene. Anarchist Black Cross Network Camp Hill. Harold Thompson #93992, Northwest William Philips Africa AM4984, Delbert Correctional Complex, Route 1, Box 660, www.anarchistblackcross.org Orr Africa AM4985, Drawer K, Dallas, Tiptonville, TN 38079. Serving multiple PA 18612 SCI Dallas. life sentences for clandestine resistance. Eddie Hatcher: Native American Political Prisoner Rodney Wade #38058, I.S.C.I. 13A-20B, www.eddiehatcher.org United Freedom Front (UFF): P.O.Box 14, Boise, ID, 83707. Ecological Howl For Freedom: Free Defense Network The following three individuals are serving activist serving time for self-defense huge sentences for their role in actions against a racist attack. www.freefreenow.org carried out by the (UFF) in the 1980’s. The Jerome W. Bey #37479, SCCC (5-D-256), International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee UFF carried out solidarity bombings against 255 West Hwy 32, Licking, MO 65102. the US government on a variety of issues. Social prisoner and founder of the anarcho- www.freepeltier.org Jaan Karl Laaman W41514, Box 100, syndicalist Missouri Prison Labor Union. Jericho Movement South Walpole, MA 0207. Ray Luc Levasseur #10376-016, Box Eco-Defense & www.thejerichomovement.com PMB, Atlanta, GA 30315. Animal Liberation: MOVE Thomas Manning #10373-016, Box Ted Kaczynski #04475-046, US Pen- 1000,Leavenworth, KS 66048. Admin Max Facility, PO Box 8500, www.onamove Richard Williams #10377-016, 3901 Florence Colorado 81226. Sentenced to Klein Blvd., Lompoc, CA 93436. multiple lifetimes in prison for the Prison Activist Resource Center “Unabomber” bombing attacks against www.prisonactivist.org the architects of the New World Order. Special Social Prisoner: Jeffrey Luers (Free) #13797671, OSP, Robert Thaxton (Rob los Ricos) Brian McCarvill #11037967, TRCI, 82911 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310. www.defenestrator.org/roblosricos Beach Access Rd, Umatilla, OR 97882. Serving a 22+ year sentence for setting He became politically active while serving fire to SUVs to protest the destruction Spirit Of Freedom: a 39-year sentence on bogus charges. He of the environment. He has been made Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network is currently suffering from numerous an example of by the criminal injustice health problems and has been continually system and urgently needs your support. www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk harassed after filling a lawsuit against the Oregon Dept. of Corrections. GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 52 The Fire Inside! Prisoner Uprisings and Revolts “The Abolitionist movement is not a militant move- forces fired on prisoners. The first riot sparked together into a ladder, which they used to reach ment; we have no “cause” to defend, the prisoners anti-government street protests in the capital city the ground, where they stole a pickup truck and any more than other ones. We are struggling neither of Male, which destroyed or damaged several drove it through a fence to get away. Seven of for them nor even with them, but for ourselves. State-owned buildings. The second prison riot the escapees from the Sullivan County jail were We are neither humanists nor leftists; we don’t occurred on a Sunday, but telephones in the jail captured within a few days, while the eighth want to work for more humane prisons. For us, were switched off so news was slow to filter out. “hot-stepper” (fugitive from jail) was re-arrested abolitionists inside and abolitionists outside, it is The prisoners involved in the second riot say they by U.S. marshals in Virginia, where he was the very idea of prisons and trials that suffocates us, not just because it is the symbol of all of our were angry after they heard that the president discovered hiding in a barn. confinements, but also because it is the real had accused them of attacking the prison armory conclusion of an unbearable logic of normalization. in a televised address to the nation that was NOVEMBER 2, HAL FAR (MALTA)—Detained We recognize ourselves in prisoners’ refusal broadcast during the earlier uprising in the immigrants started a fire inside a detention precisely when they revolt against confinement.” streets. After the second riot the prisoners were centre, causing the evacuation of the building. —Catherine Baker, Against Prisons chained and handcuffed in their cells and kept The immigrants were moved to a police station without food for 24 hours. Many of the seriously for further detention. September 21: injured were flown to neighboring Sri Lanka for medical treatment. It appears that the State NOVEMBER 7, PORT HEDLAND (AUSTRALIA)— Insurrection in Maldives was sending the dead and wounded abroad An uprising of refugees caused extensive COLOMBO—Five security personnel were in an attempt to calm the situation in the damage to a detention centre. One detainee was arrested in the tiny Indian Ocean atoll nation of Maldives capital, where the sight of the first injured. Riot police were called in to surround Maldives after the deaths of two prisoners two dead bodies triggered violence directed the area. sparked unprecedented rioting in the island against government buildings and the police. capital of Male. One prisoner was killed on a NOVEMBER 8, ITALY—A bank, which manages Friday at the Maafushi Jail and another prisoner September 24, United Kingdom: an account of an immigrant detention centre, died that Saturday in a penal hospital, triggering Another Riot at Immigration was damaged by a fire attack. off intense street violence. President Maumoon Detention Centre Abdul Gayoom appealed to the public for calm NOVEMBER 11, BRAZIL—Eighty-seven About 30 prisoners at an immigration detention but hours later imposed a night curfew to stop prisoners attempted to escape through a tunnel. centre in Hampshire took part in rioting in the rampaging mobs that set fire to police stations, Fourty-eight were recaptured, eight died when which a prison pig was injured. Prison “officials” government buildings and burnt police vehicles the tunnel collapsed, and one was killed in a are investigating claims that the riot was and high court records. For the first time ever, shootout with police. Thirty are still free. Maldivian police used tear gas as mobs rampaged sparked after four prison guards beat up a through the night. Computers from government detainee. Rioting lasted until the early morning NOVEMBER 27, PERU—In Lima, a group of offices and the high court were dragged out of hours and closed the large dormitory. Up to young prisoners attempted to escape the buildings and smashed on the narrow paved 2,000 pounds of damage was caused when Maranga youth detention centre by jumping roads of Male; the smoldering remains of two windows, lights and televisions were smashed over a wall and were, sadly, recaptured. police stations, the two-storied election building in seven hours of unrest at the “former” prison and the courthouse were guarded by police (now euphemistically called a “detention centre”). NOVEMBER 29, ITALY—A detained Algerian who stepped up patrols in armored personnel In August 2003, 4 prisoners escaped from this immigrant was put in isolation after allegedly carriers as the government attempted to same holding facility. assaulting the director of the San Foca detention reopen offices. Extra security was also deployed centre and causing damage to the building. around radio and television stations and the October 27, Tennessee: country’s main international conference hall, Eight Prisoners Escape From Jail DECEMBER 2, BRAZIL—In Rio de Janeiro, one which was damaged by stone pelting mobs. The BLOUNTVILLE—Eight prisoners escaped from prison guard was shot and killed and two were uprising started when police told relatives that a Tennessee jail about 100 miles northeast of injured during a prison rebellion. Inmates took 20 a man convicted of drug charges had died in a Knoxville by climbing through a plumbing hostages inside the maximum security prison. riot at the Maafushi prison. Family members access in a wall and then through an air duct They were fighting against the dehumanizing took the body of Hassan Eevan Naseem to a to the roof. They then tied their jail uniforms conditions of the jail. cemetery where his injuries were shown to mourners. The second victim of prison brutality, Abdullah Ameen, died of similar police inflicted injuries and his body was taken by ambulance and driven through the streets on Saturday, as law and order crumbled. Until President Gayoom’s plea for “calm” there was a virtual news blackout on the unprecedented civil unrest, but residents said it was difficult to keep informa- tion under wraps given the tiny size of the city. September 23, Maldives: Second Jail Riot in Four Days News has emerged of a second jail riot in Maldives during weekend disturbances in which three prisoners died. Eyewitnesses say up to 18 others were seriously injured when security Page 53 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Resisting the Neoliberal Discourse of Technology

“Totalitarianism is latent in technology. It was not merely Hitler or Mussolini who were totalitarian, or the Pharaohs as far as I am concerned. Totalitarianism is already present in the technical byby JohnJohn ArmitageArmitage object.” - Paul Virilio [1]

The Politics of Actually, as far as some neo-liberals are the culture of cyborgs, cyberfeminism, concerned, technology is now the only factor cyberspace, cyberwarfare, and cyberart. [5] In Cyberculture in the Age of of production. [3] Artifacts like VR, scarcely over one hundred years, it has become the Virtual Class cyberspace, and the Internet thus embody not clear that technology is not only voraciously Such penetrating assessments of technology “use value” but what Arthur Kroker and consuming what is left of “nature,” but is also are increasingly exceptional: nearly all the Michael Weinstein term “abuse value”: busily constructing it anew. Nanotechnology, political, economic, and cultural texts that “The primary category of the political for example, brings together the basic atomic surround us suggest that we are entering a truly economy of virtual reality is abuse value. building blocks of nature effortlessly, cheaply, new technological and democratic age. Indeed, Things are valued for the injury that can be and in just about any molecular arrangement modern day pharaohs, such as Microsoft’s Bill done to them or that they can do. Abuse value we ask. [6] Information and communications Gates, constantly assert that the world is on is the certain outcome of the politics of suicidal technologies evoke the virtual architecture and the brink of a “technological revolution”. Mean- nihilism. The transformation, that is, of the circuitry of fiber optics, computer networks, while, Neoliberal politicians, like American Vice weak and the powerless into objects with one cybernetic systems, and so on. President Al Gore, see the “Global Information last value: to provide pleasure to the privileged These technologies, these assemblages, Infrastructure” as nothing less than the basis beneficiaries of the will to purity in their though, need to be appreciated for what they of a new Athenian age of electronic democracy. sacrificial bleeding, sometimes actual (Branch are: synthetic materials transformed into instru- The Neoliberal Davidians) and sometimes spectacular.” ments of “the will to virtuality,” or of human — Kroker and Weinstein. Data Trash. p.64. incorporation – even “disappearance” – into Discourse cybernetic machinery. Cybercultural tech- of Technology nologies are agents of physical colonization, Contemporary neoliberalism is the pan- imperialists of the human sensorium, created, capitalist theory and practice of explicitly like Frankenstein, by our own raw desire. technologized, or “telematic”, societies. [2] They represent what Virilio calls “the third Neoliberalism is of course a political revolution”, the impending bodily inter- philosophy that originated in the advanced nalization of science and technology. As countries in the 1980s. It is associated with Virilio recently defined the third revolution: the idea of “liberal fascism”: free enterprise, “By this term I mean that technology is economic globalization and national becoming something physically assimilable, corporatism as the institutional and ideo- it is a kind of nourishment for the human logical grounds for the civil disciplining of race, through dynamic inserts, implants subaltern individuals, “aliens” and groups. and so on. Here, I am not talking about However, while pan-capitalism appears implants such as silicon breasts, but dynamic largely impregnable to various oppositional The Neoliberal analysis of production under implants like additional memory storage. What political forces and survives broadly uncontested, the conditions of pan-capitalism and telemetry we see here is that science and technology it nonetheless relies extensively on a specifically accordingly focuses not on the outmoded aim for miniaturization in order to invade the Neoliberal discourse of technology. What is Marxian conception of the “labor process”, but human body.” [7] more, this discourse is principally concerned on the technological and scientific processing with legitimating the political and cultural of labor. [4] The result is that surplus labor is As a result, the division between living bodies control of individuals, groups, and new social transformed by relentless technological activity, and technology is increasingly difficult to movements through the material and ideological and the means of virtual production produce maintain; both are now so hopelessly entwined production, promotion, distribution, and abuse value. in the “cyborgian” sociotechnical imagination. consumption of self-styled “virtual” technologies [8] We are well on our way to “becoming like virtual reality (VR) and cyberspace. Technology and the machinic”. As Deleuze and Guattari comment: These contentions about pan-capitalism, Politics of Cyberculture “This is not animism, any more than it is telematics, and the Neoliberal discourse of The technological fixations of the neoliberals mechanism; rather it is universal machinism: virtual technologies derive from the fact that are, of course, presently extending themselves a plane of consistency occupied by an immense human labor is no longer central to market-driven from virtual production to virtual culture; to abstract machine comprising an infinite number conceptions of business and political activities. technoscience and to Cyberculture, including of assemblages.” [9] GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 54 Nevertheless, the technologically determinist To Alvin & Heidi Toffler, the Neoliberal discourse currently being fashioned by the virtual class. assemblages of sundry Neoliberal computer heralds the emergence of a whole new It is crucial to ensure that the political genealogy mystics, like Jargon Lanier and John Perry civilization, while to Bill Gates and Kevin of technology, of virtual reality, of the reality Barlow, are questionable because cybercultural Kelly it means material wealth and political of virtuality, is uncovered by numerous technologies, like all technologies, are innately influence beyond measure. individuals, groups, classes, and new social political. Technologies like VR do not appear Certainly, it is possible to characterize the movements. Indeed, without such excavations, – like rainfall – as heavenly gifts. They have to present period of self-consciously “spectacular” the increasingly institutionalized Neoliberal be willed into existence, they have to be technological innovation as being driven discourse of technology currently being produced by real human beings. Information primarily by pan-capitalism’s need to arm promoted by the virtual class will rapidly and communications technologies, for instance, itself against the onset of virtual class warfare. become a source of immense social power. both contain and signify the cultural and [12] Without doubt, the virtual class must, This is why concrete, corporeal, and ideological political values of particular human struggles over the nature and meaning societies. Accordingly, these tech- of technology are so important in the nologies are always expressions of realm of virtual politics. It is also why socioeconomic, geographical, and the specifically Neoliberal discourse of political interests, partialities, alignments the virtual class needs to be countered. and commitments. In brief, the will The pan-capitalist revolution and the to technical knowledge is the will to development from industrial to virtual technical power. production have generated the It is crucial, then, to redefine, and to Neoliberal discourse of technology. develop a fully conscious and wholly It provides the virtual class with an ideo- critical account of the Neoliberal logical rationale for the ever-increasing discourse of technology at work in the manufacture of virtual distractions realm of Cyberculture; one that exposes not only at some stage – and probably with the (e.g., movies, VR, and interactive video games). the economic and social interests embodied within acquiescence, if not the full participation of Consequently, many human activities are no cultural technologies, but also their underlying global technocratic, political and military elites longer simply mediated through technology. authoritarianism. Maybe Marshall McLuhan was – confront living labor, actual communities, Indeed, they are so utterly “possessed” by right? The medium is the message. The question tangible spaces, material environments, and technology that the distinction between is, what does it say? Moreover, how does it physical, breathing bodies. The Neoliberal virtual activities and actual activities borders manage to say it so eloquently, so perfectly, that discourse of technology therefore represents on the incomprehensible. The ambitions of the some among us are more than “willing” to trade an attempt by the virtual class to open up a Neoliberal discourse of technology are not only corporeality for virtuality? And all for what? A new period in the cybernetic carnival that is unremitting but also potentially infinite. chance to dance to the (pre-programmed) pan-capitalism. The unfolding of the Neoliberal Totalitarianism is latent in technology. rhythms of technologized bodies? Indeed, it is discourse of technology is thus the unfolding It is not simply the virtual class that is hard to disagree with Hakim Bey when he writes: of virtual class relations. This is the true totalitarian. Totalitarianism is always present nature of social communications in the in technology itself. “Physical separateness can never be over- contemporary era. Virilio’s acute observations on technology come by electronics, but only by “conviviality”, Make no mistake, VR and cyberspace have are therefore essentially correct: his theoretical by “living together” in the most literal physical not simply opened up new wealth generating analysis indicates that while we are indeed sense. The physically divided are also the possibilities for the virtual elites. They have in the midst of some kind of technological conquered and the Controlled. “True desires” also opened up new political prospects for transition, it is improbable that such a – erotic, gustatory, olfactory, musical, aesthetic, those who wish to see the spectacular transition will usher in a new era of digital psychic, & spiritual – are best attained in a representational systems of crash culture democracy. On this view, then, humanity is context of freedom of self and other in physical disappear. What is important in the interim, not on the verge of the kind of technological proximity & mutual aid. Everything else is at then, is to challenge the and democratic revo- best a sort of representation.” [10] pronouncements of the lution envisaged by the Technology virtual class wherever neoliberals. and the Virtual Class they appear and join What separates a What are the central political dynamics at work with others in a com- critical interpretation in the Neoliberal discourse of technology? prehensive and detailed of technology from Today, the development of this discourse is also critique of the Neoliberal that of global techno- the development of the shifting determinations discourse of technology logical entrepreneurs of the virtual class. For it is this, “...social strata in a variety of fields and leading politicians in contemporary pan-capitalism that have ranging from VR to is a determination to material and ideological interest in speeding up cyberwarfare and beyond. forge a radical under- and intensifying the process of virtualization Further, such challenges standing of technology’s and heightening the will to virtuality.” [11] need to involve a multi- consequences. The Resisting the unconstrained development plicity of individuals and advantage of this kind of the Neoliberal discourse of technology is groups. These might of analysis is that it vital because such resistance impedes the range from school kids focuses on key aspects contemporary development of the virtual class. and students disenchanted with the increasing of technology that are rarely, if ever, voiced by To some of its members, like Douglas Coupland, replacement of education by mere technocratic computer manufacturers and political pundits. the reigning technological discourse constitutes information, to disaffected computer industry Indeed, the general absence of a critical the narcissistic flowering of long-held personal workers, or simply local communities seeking understanding of technology is one of the chief ambitions, while to others, like Wired’s control over their own technological environments. reasons why so many people seem to be so Neoliberal evangelist Nicholas Negroponte, it Virtual politics, therefore, should be founded on baffled by the “mysteries” of technology. represents the beginning of a new techno-religion. defying the Neoliberal discourse of technology (continued on next page) Page 55 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE RECLAIMING THOREAU FOR ANARCHY Excerpts from the essays of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), who was born and lived most of his life in Concord, Massachusetts. He earned his living as a writer, and gave occasional talks at the local lyceum, a sort of community college of the day. Although his works inspired champions of nonviolent resistance such as Gandhi, Tolstoy, and King, Thoreau’s vision was far more radical than theirs, as these examples show. His essays, as well as Walden, his best-known book, can be found in most public libraries. Like most 19th century authors, Thoreau routinely used gendered language; it takes an effort to mentally correct the masculine nouns and foresee circumstances in which both these pronouns, in order to discern his core ideas. things would be by me unavoidable. We preserve While technology is obviously an extremely the so-called peace of our community by deeds important and determining force, it is crucial Serving the state of petty violence every day. Look at the to remember that it is not the only force or Law never made men a whit more just; and by policeman’s billy and handcuffs! Look at the agent of change. The virtual class is not simply means of their respect for it, even the well- jail! Look at the gallows! Look at the chaplain an assortment of technological and visual disposed are daily made the agents of injustice. of the regiment! We are hoping only to live representations. In fact, it is all too real. It is A common and natural result of an undue safely on the outskirts of this provisional army. So we defend ourselves and our hen-roosts, and the class that at this moment is rewriting the respect for law is, that you may see a file of soldiers…marching in admirable order over hill maintain slavery. history of virtual and other technologies while and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, (A Plea for Captain John Brown, 1860) simultaneously controlling their organized against their common sense and consciences…. production, distribution and consumption. They have no doubt that it is a damnable busi- Nature As a result of it’s monopolistic control of tech- ness in which they are concerned; they are all If a man walk in the woods for love of them half nology, the virtual class is presently being peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as courted by the newly ascendant virtual political at all? or small movable forts and magazines, a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a class (of which Newt Gingrich in the US and at the service of some unscrupulous man in speculator, shearing off those woods and making Tony Blair in the UK are examples). This class power?…. The mass of men serve the state thus, earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an opposes all those who resist the Neoliberal not as men mainly, but as machines, with their industrious and enterprising citizen. As if a town bodies. They are the standing army, and the had no interest in its forests but to cut them down! discourse of technology in whatever forms it militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. (Life Without Principle, 1863) takes (e.g., anti-road building and animal rights In most cases there is no free exercise what- protests by young people). It is time, then, to ever of the judgment or of the moral sense…. When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and radically rethink, redefine and reinterpret Such command no more respect than men of woods: what would become of us, if we walked the very meaning of technology, politics, straw or a lump of dirt…. Yet such as these are only in a garden or a mall? (Walking, 1862) and Cyberculture in the age of the virtual class. commonly esteemed good citizens. [original meaning of “mall” = a pedestrian walkway] (Civil Disobedience, 1849) Notes Hope and the future for me are not in lawns [1] Paul Virilio and Carlos Oliveira. “The Silence of the Lambs: Paul Virilio Voting and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, in Conversation”. In CTHEORY. Vol 19. No 1-2. 1996. P.3. [2) Much of my argument in the following pages draws on Arthur Kroker All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or but in the impervious and quaking swamps…. and Michael Weinstein’s Data Trash: The Theory of the Virtual Class. , Montreal: backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a I derive more of my subsistence from the swamps New World Perspectives, 1994, and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. playing with right and wrong, which surround my native [3] See, for instance, Jeremy Rifkin. The End of Work: The Decline of the Global Labor Force and the Dawn of the Post-Market Era. New York: G. P. with moral questions; and town than from the cultivated Putnam’s Sons, 1995; Kevin Kelly. New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Ways betting naturally accompanies gardens in the village. the Network Economy is Changing Everything. London: Fourth Estate, 1998. it…. Even voting for the (Walking, 1862) [4). See, for example, William Di Fazio. “Technoscience and the labor process”. In Technoscience and Cyberculture. Edited by Stanley Aronowitz, right is doing nothing for it. Barbara Martinson and Michael Menser. London: Routledge, 1996. p.195-204. It is only expressing to men Institutions [5). On the phenomenon of cyberculture and cyborgs see, for example, …As a snow-drift is Stanley Aronowitz, Barbara Martinson and Michael Menser. Eds. feebly your despite that it Technoscience and Cyberculture. London: Routledge, 1996; Chris Hables should prevail…. When the formed where there is a Gray. Ed. The Cyborg Handbook. London: Routledge, 1995. majority shall at length vote lull in the wind, so, one [6] The most obvious reference here is, Eric Drexler. Engines of Creation. New York: Anchor, 1986. for the abolition of slavery, would say, where there is a [7] Paul Virilio and John Armitage. “From Modernism to Hypermodernism it will be because they are lull of truth, an institution and Beyond: An Interview with Paul Virilio”. Translated by Patrice Riemens. indifferent to slavery, or springs up. But the truth Forthcoming in Paul Virilio, a Special Issue of Theory Culture & Society on the Work of Paul Virilio. Vol 16. 1999. because there is little slavery blows right on over it, [8] See, Donna Haraway. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and left to be abolished by their nevertheless, and at length Socialist- feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. In her Simians, vote. They will then be the blows it down. Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Associations Books, 1991. p.149-181. only slaves. (Life Without Principle, 1863) [9] Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. Minneapolis: (Civil Disobedience, 1849) University of Minnesota Press, 1987. p.256. Work [10] Hakim Bey. “The Lemonade Ocean & Modern Times: A Position Paper by Hakim Bey”. Violence When sometimes I am reminded that all the [11] Kroker and Weinstein. Data Trash. p.163. It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a mechanics and shopkeepers stay in their shops [12] Guy Debord. Society of the Spectacle. Detroit: Black and Red, 1983 perfect right to interfere with the slaveholder, not only all the forenoon, but all the afternoon Note: While we consider this article an important in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him. too, sitting with crossed legs, so many of them– contribution to the subject of the confluence or They who are continually shocked by slavery –as if the legs were made to sit upon, and not to conjunction of politics and technology, we must also have some right to be shocked by the violent stand or walk upon––I think they deserve some point-out that Leftist regimes, no less than free market death of the slaveholder, but no others…. I do credit for not having all committed suicide neoliberal ones, buy into the techno future. not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can long ago. (Walking, 1862) GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 56 Colonization,Colonization, Self-GovernmentSelf-Government andand Self-DeterminationSelf-Determination inin BritishBritish ColumbiaColumbia Insurgent-S Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories Currently, the federal and provincial levels of government, in partnership with multinational corporations, are accelerating their Political Organizations and efforts to further displace and exploit the indigenous peoples of British the Indigenous Struggle Columbia (BC) and extend corporate access to Native lands and For anyone willing to look at the situation, it is easy to see that all resources. The BC Liberal government and the federal department political organizations, in BC and elsewhere, are always marginal to of Indian and Northern Affairs have been pushing hard to impose the struggle of indigenous peoples. In other words, no political party, their model of “self-government” on Native reserves through treaty trade union or activist group, including even the indigenous ones, can negotiations with their State-controlled Native band councils, and be said to represent or promote the interests of indigenous communities. media propaganda campaigns. Although many political organizations make claims of solidarity The self-government model will turn Native reserves into with indigenous struggles, in practice there is not even a trace of it. municipalities and band councils into municipal governments In part, this is because political organizations are organizations of – expanding their role as the local representatives of the provincial synthesis – meaning that they aim to integrate different individuals, and federal government. Reserves will become fee simple property groups and communities into a manageable and controllable whole, which can be bought, sold, and leased like any other form of under their leadership. They see their fundamental task as recruiting property. Self-government will not give power back to the people members, since an increase in membership is supposed to correspond of indigenous nations, but will place more wealth and power in to an increase in the political power of the organization. The struggle the hands of the elite band councils, while corporations move in takes a backseat, and independent initiative and action are to plunder the land. So, it is clearly an attack on indigenous condemned. Orders and information are handed down from the top. self-determination. The organization is an end in itself. Because of their orientation of synthesis, political organizations tend to develop a narrow mentality A History of Conflict which sees indigenous peoples as a uniform mass, not recognizing or The history of British Columbia is unique within Canada, as the vast acknowledging the significant differences between specific nations, majority of indigenous nations in the province have never signed the communities and social classes within nations, and the individuals treaties. The Chilcotin War of 1864 – which successfully limited within communities. European settlement in Chilcotin territories – and the attack on Fort Meanwhile, the indigenous struggle continues on its own, according Victoria in 1844, led by the Cowichan warrior chief Tzouhalem, to its own needs. When corporations move in to destroy the land, the are signs that local indigenous resistance has a history as long as only meaningful solution reveals itself as self-organized direct colonization. The indigenous sovereignty struggle – the struggle action, as seen in the activity of the Native Youth Movement and for self-determination – was revitalized in BC during the early the various other blockades and actions that have sprung up from Seventies, as the Red Power movement swept the continent in the indigenous communities under attack. The heavy ideological wake of the American Indian Movement rebellion at Wounded Knee. bureaucracies promoted by political organizations are not only Red Patrols appeared on the streets of Vancouver’s downtown eastside unnecessary, but also slow down and detract from the self-managed – a program which sought to limit police brutality by monitoring struggle of indigenous peoples. The unending cycle of pointless their activities. meetings, forums and symbolic protests waste time and energy and In the wake of the indigenous uprisings of the Nineties at impose unnatural rhythms on the movement which are not its own. Kanehsatake, Ipperwash, and Gustafason Lake, the Native Youth But direct action is important for another reason – because the Movement came into existence. Since 1995, NYM has carried out external forces of colonization and genocide create internal social direct actions against the BC Treaty Process, and set up blockades problems in Native communities which must be faced. Feelings of on Native territory to stop corporate expansion. Currently, in BC, apathy and powerlessness must be challenged by the advancement of there are chapters in Vancouver, Secwepemc and Nuxalk territories. an insurgent attitude amongst the new generation of Native youth, an A St’at’imc Nation land reoccupation camp at Sutikalh has existed attitude which calls into question class divisions within indigenous for more than three years. Conflicts with police and Department of communities, and which promotes direct action, self-organization and Fisheries and Oceans officers have broke out in the past few months attack on the corporations who are destroying the people and the land. at the Sto’lo/Pilalt Nation reserve of Cheam. Members of the Cheam Every small victory achieved through direct action reveals individual First Nation blockaded a Canadian National railway that runs through and collective strength and creates a sense of empowerment which their land on October 2, 2003, to oppose logging and a ski-hill uplifts the spirit of the people. development in the Elk Creek forest on Mount Cheam, which is November 24, 2003 spearheaded by Cattermole Timber and Resorts West. Five Saanich This was taken from a larger essay. For the First Nations, with support from the West Coast Warriors Society, complete version , check out: are currently preparing to use direct action in preventing the establishment of a commercial fishery on their territory. www.geocities.com/insurrectionary_anarchists Page 57 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE ReviewsReviewsReviewsReviews We had hoped to review more pamphlets, zines, and books that we could turn people onto, especially those from an anti-civilization, anarcha- feminist, indigenous, direct action, or situationist-inspired perspective, but we have not found very much to be excited about lately. We, of course, appreciate the vital and insightful staples, like Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, and other comrades like the “ We’re not here to make anarcho-primitivist publications: Species Traitor (from Pennsylvania) Green Anarchist friends or make you feel good, and Green Anarchist (from the UK), but it has been hard to find many new things to mention. This, of course, does not mean they’re not out we’re here to raise questions there, so send us what we have overlooked. Also, feel free to send us and shatter illusions” a review (under 800 words) of any zine, pamphlet, book, cd, or film that - Green Anarchy you feel strongly about (positively or negatively). system is done away with. While there are Do Or Die: Voices Bite Back! some aspects of animal rights moralism and from the Ecological This is the newest magazine dedicated to single-issued pleas (although less than in the advocacy of the underground animal most literature of this type), it is one of Resistance Issue #10 liberation movement and its prisoners. It has the more effective animal lib propaganda (the final issue) a glossy look, most likely designed to appeal and news magazines around, and definitely This outstanding journal of action reports to a more mainstream worth checking out. BB comes out quarterly, and analysis from the worldwide ecological or hip reader, yet and is free. Their website frontlines has been published semi-annually doesn’t compromise (www.DirectAction.info) is since 1992, and is irrefutably one of the in militant content. also an amazing resource in highest caliber anarchist publications to Bite Back provides keeping up with current appear anywhere in the last 10 or 15 years, updates on prisoners actions. This latest issue is a whopping 383 pages (!) and direct action, Bite Back, 222 Lakeview – almost the size of a Dostoyevsky novel – contains the most Ave, Ste. 160-231, West full of first-rate investigative reporting, up-to-date info Palm Beach, FL 33401, explicitly anarchist news analysis, loads of on those fuckers [email protected] interviews, and a (frankly) overwhelming list who torture and of international networking links. kill animals for This issue contains a fascinating and profit, includes Slug and thoroughly researched overview of the last inspirational ten years of ecological resistance in Britain stories, and is in- Lettuce called “Down with the Empire! Up with formative about (reviewed by Arm ‘n Hamma) Spring!”, as well as an in-depth look at the “Punk’s Not Dead, It’s strategy and tactics of the hard-hitting SHAC campaign Just Really Depressed” called “SHAC Attack!” This review will most likely Other highlights of Do current end up pissing off many of the Or Die #10 include an struggles like the more defensive self-identified punks, since inspirational interview amazingly dedicated we are being critical of a punk institution (and with eco-revolutionary Rod and effective Stop to some extent, the punk scene itself), but isn’t Coronado and one kick-ass Huntingdon Animal that what punk is all about - destroying all article after the next on eco- Cruelty (SHAC) institutions, raw honesty, and constantly logical resistance in Central campaign. There is redefining who we are and what we are doing? and South America, Oceana, also a comprehensive Or is it about feeling good about the scenes and just about every other list of ALF support we carve out for ourselves, no matter how part of the world. Sadly, this groups, press offices, insular, dysfunctional, delusional, apathetic, is the last issue of Do Or and contacts. As an and uninspiring they may be? Some will no Die, as the publishers have anti-civilization doubt say (and have said), “who the fuck are all decided to move on to anarchist, I wish y’all to criticize punk.” Well, we are punks, other projects and forms of more time was people influenced by punk, or folks who have struggle. So we urge our spent connecting been very interactive with punk scenes for readers to pick up a copy of the particular most of our lives. We also feel that punk has the “Swan Song” issue of this industries being had much to offer and still has the potential one-of-a-kind eco-anarchist targeted with the larger techno- to be a gateway or a path to radical politics “bible” while supplies last. industrial system, and the dominating logic and action. Punk started as a rejection of Do or Die, c/o Prior House, 6 Tilbury which pushes it forward. Animal torture superficial idealism and consumption, and Place, Brighton, U.K. BN2 2GY doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and like prisons became a vehicle for people to get in touch [email protected] or any other inherent cruelty of this society, with their rage. It was a potent method of www.eco-action.org/dod/ it cannot ultimately be ended until the entire becoming empowered to unleash that rage on

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 58 the establishment, but punk has largely in S&L, and in fact they reprinted his article Each issue is roughly divided into three become something which now co-opts that on the ELF. So let’s try to distill this: don’t parts: editorial and columns, zine and music rage and turns it into just another part of the criticize punk, in fact only paint it with plastic reviews, and advertisements. To pay for spectacle and scene. smiles and rosy cheeks; but let’s dismiss those printing and mailing, ads are sprinkled Some will write off this review as “sour who are risking imprisonment and reprisal for throughout, generally for records, music grapes” for Green Anarchy being dismissed attempting to directly challenge the death- distributors, and punk tours. Most zine and given negative reviews by S&L in the culture…sound somewhat backwards? reviews, from an assortment of contributors, past (i.e. issue #75: “…my advice to those We think so. are hyper-enthusiastic, yet cynical and interested in reading dismissive of anything Green Anarchy, bring shying too far from along a good bullshit euphoric personal travel- detector.” - Wispy). ogues or persistent cries Yet, in fact, GA got a of depression. They great review in the seem to have distaste current issue (thanks to for anything overtly Christine, the editor), anarchist or direct-action but so did almost every- focused. Each issue starts thing else, which brings “If“If youyou don’tdon’t standstand upup forfor something,something, you’llyou’ll fallfall forfor anything”anything” out with an editorial/ us to our main point… -- introintro toto thethe PublicPublic EnemyEnemy song,song, MuseMuse SickSick NN OurOur MessMess AgeAge personal feelings piece almost zero critical by Christine, and a number analysis of not only the punk scene (which is So, anyway, back to Slug and Lettuce… of regular columns, such as: the super in desperate need of some), but the increasingly To inform those outside the reach of the punk enthusiastic and overly sentimental “go fucked-up and devastating world we live in. scene, this paper has been a long-time punk gardeners” column by “mad farmer sascha”; I know that already there are some punks journal, review rag, Do-It-Yourself guide, and the self-righteous “why I’m traveling the getting out their pens and paper to write us a ad space for record and punk paraphernalia world or cutting down trees while y’all are “fuck you” letter, but hold on…We are not distributors. At this, they are relatively wasting time tryin’ to fight the system” saying that punk is stupid or useless, but that successful, and do offer some interesting column by Mike Antipathy (“Ecopunk”); a it has lost a lot of its passion, political urgency, information in each issue, especially in the sometimes informative, but often reformist self-reflective desire, and anti-establishment DIY arena. The most noteworthy aspect of “Radical Mother”; S&L’s “anarchist” column, edge. It has become a scene, not that dissimilar this project is the fact that it has been free for “Merrydeath,” which asks us to “…take a from the one that deadheads created around over a decade. It currently has a press run of deep breath and vote against the ass (G.W.) music and counter-culture. Sure, there are 10,000, making it a grassroots alternative to in the next election,” because, “ if everyone who people within both scenes who are actively Maximum Rock and Roll reads this votes, maybe fighting oppression and creating DIY (Do-It- and Punk Planet. While we have a chance of de- Yourself) projects and networks, to be more there are occasional articles throning the fuckers.”; self-sufficient and less dependent on the of interest, overall, this Carolyn’s progressive system. But many folks are just playing into paper is lacking in radical “Crossroads” which a fashion show and looking for an escape they content. Each issue is encourages us to fight can rationalize (aesthetic and recreational flooded with self-congratu- the system from dessent). This is where self-criticism is vital. latory statements about how within by combing our You may remember in GA issue #12, an “awesome” the punk scene hair, covering up our editors’ note after an article called “Towards is (gag), unending reports tattoos, putting on An Effective Praxis,” which challenged the about how inspiring the straight clothes, sanctimonious rantings of Mike Antipathy’s last show was (snooze), stepping out of the “Burning the Church of the Sacred Arsonist: and liberal-at-best com- streets, and getting a few reasons why the ELF can kiss my ass” mentary on the state of the a job with the EPA (Antipathy #8), in which he wrote pages upon world (hiccup), oh yeah, or other “helpful” pages of dismissive comments about the Earth and vegan recipes (burp). government agencies Liberation Front (people who put their asses Are there amazing people (oh yeah, and replacing on the line to fight against the death-machine). and happenings in the punk our incandescent light In that same issue of Antipathy, huge amounts world? …no doubt, but not The “radical” politics bulbs with compact of treeflesh were wasted dismissing and any more so then in any of Slug and Lettuce fluorescents (CFL’s) to ridiculing the anarchist movement, without other counter-cultural save energy, money, offering any alternatives but reformist ghetto. Having an entire publication dedicated and stop pollution); and a number of other campaigns and immersing oneself in self- to boosting the morale and self-esteem of any regular, irregular, and guest columns sure to indulgent punk travel escapades. We bring this scene (the anarchist scene included) seems a motivate you to do “something”(?). up not because we don’t think the anarchist and little absurd outside the occasional personal Sure, gardening, gray water systems, the radical environmental movements are zine. As a personal zine, S&L would be just composting toilets, bikes, homebrew beer, beyond criticism (there should always be a one of thousands of voices which make up a Food Not Bombs, dumpster-diving, vegan challenging of ideas and strategies), or collective discussion about our experiences ‘meat’ loaf, punk shows, and adventures in because we are against personal liberation and in the punk and anarchist worlds, but un- Mexico are great, they just don’t do a hell of fun (that’s right, we’re not puritanical activists fortunately this zine has become one of the a lot to challenge the system (which is or rigid “revolutionaries”); but because we predominant “underground press” papers for enslaving most of the world, committing feel that the punk scene is pretty absent of thousands of punks. Some might say S&L is genocide, and destroying the biosphere) on any self-criticism, because of the feedback we got only providing a forum for punks to express meaningful level…how about resistance (usually from people who said “how dare you criticize themselves… so why do punks have so little the last subject discussed, and usually limited punk”, and because Mike has a regular column to say these days? to the latest Mumia rally or Critical Mass)? Page 59 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Hey, if we don’t fight, then there is no revo- (although sometimes overly simplistic), PE lution! One of the more annoying parts of the is not afraid to step out of the carrot patches, Anarchy in the paper is linguistic; the editor obviously does record stores, and punk shows, and into a not have spell-check on their computer, and world which is worth fighting for. Age of Dinosaurs someone seems to do a word replacement of Issue #43/Summer-Fall 2003, has a special by the Curious George Brigade “punk” for every positive adjective used. “Black Bloc Primer”, which was provided by This little book talks about basic alter- Finally, this paper is clearly ageist and ablest, the CrimethInc. Black Writer’s Bloc (PO natives facing today’s anti-authoritarian since the print size is about half the size of Box 2133, Greensboro, NC 27402 – movement(s). The dinosaurs of the title what you are reading right now (just a little www.crimethinc.com). It is a comprehensive refers to those still caught up in past models PC humor to lighten things up a bit). Again, introduction and “how to” for taking on the Juggernaut of domination. there is the sporadic manual on all forms of Insofar as their orientation is that of the values insightful remark or Bloc activities. While of Organization, Efficiency, Duty, and Mass, column, but overall, there are some objec- dinosaurs ape what we should be rejecting. Slug and Lettuce is tionable parts, most In one of the very best Crimethinc. offerings rather disappointing. notably the sections on to date, AAD paints a lively picture of leaderless By the way, we’ve not alienating potential resistance embodying autonomy, flexibility, heard through the grape- liberal allies, and also openness and decentralization. This is the vine that the new issue of the supposed need to language of what is truly subversive in our era. Anitpathy is out (all 20 “intervene” in attacks The healthy energy of this book is a marvelous, copies of it), and that it is on “unacceptable” daring tonic: highly recommended! going to “piss us off,” so targets (small busi- www.crimethinc.com stay tuned for our review of nesses, cars, etc.), that one in our next issue. for the most part, it Of course, we’re sure that is an overdue and North Eastern we’ll be the ones catchin’ impressive primer. shit for our brief response to This issue also has Anarchist more of Antipathy’s unending an interview with The Fall/Winter ’03 issue of the Northeastern pompous diatribes, and the the mysterious Anarchist is devoted even more than usual— self-absorbed punk scene is author of the often if that’s possible—to its workerist/ sure to be “up in arms” that controversial book, productionist/unionist credo. Here are a we have taken shots at their Evasion (CrimethInc). While “Mack” tends couple of offerings. beyond reproach eco-punk hero (who has to be somewhat arrogant and cocky, the “Pissed off Projectionists” is a very lengthy been disengaged from the anarchist scene for interview has some interesting situationist account of the year-long effort of two movie a number of years now, yet thinks we care elements to it. My favorite part is when he theater employees to organize their jobs into what his opinion of it or GA is, and meanwhile, rails on “traveler kids” who missed the point the International Alliance of Theatrical and designs timber sales for the forest service and of his book, which was not to be a leach off Stage Employees, AFL-CIO. After expending passes them off as “environmentally generous people and expect others to provide an enormous amount of time and energy they friendly” and “anarcho-realist”). for you, but instead, figure succeeded, only to admit that they never Slug and Lettuce, c/o Christine, PO Box out ways to scam the really pushed 26632, Richmond, VA 23261-6632 system (not your friends). THETHE for demands While this paper is not NORTHEASTERNNORTHEASTERN beyond union perfect, we are sure recognition. Profane Existence encouraged to see some ANARCHISTANARCHIST This non- Glorifying Wage-Slavery Since radical approach (Now, on a more positive note…) The life moving back into the We Were Old Enough to anarcho-punk resource magazine from Minne- corpse of the North Work! is entirely in apolis is back to “making punk a threat American punk scene. keeping with the again!” While the politics of PE tend to lean They’re producing 20,000 politics of NA as more towards the classical/class war end copies per issue, which the voice of the of anarchism than the green or primitivist (for now) are still free, so Northeastern (although it tries to be non-sectarian and they definitely could use Federation of open), as far as established punk periodicals some support. Some other Anarcho-Commu- go, this is probably one of the more relevant relevant punk publications nists (NEFAC). and challenging. The long-running PE has (although still somewhat Similarly, I don’t been resurrected once again to fill a void limited in “revolutionary” think NEFAC has within the DIY anarcho-punk scene. Its format and “insurrectionary” ever pointed out is similar to S&L, with regular columns (some content) are: the ambitious the unpleasant interesting, some passé, some confusing), Do-It-Yourself focused structural truth numerous reviews (which, at times, could be Black Thorn (PO Box about unionism: more critical), ads, and an actions and events 11046, Portland, OR each local is the calendar of upcoming protests and anarchist 97211), and occasion- private property of gatherings. It also has something often missing ally, but certainly no the international in your average punk zine: kick! While it always, Heartattack union. Talk of rank- still tends to glorify the punk scene on (PO Box 848 Goleta, CA 93116 and-file democracy or revolt, when this reality certain levels, it goes beyond the insular [email protected]). goes unchallenged, is therefore nonsense. back-patting, and strives to create a genuine Profane Existence, PO Box 8722, Minneapolis, Likewise, no mention of the iron web of revolutionary anarcho-punk movement. MN 55408, [email protected], federal labor law that controls union activity. Fully embracing an insurrectionary agenda www.profaneexistence.com To point out these basics would seem anti- GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 60 union, no doubt. (There is a huge difference, and pamphlets in their catalogue are by the come on, we ARE anarchists! To which we by the way, between being anti-union and insurrectionary anarchist, Noam Chomsky - were told, “Anarchism is a very specific being anti-worker.) that’s a joke. Chomsky is certainly opposed methodology for organizing economic and “The Sad Conceit of Participatory Eco- to any sort of insurrectionary activity, and is social conditions.” In other words, anarchism nomics” gets off to a fairly promising start, only an anarchist because people unaware of IS what a handful of dead white guys said presenting a critical analysis of Michael what that term means have called him that. it was over a century ago (complete with Albert’s scheme for preserving and “democ- As of late, he has even supported nation- federations and factories), and if you have ratizing” the present society, AKA Parecon. states, as opposed to the global corporate elite your own perspective or “individualist” With his dreary bureaucratic outlook, Albert (would you like the firing squad or the gas agenda, you are not an anarchist. So, they’ll has no problem with the continued existence chamber?). Sure, he has some detailed facts carry every leftist, communist, progressive, of banks, factories, etc., and imagines that about U.S. foreign policy which might come art, personal growth, identity politics, single people would be happy to sit in endless, in handy for your next term paper, but does issue, film, music, etc. title you can think of boring meetings to figure out “production” an anarchist distributor really need to carry (not to mention their AK Press trinkets), but and “consumption” schedules and the like. every piece of paper the man shits on…oh pretend that the anti-civilization current is Truly a leftist fantasy of running what is that’s right, the liberals and leftists with the cash either an irrelevant minor fringe or that we fundamentally the same old oppressive world. eat it up because it challenges almost nothing don’t exist at all. We won’t even get into “Sad Conceit” points to Parecon’s insistence in terms of basics. the fact that AK Press on participation in this scheme as “part of They also carry a represents itself as “the” one’s obligations,” rightly asking, “Our huge assortment of North American anarchist obligations! Enforced by who?” The article your other favorite distributor, and has concludes with the counter vision of anarchist leftist and progressive become the Starbucks of communism. Predictably, given NEFAC’s authors, including the anarchist press, often ideology, disappointment quickly set in for their newest series of causing smaller distributors this reader. The anarcho-commie outlook, ‘freedom archives’ which to shut down. And, if I see some vague rhetoric aside, is no different from are all on socialism and one more person wearing Albert’s Parecon delusions. democracy (neither of a black hoodie with an AK For example, work is certainly not to be which have anything to Press logo on it, I’m abolished. We are admonished that “with do with freedom). The gonna scream! I guess freedom comes a generalized responsibility bulk of the anarchist they’re kinda like the to ensure [that] society maintains itself.” The books and publications Nike swoosh, too. question posed to Albert applies here as well: are syndicalist, classical, Anyway, start your own who enforces this “generalized responsibility”? or communist in orienta- distribution, or at least Also, how does the responsibility to ensure tion. One might think that support smaller and more society’s maintenance differ from Albert’s they are non-sectarian, localized ones, and it commitment to the cardinal existing institutions? and want to show all wouldn’t hurt to drop AK Sounds like ensuring mass production and sides of radical thought. Press a line and confront mass society, insofar as NEFAC doesn’t Well, one might think them; but I’m sure, like question basics like these. so if there was not a huge glaring hole any money-making outfit, they have their Overall, I wonder why this zine isn’t called (almost anything anti-civilization) in what public relations people to sell you their the Northeastern Communist, since in they distribute. While they do carry a few of excuses. NEFAC “anarcho” is a qualifying adjective John Zerzan’s books, they either have almost AK Press Distribution, 674-A 23rd Street, attached to the noun “communist”. NA no description (unlike any of their other books), Oakland, CA 94612, continues the old leftist/collectivist tradition or in the case of Running On Emptiness, a ph: 510-208-1700, fax: 510-208-1701, and is not where anarchy is going these days. smart-ass and hostile description, sure to get email: [email protected], Surviving lefties, their numbers dwindling, the orders rolling in (again, unlike any other web: www.akpress.org apparently know that the A-word is a kind of book descriptions, which are usually smothered minimum definition of what it means to be in compliments, even for the most atrocious of radically opposed to the reigning death march. titles). Then, in their extensive zine and Naqoyqatsi The question is, does the anarchist tag mean periodical section, one could easily find the ( Life as War ) they really are opposed? most current (that’s an ironic choice of words) leftist-anarchist publications, but it would be by Godfrey Reggio hard to come across any title you would This is the recently released conclusion AK Press connect with green anarchy and anarcho- to Godfrey Reggio’s experimental and non- It may seem odd to review a distribution primitivism. The closest you will find, is the narrated Qatsi-trilogy, also including: catalog, but we feel there are a number of once radical, now tepid and pacifist, Fifth Koyaanisqatsi (Life Out of Balance) and important things which must be said. We Estate, which is apparently, “the leading Powaqqatsi (Life in Transition). It focuses should start by saying there are definitely a protagonist of the anti-technology world- on the impact of the digital world on our good number of important books and view.” So, where is Green Anarchy, or any culture. Going far beyond the simplistic mode pamphlets to be ordered from this 200 page- other anti-civilization publication? Could it just of information-based documentaries, we are plus catalog, and in fact, many are virtually be a mistake, or maybe a case of selective presented with memorable images within the impossible to obtain any other way (although memory? Well, we recently had a chance to technological world through which they they do tend to be out of quite a number of ask one of the main people at AK Press this travel. Naqoyqatsi (nah koy’ kahtsee), from their supposed distribution, and also advertise question, to which he responded: “Green the Hopi language (a life of killing each other, titles which do not exist). The problem, Anarchy is NOT anarchism!” Hum, well, we war as a way of life, civilized violence), however, lies in a huge number of very do like to draw a distinction between “anarchy” depicts the globalized and homogenized questionable texts, and just as important, what (an organic and open process) and “anarchism” moment of our present time, in which the new is missing. By far, the largest number of books (which can be a bit historic and limited), but divine is the manufactured image of techno- Page 61 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE fascism, where cyborg “unity” is held together philosophy of promoting progress and production touches, Paris digs deeply into the by fiber optics and the computer. Unlike development around the world as our legends, history and myths of revolutionary the first two films, which were shot in real guarantee for world peace. Now what crazier struggle and brings them all together to form locations, the thought could you a single, vast, stirring story of Resistance. visual imagery have? …their very Battling for survival in a blasted urban in Naqoyqatsi purpose is to produce soundscape, this album has an astonishing was created by this homogenizing immediacy, like something scrawled on the run digital technol- event all over the on subway walls, with the Gestapo in hot pursuit. ogy in virtual world. For me this On a lyrical and political level, Paris has locations using is the essence of matured considerably, which is not to say he’s stock and archi- techno-fascism, and mellowed out with age! Still rallying like a val images that it’s another example streetfighter, Paris refuses to beat around the bush we are familiar of how the North- and instead beats ON the Bush – and his whole with. The images ern hemisphere is “Skull and Bones/Freemason kill committee”. are distorted consuming, without The visceral impact of this album is shattering and manipulated with a computer to create question, the Southern hemisphere…consumed (of liberal illusions) – like a rocket-propelled manufactured and ghost images. According to to create and further develop the technological grenade fired at the chest to determine if Reggio, “Right now, image is more important order, which for me, is a fascistic venture.” you’re still alive or if your heart has already than truth or reality. Look at the political - Godfrey Reggio stopped beating. The first time I heard this spectrum, it’s all about the image of something. (Check out our Spring ‘03 – issue #12 album it was like being ambushed by guerrilla So this third film deals squarely with the for an interview with Godfrey Reggio.) de-programmers determined to smash “this image as its principal subject matter, the The entire Qatsi-trilogy is now available propaganda matrix where the sheep just die” manufactured image in the globalization of on DVD - www.qatsi.org and draw as many soldiers out of the closet the world.” and into the struggle as possible, to “spit caps While the film moves slowly in the beginning, outta gats till the Beast collapse!” Since then and sometimes comes across as a new-age Sonic Jihad I haven’t stopped listening to it, and see Sonic meditation film or background mood-setter by Paris Jihad as part distress signal/part recruitment (complete with fractals), it eventually works tool, drawing clear lines between oppressors This album is without a doubt one of the into an intense barrage and free-flowing and victims, killers and targets, and reaching best independent releases of 2003 and is by collage of imagery. The visuals are for the most dangerous themes and images far one of the strongest responses to the New complemented by a cyclical and rhythmic of our time to fulfill the age-old dream of World Order that we’ve encountered in ANY minimalist orchestral score arranged by Philip human freedom. medium, audio or otherwise. This album rains Glass, and includes cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Don’t This album isn’t “background” music, and fire and brimstone, roving over scenes of a let the title fool you, it is not a composite of it isn’t for the faint of heart – immersing struggle that seems as endless as it is brutal, conventional “war” pictures, but it instead goes yourself in this album will force you to as Paris flings himself into the center of deeper, into the war of the images of standard- consider whether you’re still part of the every current political storm, turning the ization, singularity, and techno-domination. human race or just another numb spectator, experience into epic allegory in a guerrilla raid “The whole point of view of Naqoyqatsi is watching the rise of fascism on cable TV. This of passion, rage, vision and poetic virtuosity. that through the dogma/religion point of view album is a declaration of war, a communique Paris – best known for his stirring, prophetic of progress and development, which is not from the depths of Amerikkka’s twelve-track 1990 release, The Devil Made Me Do It and only a capitalist agenda but also a Marxist underground, a molotov cocktail hurled both its equally defiant and incendiary follow-up, agenda—that very paradigm consumes, and to burn AND to illuminate. Highly, highly Sleeping With the Enemy – has made a eats, and pulls out of the sockets people who recommended. serious artistic and political comeback with live a handmade life. I was criticized when I Available at most radical hip-hop record this latest effort, which more than makes made that film by leftists in Germany, for stores or www.guerrillafunk.com up for 1997’s puzzling and disappointing romanticizing poverty, for trying to eliminate Unleashed. In a climate of industrialization and, therefore, a better way mass media manufactured fear of living…My intention was to say that and paranoia, Paris exhibits standards of living are ephemeral. The the courage and integrity of a standard of living of the world is based on true revolutionary, releasing a First World norms, of consumption, of the series of strident and insistent institutionalization of life, of giving up your messages to the scattered own control to the control of others. The very armies of the night, offering opposite is true in the so-called Third World warnings and comfort and or Southern hemisphere, where really, the exhortations to keep moving, to heritage of the earth exists not only in nature keep fighting this genocidal but in human development. Small, convivial, power structure, to “overthrow decentralized societies of handmade living, the hold of this devil control.” where things can be uniquely different, valley On a purely musical level, to valley, plain to plain. The world that we’re this album displays an open- trying to throw, through the IMF etc. on ended stylistic eclecticism that the southern hemisphere, is a world of embraces all that is vital in homogenized value. A world where Los revolutionary hip-hop culture. Angeles, Jakarta, Hong Kong, the Philippines Mixing startling rhythmic etc. all look the same...The very founding, shifts with multi-layered for example, of the United Nations, was sampling and subtle, ingenious founded on the dogma, on the theology, on the GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 62 NewsNews fromfrom thethe BalconyBalcony withwith WaldorfWaldorf andand StatlerStatler

chaos in the best possible sense of the word.” Crass opportunism While we may not have anything to demonstrate (although if you Seems there’s a bunch of self-styled anarchists way out there in San please, we could show you the 1001 comfort positions of our Francisco campaigning to get Mr. Matt Gonzalez of the Green Party Craftmatic adjustable bed) we recognize that those who do are elected mayor. The reasoning asserts that such an election would be often also going to sell you a whole lot more than you bargain an “important victory” and a “step in the right direction” toward for… In this case the Brigade, with the able help of the Crimethinc making survival marginally more tolerable for a little while longer. organization, is shilling for their book, “Anarchy in the Age of Di- These managers-in-waiting sent out a press release (complete nosaurs”. While we could take the title (and primary thematic with a list of many familiar signatures! ) on one of those inter-web metaphor) personally, instead we will lament the conclusion stated pages haranguing “radical activists” to not only vote in this mess, on the back cover. “Folk Anarchy is the name we have given to the but to also “phone bank, table, and get out lit[erature] in neighbor- arrow aimed at the heart of every dinosaur…” The last thing we hoods.” Who’da ever thunk that toeing the line of the status quo need is to replace multi-national capitalism, anarcho-boring, or the was so revolutionary! Apparently these mediocre anarchists have police state with Joan fucking Baez or suburban kids playing banjo. lost interest in being enemies of the State and will now settle for being its guilty conscience. Boo!!! Hiss! As pathetic as all this rightfully sounds, the caveat is that they of course don’t actually believe electing How many times must you Gonzalez will accomplish anything in and of itself: “We urge you to get involved not because we expect run into a brick wall to get that Gonzalez would solve our problems, rather that common sense? a victory by this coalition will help build our power to solve our own problems.” Yup, you read that right— It seems as though the postmodern power brokers have all the energy wasted on this joke is not to actually become wary of public scrutiny, public outrage, or even elect Mr. Gonzalez, but just an opportunity to build public awareness of their activities. Unless you count another vague and ephemeral “movement.” You the embedded (with the cops) reporters everyone on the whippersnappers want to build a movement? Try inside of the fence in Miami wore a uniform or a suit. chugging some Metamucil first thing in the morning! Like lemmings, the standard issue of social changers More leftspeak dribble: “We write to you as radicals paraded, chanted, and sang Kumbaya far away from the who believe that power comes from the bottom up people whose lack of ambivalence could matter. and that people’s movements make history. We The simplicity of a siege appeals to our sense of feng argue for a diversity of tactics in an overall strategy shui. You have the prize in the middle, surrounded on to oppose capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, all sides by layers of approaches. Archers, battering heterosexism and imperialism. We see this election rams, foot soldiers, cavalry, and strategists all have their as one of many tactics that we should use to help us place on the outside. Within, you have cauldrons of oil, build our movements.” sturdy walls and barbicans. The balance and metaphorical So, is this then cynicism or paternalism? I get con- beauty is timeless. fused, like that whole tactics vs. strategy conversation that always What is not timeless is the image of Miami TV interviewing dumb- puts me to sleep—but then again, when you’re as old as we are, as-a-bag-of-doorknobs anarchists who are willing to puff out their pretty much everything puts you to sleep! chest and claim a bigger dick than the Miami PD. “Yeah, fuck you! We are not going to roll over like the little bitches that you think we Hardly even worth the effort of a good heckle! are…” Ouch, wash that boy’s mouth out with soap! There is no beauty to a siege when all the kids we would rather give a nickel Could food not bombs do today what to, choose to go toe-to-toe with assholes twice their size, in armor, and the full array of non-lethal proto-military armaments that post- it took a meteorite to do before? 911 budgets have given to every police force. Not that we want to There is a great deal of charm in the wish that butterfly wings and be telling you what to do, but the best place for people during a ‘alternative’ infrastructure are instruments of social change. We siege is not as the battering ram. wish that Ben-Gay and our Craftmatic adjustable bed were tools Go back to casting! for the revolution (and they are!) but accept that they just happen *News from the Balcony is a regular column from the two most crotchety to be things that we like, and that those are not necessarily the tm anarchists out there. They offer a spicy and no-holds-barrred analysis of the same thing. Not so the Curious George Brigade. “In fluid situations anarchist movement...a sort of gossip column for the scene. While we don’t such as a demonstration, seemingly inconsequential events can always agree with their senile rantings, they are provocative, and for puppets often shift the tone or direction of the entire ‘system’, leading to there certainly doesn’t seem to be anyone pulling their strings! Page 63 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Tactical Training on a pig. I’m not allowed to make phone calls. We Brothers and Sisters, have no access to news Thanks for another kick- at all. They have ass issue of GA (#12). stripped us of all things The whole thing was that will give us ammo great, especially “Lessons to fight the war we are from the Fall of Rome.” losing. I get out next Good analogy. “Does Not year after doing 4 1/2 Compute” wasn’t so great flat years, but before but still acceptable. I go I want to start (Computers are just something. It’s a cor- tools, like guns.) respondence pen-pal line You have a lot of good for all convicts and pamphlets, zines, books people on the street who and videos listed in your can take the time to surf distro section but I the net and find stuff would really like to see to help us fight at this some hard-core greens point (We can call it get together and do a “The Will to Struggle”). zine strictly on tactics. I’m unable to do those After all, in most cases duties with the computers you are preaching to the but I can do the paper choir. A lot of us don’t work and we can grow need propaganda to stronger. We have ones convince us, we’re already who are willing to fight converted! What those of but can’t do it alone. us who are geographically A lot of people have far removed from the nothing to lose, right, Letters scene in Eugene need is but what’s the good of Thanks for the input, criticisms, and support! One of tactical training and running into a brick the main things which keeps us going (along with our instruction. What’s wall headfirst? We need undying desire for liberation and passion to destroy the best way to spike? outside help. Right now the machine) is the flood of enthusiastic and appre- Incendiary what? How to I’m working on making ciative support we get from people. While we have our monkeywrench a seemingly contact with someone in indestructible Caterpillar critics and there are those who are cynical of our each prison in Missouri D-9 bulldozer? You feel and try to get movement orientation, we get dozens of letters and emails a week me? Your thoughts from folks who value the thankless and tiresome work in order so we can move please. together as one and make that goes into this project. Even we are amazed at the As for a new name… extent that the questions and critique we raise have a change. I would also how about “Uncivilized,” be real thankful if you resonated with people from all over the world and all A Journal of Green An- could send me a paper. walks of life. It certainly makes us feel that our archy. Has a nice ring Is there a way I can get time is not wasted, and gives us hope. These are just to it, doesn’t it? one every time one is a sampling of what we have received. Sorry, we can In solidarity, made? Please contact if not print them all because of space, so we prioritize Hewlett M. Jarrett you are looking for a prisoners, first-timers, discussions which help to #B24778 pen-pal. Well my GA further the development of an anarchist and anti- 2600 N. Brinton brothers and sisters, civilization project, and feedback which directly Dixon, IL 61021 this is Brad signing off, responds to our last issue. Keep your letters coming, (home of Ronald Reagan - shall better known as Taz. I burn it to the ground?) and please, try to keep them under 500 words (Some Destructively letters may be slightly edited for space or redundancy). Equipted, Taz The Will to Struggle Brad Heath 1052444 MSP/PO Box 900 Never Give In, with nationalism or some Dear GA, form of masked commu- Hello. This is Brad Heath Jefferson City, MO 65102 Never Compromise (locked up for breaking state nism. The soul in all of coming at you from the witness’s jaw and right arm Greetings Comrades, humanity cries out for one and only (Wall’s) in and hand go home 9-22-04.) Firstly I am writing to GA. It is imperative that Missouri. It’s the oldest let you know I received you continue to exist standing state pen in ’ the fall paper. It is without compromise. The Missouri, don’t know No Longer Sittin Back always spiritually up- world needs you. GA is about the other 51 Dear GA, lifting when the paper freedom, freedom from states. I’m writing you I am writing this to tell is slid under my cage jails, isolation, greed, to say thanks for issue you how grateful I am, door. After so many years poverty, destruction of #13 you sent me. I’ve that you are sending me of forward marching, our planet and its been unable to write due your newsletter. I’m not stagnation, forward people. I ask that you to filing a lawsuit and real big on wordplay, but marching and stagnation, never give in, never that takes a lot if not I wanted to thank you it is wonderful to know compromise. The world is all of your money to do for the wonderful people of your nature depending on you. so. We don’t get info knowledge I have gained. continue to exist. GA is Love freedom! here, we are shut off Before I was gifted with so beautiful, loving and Clarence Faire #11059-007 from what we need to be the reading of it, I was free. For ten years my USP Atlanta turned on to and that’s ignorant of a lot of the soul has cried out for P.O. Box 150160 your paper. I’m stuck in resistance going on GA. Its cry was smoldered Atlanta, GA 30315 the hole for an assault around the world. I see GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 64 that now, more than ever, accusatory refusal of greener place! But i dont bourgeois at Las Vegas the abolishment of primitivist insights, think violence is the key, casinos. By the way, good today’s civilization and my reactionary orga- people just isnt they way work on the new issue, must come to pass. Human nizational fetishism) to get points through. I can’t get enough Statler kind is destroying the that there can be no understand on how big and Waldorf. only thing that sustains reconnection to or exist- corprations are careless adam our lives. The earth is ence with “nature” (or belive me I know. Money OFF! magazine our only means of sur- ourselves) as long as we is more important than the vival, and she is slowly insist on preserving custimer. But, I dont dying. I’ve known this this industrialized, think rasing hell is the Alternative Ways fact for years, but I mediated mass society. sulition (ps my spelling To Exist have just now opened my Anyhoo, some of us down sucks). Green Anarchy, eyes, and realized that here in the beautiful 2. Please dont talk The first issue of Green I can no longer sit back Orange County want to about our armed forces. Anarchy to come into my and watch while this help start an infoshop/ Im totaly do not get hands was #14, followed happens. It’s time for space (or at least a along with our current all at once by #s 11-13. I all to move forward distro until then), and president. Dont think i commend you for your towards direct action I’d like to order a few, dont know on how careless gutsiness, for your will- against these murdering nay, a great many he is. With bill our ingness to experiment, oppressions. It’s said things…JUST SEND THEM country had a 6 trillion for your resistance to that technology will help ALL (please). That’s surplus with bush its the doctrinaire, and for us to overcome famine, right, you heard me, one the opposite. But do not your reaching out to war, etc… My opinion! of each. I don’t mean to degrade the men and women prisoners, even as — Tear down the dealer- swallow your single fighting please. Im inevitably — I disagree ships, office buildings, voice whole and make it planning on joing the with some of the positions whatever. Stop building my own, you just carry marines and try my best. taken in articles. bigger and more de- such good stuff, in one I dont really want to pull Reading through these structive weapons, so convenient location… You the trigger on another issues, I come away with others will stop. Stop have my utmost thanks. human being. I think all the impression of a kind building lines between Keep up the wars after ww2 are all of quantum jump in #14, culture or race, so that fantastic work! poiliceing acts i totaly though perhaps it’s more we won’t need these Love EGC agree on that. But consistent with earlier weapons. I’m just sick talking junk isnt the #s, I don’t know. I refer and tired of the lies key... especially to pages #1-7, the government feeds to including the graphics. the people. I see now Assertive discursivity that I am not alone in such as seems to domi- this thinking. All of nate in #s 11-13 can so this I have learned! easily close out the In closing once again reader, making for an I thank you for your experience of distancing help bringing me to this and non-involvement, and glorious sight of en- so defeating its own lightenment. I’m looking purpose. It can even forward to the next issue give the impression that of your newsletter. Upon there are no more myster- my release I hope to ies, & mysteries, it seems visit you, and show my to me, are integral to gratitude in person. the process of exploring To the destruction of alternative ways for civilization. humans to exist on this Nemesis planet. “Globalization Dumb Ass Patriot and its Apologists,” Reluctantly …over all we might not “Spreading Like Wildfire,” Hi green anarchist, agree on some things but Convinced “Autumn Greetings,” “A Well i just have some give me some feed back Surrealist Re-Imagining Hello GA, point to get through... so I understand what you of Canada,” “Bringing It I’ve been reading your 1. Civilization is a ppl are after. and tring All Back Home... And fine publication since key human trate. Why must to accomplish. Well i Living My Life,” #11, and I’ve found it civilzation die? i think hope someday some of your and ”Nihilism as Strategy” insightful, bold, and that its a key point in needs are met. all — in my opinion — inspiring. Green Anarchy, living sure we need parks good luck convey a sense of intel- along with my own re- etc to keep sanity. What would love feedback ligent questioning, an luctant observations, do you want to resort Chris openness to experience, discussions with a to? Like tribes vilages? a willingness to involve close friend, and other Thats civizlation to my the reader. publications, have Refusing To Be knowlage in these tribes It’s in regard to “A brought me to realize Enslaved arnt there a chief Surrealist Re-Imagining (if, perhaps, sometimes hunters etc seems like collective@greenanarchy, of Canada” specifically kicking and screaming… civizlation to me! I The wild are fighting that I’m writing to you. for a while I was helping totaly understand that back against their Reading this piece was to distribute Onward, my but to ruin and demolish m a gician masters, refusing a bit uncanny for me, in enthusiasm partly based on civislation? I do agree to be enslaved and forced an editor’s simple-minded, in making the world a to perform tricks for the (continued on next page) Page 65 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE that just over a year the destruction of the is, not unless we go ecological catastrophe ago, I wrote a visual state and civilization.” deeper and attempt to that is essentially essay for the website Yours truly, question and challenge collapse is something Lear’s Shadow called Montezuma the institutions and that has no historical “Discovery Walk in (aka David G. Pearson) rationale of control grounding. Ecological Kafkatown,” whose Part 5 which allowed for the catastrophe or over- pertains to some very GA Response: We don’t state to develop. Formal stress has been a major odd developments in have much room for a and informal institutions factor to set off the Labrador. It was written detailed reply, so we’ll of power have existed process of collapse in without awareness of the be brief. If you have throughout civilization, nearly every case (as it surrealist map, and I’m been following this including that of the will our own), but that very appreciative that paper, you would be state, which is one of is a starting point for you’ve drawn it to my aware that our critique its more contemporary a number of other factors attention. I’d just of civilization goes back forms of control. Also, which include social like to reciprocate by over 10,000 years to the while the word “civili- unrest and revolt. This drawing this piece to roots of domination - the zation” does have its is the case from Easter your attention. The domestication of plants roots in the word “city”, Island to Rome to the site’sLetters address is http:/ and animals. We believe and while the city does Mayans. /home.eol.ca/~dord. that when humans moved represent a perfect So the problem here It’s kept deliberately away from our nomadic example of all the is an oversimplification within limits so as to gatherer-hunter lifestyle problems within civili- (though admittedly the avoid the suburban to a sedentary and zation, the logic and authors’ aren’t the only sprawl of the mind that’s surplus-based existence, roots of civilization, ones doing it). Collapse so big a temptation on that of agriculture and and systems of control is generally defined as the internet. “Discovery like property, patriarchy, a major reduction of Walk in Kafkatown” and division of labor go ‘complexity’ or strati- can be reached via back long before the fication, more or less the “Canada Reterritor- city. a huge draw back. By ialized” shortcut. definition, any revolt With appreciation or insurrection which Doug Collapsism? results in a major GA, r e duction of state powers I’m writing in regards or decentralization is The Egg or the to “the Ideology of collapse. So any anarchist Chicken? Collapse” article from would be, by definition, Dear Green Anarchy, GA #14. I think the a ‘collapsist’. In issue #9, p.2, article has some I think one of the under the heading serious flaws. My main most fundamental problems “Getting Involved problem is the idea spreads from the state- With Green Anarchy,” of creating a huge ment: “The idea that you say “Our goals… new label of civilization will collapse the destruction of ‘collapsism’ which on its own implies that civilization and seems to be grounded we should wait for its all the systems of by little more than collapse…” Where this domination it has a few random quotes notion comes from is spawned.” I assume and vague refer- beyond me, but it is from this statement ences. It seems that flawed. What the authors that you are implying this category is a seem to forget is that that the state mixture of criti- civilization isn’t only emerged from civil- cisms of survivalist weighted by ecological izaton, that is the tendencies and a whole stress; it is equally state emerged from the lot of confusion. stressed socially and city. This is incorrect. The most important mentally. The fact that The state did not emerge animal husbandry, issue here seems to be people are pissed off and from the city but vice civilization and its over the idea of ‘collapse’ dispossessed or that versa!! Therefore, the logic of control began itself. This is defi- they will revolt or will destruction of the to develop. For most of nitely not a new term or drop out or not go to work state guarantees the human history we lived idea and it’s actually are all within collapse. destruction of civili- as wild and free beings, the subject of huge Most importantly, we zation. However, the without the desire or amounts of argument, can’t forget that humans destruction of civili- need for hierarchy and theory, etc (enough to are a part of nature as zation will not destroy mechanisms of control counter the statement well, we are still animals. the state!! Thus, as I and repression. While, that much needs to be Nature being an agent have already pointed as anarchists, we are collected still). I think in collapse isn’t just out to your pinhead certainly opposed to it has been well es- some abstract notion, counterparts in London, every aspect of the tablished that collapse but also a part of us; England (Green Anarchist) state, and we see its is not an event, but a the refusal to be do- three years ago – and physical apparatus as process, and it is a fact mesticated and further without any response; the major antagonist of of inevitability with subjugated is within you would do much better our present situation, the major questions our ‘nature’. The same if you changed your motto we certainly do not feel really being when and applies to notions of from “Yours, for the that all of our problems how (what goes up, must ‘primitive’ since it’s destruction of civili- will disappear with the come down). So to say not about people of a zation” to “Yours, for absence of a state, that that there will be an certain time and/or GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 66 place, but about a part of ourselves that is con- Have you read the declarations and stantly surging, which Petty and Feeble Criticism all articles of “17 November” after is what green anarchy From a Classical Anarchist their every attempt, to see how they typically responds to. think and want to act? Have you read The idea that capi- Dear Friends, their positions about the anarchist talism is somehow going movement in Greece? Or do you simply to avoid collapse is just My name is Dimitri, but you can use publish news and support them because a part of its own dogma. the name James Sotros (which is actually some anarchists (probably the same ones The idea that our situ- a nickname). In the past year I was I mentioned before) have lost their ation is somehow novel living in Athens, Greece, and last direction, have lost the plot and support was what Fredy Perlman was February I returned here to Australia this organization which some years attacking in Against His- where I was living since 1992. For the ago they strongly attacked through story, Against Leviathan. last two years you send me all the their publications? What happened? His point, that there are time 10-15 copies of every issue of Where be your anarchism my friends? Green Anarchy. OK, I distribute them Or the other example about the book no longer ‘civiliza- Shoot the Women First tions’, but one global where I can, but I have got a strong : It happens the civilization is an disagreement with your politics and proof reading in the Greek language extremely important with your tendency toward so-called of the book, when it was translated point. Capitalism is a anarcho-primitivism. I have also some and published in Greece (a few months recent thing historically different approaches and information ago), was done by me. I cooperated and the kinds of extreme about news you publish every time in closely with the translator. I did Green Anarchy oppression and domina- , especially news from that for money when I was living in tion inherent in it make Greece. You must know that despite Athens last year. So I can say that it dependent upon a lot the last 11 years when I’ve mostly this book is nothing more than of uncertainty. Not to lived outside of Greece, I have lots of journalistic description of the actions forget that it is all contacts with groups and individuals of some women members of armed groups entirely dependent upon from there. I follow everyday the Greek and has nothing to offer to the revo- having electricity running news though the internet. I also work lutionary affair. Therefore, I don’t through the grid which with a Greek newspaper here in see any reason to review it in a so- Melbourne which has direct connections called anarchist publication like Green is very vulnerable, Anarchy especially to flaws of with Greece on a daily basis. . Anyway, I have got many such its ‘success’. So, I can make sure that some of things to write, but I can’t do so now. The last thing I’ll your news about Greece has any sense I also disagree totally with the mention here is the of reality, as you present them like tendency of the so-called anarcho- seemingly negative idea they’re small rebellions, etc. But primitivists. Because simply, it is of “storing nuts and they’re not like that. For example, impossible to return to a situation Green Anarchy spreading chaos” as is in (#12) you have a piece like 2,000 or more years ago. Get real, mentioned a number of about someone who made an assassina- friends. You use the modern technology times in the article. This tion attempt against the recently as well. Come on... Also, anarcho- little shot is obviously elected Mayor of Athens. Why did you primitivism offers nothing to the a complete reduction of include this piece? Why did you try to anarchist movement because it doesn’t learning primitive skills present his actions as an anarchist, promote class struggle, etc. Anarchism and, ironically, insur- or at least as a revolutionary action? is first of all a part, a vital part, rection. Really I don’t There was nothing revolutionary in that of the working class struggle and the see what is negative case. That is, can we present some struggle of all oppressed. Nothing about these things because actions by some people as revolu- less, nothing more. Anarchism is not the combination, which is tionary, as being against the system, the product of the minds of some middle often put as ‘for the when at the same time they weren’t or upper class kids who pretend to be destruction of civiliza- like that? What kind of counter revolutionaries and live in an imaginary tion and the reconnection information is this? Who gave you such sphere. information? Some anarchist over in So, please do not send me so many to life’ seems to cover Green Anarchy almost all pertinent angles Greece whose only presence and copies of again. I am that green anarchists involvement in the so-called social not distributing any more as I disagree tend to focus on. struggles is causing any means and with you. But, if you like to send me On a bit of an unrelated any cost of trouble, without a per- just one copy for my archive, that’s ok. aspect: to all the spective and a revolutionary program For the Anarchist Communist Perspective, for the future? Come on, get real and prisoners who’ve asked Dimitri (James Sotros) for a copy of Species search for the real events with their Traitor, the reason you real consequences... haven’t gotten one (or Or the other example: For a long a response in most cases) time now, you strongly support the is because we don’t have “17 November” armed group and also the copies or money for other like-minded organizations. Why? postage, esp. since it’s Because they oppose with the armed not likely to make it way the capitalist system? You don’t into most prisons care if groups like them are strongly anyways. Many apologies authoritarian, closed, militarized for this, but hopefully cliques who only want to grab some we can work something out authority when they can and when they for future issues. have the opportunity to do so? You For wildness and don’t get wind of their authoritarian, anarchy, patriotic, anti-anarchist, marxist- ( Editor’’s response on next page ) kevin tucker leninist, wooden “analysis” of things? ( Editor s response on next page ) Page 67 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Toward a Complete Severance With the Modern World! A Green Anarchy Editor Responds to James Sotros Well, Dimitri, Giorgos Sandallis — as “mentally ill”? He was anarchist movement, and feel that, as You’ve made some pretty inflammatory at least firing in the right direction and seemed REVOLUTIONARIES, we owe it to ourselves accusations (and jumped to some seriously to have a pretty clear grasp of some of the forces to be informed about the actions by and politics erroneous conclusions about our politics), but and institutions at work in the world that might of armed resistance movements. we’re grateful for the feedback, ‘cause it gives be driving him “insane.” As an explicitly ANARCHIST paper, we have us the chance to clarify where we stand on But, as it turns out, this assassination attempt no interest in taking the concepts of “revolution- certain issues, like revolutionary was actually more “politi- ary solidarity” to the absurdly non-discerning solidarity and the role of the cal” than we realized when extremes that Arm the Spirit does, but we sure underground press. We’re we reported on it: Sitting appreciate their publishing project and feel gonna be covering a lot of on our desk right now, as that radical movements here in the States suffer ground here, so let’s take this we type this, is a stack of from the scarcity of this type of information. one subject at a time: newspaper clippings from Which is why we occasionally report on You’re clearly irritated by Greece that help flush out groups and struggles that aren’t anarchist, but that our coverage of the December this story and offer more we find interesting, particularly if the movement 14, 2002, assassination details about Sandallis’ or group in question has some redeeming attempt on Athens Mayor psychological motivations qualities and are fighting their own isolated Dora Bakoyianni, insinuating in relation to this attack. battles with the States’ agents of repression. that we tried to present this Sandallis had some interest- At the very least, we feel that groups like N17 news item as an “anarchist ing and somewhat comical and ELA deserve to have their struggles and action.” But our extremely brief mention of this reasons for firing on Mayor Bakoyianni, and is actions accurately represented, especially in incident in Green Anarchy #12 didn’t appear in quoted as saying, “I do not want to kill. I shot at the face of the slander and lies of the Greek our “Anarchist Resistance” news section, it the air, but ‘magic powers’ drove the bullets to press (an example of blatant falsifications appeared in a section called, “Further Symptoms the car. The Government is haunting me and concerning N17 would be the July 7, 2002 of State Meltdown,” which is devoted to wants to take a specimen of my DNA and imprison headline “Dark Connections” miscellaneous news dealing with random acts me.” Knowing that, the whole incident seems even in the Athens conservative of sabotage and primal, INSTINCTUAL acts of more relevant to us (and evidently it was also daily Katherimini, rebellion, which to us reveal a lot about the considered newsworthy by A-News in Greece, present condition of modern civilization. Actions who saw fit to include it in a recent issue!) So, don’t need to be self-consciously “political” to obviously we’re not the only anarchists with a sense stand as living commentary on the rapid of humor and an appreciation for poetic justice... disintegration of the Modernist Spectacle, and Now let’s talk about N17 and the Left: since the refusal of humans everywhere to be caged the present editorial collective took over and controlled. “Nonpolitical” acts of revolt are publishing responsibilities for Green Anarchy almost of more interest to us than deliberate and with issue #5, we’re consistently lambasted the calculated revolutionary acts because they provide Left, and our “support” for N17 (as you call it) us with “signals through flames” that help chart has been anything BUT uncritical. The politics the various factors that will eventually bring of the Left — even the ARMED Left — are, for down this empire; they allow us to catch the most part, incredibly BORING to us and anti- glimpses of societal contradictions and tensions thetical to the anarchist project, but there’s a that the System itself may not be paying HUGE difference between reporting on the attention to, and they help us to make fairly activities of a non-anarchist revolutionary move- accurate predictions or guesses about the ment and endorsing their politics. What you have irresolvable problems our rulers will be to understand is that in North America there are “I“I saysay untounto you:you: therethere areare nono burdened with in the not-so-distant future. very few publications that provide a forum for beginnings,beginnings, andand wewe dodo notnot Assassinations of politicians, CEOs, heads of information on armed struggle, but the demand ttremble:remble: wewe areare notnot sentimensentimental.tal. state, and the pigs are a sign of the times, and and THIRST for this type of information among WeWe areare aa furiousfurious wind,wind, rippingripping are a growing trend that we’re greatly encouraged anarchists is enormous. Arm the Spirit, an thethe wetwet washwash ofof cloudsclouds andand by. Call us sadistic, but we personally took great autonomist/anti-imperialist journal published in prayers, preparing the great delight in hearing about the facial cuts that Toronto, is the only North American paper we prayers, preparing the great Bakoyianni received from the flying glass shards know of that specializes in this kind of information, spectaclespectacle ofof disaster,disaster, fire,fire, released by a single bore shotgun bullet that and for 10 years they’ve done a great job decomposition…”decomposition…” came through her windshield and came close to disseminating documents and communiques from -- TristanTristan TzaraTzara hitting her (just as we do anytime we hear about clandestine armed groups, as well as creating a a politician or member of the ruling class non-sectarian forum for a variety of militant suffering — or preferably — getting wasted). movements and struggles. We find the political Who cares if the establishment media in Greece discussions and translations of news that appears is describing Bakoyianni’s assailant — 35-year-old in Arm the Spirit to be extremely useful to the GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 68 which made the ridiculous claim that N17 organization, we demand the immediate freedom somehow deserves the credit! We suggest you combatant Savas Xiros “had connections to of the anarchist Giorgos Karakasian at Cyrpus. It take a deeper, more extended look at technology, Islamic fundamentalists in the Egyptian was also a solidarity actions with the unrepentants especially if you don’t like being ruled. Muslim Brotherhood.”) of Revolutionary Organization 17 November.” And while its true that many anarcho-primitivist And, for the record, there’s a tremendous So, Dimitri, you might not be happy about writers and journals don’t specifically discuss or amount of research and investigative reporting such actions, but it doesn’t change the fact that emphasize class struggle, that certainly isn’t the that goes into producing each and every issue they happened: you accuse us of liberally case with Green Anarchy. We make our hatred of Green Anarchy. In the case of N17, we wrote interpreting current events through our biased of the ruling class abundantly clear in every to more than 20 comrades and contacts in Greece ideological lens, while at the same time, you issue of Green Anarchy, which leads us to the asking them for some anarchist analysis of the project your own political grid onto the N17 conclusion that you (like many of our “critics”) N17 clampdown, and we basically printed all movement, denying the complexity and uniqueness don’t really read the paper. Anarcho-primitivism the responses we got. When the replies started of their struggle. N17, as confused as their politics — or the critique of civilization — is class analysis pouring in, we were mildly surprised at the were at times, was not a stereotypical leftist sect, that does not go halfway, that doesn’t remain number of anarchist solidarity actions with N17, they had their own strengths and their own trapped in capitalist logic (as communism does), but we didn’t realize the extent of them until we singular qualities, they had their own gripes with that attacks alienation, domestication and division (very) recently received word of a slew of similar the Organized Parties of the Left, and they did of labor at their roots…their civilized roots. actions that never got reported on in previous enjoy a certain level of support from anarchists As an anarcho-communist, we’re sure you’re issues of Green Anarchy. Based on information in Greece, though you seem unable to come to familiar with Marx’s call for “merciless we now possess, it would seem that the anarchist grips with this. But like it or not, those are the criticism of everything in existence.” Well, response to the War on Terrorism in Greece was facts, so who’s distorting the truth, us or you? that’s precisely what we’re attempting to do swift and uncompromising. For example: Whether or not the N17 arrestees “deserve” with this paper, mercilessly critique everything • On July 7, 2002, the automatic cash accounting support from anarchists is a subject that could the racketeers in charge of our lives present machine of Aspis Bank in Galatsi (a suburb of be endlessly debated, but one thing anarchists as “solid reality,” external, immovable, Athens) is set on fire. Responsibility for this action everywhere could learn from these actions is unchanging... civilization is a racket, authority is taken by a group calling itself “Floges how the concept of “revolutionary solidarity” is a racket, and Modernity a plague of Sinidisis” (Flames of Consciousness). In a call is applied and practiced In Greece and how nightmares, a life-drinking malevolence, the to a newspaper, they state: “The responsibility these tactics could be used to help some of our rationalization of human misery in the epoch for the destruction of the branch offices is taken own imprisoned comrades (here in the States, of capitalist decline that André Breton by the group “Floges Sinidisis,” as a response Free, Critter and Rob los Ricos are the first to designated “miserablism.” to the terror lust and the anti-terrorist hysteria come to mind). The anarchist movement needs We want to destroy capitalism as much as you, of these days. The arsons will go on and we will to begin developing tactics appropriate to the but we want to destroy it permanently, not just show no mercy towards the Greek state-terrorists times we live in, and it stands to reason that if knock it back for a few centuries. Doing so and their servants.” you accept armed struggle as a strategy and requires the abolition of just about everything • On September 24, 2002, there is an attack method, then you would study the groups that that currently exists, and primitivists are some with petrol bombs against the local branch offices are practicing and living it. In that context it of the only people saying this. of PASOK (the ruling political party) at Neos becomes obvious why reading a book like Shoot Cosmos. The group “Epanastatiki Taxiarchia” the Women First (or at least paying attention to (Revolutionary Brigade) claims responsibility the unraveling of a group like N17) could be a with a call to a newspaper, saying: “Solidarity valuable learning experience for revolutionary to N17, Freedom to G. Karakasian who is anarchists. Information isn’t always power, but imprisoned in Cyprus.” the right kind of information usually is. • On September 25, 2002, the entrance of the Of course, we oppose nationalism and statism branch offices of Citibank in Lambrini are set — we’re anarchists, after all — but we don’t on fire. The group “Antitromokratiki Omada Os find it necessary to include political disclaimers Edo” (Anti-Terrorist Group Up To Here) claim with every “controversial,” “taboo” exploration responsibility with a call to a newspaper, saying into non-anarchist territory. This would insult that the attack was done “as an act of solidarity the intelligence of our readers, who we would with D. Koufontinas and the rest of the strugglers like to believe are freethinkers fully capable of of N17. The attacks will go on with tension over extracting what’s useful from our straight news the next few days. The struggle goes on.” coverage on their own, without any assistance. • On October 4, 2002, a car with American In fact, we kind of take for granted that this is plates in the suburbs of Athens is set on fire. the case, because if it isn’t, then the “revolutionary” The group “Mavro Asteri” (Black Star) takes movement here in the States is in serious trouble! responsibility with a calling to a newspaper, As far as Technology goes, it seems clear that saying that: “Resistance is to American authoritarians, states-in-waiting, and current imperialism and its local partners. Freedom to regimes use technology to strengthen government D. Koufodinas and to all unrepentant members a lot more successfully than anarchists use it to of Revolutionary Organization 17N. “ weaken government and ultimately, abolish • And finally, on December 10, 2002, the offices power. You’re deluded if you think “activist” or of the Cypriot Democratic Party and the offices of anarchist deployment of modern technology is a state insurance company are set on fire in really accomplishing anything more than further Thessalonica. Responsibility is taken (in a call to toxifying our planet and our lives, or that, on a newspaper) by “Kaftos Himonas” (Hot Winter) the occasions when high-tech can be turned who state: “With the arsons of the offices of against the mega-machine (i.e. a computer virus democratic Alarm and the I.K.A. insurance or well placed incendiary device), that technology Page 69 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE Feral Visions CoalitionCoalition Against Civilization The 2nd Annual “Black and Green Anarchist Gathering” AgainstAgainst When: July 24th-August 1st or July 31st-August 8th, 2004 CivilizationCivilization The Black and Green Network is beginning to plan for a week-long Species Traitor #1-3, Disgust gathering in the beautifully wild southern Cascades of Oregon. After taking part in the various anarchist and environmental events and of Daily Life, Weeping Willow, conferences, we felt that there was a need to have a gathering and much more! focusing solely on what seems to fall through the cracks: rewilding, Get a free copy of the complete CAC Distro, both physically and mentally. From this came the idea for last year’s including pamphlets, zines, t-shirts, hoodies, successful gathering. Our goal is to help bring people into a wild stickers, tote-bags, and patches! environment, to break down mediation between ourselves and our blackandgreen.org world, and to encourage active participation with it. The gathering www.coalitionagainstcivilization.org will provide an introduction to the various strands of anti-civilization www.speciestraitor.cjb.net thought, as well as being an in-depth forum for discussing and developing the theoretical and practical aspects of anarcho- PO Box 835 primitivism/green anarchy. We will focus on trying to connect Greensburg, PA 15601 face-to-face and deal with issues that are brought up within the critiques, making stronger connections with one another, and applying our visions to our lives. There will be a heavy emphasis on Venomous Butterfly Publications primitive skill-sharing and collective experience. We are hoping to There is a ton of stuff from Venomous Butterfly, including the current and create an environment where people are willing to share, grow, and back issues of Willful Disobedience, an intelligent and inciteful insurrectionary have a good time. The entire event is centered on active participation anarchist quarterly publication, which we strongly recommend! and we hope that people will bring their knowledge/experience. For more info, check out: Available from 818 SW 3rd Ave www.greenanrchy.org or www.blackandgreen.org/gathering.html PMB 1237, Portland, OR 97204 To get involved, contact: PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440 [email protected] or [email protected]

Surplus…the will to consume terrorizes! A new collage/commentary by Italian filmmaker, Erik Gandini takes a hard look at the grotesque nature of civilization and the multifaceted resistance to it. This musically and visually stunning film is reminiscent of Godfrey Reggio’s KOYAANISQATSI, but with more overt commentary and political relevance. Tackling weighty themes like consumption, technology, objectification, domination, ideology, and resistance, this film is an intense hyper-sensory composition of just why civilization has to go! Available for $12 from Green Anarchy Anti-NATO and Green Anarchist Gathering in Turkey! GreenGreen AnarchistAnarchist (Proposed Dates: May 20-22, 2004) For the Destruction of Civilisation Dear Friends and Comrades, The original unapologetic We are Green Anarchists and Anarcho-Primitivists from Turkey. On May 20-22 of 2004 there will be a NATO summit in Istanbul, the big metropolis Green Anarchist paper from the U.K. of Turkey Land…And we want to show our response to the techno- Available for $3 industrial system, civilization and all kinds of authoritarians through a BCM 1715, London series of anti-system demos and direct actions (although it will be purely symbolic to protest NATO). At the same time, as Green Anarchists and WC1N 3XX, UK Anarcho-Primitivists, we are considering a “Green Anarchist Gathering”, www.greenanarchist.org/index.html as we feel it is important for us to meet, share our ideas and experiences and of primitive lifestyles and skills, and build a GA movement worldwide, and to show our solidarity all over the world. We think it would be effective to meet at the anti-NATO summit and at the same time have a re-pressed distribution GA gathering in Turkey. Let’s meet in Direct Action! c/o crc sholebroke avenue Black and Green Greetings… leeds, 1s7 3hb Kara Yesil—[email protected] www.re-pressed.org.uk Veganarsi Fanzine—[email protected] [email protected] Earth Liberation Prisoners/ Turkey—[email protected]

GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 70 the eugene scene: GREENGREEN ANARCHYANARCHY FuckFuck TheThe SystemSystem Anti-Civilization Quarterly Publication Cascadia Alive! Featuring: theoretical and practical ideas, analysis of anarchist and other resistance movements, action andand Takin’Takin’ ItIt Down!Down! reports from around the world, news, prisoner Weekly Radical/Anarchist updates, reviews, letters, and more! T.V.Program Issue #12 features: On Community Television (CTV) “Kabul Around the Corner”, “Scrolls of Testimony”, (Ch 22 or Ch 29) “Women of the West Bank”, “Lessons from the Fall of LIVE on WED at 10pm Rome”, an exclusive interview with Reggio Godfrey (film- Re-broadcast: maker - Koyaanisqatsi, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi), “Towards an Effective Praxis”, “Does Not Compute” by THUR - 1am, FRI - 10pm, SAT - 1am Austin Train, “Destroy Civilization?”, “Reflections on the (each week is followed by End of Work”, “Scavenging Roadkill” from “Feral Forager: Cascadia Alive! – Flashbacks) a guide to living off nature’s bounty in urban, rural and wilderness areas”, “Collapse” by Kevin Tucker, and more! www.cascadiaalive.org Issue #13 features: “Youth Liberation: Burn the Schools and Destroy the Media”, Anarchy Radio “The Rising of the Barbarians: A Non-Primitivist Revolt Against Civilization”, “Between Analysis and Vision: Moving With John Zerzan Beyond the Theory-Practice Dichotomy”, “A Quest Among the Bewildered”, “Thoughts On The City”, “On Sabotage As Sundays at 11pm One of the Fine Arts”, “Zero War – Total Liberation”, 88.1 KWVA Newly re-mastered “Decoding the Apocalypse of the Militant Greek Left”, online: www.greenanarchy.org “Green Amazon Economics 101”, “The Doctor Is Sick: by Destruction Productions! Schizophrenia, Anti-Psychiatry, and Anarchy”, a special Fuck the System is a 60-minute music-docu- anti-war section, “A Manifesto from the Break the Chains Cas cadia Forest mentary of anarchist uprisings in Eugene and Conference”, and much more! Defenders around the world, including various inciteful Issue #14 features: music videos, including the controversial “Globalization and It’s Apologists: An Abolitionist Perspective” Grower’s Market (454 Willamette st) by John Zerzan, “Spreading Like Wildfire” by Felonious “Bush Killa” video! Takin’ It Down!, the long- 541-684-8977 Skunk, “A Surrealist Re-imagining of Canada” by Ron awaited sequel, is an additional 60 minutes of Sakolsky, “The World Needs Not “Our” Science, But Its www.cascadiasummer.org provocative anti-civilization music videos. Destruction and Our Rebellion”, “Nihilism as Strategy”, “Barbarism or Authoritarianism (Thirty-three Years of Both films on one videotape for $15 (VHS), Chilean History and the Failure of the Left)” by Jesus Now available as a double DVD set for $20, Sepulveda, “Progress and Nuclear Power” by Fredy subversive pillow theatre Perlman, “Limits of Illusion, Limits of Exhaustion” by Dan - radical video series - or $12 for each DVD. Todd, “Revolt of the Savages” by Kevin Tucker, “Counting Coup! - A Look at US Military Casualties in Iraq”, “The Sunday nights @ 8pm Ideology of Collapse”, part one of an interview with Chellis Growers’ Markert (454 Willamette st) Glendinning, an anarchist critique of the Break the Chains Check local flyers for details Conference,“Why Civilization?”, “Back to Basics: Volume One: The Origins of Civilization”, and the usual goodies!

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andand * Check-out the updated www.greenanarchy.org 1430 Willamette #329, Eugene, OR DisorderlyDisorderly ConductConduct Please contact us about specific rates, if www.agitationpress.org you are interested in trading zines, or if [email protected] thethe BookBook you have any questions via email or post. Page 71 WINTER ‘04 ISSUE GREEN ANARCHY DISTRIBUTION CENTER Bring The War Home: vol. 1 Forgotten Heroes: Non-Violence & Its Violent Consequences NEW! The Black Liberation Army And The Weather William Meyers $2 fawda Venomous Butterfly Publications $3 Underground Anarchist Action Collective $2 Pacifist absurdity debunked. Analyzes the struggle in Palestine from an Brief overview of these two armed groups On The Road Again: Direct Action Underground $2 insurrectional anarchist perspective. 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The (now deceased) uncompromising journal modern prisons. Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist of unapologetic anti-industrial and anti-liberal Disgust Of Daily Life Kevin Tucker $2 Reader, the Dark Star Collective $3 anarchism from the good ‘ol days of Eugene. A creative piece furthering the critique of This pamphlet is made from about half of a Break The Chains Current issue only $2 civilization and its totality. new compilation of some of the most important Newsletter with writings by prisoners and news How to order: Earth Liberation Front: Frequently Asked anarcha-feminist articles of the past century. about anti-capitalist resistance and state - Please send well-concealed cash, Questions ELF Press Office $3 Rebel’s Dark Laughter: Writings Of Bruno repression in the Northwest. What is the ELF? Why did they burn down Vail? 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Describes methods of physical and Articles about technology and the class Anarchist” and many other great essays. mental torture to “induce compliance” from struggle translated from various Greek and Pamphlets: “unwilling subjects.” Italian anarchist publications. Videos/DVDs/CDs: Lessons Of Easter Island Clive Ponting $1 We All Live In Bhopal David Watson $1 Abolition Of Work & Primitive Affluence Bob Taken from his amazing book A Green History In the technological society, we are all subjected Anarchy In Spain Rottin’ and Johnny Productions Black $2 of the World. to poisonous chemicals and contaminations. $12 (VHS), now available as a double DVD A strong critique of work. Let’s Get Free! $3-5 (with all money over Weeping Willow Coalition Against Civilization $2 set for $18 A Map Chellis Glendinning $3 printing and mailing costs going to Free) Contains herbal remedies, wild foods and An account of two green anarchists’ 2001 tour of The contents of a speech delivered by Chellis 28-page zine about Jeff “Free” Luers, earth medicines, and some basic primitive skills Spain, including visits to squats, CNT museums, at a E.F. Schumacher Society Conference. defender, anarchist, and political prisoner currently Writings Of The Vancouver Five $3 and interviews with contemporary anarchists. Anarchist Survival Guide For Understanding serving 23 years for a politically-motivated A great compilation of writings by the members Breaking the Spell: Anarchy, Eugene and the Gestapo Swine Interrogation Mind Games arson. Contains writings, poetry, and artwork of the ecology-minded anarcho-feminist WTO Pick Axe Productions $12 Harold Thompson $1 by Free, as well as other writings. Canadian urban guerrillas known as the The most accurate and inspiring documentary Fairly self explanatory. Libres y Salvajes: la diversidad insurreccion $2 Wimmin’s Fire Brigade and Direct Action. of the N30 protests in Seattle. Animal Liberation Front Primer $2 A compilation of insurrectionary and green Fuck The System and Takin’ It Down! Destruction Everything you need to know about taking anarchist writings, including Feral Faun, John The Fredy Perlman Collection: Productions $15 (VHS), now available as a illegal direct action to help liberate animals. Moore, Robin Terranova, Willful Disobedience, The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism $3 double DVD set for $20, or $12 for each film. Anti-Mass: Methods Of Organization For and Killing King Abakus. Translated into Spanish A concise and critical look at national liberation FTS is a 60-minute music-documentary of Collectives $1 by Llavor d’ Anarquia in Barcelona, Spain. struggles from an anarchist perspective anarchist uprisings in Eugene and around the Arguments against mass organization and in Listening To The Land: An Interview With Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom $2 world, including various inciteful music videos! favor of more autonomous activism. Ward Churchill by Derrick Jensen $1 A look at the inherent racism within Zionism, TID!, the long-awaited sequel, is an additional Armed Joy Alfredo M. Bonanno $2 This interview with American Indian Movement and the condition of an oppressed people 60 minuets of anti-civilization music and videos. An insurrectional anarchist classic! activist Ward Churchill was reprinted from becoming an oppressor. U.S. Off The Planet: An Evening With Ward Back From Hell: Black Power And Treason Derrick’s book, Listening To The Land: Ten Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats $1 Churchill And Chellis Glendinning $12 on To Whiteness Inside Prison Walls Lorenzo K. Conversations About Nature, Culture and Eros. A brief look at the rationality and development Video, $8 for CD. Ervin $1 Minimanual Of The Urban Guerrilla Carlos of the ego-leader/dictator. A wonderful documentation of two speeches One man’s account of resisting racism & white Marighella $4 Progress and Nuclear Power $1 (or 25 for $10) delivered by Ward and Chellis on June 17th, 2001. supremacy from within prison walls. The nature of urban guerrilla warfare by the This essay traces the systematic colonization Surplus $12 Beyond Squat Or Rot: Anarchist Approaches Brazilian anarcho-communist. of North America, and links it to the mind-set New collage/commentary by Italian filmmaker, Erik To Housing Chuck Munson $2 Native Resistance To Canada Various native which perpetuates industry and nuclear power. Gandini takes a hard look at the grotesque nature Anarchist analysis of private property, landlords, solidarity groups $2 (Get all four of Fredy Perlman essays from of civilization and the multifaceted resistance to and rent, and new ideas about collective An overview of modern Native struggles Red and Black Press for $5) it. Tackling weighty themes like consumption, housing to meet the needs of the community. against colonialism. technology, objectification, and domination. GREEN ANARCHY #15 Page 72 BACKBACKBACKBACK TOTOTOTO

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volume #2 BASICS:BASICS:BASICS:BASICS: volume #2 volume #2 The Left is Dead TheThe PROBLEMPROBLEM (please do not resuscitate) ofof thethe LEFTLEFT THETHE NATURENATURE OFOF THETHE LEFTLEFT Marx considered industry the “open book of human essential Division of labor is a fundamental motor of complex, stratified, forces.” Nowhere on the Left is this formulation refuted. Its origins, alienated society, today as from the beginning. logic, destination are taken for granted. We find here, in fact, a The Left doesn’t question this basic institution that drives all core assumption that unites leftists: that the means of production/ the rest, and so must repeat the dominant lie about the neutrality technology should be progressively developed, its reach always of technology. In this way the Left works continually for the extended. This notion is very close to the heart of the modern preservation of the values and the society that produce ever more conception of progress. All of life must yield to its imperative. powerful and oppressive technology. Domination of nature and domestication are in no way Globalization is not only the cutting edge of the world system problematic for the Left. Leftists fail to notice that this accounts, of domination; it also represents division of labor at the global level. in a fundamental way, for the Left’s sorry record in practice The Left, of course, takes even this for granted, opposing only the concerning both the natural world and the individual. excesses of certain policies, not globalization itself. Thus “Against Like other defenders of civilization and modernity, leftists Globophobia,” (The Nation, December 1, 2003) rails against those uphold the “neutrality” of technology. They cling to this credo of us who do oppose it, e.g. “This might be a good time to junk local even as the horrors of genetic engineering, human cloning, the self-reliance as an ideal and embrace a deeply global perspective.” cyborg future for the self, etc. unfold for all to see. Soon, The current bible of the Left, Hardt and Negri’s Empire (2000), is at apparently, a wholly mediated and artificial reality will arrive, least as committed to contemporary society’s mainstays of with the virtual/digital erasure of direct experience itself. productionism, technology, and the basic world system. This system Modern industrial “medicine”, for example, is on course to is stamping out all difference, including indigenous lifeways, in dispense with human contact altogether. favor of standardization and global homogeneity. But no matter, this development is “neutral”; it all depends on In his Mirror of Production (1972), Jean Baudrillard showed that how it is used or who is in power. As if these innovations weren’t marxism (and all of the modern Left) is just the mirror image of hugely estranging and destructive processes in themselves. capital’s techno-economic essentials. Even earlier, Walter Benjamin Technology embodies the dominant values of the social order understood that “mass production is the production of masses.” where it resides. It is inseparable from The Left is not radical and really never those values and is their physical was. Its adherents challenge none of the expression. Technology becomes a A underlying givens of this rotten, system, as its society becomes a massified anti-life world. On the contrary, system. At a fairly early stage of the the Left––including the anarchist Left– development of division of labor –defends them all. What leftists do (specialization), tools become oppose is a qualitatively different vision, technology. Where once there were in the direction of decentralized, face- autonomous, equal individuals and to-face, small-scale community where tools accessible to all, the effective individual responsibility makes division power of experts gradually takes of labor and domination obsolete, and over, promoting social hierarchy. human anarchy is part of nature. The PROBLEM of the LEFT Leftism 101 by Lawrence Jarach greatly influenced by these three philosophies. What is Leftism? Like those who adhere to LH&R, leftists are For most it means some form of socialism, concerned with, and are opposed to, economic despite the fact that there are plenty of leftists and social injustice. They all propose amelio- who are not opposed to capitalism (clearly from rating social ills through active intervention or the actual history of socialism, not all socialists charity, whether under the auspices of the are opposed to capitalism either). Plenty of other State, NGOs, or other formal organizations. “The“The mostmost compellingcompelling exerciseexercise ofof freedomfreedom isis arguments can be made about that, but let’s just Very few of the proposed solutions or thethe destructiondestruction ofof idols,idols, especiallyespecially whenwhen theythey keep things simple and assume that the two stopgaps promote (or even acknowledge) claimclaim toto speakspeak inin thethe namename ofof freedom!”freedom!” terms are synonymous. As is the case with most self-organized solutions engaged in by those - Guy Debord vague terms, however, it’s easier to come up directly suffering such ills. Welfare, affirmative - Guy Debord with a list of characteristics than a definition. action programs, psychiatric hospitals, drug institutions. Clearly reformist, moderate Leftism encompasses many divergent ideas, rehabilitation facilities, etc. are all examples leftists promote legal, peaceful, and polite strategies, and tactics; are there any common of various attempts to deal with social superficial alterations in the status quo, eventu- threads that unite all leftists, despite some problems. Given the premises of these over- ally hoping to legislate socialism into obvious differences? In order to begin an lapping philosophies and their practical existence. The democracy they champion is attempt at an answer, it is necessary to examine frameworks, they have the appearance of bourgeois: one person, one vote, majority rule. the philosophical antecedents to what can being the results of intelligence and knowl- Radical leftists promotes a mixture of legal broadly be termed Socialism. edge mixed with empathy and the desire to and illegal tactics, depending on whatever Liberalism, Humanism, and Republicanism help people. Cooperation for The Common appears to have a better chance of succeeding are political and philosophical schools of Good is seen as more beneficial to humanity at the moment, but they ultimately want the thought deriving from the modern European than individual competition. However, sanction of some properly constituted legal tradition (roughly beginning during the socialism also takes the existence of com- institutions (especially when they get to make Renaissance). Without going into details, petition for granted. Liberals and socialists most of the rules to be enforced). They are adherents of the three (especially Liberalism) alike believe that human beings do not naturally pragmatic, hoping for peaceful change, but presume the existence of an ideal property- get along, so we must be educated and ready to fight if they believe it to be necessary. owning male individual who is a fully rational encouraged to be cooperative. When all else The democracy they promote is more prole- (or at least a potentially rational) agent. This fails, this can always be enforced by the State. tarian: they aren’t worried about the process of idealized individual stands any particular election, so long as gains opposed to the arbitrary authority are made at the expense of the bosses and of the economic and political mainstream politicians. systems of monarchism and Extreme leftists are amoral pragma- feudalism, as well as the spiritual tists, a strategic orientation that can also authority of the Catholic Church. be termed opportunistic. They are All three (LH&R) presume the decidedly impolite, explicitly desiring capacity of anyone (male), through the destruction of current institutions education and hard work, to succeed (often including the State), with the in a free market (of commodities desire to remake them so that only they and ideas). Competition is the themselves will be able to make and overall ethos of all three. enforce new laws. They are much more The promoters of LH&R insist willing to use force in the service of their that these modernist philosophies— goals. The democracy they promote is compared to monarchism, elitism, TheThe shipship ofof foolsfools usually based on a Party. and feudalism—are advances on the road to human freedom. They veersveers leftwardleftward Relationship to capitalists believe it more beneficial for what All leftists privilege the category of they call The Greater Good to adhere to and worker as worker/producer, an entity that promote a philosophy that at least proposes Moderate, Radical, exists only within the sphere of the economy. the ability of anyone to gain some kind of Moderate leftists campaign for workers’ rights control over her/his own life, whether in the and Extreme Leftism (to strike, to have job security and safety, to realm of education, economic prosperity, or Tactics and strategies have decent and fair contracts), trying to mitigate the more obvious abuses of the political interactions. The ultimate goals of Regardless of the fact that there is plenty of bosses through the passage and enforcement LH&R are to do away with economic scarcity overlap and blending—precluding real, discrete of progressive legislation. They want and intellectual/spiritual poverty, while boundaries—I hope that describing these capitalism to be organized with “People promoting the idea of more democratic various manifestations of leftism will be a way Before Profits” (as the overused slogan has governance. They promote this under the to identify certain particular characteristics. it), ignoring the internal logic and history of rubric of Justice, and they see the State as its In terms of strategy and tactics, moderate capitalism. Moderate leftists promote socially ultimate guarantor. leftists believe that things can be made better responsible investing and want a more just Socialism as a modern movement has been by working within current structures and BACK TO BASICS volume #2 distribution of wealth; social wealth in the on interest in (and the accompanying leaders who speak and act on behalf, or in form of the much-touted “safety net,” and exploitation of) peasants and workers, a the place, of individuals and groups is a given; personal wealth in the form of higher wages disregard that is supposed to be corrected by mediation in the realm of politics is taken as and increased taxes on corporations and the socialism. Unfortunately, virtually all a necessity, removing most decision making rich. They want to balance the rights of socialists only posit the category Worker and from individuals and groups. Leftists share this property and labor. Peasant as collective classes—a mass to be commitment to leadership and representation Radical leftists favor workers at the expense molded and directed—never considering the —they believe themselves able to justly of the bosses. Workers are always right to the desires or interests of the individual (male or represent those who have traditionally been radical leftist. They wish to change the legal female) worker or peasant to control their own excluded from politics: the disenfranchised, the structure in such a way to reflect this favoritism, lives. According to the ideological imperatives voiceless, the weak. which is supposed to compensate for the of leftist thought, the self-activity of these The leftist activist, as a representative of previous history of exploitation. The masses is seen suspiciously through the ideo- those who suffer, is a person who believes redistribution of wealth envisioned by radical logical blinkers of the competitive ethos of her/himself to be indispensable to improving leftists builds on the higher wages and capitalism (since the masses aren’t yet the lives of others. This derives from a dual- increased taxation of the corporations and intelligent enough to be socialists); the workers pronged notion common to all leftists: the rich to include selective expropriation/ will perhaps be able to organize themselves 1. Non-political people, left to their own nationalization (with or without devices, will never be able to alter compensation) of various resources their situations in a radical or revolu- (banks, natural resources for example). tionary manner (Lenin’s dismissal of Extreme leftists promote the total workers as never being able to move expropriation—without compen- beyond a “trade union mentality” sation—of the capitalist class, not without some professional outside only to right the wrongs of economic help comes to mind here); and exploitation, but to remove the capitalist class from political power as 2. Those with more intelligence or a well. At some point, the workers are to better analysis are both wise and ethical be at least nominally in charge of economic into defensive trade unions in order to safe- enough to lead (whether through example or by and political decision making (although that is guard their wages, while the peasants will decree) and organize others for their own good, and perhaps more importantly, the greater good. usually meditated through a Party leadership). only want to own and work their own piece of land. Again, education and enforcement of The unspoken but implicit theme that runs The role of the State cooperation is necessary for these masses to through this brief assessment of leftism is a Leftists view the State on a continuum of become conscious political radicals. reliance on authoritarian relations, whether ambivalence. Most are clear that the role of assumed or enforced, brutally compelling or the State is to further the goals of whatever A Generic Leftism? gently rational. The existence of an economy class happens to rule at any given period; (exchange of commodities in a market) further they all recognize that the ruling class So all leftists share the goals of making up presumes the existence of one or more always reserves for itself a monopoly on the for injustice by decree, whether the decree institutions to mediate disputes between those legitimate use of force and violence to comes out of better/more responsive rep- who produce, those who own, and those who enforce their rule. In the political imagi- resentatives and leaders, a more democratic consume; the existence of a representational nations of all moderate and some radical political process, or the elimi- political process presumes the leftists, the State (even with a completely nation of a non-worker power existence of one or more in- capitalist ruling class) can be used to remedy base. They all desire to organize, stitutions to mediate disputes many social problems, from the excesses of mobilize, and direct masses of between diverse parties based transnational corporations to the abuses of people, with the eventual goal on common interest (often those who have been traditionally disenfran- of attaining a more or less with conflicting goals); the chised (immigrants, women, minorities, the coherent majority, in order existence of leadership pre- homeless, etc.). For extreme leftists, only their to propel progressive and sumes that there are substantive own State can solve such problems, because democratic change of social differences in the emotional and it is in the interest of the current ruling class institutions. Recruitment, intellectual capacities of to maintain divisions among those who are education, and inculcating those who direct and those not of the ruling class. Despite the ambiva- leftist values are some of the who follow. There are plenty lence, an attachment to the functions of more mundane strategies of rationalizations contributing government as executed by the State remains. leftists use to increase their to the maintenance of such This is the pivotal area of conflict between all influence in the wider political institutions of social control leftists and all anarchists, despite the historical landscape. All unfit for (schools, prisons, the military, positioning of anarchism within the spectrum of All leftists have a common human consumption the workplace), from efficiency leftism—about which more below. distrust of regular (non-political/ to expediency, but they all non-politicized) people being able to decide ultimately rely on the legitimate (sanctioned by The role of the individual for themselves how to solve the problems that the State) use of coercive authority to enforce Missing from all these different strains of face them. All leftists share an abiding faith decisions. Leftists share a faith in the mediating leftism is a discussion of the individual. While in leadership. Not just a trust of particular influence of wise and ethical leaders who can LH&R refer briefly to the individual, these leaders who portray themselves as having work within politically neutral, socially philosophies do not take into account non- certain moral or ethical virtues over and above progressive, and humane institutional frame- property-owning males, females, or juveniles— common people, but of the very principle of works. Their thoroughly hierarchical and who are indeed considered the property of the leadership. This confidence in leadership authoritarian natures, however, should be normative individual: the adult property- never brings representational politics into clear even after a cursory glance. owning man. This led to the complete lack question. The existence of elected or appointed (continued on next page) The PROBLEM of the LEFT Are All Forms of Anarchism Leftist? All anarchists share a desire to abolish government; that is the definition of anarchism. Starting with Bakunin, anarchism has been explicitly anti-statist, anti-capitalist, and anti-authoritarian; no serious anarchist seeks to alter that. Leftists have consistently supported and promoted the functions of the State, have an ambiguous relationship to capitalist development, and are all interested in maintaining hierarchical relationships. In addition, historically they have either tacitly ignored or actively suppressed the desires of individuals and groups for autonomy and self-organization, further eroding any credible solidarity between themselves and anarchists. On a purely definitional level, then, there should be an automatic distinction between leftists and anarchists, regardless of how things have appeared in history. WeWe WereWere BornBorn IntoInto aa WorldWorld Where:Where: Despite these differences, many anarchists have thought of themselves Dreams and desires have been locked within the cages of as extreme leftists—and continue to do so—because they share many psychotherapeutic interpretations; of the same analyses and interests (a distaste for capitalism, the Revolt has been bound with the fetters of moribund leftist necessity of revolution, for example) as leftists; many revolutionary ideologies; leftists have also considered anarchists to be their (naïve) comrades— Creativity has been enslaved to the sadistic masters, art and except in moments when the leftists gain some power; then the literature; anarchists are either co-opted, jailed, or executed. The possibility The marvelous has been handcuffed to the cops of mysticism for an extreme leftist to be anti-statist may be high, but is certainly and mythology; not guaranteed, as any analysis history will show. Reality has lost the ability to laugh at itself and its foibles and so suppresses a truly playful spirit; Left anarchists retain some kind of allegiance to 19th century LH&R Thought has become a rigidly armored fortress protecting its and socialist philosophers, preferring the broad, generalized (and ideological foundations from every criticism; therefore extremely vague) category of socialism/anti-capitalism and Revolution has had its passion organized out of existence the strategy of mass political struggles based on coalitions with other leaving only structural rigor mortis where once insurgence leftists, all the while showing little (if any) interest in promoting breathed and danced. individual and group autonomy. From these premises, they can quite This world has ceased to bring forth amazing monsters; easily fall prey to the centralizing tendencies and leadership It is no longer a conduit for the marvelous; functions that dominate the tactics of leftists. They are quick to quote It has lost touch with the convulsive beauty of love and lust; Bakunin (maybe Kropotkin too) and advocate organizational forms It can no longer give birth to babies with wings; that might have been appropriate in the era of the First International, It has ceased growing and begun to rot; apparently oblivious to the sweeping changes that have occurred in It has suppressed surreality wherever this marvelous flower the world in the past hundred-plus years—and they then have the has bloomed. Therefore, from now on, surreality will manifest in: gall to ridicule Marxists for remaining wedded to Marx’s outdated Dreams and desires freed from all interpretation and sublimation, theories, as if by not naming their own tendencies after other dead being the living energies of free-spirited individuals; guys they are thereby immune from similar mistakes. Total revolt against every aspect of social reality including the The drawbacks and problems with Marxism, however—for ideologies that strive to squeeze this revolt into the limited example that it promotes the idea of a linear progression of history mold of leftist activism; of order developing out of chaos, freedom developing out of The free-spirited creation of our lives for ourselves, lived to oppression, material abundance developing out of scarcity, the limits against every role and rule; socialism developing out of capitalism, plus an absolute faith in The discovery of the marvelous in each unique being, free Science as the ideologically neutral pursuit of pure Knowledge, and from any mystical or religious guidelines; a similar faith in the liberatory function of all technology—are the The humor and playfulness of free-spirited individuals who same drawbacks and problems with the anarchism of Bakunin and realize their strength and creativity in their own joyful foolishness; Open, expansive, generous thinking which grows from the Kropotkin. All of this seems lost on left anarchists. They blithely inner strength of free-spirited rebels; continue to promote a century-old version of anarchism, clearly An insurgent dance, a feral insurrection that refuses all unaware of, or unconcerned by, the fact that the philosophical and limitations, exists beyond all structures and is the realm of practical failures of leftism—in terms of the individual, the natural indomitable free spirits. world, and appropriate modes of resistance to the continued Today, social reality is a lifeless, passionless corpse. Let’s domination of a flexible, adaptable, and expanding capitalism—are bury it. Now the amazing monsters of surreality must come shared by this archaic form of anarchism as well. forth in the world playful and terrifying in their wild energy, Those of us who are interested in promoting radical social change freed of the cages and chains that have bound them; our in general, and anarchy in particular, need to emulate and improve dreams, our desires, our humor, our revolt can populate the upon successful (however temporary) revolutionary projects for world with the most marvelous creatures. liberation, rather than congratulating ourselves for being the heirs of Social reality is dead; long live surreality! Bakunin (et al.). We can do this best if we free ourselves from the historical baggage and the ideological and strategic constraints of all —Wolfi Landstreicher varieties of leftism. BACK TO BASICS volume #2 Liberation, Not Organization If I Have to Pay Dues or Carry a Membership Card, I Don’t Want to Be In Your Revolution. by A. Morefus

I desire liberation, not organization. While And, the last thing we need is more standard- when they continually “flake.” To which I most leftists would claim that the two go ization, mechanization, and militaristic respond, learn the patterns of those you work hand-in-hand, or at least that the second is approaches...the logic which projects this and live with, and know what you can necessary to achieve the first (and for some whole system forward. depend on, and what you cannot. If they are the second might even “wither away” some- I am fighting for my own liberation, and continually unreliable, then don’t rely on time after “The Revolution”), to me, the two from this stems my support for my family, them. It’s simple. It all comes down to seem contradictory. I am not fighting for a my community, others’ struggles, and the rest bringing about a deeper understanding of one world which is run better (more efficiently of life. Does this mean we cannot learn from another, not some adjudication process to and more fairly), I am fighting for a world others, share ideas, or join together in projects enforce agreements…that is how the state which doesn’t need running (one which is of resistance? Certainly not, but these works. Even in regard to abusers, some would radically decentralized). Here lies the contra- junctures MUST be without coercion, like established policies and rigid methods for diction between the Left, and those fighting manipulation, and domination. They should dealing with people, but each scenario is for autonomy and anarchy. be seen as temporary and organic, and different, and each victim and community If the politics of the left (including leftist- their continued connection cannot be at the demands a different outcome. It is taking the anarchists) could be distilled into one phrase, expense of our autonomy. We need to prioritize easy way out, when we attempt to program- it might be “Social Justice” – a vague longing the deep and meaningful relationships over matically apply a solution to a problem. for a social system which ensures equality the superficial and political ones. Taking responsibility for a situation and (socially and economically, although not working towards the most effective necessarily politically) for everyone, outcome takes time, energy, and and the political apparatus necessary to commitment to one another, and ensure/enforce their particular notion of while it may seem difficult at the what that would mean. But only by time, in the end it is usually the people controlling their own lives, and most meaningful. all decisions which pertain to them, Smaller groups are more able to will people ever be free. This should make decisions which are relevant to be a basic concept, at least for the individuals involved, while large anarchists, but unfortunately for organizations require tremendous those still tied to a leftist mode of amounts of resources and bureaucracy operation and thinking, it is not. In fact, just to perpetuate themselves. Constant this simple notion is attacked for being decisions need to be made just to keep too “individualist” or “unrealistic”. them “running,” and this will inevitably I guess some people just think they lead to representation and hierarchy. know what is best, especially for the The further we are from any decision- “lumpen” and “the masses.” They making process, the more alienated we wish to plug everyone into an infra- are from the decisions it makes. This structure which adheres to the “correct” is not a healthy model for taking ideology (a notion anarchists should control of our own lives, it is a model reject at face value): as Michael Albert for being controlled. As anarchists, we (Z Magazine) has said, the “good morality”. need to take responsibility for our These notions of “the way” are an insult to We must avoid the “lowest common denomi- own decisions and their outcomes. independent thinking and openness, and stand nator” approach to liberation, one which This is not to say that we should only be in direct opposition to anarchy, and deserve sums up our collective desires and struggles concerned with decision-making on an only disdain. in vague catchwords like “freedom”, individual level (although there are certainly Only WE can fully understand what WE are “equality”, and “justice”, or the “One Big decisions which only apply here), but also as fighting for, and our own interests and skills. Union” approach, which superficially small, decentralized communities. Here, We waste too much time trying to form affinity embraces diversity, yet in reality, works to decisions are made face-to-face, with each and artificial unity with those with whom diminish all individuality and autonomy. member of our family, band, or collective there is very little meaningful agreement. Some anarchists, and all leftists, propose deeply entwined with one another and our Decentralized autonomous groups, making all large monolithic federations, parties, and environment – a bio-regional perspective of their own decisions, are the key to effective- structures to “get shit done” and “hold people which reflects how natural ecosystems function. ness and to staying motivated. Only when accountable.” We must reject this fetishization We only need organizations and large resistance comes from our hearts can we have of organization and control. Our liberation structures if we want to keep most of the any chance of fulfillment. I am not just “two should not be dependent on a political or eco- racket known as civilization going (including arms for the revolution,” as some guilt-ridden, nomic structure – it should come from our own technology, production, the military, mass uncritical, and uninspired leftists and leftist- desires and willingness to fight for another society, globalized reality, etc), but if we anarchists have proclaimed. I am not a foot world. A leftist-anarchist friend of mine wants reject all of this, we can bring our lives back soldier for a vanguard or an “oppressed people.” to know how we hold people accountable to a human scale, lives worth living. The PROBLEM of the LEFT The Left-Handed Path of Repression working overtime to impose new “politically- began to make observations about human correct” moralisms and constraining codes of sexual repression that we believe have a lot to behavior on other people, adding new layers of contribute to the anti-civilization critique. The repression to an already unbearably repressive linchpin of civilization, the defining process that and artificial situation, i.e., modern civilized holds it all together, is domestication — the “life.” In a world where virtually every aspect of suppression and restructuring of what was once our lives is governed and controlled, where the wild and free. In the human animal this translates majority of our “choices” and “options” are false, into the repression and bludgeoning of our manufactured ones, and where our every natural instincts by outside social forces. Reich instinct and biological impulse is stifled by an believed that human beings formed what he termed authoritarian order, the Left proposes more (or “character armor” as a chronic result of the clash at least, new) rules and regulations as the between instinctual demands and an outer world, solution! Like the genocidal Catholic missionaries which frustrates those demands. This “character of the Columbian invasion or the grim-faced, armor” is formed when the ego undergoes a anally-retentive Puritans of New England, these structural change in order to carry out the internally tormented Leftists want to universalize inhibition of instincts demanded by the modern, their own inhibitions and psychological hang-ups, civilized world and to be able to cope with the by creating a new governing structure that energy stasis which results from this inhibition. mirrors their own fears and personal misery. Reich described this change in the human The personal is very political when it comes psyche as a hardening, a cementing of civilized to the Left, as your typical leftist is neurotically repressions that take on a chronically operating, obsessed with how others live, what they eat automatic character, as if the affected (repressed) and consume, and most alarmingly, with the personality has developed a hard shell around words and thoughts that stray from the Left’s itself to deflect and weaken the blows of the outer approved range of opinions. The main difference world as well as the clamoring of unfulfilled between the Left and the “Right” is that the inner needs. As a protective psychological Left’s intrusiveness into other peoples’ lives formation that has become chronic, Reich felt is justified on political grounds, while the that this character hardening merited the “Right” generally justifies it on Biblical or religious designation of the psychic mobility of the person- By Crocus Behemoth grounds. In either case, we’re dealing with ality as a whole. The maintenance of this character “The pleasure police don’t always wear morality, with external codes of conduct and armor always proceeds according to the pleasure- uniforms. They wear ideologies — rigid, behavior that some self-dictated “superior” unpleasure principle and consists of multiple, theoretical constructions in their heads. And believes is the prescription for a more tidy, interrelated layers that serve to ward off the most their heads in turn rule over their bodies and orderly and efficient society. deeply repressed impulses. oppress them.” At this point, it’s worth asking: What deranged And the most deeply repressed impulse in the —Smirk #4 (Post-Leftist Pleasure Politics) emotional disorder leads to the formation of such civilized world, according to Reich, is the natural authoritarian tendencies in the human personality, human need to give and receive love and to In spite of its abysmal, largely totalitarian and what aberration of the psyche convinces the experience orgiastic, libidinal gratification and history, the various political tendencies that Left that it has the knowledge and the right to pleasure. But human sexuality had been repressed comprise what we call the “Left” are attempting refashion and reprogram other people into its new and disfigured, claimed Reich, by the compulsory to make a resurgence in North America — morality? We believe that the research of Wilhelm sex morality of the dominant culture. basically by trying to exploit situations like the Reich provides invaluable insight into the “mass Reich linked sexual repression to the formation war in Iraq and capitalist globalization as new psychosis of Leftism” and the remainder of this of authoritarian personalities and believed that opportunities to promote their hopelessly essay will explore Reich’s theories of “character there are libidinal energies, which are employed outdated and downright ridiculously statist armoring” and how it applies to the Left as an in the anchoring of the authoritarian social order, programs for “change.” It would be easy enough inherently authoritarian political current. as he explained in his 1933 book The Mass to just ignore these socialist champions of duty Psychology of Fascism. and sacrifice — these would-be world-betterers Sexual Repression: The Root Reich believed that it was in this anchoring of who tilt at the windmills of established power of All Social Control? the social order in the character structure that we and ultimately accomplish nothing — were it “The person afflicted with the emotional find an explanation for the toleration on the part of not for the fact that they’ve infested the anarchist plague limps characterologically. The emotional the suppressed layers of the population toward movement with their authoritarian, guilt-ridden plague is a chronic biopathy of the organism. the rulership of an upper social class that has the politics and are essentially waging war on the It made an inroad into human society with means of power at its disposal, a toleration that free exchange of ideas between radicals and the first mass suppression of genital sexuality; often goes so far as to affirm authoritarian dissidents. Cloaking themselves in “concerns” it became an endemic disease, which has suppression at the expense of its own class about racism, sexism and homophobia, these been tormenting people the world over for interests. Reich’s analysis of sexual imagery within anarcho-leftists seem primarily interested in thousands of years. According to our knowledge, Nazi propaganda and Hitler’s hypnotic oratory impeding the development of revolutionary it is implanted in the child from the first days performances led him to believe that Germans theory and revolutionary action, by setting rules of life. It is an endemic illness, like schizo- achieved some sort of orgiastic satisfaction about what can and cannot be said (or even phrenia or cancer, with one notable difference, from their dedication to the führer and his thought) by those who are interested in examining i.e., it is essentially manifested in social life.” weltanschaung of sexual repression. Myron Sharaf, the totality of the System we live under. —Wilhelm Reich Reich’s biographer, commented that, “This intense When they’re not trying to lure anarchists libidinal excitation, combined with a sense of down the dead-end path of “identity politics,” Wilhelm Reich was a radical psychotherapist moral righteousness, was strikingly similar to these self-styled “experts in oppression” are (and former student of Freud) who, in the 1920s, the atmosphere at religious revival meetings.” BACK TO BASICS volume #2 Reich went on to apply his same critique of the is the good guy in an overly-simplistic, projects in its wake. The “plague” was introduced Third Reich to Soviet Russia and the Communist cartoonish struggle against the “reactionary” into the community by a small group of former Party, and came to the following conclusions: capitalist class. But as anarchists, it’s obvious or currently enrolled, middle-class college that there can be no cure for the disease of students whose objective seemed to be not • Humankind is biologically sick. capitalism if the supposed “antidote” (the Left) only silencing opinions they didn’t like but also • Politics is the irrational social expression is itself a carrier of the same virus of control destroying, both personally and publicly, the of this sickness. and rigidity. individuals who expressed those opinions. • The character structure of the masses is A huge preoccupation of this “vanguard formed by socioeconomic processes and it The Machine as Sadomasochistic intelligentsia” was the imposition of politically anchors and perpetuates these processes. correct speech codes and the calculated, Humanity’s biopathic character structure is the Overseer and Technology as a manipulative use of certain politically-loaded fossilization of the authoritarian process of New Layer of Character Armor buzzwords (like “racist,” “sexist” and “ho- history. It is the biophysical reproduction of mophobic”) to stigmatize anyone who had mass suppression. If sexual repression forms an early and major an “unapproved” point of view. • The fear of freedom — and the incapacity layer of our “character armor,” then how many Hiding behind legitimate issues of oppression for freedom — of masses of people is expressed additional layers of domestication are added as (and camouflaging themselves for a short time in the biophysical rigidity of the character and human life begins to merge more and more fully as anarchists) this nasty, humorless sect the inflexibility of the organism. with technology? And why is it that all leftist promoted a group identity and employed all • Interest in money and power is a substitute models for a “socialist future” seem to resemble the hallmark leftist strategies of bullying and for unfulfilled happiness in love, supported by the workings of a machine? The second question browbeating anyone who was too naive to see the biologic rigidity of masses of people. is the easier one to answer and it lies in the fact that leftists have always seen themselves as what was going on. Particularly fascinating was We want to make it clear at this point that social engineers and have always had a nearly watching this constipated, dour-faced crew we don’t uncritically embrace all of Reich’s religious faith in continued linear progress and attempt to formulate a new, community-wide ideas. Like most visionaries, Reich’s life was the limitless development of scientific and leftist morality, one that was decidedly riddled with contradictions, and even as technical knowledge. The machine age and the anti-erotic, and even anti-pleasure. Like most anarchists, we regard some of his later writings “machine-age consciousness” it promulgates leftists, they seemed to have zero interest in as marginally crackpot. And despite his advocacy translates into an engineering vision of human freedom and actually appeared to be fighting of “free love” and non-monogamy, Reich for more pain! seemed to be pretty sexually repressed The “administrators” of this leftist himself and maintained throughout plague, the small cadre of self-appointed his life that homosexuality was a (and self-oppressed) “teachers” who “disorder.” Nonetheless, we feel that believed that they — and only they Reich stumbled upon a “piece of the — possessed the “superior knowl- puzzle,” and if we accept that even a edge,” academic training, and social fraction of what he postulates is design to restructure human nature, feasible, then it revolutionizes our began to develop a pedagogical understanding of how both social style that isolated and demonized domestication and authoritarian anyone they saw as “backwards” political rackets work. Human and “uneducated” — as well as beings as a species have been deeply anyone who desired to have scarred and traumatized by 10,000 egalitarian relationships with others years of colonization, domestication and wasn’t willing to be treated as a and sexual repression, and no social “subordinate.” A new Thought Police order that emerges from this collective began to emerge under the guise of dysfunctionality/psychosis can offer us “abolishing sexism,” “smashing racism,” anything but more repression. As Reich etc. and implicitly sent out the message described it, “The human masses have to stay quiet about the new leftist orthodoxy, become apathetic, incapable of discrimination, beings reworked according to properly mechanical lest you become the next victim of a “reputation biopathic and slavish as a result of the precepts. In the leftist techno-utopia the repressed assassination.” It was a clever strategy and suppression of their vital life over thousands sexual energy of the “masses” will be sublimated helped to distract people from recognizing just of years.” into work, as we all trudge in uniform fashion how devoid these power-tripping socialists This is an amazingly basic insight, and yet so to the conveyor belts that will deliver us to our were of radical ideas and analysis! profound in its implications! If left-wing states dreary, mind-numbing tasks each day, becoming Sadism and masochism seemed to be the and political movements originate in the same effectively human extensions of the machine. psychological mechanics employed to foster authoritarian gene pool as so-called “right wing” The cumulative result of all this is clear: group-think, along with “sin” and repentance, regimes, then we can be assured ahead of time more misery and more repression, as technology guilt, shame, fear of freedom, punishment, that they won’t reproduce anything but continued penetrates our lives even more thoroughly, unworthiness, and distrust of one’s own slavery and control. The political Left is nothing creating mechanical patterns to which we are thoughts and instincts: in short, the usual more than a particular form of authoritarianism expected to conform. reprogramming techniques utilized by any and is in essence and character identical to any other cult, from the Moonies to the U.S. Army. other version of statism. Welcome to Eugene, Leftist The whole “plague” began to take on an eerie The “progressives” who yearn to install a left- resemblance to Catholicism, and fortunately, wing state want to use the power of that state Capital of the World or only infected our community just long enough to control other people’s habits, living patterns, “It’s Starting to Get a Little to serve as a graphic, firsthand example of moral conduct and worldview. This has been how the Left wants to control our lives through demonstrated time after time since the 1917 Kooky Around Here” the imposition of new, uniquely leftist, forms Russian Revolution, yet shockingly, many Several years ago a leftist “emotional plague” of repression. younger radicals (especially here in Eugene) swept through the Eugene anarchist milieu, continue to subscribe to the myth that the Left leaving a trail of shattered lives and sabotaged (continued on next page) The PROBLEM of the LEFT The Robots Will Not Get Through! Authoritarians can be most easily distinguished from anarchists by the fact that authoritarians THETHE LEFTLEFT make their demands of life not merely on them- selves but, above all, on other people and on the social environment as a whole. The person TODAY afflicted with the authoritarian plague imposes Alas,TODAY still around to some degree, going through their mode of life upon others by force and will the motions and in some cases finding new not tolerate views that threaten their authoritarian, ways to repackage the same old shit. repressed character armor or unmask their The eternally superficial liberal-left Take a bite out of leftism! concealed motives. The repressed-authoritarian “progressives” are as transparently averse to personality fights against other modes of life liberation as are the few surviving leninoid be replaced by an enormous amount of (and thought) even when they don’t (or authoritarians. Not even worth a line or two. meeting-hours by everyone, in order to set shouldn’t) concern them in any way; they are But there are more current maneuvers possibly production and trade quotas, etc. If one’s impelled to fight because they perceive the deserving a little critical attention…. priority is to run a world just like the one we very existence of other beliefs and ways of The Social Forum, in its “Global” as well as now endure, I guess such an unappealing life as a provocation. more local forms, is a recent catch-all for leftists, blueprint somehow makes sense. Left and Right-wing authoritarians all tend to including communists looking for a home in A rather different phenomenon is the (largely view the human animal as a flawed machine that the post-Soviet Union era. At anti-G8 Genoa European) “insurrectionalist” stance, which can be perfected through the installation of the in 2001, Genoa Social Forum partisans did seems to be a kind of amorphous hybrid of correct “software” into our hard drive. But the their best to deliver anarchists to the police and several contradictory tenets. In order to Left is divided amongst itself, and there is worked hard afterwards to spread lies about the maximize the unity required to achieve an significant (and often bitter) disagreement as Black Bloc effort in Genoa. At last year’s Global insurrectionary condition, insurrectionalists to what the correct software program is, Social Forum in Porto Alegre these statists— find it useful to minimize a potentially particularly with regard to human sexuality. or those in charge, anyway—spent their time non-unifying discussion of specifics. But this Some leftists advocate compulsory homo- praising Brazilian president Lula’s leftist approach runs the risk of tending toward sup- sexuality for “political reasons,” while others, regime and having anarchists physically pression of ideas. Meanwhile, insurrectionalist like the RCP, regard homosexuality as a attacked in the streets. Closet “anarchist” theorist Alfredo Bonanno can espouse national “perversion” and a symptom of the decadence Noam Chomsky is one of the main Social liberation fronts (states-in-waiting), while of bourgeois society. Other leftists go a step Forum leaders. others in this camp are very lucidly anti- further and promote an anti-sex celibacy that The “anti-state communists” we still have civilization (Bonanno, it should be added, has they see as the solution to problems such with us, although they seem to be going been prosecuted repeatedly and imprisoned in as sexism and rape. nowhere. The term has appeal to some, but is Italy for his courageous resistance over the But one thing’s for sure, the Left is very meaningless and contradictory. The anti-state years). Maybe insurrectionalism is less an interested in the sexuality of other people, as commies have yet to criticize mass production ideology than an undefined tendency, part left are all authoritarians. Leftist regimes — from and global trade, because they apparently want and part anti-left but generally anarchist. the Soviet Union to Cuba to communist China to preserve all the techno-essentials of the What all these left-leaners lack is a willingness — have all created classes of sexual “criminals” modern setup. It is impossible to have global to confront the basics of domination with the and have all (just like Protestants and capitalists) production and exchange without government– resolve and pointed questioning required if used the repressed sexual energy of the larger call it by any name you like––to coordinate domination is to be erased. human mass as an instrument of control and and regulate any such mass system. as fuel for their grand human and social Michael Albert’s participatory economics reengineering projects. (“parecon”) holds that the state function could byby JohnJohn ZerzanZerzan Authoritarians all have a strong hatred against every process which provokes its own orgiastic yearning (suffering from what Reich called “orgasm anxiety”). This helps SuggestedSuggested Readings:Readings: explain why almost nowhere in the vast canon of leftist theoretical works are subjects Anything Can Happen by Fredy Elements of Refusal, Future like pleasure, ecstasy and self-determination Perlman (A collection of essays on themes Primitive, and Running on Empti- ranging from authoritarianism, nationalism, ness by John Zerzan (Compilations of ever discussed... maybe the desire for Eros and industrialism) Phoenix Press some of John’s critical essays on the Left will be disciplined out of us by the State and civilization) GA Distro over time? Marxism and Native Americans edited by Ward Churchill (A provocative Anarchy: A Journal of Desire We know that sexual repression is only one dialogue amongst native activists and Armed (an excellent long-running post- Marxists) South End Press of many layers of repression placed on the leftist magazine which comes out twice a year) human animal by civilization and ruling elites Industrial Society and Its Future PO Box 1446, Columbia, MO 65205-1446, (the suppression of violence and anger, so (The Unabomber Manifesto) by F.C. www.anarchymag.org brilliantly discussed by Frantz Fanon, will be (While offering an excellent critique of The Irrational In Politics by technology, industrial society, and the left, elaborated on in this Spring’s “Rewilding” it is lacking in other regards) GA Distro Maurice Brinton (An extremely in-depth issue of Green Anarchy ) but we wanted to tackle application of Reich’s theories of sexual the subject of the left in a way that brings it back Anarchy After Leftism by Bob Black repression to the former Soviet Union) See (A great debunking of leftist anarchists, Sharp Press home, into our own lives. We’ve also attempted although we are discouraged by his dismissal to provide something that’s conspicuously of feminism) CAL Press This World We Must Leave by absent from many of the newer “anarchist” Jacques Camatte (anthology of essays Anti-Mass: Methods Of Organiza- critiquing leftist political rackets by a publications, like Onward and the Northeastern tion For Collectives (arguments far-left anti-state communist) Autonomedia against mass organization in favor of more Anarchist: a critique of authoritarianism. * Don’t forget to check out the GA Distro autonomous action) GA Distro

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