Fire to the Prisons Issue 9 Anarchist Quarterly 2010
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FOR US REVOLT NEEDS NO OTHER JUSTI FICATION FTTP ISSUE NINE SUMMER 2010 Not only do we desire to change our lives immediately, it is the criterion by which we are seeking our accomplices. DISCLAIMER F ire to the Prisons is for informational and educational purposes only. This magazine in no way encourages or supports any illegal behavior in any way. This magazine looks only to provide a printed forum for conversation and news. We are reporting not inciting. The entirety of the content in this magazine was found as public information, and later compiled or re-organized for this magazine. Nothing here is the original content of those who may or may not be responsible for this magazine. The topics brought up in this magazine in no way reflect the perspectives of any specific person allegedly involved with this publication. They also do not reflect the perspectives or outlooks of any individual or group mentioned in or receiving this publication. Briefing Pg. 3 The Kids are Not Alright Pg. 6 May Day 2010: SB1070 + Global Class Conflict Pg. 16 The 2010 Olympics: Our Final Report on a non-concluded tension Pg. 22 Anti-Police Activity in the NW + Beyond Pg. 29 Disaster in Haiti and Chile Pg. 35 Regarding Recent Events in Greece Pg. 41 Blast from the Past: Two histories in agitation. Pg. 44 Repression: Pg. 56 A Dialogue With Our Comrades in France: An Interview with the Non-Fides Project Pg. 72 “No matter whether it is a question of pollution, prison or urban planning, any really subversive discourse ends up putting everything in question.” T his magazine is in NO-WAY a “for profit” publication nor is it in any way a formal enterprise or business venture. We encourage the re-distribution and re-printing the entirety of this magazine as well as everything in it. PDFs are available for reading and printing on our website. We encourage any and all feedback. Feel free to contact us about order info or to become a distributor. This magazine is free to people currently incarcerated by contacting the prisoner support groups mentioned at the end of the “repression” section. This magazine is pretty much free to everyone, except for book stores and people buying this at for-profit literature events. Special thanks to our proof-readers. Special thanks to those who provided the resources, space, and patience needed for this publication to exist. Special thanks to all those who helped to produce the content in this issue, both in writing and reality. Special thanks to the Big Apple for your Nightlife. Without it we would never be able to go to print. DISCONTENT A Chronology of North American Prisoner Resistance Pg. 76 Accounts of Agitation: Ruptures in the social fabric. Pg. 85 Updates in the Struggle Against Grassroots Fascism Everywhere Pg. 99 Against the Recuperation of Tragedy A case against charity. Pg. 104 Accept Nothing//Demand Nothing A case against rights. Pg. 106 Don’t Be a Coward Pg. 108 Eyes Blinking in the Face of the Infinite Pg. 111 Links//Further Research Pg. 115 This may very well be our last issue. We are not sure about this, but we are re-evaluating its effects, and comparing them to the work and burden required to do this so often. If these are our last words in this context, we do hope that people were inspired or comforted by something we produced in this magazine these last few years. We are sure we will speak again. Either in a different outfit or under a different name. For now though, it was a good run, and we hope you will feel the passion we poured into this, and most importantly continue to foster the sentiment here, in the form of permanent revolt and conflict with the current social order we so obviously despise. Agitating till the grave, Fire to the Prisons: www.firetotheprisons.com c/o Shoelacetown ABC, P.O. Box 8085, Paramus, NJ, 07652, USA FTTP #9-T.O.C-Pg. 2 briefing START “Not only do we desire to change our lives immediately, it is the criterion by which we are seeking our accomplices.” T his publication, as explained in every introduction of this magazine, is a publication that intends to link different struggles, forms of resistance, and common frustrations to a broader enemy. That common enemy is the entirety of the world that mediates, manipulates, and keeps us in order or controls our everyday relations and experiences; an enemy that controls our everyday lives. The state, capitalism, industry, and all institutions that have us captured, are certainly a few of the main building blocks lying at the base of the totality of what we understand as “life” in this miserable today. We look to achieve a few possibilities with this project. One of which is to expose struggles happening here, now, and around the world; to the best of our ability, and extent of our printing resources. We try to report and expose resistance by and repression to struggles engaged in conflict with everyday conditions that directly result from the rule of capitalism, industry, the state; or the global civilization mediating the world today. This magazine is used as a celebration for the strikes and wounds against the infrastructure of this common enemy, and a reflection on the social ruptures and popular discontent arising within the normalcy or FTTP #9-Briefing-Pg. 3 stability of its order. We are dedicated to compiling in-depth news and awareness of individuals or groups the state is trying to victimize and silence, due to there being a perceived threat in their displays of revolutionary opposition. We hope to present a struggle that is invisible and everywhere, and most importantly, does not collapse once one or two people are arrested; only grows stronger and more enraged. We need to act on our desires now, worry about where it takes us later. Our terminology is sadly as broad as the world that mediates our entirety. Academics and philosophers look to draw the specific answers. But academia is capitalism’s recuperation of ideas, and helps to keep us feeling stale or unoriginal. We cannot say that there is one specific institution that we are frustrated with. The government, the economy, the methods of production, the mediums for communication, the appendages of social division; they all stem from the same dominating totality . We can define domination during these times as the entirety of the now. We can define our common enemy as domination, and as a result, our current target being everything as we know it. We are trying to accept the desert of today, only through our complete refusal to accept it. We realize how lost we are as revolutionaries. Lost as the consciously discontent. The revolutionary of today has lost all distinction. Everyone is cynical, everyone feels a similar frustration; the issue is a matter of distraction and apathy. Some of us choose to be frustrated with what is forcing us to accept a miserable society, while others deal with everyday frustrations through outlets that only help sustain what is responsible for the politics and conditions of misery. Some of us stupidly choose to hate other races, poorer people, or uglier people. Some of us also use drugs ,abuse our partners, beat our children, and rape those “wanted”. Some of us watch television, eat chocolate, do yoga, or shoot guns. The dilemma is a confusion as to what it is frustrating us. In the case of the revolutionary, it is not an issue of understanding the roots of our frustrations as much as it is an issue of continue to expose or confront these roots even if no one is watching or listening. We have struggled for so long to find a word, both for the problem and the solution, but we can only determine that the now is the issue, and only ruin could help a solution to grow. The revolutionary of today can only truly be called a revolutionary if their approach acts in permanent and direct conflict with what it is they are revolting against. We wish we could provide some coherent politics, the most concrete identity, or the most precise program; but we are not looking to make decisions, only to realize frustrations and unify different tensions as a result of them. We realize how lost and disempowering it is to be actively pushing for tension with forces of control today, especially when domination takes so many obscure forms in this era. In this global information age and hyper surveillance “We wish we could provide some coherent politics, the most concrete identity, or the most precise program; but we are not looking to make decisions, only to realize frustrations and unify different tensions as a result of them. We need to act on our desires now, worry about where it takes us later. ” era, it is not surprising that not only have many revolutionaries been struggling with a feeling of insignificance; but a popular cynicism among society’s excluded, exploited, or discontent class is in no way surprising as well. Class war? Revolution? Coup de tat? Social justice? Social change? What does this mean at this point? When everything is just accepted and nothing is taken seriously. When all of these things were told have happened, and the world is still an awful place. What is there to be inspired by when you have no interest in being part of the decisions, but you hate the decisions? What is there to be when you feel no solution, book, or political party fulfills your disdain of everything? What is it when the suffering is far away, when the labor is done elsewhere, or when we are taught to understand the morality of more or less tragic? We wish to be an exception; we wish to support the confusion and lack of solution. While the political world struggles to define this publication, they typically use terms like “insurrectionist” or “social war” in some weird attempt to pass us off entirely. We will respond by saying we disagree, but again understand why some name calling would occur. We disagree because we do not want to allow the political world to define and degrade us with their classifications. But if by insurrectionist they mean we are for insurrectionary events to occur; they are very correct. If by social war, they mean we see potential in everyday ruptures in the normalcy of capitalist society that are not formally political; they again are right. By pushing for insurrectionary moments, one is pushing for an immediate attempt to change their live’s conditions. One is advocating for the complete negation of legality, passivity, diplomacy, or compromise; all of which act to limit and regulate attempts of revolutionary social transformation. By pushing for this, one is looking to FTTP #9-Briefing-Pg. 4 immediately create a context where resistance to the current society is feasible to all those discontent with it. We are assuming what they mean by social war would also have to do with our contempt for political praxis. We are, for the most part, not excited by the limitations of typical protest; whether that be activists hopping from summit to summit, lobbyists begging politician after politician, the amount of signatures on the petition, or the amount of memberships in the organization. As we mentioned, domination has become almost a global metropolis, that can be seen in so many forms (some more obvious than others). While notions like class war may have been more pertinent to recognizing the times of serfdom or the dawn of the industrial era, class as well cannot be as simply understood as it could have been historically. This makes the lines much less easy to draw. This notion of only a politically reasonable “revolution” or “war” also limits our understanding of domination and exploitation today. With social war, one is advocating for conflict that extends beyond simply political means. When saying social war, one is inspired by not only formal displays of political dissent, but actually much more interested in common displays of resistance against everyday conditions that are commonly conducted, but not formally recognized as an attempt at change. With focusing on these isolated incidents of resistance, those advocating “social war” would analyze these events with the intention of recognizing a common condition or enemy driving the conflict. With exposing this enemy, these events no longer become isolated. However similarly to the sentiment of class war, the shared frustration or solidarity of targets naturally confronted, helps to draw lines in the sand, and helps to unify disruptions in the stability of the world as we know it. We very much envy bank robbers. We hope that every party we attend will turn into a riot if the police shut it down. When police are shot it is always revenge. When somebody kills or wounds somebody who raped them; such blood arouses us. When the rich suffer the poor are revived. When the banks are in crisis, we are all a little closer to being rich. “In a world which really is topsy-turvy, the true is in a moment of the false.” We hope that this magazine will act as another voice helping to foster discontent and frustration to all forms of domination today. As we said in our last issue: “this is why we exist. This is why we continue to come out with a new magazine every few months. But we hope to not be around forever, because like all revolutionary literature, we will only continue to exist until the current conditions we are frustrated with, cease to.” FAST + FORWARD FTTP #9-Briefing-Pg. 5 the kids are not alright! Photo of Hunter University Financial Aid office, after “vandals” attacked it on March 4th (day against student budget cuts). S ince our last issue had such an in-depth review of the recent escalation in student strikes and frustration in California, we found it necessary to include at least something about the recent overly hyped day of student action: March 4th. Although we intend to re-cap some of the inspiring events that took place counting up to this day, or some of the isolated incidents that appeared to be marginally interesting on the day of: we are very disappointed, but not surprised by the direction the “politicized” day went in. At least in New York, students at Hunter University were used as pawns in a classic game of Leftist media attention and event recuperation. But, this was to be expected. Authoritarian socialist organizations have looked to students as the prime target for sustaining their failed party for years. As they always do, they chose to divide students, and force them to understand “struggle with their conditions”, as only tangibly pursued through the programs proposed or mediums provided from the socialist party. No longer did students see an opportunity to manifest frustration, express discontent, or experience a moment that exposed a common undesirable condition. Students were either forced to laugh at the rhetoric of overbearing and annoying men and women on a podium, or try and make some sense of what THEY (the International Socialist Organization in this case) were telling them was wrong. This is nothing new. The only thing new is that their process of appropriating the event was interrupted by frustrated individuals and students uninterested in being represented by them. This manifested in a tirade of public arguing and half-assed scuffling, which although embarrassing to a degree, cer- tainly much more interesting than actually tolerating the alternative: a complete socialist takeover of the event. The event was not only appropriated with the ever so typical, high sign (using signs to claim the intentions of what those around are doing for media’s sake; like someone breaking a window, no one knowing why, but assuming that the sign that says socialist party is their motivation) strategy or podium/leadership style communication of socialist groups; they actually used the police by inviting them to an alleged demonstration that appeared to be intended to take place inside the school, with no leadership, only guided by a popular frustration: the university itself. The police divided students, made arrests, and helped to normalize the dissent by ruining any threat posed by the students. The police did this because the socialist party invited them; to help further mediate those who watched or participated (in whatever it was that FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 6 was happening), without concern for whether or not this could lead to the arrests of students (which it did). Although some damage seemed to have happened to the university based on reports; it is clear that the socialist party managed to use the police to their advantage. The police separated the students giving them the options to attend class, listen to the crazy people hollering on a podium about their school at the main entrance, or go to jail. Everything was politics as usual, purely symbolic, and self-fulfilling to a specific political party and program. Although it did not stop there. Following the events, socialists fabricated scuffles and threats made by students and individuals not tolerant of their recuperation process. They continued to divide anyone actively opposing student conditions by cornering them with lies of people making either sexual or physical threats of violence on March 4th. Without any concern for the sheer disrespect to victims of sexual assault or rape everywhere, they used a tragic situation to their political opportunity (like they always do), and even more offensively, one that did not exist. This is a method some have referred to as bad jacketing. This is where groups or individuals will produce strategic lies and spread them with false identities to demonize or isolate those opposing them. This of course is done with the intention of forcing them to be silent, or making the uninfluenced audience of such conflicts, bias, before any dialogue occurs. We heard similar stories of this happening across the country. This is not surprising; and very much something revolutionaries looking to intervene or provoke tension in these movements must take into account. Student struggle is nothing new, and is something that has been exploited in so many ways. Not to mention the dues of these organizations is primarily paid for with the incomes of professors and their student minions across the world. Beyond the obvious recuperation by the left, student movements have also been used as the mainstream’s under- standing of typical social rebellion. In most cases, especially in the United States, when any movement comes into play, or any demonstration receives attention, or any formal conflict is made with the social or political conditions of everyday life, if a student aspect comes into account, it is immediately passed off as something expected and insignificant. Many believe that (including many students) for four years students read a lot of weird or radical content, and as a result, realize how awful so many things are. Following school, or their 4 year career of “political” curiosity, people understand these things as just “life being unfair” (sarcastic reference of the mainstream’s understanding of student revolt). With this kind of calculated typicality, the “non-youth” per se may share common frustrations expressed by student movements, but the appearance and assumptions of student based movements politics or rituals, simply burn any bridge that could be formed. As many students pride themselves as being “a student”, they neglect that many youth do not attend schools of universities, either due to a lack of finances or interest. With a movement that is passed off the way student movements are, organizations with no intention of ever generalizing, leech off of the curiosity of young minds. The ISO, Spartacus League, ANSWER, or the Revolutionary Communist Party (the “Peta 2” of the ISO) have had their hands in these schools for years. This is because student struggle is something that will be there as long as Universities exist, and the expendable incomes of the pettybourgeoisie continue to remain politically curios. With that said, we intend to report on some of the interesting resistance that occurred around this day and days before this event. We also want to include other “youthful” cases of social resistance, considering this event would be very limited and boring without them. It is important for us to recognize the potential of student struggles in terms of sheer numbers that can be mobilized and its accessibility to revolutionary intervention. This can be done by exposing interesting events that do occur; but we do intend to be very weary of both the political world of student movements, as well as the capabilities of student movements actually becoming a threat today, specifically with the tragedy of the modern American youth (and simply how boring and apathetic we are). Considering many define the Youth threat as the student threat, we suggest that people re-consider the history and limitations of this outlook. We would hope that those interested in mobilizing the common tension youth feel with society today, would explore other areas of youth celebration that could be pushed into becoming materialized conflicts. Reassuring the world of the threat that very well could be seen there. Because the 60’s failed, and there is never a reason to beat a dead horse. As we said, we have heard similar experiences like what was seen at Hunter college in New York on March 4th, across the country. We hope that the events reported on below inspire those interested in “youth” or “student” oriented movements, to focus and learn from different potentialities that do come out of student frustration, while also looking at what isolates or limits them. We may be missing some things, but we intend to keep this as reporter like as possible. We again want to point out that the following reports include more than just simply events that took place on or connected to the sentiment around March 4th. Our interest in March 4th was only it being another potential opportunity for youth unrest and rupture in the social fabric. The following events should be understood as being connected by a youth sentiment of discontent, not by politics or formalities. Growing up today is giving in to a lost tomorrow. The kids are not alright. FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 7 NOTES OF “YOUTH” UNREST March 4th, 2010-NYC: Although with a very overwhelming New York police state style presence, we discovered reports of some resistance during the intended day of student walk-outs at Hunter College. Reports have said that at the beginning of the walk out, the police forcefully divided students following a call from socialist party members telling them to expect illegal conduct. Although the demonstration was divided into smaller groups and its momentum very much wounded by this, the financial aid office had its windows smashed out, and new security checkpoint equipment was also destroyed. Other then scuffles and interruptions with socialist proselytizing and recuperation, the day was relatively boring. Unfortunately 4 people were arrested. At SUNY Purchase, the student services building was temporarily claimed to be occupied by students of the school. Reports mention that the space was re-appropriated to be used as a party space for students, and to show footage of occupation attempts at other Universities. March 4th-2010Arizona It is said that a demonstration occurred at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, a cartoonishly college, college town. Really Phoenix, but primarily built around the Universities. It is said that banners were hung from some of the campus’s main buildings with one reading “Burn the Knowledge Factory”. Although students did march to the school president’s offices, following a temporary scuffle where papers and office equipment were thrown around the room, some of the students began to negotiate and make demands of the president. With this, they encouraged the march to “calm down”. Whether it is words or actual threats, writings have been posted online stating that this is only the beginning and more will be coming in the months to follow. Late February to Early March 2010-Olympia, Washington For 36 hours a housing center on Evergreen University’s campus was occupied by students FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 8 towards the end of February . Following this, on March 3rd and 4th, students conducted a study in at the campus’s library, where students refused to leave when the library typically closed. Although many have scoffed at these events due to Evergreen campus’ very liberal tradition, those involved with these events described them as incredible opportunities to bond over common frustrations and conditions faced by the overall student body. They described the events as helping to create new opportunities to recognize solidarity among a divided campus. fi’s cane, which was used to help him to deal with his polio. This was a few months after another student was tased for interrupting a speech by John Kerry. A few weeks after the incident, around March 16th, roughly 500 students rallied against University police brutality. They demonstrated against the use of recent police force, the way “mentally unstable” people are treated on campus, Kofi’s absurd weapons charge, and suspending the officers. It is not surprising, but it appears that none of these demands have been met by the police or University. March 4th- 2010 Boston, Virginia, Colorado, and Oklahoma Mid February 2010Greely, Minnesota Picketing and banner drops took place at Universities in major cities regarding budget cuts and the specific issue appointed as March 4th’s reason. Although the events did not seem to get very rowdy, the banners had some very confrontational rhetoric. Mid-February 2010 New Brunswick, Canada A proclaimed anarchist graduate in New Brunswick, Canada was accused of sabotaging the student union’s election process. Mid-March 2010Gainesville, Florida On March 2nd, University of Gainesville police on put a well known “mentally unstable” student named Kofi AduBrempong in critical condition, after reports of him having a nervous breakdown in his room. After responding to his neighbor’s 911 call, it is reported that University police entered his room, immediately shooting a taser followed by shotgun propelled bean bags at him After this was not enough to shut him up, police shot him in the head with an M-4 assault rifle. Of course not only are the police involved currently facing no charges, they are actually charging Kofi for possessing a deadly weapon. The weapon they are referring to is Ko- Police are investigating an attempted arson on a local public school. Police say that on February 10th, suspects wearing dark colored clothing threw a Molotov cocktail at the side of the school. The police say that found another device that was not detonated near the school as well. August 2009February 2010Spartanburg, South Carolina of the guard and grabbed his keys. On the way out, they had to fight and beat another guard. The first guard died in the hospital from the beating, while the second guard recovered. Prison guards in juvenile detention facilities have been notorious for sexual molestation of children, as well as multiple types of sadistic punishment due to the “behavior modification” aspect of American juvenile detention facilities. All three prisoners temporarily escaped. The 2 younger of the 3 were quickly captured, while the 18 year old was on the run for days, and was re-captured following a high speed chase with local law enforcement. All 3 are facing first degree murder, first degree battery, and escape charges. March 7th, 2010-Montana Students at Big Sky High School staged a walk out in protest with funding of the school by a local mining company notorious for destroying local bio-diversity and effecting the health of both students and their families. March 4th 2010Baltimore, Maryland Police say that 58 computers went abruptly missing after what they described as a “ghost” stole 37,000 dollars worth of computers from one of the University of South Carolina’s campus buildings. The police have no leads, but believe it very well may be a student, or someone who knows the campus well. There have been reports of computer thefts from 8 different buildings on campus consistently made since August last year. Mid-February 2010Forth Smith, Arkansas At a juvenile detention facility, 3 youths, one 15 years old, one 16 years old, and one 18 years old staged an escape attempt. During a routine cell check by one the guards, one of the three youths allegedly threw the guard into the cell. The other two commenced a beating University of Maryland students riot over defeating DUKE in a basketball game. Although sports riots are very hard to appreciate for anything other than their pure appearance, we found it very amusing that this seemed to be the most intense conflict and disruption seen on campuses on March 4th. With no connection to the strikes and protests held against budget cuts across the country, approximately 1,500 students flooded Baltimore’s route-1 as they typically do after each rival victory. Most students were actually celebrating with one another and simply enjoying the win. Reports say that following one report of furniture being thrown at a local bar, the police moved in on the crowd. With a long history of conflict between local students and the police, students or celebrators began to throw projectiles in defense of the event at the police. They also broke things in the street and on the sidewalk, and started fires. FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 9 Politically minded folks who accidently attended the event described it as a memorable moment, and apparently using words that made it seem more exciting than much of what was reported from campuses on March 4th. They described it by saying that not only property was destroyed, but typical divisions among the student body were also destroyed, while students came together against the police. They mentioned frat boys confronting police over racism, and students helping one another to avoid rubber bullets being shot at them, and police horses trampling them. Police arrested 27 people, most of whom were black, and only 13 of which were currently enrolled students at Maryland. March 4th-Milwaukee, Wisconsin Political students attempted to deliver petitions denouncing the budget cuts to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s chancellor. While the 250 or so students attempted to forcefully enter the office, police violently prevented them, resulting in 16 arrests. Although it is reported that students refused to go without fight; throwing punches and ice chunks at the police or school security. April 6th-2010-Seattle, Washington A power outage on and around University of WashingtonSeattle’s campus brought students together to celebrate whatever in the streets. With the street lights out, students reportedly set fires in the street using furniture and whatever else they could find. Around 11:30PM the police arrived, while trying to disperse the celebration, students attacked the police with bottles and cans. It took two hours for the police to disperse the crowd and contain the fire. No arrests were made. Second week of April 2010-Virginia An annual party at James Madison University that brings together thousands of the college’s students, as well as outside party goers ended in riots this year. Its reported that in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where the annual party is held, 8,000 students or partiers came together to celebrate the yearly event. The party is intended to last 3 days, and swarm the local town’s Fox Hill district. Most likely following police requests, many of the businesses chose to either shut down or not allow celebrations of students to occur for the first time since the event’s stardom. As a result party goers moved to a nearby neighborhood and began celebrating in the streets. Around 4 P.M on that Saturday afternoon, the police entered the bloc party to try and clear the crowd, announcing an “unlawful assembly”. Being completely outnumbered, the police were greeted with an array of beer bottles, forcing them to retreat, and return later with the help of state police. Two-hundred riot cops equipped for “crowd control” were also present. The police fired tear gas and used a mobile announcement system to divide the crowd and warn of arrests. Although dozens were arrested, students and party goers re- grouped in another local district as a 1000 strong. Police followed them and were forced to deal with continued assaults of projectiles like beer bottles and rocks. Multiple fires were also set in the streets and sidewalk trash cans and dumpsters. Philadelphia, PA-Flash Mobs manifesting youth discontent. It is a common anarchist practice to explain the rebellious activity of others through the political lens of anarchism without actually knowing (or understanding) the real motivations of the participants. Because of the unique nature of the following events, it would be inappropriate to try to infer too much about what was actually going through the minds of those involved. This article, then, seeks not to project an anarchist motivation onto the actions of Philadelphia’s teenagers, rather, it chronicles the behavior and examines the tactical coordination that was utilized. Last June, a group of close to 100 teenagers rampaged through Philadelphia’s trendy South Street, destroying property, stealing a taxi, and looting a convenience store. Almost immediately, a sense of outrage poured from the more “respectable” residents of the area, with news stories airing the grievances of angry yuppies. In the following months, similar incidents happened around South Street, with each flash mob becoming larger than the one before. Law enforcement suspected that groups of teenagers were communicating through Twitter, coordinating locations to meet in order to ransack hip neighborhoods. In March, the largest action of its kind occurred, with several hundred teenagers converging in downtown Philadelphia after dark, marching through the streets chanting “Burn the City” as they vandalized several businesses along South Street. The disruptive flash mob phenomenon is not isolated to Philadelphia. The practice has been spreading up the eastern seaboard over the past few months, with similar events occurring in New Jersey, Boston, and New York City, with Mayor Bloomberg referring to the New York incidents as “wilding”. The kids in Philly did not communicate a political desire in a way that most radicals can easily understand because our static language is unable to describe newly emerging subversive behavior. While not necessarily expressing a clear political motivation, the Philadelphia flash mobs have, through their innovative techniques, demonstrated advanced forms of tactical organization and communication. Those of us involved in radical circles can learn a great deal from these subversive forms of communication. It is interesting how a tactic developed initially as a means to facilitate avant-garde street performances and hipster FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 10 dance parties has been so successfully subverted, presently striking fear into the hearts of the wealthy. The fact that a new trend is emerging, a trend determined by nothing other than its desire to converge publicly and destroy property, is clearly terrifying to power. The fact that the participants are overwhelmingly black makes the situation that much more frightening to the system. The flash mobs don’t speak the language of power, and, as a result, the state doesn’t know any way to stop them other than through direct repression. The city of Philadelphia has stated that the citywide curfew will be more tightly enforced, and politicians are discussing plans to limit the movement of young people by decreasing the hours that students can use their free bus passes. of the police used spontaneous communication via cell phone and text message to reconverge and continue to burn cars and attack police after initial demonstrations had been dispersed. The advantages of using flash mobs as a guerrilla tactic to confront capital are numerous. Unlike publicly organized meetings and general assemblies, they leave little room for infiltration. If the mission is compromised and anonymous pre-paid (burner) phones are used, it is extremely difficult for the state to identify people from the text messages they sent. It is interesting that, in recent times, the most effective actions against the functioning of the city of Philadelphia have come not from seasoned anarchists but from bored high school students. It is time for those of us in the radical scene to be willing to learn from the kids and to adopt new tactics. Crews of people can use burner phones to coordinate locations to meet up to loot grocery stores, attack right-wingers, evade advancing police, host street parties, or occupy buildings. We most clearly saw the potential of the subversive use of mass texting during the weeks of rioting in the French banlieus in the fall of 2005 and again in November of 2007. There, people outraged by the deaths of young people at the hands Sociologists and liberals have predictably defined the reason for the behavior by pointing to the same old causes as they have for the past 50 years--the after school programs are being cut, the libraries are closing. These reasons may, of course, offer a partial explanation, but it’s obvious that a lot more is going on. It is quite likely that the real motivation is something that can’t be stopped by the usual increases in social spending (increases that are highly unlikely in the midst of an economic recession) and that the flash mobs offer more excitement than any state-funded program. Greetings From Philly’s Flash Mob Student Revolt in California: a chronology since our last issue... February 3rd San Francisco Chaos erupted outside of a student benefit party in the SOMA district of San Francisco early Sunday morning as police drew their firearms during a struggle to restrain some of those in attendance and shut down the party. The benefit was organized to raise money for the legal defense and fines received by protesters involved in the occupation at SF State and the UC system. At 12:47 a.m., police and firefighters entered a storefront warehouse at 154 Seventh St. between Mission and Howard Streets and ordered everyone to vacate the premises after two undercover officers reported underage drinking inside the venue. Police arrested 11 people, one of whom was booked on three felony charges including aggravated assault but until after an all-out brawl broke out between some of the partygoers and police. One cop was seen being beaten down by several people and was forced to retreat from the crowd. Within minutes of the outbreak, several more police cars arrived on the scene with officers running from their vehicles to break up and restrain the fight. Rocks and bottles were thrown at police cars as they arrived on the scene, chants of “Fuck the Police” echoed from all sides of the street, and police shoved people who were standing in the street ordering them to the sidewalk. After police were successful in ending the party and dispersing the crowd they destroyed the DJ equipment inside and vandalized the building to prevent the party-throwers from staging future benefits. Several months later, after an exhaustive investigation by students and journalists, the two undercover officers were revealed to be Larry Bertrand and Michelle Ott, who are notorious among San Francisco’s underground party scene for being overzealous alcohollaw enforcers and all-around haters of fun. Those attending or throwing unpermitted parties in San Francisco should be vigilant about not letting these two narcs in or near their parties. All charges against those arrested at the party were later dropped except for one person who still faces a felony explosives charge for allegedly throwing an M-80 firecracker at a cop. February 24th – Irvine 20 Students occupied the office of the Chancellor of UC – Irvine. As those inside waited to be led out or arrested, From the March 25th Durant Hill riots in Berkeley, CA. Rioters are “ghost riding the whip.” FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 12 dozens of outside supporters gathered and blocked the entrances with dumpsters. They held the street for some time and cheered as their friends were released. Considering that Irvine is one of the most repressive and conservative cities in California, the fact that this action received such instantaneous support among fellow students and other passerby got many of those on campus excited for the upcoming student strike. February 25th - Berkeley In anticipation of the Match 4th student strike, one hundred people, some students but many not, occupied Durant Hall, a UC Berkeley administration building that had been under construction. Initially, a roving dance party moved into the commandeered building but the festivities rapidly morphed into the collective construction of barricades. Culling materials from the construction site, the occupiers weaved long metal poles through the surrounding fences and stacked wooden planks atop them in an attempt to block expected police movements. Meanwhile, inside Durant Hall--which was being remodeled with funding from student tuition increases--some occupiers methodically went about wrecking construction machines, smashed windows, painted graffiti, and hung banners. After approximately 45 minutes, many of those present felt that time was up after noticing that university police were staging nearby for an imminent raid and they soon made the quick decision to abandon the occupation before the police could have time to react. The occupiers restarted the music and moved the crowd out of the building and off campus onto adjacent Telegraph Ave, a street of bars, restaurants and clothing shops. As the mass of marchers and dancers moved into the street, several people moved forward out of the crowd and smashed out the windows of a Subway sandwich shop. Some university police moved up behind the march and, to avoid arrest, the marchers dissipated into the on-looking crowds on the sidewalks who were just at that moment exiting the bars after last-call. This was the turning point of the night, as many of those random drinkers and passersby took back the intersection, excited by the commotion. A large dumpster was moved out of an alleyway and set ablaze in the street. Since police in the United Stares are usually legally barred form attempting to move flaming objects, the Berkeley police were forced to call in the fire department to put out the blaze. This gave the crowd time to grow in numbers. The mass quickly swelled to about 300 at its height, three times its original size. Break-dancers appeared in the street and videos from the event show people laughing and smiling, clearly enjoying the excitement and potential of the moment. After the fire department moved in, several bouncers from near-by clubs tried to make citizens-arrest on those DJing the sound cart and others they assumed to be controlling the crowd. Immediately, they were beaten down by the rioters, forcing the police to move into the crowd to make arrests. This began an hour-long stand-off between the street-partiers and the line of riot police who were clearly understaffed at this late hour. Two arrests and some un-arrests were made, with many police officers being hit by scavenged projectiles. One unlucky pig received a fire extinguisher to the groin. Eventually numbers fell and the crowd ended the standoff, moving down the street and uphill. Several dumpsters were pushed full-speed downhill into the line of approaching cops before the crowd escaped without additional arrests. While the Durant Riot of February 26th was quantitatively not the biggest event, either by numbers in attendance or level of damage, qualitatively it showed the fighting potential struggling to emerge from the still nascent “student movement”. In many ways, the riot was exemplary in its participation of non-students and its open con- flict with the police. Any true student strike will have to also involve people who are excluded from the university, and the Durant riot and occupation was a perfect example of such a possibility. Perhaps most importantly, the occupation of Durant Hall materialized the often over-blown rhetoric of “dismantling the academic monolith”. We are of course sympathetic to such a practice, but forgive us if our cynicism leaves us to note the gap between rhetoric and practice in the current student movement against budget cuts. During the occupation of Durant Hall, however, the actual destruction of university property demonstrated the material weight behind such rhetoric. Some participants later released a communiqué in which they stated: “This is the coveted mass movement! The point where people question their roles and identities as students, as street people, as jocks, or as activists. Walkouts in September, occupations in November, riots in the streets in February and March. This points to nothing less than the willingness of participants to exceed the boundaries of expectation imposed upon the movement.” March 1st – Berkeley In response to a string of racist attacks and verbal assaults at UC San Diego and elsewhere, the UC Berkeley Black Student Union blocked Sather Gate for two hours dressed entirely in black clothing. March 3rd Fullerton, Ca 18 people occupied the 18-story Humanities building at California State University – Fullerton. The occupiers constructed a heavily fortified barricade by overturning dumpsters and bracing them with long steel bicycle racks. Unfortunately, university police were able to gain access to the building after a few hours by crawling up through a manhole in the basement connected FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 13 to an underground tunnel. All of those inside were arrested and later released with student conduct charges. They later released a statement which read in part: “As our project may be to open the school of Humanities to the communities beyond the university context, those outside might ask: why the barricades? The school of Humanities cannot be a truly autonomous space until we have built the community to defend it, to ensure a space devoid of police, university and state violence and repression” March 4th: Students strike and walkout across California, on nearly every college campus in the state, as well as many high and middle schools. What follows are a few brief sketches and moments with which we feel a particular affinity. This is in no way meant to be an exhaustive summary and we do not seek to present an overly congratulatory view of the student movement. In many ways the growing anti-budget-cuts movement is certainly lacking, but we feel that events such as these always have the potential to supersede their particular foci and demand to move towards something more substantial. For a more extensive list and more information please consult occupyca.wordpress.com or indybay.org. Santa Cruz: Early morning picket lines at UC Santa Cruz blocked all the main entrances to the campus, effectively shutting down all classes and university business. Some drivers became aggressive with the pickets, plowing through the strikers and injuring some, only to have their windows knocked out. At the end of the day a march of strikers moved off campus and into the downtown area, where they later dispersed. Berkeley/Oakland: After thousands of students, teachers, and workers walked out across school systems, a mass rally was held at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland. At the end of the rally a breakaway march of 150 people snaked through downtown Oakland and then briefly seized Interstate Highway 880, blocking traffic for nearly three hours. Oncoming riot police arrested most of those who marched onto the freeway though some escaped by exiting down different offramps or scurrying down nearby trees. One fifteen-year old protester named Francois Zimouney fell 20 feet off the highway and suffered a concussion in an attempt to escape a police beating. This was the most-high profile highway takeover in the United States in some years. As the arrested were marched in handcuffs off the highway, drivers stuck in traffic got out of their cars and cheered for them. Two 880 Takeover participants later released this statement: “Dawn of the Crisis Generation” March 4th is over, but we’ve only just begun. “Why the hell did you get on that highway?” asked the cops, our cell mates, our coworkers, our classmates. There are many responses that could be given that have been outlined by banners, occupation demands, student leaders, or budget statistics, but none of them really connect to why one would take over a highway. Obviously there are no libraries on a highway. The funding for schools isn’t going to be found on any one of those lanes of oncoming traffic. And, in fact, a lot of people who were arrested on the highway were not students or teachers. This is because the highway takeover is an action against a power structure that is much larger than this year’s budget crisis. That morning we awakened to newspaper headlines stating the governor’s support for sanctioned student protests. We weren’t the least bit impressed by this patronizing rhetoric. Our motivations for walking up that on ramp to 880 were far deeper and broader than some piddly demand for a return of the same: An education system that has for a long time been the bedrock to our highly divided class system in the United States. The myth that change will come to this society by poor people reaching middle class status through the university makes no sense; a school degree does not impact the condition of the neighborhoods and families we come from. It should also now be clear to everyone that ritualized demonstrations that fail to break out of the normal functioning of society represent nothing more than the further consolidation of state power. What fails to concretely disrupt the system ultimately strengthens it. We know that if we “win” funding from Governor Schwarzenegger this is no victory, but a diversion of funds from one group of already-struggling people to pacify another, without changing shit. For example, plans are in the works that will take money from the health care of prisoners in order to fatten university administrators’ pockets. We refuse to accept a shallow bribe that places “our” interests in competition with the interests of our potential comrades. It was our experience on the highway that made the question of who our allies and adversaries are infinitely clear. As we ran up the on-ramp behind handheld flares declaring our occupation of the freeway, inmates in the adjacent jail pounded on their cell windows in excitement. Later, after the police beatings, as we sat in cuffs on the other side of the freeway, yuppies held a sign in the windows of their condominiums reading “Fuck U Protesters,” as commuters who were stuck in traffic honked and cheered for us. For a few hours we substantially disrupted commerce; shipments of products were delayed and crowds at local shopping malls dwindled. On the dayto-day we don’t, in any tangible way, have any sway over the systems that rule our lives. We had many slogans and ideas in each of our individual brains from all the speeches and banners having to do with fee hikes, de- FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 14 mands to Sacramento, blah blah. But underneath all of our different reasons we could formulate for media quotes and skeptical friends was a desire to exercise some sort of power over a system that we really have no control over. For those of us who are not students, those who labor in the service industry, who live precariously on welfare benefits, who share overcrowded rooms, who can’t pay the rent and are months behind on the utilities, for those of us who are told everyday that we are nothing, taking over the highway was an assertion of our collective power. It is unlikely that anything we have ever done has had as great an effect on our surroundings. The sight of miles of traffic brought to a standstill was an indication of a true, if fleeting, glimpse of the havoc we are capable of. As has been echoed many times since the fall of 2008, we are not making this shit up: We Are The Crisis. Each action brings another inspiration and another lesson. The highway takeover was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. We sat in our jail cells shaking our heads asking ourselves and others why we decided to march on the 880. Some of us felt pressure to connect the action to the education budget crisis. Some of us felt like it was a huge tactical error to enter onto a freeway overpass without escape routes. But somehow, despite these apprehensions and valid concerns, we decided to go anyway. This is a message to affirm and congratulate that instinct that forced our feet forward to shut down a major artery of the bay area. Next time we will strike when it is even more unexpected; when the state is not prepared. We will choose terrain that is to our tactical advantage and not allow ourselves to be so caught up in symbolic locations. We will continue to wait long hours outside of jail houses and in courtrooms for each other. In each action we take we gain confidence in the power we have together. Soon we will be un- fuckwithable. Irvine: During a police charge on the 880, 15 year-old Francois Zimany fell from the 25 foot high overpass, sustaining fractures to his skull, pelvis, and wrist. Initial reports suggested that he was pushed by police officers, newer information indicates that he most likely fell trying to escape arrest. In either situation, we hold the Oakland Police Department responsible for his injuries. Francois, we don’t know you, but we love you. We are comrades for life. 400 Students marched around campus, took over the streets and occupied several buildings but were unable to hold the spaces so instead held a mass general assembly in front of the administration building at Aldrich Hall. Davis: At UC Davis, 500 students also attempted to march onto the freeway but were prevented by riot police and rubber bullets. Several students were beaten and many were shot with pepper-spray rounds. One student was arrested. Los Angeles: At UCLA 75 students staged a sit-in at Murphy Hall and later left of their own accord without arrest. April 14th – San Francisco In response to university repression of students at San Francisco State University, 20 people occupied the Student Center in the early morning hours with the intention of putting it under direct worker and student control. The barricades proved insufficient and police were able to break in, pepper-spraying those inside. Most of the occupiers escaped, but two women were arrested and held for two days in San Francisco County Jail on felony burglary charges. These were later dropped to misdemeanors and the two have their next court date on May 26th. From the March 25th Durant Hill riots in Berkeley, CA. Here rioters gather together around bonfires in the street. FTTP #9-The Kids Are Not Alright-Pg. 15 2010 MAY DAY SB1070 + GLOBAL CLASS CONFLICT FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 16 What is the SB1070? An expected display of governance A sign of tension and upheaval to come. SB1070 is a law enacted in Arizona that helps enable more harsh policing methods for suspected “illegal” immigrants. A few of its most captivating features are: 1)Police are entitled to question whomever they think could be an illegal immigrant based solely on their appearance. 2)Police are entitled to transfer suspected “illegal immigrants” to the hands of federal authorities for deportation, without trial. 3)Federal law can not intervene with state enforce- ment of this law. 4)Being in the country”illegally” is now a state misdemeanor. 5)If local citizen’s feel that the police are not fully enforcing this law, they are entitled to sue the police for malpractice. This May Day, tension was very real, on all fronts demonstrating around the world, specifically anarchists and insurrectionary groups used this holiday as an opportunity to retaliate against the conditions of the proletariat. Bounded Bodies and Borderlands By Marat Rackham “I held the citizenship of the land of pain, I was issued with its passport and I couldn’t envisage when it would expire or what would replace it or where the urge of travel away from it would eventually take me to, nor at what shores this would abandon me. In the territory of pain, there is a certain uncertainty, I thought, of a future outside of it.” – Maps, Nuruddin Farah Of course this is simply another law. One more link on the chain. But similarly to California’s proposition 8 bill in 2008/9, it is not interesting to us because it is more or less harsh or restricting than any other law, it is interesting because of the social tension it will inevitably provoke. We can see this tension in France, Greece, Chile, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, or Spain come into play to the advantage of revolutionary projects aimed at destroying all aspects of a society that divides us, and forces us to survive it. Where insurrectionary or anarchist groups are fighting side by side with discontented immigrants, struggling against a common enemy: the state. Imagining Ruins: While mainstream media, left, and liberal groups chose to denounce and isolate the acts of resistance, it is quite obvious that people are fed up. While some are confused by certain acts of violence, we are all unified a feeling of frustration. The following is a submission we received regarding SB1070 act. It provides some interesting incite into the implications of this newly enacted law. It also provides a good introduction to the resistance mentioned in the May Day reports that follow. “Someone just came in and shot my daughter and husband,” a woman screams to a 911 operator. She describes – in between horrendous moans – the attack. Shortly after the call begins the sound of a screeching door can be heard echoing faintly in the background. “They are coming back in! They are coming back in!” she bellows. However, her screams are immediately drowned out by the incessant roar of gunfire. This attack left two people dead, one being a nine year old girl. Twelve days later four people were in police custody, three of whom had connections to the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, and one, apparently, was loosely associated with several Aryan Nation groups. This attack occurred in a state, in a borderland, that may prove to be exceptionally significant in the furtherance of anti-state conflictuality. That state is Arizona. I n light of the international financial crisis, the current vulnerability in the capitalist world-system, and the emergence of a hemispheric leftist electoral revival (and inevitable disappointment for many) we can see that lines are being drawn. The state, its proponents, and its enforcers have, out of ideological and practical necessity, strengthened international borders. Huge swaths of land are becoming increasingly militarized, and the body, in effect, becomes imagined, and most importantly, further disciplined as docile property. Due to this, it is entirely common to view societies, and nation-states as having actual concrete correspondence, when this is FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 17 rarely the case. The recently passed law in Arizona, SB1070, with all of its draconian pretension, illustrates perfectly well the farcical nature of national correspondence, and the subjectification of the body. This law, and its apparent spread, is a desperate attempt to halt the potential decomposition of accepted social forms. Therefore the time is ripe for attack. Hemispherically there has been an acute rise of left-leaning (rhetorically speaking) governments – from Chavez and Lula, culminating in Obama. It had been obvious, from the outset that these governments were attempting to restructure capital in their own nuanced ways, and construct nanny states in their respective boundaries. The maintenance of relations dominated by the logic of capital has not, and will not be altered by these governments, but a statist driven economy is materializing. This has been applauded by leftists in the United States and Latin America, but there has been a substantial offensive in these countries. From the Tea Parties to the coup in Honduras, reactionary forces are on the march. Amidst this background we are witnessing a hemispheric electoral battle that is having predictable effects – the strengthening of nationalistic tendencies, the strict enforcement of borders, and an encompassing proliferation of disciplinary mechanisms. These procedures are being advanced by the left-leaning regimes, and are not extensive enough for the reactionary forces. The financial crisis has also had an interesting effect. From Greece to California we are seeing similar occurrences. Government revenues are substantially down because people are consuming less market goods. Since employment is so high the demand for state expenditures is increasing: unemployment, welfare, etc. One main option states have is increasing taxes, which is never popular and increases capital flight. Another option is cutting basic expenditures which often leads to unrest. The state, then, has an insurmountable dilemma, but its subjects are left with many options. With the increasing instability in the world-system, the decomposition of accepted social forms is becoming increasingly explicit. Our pre-established roles are constantly being challenged, and the state is desperately trying to recuperate insurgent potential. But the growth of reactionary elements is extremely pervasive; the disciplining of bodies, the fortification of national identity, the assemblage of insidious institutions and procedures to actualize the material whole of an imagined concrete society. “Seal the Borders Now,” “Bring Family Values Back,” “Restore America’s Decency Law,” and “Take our Country Back,” are the slogans of reaction. Border agents, in the United States, have reached around 20,000, 653 miles of fence have been constructed along the US-Mexico border, and pilotless drones patrol at night. These, being the most blatant manifestation of state power, are clearly just the beginning. The framework is in place for further state expansion. Since 2008, ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and Homeland Security’s program, satirically titled, “Secure Communities,” has been working with local law enforcement, detaining and deporting thousands of undesirables. SB1070, in Arizona, is the latest legal incarnation of the previous slogans: it is a feeble attempt at instilling imagined national restoration. These borderlands have long been a societal amalgamation. People have previously gone back and forth through the border at will. But due to the crisis, we see lines being drawn. The increasing demand for documentation for “non-citizens” is coupled with the quest for national ID cards for “legitimate citizens.” Social dissolution is confronted with national branding, but the apparatuses of security, of discipline, can be met with a nefarious lucidity; with shattered glass, with bats, with arson. Unilateral violence can, and must be met, with a protracted struggle; the draining of state resources, and the beautiful incandescence of the proletarian cocktail illuminating through the social body is the ideal response. The May Day upheavals were a proportionate response to state advances at this time. The attack on Wells Fargo in Denver, the shattered store fronts in New York, the rampage in Santa Cruz, the sabotaged railways in Ontario, the property damage in Asheville, the occupation in San Francisco all demonstrate our revolutionary potential. One cannot help but smile when we read that police chief Bill Hogan in Asheville states, “I’m not sure what message they’re trying to send, quite frankly.” One wonders what message will be deduced if new fires will consistently be replaced with past ones? What will be the message when we finally stop regulating ourselves? One can be certain that the murder of 9 year old Brisenia Flores and her, father Raul Flores, in Arizona had a fixed message. Hopefully this act will not be forgotten by those in the borderlands. The state and its adherents imagine a future, a future devoid of potentialities. And while national correspondence is an imagined ideal – an orthodox portrait arranged with social security cards and time slots – we must imagine ruins. In this “territory of pain” there is truly a “certain uncertainty,” and we would be wise to continue the onslaught of the current social order. Unilateral violence can, and must be met, with a protracted struggle; the draining of state resources, and the beautiful incandescence of the proletarian cocktail illuminating through the social body is the ideal response. FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 18 MAYDAY: After effects of the Santa Cruz “Dance Party” May Day riots. Highlights and reports regarding global unrest and repression, on May 1st, 2010 Note: This section was compiled while going into print. It actually was very frustrating to compile in a short period of time so close to our deadlines. We tried to recount some of the events that specifically caught our attention around the world on May 1st. We apologize if things have changed in regards to legal cases or if we did not mention certain events. Santa Cruz, California: About $100,000 in property damage was done by what authorities are calling a “planned May Day riot” disguised as a dance party, or a dance party that became a riot. What seems to be a make shift march put together through anonymous flyering brought out about 250 people the night of May 1st in Santa Cruz’s downtown. The party also went without police confrontation for the majority of it’s occurrence due to 911 calls the police claim were made to spread them thin and distract them from a specific area of destruction and illegality. It is hard to gather a concrete report of the events, considering the media’s coverage is very conflicting in different reports. But from footage that has been flooding Santa Cruz’s local television it appears that some wealthy shops and chain stores had their windows destroyed. The march and the majority of the destruction took place on Santa Cruz’s pacific avenue which is where the rich people go to mingle, and the poor people go to ask for money. Class tension on this block is quite obvious, and a ferocious display of retaliation is completely understandable, and almost appropriate for a May Day. From footage and a few reports we can tell that a jewelry outlet, Urban Outfitters, and Jamba Juice were some of the more effected businesses. Reports also state that an attempt of setting fire to the porch of a local coffee shop, “Cafe Pergolesi” with torches also happened during the march. An anarchist web site states that the intention behind this may have had something to do with their part in working with an FBI investigation into local “Animal Liberation” activities in the past few years. A police car was also attacked by demonstrators, paint was thrown on stores and property, and graffiti was written wherever the march went. What seems to be two random arrests have happened in response to the riot. A 24 year old and a 41 year old. Both are homeless or “transients” according to the media. One was arrested for allegedly being seen by ”witnesses” throwing a rock through a Jewelry store’s win- VIOLENCE//REVENGE A DAY FOR CELEBRATING PROLETARIAN FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 19 dows. The other was arrested because the police say they found him near the events, and he had paint on him. Both seem to be part of Pacific avenue’s homeless community. The 24 year old male from Fresno was arrested while being on parole for a prior burglary charge, his bail was set to $105,000 dollars. The 41 year old has been released. Police are trying to place blame on a local anarchist coffee shop after the 24 year old arrested, Jimi Haynes told the judge that he found out and became interested in the event from working at the local “anarchist” coffee shop. While the town is coming down on the anarchist space with no where else to formally place blame, the “Sub Rosa Anarchist coffee shop and lending library” have made statements denying any formal involvement, but not denouncing the events. The mayor claims that not denouncing the events is more evidence to their involvement. What is somewhat frightening is that Jimi is suddenly stating that he volunteered at the space for a year, and that they were responsible for him being there, but at the same time the space says that they have never even met the man. It is common practice for police, when they cannot point fingers, they will pressure the easily attainable to do it for them. The police are also using this opportunity to ask the city for funding for more street officers. The police are also offering a 5,000 dollar reward for any information leading to arrests from the May Day riot. The FBI is also taking interest in these events, and are helping the local police to bottom line investigations. ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: A small roving mob wreaked havoc in downtown Asheville, North Carolina on May Day. Tourist shops, ATMs, and novelty cafes and boutiques serving the rich their high end art or food were a few of the targets attacked. From video footage, it also appears that an AT&T, Bank of America, and the local conservative newspaper was also attacked. While the local community is demonizing the mob as it prides itself in its rich liberal tradition, this notoriously racist city in western North Carolina scoffs at the acts as it smells its own farts of an ecofriendly liberal mecca for wealthy hippies and retired radicals. Those arrested are being called anarchists. They are also being attacked from all sides; conservative, liberal, left, right, and in some cases even the so called “local anarchists” whom are saying that the events hurt Asheville’s local community’s perspective on “anarchist politics”. Apparently they have no contempt for the tastes and spaces reserved for the rich’s comfort in society, and no interest in supporting May Day’s inherent tradition, of avenging the proletariat. ity. In a town where the biggest monument is of Robert E. Lee, and most of its business caters to wealthy eco-tourists, retired white families, and hippy students, it is not surprising that the city is showing its feeling of “shock” to these displays of contempt for the lifestyles of the racist and in the form of demonizing those allegedly responsible. They probably aren’t used to being told that there is a problem with the social set up of things, and are frightened of those declaring war on their normalcy. The same neighborhood is well known for a large police presence to contain the homeless population to designated areas, so tourists will not be afraid to shop. The homeless of Asheville spend much of their time in this neighborhood, as they wait outside expensive stores, hoping those coming out will spare some change. avl11defense.wordpress.com howdotheywork@gmail.com Reports claim that somewhere around 20,000 dollars in damage occurred mostly in the form of broken windows. Police responded and arrested 11 individuals, holding them all on felony property destruction charges and 50,000 dollar bail each. Another woman, who was a well known citizen of Asheville was arrested that night and released. She is currently trying to sue the local police department for brutal- Somehow the money was raised to bail almost all of them out, but funds are still needed to help with legal defense building support, and to help spread thin the damages done raising bail. It is also said that many local lawyers are refusing to defend the group apparently due to biases. The police are keeping the phones of all 11 arrested and facing charges. Of the eleven arrested only two have prior charges the state claims to have been politically influenced. A support web site and email contact was created to provide updates and ways of supporting the 11 arrested: Greece: Massive anarchist demonstrations took place country-wide. Clashes in Athens resulted in many arrests and two serious injuries. In light of the IMF’s new austerity measures in Greece, May Day demonstrations went beyond the usual union parades: an anarchist-autonomous march of 4,000 was involved in most of the clashes with police. Businesses were destroyed, police were fire bombed, and only ten arrests among the thousands rioting together took place. Please look to our featured article on Greece in this issue, as the situation in Greece continues to worsen for capitalism and the state. New York: A spontaneous march appeared in one of New York City’s (and probably the world’s) most wealthy neighborhoods: Soho in downtown Manhattan. Cops and media report that an autonomous march of “vandals” took place separate of the main May Day demonstration being held in Union Sq. Around noon, after marching up Broadway (one of Manhattan’s busiest avenues) Banks, ATMs, and specifically an American Apparel outlet had their windows smashed out. FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 20 Footage also shows a chubby man with red glasses and a blackberry calling the police and trying to follow who he thought smashed out American Apparel’s windows. Footage also shows one of the march’s Black Clad demonstrators punching him in the face after he starts to try and snitch out one of the rioters. Five arrests occurred, mostly based on witness’s statements. As far as we know all five have been released, either facing or charged with disorderly conduct. All of the five’s phones were taken by the police as evidence, similarly to those in North Carolina. Violence seems to be a typical experience for American Apparel, as the local news blog: “The Gothamist” reported a similar incident a month ago (it can also be read about in the “Doing the Damn thing section”). They claim that “anti-capitalist” youth feel a particular disdain for the chain store because of its recuperation of specifically urban youth culture. San Francisco: A roving street party began after the city’s main May Day march. The street party was called “reclaim the streets” and resulted in a snaking march through San Francisco’s mission district, starting from Dolores Park. Reports say that a Wells Fargo bank was attacked. The March stopped, as it tried to occupy a school that’s been abandoned for years, hoping to make it open for public use by the neighborhood. Eleven arrests resulted from the demonstration and occupation attempt. Germany: Thousands of anti-authoritarians clashed with police and Nazis throughout the country. Most of the violence and rioting was in Berlin and Hamburg. Ten police were injured during one confrontation with about 150 people. Police and Nazi protestors teamed up to clash with anarchists throughout May day. In Berlin alone, there were 7,000 police in the streets prepared for any rioting. Anarchists still responded with stones and fire, and rampaged the city streets, overwhelming Nazis and police. Insurrectionary violence is escalating by the day, while anti-fascist and anarchist activities continue to be uncompromising and consistent. Burning wealthy cars has become a nightly ritual in Germany’s major cities, and anarchist resistance has according to the state outnumbered any other political “criminality” in the country, with 1,822 offences since May 2009 alone, that claim were anarchist. While this sort of resistance continues to grow, the state is becoming more and more frustrated, as they are not sure how to calm it. An article in Aljazeera quotes Stefan Ruppert, an expert on extremism and an MP for the pro-business Free Democrats party, in response to the rising violence against the state: “The left wing extremist scene is made up of a very heterogeneous group of people with different ideological views,” “Only the vague goal of overthrowing our existing social order serves as a unifying effect. This complexity ... makes it all the more difficult to grasp the problem as a whole and work out solutions.” They refer to this new tendency among what they call “left wing groups” as “a new generation”. What they mean by left wing is not fascist groups, but these groups are clearly neither authoritarian or leftist in any way. Reports claim that there were 9 arrests in Hamburg, and although 34 people were detained in Berlin, we have not seen any reports of any more arrests in Germany from that day. Macau, China: Police are attacked after spraying workers with water cannons for refusing to follow the “planned protest route”. Workers refuse as they demanded expanded labor rights. Victoria, BC: A police station was attacked. sabotaged a large electrical maintenance shed. A communiqué states: “This action was done in the spirit of the general strike; taking immediate action towards the destruction of capitalism.” Zurich, Switzerland: Police use water cannons to disperse riots sparked by large bonuses granted for bankers. Denver, Colorado: Anarchists attacked a Wells Fargo at night. No arrests were made. An excerpt from the communiqué can be read here: “A whole bunch of windows were shattered with a wide variety of stones procured from the lovely landscaping areas around the bank. In a true display of diversity of tactics, larger rocks were thrown through doors and first floor windows, while smaller rocks knocked out panes thought to be out of reach. All participants dissolved safely into the night, a May Day properly celebrated. Solidarity with all those that got wild for May Day, the fighters in Greece, our comrades in struggle in Oaxaca and all seeking total liberation from capitalist totality.” Santiago, Chile: At least 86 people were arrested following demonstrations when masked participants began to “create disorder.” Nijmegen, Netherlands: The largest May Day demonstration that the anarchists have had in decades. Clashes between cops and anarchists occurred. Istanbul, Turkey: 140,000 people marched on Istanbul’s Taksim Square for the first time in over 36 years. In 1977 34 people were killed after a shooting triggered a stampede. Toronto, Ontario: Anarchists FTTP #9-May Day 2010-Pg. 21 THE 2010 OLYMPICS OUR FINAL REPORT ON AN non-CONCLUDED TENSION: *CHRONOLOGY *RETROSPECT T here is so much to be addressed considering the 6 years of resistance leading up to the Olympic Games. In this article we are focusing on Vancouver anarchist participation and initiative, as this is what we know. There are many other elements to appreciate that as parts also make up some kind of whole. This article focuses primarily on the 2010 Anti-Capitalist/AntiColonial Convergence that took place during the Olympics from February 10-15 in Vancouver. There is much more to be discussed, and some outcomes of these days will only become relevant in time: this is just one contribution. We are trying to strike a balance between information and ideas and we don’t want to ramble forever, so some important circumstances are left out. The Olympics is not just a worldwide event, it is a project used to accelerate what the bosses are already doing: expanding capitalism, colonization, social control and industrial/technological civilization. The project is the subjugation *TO COME of our lives to the plans of the bosses, the hyper-expansion of security forces and the exploitation of the earth, destroying our possibilities to live free. -Riot 2010, Riot Now: Attacking the Olympics and its project: Canada, Greece and Italy A SIMPLE OVERVIEW: Vancouver won the Olympic bid in 2003. In the lead up to the bid and in the years to follow the impacts of the Olympics were already visible: civil city bylaws (new civic morality laws), massive gentrification, increased private security and ski resort expansion to name a few. Initially, anarchists in so-called British Columbia were inspired to participate in anti-Olympics resistance by the ongoing indigenous resistance to ski-resorts and development, destroying land and ways of life. Indigenous resistance promoted the slogan “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land,” FTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 22 and an explicitly Anti-Capitalist/AntiColonial convergence. Undermining Canada, coupled with an anti-capitalist analysis became a basis of struggle which tied together groups and individuals in collaboration against common enemies. Anarchist struggle runs parallel to the goals and methods of some indigenous resistance. Still it is important to us to emphasize that indigenous struggle is autonomous from anarchist struggle and vice versa: we come together in moments of conflict and solidarity (although of course, some anarchists are also indigenous). We can only act in solidarity if we have our own struggles to extend from. Anti-Olympics sentiment became still more generalized throughout Vancouver and the province, through direct experiences of gentrification, development and ecological destruction. Over the last five or so years, there were a number of forces at play in opposition to the 2010 Olympics: revolutionary indigenous people, the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN, a coalition of all sorts) and anarchists to name just a few. In 2007, an Anti-Colonial/Anti-Capitalist convergence in Vancouver was announced at the Indigenous Peoples Summit in Sonora, Mexico to coincide with the beginning of the Olympics. Resistance took many forms; an occupation to stop highway expansion, major disruptions of Olympic promotional events, the theft of the Olympic Flag from City Hall and dozens of direct actions across Canada and some internationally, ranging from broken bank windows to construction vehicles set ablaze. Since the ripple effects of the Olympics have long term impacts on all of our daily lives, public opposition grew, as did sympathy for protests and resistance took the form of local struggle. It was materially important to our lives that the Olympics not go through unchallenged. The main anti-Olympics strategy discussed was to cause disruption in order to deter investment interests in British Columbia. However, to disrupt only the Olympic spectacle (promotional events and the games themselves) leaves the struggle empty in the absence the Olympics charade to react against. We also had no desire to ally with people on the basis of a greener, or more accountable games, like some of those at the 2006 occupation of Eagle Ridge Bluffs to prevent a segment of Olympic highway expansion in West Vancouver. Because it was in a wealthy area and we felt distant from the stated goals of some of the occupants, none of us attended. This was a mistake. Even something which appears to be reformist by nature can surprise us. Through direct methods of struggle, in this case occupation, there is potential for revolutionary moments or relationships to take form. Elder and indigenous warrior Harriet Nahanee defended Eagle Ridge Bluffs on the basis that it is stolen native land and Canada has no authority over the land or herself. She was arrested while re-occupying the land. For her refusal to submit to the authority of the court she was sentenced to prison. When she came out of prison a sickness made worsened by jail caused her untimely death. Her intransigence would be the bugle call; a battle cry to add fire to the continuing war against colonization and a reference point in our permanent conflict as anarchists. In fact this situation became a turning point for the struggle; the death of Harriet Nahanee made apparent how high and merciless the stakes can be when standing in the way of capitalist expansion. While a struggle may begin with reformist demands, its methods can become revolutionary. Anarchists participated in a struggle against the Olympics, while not “watering-down” ideas and methods. In- stead, this was a chance to contribute to revolutionary possibilities. Anarchists tended to focus on disrupting capitalist projects and institutions that will remain after the Olympic Games: corporations, banks, repression, development and social control. Anarchist contributions against the Olympics came in the form of direct action, sabotage, organizing demonstrations, publishing and making events and speaking tours in Canada, the US and Europe. SOLIDARITY AND ATTACK AGAINST THE OLYMPICS AND ITS PROJECT Sabotage is not separate or better than other forms of struggle, rather it is most potent when part of or in tandem with open, public and social methods of engagement. During the years leading up to the games numerous anarchist-claimed low-intensity. These actions increased the relevance of the “strategy of attack” to the anti-Olympics movement and later undermined attempts to ostracize black block actions. In all probability, more people came to the confrontational street demonstrations in Vancouver because of these actions. Years of direct actions showed local attacks contribute to geographically distant struggles; after all we are not so far away in our common desire to do away with systems of exploitation. Especially when revolutionary solidarity is relevant to local struggles we are stronger as a whole. The concept of staying put and acting in solidarity, (as opposed to summit hopping), only succeeds if actions materialize to reflect this. During the actual Olympic Games solidarity actions took place in Calgary, Waterloo, Guelph, Santa Cruz (USA), Bristol (UK), and London (UK). While the first actions, starting in 2007, (most likely) inspired more to follow, they did not seem to spread very far socially beyond anarchists. This brings to light questions of communication and social relevance. Many of the comFTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 23 municated actions were only shared over anarchist web sites. If we want to spread rebellion, connect targets with local struggles and communicate the acts either through the potency of the acts themselves or through more visible means i.e.: street posters, leaflets and direct communication. Solidarity and attack are formidable weapons; this project must be sharpened and developed. political power and therefore it failed to draw much force from the “speak truth to power” counter-summit forces. Since the fight against the Olympics was initiated from an indigenous revolutionary perspective, reform groups had a hard time representing the struggle to force their demands on power. REPRESSION BEFORE CONVERGENCE: Commercial Drive Torch Blockade: THE Police used intimidation as their main tactic of repression in the lead up to the Olympics. They visited our homes, families, schools and workplaces, doing overt and covert surveillance and giving harsh personal warnings that illegal actions would send us to jail (that is the law!). Anarchists and their families were also visited across Canada by the national intelligence agency (CSIS). This obviously can have a disruptive impact on relationships and confidence. In Vancouver, responses included: communicating immediately over the internet (web sites and list serves), making phone tree notification systems and writing articles. Anarchists also organized a torch-lit street demonstration called “Solidarity in the face of Police Repression.” This was also done in part as a response to the Olympicrelated deportation of our comrade. NOT YOUR CLASSIC COUNTER-SUMMIT: The basis of this convergence was different than a classic counter-summit. The convergence was intended as part of an ongoing strategy of disruption and destabilization as an attempt to dissuade investment interests in British Columbia. Counter to the common critique of outsider “summit-hoppers” coming in and imposing their will on the city, due to the long term local impacts of the games, the participation of locals was a foundation for the convergence. The Olympics is not a formal summit of FEB 12: TORCH BLOCKADES AND MASS DEMO “Our role as anarchists and revolutionaries has been to participate in the struggle against the Olympics using methods of direct action and self-organization. Essentially trying to widen conflicts socially as well as sharpening them, with the desire of seeing these conflicts expand towards changing all levels of society.” - Without Conclusion (Vancouver anarchists, 2008) One of the most inspiring actions that took place during the convergence was the blocking of the Olympic Torch on Commercial Drive. The quality of this experience is in the social significance. People of the same neighborhood came together in rebellion, taking the street and asserting their power. The blocking of the torch brought together people with different ideas and tactical persuasions who supported each other towards an ultimate goal: preventing the former mayor carrying the torch from setting foot, or in this case wheelchair, in the heart of our neighborhood. The anarchist strategy here was born from understanding the social context of this neighborhood, from staying put long enough to have social ties beyond a scene; certain tactics were respected because the people who applied them had direct relationships within the neighborhood. Because real relationships exist the tactics of masking up, for example, and barricading the street were coherent. Another community member announced in front of the demo that the two masked women by her side were not scary. Instead, she explained that masks are worn to protect ones identity from the police, not to hide from each other. A strategy of low intensity confrontation and escalation towards blocking the torch was chosen. In an earlier meeting it appeared that other people from the neighborhood planned to make a separate spectacle alongside of the torch. We decided our primary goal would be to agitate people into the street using discussion with the crowd, and moving banners and affinity groups into the street as momentum. We didn’t have to do this as old ladies even tried to cut the initial announcements short by telling people that we had to take the street right away! The energy of the demo increased as anarchists announced that people in the Downtown East Side (DTES) were in the street at the same time and successfully blocking the torch. When we reached a strategic intersection, string was tied between two sides of the road, making a simple barrier. After the string, barbed wire was hung and then large rocks placed in the road - making an actually effective barrier. The progression of softer to harder barricades encouraged the demo to adapt more organically towards greater confrontation. Instead of anarchists imposing will on the crowd and using the situation towards a certain level of confrontation above all else, at this time, it was more important to be a part of the social rebellion, acting alongside others. The blockade was abandoned as the torch was rerouted. The intersection at 1st and Commercial was blockaded for an hour and a torch bearer was rudely escorted out of the neighborhood under police protection. As anarchists, we made ourselves and our methods relevant. This continues to be important if we want rebellion to expand socially. FTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 24 Take Back The City, Mass Demo: This demo was organized by a coalition called the “2010 Welcoming Committee.” It was promoted as a non-violent event. The next day’s “diversity of tactics” demonstration was organized in part as a response to the surprising news that this one would be peaceful. Anarchists from Vancouver decided to respect this, within reason. 2500 people showed up for this antiOlympics protest. As coordinated with the coalition, the demo was lead by a group of indigenous elders and warriors, behind them the “No One is Illegal, Canada is Illegal” and the anarchist/black block contingents were side by side. The demo marched until its resting place in front of the Olympic opening ceremonies and line upon line of cops. As previously discussed, the elders announced they were moving back and asked that the black block move up to defend the demo from the police. It was understood that this would also be a space to express our anger. The front lines made up of black block, indigenous warriors and others who acted defensively and offensively. The police however appeared to have orders to show restraint. No matter what the black block threw at them, even if their hats got knocked off, or a blow came to the face they just maintained an air of control and rolled with it. After an hour just standing in front of police lines it was obvious that this was a stale mate, although to many this was apparent from the beginning: we were immediately outnumbered by media and by cops, and knew this, that’s also why the front did not break the lines. Much of the black block was trying to communicate to the front line that we should begin to move again. Some of the demo organizers tried to initiate a reverse march back through downtown. Had this plan been taken up the shift in position could likely have afforded us a whole new range of possibilities. Even though a breakaway march was previously discussed, the front lines however were completely fixated in the standoff. Tactically speaking, this focus excluded the rest of the demo from active participation and created a bunch of spectators who couldn’t see the action. Also, it was impractical to act in any serious ways at this point because the front line was completely encased by media. The police could have ended the demo at any point here because we had locked ourselves within one city block surrounded by cops. It would have been more interesting to continue the demo and to have acted where we found ourselves with more strength and capacity; instead, the demo slowly began dispersing. February 13th, 2010 Heart Attack-Smash It Up The February 13 “diversity of tactics” demo, Heart Attack, aimed to “clog the arteries of capitalism” by disrupting traffic throughout the downtown core, with the end goal of shutting down the Lions Gate Bridge (the primary connector to Games’ events), on the first day of the Olympics. The demonstration, made up of some 400 people, 150 of which formed a black block, was very successful at achieving its stated goals. Traffic was disrupted by the demo itself and by newspaper boxes and dumpsters dragged into the streets (also done to slow down police pursuit). Along the demo people did graffiti and minor vandalism. Downtown, in the heart of Olympics celebrations the windows of the Hudson’s Bay Company (key Olympic sponsor) and the Toronto Dominion Bank were smashed out with hammers, boots and newspaper boxes, and paint was also thrown. Although the riot police broke up/re-directed the demo before it managed to physically block the bridge, the police shut down the bridge themselves for over an hour, re-directing all traffic and telling people waiting for busses to change their route. The direct actions of the Heart Attack demo garnered support from indigenous people sympathetic to resistance (particularly the targeting of HBC, which was heavily involved in the initial colonization of British Columbia; from acting as police, to knowingly committing genocide by distributing blankets infected with deadly smallpox to indigenous communities), as well as anti-authoritarian activists, community organizers and anarchists. These actions, of course, were not well received by corporate media, nor were they by some seasoned and educated activists that claim to be part of the anti-Olympics movement. Some people say there was an “antiOlympics movement.” Perhaps, if this is true, there were two opposing elements of this movement: an “antiOlympic movement” and an “Olympic reform movement.” Issues like, “a greener games,” “a more accountable games,” a games that doesn’t interfere with our “civil liberties” were the flag stone for this latter group. In the end the coalition between “reformers” and “anti’s” fractured over the reactions of a few to the breaking of a few windows. Some anti-Olympics “spokespeople” denounced the breaking of windows during the Heart Attack demo faster than you can say traitor. Supposed defense lawyer for antiOlympics arrestees, David Eby, said publicly when asked about the window smashing of Saturday that “30 people can destroy public trust and confidence in a movement...” For his denunciation of the black block, David Eby received a pie to his face at a widely attended anti-Olympic report back. Moments where there is greater attention towards anarchist activity are opportunities to counter-act the alienation stirred up by recuperative forces. These are moments to step forward and communicate in personal and public spheres about our methods and goals, FTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 25 to actively de-mystify the lies of media and politicians. And perhaps this was one of the major successes of the whole convergence, built upon years of communication and relationships. Many people, who wouldn’t themselves break the windows, openly discussed and supported the tactics with coworkers, neighbors, parents and in public forums and newspapers. As it turns out the majority of the vocal anti-Olympics movement has solidarity with those opposed to the state, capitalism and domination. David Eby and other’s who participated in denunciation’s, based their arguments on the false premise that “the public” is homogenous. What they mean to say is that their public is alienated from acts of property destruction. They have more to defend within this system than others. According to indigenous warrior, Zig Zag, people like Eby, “think their particular constituencies’ (overwhelmingly white-middle class) are the most important and the ones that social movements should be oriented around. This is incorrect. There are many other social sectors that (they) do NOT speak for, represent, or even have the slightest clue about.” “Anonymous communiqués that build up the romance of arriving attacking the cops and then taking off is all we have to understand the intent of this group” - David Eby Not so. Black block tactics are discussed, criticized and developed all the time. The experiences of being together on the streets are invaluable. More can be gleaned from 20 seconds of combat than in 3 months of training; but that doesn’t mean you can separate the two. A lack of collective confrontational experience was evident when the appearance of riot police stunted the confidence and cohesion of the block. Although people did de- arrest, fight back and escape, the group was easily divided by riot police and generally unprepared for defensive maneuvering. If we can reflect on this and continue to practice collective rebellion on dif- ferent levels in our own cities the next time we come together like this we can act with more experience towards uncontrollability. This demo was an incredible experience for some of us who live in Vancouver. It is one thing to experience something like this in another city, but on home ground where you know more of the physical and social terrain, in a context interacted with daily, it is unique. Because we do not just take the experiences with us, the strategy of attack remains and weaves in to our social fabric. LEGAL FALL-OUT: ize. Our relationships provided a basis of communication and coordination with other elements of the resistance and helped create direct lines of communication, now humming with solidarity. With all the solidarity we have felt, it is time to reciprocate. From the G20 this June, the London Olympics in 2012, anti-police actions on the west coast, anarchist prisoners worldwide, the initiation of anti-prison struggle in Ontario, to indigenous warrior John Graham and the St’at’imc people fighting against ski resorts, we stand alongside all those who want to directly confront the systems of control. During the convergence in Vancouver, a total of 27 people were arrested, 10 of those with charges. One anarchist is currently facing serious, trumped-up charges from the Heart Attack demo. He is being charged with “leading the black block” and therefore is also being held responsible for all the property damage of the demo. Three of those with charges did not file for diversion (which is a way to avoid judicial treatment of the offense) or agree to plead guilty for reduced sentences. We cannot measure the success of the actions of the struggle against the Olympics. Some qualitative outcomes are the appearance of visible lines of conflict and solidarity. Still, the results are immeasurable and only the passing of time and the bloom of new conflict will show us what impacts this struggle really had. A group of arrestees and supporters have formed the Solidarity with the Anti-Olympic Convergence Arrestees (SACA). SACA will be raising funds for the legal costs, estimated at $15,000. 2010: HEY, HEY, HEY GOODBYE: “Like oppressive systems, a social revolution is more than the sum of its parts, but neither can it exist without its parts working in relation to each other. A social revolution can be seen as an accumulation of diverse activities over a period of time. It is not a switch that can be flipped instantly” - Oshipeya (in regards to Vancouver anti-Olympics) Staying put in Vancouver, participating over time in social rebellion and becoming familiar with our social context gave us an understanding of how to act. Our actions were then more difficult for the media to effectively de-contextual- 2010 CHRONOLOGY OF CONFLICT AROUND OLYMPICS January 2: Espanola, Ontario 8 Indigenous youth set up a blockade on the Trans-Canada highway between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. An anti-Olympic banner is hung along the bridge over the Spanish river. January 5: Winnipeg More than 50 people successfully delay the torch relay for 15 minutes before it was extinguished and transported by truck. January 14: Saskatoon Around 30 people disrupt the torch relay. January 15: Edmonton Dozens of people protest the torch relay and the involvement of Olympic sponFTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 26 sors in the development of the Tar Sands. January 21: Golden Six people protest at the Olympic Torch relay. One person is arrested. January 22: Vancouver Anarchists organized a demo to counter the isolation and intimidation of ongoing police harassment of anti-Olympic organizers and their friends, families. Around 250 people take the streets in a torch lit “Solidarity Against Police Repression Demo.” At the end, Olympic cops, part of the 2010 Vancouver Integrated Security Unit and Joint Intelligence Group were confronted and outed on camera. January 29: Prince George Two protests, one after the other, containing more than 50 people each, rally against the torch relay. January 31: Secwepmec Territory (Near Chase, BC) The torch relay is confronted by Native Youth Movement Secwepmec land defenders and supporters. February 6: Victoria Anti-Olympic protesters hold spirited march starting at VANOC offices and ending in a feast. February 8: Vancouver Anti-Poverty activists an residents of the Downtown Eastside stage a “Poverty Olympics.” Over 600 people attend. porters. lice escort. February 12: Vancouver (Commercial Drive) About 300 people took the street Commercial Drive to block the torch. They tied string, barbed wire across the street and put large rocks in the road, successfully rerouting the torch. Protesters also ‘escorted’ an Olympic torchbearer off of Commercial Drive, making it uncomfortable all the way to her awaiting po- February 12: Vancouver (Downtown) More than 2000 people march in the anti-Olympic “Take Back Our City” demonstration. The march was led by indigenous elders and warriors, backed up by anarchist, and the “No one is illegal/Canada is illegal” contingents. Marched to the location of the opening ceremonies. February 10-15th: Vancouver Anti-Colonial/ Anti-Capitalist Convergence against the Olympics February 11: Calgary Anarchists attack RBC on the corner of Southland and Fairmont, windows smashed. February 11: Vancouver A few dozen people protest and disrupt the torch relay at the University of British Columbia. February 12: Vancouver (Downtown Eastside) On the final day of the torch relay, the torch was blocked by 200 people, causing the torch to completely reroute and abandon it’s awaiting sup- February 13: Vancouver “Heart Attack” demonstration with over 400 people and around 150 strong black block snake through downtown Vancouver dragging newspaper boxes and dumpsters into the streets, doing graffiti, and smashing up the Hudson’s Bay Company and the Toronto Dominion Bank. February 13: Katzie (just outside of Vancouver) As part of the Anti-Olympics conFTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 27 vergence members of the Coast Salish Katzie first Nation and supporters blocked the Golden Ears Bridge (a major transportation hub) of school after a heated argument with teachers who refused to turn off or move Olympic event broadcasts from a study area. February 13: Waterloo In conjunction and solidarity with the Heart attack demo, AWOL activists drop giant banner off of an RBC. February 16: Guelph RBC sabotaged by glue the ATM’s February 14: Calgary In an act of comradely solidarity, “Calgary’s finest anarchists... left a McDonald’s in shambles.” February 15: Vancouver Tent City set up in a large lot of land leased by VANOC for intended use as a parking lot in the Downtown Eastside. February 15/16: Calgary With a message of solidarity, Anarchists and fellow students walked out February 17: Vancouver David Eby the head of the Civil Liberties Association and defense lawyer (no more) for anti-Olympic protesters, was pied at a public forum for his denouncement of Black Block actions during the Heart Attack demo. February 19: Vancouver Massive Canadian flag on the side of a tall building downtown vandalized with “F U 2010” cut out of it. London Tar Sands Network and London Rising Tide hold the inaugural Tar Sands Olympics in Trafalgar Square. February 23: Bristol, United Kingdom A mob attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland HQ with paint bombs, breaking windows and setting fire to tires in the street. RBS is an investor in the Tar Sands. The action was in solidarity with indigenous rebels, the fight against 2010 Olympics and with imprisoned anarchists. February 28th: 200 people take to the streets as part of a “Games over, Resistance lives” demonstration. February 21: London, United Kingdom FTTP #9-2010 Olympics-Pg. 28 ANTI-POLICE ACTIVITY IN THE NORTHWEST + BEYOND Road blockade in Portland in response to police murder. T he past few months have seen a number of appropriate responses to the police from anarchists in the Pacific Northwest. The most notable instances followed the fatal shooting of Jack Collins in Portland, Oregon. For years police killings in the United States have been commonplace, but it is far less often that we see public backlash of any consequence. Like the Oscar Grant riots of last year, Portland saw a large number of people voice their dissatisfaction, often violently, with both their respective police forces and the justice system itself. Unlike the Oscar Grant riots, there was an almost immediate response (a downtime of only some five hours). A meeting held after news of the shooting broke concluded that a march would be held later in the night. The march, which media claimed included some 50-100 anarchists, left Colonel Summers park at about 8pm and grew to include the participation of others as it winded through the city. The march left a trail of overturned dumpsters and broken windows in its wake and dispersed with no arrests. The following day, on March 23rd, another march was held and attacked by motorcycle-mounted police. One participant in particular, Joel Dow, was blamed by police as the cause of all trouble and arrested. He was charged with two felonies and two misdemeanors. He has been released as of printing this issue. Portland anarchists tried once more on March 29th and succeeded with another march against the police. As before, the march grew larger as it progressed; nearly everyone they passed were receptive and joined in. The march, 200 strong, paused at the Justice Center and yelled for the prisoners in the windows above them to which the prisoners responded by flickering the lights and banging on the windows. 8 people were arrested throughout the course of the march and 4 police officers were injured. The following morning members of the Northwest Police Union awoke to find over $20,000 in damages dealt to their headquarters. Someone had taken it upon themselves to throw bricks through the windows as well as damaged computers and other items inside the office. Shortly after the March 29th Portland march, a relatively liberal call for a "West Coast Solidarity Days of Action" was circulated and prompted a series of anti-police actions on April 8th and 9th. Olympia had an interesting march on the night of April 8th that resulted in the arrest of 29 of its participants. In Oakland on April 8th, 200 people participated in a civil disobedience where they stood around in the BART station. This action stands in stark contrast to that of Nathaniel Riddick, who was shot by Oakland police two days earlier after he allegedly attacked six police cruisers with a hatchet and shotgun. Seattle had a short march April 9th which ended in five arrests. On both days of action, Portland occupied the intersection where police beat a man nearly to death in 2006; he later died of his wounds in police custody. In both actions, numerous leaflets were passed out and community meetings where held in regards to the police issue. Portland thrusted itself back into the spotlight on with an atFTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 29 tack on a Multnomah County Department of Corrections Building. Officers responding to calls of breaking glass and sounds of an explosion arrived to find graffiti, shattered windows and evidence that some type of burning or explosive device had been used in the area. Less than two weeks later, some 50 anarchists marched through Portland attacking a military recruitment center, two Wells Fargo bank branches, a Bank of America branch and a Starbucks. wanted to shout at the police, but also to find our neighbors, to talk to the other folks in our community, to let them know what happened and call them down into the streets with us. To not let them find out about this murder in the sanitized commentary of the glowing screen but to meet them and cry out to them, the rage and sadness plain in our faces: we cannot live with what has happened. We cannot allow this to go on. It is always exciting to hear individuals revel together in their hatred of being policed, especially when they can work to complement each other in their individual revolt. While they are not without fault, there is certainly much to be learned from these few actions. The march left the park and headed through a residential neighborhood, interrupting the dead Monday night silence of consumer-workers recovering from another day ripped from their grasp. Chanting at the top of our lungs, we encountered our own anger, our own sense of power. And now one slogan to unite us all: cops, pigs, murderers. March 22nd: Police murder in Portland, anarchists respond with vengeance Communique regarding the event: We don't give a fuck, the time is now. When word spread that the Portland police had just shot a man to death at the Hoyt Arboretum, we knew we had to make a choice: to allow ourselves to be human, or to participate in our own murders, to hide away in sleep and the unfolding of a routine that ends, for all of us, in death. It's a choice that has been made for us so many times before: by the media, by community leaders, professional activists, bosses, teachers, parents, friends who do not push us to confront this fear with them. We are killing ourselves with so much swallowed rage. Tonight, we would not go to sleep with this sour feeling in our stomachs. Tonight, we gave a name to what we feel: rage. This is how it started. Within hours of word getting out, local anarchists met in a park, and decided we had to march on the police station. Not the central precinct: that neighborhood would be dead at this hour. We Many expected this march to be only symbolic. Few were prepared for anything more. But we encountered a collective force that amplifies the individual rather than smothering each one of us in the mass. The two who took the initiative to drag a dumpster into the street changed the history of this city. This small sign of sabotage spread. We all made it our own. When the first little garbage containers were brought into the road, a couple people put them back on the sidewalk, trying to clean up the march, to make it respectable. They were confronted, shouted at. This doesn’t send a message they said. You can do that if you want, but go somewhere else, they said. But we have nowhere to go, except for the spaces we violently reclaim. And our message is unmistakable: we are angry, and we are getting out of hand. People continued to be uncontrollable, and soon those who had appointed themselves the censors of our struggle saw that it was they who were in the wrong place. No one attempted to control their participation. They were not allowed to control ours. Once we got on Burnside Avenue, dumpsters were being turned over ev- ery hundred feet, blocking both directions. Folks had scavenged rocks and bottles and sticks and drums. One person had the foresight to bring a can of spray paint, also changing the history of our moment. We were no longer a protest. We were vengeance. When the crowd passed the first bank, a few individuals erupted into action, while others watched their backs. The ATM got smashed. A window got smashed. Rocks and bottles were thrown. Sirens began ringing out behind us. A Starbucks appeared one block ahead. A race: could we get there before the pigs arrived? We won. More windows broke. When the police tried to get us on to the sidewalk, they were shocked by the intensity of rage they faced. Fuck the police! Murderers! Their lights and sirens had no effect. Someone shoved a dumpster into the lead cop car. They were temporarily speechless. Only when the cops outnumbered the people did they try again, with some pepper spray and brute force finally succeeding to push us onto the sidewalk. But we were smart. We knew we couldn't win a fight just then, and every chance we got we took the street again. We didn't surrender: they had to work for it. And never did we surrender our power over the mood of the night. Louder than their sirens were our ceaseless screams, our chants, focusing our range and wiping the arrogant smiles off the pigs faces. They were visibly upset by the level of hatred they encountered. We got to the police station and yelled at the line of police waiting there for us, yelled at the media parasites standing by with their cameras, calling out their complicity in police violence and racism. Most of us didn't worry about sending the proper message or appearing respectable. We expressed our rage and the power of our analysis, our ability and willingness to take initiative and change this world. FTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 30 The first TV news clips, ironically, were the best we could have hoped for, but we do not put our hope in the media. We will communicate our critique of the police to the rest of the city with our protests, our fliers, our bodies, our communiques. With graffiti and smashed windows. It should also be noted that the police have not yet released the race of the person killed. We don't know yet which community is most affected by this murder. We respond because police violence affects all of us, because we want to show solidarity every time the State executes someone. We know that racism is a critical feature of control in this society, and we also believe we must find ways to act responsibly as allies to communities that are not our own. But solidarity must be critical, and it can only be practiced by those who are struggling for their own freedom. It is clear from tonight’s actions that we fight against police violence because we feel rage and sadness whenever they kill someone. We fight in solidarity with everyone else who fights back. And by fighting, we are remembering what it is like to be human. In these moments when we surprise ourselves, we catch little glimpses of the world we fight for. Running down the streets, stooping to pick up a rock, we realize that in our hand we have nothing less than a building block of the future commune. Our commune is the rage that spreads across the city, setting little fires of vengeance in the night. Our commune is the determination that comes back to the public eye the next day, meeting in the open, not letting the rest of society forget this murder, not letting our neighbors numb themselves with routine. Our commune rattles the bars of our cages, and this noise is our warcry: out into the streets. March 29th: Portland Third Time's the Charm; Portland Anarchists Take the Streets Against the Police Once More: Last week, Jack Dale Collins, a homeless man having a mental health crisis was shot and murdered by the Portland Police. Two months ago, Aaron Campbell, a suicidal black man grieving over the death of his brother the same day, was shot with beanbag guns, killed by a shot in the back, and had dogs released on his corpse. Last week, hours after the second killing in two months, Portland anarchists gathered and marched through the streets towards the East Police Precinct; bank windows were broken, neighbors came out of their houses and talked to us, and the police scrambled to respond to a spontaneous display of rage. The next day, even more people gathered in the park, seizing Hawthorne and marching past bars and bike shops, homes and hipster dives. Once again, people poured out of their bars and houses, watching the march and receiving fliers denouncing the presence of police in our community. All were supportive; many joined the march, chanting "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" and "Our Passion for Freedom is Stronger Than Their Prisons!" Distrust and anger towards the police is at an all-time high in Portland. The civil trial for the 2006 police murder of James Chasse, another unarmed man in a mental health crisis, begins in two months. In February, Black community leaders stormed city hall and refused to leave, demanding justice for Aaron Campbell. In a recent poll, only 56% of the population of Portland said that they trust the police. Divided demographically, 67% of African Americans and 82% of Hispanics do not trust the police. The black weekly, The Skanner, has published articles telling people not to call the police if they are having a mental health crisis. The cracks in the facade of public trust and acceptance of police are showing, and widening. Yesterday, we thrust a crowbar into those cracks and wrenched them wide open. The fliers were ubiquitous: "Enough is Enough; Protect our Community, Protect Ourselves!" Tags have sprouted around Portland in prominent locations: Fuck the Police; I Hate Police; ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards). Yesterday, we gathered again, this time downtown. The corporate media, shitting themselves over the potential for violence, discovered the words "Black Bloc" posted on Indymedia and showed up in force. The pigs arrived before the protesters: Riot police, mounted cops, and tactical bike cops. Flanked by police and the media, a small trickle of people grew into a flood. 50, 60, 70 people in all black, plus another hundred or more who saw the fliers and, disgusted by police violence, came out in support. Not even the freezing weather and persistent rain can dampen our spirits. The police started moving: lines on this street, a team on that street, ready to swoop in and keep the people out of the streets. Would we ever get out of the park? Were the liberals correct, that we would alienate and endanger all of the unprepared people who joined the march? The bloc tightened in the park, chanting. "No Justice, No Peace! Fuck The Police!" "One Chant to Unite Us All: Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" The others, those "vulnerable attendees" consistently fetishized by liberals, joined in, and chants rang out across the Park Blocks. And then, off they went, running down the sidewalk, past the police lines, and into the street, in a move that would be repeated over and over again during the four hour snake march that followed: The bloc in the street, others following on the sidewalk. Two hundred people marched on the justice center, and then past it, into the business district. Cracks spread across a Bank of America window. The first incident of "alienating, irresponsible violence, and yet everyone followed; no one was FTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 31 alienated, everyone was focused on their rage. Over and over again: The march was forced off the road by horses and motorcycles, pushed onto a sidewalk corner, and then took off running again, leaving the pigs behind and seizing the street again. To Portland State University! A fraction of the march split, ran into PSU banging on doors, bring students out of their ivory tower and into the real world. Students gathered at their windows, on their skywalks, waving and joining the chants: "Cops! Pigs! Murderers!" and "We Need Solidarity to End Police Brutality" We left PSU, larger than when we arrived. Everywhere we went the march grew; passersby joined us, cars honked and handed out water bottles. Police were visibly angry and afraid; they had lost control of the march, and the city. The rage in downtown Portland was palpable; while helicopters circled, sirens wailed, and bike cops bashed people with their bikes, everyone who wasn't a cop got a flier, nodded their head, and shook their fist at the police. Away from PSU, through a park, through an alley, onto a street and through a parking garage towards the freeway. The pigs didn't like that, and managed to hold us off the freeway, but the march continued to move like a ballet of rage. It wasn't only the Black Bloc in the streets anymore; when we had the streets, everyone was in them. When we didn't, we ran down sidewalks, backtracked, and shook off the police until we could seize the streets again. To the City Center, and Pioneer Square; a young man, a passerby who wasn't in the march is arrested. He is given jail support info, and his five friends join the march, newly pissed at the pigs. Back to the Justice Center; it's dark now, and we can see the lights in holding cells far above us. Again, we chant: "Fire to the Prisons! Off the Pigs and Free the Prisoners!" The lights in the building flicker on and off in solidarity. They can hear us, and we can see them. A young woman I've never seen before, who wasn't with us at the beginning, is leading the chants now: "Our Passion For Freedom Is Stronger Than Their Prisons!" We linger in front of the Justice Center, making our arrested comrades aware of our presence. And then we're off again, around the block in circles until we have an opening, and then back onto the street and into downtown, to the bars. People pour out of their bars, stare out the windows of the restaurants. Someone holds a flier up to the window; the occupants come to the window, read the flier, and smile. Even more people now; many of the original faces are gone, but our numbers are the same as before. A young woman is on the phone with her friends: "I just got hit by a cop! I'm in a riot in downtown Portland--You should come protest!" These aren't summit-hardened anarchists now, they are passersby who hate the pigs. A woman in a wheelchair shouts, over and over again: "Fuck the Police! Get off our streets!" Another new face leads a chant: "Whose Cops? Not Ours!" And so it goes, for four hours. The march starts with one group of people, ends with an entirely different population, but the message and the tactics are the same. Fuck the police; These are our streets. The crowd, tired and wet and cold, slowly dissipates, but not before 30 or so people block the Steel Bridge and then march across it, slowing traffic and bringing their message to the other side of the city. Today, rest and court solidarity for our arrested comrades. Everyone feels like something has changed in Portland. Anarchists, demoralized and ostracized since the liberal take-over of the anti-war movement in Portland, have come together again. Three spontaneous marches in a week, each one larger than the last. Next week we meet again, an assembly of anarchists learning once again to trust each other, to work together, to fight the police. An upcoming community forum about safety and the police, with ex-Black Panthers, radical social workers, and cop watchers. Another one in the works, discussing concrete alternatives to the police. Murmurs of neighborhood assemblies, of building alternatives to keep each other safe and to get the pigs off the block. These marches were our call to those who can hear: we are organizing ourselves, we are done waiting. We have chosen to take sides within our context, to exploit cracks and to fight the police wherever we are. We constitute a force against control; we seek to widen and deepen this crisis, not to manage it. Thursday, April 8: Day of Action against the police. San Francisco radicals planned to occupy a BART platform, an action meant to push for further accountability for the execution of unarmed Oscar Grant by BART police on New Years Day, 2009. At 4PM, demonstrators flooded the Embarcadero Station platform and chanted. Hundreds of flyers handed out to commuters explained that there were officers involved who had not been investigated at all, and demanded that BART police as an institution are disbanded. As of this writing, no demonstrators have been arrested for the BART action. 635 miles north, in Portland, the first day of action was a road blockade at NW 13th and Everett by anarchists and other radicals. At 5PM, anarchists rushed into the street in full black bloc, quickly stretching caution tape between the four corners and moving pallets, planter boxes, dumpsters, and newspaper boxes into the intersection to strengthen their barricades. The intersection was chosen because it is historical to Portland. In 2006, Portland Police beat James Chasse nearly to death there. He suffered 16 broken ribs, 46 contusions, and multiple blows to the head. Chasse, a houseless poet and musician, died after being dragged into the patrol car. The entire incident happened in front of an upscale restaurant FTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 32 where people were dining. police. Flyers were distributed about Chasse’s death and anarchists held down the intersection for an hour, as previously planned. Demonstrators engaged with customers of the same restaurant about the lack of accountability surrounding Chasse’s death. Corporate media noted that the police had dispersed the demonstration. However, this reporters investigations indicate that the anarchists arrived and left on their own time. After an announcement about an assembly the following day, they melted back into the urban landscape. As of this writing, no demonstrators have been arrested for participating in the Road Bloc. About 100 people gather in front of Seattle community college and begin to march, snaking around Capitol Hill. The march seemed to be made up of an anarchist contingent, a houseless youth contingent, and a more varied crowd of demonstrators. The march was heavily policed from the outset, and police officers violently prevented marchers from taking the streets. After demonstrators attempted to pull a dumpster out and use it to protect themselves from the police, five arrests occurred. The arrestees appeared to be injured during the encounter. Only three of the five were booked and the march dispersed soon afterwards. 114 miles north. Olympia, Washington. At 7PM, between 30 and 100 people gathered in a parking lot. Many appeared to be anarchists, dressed entirely in black with masks and gathered behind a banner that read, Jail the Cops, Burn the Prisons. The march proceeded towards the downtown area, occasionally erupting into militant action as members of the black bloc broke bank windows, spray painted anti-police slogans, and disrupted corporate media coverage of their actions. Eventually, 29 demonstrators were corralled and arrested. Most were booked and released. Two demonstrators were accused of attacking police officers, and two others of attacking a corporate media journalist. They made their first court appearances on Friday afternoon. 145 miles south. Portland, Oregon. As promised, the anarchists were back at the notorious downtown intersection at 5PM. This time, the police were not caught off guard. Bike cops and mounted police lined the streets, outnumbering the demonstrators markedly. However, the same public call-out that had stimulated police repression also invited many concerned members of the public, including students, houseless individuals, and parents. Flyers were dispersed to passersby and diners at the upscale restaurant explaining the Black Bloc tactic. Fox News and the Portland Police were disappointed when the crowd gathered in a large circle, found a facilitator, and proceeded to hold an intense discussion about the role of police in their communities, alternatives to the police, and the viability of different tactics of resistance. The assembly moved a few blocks to a park after about an hour, being joined by more families and a few angry folks in opposition. People spoke their minds, exchanged contact info, and the action was over by 7PM. Ending with one chant to unite us all: Cops, Pigs, Murderers! Police Commander Tor Bjornstad of Olympia remarked, “it may be related to similar protests in Portland, Oregon”. Call-outs in the weeks leading up to the Days of Action and communiques received later are open about the network of anarchist organizing. The solidarity actions took form all along the West Coast. Corporate media coverage is increasingly aware of the solidarity implied by the simultaneous Days of Action. Friday, April 9th: Day of action against the The successes and failures of individual actions aside, we must count it as a victory that anarchists and other radicals were able to coordinate simultaneous actions in several cities. Widespread resistance indicates a widespread prob- lem, which lends credence to the idea that police violence is not a few bad apples, it is a poisonous tree that must be uprooted. Besides proving the ability of anarchists to coordinate nationally, this past few weeks of actions has began to hint at the power of those in opposition to the state. Corporate media has implicated fear at the reactions of anarchist response to continual police murder proving that they are becoming a legitimate threat. Not only in their ability to attack the state, but also to create healthy alternatives outside of it. As of this writing, another man has been killed by police this weekend in Cornelius, Oregon. Based on initial information, it seems that the circumstances of his death were similar to the James Chasse murder. More actions are being planned. Will the fledgling network of West Coast resistance grow and respond to the constant threat of police murder? Only time will tell. April 12: Anarchists Smash "Community Corrections" Center Excerpt from communique: We smashed your "community corrections" center. We smashed it to send a message. Our message is that all cops are murderers and all prison is torture... Allow us to elaborate: though the antipolice movement may use individual instances of murder with guns, tasers, and pepper spray as catalysts for revolution, we hold every cop or copsupporter culpable. This is because on a daily basis cops are killing people slowly, with handcuffs and pens; killing them 5, 10, 20 years at a time but killing them still the same. .. We would also like to take this moment to encourage day-activists to try their hand at some nighttime missions. You'll find protests aren't always necessary to strike a blow, and you'll feel more FTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 33 refreshed and invigorated in your daytime endeavors... For a free and equitable society. For anarchy. Until We Win: West Coast Solidarity Emerges in Response to Police Violence On March 22, a Portland police officer shot and killed a mentally ill houseless man at Hoyt Arboretum. Jack Dale Collins was an important figure in the Portland houseless community, known and loved by many. His killer, Chris Walters, responded to a call about a drunk transient, of which Collins was neither, and shot him four times within three minutes. This occurred around 3:00 PM. Within five hours, about fifty people had gathered in a public park on the east side to discuss strategic reaction to the second police murder this year. A spontaneous march to the Burnside precinct was lively and militant in nature. The same scene was repeated the following evening. The following days were filled with a diversity of tactics in resistance to state and police violence. Organizations like Everyday People, who formed in the aftermath of the Aaron Campbell shooting, pursued reform along legal lines as they had before. Churches discussed community assemblies and planned speaking engagements with Jesse Jackson. The Portland anarchist community, which has been notoriously quiet for a few years, has exploded into action. This seems to be indicative of a larger trend within the North American anarchist space. For several years, anarchists have been turned inward, creating a public face of the occasional animal or earth liberation communique and a whole lot of punk shows. Popular ideas seem to be moving to a place of open anarchist identification within larger communities, with dual focuses on insurrection against the state and solidarity-building projects within communities. Anarchists and other radicals in Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, and Olympia picked up the banner of anti-police sentiment bravely after the March 29 march in Portland received much corporate coverage as a riot. Friends of friends of friends exist in every major city. People were talking. Within a few days, a call-out occurred for West Coast days of solidarity on April 8th and 9th. It is unknown which city first made the call. Pre-existing relationships between anarchists of different cities were used to coordinate action, as well as independent media web sites such as Portland Indymedia and Indybay. In Modesto, CA an action in solidarity with anti-police resistance was claimed anonymously online: It seems the local Sheriff's Department, when not getting slapped with fat lawsuits for sexual harassment or getting their own guns stolen from under their pig noses at the local Honor Farm, came upon a slow night in Modesto several days ago. Instead of doing what most of us do while at work during a slow day, (nothing), they decided to "make the most of it" and went down to 9th Street and arrested several sex workers after waiting for various John's to take them over to motels. More sickening, the Modesto Bee printed the names of these people in their disgusting corporate publication, further humiliating them and vindicating the police in their story. Sex workers, like all workers, sell their labor for wages. As women in a patriarchal society, they face attacks from customers and often from police. The same system which seeks to criminalise them is the same force that shut down production at the Modesto Bee building itself, and threatens people across the Central Valley. The police, the protectors of the rich. The media, their mouth piece. Fuck you all. sumthing, knowing that hopefully not being able to collect money from people that buy your horrible publication will be a thorn in your side. In total, 10 newspaper boxes were sabotaged last week. These actions are easy. They are simple to reproduce. Fuck the Modesto Bee, from it's ongoing layoffs and horrible wages, to it's boss and cop loving content. We up in yo honey pot, what?! Against patriarchy and the police! Destroy capitalism! - Bee Killaz May 4th: Anarchists claim responsibility for attacking a local coffee shop known to be a hangout spot for the Portland police department: The NE Portland Police favorite hangout, the Starbucks on 15th and Fremont lost a little bit of its ambiance last night. Namely every single window we could reach got smashed out. Starbucks was chosen for a myriad of reasons: their union-busting activity, the exploitation of indigenous community of coffee growers, their support for neo-liberal trade policies, just to name a few. This location in particular was chosen because every time we pass by it, it's filled to the brim with Portland Police, who are still fucking murderers, in case you forgot. You were working yourselves up to predict what we were going to do on Mayday, but we weren't even there. May 4th, the day of the Haymarket bombing, is the day we chose to attack. Just consider yourselves lucky, that you got off a lot easier then some of your predecessors. No peace for the capitalists, No lattes for the cops! -Anarchist Glazier Collective With super glue, with gave you a little FTTP #9-Anti-Police-Pg. 34 DISASTER IN HAITI AND CHILE: UNDERSTANDING THE SITUATIONS FROM A REVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE “The wild, spreading interruption of social activity suddenly tears away the blanket of ideology, revealing the real balance of strength. The State then shows itself in its true colors—the political organization of passivity. Ideology on one side, fantasy on the other, expose their material weight. The exploited simply discover the strength they have always had, putting an end to the illusion that society reproduces itself alone.” FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 35 “Natural disasters expose two things about a society. One of which is the vulnerability of its structuring. Another is its social relations; how they exist, how they are formed, and who is who, comes to the surface when there is not a stabile or normal regulation of movement in times of “natural tragedy”. As our relationships are mediated by the same social structures we accept as reality, natural disasters provide evidence to question this reality, as they force its very fragile nature to come to the surface.” S ince our last issue, two natural disasters have happened in Haiti and Chile. An earthquake hit Haiti on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010, leaving what the government claims was 230,000 dead, 300,000 injured, and 1,000,000 without homes. Considering Haiti was already recognized as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, this wasn’t helpful to anyone. Many countries (and celebrities) responded to the tragedy, considering Haiti was now simply too tragic to ignore. The United Nations ended the “emergency” part of the “emergency” response roughly ten days after the original quake. A natural disaster also hit Chile. An earthquake producing a devastating tsunami that plundered multiple towns, killing between 486 and 804 (confusing estimates produced by the Chilean state), and left 93% of the population without electricity for days. Chilean authorities had to maintain and regulate order by sending the military and police forces into the most “effected” areas. As Chile was obviously not nearly as devastating in terms of statistics, we are interested in reviewing both events. What we want to review is the collective response of proletarian communities most affected by the events, and the response by Haitian, Chilean, and “International” (first world) governments. US soldiers enter Haiti, greeting Haitians with assault rifles. Haiti: Against humanitarianism. Against the deception of political aid. Against the logic of development. Chile is a place that has been mentioned in many issues of this magazine due to our interest in the Mapuche indigenous struggle that has been active and engaged since the Spanish invaded. Haiti on the other hand has not. The current state of Haiti, and the social conflict manifested before and after the recent earth quake can be more understood by reviewing the origins of how Haiti became what it is considered today. As Chile is revered as one of South America’s more “developed” countries, Haiti is simply considered fucked, permanently. But as unlucky as Haiti has been, the conditions of Haiti, have been calculated by the same humanitarian militaries “helping them today”. Haiti was first incorporated into the “global” world during Columbus’s first voyage, where it was claimed by Spain, even though it is estimated that 400 to 500,000 Taino people were already inhabiting the land. Columbus heard that the land was rich in gold, so a crew of 40 men set up a fortress to plunder the land for gold. When Columbus returned, all his men were dead (and their blood was everywhere) and the fortress burnt down. When it became clear that the Taino people were not interested in the plans Spain had for the land, Columbus returned with 1200 settlers, whom enforced a law demanding that every Taino person over 14 years of age had to help gather gold for Spain and the settlers who represented it. Anyone who refuses to comply had their hands cut off and was left to bleed to death. On 1511, four-hundred Taino people left for Cuba to warn of Spanish plans for conquest. They explained that gold was the Spaniard’s god, and to have no tolerance for it. The native people of Cuba fought off Spanish conquest in the form of Guerilla War for roughly a year, until one of the FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 36 main people leading the struggle was burnt alive. The Taino people also kept struggle alive in Haiti, forcing Spain to form a “Treaty”. While the Treaty may have eased the hand cutting and bleeding to death techniques of the Spanish, the Spaniards were forced to conduct the very European tradition of “passive genocide”. Thirty years after the treaty of 1512, approximately 90% of the Taino people were either killed by disease introduced by Spanish settlers, or worked to death in Spanish Gold Mines. As almost their entire population quickly depleted, the Spanish began to bring Africans from the slave trade in to replace them. At this point, the few Taino people left and escaped slaves only discovered freedom by hiding together in the mountains. These free communities, called “Maroon” communities continued Haiti’s tradition of resistance against Spanish conquest. They would conduct offensives on Plantation owners and Spanish settlement, while also freeing slaves and helping the few Taino people left to safety. By the 30’s, Plantation owners were forced to travel with armed groups, as the “Maroon” communities continued to strike fear into their cold hearts. As conflicts arose over European colonialism in the American mainland, Haiti became less of interest to Spanish conquest. As settlements depleted, many workers left the mines, and a very divided and tense society was left to exist. The population was primarily Taino, African, and Spanish. In 1697 Haiti caught Spain’s eye again as the French became interested in Haiti’s natural resources. After fighting a small war over it, the part claimed by France was known as Saint-Domingue. At first 30,000 French settlers came to the land. Haiti became responsible for a third of the world’s sugar, coffee, rum, cotton and indigo production. With the need for more and more production rose the need for more slaves. Thirty thousand new slaves a year were brought to Haiti. While the Taino people continued to deplete, Haiti’s popu- lation became dominated primarily by African slaves, a minority of wealthy French settlers, and what we read as ‘mulattoes’ (the children of raped African slaves). These ‘mulattoes’ were recognized as “people” to the European settlers, they were even entitled to own their own slaves. By 1789, it was recorded that Haiti’s population consisted of 500,000 Africans and 40,000 French settlers. Following the French Revolution, those returning from revolutionary France were considerably less accepting of Haiti as a colony. Those who tried to challenge Haiti’s social make up were at that time made an example of by attaching all their limbs to a giant wheel, beating them with hammers until they bleed to death. The new “revolutionary” sentiment in France produced many sympathizers with struggles against the French settlements in Haiti. Although rumors of France “abolishing slavery” arose, due to a new lack of resources from fighting the British and Spanish in the American main lands, the French chose to send military troops to try and repress consistent black guerilla groups, attempting to establish a black republic. Around the late 1800s, a 1/3 of what now is Haiti was claimed as Black Republican territory. After negotiations, the French compromised with Black Republicans, freeing 7,000 slaves, in exchange for help fighting off the “British and Spanish”. In 1794, an assembly in France decided to “abolish slavery” in Haiti, as well as the entirety of the “French empire”. In 1801 the British were defeated in an attempt to conquer Haiti again. In 1802 Napoleon tried to conquer Haiti again, but was also defeated, even with the new America’s financial backing. The United States was specifically interested destroying Haiti’s Black Republic. They wanted no evidence of a slave rebellion leading to a slave created Republic, as slavery was a booming force for American production. Napoleon determined that 30,000 Af- ricans needed to die in order to re-impose slavery. As his troops murdered and burnt African communities, 50,000 French soldiers were killed by Haitians resisting colonialism. White settlements were also destroyed and only those white settlers who fought with the African or native resistance to the French were spared their livelihood. Although Haitian slaves continued to rebel against slavery, European economic interests and a deteriorating and divided land forced the now “free slaves” to tolerating the same conditions, but now with a wage. While a now wage labor based Haitian society eased tension, the French over time witnessed large losses in profit from the loss of slavery. In 1825, the French sent a military invasion to Haiti demanding that the Haitian people must pay a fee to the French state to continue its “independence”. This fee was paid until 1947; a fee that the Haitian government was forced to borrow money from the United States to pay. Haiti was left with a Plantation type society, with very intense class division. Haiti was not recognized by the United States as an independent nation until 1862, when the north’s military during the civil war needed Haitian fighters to aid in the so called war over slavery. The United States after concluding its civil war (and exploiting Haitians for their obviously courageous fighting skills) it began sending war ships and marines to Haiti sponsoring a sympathetic military government. Although the government was quickly overthrown during a peasant insurrection of 1914. After this uprising, the United States entered Haiti in full force, occupying Haiti for 20 years, killing roughly 15,000 Haitian people while there. As the peasant uprising called for an end to Haiti’s hyper-capitalist structure, the United States used its military power to legalize foreign control of purchased Haitian territory. While slavery at this point was appropriated into wage labor, Haiti was rich in resources, and foreign business purchased as much of Haiti as it could. With this, many inhabiting FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 37 the land were forced to integrate into European business models, and work on the same plantations and under the same conditions they at one time were not paid for. Although US forces publicly left Haiti in 1934, it remained formally in charge of its foreign finances until 1947. The US left a sympathetic Haitian government that favored foreign business and the stratified plantation model of Haiti’s capitalist society. While Haiti was rich in enough natural resources to feed themselves, European conquest, helped to calculate and produce a suicidal society, that produced for everyone but themselves. School systems and all business in Haiti are privatized, and the class division is almost completely rooted in government and military power (as it is everywhere). With a starving and supremely divided society, uprisings and coups in Haiti have been frequent. Governments fell and arose very often, sometimes in simply days. If popular uprisings occurred, that threatened acceptance of foreign business interests, International business and primarily American military aid was granted to specific Haitian forces interested in retaining Haiti as a colonized people. In the early 90’s, blockades were even funded by a Texaco oil company, and approved by the Bush and Clinton administration. This blockade was one of many business methods used to keep Haiti in compliance with foreign demands. With this “blockade”, private forces were hired by Texaco Oil to capture and return fleeing Haitian refugees to Haiti, so work forces would not deteriorate. As popular social struggles began to deteriorate in the Mid-90s, Haiti was left with a business approved and American sympathetic government; although anti-business and American tension continued to remain an underlying tension in Haitian society and politics. In 2000 as a populist government began to come into power, America began cutting social funds, and funding opposing political parties to take military power against populist coups. Without a government, Haitian people feared recolonization. With a history of rebellion against slavery and different forms of colonialism, a popular government meant a government that spoke rhetoric of people, as opposed to simply communicated that they did not give a fuck. After the elections of 2000, the so called popular administration demanded that France pay back 21 billion dollars due to the slavery abolition taxed imposed on Haiti for well over a 100 years. At the same time, one of Haiti’s largest gangs was receiving financial backing by the United States to help become a military coup force. The gang became known to many as two things: “The Cannibal Army” to some, and the “National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti” to others. By 2006 the group with American aid took control of most of Haiti’s major cities; not in the form of popular insurrection, but through military operations and intimidation. After negotiation attempts with the NRFLH and the United States, the administration still refused to comply with their main request of privatizing Haiti for foreign business. In 2006 the main political leader of Haiti was kidnapped by American marine special forces and moved to Africa where he was arrested. At this point it was feasible to rationalize Haiti as a nation in a state of emergency, allowing the United States to enter and occupy without criticism from modern politics. Raids, curfews, eviction, and military supervision is what Haiti was met with after the collapse of the most recent popular government. Helping to preserve a comfortable land for foreign business, the United States also helped to maintain Haiti as the poorest nation in the western world. With peace declared by international militaries, Haiti’s average yearly income was 60 dollars a year as of 2006. While Haiti appears to have been a child of Eurocentric colonialism, it at the same time has consistently refused to tolerate such a position. With a rich history of revolt, both as slaves and peasants, Haiti has shattered the colonial utopian vision Europe has tried to turn it into since it first “discovered it”. The majority of Haiti’s debt is due to the Western world loaning them money to deal with their assaults. The majority of Haiti’s lack of resources is due to the Western world’s expropriation of them. Like the cheap flight deals or quickly evicted neighborhoods of New Orleans after Katrina, it is not surprising the interest the United States has taken in helping Haiti. The loss of homes, and the severe crisis that only became more apparent after the Earth quake will very likely enable a more dependent relationship on the United States by the Haitian people. While the Leftists fetishize new governments by vanguardist Haitian political forces, or while bourgeoisie liberals and the mainstream media donate to the salaries of the Red Cross organization or Lady Gaga, every dollar will only help to keep alive a new colonial work force, and clean up land for more production. The arrogance and stupidity of the first world’s charitable disgusts us. Haiti is unique in its traditions of courage and consistent relentlessness when resisting foreign military attempts to rule. We hope such a tradition continues, especially before this vulnerable time, and prevents western opportunity to try and conquer this small island even more so. Chile: When the lines are quickly drawn. As Chile is seen being South America’s most developed country, it is notorious for an incredibly divided society. While the wealthy or political elite of Chile are incredibly capable of reaching out to other first world countries for respect and support, histories of proletarian and native struggle continue to pose a threat to Chile’s international appearance. Most likely due to our unfortunate political blinders we have very little FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 38 Chilean man being arrested for stealing baby diapers after earthquake. connection with an understanding of social struggles in Haiti today, but a relatively in-depth knowledge of Chile’s. We are weary of most Haitian “liberation” groups, considering many stem from authoritarian leftist intentions. Whether it is our vested interest in the Mapuche or Anarchist struggles in Chile, we have heard much about the post-disaster social climate beyond the politics or spectacle of tragedy presented to us by the mainstream media. Similarly to the opportunism shown both historically and recently by foreign colonial forces in the case of Haiti, the spontaneous vulnerability imposed onto Chile’s dispossessed and excluded has shown the state and capital’s regulation process during times of tragedy very well. It has also exposed everyday social divisions, and the potentialities of the bonds that can come out of them, when the lines are quickly drawn. For whatever reason, urban geography in a capitalist society seems to be developed in a way where when natural disasters hit, those who can afford to be effected the least, end up being effected most. While the levees liquidated New Orleans’ 9th ward, the Chilean tsunami caused by this most recent earthquake toppled mostly poor or shanty communities, while the wealthy experienced the mountain’s comforts. climate of Chile and the implications the author drew from the experience: We had an opportunity to view footage of the popular response to the effects of the earthquake. We saw groups of people helping one another, collectively negating their typical ways of consumption, and without concern for the consequence, taking what was needed, or in some cases what was desired. While the military further divided people and sympathizers, the media classified the good and bad looters to keep people apart, while the police arrested both. Curfews and military rule were needed across the country. Greetings international comrades. We are facing difficult times in Chile after the recent earthquake. In the most impacted areas of the country, people are taking to the streets and looting. We support these actions. We only hope to see this practice generalized. The natural disaster is nothing compared to the violence that capital brings to us day by day. Today, we loot capital to meet our basic needs after a natural disaster. Tomorrow, we must loot capital to destroy a larger disaster: capital and its guardian, the state. Below is a call out posted online after the earth quake describing the social After accumulating tension for 25 years, the tectonic plates where the Earthquake in Chile: Turning the Class Society into Ruins and Rubble By Anonymous// Found on March 1st, 2010 FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 39 territory called Chile is located released an enormous amount of energy, which for humans amounts to an earthquake, a natural disaster. We do not live in just any society, but instead capitalism, the most extreme and concentrated form of class society. Disasters may very well come from natural forces. Their effects are not natural, but instead social. The social disaster, which in itself constitutes the function of the commercial economy, becomes evident in these cases. It is not the homes of the bourgeoisie that crack and fall. It is not the families of the bourgeoisie that are left without basic needs. It is not our masters that remain out of communication, and basically without possibility to transport themselves in the shitty cities where the public transportation plays a disciplined role and transports human merchandise. Urbanism is not innocent. The effects of the earthquake are indebted to conscious decisions of a certain section of industry—which the political powers accommodate as good class representatives—and the deliberate regulations and plans of the state. They are responsible for the fact that many proletarians have been literally left with only the clothes on their back. While the business owners responsible for the structural failure and collapse of buildings recently constructed just might receive some judgment and fines in civil courts, the proletarians are treated as delinquents with police repression. The media criminalizes the proletarians breaking from the normal roles that the state reinforces, as they expropriate the merchandise that all salaried people produce directly and indirectly. How long will we just sleep, ride the bus, and watch television, while we are increasing the value of capital? Everyone interviewed by the media has said that the most important thing is life, and all of the material things can be replaced. This is entirely logical. It is justified and necessary that we reclaim our lives through the direct appropriation of goods in the supermar- kets, pharmacies, and other temples of commercial society. The repressive apparatus of the state is at the point of being overwhelmed by the mass of people dedicated to the expropriation of the expropriators. In the city of Concepción, they have been obligated to tolerate a certain level of looting. The dogs of the bourgeois press have invented new divisive lines between people who appropriate products of basic need and people who empowered themselves to other types of “unnecessary” products. Without realizing it, they draw attention to the distinction between real human needs—that capital systematically ignores—and the superfluous well-being of which the creation, promotion, and distribution uselessly require the energies of countless proletarians. If this distinction is real, we insist that in the moment of crisis and collective action, this is not of importance. The proletarians dedicated to expropriation have the perfect right to loot from capital a share of the appreciation that they estimate imperative to directly satisfy their needs and desire. The most painful spectacle is the good citizens that long for the businesses to open their doors to be able to spend money and buy merchandise, because they do not want to “steal.” What happened to the wise saying in popular culture that states, “the thief who steals from the thief receives 100 years of pardon?” Instead of using all of their abilities to rescue victims, the armed forces shows it's clumsiness and bad faith. The armed forces communicated that there was no risk of tidal waves at the very same moment that they were occurring. The armed forces wants to repress the looters. They have sent a large amount of their forces to seek and recapture people who, being a part of the 55,000 prisoners in Chile, have taken advantage of the confusion and structural damages in order to escape from the dungeons of the state. Through this effort, the Chilean state has increased the number of earthquake victims with some comrades that have been executed in the streets simply for being faithful to their idea of freedom. In this moment, we say to the proletarian anti-capitalists that we should strengthen our communication networks and mutual aid. We will not tire in bringing attention to the profoundly social nature of the disaster, participating directly in the activities that help create communities in struggle, appropriating use value, and attacking the state and capital. From a historic perspective, we know that, just like in the earth, social fabric is building tension that must bring us to a great and imminent insurrection. It is social seismology, which is to say, class struggle. Capitalism is the catastrophe! Long live the looting and direct action against the state and capital! Reclaiming our lives, preparing the next insurrection! Editor’s Conclusion: We in some ways originally wrote this piece simply because of all the sudden attention the media or first world gave to both tragedies. After doing research, and searching for an understanding of how to view both situations from a revolutionary perspective (that does not compromise to conditional circumstances of an imposed reality, or a logic of worse or better). In both events, more so the social effects as opposed to the natural disasters themselves, have helped to further expose the tragedy of global capital, while at the same time, exposing our popular discontent with it, and potentiality of unifying in struggle to liquidate it in its entirety, once the appearance is simply too dreadful. As charities, celebrities, or peers challenge a revolutionary understanding of the situation, it is important for us to understand that the situation stems from the same totality we are revolting against. FTTP #9-Haiti and Chile-Pg. 40 REGARDING RECENT EVENTS IN GREECE You know, death doesn’t exist, he said to her. I know, yes, now that I’m dead, she answered. -Yannis Ritsos “There will be blood”... A warning from PASOK’s Minister of Labor Mr. Lamberdos this past December, as he sought resignation from his position, hoping to escape any responsibility for the inevitable violence he correctly prophesized to visit greece in the spring months. In the time to come, the ruling order would respond to the global crisis and the resultant debt devastating the greek economy by inflicting an array of austerity measures and structural adjustments onto a amorphous population, shaped by a rich legacy of struggle, into a firm and defiant opposition. As resistance to the popular assault mounted and the refusal to passively submit to the economic disciplining spread, contradictory interests would give way to a clearly foreseeable conflict. Lines were drawn, threats would be enacted, gaping wounds were surely to be ripped open, and despite the desperate maneuvers Lamberdos employed as an attempt evade any accountability, he and his fellow agents of the State failed to completely cover their tracks, to destroy all the culpable evidence, and their fingerprints, left in smears of red, stained the vernal pages of the calendar. Before the equinox had arrived, the blood had already begun to pour. By its nature, the struggle always exceeds the reformist demands that bring it to the surface and, far surpassing a mere defense against government/ IMF/EU economic terrorism, the recent class antagonism gave birth to life in a world which promulgates death. This newfound agency bloomed into a search to capture being itself, to unify the shattered existence relegated by a society thriving on the production of morbidity. To reestablish normal profit accumulation, to continue to drain life and kill the dead, the blossoms would have to be stomped out and thus power activated sovereignty’s biased disposition towards murder. Underneath its various insidious disguises, the unbridled force of law, with bombs, bullets, and fire, took five victims. With these executions, the State made its message clear: “Either follow orders or expose yourself to violence and be cast into the annals of history.” But for us, those we lost are never relegated to the past and history is constantly reawakened in the present. When war erupts in the social theatre, former time swells up in the now and the departed return to even the scores, to right the wrongs, and join us again in our march towards the final goal. If history of the oppressed teaches us anything, it’s to move forward while unwaveringly eyeing what lay behind, to revive all who were struck down, and to mourn our dead only in the form of vengeance. In Memory of Paraskeui Zoulia, Aggeliki Papathanasopoulou and Epameinondas Tsakalis. The day before May 5th, the scheduled FTTP #9-Greece-Pg. 41 date for the national general strike, the boss of Marfin bank, Mr. Vgenopoulos, sent an email to the entire staff threatening to lay off anyone participating in the day of action. Forcing the bank’s workers to scab, Vgenopoulos then locked his employees in the upper floors of the building. Outside of the bank, a 200,000 person protest raged throughout the center of Athens and demonstrators attempted to storm parliament, with hopes of disrupting the vote on austerity legislation, only to be repelled from the steps of the entrance by riot police firing tear gas and concussion grenades. As the protest march retreated from the parliament and surged throughout the center, each bourgeoisie shop and bank in its path was torched. In the midst of the street clashes, the Marfin Bank was set ablaze with its staff trapped by their boss on the top floors. Once aware of the people inside the building, protestors tried to extinguish the fire but to no avail. Overcome by the smoke, three of the bank’s workers, one being four months pregnant, Zoulia, Papathanasopoulou, and Tsakalis died of suffocation. All the details surrounding their deaths are, at this moment, unclear. But what is certain was that Vgenopoulos, fully aware closed banks are often prime targets for angry demonstrators, did hide the workers on the upper levels with hopes of passing off the bank as out of business for the strike and then proceeded to lock the workers in the offices of the building not up to fire codes. Fascists, who have already begun their strategy of tension in Greece and are now prone to random acts of violence, were, in fact, seen infiltrating the demonstration. In this instance, the parastate thugs may or may not be the culprits, but the boss can’t hide the blood on his hands (and three fingers). Gestures like beating of the president of PASOK’s GSEE union, Panagopoulos, during the March 5th demonstration and the adoption of revolutionary tactics by previously stabilized, and consequently, pacified workers throughout the strike waves show glimpses of an emancipatory shedding of their constrictive union representation, but the death of the three bank employees will, of course, be used by the bourgeoisie media and government to morally problematize the reemergence of selforganized violence. Indeed, Power will intend to capitalize off the tragedy to condemn all violence, whether pure or law creating, as backwards and redirect rage away from its appropriate expression to instead promote social peace and normalcy. Ironically, those responsible for murder will use the sympathy for their very own victims to divert popular discontent with structural adjustments back into the empty displays of revolt typical of organized labor. In Memory of Hamidullah Najafi Respectfully waiting for the strikes and protests in the beginning of the month of March to end, a spring urban guerrilla offensive was then launched in Athens as the street actions from demonstrators began to quiet down. Following an extended period of silence after a winter wave of clandestine attacks, the urban guerrilla once again made its nocturnal presence known and, within a span of 48 hours, three carefully selected targets were obliterated by highly-sophisticated explosives. For a brief moment, fans wondered and detractors speculated before the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire claimed responsibility for the stunning trifecta in an equally brilliant communiqué, which clearly distinguished the nihilist splinter cell as the best revolutionary theoretical-practical group in the world today. The first, and most impressive, explosion left a crater in the office of the fascist group, Golden Dawn, completely destroying the premises and the subsequent communiqué described the para-statist neo-Nazi group’s decades long history of terrorizing immigrants, leftists, and revolutionaries and their organizational funding by the greek secret services. The second blast was detonated in the Police Directorship for Immigrants, a government office where the undocumented are forced to wait for hours in a line outside the building to receive papers, where riot police and fascists often brutalize the exposed migrants while they stand in the queue. The final explosion demolished the house of the vice-president of the greek-pakistani union and the Cells of Fire’s claim of responsibility details the union’s role in recuperating and, at times even, violent repressing pakistani immigrant’s self-directed resistance in greece. The statement the Cells of Fire released after the attacks explains the combatant’s new strategy for urban guerrilla warfare: “[During the last two years]… the new urban guerilla, organized with antiauthoritarian [anarchist] infrastructures, with intense antisocial criticism, with permanent mobility, with experiential style and direct speech, with the revolution first and always, with its “strength”, but also with its “errors”, made an appearance. The new conditions of social life in the metropolis require the mapping out of a new strategy, the invention of a new revolutionary thought and action. This will help us to review our short, but comprehensive experiences. Thus, we are convinced that an extensive conversation between the new revolutionary forces should be opened pertaining to the upgrade of this new way thinking, on flexible strategies and the “revelation” of the unlimited possibilities that we have.” On March, 28th, only days after the dazzling threefold assault by the Conspiracy of Cells of Fire, a 15 year oldboy from afghanistan, Hamidullah Najafi recovered a bag outside of the prestigious Greek Company for Business Management. Upon showing the bag to his mother and sister, the bomb concealed within the bag went off in Najafi’s hands killing him instantly and blinding his younger sister. The bourgeoisie media and the State, without any substantial evidence, were quick to point fingers at the Cells of Fire and, once again, the tragedy would be exFTTP #9-Greece-Pg. 42 for their participation in Revolutionary Struggle and declared Lambros Foundas their comrade in action. Also like the slogan yelled during the protest march to pay tribute to the fallen insurgent: “Lambros is one of us!” From what little is known of Foundas’s life and death, its obvious that the murdered revolutionary ought to be honored with both words and deeds. This article is dedicated to the memory of Lambros Foundas and may the insurrectionary flames dry our tears. His picture is below. ploited to criminalize revolutionary violence. The elite guerrilla group quickly released a statement denying any involvement in the killing, detailing the immense precautions they take before an attack to avoid any accidents, and demanded that the perpetrators own up to their actions. Later, it was revealed that a fascist group had claimed responsibility for the bomb and had began a State-sponsored strategy of tension, similar to the Piazza Fontana bombing in italy, to terrorize a country moving towards revolutionary war. A Revolutionary Farewell to Lambros Foundas According to the half-truths disseminated by the State and its servile journalists, Lambros Foundas and an unidentified comrade were stopped by the greek police while trying to steal a car. From the distorted “official” reports, we can at least be sure that the courageous Foundas refused to resign himself to arrest and submit without a gallant response to the police’s gunfire. Foundas heroically sent a volley of bullets back at the swine but sadly he missed his mark and the 35 year-old was killed by police on the morning of March 10th in a suburb of Athens. A month after the assassination of Foundas, six anarchists were arrested by greek anti-terrorism police and charged with membership in the urban guerrilla group Revolutionary Struggle. Since 2003, Revolutionary Struggle has claimed responsibility for a number of explosive attacks on government buildings, police stations, and banks and the group’s impressive history includes a remarkable rocket launcher attack on the United States Embassy in Athens. Not averse to taking the worthless lives of police officers, in both 2007 and 2008, Revolutionary Struggle fired shots at the swine with an MP5 machine gun. In a 16-page letter, three of the six arrested claimed political responsibility “The new conditions of social life in the metropolis require the mapping out of a new strategy, the invention of a new revolutionary thought and action.” 2 #1: THE ANGRY BRIGADE “Life is so boring there is nothing to do except spend all our wages on the latest skirt or shirt. Brothers and Sisters, what are your real desires? Sit in the drugstore, look distant, empty, bored, drinking some tasteless coffee? Or perhaps, blow it up, or burn it down.” HISTORIES BLAST FROM THE PAST: IN -THE ANGRY BRIGADE -SCOTT SCURLOCK AGITATION Picture: The aftermath of an Angry Brigade bomb attack on a Ford office in Gants Hill, East London, in the 1970s. A s hard as the forces of recuperation may try, they can never defeat moments of destruction, moments of struggle. In the “post-Seattle” world, Nike may have responded with their own ad campaign seemingly making window-smashing hip, and a major electronics chain in Athens may celebrate the frequent targeting of their stores during demonstrations, but these are only images. Images of revolt are safe, sterile, and generally non-hostile because the medium is a safe space for power. The acts, however, can never be recuperated. The response to an image of revolt should not be resignation and defeat, but a making of wreckage that exposes the contradictions. We have started to fight back and the war will be won by the organized working class, with bombs. The Angry Brigade started from one group of anarchists, but soon other groups joined the festivities and actions all across England, and were claiming actions using the name. There were a myriad of actions against State and capital taking place at the time and the Angry Brigade sought to contribute in a way to compliment existing struggles and intensify them. These mainly took place in the form of fire bombings, explosions, machine-gun volleys, and smaller forms of destruction. These actions usually complimented an existing struggle or were generally targeted at the repressive state apparatus. This took place in the context of a decent amount of labor unrest and the attempts to control it and recuperate it with the Industrial Relations Act that passed in 1971 and was then repealed in 1974. The act limited wildcat strikes, further tightening the control of unions FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 44 over workers, and allowed the government to illegalize certain strikes as injurious to public welfare. The brigade wrote angry [sic] and poetic communiqués that threatened the enemy and explained a desire for increased class violence, influenced by anarchism and the situationists. The brigade acted from 1970 to 1972 within a context of over 1000 bombings during those years in England from different groups. After a few good years of action the state clamped down and four people were punished with 10 year prison sentences after a trial that lasted over 6 months and was sensationalized by the media. The moniker was used again in the early 80’s for a short series of bombings but other than that it was put to rest after the sentences of these individuals. The anger, however, did not die with name, it only took on new forms. As insurrectionary anarchists, we feel that there is good inspiration to be taken from the actions during these years, especially the perspective that seemed to be based largely on personal disgust with the social order rather than a desire to seize power or act as an elite fighting sect. The Angry Brigade positively refers to other groups of people taking on the name in their communiqués and encourages the spread of their activity. It can be said that their use of automatic weapons and dynamite was not something any person could immediately start reproducing without the right access. For instance, it is true that traditionally the British to not have easy access to guns this is not necessarily true in all contexts. In Italy during the same time period there was a much greater surge of armed activity and while all the guns were obtained illegally, they were easily obtainable in the context of activity people were used to performing. To be more specific, in Italy at the time, there was a common practice among revolutionaries of mugging security officers at night with two or three people and taking his gun. This is simple creativity that surpasses the whole notion of how easy it is to legally obtain something. As a result of activities such as, but certainly not limited to this, there were thousands of guns in the hands of Italian militants. In the United States, there has traditionally and still is a culture where it is very easy to find guns and obtains them legally without much hassle. Given that the United States is the easiest Western nation to obtain firearms, it would make sense that the gun would not seem so mystical and out of reach for Americans, which is why they have come into play in many riots that lasted more than a day. Regardless of all of this, there is something to be said for using what you have available to you, even if it isn’t common, but relying on it is a different kind of relationship a relationship that leads quickly down the road of the underground and alienation from the social sphere you’re fighting in. It is easy to fetishize the actions of the Angry Brigade and similar groups, but fetishization is very dangerous and completely useless for our abilities and morale. This is a common American pitfall, to fetishize, rather than appreciate and learn from groups that should inspire us to action. Instead, in our fetishization, we view the participants in these groups as untouchable heroes that did great superhuman feats that we could never hope to do. It leads to an over-thinking and over-complication of what is essentially simple. Making a molotov, building a simple explosive device, and shooting a gun are all relatively simple things that almost everyone basically knows how to do without reading endless piles of sketchy zines that teach you how to do the simplest things in a way that complicate them and intimidate the reader from actualizing the content. That being said, it is even simpler and requires no instruction at all to smash things with rocks or hammers and takes no instruction to do something as simple as gluing a lock or slashing a tire. Yet the unfortunate influence of these piles of sketchy instructional zines the anarchist milieu produces has been to complicate and professionalize even these things. A zine will go on for pages and pages about the proper area of a window to hit to break it most effectively, recommend the use of a BB gun to do it, hype up the danger of doing it and the necessity of protecting your hands, list the best items to put in a lock when you glue it, the best material to put in a gas tank to fuck up a car, the best way to set a car on fire, talk about the clothes you should wear when you do it, who you should do it with, etc. While none of these suggestions or pieces of information are inherently bad to offer, the medium is not only neutralizing it but inhibiting action, making it seem more dangerous and difficult than it is, when it is far more difficult and dangerous to drive to work every day than to do any of these things. These pieces of information are not being learned through action, they are being learned by reading. Even if we are to accept that it was a noble experiment distributing this information for years and years at anarchist bookfairs and punk shows, we must accept that it has failed and likely hurt the movement more than helped it. The message isn’t getting through. The literature isn’t inspiring anyone to do anything because it’s dead and sterile and resigned to the pages of a photocopied pamphlet. There is a serious problem if a minority of people in the anarchist milieu are doing these things that are talked about endlessly in zines. 1% may be a very good sales rate in the advertising world but it is an awful action rate in comparison to how many thousands and thousands of anarchists have this commando-like information on how to break a window. Then there are the forces that wish to pour water on your fire before it even starts. They literally prevent inspiration where it starts, telling you this was in a different decade, a different country, a different context, a different movement, etc. Things are always different now for these people if it means preventing you from acting destructively. However, things are always the same across all these lines of context, time, and space if it means not acting destructively. It used to be that anarchists would be an active minority at a liberal event to disrupt and expand it. Now, it FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 45 is the norm for an all-anarchist demonstration to only have a small minority who are willing to do anything. The rest spectate while wearing the very same clothes as the person actually committing a crime. This is tantamount to going along with your friend while he robs a bank just for the hell of it and wearing the same clothes he is so that when the cops show up you look like you committed the crime. Don’t look like the criminal if you’re not going to commit the crime and don’t chant “Smash the banks” if you’re not willing to smash the banks. The tendency among some to blame the few people who actually take the risks at demos as endangering everyone else is honestly laughable. The danger is there already, take advantage of the fact that you already look guilty and might as well become guilty. Nothing sucks more than sitting in a jail cell knowing that you didn’t even commit the crime you’re accused of, but wish you did. Having said that, here is a rough chronology of events during this time period and context. 1970 January 28: Bomb attack on offices of the Spanish Cultural attache in Paris. February 10: Ian Purdie is imprisoned for 9 months for throwing a petrol bomb at the Ulster Office in Saville Row during an Irish Civil Rights Campaign march. February 20: 3 students captured as they are about to firebomb Barclays Bank. February 28: Bomb attack on the Bank of Bilbao and the Spanish State Railways in Paris. March 28: Time bomb found at Waterloo Station. May 4: American Embassy, London, firebombed. May 10: Incendiary device discovered aboard Iberian Airliner at Heathrow. Similar devices are found in other European capitals on planes belonging to Iberia. May 19: Wembley Conservative Association firebombed. May 22: High explosive device discovered at a new police station in Paddington. This was later claimed by the prosecution in the trial of the Stoke Newington Eight to be the first action undertaken by `The Angry Brigade’. June 10: Brixton Conservative Association firebombed. June 11: Stuart Christie’s home raided with explosives warrant. son, in Chelsea, is bombed. Again this goes unreported . September 17: Jake Prescott paroled from Albany Prison, Isle of Wight. September 21: Wimbledon Conservative Association firebombed. September 26: Hampstead Conservative Association firebombed. September 26: Bomb exploded outside Barclays Bank, Heathrow. September 26: Simultaneous bomb attacks against Iberia in Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris and London airports. June 18: Lambeth Court firebombed. October 7: BOAC Air terminal at Victoria, booby trap hand grenade found. June 30: Army depot, Kimber Road, London, firebombed. October 8: Second explosion at Rawlinson’s home. June 30: Ian Purdie is released from Albany prison (Isle of Wight). October 9: Italian Trade Centre, Exhibition Building, Cork Street, London, bombed. Attacks simultaneously in Manchester, Birmingham and Paris against Italian State buildings. The attacks were claimed on behalf of Giuseppe Pinelli the Italian anarchist murdered by the police in 1969. July 3: Simultaneous bomb attacks in Paris and London against Spanish State Tourist offices, and the Spanish and Greek Embassies. July 7: Army recruiting office, South London, firebombed. Army Officer Training Centre, Holborn, London, firebombed. July 10: Home of a retired policeman in Stoke Newington firebombed. August 18: The London offices of Iberia Airlines, Spanish State airline, bombed. August 30: The London home of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Waldron, is damaged by a bomb blast. The bombing is not reported in the national press. September 8: The London home of Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlin- October 24: During the Council workers’ strike a bomb explodes in the cleansing dept head office, Greenford. October 26: Administration building on Keele University campus firebombed. October 26: Barclays Bank at Stoke Newington firebombed. Newspaper report says: `Police are investigating several similar incidents at other branches’. November 20: A BBC van outside the Albert Hall in London covering the Miss World contest is bombed at 2,30 am. The prosecution claimed that Jake Prescott was responsible for FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 46 this explosion, but also brought a witness who vouched that Jake was in fact in Edinburgh at the time. They were forced to drop this charge. December 3: Spanish Embassy in London machine gunned following international protests against the trial of the Basque nationalists, the Burgos Six. This was not reported. December 8: Big demonstrations against the Tory Government’s Industrial Relations Bill. In the early hours of December 9 the Department of Employment and Productivity in St James Square, London, is bombed. Action claimed by the Angry Brigade. 1971 January 12: Thousands of people strike and march against the Industrial Relations Bill. The home of Robert Carr, Minister of Employment, in Hadley Green Road, Barnet, is bombed. First explosion is at 10:05 pm, the second at 10:20 pm. The action is claimed by the Angry Brigade. “One man the police particularly want... is a Scot in his twenties who is suspected of being involved in the bomb attack at the Iberia Airlines office in London last August. This man was believed to be in Paris yesterday.” (The Times) The hunt for Stuart Christie as a likely `candidate for outrage’ was on. His history as an anarchist and his involvement with the movement in Spain made him a superb candidate for a fit-up. Police searches extend over the whole of the London area. A number of people were dragged up to Barnet Police Station for questioning. “Special Branch were watching members of a group believed to be connected with the explosions”. All those questioned at Barnet in the early part of the week were released, apart from a man and a woman who were handed over to the police in other parts of London in connection with other offences. In the week after the Carr bomb a police guard was provided for Justice Melford Stevenson after he had received a phone call saying that a bomb was to be placed at his house. This was Melford the hanging judge who was to sentence Jake Prescott to 15 years. Secret orders have been issued to police and security guards that members of the organization must be flushed out as a matter of top priority. An undercover squad of Special Branch officers has been formed to pursue full-time investigation into the group. Full-time guards have been placed on Cabinet Ministers. These are angry times... Peter Walker (environment Minister), Melford Stevenson, Tory MP Hugh Fraser, Tory Prime Minister Heath and many others have received threatening calls. January 18: Glasgow South African Airways office firebombed. January 19: Jake Prescott was arrested on a cheque charge in Notting Hill. On January 20 he appeared in Marylebone Court, where he was questioned by Habershon. In the time he was inside on remand, he was put in cells with Messrs A, B and C. Habershon had an interview with Mr A at Camberwell Court, which he took up again on February 9. Mr A made a statement that Jake “had admitted the bombings at the DEP, Carr’s home and the Miss World Contest”... Very convenient! But unfortunately for Habershon, the jury at Jake’s trial were not prepared to believe the police witness (perhaps they had in mind the £10,000 reward that had been offered by the Daily Mirror for police informants)... This part of the police evidence was rejected as a frame-up. At this time the police were being given full rein to do what they liked. In the midst of the hysteria that was generated by the idea that the opposition might be armed, in the midst of the fear that came after a cabinet minister had his front door blown off, a manhunt was taking place `leaving no stone unturned’. Stu- art Christie was particularly a victim of this. The London evening newspapers were trumpeting from day to day about the `young Scottish anarchist recently returned from Spain’ whom they had branded as the most likely... people were disappearing off the streets for questioning. The police visit offices of leading newspapers and take photographers off to Barnet to identify people from the photos that were taken outside Carr’s house on the night of the January 12 bombing. On February 3 Jake Prescott was released on bail. Ian Purdie was in court at the time, as he had been for Jake’s previous remands. Then, on February 11, Jake and a Dutch friend were seized from a pub in North London and dragged off to Barnet. They were refused any access to lawyers for two days. Jake was interrogated by Habershon and Allard for hours. On February 12 Jake’s defence counsel began preparations for a writ of habeas corpus on the police, which would require them to either charge Jake or release him. On February 13 Jan Oudenaarden, the Dutchman, was released after “the most frightening experience of his life”. Jake however was not released. He was charged with causing an explosion at Carr’s home and those at the DEP and the Miss World contest. Jake and Jan had been `detained for questioning’ for 3 days. In the court at Barnet, Habershon was challenged to produce `grounds for arrest’ and was threatened with legal action. It is claimed that he had tried to persuade Jake to change his lawyer -- presumably to one who would not cause trouble for the police... January 25: Home of the Lord Provost of Glasgow bombed. January 27: Communique 5 received by the Press Association. The police were forced to admit that earlier bombings (which they had covered up) had taken place. The police, howFTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 47 ever, imposed a press blackout over the course of the investigations. At the same time the Daily Mirror offers a £10,000 reward to anybody giving information leading to a conviction. January 29: The Times reports: “Scotland Yard and security officials are becoming increasingly embarrassed and annoyed by the activities of the Angry Brigade, who cannot now be dismissed as a group of cranks. Some senior officers credit the group with a degree of professional skill that has seldom been experienced”. In the weeks after the Carr bombing, the Barnet Brigade, headed by Roy Habershon (explosives expert), Commander Bond and Commander Dace, thundered all over London with squad cars, dogs, photographers, raiding houses of ‘known left wing extremists’. Their concern (as was clear from the number of address books, magazines, letters, etc that they took) was to draw up a picture of the extra- parliamentary left, whose activities they were now forced to take seriously, and whose structures they were more or less ignorant of. These were raids of the political police in action. Raids begin to escalate: January 13: Chris Reed, Huddleston Road, London, N7 January 14: Stuart Roche, Schools Union activist. January 15: Ian Purdie’s brother, Robert is taken up to Barnet and questioned. The police are looking for Ian. January 17: The house of Ann Lamche (Cinema Action) is raided. Two people are taken off for questioning. The Agitprop house in Muswell Hill (which the police were eager to look round) address book copied. January 19: 4 known raids in which nothing is found. Joe Keith and Tony Swash questioned by Habershon. for explosives. Diaries, address books, newspapers and other articles are taken away, despite protests that this does not come into the terms of the police warrants. Press reports now make Grosvenor Avenue the centre of the conspiracy. The nearest thing they can find... January 20: Ian Purdie questioned by Palmer-Hall at Bedford Gardens. January 21: Paul Lewis of International Times is questioned by Habershon. Office and home searched. January 22: Chris Allen is questioned by Edinburgh CID. Habershon goes to Edinburgh for three days. January 23: Another raid in Edinburgh. January 24: Police raid a house in London and two men, Ross Flett and Phil Carver were dragged off to Barnet for questioning. Barnet refuses them access to a lawyer who was present outside the station. The papers start to talk of a Scottish anarchist. Two men are seized by police in London and taken to Barnet for questioning concerning 30 unpublicised attacks on Establishment property’ including banks, the home of Tory racist Duncan Sandys and various Conservative Party offices. January 29: The Evening News reports that: “... in the latest report of HM Inspector of Explosives, `there was again a substantial increase in the number of cases involving homemade devices. There is evidence of the increasing use of such devices in the furtherance of political activities’.” January 30: Slough Conservative Office firebombed. February 3: Jake Prescott is released on bail and yet is arrested on the 11th. He is interrogated, denied access to a lawyer for three days, and is accused of the attacks on Carr’s home and the BBC van. February 9: The Jersey home of a local managing director firebombed. February 11: The house in Grosvenor Avenue, Islington, where Jake Prescott had been staying, is raided by the police. The house is searched February 11: Earlier in the day Habershon and his gang had disrupted the trial of the people who were involved in the demonstration at the Miss World contest in November 1970. They removed by force four of the defence witnesses who were due to give evidence in the trial. They were taken off to Barnet, where they were questioned and denied all access to legal representation. Habershon comes forth in true democratic light when he says “I am not concerned with legal niceties”. Charges are brought against Scotland Yard for assault (Of those dragged away from Bow Street.) and for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. The Special Branch were present at the Miss World trial. February 13: Searches at the homes of Hilary Creek, John Barker, Kate McLean, Chris Allen and others in a hunt for explosives. Jake Prescott is charged with conspiracy to cause explosions between July 30 1970 and December 1971, and with the specific bombings of Carr’s home, the Dept of Employment and the Miss World contest. February 15: Cannock Street is raided again. February 19: Habershon goes to Edinburgh. Two houses are raided and Jane and Chris Allen are questioned. That same day, The Times prints Communique 6 from the Angry Brigade. There was also a telephone call from an Angry Brigade spokesman to the Havering Recorder in Essex, saying that from Saturday next a campaign of violence would be conducted against Conservative Party policies in South Africa. Repression and response continue to escalate: FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 48 February 20: Mike Kane’s house is raided. March 5: House in Talbot Road, Notting Hill raided. March 6: 12 midnight, house in Tyneham Road, SW11, raided. Ian Purdie was there and was arrested. Habershon said at Barnet that “the raid was to find explosives and Ian Purdie. They are synonymous as far as I am concerned.” He admitted in court that he had ordered Ian to be arrested for questioning, which is illegal. March 7: Ian Purdie is charged, along with Jake Prescott, accused of the two Angry Brigade bombings. They are both in the top security wing at Brixton Prison -- as class A prisoners -- and are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day. March 10: The Guardian reports on police excesses in their investigations. March 18: During a major strike of Ford workers in England the main offices of the Ford Motor Company at Gants Hill, Ilford, on the outskirts of London, is wrecked by a powerful explosion. A thousand word communique (Communique no 7) is delivered shortly after. ... A man walks into a London bank and demands £5,000 with the threat of a bomb that he had with him (a biscuit tin full of coal). The bomb at Fords on March 18 sparks off another wave of raids: March 20: House in Notting Hill raided. Defence documents seized. March 23: Grosvenor Avenue raided for the second time. Dogs and ten pigs. March 24: Two houses in East London raided. First, Ron Bailey’s with explosives warrant -- impression of typewriter taken. Second, Digger Walsh’s with explosives warrant, by Cremer and Bentley. sion of drugs -- shown photos of Jim Greenfield and Anna Mendelson and 2 others. April 1: Two houses in Notting Hill raided. More defence files for the Powis Square trial are seized. April 26: 3rd raid on Cannock Street. Chris arrested on cheques charges. Throughout the period since their arrest, Ian and Jake have been kept in solitary in Brixton Prison, allowed out for only one hour each day. Their defence lawyers can only gain access to them after bargaining with Habershon. When the defence counsel asks for evidence of arrests to be produced, he is told this can’t be done without the permission of the Attorney General. In addition £10,000 bail for each of the defendants is refused by the magistrate at Barnet. April 28: The Times receives a liquid bomb through the post. It had a message: “From the Vengeance Squad, the Angry Brigade, The People’s Army. We will use these. Many of them in June and July. Revolution now.” April 1: The home of the headmaster of Roydale School is firebombed. April 5: Arson attempt at Gosport Tory Club. (Evening Standard says “this is the latest in a series of incidents involving this club in the last six months.”) April 5: Bomb left in Leicester Square. April 22: Committal proceedings for Jake and Ian start at Barnet Court. The committal is to decide whether or not the magistrate feels there is enough evidence against the two of them for a trial to be set at the Old Bailey. There is no doubt that he will find so, but nevertheless proceedings-proceed-interminably-until May 27. Jake had been presented (April 15) with three more charges: having conspired with Ian to cause explosions `with others’ between July 1970 and March 1971 and having actually caused the Miss World and DEP bombings. April 29: Sabotage at Nuclear Power Station, Berkeley, Gloucester (3rd such incident within three months). April/May: The IS printers had an intimidating visit, asking about women’s newspaper. Raids on IS members in London. May 1: Mayday, a bomb explodes in the Biba boutique in trendy Kensington. It was accompanied by Communique 8. May 4: Bomb found strapped to the underside of Lady Beaverbrook’s car. Inquiries range through Kent, Essex and Oxfordshire. May 4: Four home-made bombs found near the Sidcup and Chislehurst Grammar School, where Prime Minister Heath received the Freedom of Bexley on Friday. April 22: Arson at Whitechapel Barclays Bank. May 22: Bomb attack on Scotland Yard Computer Room at Tintagel House, London. This is accompanied by simultaneous attacks by the Angry Brigade, the International Solidarity Movement, and the Marius Jacob group against British Rail, Rolls Royce and Rover offices in Paris. April 23: Booby trap incendiary envelope posted to MP at House of Commons. May: Harris Gleckman, Alan Barlow, and Smith raided for the second time at Agitprop, Muswell Hill. April 24: Second police raid in Wivenhoe, Essex. Charges: posses- June 1: A letter is sent to The Times: FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 49 “If Heath and Rippon contrive to enter the Common Market without seeking the opinion of the British people they will be on the receiving end of a bullet. This is no idle threat. Signed: The Angry Brigade.” July 22: During a dispute between Ford management and the militant shop steward John Dillon, in the Ford Liverpool plant, the Angry Brigade blow up the home of Ford’s managing director, William Batty, in Essex. The same night a bomb damages a transformer at the Dagenham plant of the Ford Motor Company. By this time Scotland Yard is hopping mad. Sir John Waldron holds a conference there, where senior police officers are told of the order that has come from the Prime Minister, via Home Secretary Maudling, that “The Angry Brigade must be found and smashed”... “We have been ordered to treat the Angry Brigade as Public Enemy Number 1. This is a top priority job.” tection in the home of the Secretary for Trade and Industry, John Davies, is badly damaged by a powerful explosion in London. This action followed close on Davies’ announcement of his intention to close Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, throwing thousands of men out of work. This is accompanied by the 11th Communique from the Angry Brigade. August 2: Two houses in Essex searched with explosives warrant. Judge Argyll of the OZ trial is threatened in his Midlands home. The trial date for Jake Prescott and Ian Purdie is set for September 7, and now the police’s concern is to do everything possible to wreck and intimidate any support action that might be planned for them. Various houses are raided and material and addresses related to the Ian and Jake defence is seized. One of the places raided was the Agitprop collective in Bethnal Green, London, where material was seized . In the words of the Sunday Telegraph: “YARD WILL GET THE ANGRY BRIGADE.... A special team of 20 hand-picked detectives from the Flying Squad and Special Branch, working with army bomb disposal experts and Home Office scientists. Their leader, a commander, whose name is being kept secret for his own safety... is known as rough and ready... The squad is taking a tough line. It will raid hippy communes, question avowed members of the `underground’ and build up a complete file on the sub-culture that threatens the present social order.” August 15: More raids: Hungerford Road, Dave Garfinkel taken for questioning. Beresford Terrace, N5 -- documents seized. Crystal Palace -Sally Keith’s house, floorboards ripped up. July 19: Factory at Dordan damaged by several fires started by incendiary devices. August 16: Agitprop, Bethnal Green again raided with explosives warrant. July 25: Intimidation of a claimant in North London when police with explosives warrant smash door in. August 17: Wilson and Habershon raid house in Talbot Road, Notting Hill, with warrant for stolen goods. July 26: Ian Purdie refused bail of £17,500 by Melford Stevenson. August 21: House in Amhurst Road, London, raided by Special Branch and CID. Jim Greenfield, Anna Mendelson, John Barker and Hilary July 31: Despite close police pro- August 15: Following the announcement by the British Government that internment was to be introduced in Ireland, there was a powerful explosion at the Army recruiting centre in Holloway Road, North London. This was accompanied by a Communique signed `Angry Brigade Moonlighters Cell’. Creek are arrested. The four are taken to the `Bomb Squad’ HQ in Albany Street, London, where the two men are subjected to a brutal beating to extract a confession from them. August 21: Stuart Christie arrested at Amhurst Road, London, while visiting the house. One hour later Chris Bott is also arrested at the same place. Both are taken to join the others at Albany Street Police Station. Incriminating evidence in the form of two detonators is planted by police officers in Christie’s car. August 23: All are charged at Albany Street Police Station with: 1. Conspiring to cause explosions between January 1 1968 and August 21 1971. 2. Possessing explosive substances for an unlawful purpose. 3. Possessing a pistol without a firearms certificate. 4. Possessing eight rounds of ammunition without a firearms certificate. 5. Possessing two machine guns without the authority of the Secretary of State. 6. Possessing 36 rounds of ammunition without a firearms certificate. 7. Jim: attempting to cause an explosion in May 1970. 8. Anna and Jim: attempting to cause an explosion in Manchester, October 1970. 9. Stuart: possessing one round of ammunition without a firearm certificate. (This was dated back 2 years when a bullet was taken from his flat. No charges were preferred against him at the time.) 10. John, Jim and Stuart: possessing explosive substances. 11. Jim, John and Hilary: receiving stolen vehicle. 12. Stuart: possessing explosive substances. (The two detonators planted by the police). All are refused bail and remanded in custody to await trial. August 29: Military wing of Edinburgh Castle bombed. September 10: Ipswich CourtFTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 50 house bombed. charged. HQ bombed -- 7 killed. September 16: Bomb discovered in officers’ mess inside Dartmoor prison. (News not released for two weeks). November 26: Pauline Conroy arrested in her flat in Powis Square and charged. March 10: South African Airways, London, firebombed. September 20: Support of Chelsea Bridge opposite army barracks bombed. (Blast heard three miles away.) November 29: Broadstairs Courthouse firebombed. September 24: Despite the fact that the police claim to have arrested all the Angry Brigade, the Albany Street Army Barracks (near the Bomb Squad HQ) is bombed by the Angry Brigade in protest against the actions of the British Army in Northern Ireland. October 15: Maryhill Barracks Army HQ, Glasgow, firebombed. October 20: Home of Bryant, Birmingham building boss, bombed while his workers are on strike. Communique issued by the Angry Brigade. October 30: Post Office Tower in London is bombed by the Angry Brigade. October 30: ‘The Cunning Man’ Pub, Reading, which refused to serve workers from the M4 site, bombed. November 1: Army Tank HQ in Everton Street, London, bombed by the Angry Brigade. November 6: Amsterdam: attack against Lloyds Bank; Basle: Italian Consulate attacked; Rome: British Embassy attacked; Barcelona: British Embassy attacked. All in support of the `Stoke Newington Eight’ and the Italian anarchists imprisoned on trumped-up charges of ‘conspiracy’ and subversion. November 11: Haverstock Street, Islington, raided. Angie Weir arrested, taken to Albany Street and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. November 17: 89 Talbot Road raided: Chris Allen ends up similarly March 15: (Approx) Prison officer shot outside Wandsworth Prison. December 1: Trial of Ian Purdie and Jake Prescott ends. Ian Purdie found not guilty on all charges. Jake Prescott found not guilty of specific bombings, but guilty of conspiracy to cause bombings on the basis of having written three envelopes, and was sentenced to fifteen years. December 15: Jordanian Ambassador, London, machine-gunned in his car. December 18: Kate McLean arrested and charged along with Angela Weir, Chris Allen and Pauline Conroy, who had been arrested during the course of November of having conspired with the six people already arrested on conspiracy charges. Shortly before the opening of Committal proceedings against the ten militants, Attorney General, Sir Peter Rawlinson (the victim of one of the Angry Brigade attacks) decided there was insufficient evidence for a case to be made against Pauline Conroy and Chris Allen, and They were released from custody. 1972 February 1: Rhodesia House in London firebombed. February 3: Kirkgate, Huddersfield, Army Recruiting Office destroyed by firebombs. February 22: Aldershot Paras March Four members of the Workers’ Party of Scotland sentenced to a total of 81 years as a result of an expropriation carried out against the Bank of Scotland in June, 1971. The comrades, who defended their actions politically in court, were dealt the highest sentences ever by a Scottish court for robbery: William McPherson, 26 years, Matt Lygate, 25 years, and Ian Doran were virtually ignored by the revolutionary left. March 30: Bomb containing 13 sticks of gelignite planted on railway line near Stranraer, Glasgow, used by the Army to transport men and equipment to ferry for N. Ireland. April 6: 2nd bomb (13 sticks) planted on rail link near Glasgow. April 24: Homemade bomb planted at police headquarters at Sleaford, Lancs. 15 year old boy held. April 26: Bomb blast and fire at Tory HQ, Billericay, Essex. January 22: Explosive letter sent to MP at House of Commons. February 17: Bonhill Street Social Security Office, London, firebombed. Liverpool Army HQ, Edge Lane, bombed. Severe damage. March 20: Two shots fired through the front of the Army Recruiting Office, Slough, Bucks. May 1: Explosion at CS gas factory. May 30: Trial of `Stoke Newington Eight’ accused of conspiracy to cause Angry Brigade bombings, begins in No 1 Court at the Old Bailey in London. This was to be the longest trial in the history of the British legal system. Excerpt from a Stoke Newington Eight Defence Bulletin: THE TRIAL SO FAR... FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 51 Has been four months of prosecution, four months of police witness after witness contradicting each other, changing their story, LYING, broken only for four weeks when the judge had his holiday... A CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE The Press have reported nothing of all this -- just as they never reported the bombings until it suited them. What are they scared of? WHAT CONSPIRACY? The only concrete evidence are the guns and gelignite `found’ by the police in the flat where 4 of the defendants lived. At first the police said that 2 of the 4 were there throughout the raid; then they admitted that at one point they were taken out of the flat then brought back. WHY? The fingerprint expert admitted that there were no prints on the guns and explosives. WHY NOT? The prosecution’s story changed from day to day. It emerged that the police would have walked right into the guns and explosive material as they came into the flat if it had been where they said it was, instead of ‘finding’ it ten minutes later; so they suddenly `remembered’ for the first time -- a year later -- that it had been covered with clothes. POLICE CONSPIRACY One detective was forced to admit that he had altered his notebook during the trial. Another gave the game away altogether when he said that he and a colleague sat down in the kitchen and `decided’ what happened in the raid. NO CONSPIRACY The rest of the evidence against the eight is research, letter and articles written by the defendants for different underground papers (Frendz, Strike) and broadsheets. The prosecution call them proof of conspiracy because they mention such political targets as the Industrial Relations Act, Fair Rents Act, Miss World contest, etc. Their scientific experts’ tried to pin 25 of the bombings that took place in England between 1968 and 1971 on to these people, claiming that these bombings were `associated’ -- disregarding other similar bombings and covering up the differences between the 25. But the explosions were claimed by groups as different as the 1st of May group, the Angry Brigade, The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And the `set’ didn’t include 3 claimed by the Angry Brigade AFTER Amhurst Road was raided. Now the defence is beginning, the truth can come out: the only conspiracy there’s been is a STATE CONSPIRACY. Police explosives expert testifies that between March 1968 and August 1971 there had been 123 known attacks on property. November 24: During his summing up Mr. Justice James directed the jury to ignore the defence’s protestations that it was a political trial. He said: “It is not (a political trial) and I direct you to have none of it. Political trials are trials of people for their political views. We do not have them in this country.” December 6: The trial ends. Jim Greenfield, Anna Mendleson, Hilary Creek and John Barker are sentenced to 10 years for `conspiracy to cause explosions’. The other four charged are acquitted, and the sentence of Jake Prescott is reduced to 10 years. December 7: After the Angry Brigade’s sentences the previous day, Scotland Yard names two more people they want in connection with the bombings: Gerry Osner and Sarah Poulikakou, both living abroad at the time. 300 people marched in protest to Holloway Prison. Following the trial Commander Bond was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard. Det. Chief Superintendent Habershon was made Commander and seconded to the Home Office’s Research and Planning Office in 1973. In June 1974 he headed the police investigation into the killing of Kevin Gateley, the Warwick University student, in Red Lion Square on June 5th 1974 -- as a result of which the police were absolved of all responsibility. In April 1975 Commander Habershon was appointed head of the Bomb Squad, replacing Robert Huntley. “Life is so boring there is nothing to do except spend all our wages on the latest skirt or shirt. Brothers and Sisters, what are your real desires? Sit in the drugstore, look distant,empty, bored, drinking some tasteless coffee? Or perhaps... BLOW IT UP, OR BURN IT DOWN.” -The Angry Brigade from “Communique 8”, that was writIn all, 12 people were arrested and ten for the May 1st, 1971 bombing of charged -- 2 had the charges against trendy and rich boutique. them withdrawn, 5 were acquitted, five were convicted and imprisoned for conspiracy. FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 52 Who was Scott Scurlock? S cott Scurlock enrolled at Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA in 1978. He studied organic chemistry and biochemistry. He used this knowledge, along with supplies stolen from the school to begin manufacturing crystal meth. He soon purchased 20 acres of land to live on where he could hang out in the woods and become one of the most successful meth dealers in the Northwest. After quite some time dispensing a definitely terrible product, Scurlock began to develop guilt over his job and thought about quitting. What cemented this decision was his main distributor being murdered; signaling to him that what he was doing was not only unethical, but also “dangerous”. #2 SCOTT SCURLOCK// AN OUTLAW: “He kind of pulls you into this magical world, where it was fun and happy, and that can get addictive…” Regardless of his former job, Scurlock chose to stop, and during those years built a local reputation as being generous with his friends, caring greatly about the Earth, and having a lust for adventure. Previously he had lived on a tomato farm in Hawaii with friends, frequently looking for the adrenaline rush of jumping off the highest cliffs he could find into the water. While living on his 20 acres in Olympia, he built an amazing tree house (a picture of it is included at the end of this article) supported by seven cedar trees that was three stories tall and 75 feet above the ground, complete with a fireplace, electricity, hot and cold running water, a bathroom, and of course ropes to swing from like Tarzan. His friend Elizabeth Stanton recalls, “He kind of pulls you into this magical world, where it was fun and happy, and that can get addictive…people also kind of put him on a pedestal. He's this incredible guy. He built a tree house and he's dashing and he's fun and then he helps people out.” With no more income, Scurlock once again had to solve the problem of subsisting without working. His thirst for adventure a stable lifestyle without “work” definitely led robbing banks, but its thought he was also inspired by a recently released film adaptation of Robin Hood and Point Break were an inspiration. Scurlock and his friends loved watching Point Break, a Patrick Swayzee movie about surfers who rob banks to avoid work. Scurlock called on his friend and Evergreen alumni Mark Biggins to get involved. In the summer of 1992, they robbed their first bank in Seattle and wore masks like in Point Break. Not everything went as planned though. They originally wanted to steal and use a car of someone who worked at the bank, but Biggins panicked and flooded the engine, they then ran away with dogs chasing them and had to hop fences and escape across a golf course. They netted $19,971 from the robbery, but the entire experience terrified Biggins, so he packed up and left. He would return later though, particularly for Scurlock’s final bank robbery. With no one to help him, Scurlock apFTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 53 “A mix of Peter Pan and Robin Hood, Scurlock never wanted to grow up and face adult responsibilities, nor did he want to see those that needed money go without...” proached another friend, Steve Myers. Myers refused but helped him launder the money by visiting at Las Vegas casinos and getting rid of the potentially marked money by buying gambling chips and then cashing them back in. Later though, Myers would also return, particularly also for Scurlock’s final job. Without help, Scurlock decided to start robbing banks himself and netted $252,000 on his sixth solo job at the Madison Park branch of the Seafirst bank in Seattle. This attracted Meyers back into the mix and a year later they started staking out the same bank Scurlock last robbed. Meyers was the getaway driver and sat in the car monitoring police frequencies with a scanner and a walkie-talkie to let Scurlock know if there was trouble coming. This was the setup they continued to use and the pair robbed five banks in 1994. Other than two banks in Portland, Scurlock only robbed banks in affluent neighborhoods in Seattle, often repeatedly hitting the same banks. He also studied FBI forensics manuals to take every precaution to ensure he left no identifiable trace of himself behind. He was nicknamed “Hollywood” because he’d use pancake makeup and facial attachments like false chins to disguise himself. He figured out the shift changes for police in the area and would often hit banks in between the shift changes or when police were dispersed away from the area. Scurlock went to great pains to buy cars anonymously, including ones to leave as bait for the police to throw them off his trail. He paid banks employees to let him know when the most money would be in the bank and the best time to strike. He also built an underground secret room on his property with a mini makeup studio and place to count the money. Even now, Steve Meyers praises Scurlock's efficient approach: “Nobody ever was hurt, and nobody was ever intended to be hurt.” Making plenty of money, Scurlock certainly did not forget to spread it around to his friends and people he never met that he thought deserved it. He would reportedly show up at “politicized” benefit shows in Olympia and pay hundreds of dollars as his admission. He was a huge supporter of Earth First! and donated a good amount of money to their campaigns, as well as to rape crisis centers. A mix of Peter Pan and Robin Hood, Scurlock never wanted to grow up and face adult responsibilities, nor did he want to see those that needed money go without. Bumbling police officers and FBI agents failed again and again to catch up with “Hollywood.” The only idea one officer had on how to catch him was by watching surveillance footage of some of Hollywood’s robberies. He noticed the walkie-talkie and decided he should monitor common frequencies for walkie-talkies to see if he picked up anything and could catch a robbery in process. He also staked out a bank Hollywood had robbed before. His plan didn’t work because Hollywood hit a bank in Seattle outside the range the officer was monitoring frequencies on and got away with $141,405, laughing with his middle finger out the window of the getaway car (Okay I made up that last part). None of this was enough thrill or money, so Scurlock decided to rob three banks in two hours, a plan that would include jamming police frequencies. This plan was aborted though and they only robbed one of them. On Thanksgiving eve in 1996, Scurlock drove to Seattle with Mark Biggins and Steve Meyers for his 17th bank robbery, a robbery that would net $1.08 million (Bringing his career total to $2.3 million) and also be his last. Scurlock and Biggins walked into the Seafirst branch at 2800 NE 125th St. and whipped out their guns while Meyers waited in the car. A teller immediately hit the silent alarm. The robbery took longer than expected because the tellers initially gave them a relatively small amount of money when Scurlock knew there was much more. He had a teller lead him into the vault where he stuffed bricks of cash into nylon duffel bags. Although there were dozens of officers on alert for Hollywood, they were all patrolling in the wrong neighborhoods and didn’t respond quick enough to stop the job in progress. Still they eventually caught up with them. Had Meyers made a left at one intersection instead of a right, the gang would have escaped successfully, but this wrong turn put them right in holiday traffic which the police were also stuck in. They paused to ditch the car and change to a white Chevrolet Astrovan. The cops say they saw the van going back and forth in traffic and decided to do a traffic stop and began tailing the vehicle while the gang rummaged through the loot looking for tracking devices that might have been in the money. Meyers says that the FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 54 police knew it was them and began firing at the car, injuring Biggins and Meyers. “Scott got out with his assault rifle. And it supposedly jammed. And he got back in and they started firing again.” Wounded and bleeding, Biggins returned 37 rounds at the cops out the window as they sped away. Soon afterwards, Scurlock stopped the car again, getting out to fire three shotgun shells at the cops and speeding away again. Crashing into the side of a house on 77th St., Biggins and Meyers were wounded and couldn’t run, but Scurlock did and managed to get away on foot. 200 officers rushed to the scene and couldn’t find him anywhere. Scurlock had hid two blocks away in a camper on someone else’s property. The next day, those in the house reported to police that they saw someone by Scurlock’s description on the property and noticed the curtains had been drawn in the camper from the inside. Sgt. Howard Monta and two other officers claim they went and knocked on the camper, threw tear gas inside and then sprayed two full canisters of pepper spray through the window, but didn’t notice any sign of response. Monta says he went closer to get a look with his flashlight when he heard a gunshot, then the three officers fired 30 rounds into the camper, calling in all sorts of task forces and special police units with armored cars to the scene, throwing more tear gas in the camper before finally busting the door down and apparently finding Scurlock with a gunshot to the head and five other gunshot wounds to his body, along with a 9mm glock pistol next to him and a discharged shell. Meyers and Biggins were both given 21 years in prison. “I regret in a sense that it ever happened,” Meyers says. “But I can't sit and look at this man and say I'm regretting that I ever knew the guy. Some of the best years of my life were with this guy.” True crime writer Ann Rule wrote a book available at most major bookstores about Scurlock’s life called The End of the Dream: The Golden Boy Who Never Grew Up. Photo of Scott’s notorious tree house. FTTP #9-Blast from the Past-Pg. 55 REPRESSION FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 56 They’re Fishing! By Janice Guattari of “The Boston Anti-Repression League” “What power fears most is anonymous, generalized rebellion.” This will be brief: The state is asking questions. I t is becoming more and more apparent that the United States federal police forces are paying more attention to autonomous or anarchist “insurrectionary” tendencies. They are exposing their confusion, frustration, and curiosity in what some would call invisible networks of people sharing discontent with society today, and looking to actively retain and produce conflict with it. It has come to our attention that multiple people have been either being visited at their homes or jobs, dragged off planes, or stopped at borders in what is beginning to seem like in mass. What are the police looking for? More importantly what is it they think they will find? It is quite obvious that the state feels as if it has put a large wound in the world of clandestine resistance motivated by the state’s most hated enemy of ideas: radical ecological or animal liberation struggles. With the insane degree of surveillance, infiltration, and draconian-style imprisonment of those they claimed conducted sabotage in the name of non-human animals or the environment; the state seems to be fishing for other perceived threats. The perceived threat we are specifically referring to in this case is the “insurrectionary” or “anti-political” and “riot charged” borderless tendency; whatever you want to call that. But if such a social force lacks any formal organiza- tion, leader, or political headquarters, it is obviously something very confusing to the state’s typical understanding of how it is you liquidate undesirable social tendencies. What is probably even more frustrating for the state is the lack of clandestine action fetishized by this specific tendency. In the case of there being no specific tactic, only a desire to generalize revolt against common conditions, in any way that works. It is nearly impossible to pinpoint and connect the dots the way the state seemed to be able to with animal liberation or ecological resistance. you, and potentially get you fired. What the state seems to be doing now is attacking any visible project or person that could possibly be presented as having some connection with this tendency; whatever this tendency might be called. The tactic that seems to be most successful for the state, as they struggle to figure out what new law or legislation they need to arrest this new confusing social force, is simply a process of intimidation and draining resources. Projects that are not illegal (not as if that matters), if perceived as a threat or representative of something the state thinks could be a threat, will have to look over their shoulder. This means explaining and warning comrades, relatives, or coworkers of potential visits by police agencies. This means not understanding what projects or behavior are or are not legal risks. This also means debt and new expenses due to an urgent concern of protecting oneself legally and hiring a lawyer, which is typically costly. What the state seems to be doing now, either with grand juries, home visits, work visits, or all out raids is simply pushing the boundaries of preemptive arrest, and utilizing any opportunity to drain, divide, or intimidate. If someone is stopped at the border, you can expect that their friends are also being stopped, because any phone number or contact in their phones, books, or laptops is now property of the government. If a grand jury doesn’t get you, that’s still not the end of justice. Prosecutors have been saying the “C” word (conspiracy). Another brilliant move on the state’s part. As the informal nature of insurrectionary groups today confuses state investigation, they always have “conspiracy”. If they can’t arrest you, they will visit your family and scare the shit out of them, or visit your work and embarrass If they have nothing on you, they will indict you, being aware that whether or not someone has done something, it is a principle of every revolutionary (or just down person) to be silent and shut the fuck up during any police encounter. The brilliance of the grand jury is that silence means guilty, and you can be put away for at least a little while (up to 18 months for remaining silent), or prevented from being able to continue certain projects for maybe as long as they need to indict you again. From Wikipedia: “...a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement. There is no limit on the number participating in the conspiracy and, in most countries, no requirement that any steps have been taken to put the plan into effect... ...finally, repentance by one or more parties does not affect liability but may reduce their sentence.” This charge has rationalized federal investigation, raids, and jail time. Eric Mcdavid whom is serving 19 years for a crime never committed is one example of how they have used this charge. His two codefendants who turned on him are another way they use this charge. What is unique now, is that they are using this charge for those arrested at “riots” or “street parties”, and using it to try and approach these spontaneous, public, and mob style displays of dissent as if they were all completely organized and part of a specific politiFTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 57 cal group. Trying to both: isolate the events from appearing as inclusive demonstrations of rage, and frighten people by making examples of anyone they could get their hands on, at the event, or after associating them with the sentiment behind it. This charge is incredibly helpful to criminalizing “above ground” projects or people as well. It can paint lines on top of an invisible solidarity, and try to connect projects or people for events they support. You can see this in the case of the RNC8, the SHAC7, or the Texas 2. You can also see this most recently in the May Day chapter of this issue. Even the local “anarchist coffee shop” in Santa Cruz, CA was facing legal scrutiny around a random riot that broke a bunch of things on a posh shopping block just because they were in the same town, and didn’t denounce the violence. This law will get whomever they can’t get otherwise, and a resort of the state taken to frighten those unprepared or haven’t done anything, and either put them away, get information, or try and divide their community. If you think it, if you support it, whether or not your doing it, your now part of it, and the state can try and put you in jail. Worst of all, if we weren’t already the poorest struggle; the state will just financially drain you. We are not only referring to fines and restitution if one is convicted, but we are also talking about simply the hungry mouths of lawyers. A legal barrier between you and the state is not cheap, and public defenders just seem to stutter and carry themselves in such an non-eloquent fashion. So again, our projects are not only threatened because we are in jail or on no fly lists, but the little collective finances we had are also pillaged by “justice.” The police are confused as they try to connect the dots. A few examples of their almost stupid desperation to connect, intimidate, or flirt with their movie-influenced theories of investigating “anarchist” or “autonomous” self-proclaimed revolutionary groups were reported on in New York’s local “Daily News” periodical. In New York City specifically, local police “intelligence” has been captivated by the threat posed by high school rituals like pillow fight flash mobs, according to the “Daily News.” One article mentions a specific pillow fight flash mob that is literally a bunch of 15 year old kids having a pillow fight inside a park. The last one, in April 2010, was met with riot police, undercover police, and the 23 year old alleged organizer visited by investigators on multiple occasions. Apparently these sort of public gatherings have come to concern the police due to apparent riots that similar events have turned into. Another event that has come to the attention of the police was New York City’s most unusual flea market: the anarchist book fair. Apparently undercover police saw this as an opportunity to infiltrate and spy on alleged “anarchists” or “weirdos” potentially planning different sorts of protests or events that interest them. Although this event is like any other book fair (or comic book convention) or flea market, consisting of all ages, and an almost annoyingly positive so- cial climate; the police were reported to be almost abrasive in their presence. They apparently wanted those whom attended to know that they were watching. Today’s police strategies for dealing with “anarchist,” “communist,” or “insurrectionary” social forces or projects is to push the limits of preemptive assault. What people need to be doing is using this stagnant state confusion and posturing as a sign that we are being paid attention to. The state, for some reason or another, is interested in these tendencies, and pist off that with all of their fishing, very little has been caught. Realizing this, people need to begin to take themselves a bit more seriously. Our lack of political formality is our strength, but our scenes and public projects are currently acting out our weaknesses. Therefore with a weakness exposed, it is important to re-evaluate the way all of our projects our done-- whether they are legal or not. Allegedly we are allowed to write whatever it is we want, but freedom of speech is a right, therefore it is bullshit, and if it ever actually provoked anything, it would be immediately revoked and consequenced. To place faith in this right as a form of protection is more or less stupidly placing faith in the state as something that exists to protect you. It is important for us to begin taking ourselves seriously, realizing who it is we associate with that the state would be more interested in, and collectively protecting our identities from state recognition. If people’s phones are being taken, we should be changing our contact list names to not match numbers. If people’s contact books are being taken, we should be writing Da Vinci style, and making it very complicated for our writing to be understood. Send stuff that would be of interest of police across borders or before any planned travel where police encounters are to be expected. Dress differently, live with non-sketchy people (or don’t live in houses with names or bumper sticker style aesthetics, screaming to get raided), or create networks of support beyond the typical communities (social groups) that draw police attention. The state doesn’t need to arrest us to scare us, and they do not need evidence or a warrant for that. They’ll raid anything and visit everywhere, with the intention to arrest you or not, they can definitely fuck your shit up, without physically putting you in jail. Additionally, as wonderful as it is to meet people who share similar outlooks, words are simply words, and relationships take time to become trust worthy ones. It’s important that this is taken into account when forming revolutionary bonds, where secrets or ideas could be exposed. Just because someone talks the talk, does not mean they are not a cop (or exjunkie trying to get off some charges). At the same time it is important to be smart with this, as opposed to reactionary and sensational. Realize who your friends are, and the degree to which you know them. Ask questions about people’s pasts whom you know purely as a result of “political”, “intellectual”, or “social” affinity. Realize the circumstances where you meet people. Obviously friends you meet at random FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 58 everyday locations or have known since childhood are to be less of a concern. It is much more important to reserve your concern or anxiety for people you meet and connect with at publicized “radical” events. Say conferences, book fairs, or demonstrations. You see this mistake of immediate trust in the case of Eric McDavid, or lack of concern regarding circumstances by Daniel McGowan or The Texas 2 (all 3 of which are mentioned in this issue of the magazine and all three of whom are currently in prison). While they are currently imprisoned, it would be only appropriate to recognize their mistakes. These are a few things to take into consideration when trying to protect one’s revolutionary projects or comrades. I want to stress that people need to recognize this consistent and fairly new strategy of repression that stems from an analytical confusion of new styles of resistance and ideas in conflict with the state. We hope people take this as a sign that things are very much coming up on their radar. But while the state remains confused, people need to further complicate things, and stop being lazy with their safety. We don’t need celebrities, we don’t need famous authors, we don’t need social clubs, we don’t need leaders, and we don’t need heroes. We need to realize the significance of our ideas, and the significance of having the state’s attention, and really make it so when they cast their fishing hooks, they don’t land in a 3 foot pond, but bounce off a thick layer of ice. Personal and collective security is indispensable to any revolutionary community that intends to take itself seriously in any way. The academics laugh this off because they are completely worthless and perceived as no threat by the state. You can join their laughter, but when you are visited, or working overtime to pay a lawyer, we assume your smirk will be wiped off your face. Note: Janice Guattari and the Anti-Repression League of Boston have been providing analytical updates on state methods of repression since 1969. She is a respected and influential voice in the Boston area, and her project has helped to inform revolutionaries and frustrated people around the world, of obstacles to expect with resisting the state. FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 59 OBSTACLES updates on before the revolt Supporting each other. Learning from each other. Standing strong together. Steve Murphy Sentenced Steve Murphy, who placed an incendiary device inside of under construction condominium complex in 2006 as an Earth Liberation Front action, was sentenced to 5 years in federal prison in April. It was unclear who had done the action until investigators matched DNA extracted from the incendiary device to a sample of Murphy’s DNA in a law enforcement database. As of this writing, Steve is in transit, but keep checking supportsteve.org or the bop.gov inmate finder for his address. Chinese Anarchist Imprisoned After being detained for more than a year, Chinese anarchist Liu Xiaobo was sentenced, on Christmas Day, to 11 years in prison. The writer’s wife and foreign diplomats were banned from the Dec. 23 trial, which took less than three hours; defense attorneys are not permitted to discuss what transpired. Liu Xiaobo had been charged with “inciting subversion of state power” and his case goes back 20 years, to 1989. He was a key participant at Tiananmen Square and has spent a total of five years in prison, including three in Re-education Through Labor, for his speaking up at in the 1989 protests. Infoshop Court Update Berkeley, California-- The Long Haul community space beat a government motion to dismiss its federal lawsuit meaning that the government defen- dants have to answer the lawsuit and a trial is now scheduled for May 2011. Long Haul filed suit against all law enforcement involved in an August 27, 2008 police raid on the space by a joint terrorism task force composed of University of California police, sheriffs and the FBI. The police seized all computers at Long Haul as part of an investigation of threatening emails allegedly sent from a public-access computer connected to the internet at Long Haul. The state’s willingness to monitor IP addresses and e-mail traffic should serve to keep you on your toes and tighten your online/electronic security practices. Obama Supports DNA Database of “Presumed Innocents” United States-- President Barack Obama recently expressed support for DNA sampling within the criminal procedure upon arrest by local, state and federal authorities. When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. DNA sampling would be taken at the time of arrest and databased. Whether or not the arrestee is convicted, s/he would still have their DNA warehoused and accessible. Arrests in Berlin Berlin-- Four autonomen were sur- veilled and arrested, eventually charged with “suspected of arranging an appointment in order to commit an arson on a car” and “suspected of arranging an appointment for committing a crime – an arson against the national academy for security politics. The four were released and their persons and vehicle clean of any suspect materials. It is presumed that they were arrested due to their political affiliations and that they live in housing projects. The State, as is typical, target poor people who have the gall to organize against it, using intimidation as one of its many tools. Swedish Eco-saboteur Imprisoned Sweden-- Anarchist and eco-saboteur Jonatan Strandberg has been convicted of various Earth Liberation Front (ELF) actions, including the firebombing of a communications tower. After his initial imprisonment, Jonatan has since been transferred to a higher security prison. The transfer stems from being active in the prisoners‘ council of trust, an uncompromising stance towards the prison administration and articles he had written for the latest issue of the prisoner paper ‘Kakbladet.’ Jonatan’s supporters have built a website, againstthewaiting.blogsport.de, and are strongly encouraging folks to “write letters of support and attack!”. Jonatan is interested in (green) anarchism, anti-civ theory, indigenous struggles…the wild. He likes music of all kind, from hardcore to hip hop, drum and bass, even folk). He’ll be also really happy to receive posters and fliFTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 60 ers from the resistance on the outside… If you send him books, make sure that there is nothing written by hand in them and if you send him CDs they have to be original otherwise he won’t get them. Jonatan Strandberg KVA Hällby Box 100 64045 Kvicksund Sweden LOVE Park 4: Update: The End Is Finally In Sight? United States-- There has been good news coming out of Philadelphia for the remaining defendants in the LOVE Park 4 case. Back in December, Common Pleas Court Judge Frank Palumbo finally made a decision on an appeal issue that had been in front of him for almost a year, denying the District Attorney’s appeal of a ruling made Dec. 12, 2008 by Municipal Court President Judge Marsha H. Neifield. Palumbo re-affirmed Neifield’s order requiring prosecutors to disclose the names of the undercover narcotics officers involved in the 2007 altercation with protesters of a scheduled Ku Klux Klan rally in Center City that never actually happened. The city prosecutor argued that divulging the undercover officers’ names would endanger them. But Neifield noted that even the prosecution admitted that the same officers’ names had previously been disclosed when they testified in drug trials. Though concerned with the undercover officers’ safety, Neifield said she was offended that police did not even anonymously mention the officers’ presence in arrest reports for the defendants. Without that information, which Neifield said was mandatory for prosecutors to disclose, it would be impossible for defense attorneys to prove their claim that undercover officers precipitated the confrontation. Unfortunately, on her very last day in office, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham - notorious for putting more African-Americans on death row (101) during her tenure in office then any other city in the US - took the opportunity to take one last swipe at Philadelphia’s activist community that she so reviled, and filed an appeal of Judge Palumbo’s December decision to the Pennsylvania State Superior Court. This would have meant another long, drawn out court process for the defendants, costing thousands of dollars just to cover the cost of court transcripts and other legal filings, not to mention their attorneys’ time. Surprisingly, more good news was received in early January. Within days of taking office, Philadelphia’s new district attorney Seth Williams had a senior staff member reach out to LOVE Park 4 attorneys to “find out what it would take to make this case go away,” offering a very good deal to bring the case to close. The offer: all 8 current misdemeanor charges of varying degrees would be reduced to a single disorderly conduct charge, which would be a violation (the equivalent of a traffic summons) and no fine or period of probation would be required. Defendants agreed to accept this deal and in early February, they returned to court, prepared to take the deal and see this case finally come to a close. In a magnificent display of the inner workings of our “justice system,” the day did not go as planned. The assistant district attorney in court that day had no idea about any offer from the DA’s office, and when that finally got worked out, the ADA and judge could not decide what court had jurisdiction to accept the defendant’s plea. You’d think that after a senior member of the DA’s office personally reached out to the defendant’s lawyers, they’d just want this case to be over, but that was not the case. Defense attorneys tried to figure out a solution that would benefit all parties, but every proposal was shot down by Judge Palumbo, say- ing they did not follow procedure and he would not allow anything out of the ordinary to occur in his courtroom. So, here we sit, almost 2 months later, waiting for the District Attorney’s office to figure things out - a deal on the table and defendants eager to take it. The end of this case is finally in sight - we think. For more information, contact the LOVE Park 4 Defense Committee: www.myspace.com/supportlovepark4 lovepark4@gmail.com Background on the Love Park 4 On July 23rd 2007, four Philadelphiaarea anti-racist activists were arrested on multiple trumped up charges stemming from a counter-demonstration against a Ku Klux Klan rally that was scheduled to take place in Center City that morning. Two men wearing neo-Nazi t-shirts were verbally confronted by anti-racists and forced to leave. The men then boarded a waiting SUV, at which time another verbal confrontation ensued, at the end of which one of the SUV’s windows was damaged. Police personnel waited until this point to break their cover and identify themselves - the driver of the SUV was a Philadelphia Police Detective attached to an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force while the passenger and owner of the vehicle was an FBI special agent. Trial Date Set for RNC 8 United States-- Back in February, the RNC 8 (eight anarchist organizers facing felony conspiracy charges from their organizing prior to the 2008 Republican National Convention) had a pre-trial hearing to schedule yet more hearings leading up to their trial. The February hearing came after months of uncertainty about when their pre-trial proceedings would continue and when their trial date would be set. Summer? Fall? Whenever the state felt like it? At this hearing, they learned that their FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 61 joint trial would commence on October 25—more than two years after they were preemptively arrested in the days leading up to the RNC. The RNC 8—Luce Guillén-Givins, Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Eryn Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett Fitzgerald—have been using their time outside of the courthouse to prepare for their trial. They even created a documentary about it: “We’re Getting Ready (for Court).” Check it out at http://www.rnc8.org. Several days of evidentiary hearings in May were also scheduled, so look for more updates soon. The court dates are May 3–6, 13, and 14. During these days, the lawyers for the 8 will argue motions such as ones to suppress evidence seized during the preemptive raids prior to the RNC and the probable cause motion. The hearings will include testimony from witnesses, including cops. As always, court support will be needed for these hearings, so come on down to the St. Paul courthouse if you’re in the area. In February, the eight defendants and their lawyers filled the jury box and defense table while supporters packed the public area of the courtroom. The hearing was regarding several motions that had been filed in the previous months. While the proceedings were less than riveting and most of the decisions about the motions were made in the judge’s chambers, away from public view, there were some surprising results. Even our old friend Bob Fletcher, Ramsey County Sheriff, couldn’t resist showing up briefly to watch the hearing. The defendants argued a motion for dismissal of the case because the state violated their First Amendment rights. The state has disclosed a series of documents from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department suggesting that the police singled out defendants due to their political views and writings. For just one example, the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department opened an inves- tigation on Luce Guillén-Givins based on publicly available, Constitutionally protected political writings and a “criminal history” that only included charges later dismissed by the courts. Judge Teresa Warner took this motion under advisement and we’re still waiting for her ruling. The defendants also argued a motion about discriminatory investigation and prosecution, stating that the state manufactured the conditions for their arrests by opening an investigation based on their perceived political beliefs and later pursuing their arrests and charging them with criminal conspiracy based upon their politics rather than their alleged actions. This type of abuse by the Sheriff’s office raises serious questions about why the state is prosecuting the RNC 8 because of their radical political philosophy and writings. Judge Warner took this motion under advisement as well, so stay tuned for news of her ruling once we receive it. Additionally, the defendants argued motions to suppress the content of the illegal raids on the Convergence Center at 627 Smith Ave. in St. Paul, a communication center and several residences. During these raids, the state seized numerous computers, literature, documents, and standard household cleaning and maintenance items. The search warrants were based on incomplete information provided to judges, including the fact that one of the alleged RNC Welcoming Committee members of concern to FBI informant Andrew Clark Darst was in fact an informant for the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department. The defendants also filed motions to learn more about the payments made to these informants. The judge took these motions under advisement as well. The defendants also argued a motion regarding their rights to utilize a jury questionnaire in order to expedite the jury selection process, ensuring it is fair to all those involved and that the jurors’ biases are fully known. Judge Warner granted this motion, so hopefully this questionnaire will result in a more thorough examination of the jurors. One of the most interesting motions that was scheduled to be argued asked to compel discovery about a fictitious anarchist group manufactured by police: “Indy TACT (Temporary Anti-Capitalist Team).” Retired Bloomington Police Officer Richard Greelis admitted in his post-RNC memoir, Cop Book, that this inflammatory group was a creation of his police department, with the goal of adopting a sector of St. Paul in which to encourage illegal activity. (See http://tc.indymedia.org/2009/sep/ ex-bloomington-cop-richard-greelisbook-reveals-rnc-undercover-workpdf) Therefore, the defendants filed a motion for additional discovery regarding this group and its role in creating an environment of police repression and entrapment. In court, though, this motion was withdrawn and may be refiled at a later date. As the pre-trial work proceeds and the trial date approaches, we need all the help and support we can get to fight these bogus charges! Now is a perfect time to get involved. We always need help raising funds for their legal defense, which is expected to exceed $250K. (Yeah, four zeros after that twofive.) You can donate online through the support website, host an event to raise awareness of the trial, become involved in the Defense Committee, and come to court if you’re in or around the Twin Cities. If you’re attending the US Social Forum in Detroit in June, come to the RNC 8 support strategizing session and help us prepare for trial! For more information: visit: rnc8.org UPDATES ON ALFREDO AND CHRISTOS IN GREEK PRISON Going into print of Issue 9, both Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopulos remain in prison in Greece. Although they continue to be recognized in the form of a ferocious solidarity shown in clandestine attacks across the world; both remain in prison, and potentially FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 62 face additional charges. We have reported on this case since its beginning last year. For the new readers: both were arrested after being stopped and accused of conducting a bank robbery in the small city of Trikala in Greece. The police claim that Christos conducted the bank robbery, while Bonanno waited outside in a rental car. Following a tip from a snitch citizen, they were allegedly found in a hotel with the stolen money, and arrested. Both have remained in Jail since their original arrests in the fall of 2009. Bank robbery has been a historical and successful part of anarchist and revolutionary struggles-- funding resistance at the expense of the enemy: capital. If such allegations are true, this is additional evidence for a need to support these comrades. We would like to add that Christos specifically said that Alfredo was not aware that the robbery was going to happen, and is not responsible for any of the allegations. Since our last issue, updates continue to be hard to acquire due to geographic and language barriers. The two most recent legal updates we have on Alfredo and Christos are both unfortunate. Since our last issue Alfredo and Christos were both denied bail. The reason they were denied bail was never mentioned, although it is obvious that two very courageous revolutionaries like themselves would not gain the trust of their most prominent enemy: the state. But denying bail in the case of Alfredo means denying him access to an environment where he can regain his health. Reports of prison conditions, mixed with reports of his health conditions both scare and enrage us. They were denied bail the week of February 14th and about 10 days later concerns of new charges by the Greek state became public. Although Alfredo’s lawyers bluntly deny the allegations, concerns of a second bank robbery charge have been reported on: This would not be the first time in prison for Alfredo, as he is 73 years old and was recently released from prison in Italy due to health conditions, as he overcomes diabetes and cardio-respiratory problems. Since his time in Greek prison, he has also been diagnosed as having a tumor in his shoulder, but repeatedly been denied not only new medical attention, but also that for his diabetes medication. Alfredo specifically comes close to our heart as the author of multiple texts appreciated by this magazine. “Armed Joy” (a pamphlet he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for writing), “Against Amnesty,” “The Anarchist Tension,” “Lets Destroy Work, Lets Destroy the Economy,” “Locked Up,” (written in prison about prison), and many other essays that have been featured in this magazine, in the form of quote, excerpt, or influence. His words and life have been an inspiration to us, and we want to encourage people across the world to stay aware of what is going on with Alfredo and Christos, and continue the struggle they remain dedicated to outside of those prison walls. “According to police sources cited by the media, Bonanno, with a false beard and wig, has been recognized by a witness of a bank robbery on the basis of a CCTV video, while he robbed the Bank of Cyprus, using a pistol, on July 6th in Argostoli, Greece. This information has been partially confirmed by a spokesman of the central police station, according to which “an old Italian is considered author of the robbery at Argostoli, which yielded 26,000 euros. The spokesman did not give Bonanno’s name directly but implied that it was him.” Due to Bonnano’s “criminal background” and notoriety as an influential voice for insurrectionary anarchy, it is obvious that the Greek state will try to use his current imprisonment as an opportunity to demean the struggle Alfredo so incredibly remains dedicated to. It is the responsibility of those who share his rage and desire for another world, to communicate that his imprisonment will not go unseen. Many have already done this. Since our last issue Alfredo and Chris- tos have also been transferred to a new prison. You can now write both comrades at: Alfredo Bonanno Christos Stratigopoulos Dikastikes Filakes Koridallos T.K. 18110, Athens. Greece Solidarity in the form of word, fire, and revolutionary violence have been occurring around the world. Demonstrations in Berlin, London, Rome, Lisbon (Portugal), Bologna (Italy), and Greece have helped let the Greek state know how global the concern for Bonnano and Christos is. Additionally, pamphlets were made available to the public. In Italy, Alfredo’s home land, demonstrations were met with an overwhelming police presence, obviously due to an awareness of the perspectives and influences that drive many of Bonnano’s supporters. Night time attacks have also occurred. An arson was claimed on a Bank in Greece the first week of April. An anonymous caller phoned the mainstream newspaper leaving only this message: “Terrorists are the banks and capitalists. Immediate release of Alfredo Bonnano,whose ongoing imprisonment equals his physical extermination considering his age (73 now) and his health situation. Freedom to C. Stratigopoulos,to Dimitrakis and to Voutsis-Vogiatzis. May the fires we light dry our tears for the murder of comrade Lambros Foundas.” A group calling themselves “Alchemists for Chaos” claimed responsibility for two attacks on two University research facilities in Ioannina, Greece. They stated that this was partially motivated by the arrest of Alfredo and Christos, and that they demand nothing more than the immediate release of both. The Royal Bank of Scotland was attacked in Bristol, UK with rocks and fire the last week of February. Alfredo and Christos were both mentioned as FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 63 motivations for the attack. Paint bombs were thrown at the Center for Judiciary Studies in Lisbon the second week of February. The institution is the educational facility for multiple future judges in Portugal. The action was declared in solidarity with Alfredo and Christos. In New York, a bank and university were attacked in solidarity with Alfredo and Christos at the end of February. A communiqué was written claiming at the action: “We attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating. Capitalism is a system of relationships, which goes from inside to out, from outside to in, from above to below, and from below to above. Everything is relative, everything is in chains. Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul.” -Franz Kafka There is nothing left; nothing that hasn’t been molded, molested, or completely crushed; nothing that has managed to escape the network of power as it scours every inch of the earth, lodging itself into every crevice. Crowding each moment, the omnipresent asphyxiation provides ample evidence to this all-encompassing totalization. Heads bowed, backs bent, we bear the weight of the day in our beleaguered entrails. Now taking on increasingly monstrous qualities, a vampire-likeness of achieved full nocturnality, even the sleeper finds his dreams inhabited. Robbing us of expectations, snatching away our latent potential, Capital has acquired the speculative capability to recuperate futures and integrate things before their invention. After colonizing the entire world, the enemy now works to conquer the collective realm of our imaginations where we once plotted and, consequently, envisioned its very demise. The cooption of creativity signaled the predetermined defeat, which led the Marxists to surrender to the British Museum before they realized an 1848. The only pseudo-victory to their credit consists in pushing Negri out of the spotlight by ushering “communization” and “insurrection” into the academy’s discursive field. Both trends can be written off as failed experiments because each has neglected to activate the only concept capable of giving jargon any significance. The Struggle. such, we then struck Brooklyn College’s administrative building. Lastly, we attacked Marathon bank, a subsidiary of the same Piraeus bank that Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos are accused of expropriating. We extend our solidarity to the two imprisoned comrades and, as Bonanno’s health deteriorates in a prison cell, we adhere to the following principle: “To fight, to be defeated, to fight again, to be defeated again, to fight anew until the final victory.” - An old Italian adage Please continue to stay up to date with the case of Alfredo and Christos by visiting this web site: aftertrikala.blogspot.com Please also donate via Paypal: angry_sysiphus@yahoo.com In practice, the clashes and occupations have divorced the leftist baggage and chosen everyday life as the terrain for conflict, yet unfortunately expression still continues to abide by the activist calendar. A day of action is paled by a year of misery. Like long fits of depression, extended bouts of downtime undermine each subversive act, resulting in the production of militant event planners: blinded to the past and merely anticipating the next unsuccessful Bastille storming. They strike at the same tempo ordinary citizens attend birthday parties, riot at the same rate of wedding crashers and surely, at this pace, they will never RSVP the bourgeoisie funeral. Detached theory and relegated practice present themselves as nothing other than the comorbid symptoms of statified ideology. Now we can confidently diagnose that the much prophesied “coming” can only amount to a passing fad. We notice the relentless internalized repression masquerading as patience and so we refuse to wait for March 4th, the ides of March or, for that matter, any date to come. We expressed our distaste for the veiled technological prison of surveillance and electronic monitoring by sabotaging several of the soon to be installed ID-card scanners at the Hunter College campus. Against education as “For an eye, two eyes. For a tooth, the whole face.” Update on Scott DeMuth and Carrie feldman United States-- Much has happened to Carrie Feldman and Scott DeMuth, two activists from Minneapolis, since our last report in Fire to the Prisons. They were both subpoenaed before a federal grand jury in Davenport, Iowa on November 17 of last year as part of an investigation into an Animal Liberation Front (ALF) raid at the University of Iowa in 2004. They both refused to cooperate and were jailed on civil contempt. Shortly thereafter, Scott was charged with conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) and released pending trial while Carrie was stuck in jail for an indeterminate time, which could have lasted as long as the duration of the grand jury (another 11 months from the time she was taken hostage). On February 17, Scott was re-indicted for conspiracy with a slightly more specific charge, although it is still flawed. The new indictment came after Scott’s lawyers filed motions to dismiss his case in part because the indictment was unconstitutionally vague. Rather than responding to the motions, Prosecutor Cliff Cronk issued a new indictment, which made the original defense motions irrelevant and caused Scott’s lawyers to have to re-file the motions. FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 64 On March 18, four months and one day after being taken into custody on civil contempt for refusing to testify, Carrie was released. The US Attorney unexpectedly filed a motion stating that her testimony was no longer needed, and she was subsequently released. People in Minneapolis were excited, especially since she was released the day before a fundraiser dinner for her and Scott was planned in Minneapolis and she was able to be welcomed home in style. Although her release was sudden, it came on the heels of an FBI raid of a well-known activist house in Salt Lake City, Utah with a warrant issued by a judge in the Southern District of Iowa, the same district investigating the ALF raid. The March 15th raid of the Salt Lake City residence certainly raises some eyebrows and questions. There is still little but speculation to go on, but the raid was clearly linked to Scott’s charges under the AETA and Carrie’s overdue release. According to blogger Will Potter, who posted the warrant, the raid was justified in part by the alleged mentioning of someone named “P” in Scott’s notebook, seized during a raid prior to the 2008 RNC in St. Paul; this was apparently interpreted as denoting Peter Young, thus “establishing” a link of sorts. (Yes, it seems weak to us, too.) In a remarkably clear instance of an info-grab, computers, books, pamphlets, and other items ostensibly related to “animal terrorism” were taken from the residence, but no one was arrested. Young is, of course, one of the most outspoken defenders of militant direct action in the defense of non-human animals, which is historically a reason for people to be targeted by the state. His inclusion in this apparently wideranging investigation fits neatly into a pattern recognizable to anyone familiar with COINTELPRO and other attempts to destroy movement organizing. The house raid is one of the latest incidents in the ever-expanding investigation into the ALF raid. In mid-January, Leana Stormont, a Virginia lawyer who graduated from the University of Iowa law school, was also subpoenaed as part of the investigation. Her relationship—if any—to the events in Iowa remains unclear, and she has not been in contact with the support committee. The prosecution is clearly grasping at straws to figure out a way to argue for a conspiracy existing so they can justify all their expenses and cover up the fact that all their money and might haven’t helped them “solve” the case of the 2004 raid. More recently, on April 12 at the federal courthouse in Davenport, Scott and his defense team met for what was supposed to be a final pre-trial conference before an early May trial date. Citing his own unpreparedness as the primary motivation, Cronk filed a motion to push back the trial date at least until early June and perhaps into July. Magistrate Judge Shields approved the continuance to an as-yet-unspecified date even though Scott’s previous request for a continuance had been denied as “unrealistic.” The delay is clearly another of the State’s stalling tactics and is indicative of the fact that the case against Scott is unwinnable. Having bought extra time, Cronk is continuing his search to find a brain for his straw-man case. On April 13, Scott was re-indicted for a second time. This time, the conspiracy charges expanded from the ALF raid at the University in Iowa in 2004 to include Lakeside Ferrets in Minnesota “and other animal enterprises elsewhere” with “persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury.” Additionally, the alleged conspiracy is now supposed to have run from September 2004 until the beginning of May 2006. The second superseding indictment was submitted one day after Scott appeared in the federal courthouse in Davenport and the prosecutor, Cliff Cronk, successfully argued for a continuance for the trial because he needed more time to prepare. In response, Scott’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss this in- dictment due to Cronk’s prosecutorial misconduct. In the motion to dismiss, the defense team argues that Cronk “intentionally misled defense counsel, and possibly the Court, falsely claiming that he needed more time to respond to dismissal motions that he had every intention of attempting to obviate by obtaining yet another indictment.” For more information about Carrie and Scott and to donate to their defense fund, visit http://davenportgrandjury. wordpress.com. You can sign up for the announcement listserv there as well. You can also join the “Support Carrie and Scott! Resist State Repression!” Facebook group to stay informed and get involved in supporting them. But don’t stop there! Anyone can host a fundraiser, print and distribute the flyers available on the support website, and talk to their friends and families about the issues and why we all must fight back and stand in solidarity with Carrie and Scott. Marie Mason Update United States-- Marie Mason is currently serving almost 22 years for two acts of property destruction, the longest sentence of any Green Scare prisoner. At her plea bargain, she admitted guilt to participating in 13 Earth Liberation Front actions, as well as one claimed by the Animal Liberation Front; no one was harmed in any of these actions. Her sentence is currently being appealed. Mason was turned in by her then-husband, Frank Ambrose, who spied on numerous activists for years, and then filed divorce papers the day she was arrested. Ambrose later caused Mason’s son to arrested on misdemeanor charges stemming from when he was a teenager; these were later dropped. Mason is adjusting to life in Waseca, a minimum-security prison, and is currently fighting to receive vegan meals. She is vegan for a combination of ethical, religious and medical reasons. The Waseca warden, however, has refused to provide vegan options, and Mason FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 65 has been suffering ill-health, including dizziness and extreme pain in her hands. She is currently appealing her request for a vegan diet to regional Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials. However, a wrench was thrown in the process and now she has to redo several steps. Mason loves letters, but she can only write to a pre-approved list of 100 people. However, she can receive letters from anyone. For more information on how to support Mason, and for a sample letter of what to write to BOP officials, see: www.supportmariemason.org. Marie Jeanette Mason #04672-061 FCI Waseca, Post Office Box 1731 Waseca, Minnesota 56093 South Carolina Now Requires “Subversives” to Register United States-- South Carolina’s “Subversive Activities Registration Act,” passed last year and now officially on the books, states that “every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State.” From Eric’s Support Group Dear Friends, On Friday, February 19, the government filed their reply brief to Eric’s appeal. The document they filed was 90 pages long - 90 pages of lies and slander in their continued effort to demonize Eric and justify their own inhumanity in locking a person in prison for 20 years for “thought crime.” The document is full of continued attacks on Eric’s character as well as misrepresentations and lies about the actual unfolding of events. All of this, combined with outrageous distortions of the law, make the government’s reply a rather distasteful read. But, for those of you who are interested in such sour fare, we are posting a copy of the reply brief on Eric’s website in the documents section <http://www.supporteric.org/pdfs/ govtreplybrieffeb19.pdf>. We recommend keeping something sweet nearby. Or perhaps something to settle the stomach. hours from where I live. Renting a car and paying for gas is incredibly expensive, and it’s a cost I just can’t carry on my own. The support Eric has received from all of you over the last four years has been amazing, and we are more than thankful for all you have done. Eric has shown a steadfast, unwavering commitment to do the right thing and fight the outrageous charges against him, despite facing severe repercussions for that decision. Please consider making a donation to support him, however small. Every tiny bit helps. Keeping our connections with each other in situations like this is essential. The state has tried to sever Eric’s connections to his family and communities. They know that this is where our strength lies. Our visits together are a very powerful tool in fighting the isolation and loneliness that prison can bring and in keeping each other strong. Please consider donating to help us keep these connections with each other. As painful as this document was to read, we are incredibly relieved that it has been filed. Eric’s lawyer now has 2 weeks to file his final response. We are hopeful that this will happen on time, as every delay means that much more time that Eric unnecessarily spends in prison. This response will be the last document that needs to be filed for the appeal. Then we begin the wait for the court’s response. Unfortunately, this could be a very long wait. To donate to Eric’s support fund, you can visit the “Help” section on his website and use the PayPal link to donate online. If you would rather not use PayPal (which we completely understand), please email us and we will let you know how to send a check or money order. The law also gives subversive organizations “subject to foreign control” 30 days to register with the state after setting up shop in South Carolina. The law states that “fraternal” and “patriotic” groups are exempt from the law, but only if they don’t “contemplate the overthrow of the government.” In the meantime, we want to urge you all to please not forget about Eric! He still needs your support in his struggle for freedom. One of the most important ways you can support Eric is to donate to his support fund. We have some money set aside in case we have expenses to cover in the event of a new trial, but the money that we use to keep up the website and help pay for my visits with Eric are quickly running out. These visits are incredibly important to us and help us maintain some sanity in this insane situation. Eric McDavid Update Eric is currently being held in Victorville, California - which is almost 7 A PDF of the registration form can be found at: http://fitsnews.com/ wp-content/uploads/2010/02/ SubversiveAgentForm.pdf Eric McDavid #16209-097 FCI Victorville Medium II Post Office Box 5300 Adelanto, California 92301 For more information: supporteric.org E-mail: info@supporteric.org Washington State Introduces So-Called “Eco-Terrorism” Bill United States-- Senator Val Stevens has sponsored SB 6566, “an act prohibiting terrorist acts against animal and natural resource facilities.” The so-called “ecoterrorism” bill, like many others, ostensibly targets underground groups like the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. The reality is that speech otherwise protected and acts of FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 66 civil disobedience can also be penalized as terrorism under the bill. This should not be a surprise, it’s simply the state letting us see what we should already know-- the rights we are granted will quickly be taken away when we use them for liberation. Even if we accept the utterly illegitimate mantle of state law, the bill proves especially troubling in how it defines “eco-terrorist organizations;” that it specifies civil disobedience as terrorist; and that simply speaking out in support of underground organizations can also constitute terrorism. The clear hope is that as the safety of ineffective tactics is removed and those tactics are criminalized, folks will skip past the petition-signing and lockdowns and get to hitting the state and capital with the full force of unmitigated rage, as manifest in every weapon imaginable. Update on Queens Raid and The Twittering Anarchist United States-- Finally the state of Pennsylvania has decided to unseal the affidavit which lead to the arrests of the “Twitter 2″ at the Carefree Inn outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24th during protests against the G-20. The affidavit which is signed on September 24th, 2009, by State Troopers Glenn D. Hopey and Gregg J. Kravitsky (who also signed off on affidavits during the 2000 RNC protests in Philadelphia) has been kept under seal since the arrests meaning that neither we nor our lawyers were able to have access to it. There is not much valuable information that we can obtain from reading this recently released affidavit. It seems that undercover state troopers were in attendance at spokes council meetings in Pittsburgh, and from there they claim to have followed Elliot Madison via car as he left the meeting on the 23rd, following him to the Carefree Inn where his room was raided the next day. It is humorous to read the pages of imaginative descriptions of anarchist tactics and supposed anarchist activity. The “Anarchist Weapons” (pg. 8-9) that the police claim may be used: “Human body fluids-Including blood, urine, and feces” , “chains wrapped in kerosene soaked rags launched with projectiles”, “Super-Soakers” also filled with urine, and “Rolling Barrels” filled with cement (!). With that we present you with the affidavit in PDF form <http://friendsof tortuga.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/ aff_of_prob_cause.pdf>. All of the redactions made in black were made by the State of Pennsylvania presumably to hide the identities of state troopers who infiltrated the spokes council meetings, all the redactions in red were made by us to remove home addresses and other personal information of our roommates and their families. For updates, visit: friendsoftortuga.wordpress.com Phoenix Update: On January 16th 2010, a contingent of about 100 or so anarchists and antiauthoritarians participated in a march of thousands against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his racist cronies. The group of anarchists and antiauthoritarians stood together as members of the D.O.A. (Dine’, O’odham, Anarchist) Block; a multitude which coalesced organically through participating together in many actions in the years and months prior to January 16th. The D.O.A. Block succeeded in changing the discussion regarding illegality, racism, and borders; bringing new and difficult questions to the table to expand ruptures and pry apart fissures. This not only occurred in the positioning of the D.O.A. Block, but the assertive tactics the block took when confronted with the Police harassment and provocation. Toward the end the march, after much pushing and pulling with the police, a mounted officer found an excuse to charge into the crowed and unleash a wide assault of pepper spray on the protesters, namely those in and around the D.O.A. Block. Five anarchists were arrested. Two are currently still facing felony charges of assaulting an officer, however the State’s cases against them continues to fall. While D.O.A. saw light for the first time amidst the flames of police brutality, it is safe to say that it has transcended the initial actions of the Block, and has become more of a mentality, a lens through which to view oppression and how to fight it. The future is looking very exciting. The future is looking very D.O.A. Read O’Odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective’s account of January 16th at: (http://oodhamsolidarity.blogspot. com/2010/02/battlin-phoenix-osabcstatement-on.html). Denver Anarchist Goes to Trial in Copenhagen Noah Weiss, an anarchist from Denver, is facing politically motivated charges which accuse him and his codefendant of organizing to disrupt the public order and do violence to police, and face stiff prison sentences as well as deportation form Denmark. These charges come out of his involvement in organization of demonstrations against the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009. His trial is a part of a campaign of police repression carried out by the Danish police during the COP15 in which over 2,000 people were arrested within a week of protests. Of all arrested, only around 30 were charged with any crime, and those that were charged were kept in jail for between one week and 47 days without trial. Some have already gone to trial and either been acquitted or received small jail sentences and heavy fines for charges such as assaulting a police officer or throwing a stone. The first part of his trial happened March 16th and 19th, where a good deal of evidence presented consisted of intercepted text messages and recorded FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 67 conversations dating back to September 2009. Noah’s next court dates are August 24th, 25th, and 31st. Anarchist Prisoner Michael Sykes has been transferred Michael Sykes is an 18-year-old anarchist from Lambertville, MI, currently serving a prison sentence for eco-related acts of property destruction, committed while he was a minor. He was convicted of setting fire to two homes under construction, and accused of attempting to cut down a utility pole, burning down other homes under construction, and setting fire to a Kroger’s semi-trailer. He was tried as an adult and is currently serving a 4-10 year prison sentence with somewhere between $200,000 and $400,000 in restitution. While Michael was 17 at the time of the alleged crimes, he was tried as an adult. His motivation was to interfere with sprawl, because he “was tired of seeing all the forest being destroyed.” Michael has had very little support since he was first incarcerated, and would much appreciate letters and other support. He has recently been transferred, and can be reached at the below address: Michael Sykes 696693 Michigan Reformatory 1342 West Main Street, Ionia, MI 48846 Holly Works, of the Oakland 100’s, trial postponed. Oscar Grant was a young Black man, who was murdered when he was shot in the back by the Oakland BART police on New Years Eve 2009. In the aftermath of the murder, many Oakland residents took to the streets and started one of the biggest rebellions since those in LA after the Rodney King verdict. Many were arrested and those people came to be known as the Oakland 100. The only remaining charges are for Holly Works. She is being brought up on a charge of felony assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer and is facing a sentence of 6 years. Holly’s lawyer has requested that ‘ in addition to any possible footage or photos of the arrest at 12th and Alice, Holly is also asking if anyone would be interested in sharing their video footage from both Oscar Grant protest dates (Jan. 7th & Jan. 14th) to help demonstrate for the jury the general atmosphere of the Oscar Grant protests and the commonness of wearing bandanas at demonstrations such as the Oscar Grant protests.’ Holly’s trial was postponed to May 10th. Support people can be contacted at oakland100(at)gmail. com David McKay of the Texas 2 Transferred David McKay, along with his codefendant Bradley Crowder, was one of the many anarchists at the protests against the 2009 Republican National Convention. Unfortunately, the government, using the snitch Brandon Darby, entrapped these two, and David McKay took a non-cooperating plea deal while Bradley Crowder is still awaiting trial. After a first trial that ended with a hung jury, David pled to possession of unregistered(!) Molotov cocktails, and received a 4 year sentence. Recently, David was transferred to California to participate in a 9 month drug program in an effort to reduce his sentence by as much as 12 months. Since he has been moved, he has not received much mail, and would greatly appreciate letters. Additionally, David writes that he has beef with the skinheads at the new prison because he’s participating in an integrated program (meaning inmates of ‘different races’ are cell mates) which is usually a big no-no in prisons. The threats of violence have not materialized yet. Write Him Here: David Mckay #14130-041 FCI Herlong FCI, P.O. BOX 800, Herlong, CA 96113 Activist House Raided in Utah On March 15, the FBI along with other law enforcement agencies, raided an activist house in Salt Lake City, supposedly in connection with an investigation into the Animal Liberation Front. This should not come as a surprise, given that one of the house mates is the infamous animal liberationist Peter Young, who had previously freed thousands of mink. The warrant was issued by the Southern District of Iowa, which likely connects it to the government campaign against Scott Demuth. At least 15 computers were taken by the FBI, along with boxes of documents, notebooks, files, and address books. The house is well-known in the area as a gathering space for animal rights and other activists. No arrests have been made, and at this point it seems Iowa is being used as a pretext for a continued campaign of harassment and intimidation. BJ Viehl Reports to Prison After being sentenced for the release of 650 mink, BJ Viehl has begun his 2 year sentence in federal prison. With ‘good time’, along with the credit earned for pre-trial time, he hopes to be released in late 2010. During the sentencing, the judge made a point of referring to BJ as a terrorist, and actually gave him a higher sentence than the prosecution had even asked for. The first months in prison are always the hardest, and BJ would appreciate any correspondence. He can be written at William Viehl #15909-081, FCI Terminal Island, Po Box 3007, San Pedro, CA 90731 Update on Jalil Muntaqim Prisoner organizations at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Upstate New York had gotten approval for a presenFTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 68 tation to coincide with Black History month, including 2 outside speakers. They additionally asked political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim, who is currently being held at Auburn, to speak during the event. Jalil was a part of both the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, and was given a 25 to life sentence for his alleged role in the assassination of two NYC cops. However, before the scheduled event, the New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association protested to the prison administration and succeeded in getting the warden to stop Jalil’s speech. This is yet another example of the continued assault against the Black Liberation Movement, and it’s prisoners. Jalil can be reached at Muntaqim, Jalil (Anthony Bottom) #77A4283, Auburn CF, P.O. Box 618, Auburn, NY 13021 The Petrozavodsk 3 In Petrozavodsk, Russia, without any significant evidence, 3 young people have been accused of vandalism at a concert, namely throwing paint bombs and distributing leaflets which criticized the established social and political order. As a result they have been pressed and tortured and now the case is being fabricated. These young people desperately need both legal and financial assistance, and their support can be reached at abc-msk@riseup.net. Catalan Anarchist Prisoner Amadeu Casellas RELEASED// put back into prison On Tuesday, March 9th, after 24 years of imprisonment, Amadeu Casellas was released. An anarchist since the age of 14, Amadeu took on a project of bank expropriations to fund revolutionaries and their organizations, eventually caught and sentenced to decades in prison. Once imprisoned, he was an active past of prison resistance organizing and went on several lengthy hunger strikes. Amadeu’s early release came as the result of a discrepancy in old and new penal codes, revealing that he served eight years longer than he should have. And while the support of a few attorneys helped on the legal side of securing his release, it was acts of revolutionary solidarity that kept enough pressure on bureaucrats and politicians to get Amadeu free. Anarchists did everything from writing letters and organizing benefits and information sessions to burning cop cars, sabotaging rail lines, and smashing banks. It was the full spectrum of approaches, while maintaining a single goal, that put Amadeu back on the streets with us. A few days before going into print we discovered some very disheartening information: On May 4, 2010, the court of Barcelona has sentenced Amadeu Casellas and his wife Yamileth B.P. to three years in prison for attempting to smuggle heroin into Quatre Camins. The event supposedly took place in 2008, but Casellas maintains the charges are fabricated. This comes two months after his release from a long prison term in which he undertook multiple hunger strikes. Casellas was in prison for over 25 years following a series of bank robberies to fund revolutionary struggles. This is quite obviously an attempt by the state to further disempower Amadeu and his supporters. We extend our utmost support and solidarity with Amadeu during these incredibly tragic times. German Anarchist Free! Germany-- On December 29th, 2009 Tobias P. was released from Moabit prison. However, the prosecutor’s office is attempting to have his case reevaluated in hopes of having him reimprisoned. A common State tactic is withholding a prisoner’s mail and in Tobias’ case, over 76 pieces of mail have been held, the prison refusing to this date to release them to the now-freed anarchist. It is common knowledge that the State gleans details from communications with prisoners in hopes of using found information to arrest others. HUGH AND TIGA’S FELONY CHARGES DROPPED Great news! Hugh and Tiga’s felony racketeering charges have been dropped! We got word the morning of March that, based on arguments made by their lawyers at their last court appearance, the Felony Racketeering charge they were each facing has been deemed not legitimate (If you’re curious... the basis for this ruling is that, under Indiana RICO law, conspiracy charges cannot stem from misdemeanor charges). While an analysis at this point would be purely speculative, one course of inquiry would lead us to infer that, as Interstate -69 has become politically impotent (“’I-69 is Dead’ in congress” say local news sources), the political/ legal pressure on the opposition has become less a priority, especially on the federal level with recent repression on comrades on both coasts. More good news: As they are no longer facing felonies, their travel restrictions have been lifted, and they can travel outside the state of Indiana. While this is definitely a reason to celebrate and a huge step, we’re not quite out of the water yet. Tiga and Hugh are still each facing four misdemeanors, carrying a maximum sentence of four years. Likewise, despite the easing of the state, we must remember that repression is ongoing both here and everywhere, as the state seeks to further criminalise free life through its equation with “terrorism” or conspiracy. This sleight of hand serves for the state and the capital as an ideal platform on which they both materialize their sophisticated attack against society, an attack that is becoming all the more barbaric as it is realized with the contribution of further deteriorating conditions and further repression nationally. And all this to shut people’s mouths, FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 69 to achieve their consent in their even harsher exploitation. However, criminals and society’s enemies are to be found in government (big and small), in mansions and administrative bureaus, in banks and office buildings, in media news and the military. As to those who are fighting for freedom, these are two folks being targeted who have been marching along our side towards social class struggles for years and, thus, in public. We will be next to them every single moment offering our solidarity, our self organized and uncompromising action so as to prevent their physical and political annihilation and to guarantee first their legal freedom, then their social freedom along with ours, through total revolution. We are calling every repressed person to offer zero tolerance against this novel orgy of lies and suppression. Everyone must understand the wider implications of these charges, despite the conspiracy of silence against the two indictees. No complacency while the State holds yet other comrades in its clutches, and while repression deepens across the Midwest and the whole country. Counter Attack from the masses and from below! Freedom to the arrested fighters! Every charge, large or small, must be dropped! Solidarity is our weapon! Anarchist prisoner Released on “Provisional Liberty” Spain-- Tamara Hernández Heras was released on April 22nd after outside pressure secured her appeal for provisional liberty. Shortly before her release, Tamara wrote the following letter: “I’m fine, considering the circumstances. It’s now been more than a month since they arrested me, with all the commotion that involved, and I prefer to remember it as a bad dream. In spite of everything, I can tell you that it didn’t make me fall apart, and I’ve been, and still am, strong enough and itching to keep up the fight. And that’s thanks to you, to all of you out there. Because you have kept me in mind all this time, I have never felt alone, and I think that’s very important to someone in jail. It makes me feel really fortunate because, in truth, the worst thing here is loneliness, which amplifies the desperation, the humiliation, the helplessness, and the fear. That’s why I find myself obliged to be cheerful and to pass along all my good cheer. Because here it’s very easy to be in the yard and find yourself crying to someone for (apparently) no particular reason. The truth is that right now I find myself somewhat lost and isolated even though I know you’re out there, despite the matter of the confiscation of my letters. But these fucking walls are sometimes very strong, and they prevent me from clearly seeing the reality on the outside (although I can more or less imagine it). I feel that the best solidarity is to continue the struggle. That’s why I think that, if there is a campaign for me, it must have continuity and a real undercurrent that helps strengthen the antiprison struggle. Otherwise, it makes no sense to me, and I don’t want other efforts to grind to a halt on my account. Besides, I’m more calm now. Reflecting on what I can, I intend to find a way to keep fighting from this side of the wall. The only lost battle is the one not fought. For updates on Tamara’s case, visit: thisisourjob.wordpress.com The Angola 3 are Still Going Strong! The Angola 3 consists of 3 Black men who as a result of their participation in liberation movements behind the prison walls. Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King organized prisoners and in 1971 created a chapter of the Black Panther Party inside of Angola. In 1972, a guard was assassinated inside the prison, and as a result the most politically active prisoners were rounded up. These three men were eventually convicted of this crime, with little evidence linking them to it, only the fact that they had been the most prominent organizers of resistance in the prison. From then until 2008, Wallace Woodfox would do the entirety of their time in solitary confinement, in an effort to break their spirit. Because of renewed interest in the case, and a new set of appeals, Robert King was released in 2001. A new film, ‘In the Land of the Free”, has just been released, hoping to draw attention to the continued struggle for their freedom Lauren Gazzola Released from Prison One of the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty 7(SHAC 7), Lauren Gazzolla was released from Federal prison on March 17. Lauren was sentenced, among other charges, for conspiracy to violate the ‘animal enterprise terrorism act’, an act that made previous actions that would have been protected under the 1st amendment illegal if they are done to whatever constitutes an ‘animal enterprise’. In this case, it was Huntingdon Life Sciences, a vivisection company which has tortured and killed thousands of animals over the years, and Lauren was part of a campaign to shut it down. This campaign was so effective that new laws had to be created in order to put people behind bars. But now Lauren is out, and can still use continued support. Write to her at her halfway house: Lauren Gazzola #93497-011 c/o CCM Philadelphia Community Corrections Office, 2ND & Chestnut St. – 7th FL Philadelphia, PA 19106 Alex Sanchez Granted Bail On his third attempt, former gang member Alex Sanchez was granted bail, at a FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 70 cost of $2 million. A cofounder of the LA gang-peace group Homies Unidos, Alex had been targeted by the state for alleged continued gang involvement. However, most of those close to the case believe the repression to be a result of his ability to not only get gang members to stop intergang violence, but to then work towards social change. See more at wearealex.org STAY UPDATED WITH REPRESSION AS IT GOES DOWN: Break the Chains www.breakthechains.info Denver Anarchist Black Cross denverabc.wordpress.com Prisoner Support Groups: These projects provide free literature and support for people currently incarcerated or facing jail time. The postal information is provided so that prisoners without access to the internet will be able to get in contact and request support. We apologize for only including projects based in the United States; we only have so much space. Those who distribute this magazine for free into prisons are specified. Shoelacetown ABC Prison distributor for this magazine. P.O BOX 8085, Paramus, NJ, 07652, USA Central Georgia ABC P.O Box 610, Roberta, GA 31078, USA New York City ABC Prison distributor for this magazine. P.O Box 110034, Brooklyn, NY, 11211 Houston ABC P.O Box 667614, Houston, TX, 772667614, USA Modesto Anarcho Prison distributor for this magazine. PO Box 3027, Modesto, CA, 95353, USA Unchained Books Prison distributor for this magazine. PO Box 784, Fort Collins, CO 80522 unchainedbooks@riseup.net unchainedbooks.wordpress.com Boston ABC Prison distributor for this magazine. PO Box 230182, Boston, MA 02123 BostonABC@riseup.net Pittsburgh ABC Prison distributor for this magazine. PO Box 9272, Pittsburgh, PA 15224 LEGAL INFORMATION/ SECURITY Security, Privacy, and Anonymity www.security.resist.ca Security and Counter-Surveillance www.anti-politics.net/distro/2009/warriorsecurity-read.pdf Midnight Special Law Collective www.midnightspecial.net Civil Liberties Defense Center www.cldc.org SERVING TIME Grant Barnes ##137563, San Carlos Correctional Facility, PO Box 3, Pueblo, CO 81002, USA. Serving 12 years for setting fire to a number of SUV vehicles. The letters ELF were spray painted onto all of the vehicles. Nathan Block #36359-086, FCI Lompoc, Federal Correctional Institution, 3600 Guard Road, Lompoc, CA 93436, USA. Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership. Also admitted his role in an ELF/ ALF conspiracy. Marco Camenisch Postfach 3143, CH-8105 Regensdorf, Switzerland. Serving 18 years. Ten years for using explosives to destroy electricity pylons leading from nuclear power stations. Eight years for the murder of a Swiss Boarder Guard whilst on the run. In ‘02 Marco completed a 12-year sentence in Italy for destroying electricity pylons in Italy. Daniel Mcgowan #63794-053, USP Marion, US Penitentiary, PO Box 1000, Marion, IL 62959, USA. Serving 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an old growth logging corporation. Admitted his role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy. Also recently found in civil contempt for his refusal to answer questions before a grand jury. For Further Information: www.supportdaniel.org Briana Waters #36432-086, FCI Danbury, Federal Correctional Institution, Route 37, Danbury, CT 06811, USA. Serving a six year sentence for alleged involvement in an arson at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture. The facility aided in the DNA mapping of trees, making it easier for forestry companies to produce profit. For Further Information: www.supportbriana.org/ Joyanna Zacher #36360-086, FCI Dublin, Federal Correctional Institution, 5701 8th St - Camp Parks - Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568 USA. Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership. Also admitted her role in an ELF/ ALF conspiracy. FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 71 A DIALOGUE WITH OUR COMRADES IN FRANCE: An interview with the Non-Fides Project Fire to the Prisons (FTTP): What is Non Fides? Non-Fides (NF): Non Fides started four or five years ago as a collective of individuals gathered together around questions like “how to organize,” “what is affinity,” “what is individuality and free-association,” all from an aggressive, individualist anarchist perspective. Some of us had already experienced membership in formal anarchist organizations, but were frustrated by them. So it first started out with the will to get rid of the bad organizational reflexes some of us had and to let our creativity-- writing and thinking, out of its former cage. We all met during the CPE movement in Paris during university blockades, occupations and wildcat demos and riots, all wanting to exceed this struggle and the frustrations which ensued from it. We then started our zine, Non Fides, which became serious around the third issue,and in which we wrote about gentrification, urbanism, work, prisons, the deportation machine and such, always with the will to bring offensive perspectives to already existing debates and means. But at its acme (in terms of quality and audience), we decided to stop the zine with a communique called “Adieu Non Fides” where we explained that first,we were tired of the passive attitude of most readers (acting as mere consumers) and the incapacity to read correctly anarchist theory due to the loss of lan- Photo from a 2005 anti-cpe riot in France. Here a policemen disguised as protesters have caught a "casseur" (provocateur) and are carrying him away. guage taking massive proportion in the anti-authoritarian movement (which I think is an international question). The website non-fides.fr is still alive-- it took the form of a massive anarchist database in several languages, collecting older and newer anarchist material (from theory and translations to agitation). Some of us founded a new zine, some others edit pamphlets, etcetera. For the rest of the interview, I will now answer as an anarchist individual and not as a Non Fides editor. FTTP: How is it that you stay up to date with repression going on in your area? NF: Well, there are several occasions for anti-authoritarians (anarchists are a minority in the antagonist movement in France) to gather and collect information together, publicly or not, like assemblies, meetings, and in more informal ways. There is also the internet (indy medias and other counter-informative medias), but we’re conscious of its limits, so as much as possible we try to stick with real life. Farid, Ivan, Bruno and Damien, people outside try to get their letters outside for others. We also try to publicize their cases in the streets, with pamphlets and actions. Also, often, communiqués springs from everywhere to claim anonymous attacks in solidarity, and to continue the struggles for which the comrades are incarcerated. Solidarity funds, which are also occasions to discuss repression, are also disseminated in various regions of France. For example, in Paris you have Kalimero, a solidarity fund for those accused of social war. FTTP: What are some of the ways you would recommend that others show solidarity with those more directly undergoing repression by the state? FTTP: What are some of the ways you are helping to support and show solidarity with comrades currently undergoing repression? The best way to show solidarity, in my opinion, is to continue the struggle, even intensifying it. Sending money and finding a “good” and free lawyer is an important part that you can’t deny, that’s a fact, but to content yourself with it, is to content yourself with a passive and humanitarian attitude-- it is to accept the procurer’s role in which the state wants to see us. So I think we have to ban the mourning and get ourselves out of the defensive status quo, and get to an offensive solidarity. NF: In many ways I guess, it depends of who you’re talking about. When a comrade is imprisoned, like Isa, Juan, Whether it is due to language barriers or not, it seems that quite a bit of repression goes unheard of by foreign FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 72 parties that may be supportive of the actions and ideas of individuals arrested, or communities of resistance struggling to continue engaging in conflict with the state. Although the Tarnac case seems to be a very well heard of case, by anarchists, or different revolutionaries around the world. Why do you think this is? Additionally how do you feel about the relationship the Tarnac case has with a larger media? NF: I think that most things that happen is the result of a choice. Why does everything that happens to anti-authoritarians and such and local social war factions (there are plenty) rarely pass mental and physical borders? Well, because nobody’s helping them to do so. For example, the only case that has decent (in terms of quantity, not quality) coverage outside of France is the Tarnac case. For one reason, and one reason only, I think it worked out because the people involved in this case were in the position, for evident strategic reasons, of talking to everyone that would hear them. From the extra-parliamentary left to deputies of the state, mainstream medias and human rights bordellos. That’s why I was talking of the importance of choices-- they made their choice to use the tools of the enemy and to believe in the ideology of democracy and public opinion. They also chose to declare their innocence and dressed themselves in social roles that the state wanted them to bear, like the good obliging grocer, member of an agricultural community, or good student. Ethics apart, the problem with that posture is that there is always a counter-part for those who refuse to don the democratic cape, like other comrades rotting in jail and refusing concessions to the state at the same moment. So, to answer your question, beside the technical questions of people not translating enough (which is a problem), the problem is that the Tarnac 9 chose to speak to everyone that could hear instead of talking to those that would listen to what they have to say, betraying their ideas on the road. FTTP: Is the Tarnac 9 case stemming from a counter-insurgency many revo- lutionaries or anarchists are currently struggling to overcome? Is it just that much of the attention is being focused on them due to their relationship with the media? NF: I would say both. There has been in France, since 2005 or so, an increase of anonymous attacks across the territory and massive social tensions and ruptures-- the suburbs riots and the CPE movement in 2005 and 2006, bosses attacked by angry workers, riots after squat evictions or against police killings and occupation like in Montreuil or Villiers-le-Bel. In such a climate, the state cannot do anything else than finding scapegoats on which the good citizens could expiate their social and moral frustrations. The generalization of insurrectionary practices like anonymous attacks and riots would be fatal to the state, that’s also a reason why they want to attribute these acts to fabricated social roles like the fantastical “anarcho-autonomous” movement made up by the states or the “bandes” (gangs). FTTP: We additionally have given much space and attention to the Tarnac 9. While recognizing that, we are aware that the Tarnac 9 are simply one of the many targets of the French state’s “anti-terror” campaign. What are some of the new methods of repression in France? Also what are some of the cases currently going on for anarchists or revolutionaries on trial or imprisoned, some of us in the states may have not heard of? Also what are some of the ways others can help or show support? NF: Indeed, the Tarnac case is just the small visible part of the iceberg. The recent anti-terrorist tsunami started on the 19th of January 2008, when Ivan and Bruno were arrested and accused of transporting a nail bomb, although they were on their way to a demonstration against prisons in front of the Vincennes detention centre (migrant prison) carrying home made smoke powder and bent nails to slash tires. Some days later, Isa and Farid were arrested by a highway patrol during a road-check in Vierzon. In their car, cops found a big quantity of explosive powder, a map of a youth prison in construction, and sabotage guides. They were put in prison under anti-terrorist laws. During their custody, the cops claimed that Isa’s DNA matched that found on an incendiary device found under a police tow truck during the last presidential elections. Later, using the “absolute” DNA evidence, police accused Damien and Juan as well. After four months, Farid, Ivan and Bruno went out under strict judicial review and house arrest from 9 p.m. to 6 am. At the same time, all those investigations went into one. According to the anti-terrorist laws, all the people belong to the same terrorist organization : the MAAF (anarcho-autonomous movement of Paris, which is pure invention). Juan has been in prison for 11 months, accused of attempted arson of a police car during the presidential elections. Farid was put under strict judiciary control on May 7, 2009 (he had been sent back to prison again on the March 11, 2009 for having violated his previous judiciary control). Bruno decided to flee from judiciary control in the beginning of July 2008 and is still on the run. Ivan made a similar decision in March 2009. Isa was put under judiciary control on February 10, 2009 (after more than a year of imprisonment). Damien was put under judiciary control on March 27, 2009 (after 7 months of imprisonment). None of them denied themselves or their ideas, none claimed their innocence and all denounced anti-terrorism as a state of exception or a bashing of democracy. None appealed to the media or made concessions to the institutional scum to save their skin. [NOTE Some of their letters from the inside were translated to english at that time and you can read some in the English part of non-fides. fr] More recently, a new case was opened by the anti-terrorist services, focusing on a massive sabotage campaign against banks, that were responsible for arrests of undocumented people, organizing ambushes with cops to their unwanted clients like La Poste, FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 73 BNP, LCL, CIC, Société Générale. According to them, more than a hundred ATMs were smashed, burned or sabotaged with sulfuric acid or extra-strong glue. We heard about it in the press at the beginning of 2010. On February 15th, at 6 am in the morning, 7 people were placed in custody and had their homes searched in Paris as part of an investigation into the support around the rebellion at the Vincennes detention center, and against the machinery of deportation. In total, 50 cops from the anti-terror police (SAT) of the Criminal Brigade (accompanied by the DCRI, the Financial Brigade, specialists in information technology…) were mobilized for this wave of arrests. The arrested have been taken for questioning. At the beginning of the detentions, the main charges are: “conspiracy to serious and willful damage or destruction,” “damage and destruction by fire or explosive substance,” and “criminal conspiracy.” It appeared quickly that actually, the people who were arrested are under suspicion of having participated in the unrest around the trial of those charged with the fire at the Vincennes detention centre, as well as struggles against the machinery of deportations. The struggle has been seen most notably in the occupation of Air France and Carlson Wagnon Lits branches, “wildcat walks” that include stickering, tagging, the sabotage of bank ATMs, with the help of glue, acid, fire and hammers, and banners notably hung on the little Parisian ring. [NOTE You can find an incomplete chronology of the solidarity with the torching of Vincennes detention center in english here: http:// www.non-fides.fr/?Chronology-of-theSolidarity ] For the 4 people who finally went before the court, the bail conditions consisted of a ban on seeing each other and coming into contact with one another, being required to answer to legal summons from the APPE (Association d’Aide Pénale), and not being allowed to leave national territory without previously asking for the judge’s permission. In the end, four people are now under investigation for “conspiracy to damage or destruction,” two people amongst them are also charged with “damage or destruction by fire or explosive substances.” They are still searching for a fifth person on the same charges. It’s hard to stay short on this, but these arrests are an attempt by the state to stop the movement and the attacks against those who take profit in the deportation machine. Because I have to stay short, I won’t comment or talk about every case that has shaken us lately (for example in Chambery, there were arrests after the death of Zoe, a comrade that died while testing some explosives). FTTP: You have reported on repression in Italy as well. Repression in Italy has been notoriously harsh, as well as lost or unheard of by much of the world, due to language barriers. We recently read an article on the current situations of revolutionaries undergoing raids and arrest in different parts of Italy? What is the situation there? NF: Well, about the recent arrests in northern Italy, and mostly in the city of Turin, you can relate them easily to the arrests of Paris which we talked about before. It happened in the same week and also concerns the struggle against the migrant prisons, the deportation machine and the world that needs them. They are also accused of anonymous attacks, occupations and the struggle against deportations. You can easily compare the two waves of arrests. By now the comrades have all been released from jail but under strict judiciary control and various interdictions and continuing the struggle. FTTP: Similar to America, the French state has used its new “anti-terror” slogan to create new opportunities in policing and counter-insurgency, how is this effecting anti-authoritarians in France? NF: As anyone could guess, it means more surveillance, more fear, as is always the case with repression. Technically, it also means longer custody, fewer “rights”, harsher treatment. The anti-terrorist agencies can do what regular police services cannot. It gives them a wider range of harassing techniques and allows them to practice an even harsher psychological torture during detentions and interrogations. But you know, it’s not the big deal, it’s just the state with more tentacles, but the same shit as usual. I’m sick and tired of the Tarnac propaganda about the “state of exception” and the abolition of anti-terrorism and other reformist rubbish. The state is the state, and we’re at war with the state itself, not with its smudges, “abuses” or mess-ups. And it gets really annoying to see this bullshit spread by anarchists around the world, like in the USA, like if they couldn’t see the core of the Tarnac 9 legal defense, and how it fucks the other imprisoned comrades around the world by ridiculing their uncompromising positions. FTTP: The riots in the suburbs of Paris have caught the attention of radicals and revolutionaries of many types across the world. What relationship do anarchists in France have with the riots? NF: Revolutionaries in France had contradictory views on these massive riots. On the one hand, there was the usual condemnation of the rioters because they had no vindications and had no “political” content, as they say. You can compare this attitude to the one in the ‘industrial revolution’ century of the Marxists against the Luddites in England or other movements of machine smashers and enemies of industrialism while the Marxists were praying for a world of machines and industrial progress. On the other hand, a lot of unorganized anarchists and anti-authoritarians were supportive, in a passive way. About the relationship of the anarchists and anti-authoritarians to the riots, I guess a bit of imagination could help! FTTP: Also like the United States, the French government has a notoriously vile attitude towards immigrants. Like the ICE program of the United States it appears that the French government FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 74 is also raiding immigrant homes, imprisoning immigrants, and forcefully deporting them on an individual and family level, at a phenomenally high rate. With some of the immigrant prison riots, including the recent arson at a French immigrant prison, have anarchists or revolutionary groups been showing solidarity with these struggles? If so, how so? Also, what sort of response have they been getting from their displays of solidarity? NF: Like you said, the situation here with the undocumented migrants is very controversial. Many say that Europe has racist politics and is building a fortress, but I think that things are not that simple. There are still a lot of migrants that successfully pass the borders, simply because the system needs them, first to fulfill a low-cost labor base, flexible as fuck and exploited to the bone and second, because it lowers the cost of work at every stage. When the cops do a massive arrest in the streets (like they usually do), part of the undocumented people arrested are released until the next arrests, another part are thrown in a jail for migrants (an “administrative retention center” as they call it), waiting to be deported to their supposed country of “origin.” But something like half are released after several days or weeks in the detention center. By arresting some, deporting some others and releasing the others, they teach fear to all. That’s why I think there’s no “Fortress Europe. All of this is not racist, but just plainly capitalist and workerist. Anyway, in June 2008, the biggest migrant prison in France, the Vincennes detention center, was entirely burnt down to the ground by its own prisoners during a revolt-- one day after the death of a prisoner. In Nantes, Bordeaux, Mesnil Amelot, and in other centers, similar events happened. In Belgium in which there are strong bonds between the struggles against prisons, some similar events appeared too. For Vincennes, 10 migrants were chosen to be judged by the state for the fire, they were sentenced to anywhere from 3 month to 3 years in prison. Before and after that, there was this massive solidarity campaign which we talked about in some questions before. Also, lots of comrades, like in Italy, put out some telephone chains to react as quickly as possible to the massive ID controls in the street. Others helped to get public statements by the prisoners and try to make correspondence between the struggles inside and outside the centers. So that they can resonate and push themselves. The rest of the solidarity,I already told you about before in this interview. FTTP: With counter-insurgency methods becoming more and more advanced, and prison more and more a reality, for more and more of us who see ourselves as revolutionary, what are some of the ways you would recommend remaining strong before such a scary era in the state’s history? Like you or anyone else, I don’t have any miracle solutions that fell down from the sky in the backyard to offer. I only have some propositions, reflections. I would just recommend to continue the struggle with rage, love, precaution, courage, sincerity and joy. We don’t give a fuck about the state and repression, even if we recognize its immense force-- when it crushes us, we are elsewhere. That’s why we struggle in active solidarity, in the knowledge that an attack against one of us is an attack against all of us. Rage and courage from the territory under French state domination. For the social war. “For the social war.” Photo from a 2005 Anti-CPE demonstration. FTTP #9-Repression-Pg. 75 A CHRO NOLO GY OF NORTH AMER ICAN PRIS ONER RESIS TANCE FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 76 EDITOR’S NOTE: N aturally, the proliferation of the prison has been met with significant resistance from those most affected by it. This may be best understood as a simple conflict of interests: the interests of prisoners against the interests of the prison itself, which does everything necessary to maintain their confinement. Riots, escapes, inmate fights, staff assaults, refusal of orders, and disturbances of all kinds are some ways in which the tension of this conflict is manifested. Each time the prison cannot proceed with routine operations it loses control of itself; each time the prison loses control, its inhabitants are able to act outside of its constraints, in accordance with their own interests. All actions which impede prison’s aim of social control can be considered tangible resistance. With only media reports as our sources, it is impossible to document every single case. While reading this list it is important to keep in mind that the inmate is always living in resistance to prison, regardless of whether or not a newspaper article is published about it. The actions reported here are only to serve as examples of those who even up against the grandeur of the prison and its near-insurmountable walls – manage to act out despite the dismal reality of the situation. 2 January Yacolt, Washington Two inmates escaped from the Larch Corrections Center. 3 January - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Despite being handcuffed, two Oklahoma City Community Corrections Center inmatesBclimbed over a fence and out of the prison grounds. 5 January Ullin, IllinoisThree inmates kicked out a window of the privately-run Tri-County Detention Center and escaped. 6 January - New York, New YorkA determined robbery suspect being transferred slipped off their handcuffs and took off running. 7 January Somers, ConnecticutTwo handcuffed Northern Correctional Institution inmates charged the two guards who were opening their cells to take them to the recreation area. They then attacked two more guards who came to the aid of the first two. 8 January - Kingman, ArizonaThree inmates refused to leave the common area and return to their cells. In the additional hour they spent out, they broke the overhead sprinkler system piping, several light fixtures and a metal track from a cell door in the A pod. 9 January - Saint John, New BrunswickAt least 16 inmates barricaded themselves inside a living unit at the Saint John Regional Correctional Centre. For five hours, the inmates damaged furniture, plumbing fixtures and electrical wiring as well as igniting a small fire, ultimately putting 24 cells out of commission. 10 January - Stillwater, Minnesota- 200 occupants of the Minnesota Correctional Facility’s B West housing unit refused to return to their cells in protest over prison conditions. The protest lasted two and a half hours before the inmates voluntarily returned to their cells. The warden seems to have missed the point while reviewing the inmates’ complaints, which he said he “would basically describe as having to do with the day-to-day operation of the unit.” 11 January Crest Hill, IllinoisA Statesville Correctional Center inmate stabbed a prison guard dozens of times with a homemade weapon. 12 January Port-Au-Prince, Haiti Inmates rioted and gained control of the main prison shortly after the city was struck by a 7.0 earthquake. Almost all of the 4,500 inmates escaped. Armed with the guns of their former captors, they headed straight for the collapsed justice ministry to set it on fire and destroy any records of their incarceration or criminal history. 13 January Van Buren, ArkansasAn inmate being transferred from California to Wisconsin escaped after an unauthorized rest stop. The inmate stabbed the transport officer with a screwdriver several times and took his gun. He then awoke the second transport officer at gunpoint, stole the keys to their restraints and took off in the van after firing several shots. The van was operated by the privately-run Columbus, Mississippi based North Atlantic Extradition Services, Inc. 19 January Stanley, WisconsinTwo inmates forged documents and were released from the Stanley Correctional Institution. A third inmate’s papers were discovered before they were released. FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 77 22 January - Asheville, North CarolinaA N.C. Department of Correction inmate failed to report back from their work release shift. 24 January - High Point, North CarolinaAn inmate set fire to their High Point jail cell and assaulted a corrections officer. The officer received wounds on their chest, face and both forearms after they were slashed with a knife made of two toothbrushes and a razor blade. 26 January Corinth, MississippiThree Alcorn County Jail inmates cut a hole in the perimeter fence and escaped in the early morning. 29 January Livingston, TexasFive inmates attempted to escape the Polunsky Unit after returning from a mass in the gymnasium. The guards opened fire, wounding three inmates, as they scaled the exterior fence after hopping the barbed wire topped interior fence. 2 February Corcoran, CaliforniaA California State Prison-Corcoran guard was stabbed in the head with a makeshift weapon. 5 February Augusta, GeorgiaA week of unrest escalated on the sixth floor of the Richmond County Law Enforcement Center when three officers attempted to break up a card game. The 31 inmates in the west cell block assaulted the three unarmed officers and continued fighting the deputies who were called in for backup. Six officers were admitted to the hospital including three suffering broken bones and another who was stabbed in the face with a pencil. 8 February Kingman, ArizonaThree Mohave County Jail inmates re- fused orders to return to their cells and instead broke the overhead sprinkler system piping, several light fixtures and a metal track from a cell door in the A pod. Darlington, South CarolinaAn inmate ran off the grounds of the Darlington County Prison Farm and into the woods. 11 February Bridgeton, New JerseyTwo separate assaults on corrections officers occurred at the South Woods State Prison. 28 February Knox, IndianaStarke County Jail inmates broke a light fixture and stuffed toilet paper into it to start a fire. The damage was minimal, but did cause all the inmates to be transferred while the jail was fully inspected. 12 FebruaryForest City, IowaAn inmate managed to disable a security system at the Winnebago County Jail and slip out unnoticed. 16 February Buffalo Gap, TexasAn inmate escaped from a work crew in a county-owned pickup truck. 18 February Kissimmee, FloridaAn Osceola County inmate escaped by removing a combination sink-and-toilet from a cinder block wall using a metal binder clip. The inmate then crawled through the cell wall opening, over some pipes and electrical ductwork, broke a lock on a roll-up door roughly half the size of a single car garage door, and was outside the building. From there they only had to cross two razortopped fences to gain their freedom. 20 February Covington, LouisianaIn the St. Tammany Parish Jail’s fifth escape this year, an inmate escaped through the ceiling of his cell and over the perimeter fence. All five escapes were due to inmates “beating the structure” by exploiting structural vulnerabilities in the institution. 24 February Freeland, MichiganCorrectional Facility inmate refused to submit to a search and a fight broke out between the staff and seven inmates. Three guards were hospitalized as a result. 26 February - 2 March Aiken, South CarolinaAn inmate simply walked away from the Lower Savannah Pre-Release Center. 7 March Yankton, South DakotaAn inmate escaped from the Trusty Unit on the grounds of the Human Services Center. 8 March Spartanburg, South CarolinaAn inmate walked away from the Livesay Correctional Institution. 9 March - Tempe, ArizonaA Tempe City Jail inmate escaped from a hospital where they were taken for a medical evaluation by slipping out of their handcuffs and out the front door. 11 March Washington, DCWhile being transported from the DC Jail to a hospital for treatment, an inmate removed their restraints and jumped out of the vehicle into a Cadillac and drove off. 12 March - Miami, FloridaA Dade County Jail inmate head butted an officer and took off while being transferred. 13 March Delano, California– On their way to breakfast, an inmate approached a North Kern State Prison FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 78 officer and started pummeling them in the face. 14 March Pocatello, IdahoAn inmate escaped from the Pocatello Women’s Correctional Center and into a waiting car. 15 March Chesire, ConnecticutTwo Manson Youth Institution inmates assaulted a corrections officer and injured two more who tried to intervene in the attack. 16 March Charleston, MissouriA Mississippi County Detention Center inmate assaulted a jailer and used their keys to escape. 18 March Kissimmee, FloridaAn inmate escaped from the Osceola County Jail for the second time in a month. They snuck away from a group of 50 trusties returning from the recreation yard and hid behind a shed. Apparently, from there they climbed to the roof of the shed, jumped to the roof of the nearby dormitory and jumped over the perimeter fence on the western edge of the complex. 21 March Paducah, KentuckyAn inmate escaped from the Paducah Community Service Center. The Paducah Community Service Center is privately run by Keeton Corrections, Inc. which runs seven facilities in the South Eastern . 22 March Beaumont, TexasTwo inmates walked away from a minimum security facility of the Federal Prison Camp. The facility has no fence and inmates are kept on a “honor system” where they are counted multiple times per day and are expected to check in for work details. 23 March - New Port Richey, FloridaA Pasco County Jail inmate used a cord to break a ceiling sprinkler, flooding a dozen cells and soaking medical and kitchen units on the floor below. When asked why they removed the sprinkler’s temperature gauge, they shrugged and said, “I was thirsty.” This particular inmate has a history of causing flood damage to the jail; they also flooded their cell toilet and tried to flood a shower while bathing. 25 March - Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico41 inmates escaped in a pre-dawn jailbreak. 27 March New York, New York20 inmates, still angry over the morning’s cell searches, refused to go back to their cells and squared off against corrections officers at the George R. Vierno Center on Rikers Island. When the riot control officers arrived to quell the disturbance, the inmates were able to disarm them and beat them back with their own batons. One officer was struck with their own radio; many others were hit with chairs. Ultimately, 13 corrections officers, two of which were captains, were hospitalized. 28 March Seattle, WashingtonApproximately 15 inmates rioted on the 10th floor of the King County Jail. For an hour and a half inmates flooded the area with water, smashed windows and damaged other jail property. 29 March Somers, ConnecticutA Northern Correctional Institution inmate punched a corrections captain in the face twice. 30 March Marksville, LouisianaThree inmates held a correctional officer at knife point and escaped from the Avoyelles Parish Sheriff’s Office Detention Center 1. 2 April - Reynosa, Tamaulipas, MexicoArmed gunmen raided a prison and freed 13 inmates after they exchanged gunfire with the guards. 5 April – Anthony, Texas– Hundreds of La Tuna Federal Prison inmates went on a work-and-hunger strike protesting poor medical treatment. Two staff members were assaulted while conducting interviews regarding the strike. Inmates vowed that inmate-on-staff violence would increase every day the administration did not comply with their demands. The strike lasted a week before the prison administrators announced they would meet the inmates’ demands. 6 April - Dilley, TexasTwo inmates escaped the Briscoe Unit of the Dilley jail on foot through a cut fence. They left from the furniture factory, where the inmates make chairs, through ventilation fans built into the wall and used “some kind of instrument” to cut a hole in the perimeter fence 25 yards away. 8 April Huron, South DakotaAn inmate escaped from the Beadle County Jail shortly after signing an extradition waiver. As they were walking between the courthouse and the jail they kicked their shoes off and ran away. 11 April Eden, TexasInmates housed in Dormitory B of The Eden Detention Center refused to return to their bunks and rioted through the night. The Eden Detention Center is privately run by the Nashville-based The Corrections Corporation of America, which operates 64 facilities in 19 states and the District of Columbia. 13 April Hudson, Colorado- FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 79 Inmates took control of a portion of the Hudson Correctional Facility after the cell doors inexplicably opened. About of dozen of the unit’s 41 inmates left their cells and destroyed sprinkler heads, windows and computers. The disturbance caused widespread water damage and the unit was reportedly left “littered with water, paper and smashed computers.” The two guards on duty were forced to seek refuge in the captains office by barricading themselves inside. REGARDING THE JANUARY 31st RIOTS IN NEVADA’S ELY STATE PRISON By: Coyote Sheff* 15 April Versailles, KentuckyAn inmate being taken to court to testify as the defense’s witness removed their shackles and kicked out the back door of a transport van and took off. Y es, it was a battle. My first report on this riot gave people an ugly look into the violence and bloodshed. I´ve reported it the way it happened, but nothing is to be glorified or celebrated here. It felt good to be a part of struggle and change, to see solidarity in action. You don´t see unity and struggle in these Nevada prisons, not in these days. Only under the most extreme situations will you catch a glimpse of it. It should not have ever gotten this far, or taken to such extremes, our grievances should´ve been looked into and taken seriously, and officers should have never provoked or assaulted any of the prisoners on unit 4. But that didn´t happen, our pleas were ignored, our grievances denied and prisoners were unnecessarily assaulted. So in desperation after every other remedy had been futilely sought, all we had left was violence and frustration. I was wrong to call it a victory though. There´s no victory here. I´m sure people on the outs who read my report were shocked at my cold and heartless attempt at describing the details of the incident. And probably took umbrage. I can understand how people out there could feel that way. Fortunately, they didn´t live in a world of predation, despair, violence, corruption, oppression and madness. They don´t know about the effects of long-term isolation and confinement, or about sensory deprivation and the effects that psychological warfare has on our minds in this warped environment. They don´t understand the wicked nature of prison and punishment and what it can do to a person. And they don´t want to believe what this place has been known to do to these guards, how it has the capabilities of turning the guards into spiteful and uncaring animals. How they become vindictive and petty, mean and aggressive, fearful and disrespectful. They didn´t see how after each cell extraction the guards would gather in the unit hallway, high-fiving each other as they would physically display how they punched, stomped or beat the inmate into submission. So, no offense to anyone, but if you haven´t lived in this foul-ass world of darkness and deterioration, then it´s not fair to judge it by your standards. Your standards don´t apply here in this concrete and steel jungle. We play by jungle rules in here, the guards and prisoners alike, and it´s called “the survival of the fittest.” We maintain an “us against them”-mentality sometimes. I´m not glorifying it, I´m not praising it, I´m just trying to shed light on it, so people can be aware of the cruel and unloving nature of life in a graveyard. For years, myself and others have been trying to bring positive changes to this prison, we´ve been trying to get people on the outs involved, attempting to bring a solid level of outside support to Nevada prisoners. I´ve also been actively educating, politicizing and organizing other prisoners, in Nevada, Texas, Ohio and other states. I´ve been passing out literature, supplying the prison with books and educational materials, teaching prisoners to read, teaching them to write, showing them how to be resourceful and self-sufficient. I´ve been doing all I can to raise consciousness and I´ve been trying to turn every tier that I land on into a learning center, and doing everything I can to help prisoners. Whites, Blacks, Natives and Latinos. I´ve reached out to them all in real ways, striving to make real efforts at change, elevation and empowerment. Myself and other prisoners in here have been known to organize study groups, having study sessions, engaging each other, quizzing each other, and testing each other intellectually, utilizing this time on lockdown as an opportunity to grow, learn and cultivate ourselves while living under such extreme conditions. Other prisoners in here have been doing similar things. Like for example, a prisoner here at E.S.P. just recently organized a stamp drive on his tier to donate to the victims of the Haiti earthquake, and he even donated $40 of his own money to the people of Haiti. So there are indeed many positive and productive things that do go on in this hellhole as well. It´s not all negative and violent. Unfortunately though, anything good that we try to get going in here, we have to do it ourselves. We don´t expect any help or support from the guards or prison administration. I´ll be the first to say that violence isn´t always the best option. Usually it´s the last resort, or the result of desperation and what usually happens under the most extreme conditions. All our attempts to grieve, kite, or complain about our injustices through the proper channels have been futile, and left us feeling hopelessly outraged. If you take a look at the history of all the American riots and uprisings – in prisons and on the streets – like the L.A. riots, the Watts riot, Lucasville, Attica, New Mexico, and the Cubans in the federal prisons, and even the recent one in Oakland, where an Oakland police officer, Johannes Mesehrle, fatally shot a civilian, Oscar Grant, in the back, while he lay face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind him. You will see that these riots have either happened in areas where people were living under extreme conditions. While sick and tired of the injustices and police brutality, or in places and conditions where people were frustrated and desperate, and in these situations it seemed that riots and uprisings were the only available course of action they had to express their hopelessness and outrage. Here in unit 4, at Ely State Prison, many tensions were increasingly building up. A lot of retaliation against prisoners by the guards and many other injustices created a potentially hostile situation. This riot did not happen solely because our appliances were unjustly taken from us. Some of these guards in here were deliberately refusing to feed certain prisoners in retaliation of grievances they wrote and because the guards realized that these particular inmates were shunned by the rest of the convicts for internal reasons: these guards were also going out of their way to provoke and instigate prisoners, rudely jumping into our conversations with disrespectful remarks, “losing” or throwing away phone kites, passing our mail out to the wrong cells, (some of these cells which housed sex offenders and “undesirables”), refusing to answer our kites, not taking over grievances seriously. In some cases, guards have even assaulted and injured certain inmates while in cuffs, because of grievances they wrote, and again, because these guards realized that these prisoners were shunned by the rest of the convicts for being informants, or sex offenders, “undesirables,” etc. Our appliances were unjustly taken for violations that occurred before the new rule change was in effect, or for minor or general violations, and even prisoners who were found “not guilty” had their appliances confiscated as well. Leaving FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 81 us in our cells with basically nothing, while surrounding us by mentally ill prisoners and informants and protective custody inmates, who deliberately go out of their way to terrorize us through the means of noise, verbal abuse and psychological warfare. We were deprived of the opportunity to buy food, coffee and other necessary supplies off of the canteen, while being left with no choice but to eat the foul-smelling / foul-tasting “mystery meat” and rotten vegetables that we are served for lunch every day, just to keep ourselves from starving in here. They´ve put unnecessary limits and restrictions on our phone calls, and on our visits, allowing us only one non-contact visit a month, with family only, causing a painful strain on our relations and communications with our family, friends and loved ones. This prison is located out in the middle of nowhere as it is, 4 hours away from the nearest big city, what´s the point of having our people drive all the way up here and back (you know how much gas costs these days?) just to talk to your loved one through a plexi-glass window for half a day? There´s only like 7 rooms that facilitate these non-contact visits, so if 10 people get visits in one day, the remaining 3 are burnt, and their families will drive all the way back home for nothing! We need all the love and support we can get from our own people on the outs, these are very important social ties to have and to stay connected to our families, and with the outside world. They´ve even went as far as illegally denying our right to receive books sent in from the outside, even dictionaries! And there´s so much more, everything just added up. Every time we´ve tried to address the issues through the proper channels, they would retaliate on us, and even fabricate things to justify what they were doing, and they would completely ignore us. Weeks FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 82 would go by before they´d supply the unit with kites and law library request forms, or first level grievances. Neither these guards nor the administration wanted to do anything to even try to fix these problems, and they were basically letting us know that they were gonna do whatever they wanted, regardless, making our situation see, desperate. Then, it all jumped off when they came to take away a prisoner´s appliances for a write up he received. The prisoner refused to cuff-up because he wanted to speak with the lieutenant to try to resolve this issue. The Lt. showed up with a squad of officers dressed in riot gear and helmets. The prisoner tried to comply and wanted to cuff-up, but this is someone the guards have been wanting to get their hands on for a while, none of the other prisoners really spoke to this guy, so I guess the guards had assumed he was shunned by the rest of the convicts, so they figured they had no reason to fear retaliation. They cracked his door open in spite of his attempt and willingness to comply, and ran in on him, he put his hands up in the air, refusing to resist or fight back and they tore his ass up! They beat him so bad that they ended up dragging him to the infirmary as he was leaking blood everywhere. Many of us were already exasperated about the hopelessness of our situation and all the foul treatment we´ve been receiving and we used this drastic situation as an opportunity to exert desperate measures. Two minutes of talking amongst ourselves led to two days of rioting. It´s all we had left. We felt the need to stand up for ourselves and for our rights to be treated fairly, with dignity and respect. We were frustrated and needed to get these frustrations out, and we didn´t see any other available option. Whites and several Latinos kicked it off on the first day, flooding, burning, capturing foul slots, popping sprinkler heads, forcing them to come in our cells and extract us, so we could fight them. And we fought hard, and they were even more brutal towards us! Until, allegedly an officer on the extraction team got stabbed. They didn´t want to fight no more after that. The Blacks agreed to riot on the second day, but by then, we all felt that we got our point across, the guards showed defeat, so we called it off. This could have went on for days, or even weeks, but we felt that this was enough for now, every guard on the extraction team received injuries, and one was even stabbed from what I hear, every prisoner involved was brutally beat by the officers, which led to the Lt and another officer getting fired! So we figured enough had been done already, no need to go on. Year after year it´s been take, take, take. The administration is always taking something away from us, without giving anything in return: no programs, no real educational or vocational opportunities, no incentive, nothing. They take a little here, take a little there, slowly but surely stripping us of everything. They know better to take it all at once, so instead they´ll take one thing now, and then, a few months later they´ll take away something else, and when they see that none of us are coming together to try to stop them from taking away our privileges and necessities, they´ll take more. It´s the game of “take-away.” Subtraction is their favorite math subject. They don´t know how to add, divide, or multiply, except for when they´re adding more rules and more restrictions, dividing us so that we can be conquered, or multiplying the number of beds, other than that, it´s all a game of take-away. Everybody has been hearing about Ely State Prison in the news, and websites have sprung up because of all the things that have been going on here in this graveyard. All of the many injustices and everything else that has been going on here clearly displays how deplorable the situation is here at E.S.P. The ACLU´s class action lawsuit because of the atrocious lack of medical care, the declaration of Lorraine Memory, the Noel Report, the situation with Ikemba, the situation with Kevin Lisle, not to mention the numerous accounts of all the staff working here being arrested and charged with various crimes, also the federal indictment and trial of the Aryan Warriors, who the government has labelled “domestic terrorists”! The mysterious death of Timothy Redman, and other deathrow inmates before him. The suicides, the indeterminate lockdown of the entire prison (except for one unit), the forcing of cellmates upon us, the riots and work stoppages, and not to mention that in the span of one year over 75 officers have either quit working here, transferred to other prisons, or were arrested, or fired… 75 Officers in a year, now if that doesn´t speak volumes on how deplorable the situation here at E.S.P. is, then I don´t know what does. There has been many deaths in this graveyard, and other things, Ely State Prison has continuously been in the news. There are 8 units in this prison and all but one of them are locked down and have been locked down for over 6 years, with no solutions or remedies in sight, no programs and no incentives to do good. This prison has been under federal investigation, and under serious public scrutiny, budget cuts have stripped us of everything from food to education, exposing how much they don´t care about our health, or our rehabilitation and re-entry back into society. Anytime you cut into our education, you are cutting into our rehabilitation, limiting our chances to make a successful return back into society. These people are heartless, they don´t care about us. They´re here to punish us, warehouse us, condemn us, and that´s it. Not only that, but it has apparently been the agenda and the desire of the prison administration and the system, to keep us stagnant and stuck on stupid so that we can surely deteriorate while living in these degenerate conditions. They know that “knowledge is power” and that “truth is revolutionary” and so they deliberately try to make it as difficult as they can for us to get books and FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 83 “Prison is nothing more than one limitation imposed on working-class life by the capitalist system which tries to limit our life in all directions. The struggle against prison is rooted in the experience of every one of the class who has been “caught up within the workings of the iron hinge”, and needs no further justification.” -The Claustrophobia Collective literature sent in, trying to use this new A.R. (regulation) to justify the denial of books, which is illegal and violates our first amendment rights, and not to mention all the other obstacles and restrictions and limits they´re always putting on us when it comes to receiving books and reading materials, even making it against the rules to share a book with another prisoner. It seems like they would rather see us pacified and complacent, locked down in general population, reading pop culture magazines and horror novels, or watching the “idiot box” all day, than to see us reading a book on history, economics, or politics, or learning the law so that we can figure out productive ways to get off of permanent lockdown. They would rather see us stuck on stupid, antisocial, with gangbang mentalities, going against each other all the time, than to see us utilizing this time as an opportunity to build social bonds with our families and friends, and as an opportunity to cultivate, uplift and educate ourselves. Rather than see us grow and get better, everything they do is to bring us down and break us down, they want to break our spirit, decimate our wills and keep us ignorant. That is what these rules are for, that´s what these restrictions are for, and that´s what these cells are for. It appears that these new administrative regulations (A.R. 733) are designed for those exact purposes as well! This new A.R. affects prisoners who are serving time in disciplinary segregation, taking everything away in a guise to create an “incentive to do good.” But they fail to realize that when they confine all of the prisoners with records of serious disciplinary problems in one area and then take everything away, with years and years of disciplinary segregation (D.S.) time to serve, all they´re doing is creating a situation where we have nothing to lose. This entire prison is locked down except for one unit, so the measures they have taken are impracticable and make no sense. Why implement such measures without a level system or steps program that allows us to advance through the means of good behavior, or get out of lockdown? Some of these prisoners have been suffering this already for years, with no end in sight, These measures taken by the NV Dept. of Corrections (NDOC) are senseless and unreasonable, and (as this recent riot displays) thee only thing these rules are good for is creating anger and frustration that has led to prisoners and officers getting hurt and fired! It doesn´t make sense. I´m proud to see so many prisoners of different races and / or different factions coming together and standing up for the injustices being done to us in here. I´m proud to be a part of something that strives to bring real changes for the people in here. It feels food to be involved and to get caught up in the spirit of revolt. Violence isn´t always the best option and I hope that we can come together like this more often, without having to take it to the extreme. Solidarity and Struggle, -Coyote NOTE: Coyote Sheff is a prisoner in Ely State Prison. He has been in active correspondence with Chicago’s Anarchist Black Cross. As they have helped his voice be heard by helping to publish his writings outside of prison, Coyote has organized his own Anarchist Black Cross chapter inside Ely State Prison. You can write Coyote or read more by him using the information below: Write Coyote at: Coyote Sheff #55671 P.O. Box 1989, Ely, NV 89301 Read more of his writing at: coyote-calling.blogspot.com FTTP #9-N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 84 “Class struggle is seen is many acts, many of them invisible to the politicos. We value each of these activities and struggle to relate to each of them as a radicalizing influence.” -Claustrophobia Collective Ruptures in the social fabric. accounts of agitation EVERYONE HATES THE COPS (A brief celebration of the tables turned.) January 10th, 2010-Police officer shot for being a police officer. “He was sitting in a police car, he was in a police uniform. He was shot because he was a police officer”. “There’s nothing random about it.” -Lt. Dave Koch of the Anchorage, Arkansas Police Department The police issued that statement after Jason Allen of the Anchorage, Arkansas police department was shot multiple times while sitting in his police car not doing anything. Sitting in a car, not doing anything, and having a random group of people roll up with guns? Sounds like what the police do every day. We are amused by the confusion of the police department, and are as similarly excited by the offensive nature of this ambush. It communicates a perspective (whether or not it was the intention of those who did it) that whether the police are pointing a gun at you or not, their presence in either form is always an attack. Whether it appears to be offensive or defensive, all behavior in conflict with the police is an act of self-defense. Jason did recover after multiple bullet wounds to his arms and torso. The black sedan and the shooters inside them were never found. Additionally their intentions were never exposed. But the police are interpreting this unprovoked assault on officer Jason Allen as an attack on the officer, solely because he is an officer. April 15th, 2010Man shoots parole officer. April 18th, 2010-Man claims guilty, and proudly states his lack of concern, and joyous feeling of revenge. “Unfortunately he ain’t dead. That was the plan... He’s an a-hole. He deserved it.” Those are the words of 50 year old ex-con Robert Morales, as he talks to the press greeting him at his first appearance to court. It is said that Robert Morales brought a 9mm Ruger hand gun to the office of his parole offer Samuel Salter on April 15th. He shot Samuel in the shoulder, then aimed the gun directly at his face; but on the second attempted shot, the gun jammed. Samuel recovered, and is now petitioning the Brooklyn police or parole union for metal detectors in the budget. Samuel Salters was described as being a straightforward and businesslike parole officer. With descriptions like that, we are sure he was a fucking douche bag. Following 25 years in jail, Robert was forced to spend almost every visit waiting for Samuel to see him. One occasion specifically cited in reports left Robert waiting in Samuel’s waiting room for over five hours. Samuel also set strategic curfews for Robert, like not being able to leave his house before 7 am, which lead to Robert getting fired from his job in the Bronx. After surgery and two heart attacks, Samuel Salters is still alive, and most likely continuing to help torment those recently released from prison. Robert did claim guilty of attempted murder, but proudly states that the attempt was worth it. In fact Robert made a 16 minute video confession where he states specifically that he meant to shoot him in the head, and was disappointed in his failed attempt to kill his parole officer. If someone was driven this far, and finds the revenge attempt more satisfying than staying out of jail, this attack most likely avenged the frustration and degradation of multiple ex-cons in the borough of Brooklyn. March 7th, 2010-Atlanta, GA Someone broke the glass window of a parole office, and threw a Molotov cocktail inside. March 18th, 2010-Raids and arrests on local motorcycle gang in southern California. After four city trucks were set ablaze that belonged to the Hemet California Police Department, raids on suspected members of the Vagos motorcycle bike club were made across the county, resulting in over 30 arrests. Although we are wary of reporting on this when the media refers to them only as white supremacists, our research has made us comfortable with including it. The motorcycle gang was started in Corona, California in the 60’s and is known to be primarily Hispanic. It also has chapters in Mexico. We are not saying that there can not be fascists in Mexico, but we are saying that this should be taken into account when responding the media’s attempt to demonize and isolate the gang. Hemet is a small desert town about an hour and a half drive north of LA. This incident, and the raids and arrests that followed were after three other arson or homicide attempts on police bodies, infrastructure, or equipment belonging to FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 86 the city’s local anti-gang task force. After the arrests and raids, an anonymous call was made to a 911 operator, warning her that attacks on the local police, specifically the anti-gang task force were planned in the next 24 hours. The three other bizarre boobytrap-style assaults were: -A natural gas pipe was rerouted into the headquarters of a gang task force building, but the flammable gas was smelled before anyone was hurt, police said. -In a second attack, a gun rigged to a security fence at the same building went off when an officer opened the gate but the bullet missed. -The third attack involved placing an explosive device to a police officer’s unmarked car. The device was discovered after he had driven to a convenience store. Police suspect the device was attached to the car but fell off. “It’s a constant pressure, a constant stress,” Officer Dana of the Hemet police department says in response to the resistance shown. MIDDLE AMERICA IS GETTING ROW(www)DY! Even the civilians are turning! February 18th, 2010: Got to be to much! “I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer. The cruel joke is that the really big chunks of shit at the top have known this all along and have been laughing, at and using this awareness against, fools like me all along.” -Joe Stack 2/18/10 Words from the “suicide manifesto” of Joe Stack, released to the public after he crashed a small “Piper Dakota” plane into an IRS and CIA building in Austin, TX on February 18th, 2010. Earlier that same day Joseph set fire to his $230,000 home in North Austin. After burning his house down, it is said that he went to his private one-engine plane, announcing to the airport’s traffic control that he was heading south. Before deliberately crashing his plane into the IRS and CIA headquarters, his last noted words were “thanks for your help, have a great day.” We are reporting on this crazy expression of discontent primarily because of the response by both the mainstream, alternative, or underground media. We do not understand why anyone would kill themselves in the process of defending their lives, but desperation and discontent can obviously be an unreasonable display of resistance. What was so interesting about this attack, was that it was very hard for it to be understood in the realm of politics. Many political groups or parties were struggling to form a response to it. But although it was obviously in some way a “political statement”, it seemed incredibly hard to classify and isolate the event considering how unique it was, especially considering how unique the writing was, and who Joseph Stack appeared to be. Joe Stack would have appeared to be the perfect “middle American” for any political candidate or party interested in reaching out that demographic -liberal, conservative, left, or right interests alike. FOX News struggled just as hard as CNN or MSNBC in their efforts to demonize or isolate Joe. But beyond attempts of character assassination, Joe’s lack of precise political association--or even more so, Joe’s white-American-citizen-appearance-baffled insult attempts, forcing media to improvise new name-calling other than “terrorism” or “insanity”. Joe’s words and frustrations seem to be a significant rallying point for many selfproclaimed “middle class” Americans -- the same holding tea parties, or the same growing organic food. Yet what made Joe different was his lack of distraction. Unlike many Americans who could relate with both Joe’s appearance and frustration but spend much of their time blaming something specific--the “poor” or the “super rich”, current or past administrations, or struggling immigrants--Joe was motivated by a contempt for an entire system at play. Joe was neither liberal or leftist, conservative or right-wing. He was a frustrated individual who needed nothing more FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 87 than experiences to expose his true enemy: the state, capital, or the entirety of a mediated society. From his “suicide manifesto”: “There are two ‘interpretations’ for every law; one for the very rich, and one for the rest of us… Oh, and the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws” February 12, 2010 “Do it yourself bank loans.” A 73-year-old man is arrested for robbing 3 banks with the intention of paying off his mortgage. James Bruce of Tampa, Florida was struggling to keep his house as the banks continued to threaten taking it. Barely being able to pay his mortgage, he desperately needed a loan. Considering that the bank was the source of his problems, he decided to take a loan into his own hands when he robbed 3 different banks, unarmed, and aware of the bank’s policy of not questioning robbers. Although he only walked away with a total of 1800 dollars from the three heists, he is a sign of desperation and a new lack of faith in the laws and regulations of the land (even in middle America). February 8th, 2010 Aptos, CA A man barricades himself in his house to avoid eviction by police, landlord, and bank. Brian Wayne Tomasso, 39, was arrested after police broke down several barricaded doors and windows to his house, after his landlord filed an eviction notice earlier that week. Sheriff’s deputies broke down several blockaded doors to arrest a renter Thursday who had refused to comply with eviction orders at a Vienna Drive home earlier in the week. He was then held on 15,000 dollars bail. Brian lived in that house for nearly a decade. On the day Brian had been ordered to vacate, when the landlord arrived to change the locks, the door was drilled shut, along with every other entrance to the house. We are not aware of where Brian is now. We can only assume that he is either homeless or in jail. Which is what happens when you are poor in this society. January 10th, 2010 Las Vegas, NV Man open fires in courthouse over loss of social security benefits. On a Monday at 8AM, Johnny Lee Wicks was said to have opened fire at an entrance security check point in a courthouse about one mile north of the Las Vegas strip. This resulted in one dead and one wounded court officer. Reports have described the shoot out as lasting for multiple minutes, and consisting of an array of gunshots from different directions. Johnny ended up dying, but obviously succeeded in letting the court know how he felt about their decision to revoke what he may have naively thought was an unconditional part of his “freedom”. March 4th, 2010 Man travels across country to fire bullets at pentagon. “On March 4, 2010, John Patrick Bedell shot two Pentagon police officers at a security checkpoint in the Pentagon station of the Washington Metro mass-transit system in Arlington, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. They returned fire and struck him in the head. He died a few hours later on March 5. -From Wikipedia Although John Bedell swarmed media headlines for about 3 days, he was quick to become an isolated moment in history. John Bedell was a 36-year-old frustrated and politically stimulated individual. You can watch the video lectures he wrote for youtube (where he clearly exposed himself as just another corny middle-America-type cat who for some reason fetishized his glorious forefathers and Constitution but hated the current state of their precious nation). Although as a project, we will admit that we are not so fond of his demeanor or “reasoning” for hating the American government (and to some degree would agree with claims that this man was more or less a “wingnut”), John Bedell was completely passed off by the media and removed from any recognition of being another desperate and frustrated member of middle America. This happened before anyone had an opportunity to even understand what happened (which was that another stupid white American woke up from their dream). His parents, the media, and police have referred to him as an unstable man. As with other events covered in this magazine, when the media or police can’t call names like “terrorist” or “criminal”, they can always turn to “insanity” to help isolate the event and prevent others from being inspired by it. Meanwhile, his parents escaped their embarrassment by clinging to claims of John’s insanity, and asking for pity in light of the fact that they filed a missing person’s report when their 36-year-old son left the state and began his random travel across the United States to open fire onto the Pentagon--that symbol of America’s security. The media has even gone so far as to criticize mental health authorities for not spotting this apparently overzealous psychotic. As a magazine, we despise the Constitution, or any bill that determines our everyday choices (and when our choices will get taken away). We simply find the logic and reactionary nature of libertarian or conservative politics to be just as - if not sometimes more - vile than those of a liberal or progressive. But John (Patrick Bedell), just like Joe (Stacks), communicated a new tendency in middle America that is coming onto the horizon of the American crisis today. A tendency that has removed itself in many ways from solely coming out of the stupidity and deception of racist or religious theory. A tendency that has aimed its sights up as opposed to down. While they cling to this simply embarrassing notion of this incred- FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 88 He hated what the Pentagon represented. Because of experiences in his life, not because of voices in his head. NOTE: We included these reports because it is interesting for us to see a new style of so called “middle class” frustration. While historically many groups or desperate individuals that might resemble some of these cases have turned to racist, xenophobic, or classist scapegoating, many are beginning to just turn completely on the government itself. THING the DOING ible pure freedom that lies at the origin of this awful, occupying, Eurocentric, gluttonous, slave-built shithole nation-state, and wait for the embrace of their so called “forefathers” (while getting skull-fucked by the current American capitalist state), they are beginning to not see blacks, Irish, or Mexicans as a scapegoat for their issues, but actually declaring war on the American state itself. This cheesy Mormon-looking white dude, rolled up to the Pentagon, shot at two police, and died by return fire to the head and arms. DAMN “Insurrection does not come up with the answers on its own, that is true. It only starts asking questions. So the point is not whether to act gradually or adventuristically. The point is whether to act or merely dream of acting.” March 17th, Montreal: For several years, Montreal has been rocked by protests and riots against the police and the daily brutality that comes with their violent occupation of our streets in the service of the elite. Last year, police and protesters clashed, and several hundred were arrested as over 2,000 took the streets. This year, protesters wrecked havoc within minutes of the protest starting, resulting in about one hundred arrests. Many protesters were dressed in black clothing in order to avoid police detection (and to better allow them to attack property and the police) and helped pull garbage and debris into the street to help block the police. The rioters also fired paint balls and firecrackers at the police as well as vandalizing a reported six police cruisers, some of which were set of fire. As a precursor to the riot against the police, rebels also struck out against a police station in St. Henri, damaging 11 patrol cars, including the computers in the vehicles and vandalized the station itself. According to snitches that decided to talk to the police about what they saw, 15 to 20 people (again in black and in masks to conceal their faces and identity) used rocks and sticks to break windows and police cars. Some of the tags located on the building include “FTP” (Fuck the Police) and “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards). Many activists decried the actions, believing that these kinds of actions will turn away public support for future protests against police violence. However, we want to destroy the police, not reform them. Our intentions towards them can only be manifested in open conflict and revolutionary action, not in shallow appeals to those in power to make the gears of this horror show run smoother. As people wrote online at anarchistnews.org later about the actions: The reason we aren’t like the police is not because we don’t want to provoke conflict. The conflict already exists with the existence of the police and the society that needs them. What separates us from the police is our desire to see the end of arrests, detention, prison and the exploitative system they maintain; not sometime in the future, but here and now. We went to that demonstration intending to attack the police. Apart from all the weapons we brought, we carried with us a desire to no longer see a single cop walk the streets the next day; at least without a limp, a headache and a feeling of fear that no overtime pay could reconcile. We went out into the streets to hit them as if we could actually smack them the fuck out of our lives, with no guilt, remorse or shame about it. While acknowledging that we have yet to realize the depth of our desires (cops aren’t yet running for their lives), we can still move our lives and projects in that direction. According to online sources, one anarchist still is facing charges in regards to the actions against the police in Montreal. March 1st, France: In Dijon France, actions against CCTV (surveillance cameras) took place as more FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 89 than 100 people met at the Place François Rude, to make a (final) tour of the city’s surveillance camera apparatus. The group, using trash bags filled with helium, helped cover up various cameras, often with the help and support of passersby. Bust out the eyes of the pigs. Early March: Brooklyn, New York In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the local American Apparel outlet came under direct attack. According to a blogger about the event, “...someone has gone and thrown rocks through the windows of the company’s store on North 6th in Brooklyn. FreeWilliamsburg reported that flaming trash was also involved in last night’s retail retaliation... A witness told them, ‘There were about 50 guys dressed all in black, wearing masks, and causing total mayhem all along North 6th St., dumping out trash dumpsters and setting everything on fire in the streets, and then smashing all the windows of the American Apparel.’” In another article, which compared the actions against the retail giant to “Project Mayhem” from Fight Club, a spokesperson for the company stated: “About 20 small windows were broken by a group of people on Thursday around midnight. The piece of metal used to smash them was left behind, a few mannequins were scuffed, and nothing was stolen. The police apprehended and arrested two people later that night, a man and a woman, and we’ll likely proceed by attempting to be reimbursed for the destroyed property.” January 15th, Mexico: It seems that 2010 is going to be a year of revolutionary anarchist counteroffensive against the state and capital, as bombings and arson attacks have taken place across Mexico, all carried out by anarchist groups. On New Year’s Day, a communique in Tijuana was released that claimed responsibility for the machine gunning of police cars, the stick-ups of various OXXO stores (a 7/11-type chain), as well as the killing of a police officer who attempted to intervene in a stickup. The communique read: We unleashed all of our rage in these dates of consumerism and Christianity in Direct Solidarity with all of our comrades kidnapped by the Mexican State in the entire world. Comrades: During the first hours of this new year, we machine gunned three police vehicles of the Tijuana Municipal Police as well as one private police car, in different parts of the city. During the attack there were no ‘victims reported’, our intention was not to kill the cops but to demonstrate that we are still active and in solidarity with our comrades. We did this as a gesture of solidarity with the international hunger strike of anarchist prisoners called for by Gabriel Pombo Da Silva... from the 20th of December until January 1st, as well our attack is in solidarity with our comrades Abrahán López, Fermín Gómez, Emmanuel, Hernández Hernández, y Víctor Herrera Govea (currently in jail in Mexico for alleged bombings and attacks attributed to anarchist, earth and animal liberation cells). We will also continue our expropriations from OXXO stores... Sadly, two robbers, without ideological motives, were captured during a hold up at one of the branches of the same business, the police are trying to blame them for our actions. We write this to clarify that the only ‘crime’ these individuals were involved in was the robbery where they were arrested. Insurrectionist and anti-authoritarian fire to all authority! February 6th, Pittsburgh: A Naval ROTC office was vandalized and attacked with rocks, which broke out several windows. The attack took place on the university campus of CMU, which is one of the largest receiver of Department of Defense contracts. A communique released stated: This economic sabotage of your property will continue until yinz end all DOD contracting and ROTC programs at your school. Enjoy! Hope you spend a ton on beefed up security, you’re going to need it. We are going to make your War on Terror as expensive for you as it is for the poor communities yinz help destroy. Oh, and this act is not violence, it’s sabotage. Violence cannot be applied to inanimate panes of glass you installed around your war-making labs. It can be applied to living things, however, something you’ve mastered in your research and ROTC. We are breaking the tools and apparatus used for mass murder: your war research budget. Thus, our property destruction is in defense of the people at the end of your robotic automatic gun turrets, or in the sights of the war planes Rotsie kids will be flying/ repairing. February 6th, Utah: A McDonald’s was attacked somewhere in Utah, and the communique read: Tried out our new extremely corrosive ammonium bifloride/sulfuric acid bomb on a McDonalds in Utah. Ammonium Bifloride is corrosive when applied to glass. It is easy to come by via internet or craft store. Sulfuric acid is water soluble and corrosive as well. You can put the mixture in glass bottles and throw it at windows. If the window doesn’t break then the contents inside will be sure to make the window unusable. Other uses: put in glass spray bottles and simply spray ‘paint’ windows which will then become ruined completely. The options are endless. If you are not comfortable with making your own. They sell glass etching solutions ready to go on the internet and in craft store. A lot of these are like paint and meant to stencil designs on windows. When the windows are sprayed with water, the chemicals react and they corrode the glass. So make your own stencils. When they come to clean off the ‘graffiti’ with water they will ac- FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 90 tually be doing your work for you. We have a lot of this stuff. The window replacement companies are going to be really happy this year. January - February 6th, Missouri: Police are investigating vandalism against the Calvary Baptist Church in Nixa, that cost over $10,000. The local Pastor says the vandals entered the church sometime during the weekend and trashed the two-story building. The damage includes holes in drywall and ceiling, broken windows and spray paint on the walls. The Springfield News-Leader reports that the vandals also emptied the church’s food pantry and discharged fire extinguishers into the carpet. Don’t wait for myths and legends to turn water into wine, loot and destroy all alters to the old order of misery and domination. In east Texas, police are investigating a string of fires at churches that were caused by arson. January 26th, New Jersey: Pigs are seeking the help of snitches to help identify whoever used a homemade explosive to destroy a forklift at a Wal-Mart Supercenter. Police reported Monday a “homemade Molotov cocktail” was placed on the forklift’s propane tank and ignited. The explosion destroyed the forklift, which was valued at $25,000. December 30th, Indiana: Fifteen bank windows were smashed out as unknown rebels tossed rocks at a Star Financial Bank. Pigs estimated the damage at $8,000. Security cameras from the nearby Wal-Mart store recorded a man walking around the bank going from window to window at around 6:10 p.m. March 17th, Bristol: In the UK, a private banking office was attacked. A communique posted read: Last night the office of Lloyds private banking in Bristol was attacked. On the night of Wednesday the 17th of March 2010, the Lloyds private banking office at 131 Pembroke Road, Clifton, Bristol was attacked. A plaque with ‘Lloyds private banking’ was removed from a wall and taken away. Walls of the building were sprayed with: ‘in the shadow of a dark horse lies a capitalist bailiff ‘, and ‘bankers up against the wall’. Pipes and cables to cooling fans etc to the building were cut. Two windows were smashed. Night night fredo M. Bonanno, Christos Stratigopoulos, Polykarpos Georgiades, Vaggelis Chrisohoides, Giannis Dimitrakis, Gabriel Pombo da Silva, the entire London G20 defendants/prisoners and all other prisoners in struggle. Also in Bristol, a probation office was attacked on the same night. A communique read: At 2am on 17 March, anarchists attacked the inner-city probation offices in Stokes Croft, Bristol. Paintbombs were thrown, the windows destroyed, were to personnel gates locks attached and slogans “No Prison – No State” and “For Lambros” on the walls were spray-painted. This activity is inaugurated on the death of our comrade Lambros of Athens in Greece, who was murdered by cops and represents part of our active denial of the control system. This attack came also in solidarity with Alfredo and Christos, with G20 and Gaza defendants, and with all prisoners who fight. The communique read: Last night the magistrates court next to the bus station in the middle of Bristol was attacked. All the reachable windows were smashed out and spray paint messages left on the walls ‘fuck the law not the poor! February 23rd, Bristol: In the early hours of Tuesday 23rd February 2010, anarchists attacked the Royal Bank of Scotland HQ (which help funds the Tar Sands Project), in the heart of developing Bristol, UK. Despite road traffic and proximity of security, the mob succeeded in breaking windows, smashing paint-bombs against upper floors and setting fire to tires in the middle of the road. This done in solidarity and anarchist greetings to everyone fucked over by the courts, probation, police, bosses, and everyone fighting class struggle against the power in the social war that is brought down on us. For international struggle against capitalism and the state. February 8th, Bristol: Courts were attacked against their rule over poor people on the streets and in the jails. We know that the court ‘justice’ system is nothing but a farce designed and run to protect the wealth and power that rules this rotten society. We know that this system is our enemy, it does not protect us. We know that to achieve a world where we might control our own lives and find solutions to our own problems we must first fight to bring this world to the ashes that it so deserves. A communique read: We dedicate this action to all indigenous fighters and their allies struggling against the Tar Sands project in Canada which RBS is an investor in, and also all those who fight against the 2010 Winter-Olympics. March 8th, France: In France, an ongoing struggle has been occurring against a high speed train project that will displace people and disrupt the lives of many. Sabotage and direct actions have been carried out against the train and its construction, which has resulted in several arrests (for a more in-depth look at this struggle, check out the insurrectionary anarchist magazine A Murder of Crows, second issue). This action is also in solidarity with Al- In March, unknown attackers set fire FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 91 yesterday to two excavators at the High-Speed Train (TAV) construction site in the town of Zaratamo in Bizkaia province. According to the Department of the Interior, the two machines were totally incinerated after being doused with flammable liquid and set alight by the culprits. This is the latest act of sabotage in the stream of attacks carried out by radicals against TAV construction sites during the past few months. On December 10, also in Bizkaia, attackers torched an excavator in Amorebieta-Etxano. Prior to that, radicals set fire to a Bulgarian worker’s personal truck in Mondragón on June 18. February 20th, Mexico: Total Liberation, an anarchist group in Mexico, carried out an attack against a municipal police booth. The communique for the action read: In the small hours of the night of February 9, we got ready to leave a present at a municipal police surveillance booth. Our gift consisted of a homemade incendiary device placed in a garbage can under the stairs of the police booth. We won’t reveal the exact location of the action in this communiqué, because the guardians of law and order already know where it happened. “This action—against the apparatus of police control and stemming from our desire to see prison society turned to ashes—is carried out in the context of solidarity with the days of anti-prison agitation in support of prisoners Víctor, Emmanuel, Abraham, and Socorro in Mexico, and in constant support of all the world’s prisoners. In solidarity with Adrián Magdaleno González, recently imprisoned in the cells of Marcelo Ebrard’s dungeons. February 8th, Mexico: Earth destroying machines in Mexico were attacked by anarchist groups in Mexico. A communique posted regarding the action read: On February 8, we again decided to break the routine of this alienating society, declaring ourselves at war against the destroyers of the Earth, against those who thought revolt had been wiped out by the constant imprisonment of anarchist warriors. This time, we headed for a construction site at night, empty of workers, bosses, and meddlers. We prepared two incendiary devices made with gasoline, diesel fuel, and motor oil, placing one by the wires near the engine of a backhoe and the other inside the front tire of a water truck used for the incessant advance of urbanization. We struck in solidarity with prisoners Abraham, Emmanuel, Socorro, Víctor, and the recently arrested Adrián Magdaleno González. We struck with our vengeful fire in Ecatepec, Mexico State. - Earth Liberation Front February 7th, Mexico: The Efraín Plaza Olmedo Blasting Crew issued the following communique: Regarding the January 15 Falabella bombing on Paseo Puente, we believe it is necessary to make the following reflections: Attacks against capital and the state represent steps on the road toward the destruction of the established order and the construction of a free world. Their propagation and frequency have shaken the ground beneath those who thought subversion had died out. How wrong they were. The more they use the politics of terror, the more insurrectionary actions occur. The more police they involve in their witch-hunt, the more groups at war multiply. But we think that these direct attacks should always be clear and understandable on their own, and should not leave room for the kind of conjecture that ac- companied the Falabella bombing on Paseo Puente—a place frequented, for the most part, by exploited wage-laborers hypnotized by consumption. Propaganda by the deed should be charged with meaning and content, even more so if its objective is to hurt people. We believe that it is the powerful who should feel the threat of constant danger, not the exploited who can barely endure the misery of their own lives. Let’s not delude ourselves or contribute to the delusion: The exploiters and their families do not frequent places like Paseo Puente. They live in distinct, guarded habitats, and it is there where we should attack, bomb, and reclaim their spaces of criminal bourgeois arrogance, especially given that we possess the technical capacity to thwart enemy cameras and security units. In this way, we don’t leave room for conjecture regarding the content and scope of our actions. Finally, with these reflections we are attempting to contribute to an antiauthoritarian discussion nourished by action. We are not trying to immobilize groups or appeal for inaction. Far from it! We are part of those contributing to the construction of a world without exploiters or leaders, against whom we advocate all forms of struggle. For the multiplication of direct actions in the exploiters’ domain. - Efraín Plaza Olmedo Blasting Crew January 1st, Barcelona: Rebels set fire to a car belonging to the private security company Prosegur in Barcelona, after a delayed incendiary device left under the fuel tank caused it to burst into flames. The communique posted read: “We claim this action as a response to the recent assaults by ‘security vigilantes’ on the metro and tramway. Let this be very clear to those responsible FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 92 for the abuses, those who benefit from them, and those who carry them out. Let this be very clear to all those in uniform who gang up to beat people, who patrol the metro on the hunt for immigrants, who unleash attack dogs in the middle of public celebrations. We have made the decision to stand firm, to not allow even one more assault to happen in silence.” January 11th, Buenos Aires: A police recruiting center located in the metropolitan city was attacked by way of fire from two Molotov cocktails. Communique: Monday, January 11, we took a little trip to the metropolitan police recruitment center, right in the middle of Parque Chacabuco. We attacked with two powerful Molotov cocktails, causing minimal material damage to the front of the building and almost completely burning up a motorcycle parked near the entrance. We again show our presence, and that nothing is going to silence the voices of the oppressed in revolt. We send a greeting to all the world’s fighters, and tell the executioners once more: This is a war and we will not stop till you fall! -Revolutionary Cells March 21st, Mexico: Two Banamex banks were attacked in Mexico City. Communique: “Three Molotov cocktails were detonated against two ATMs at a Banamex bank located in the delegation Iztapalapa in Mexico City. The ATMs, symbols of the alienation, the monetary functions and the robotisation of our society were inflamed in a raging fire, as alarms sounded and passing motorists looked on in disbelief, thinking to themselves `How are these people still taunting the police apparatus?’ And in a matter of seconds we disappeared between dark streets, watching the moon and uttering sparks of complicity. These acts are necessary to expand the social levels. More attacks against power. More banks burned. More police brought to justice. Perhaps for many the damage inflicted against this bank- ing corporation means nothing. But for us, we do not rely solely on economic damage as a signifier of success of such acts. This is not our priority and is not what causes us the most happiness. More important for us is the disruption of the social peace--the peace of our exploiters--as not to remain sedated in total inactivity, only dreaming, longing for change but never acting. For the rupture of the commercial society! For taking control of our own lives! For the destruction of the State and Capital! For solidarity with imprisoned comrades: Giannis Dimitrakis, Alfredo Bananno, Gabriel Pompo Da Silva, Marco Camenish, Emmanuel Hernández, Victor Herrera Govea and Abraham López Martinez. For the destruction of the prison society! For the destruction of the world of Capital and for the construction of a free world, starting from this moment! Because the social war is not a game nor a joke, but a reality which is constantly evolving and growing! -Arson Action Brigades “If they do not wish to deceive themselves and others, those struggling for the demolition of the present social edifice must face the fact that subversion is a game of wild, barbarous forces. Someone referred to them as Cossacks, someone else hooligans; in fact they are individuals whose anger has not been quelled by social peace.” FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 93 UNDER REPORTED CONFLICT FROM AROUND THE WORLD insurrection recuperated in Kyrgyzstan In mere days, the entire country of Kyrgyzstan was destroyed, and unfortunately rebuilt. An insurrection happened in Kyrgyzstan at the beginning of April. Obviously the effect of the riots had much to do with the lack of stability of the Kyrgyzstani government and economy of late. This sort of complete political collapse during times of crisis is not an uncommon event in post-Soviet central Asian countries, and they are quick to be recuperated by opposition political parties. We are not mentioning this uprising because we are in any way excited by the conclusion of the riots, because we are not. We are not mentioning these events because we think that something like that could as easily spread in a place like the United States, because it is a very different social climate. We are mentioning this event because although different political parties are debating about Russia’s influence on the events, it is quite obvious from all the footage of the events that this was a popular uprising. Leadership and politics contaminated the possibilities of the riots, but Demonstrators in Kyrgyzstan beating injured police who first shot at them as they try to flee. the riots themselves were beautiful and spontaneous displays of popular frustration with the police and other retainers of an undesirable everyday life. It also shows the police for what they are. Even if there is a unanimous discontent with the state, the police will be there till the end, because they help to make up the body of the state. You could see this when police began opening fire on rioters in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek. Around 78 people died, and hundred were hospitalized for bullet wounds and beatings. While the police opened fire on rioters, multiple pieces of footage also show rioters attacking police, brutalizing them, and in some cases returning fire. While police shot and tried to protect the state that they are created by, hospitals were free to wounded rioters, as was seen in footage of random people helping each other without concern for the hospital as property. Police cars and government buildings were obliterated, at the same time that police and politicians were taken hostage by rioters. What was most beautiful about these events was that they did not come about due to a military operation. This was a popular uprising of the people of Kyrgyzstan, and although the events were recuperated by the new government, the solidarity and frustration displayed in the riots in early April went beyond politics as usual, and is considerably worthy of our attention; if not for the beauty of the violence itself. Indonesia: In South Sulawesi, Makassar, hundreds of civilians and anarchists attacked riot police during the eviction of land. Molotov and stones were thrown at riot police, who attempted to subdue the crowds with tear gas, which sadly for them, was blown back by the wind and hit the police instead. The riot police retreated and the militant civilians wins. Resistance to evictions continues. Central Durban, South Africa: Around 3,000 Abahlali Base Mjondolo (ABM) members braved serious intimidation from the intelligence services, local party goons and the notoriously violent South African Police to occupy downtown Durban yesterday - which was the South African public holiday in FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 94 honour of ‘Human Rights’. The notoriously authoritarian Durban City Manager, Mike Sutcliffe (who calls himself a Marxist), had first tried to ban the march with an illegal diktat. But the crowd set off on the route that they had originally intended to take and were able to occupy the main streets and the downtown area in violation of both Sutcliffe and the court. However they could not get past the huge and armed police presence cutting them off from the City Hall. As the group later wrote: “We are all agreed that there is a serious crisis in our country. The poor are being pushed out of any meaningful access to citizenship. We are becoming poorer. We are being forced off our land and out of our cities. The councillor system has become a form of top down political control. It does not take our voices upwards. The democracy that we won in 1994 is turning into a new system of oppression for the poor. For too long we have been subject to evictions from our homes, be they in shack settlements or farms. These evictions are often unlawful, they are often violent and they often leave the poor destitute. Therefore we demand an immediate end to all evictions so that we can live in peace and with security.” People living in shacks in South Africa are often the victims of gangs of armed men. For instance, on September 26th, a gang of forty armed men attacked the Kennedy Road shack-dweller community, an informal settlement in Durban, South Africa’s second largest city. The group chanted fascist ethnic slogans (pro-Zulu and anti-Pondo) and threatened to kill the leaders of the shackdwellers’ organization, Abahlali Base Mjondolo ( ABM – literally “Shack Dwellers’ Movement”). These gangs are organized by local and regional African National Congress (ANC) leaders, which Nelson Mandela was previously a member, and also have the support of the local police. Bangladesh: As mentioned in previous issues, poor and working people in Bangladesh have again and again resorted to rioted and destroying the property of the bosses as they react to attacks on their working and living conditions. And the working and living conditions in the country are murderous. In the 1970s, up to 250,000 children a year died in the country from drinking dirty water; today water can still be fatal. Currently in Bangladesh, up to 20 million people in Bangladesh are at risk of suffering early deaths because of arsenic poisoning – the legacy of a well intentioned but ill-planned water project that created a devastating public health catastrophe. By the early 1990s, when it was found that up to half of 10 million tube wells were contaminated with arsenic, Bangladesh was confronting a huge problem. The World Health Organization called it “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history... The scale of the environmental disaster is greater than any seen before; it is beyond the accidents in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986”. Some subsequent studies predicted that, ultimately, one person in 10 who drinks water from the arsenical wells would go on to die from lung, bladder or skin cancer. Even though some of these conditions take decades to develop, by 2004, about 3,000 people a year were dying from arsenic-related cancers. An examination of the ever-present threat of fire in the lives of the working class as factory after factory has killed various workers and slum fires devastate various working class districts. The growth of slums in the last 15 years has been unprecedented. In 1990, there were nearly 715 million slum dwellers in the world. By 2000, the slum population had increased to 912 million and to approximately 998 million today. On February 25th, twenty-one workers died in a fire at the Garib sweater factory in the southern district of Gazipur, burnt to death or choking on smoke. Health and safety regulations are rou- tinely ignored by management and are hardly enforced by government (many politicians have business interests in the industry); factory fires break out on a bimonthly basis. Most are smaller incidents with regular injuries but fewer deaths, but over 240 workers have died in major fires since 1990. The Bangladesh military also brutally suppresses the local indigenous population, such as on February 20th, when the military opened fire on a group of Indigenous Jumma villagers in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. Four villages were also burned to the ground by a group Bengali settlers who began to illegally invade the Jumma’s land on February 19th. The military was deployed to specifically defend the settlers. As one writer commented: “Many garment workers will have experience of fires in the workplace, many will have sustained injuries, lost friends and work mates to them - and all know that this is due purely to bosses’ greed and negligence. The fairly regular use of fire by garment workers in their struggles against their employers must be understood within this context. Garment workers have often burned down factories in retaliation for non-payment of wages, lockouts or management brutality. Many garment workers are malnutritious due to low income, living hand to mouth. Arson is a readily available means of hurting the bosses and depriving them of something when they refuse to pay; and there is certainly a poetic justice in the fact that those forced to live with a constant fear of fire at work can also utilise it as a weapon against their exploiters.” Burma: 4,000 workers went on strike in Rangoon in March, as the latest escalation of labour tensions exploded in a sit-in to demand better pay. Workers at two garment factories in South Dagon Township’s No. 2 Industrial Zone began their strike early in the morning, as riot police quickly arrived on the scene as soon as the strike began. In recent FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 95 months, workers employed by factories in Burma’s commercial capital have shown growing dissatisfaction with stagnant wages, as inflation continues to erode the value of their earnings, most of which are spent on rising prices of basic commodities. Hidalgo, Mexico: In March, 1,500 federal police surrounded the Juandho community and began raiding homes after they cut the town’s electricity. This assault began when members of the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) hung strike banners on their former workplaces as part of the national strike in support of the SME. The SME reports that the town’s electricity went out last night. During the night, hundreds of federal police arrived. According to people writing reports on the internet, people felt that despite the heavy police presence, residents feel victorious that they managed to defend the local Luz y Fuerza building which was occupied by 120 union members. Members of the SME also abandoned the leadership and control of the union itself, as they took the struggle into their own hands instead of waiting for bureaucrats to manage and direct them. However, in the face of this heroic wildcat strike, the SME effectively abandoned 24,000 of its members in its negotiations with the government, prompting many workers to escalate their actions including occupation of buildings. Workers also set up protest barricades in front of their former workplaces in order to block the CFE’s trucks from hauling out more equipment. Representatives from the Mexican Electricians Union (SME) visited the barricades, informed the workers that they were engaging in unsanctioned protest activity, and requested that the workers remove them. Workers at many barricades refused the union’s request, and the union refused to recognize and support the wildcat barricades. Anywhere between five and twenty workers staffed the barricade at any given time. According to sources at NarcoNews, the situation at the Lechería barricade suffered a defeat on January 8th, when a man in a truck showed up at the plantón and reportedly offered to help the workers re-install the barricade by dumping gravel in front of the plant. Before the driver was able to dump the gravel, Federal Police arrested him and workers Enrique Mejía García and Sergio David Rodríguez Martínez. Both workers are adherents to the Zapatistas’ Other Campaign and participated in the protest encampment. Peru: In March, conflict and repression poor people resisting the government (as report in issue 7 of this magazine) continued to be inspiring and brutal. Recently, five people died in the northern city of Piura in violent clashes between shopkeepers and police over plans to remove street vendors from the vicinity of a local market. The confrontations were precipitated when about 1,000 shopkeepers demonstrated in Piura, after they could not meet with Mayor Monica Zapata at city hall and began a street protest. Bahrain, China: In March, police attacked a group of Chinese migrant workers who had taken nine of their superiors hostage near a construction site. Police responded by storming the barricaded worker-housing compound on February 27th after a siege that lasted several hours, freeing the nine men and arresting 26 workers of the approximately 150 residing in the camp. The operation occurred after negotiations led by the Ministry of Interior and a Chinese diplomat failed to persuade the workers to release the hostages, who included architects and foremen at the job site, ministry officials said. The workers started a wildcat strike a few days prior, and decided to kidnap the bosses in an attempt to see their demands met. The tactic of workers kidnapping their bosses has also been used successfully in France. Chiapas, Mexico: In early March, the government began a campaign of violent eviction of rainforest land to clear the way for biofuel production, showing again the stupidity of “green capitalism” in an industrial world. The evictions were carried out in Chiapas by state and federal police at two peasant settlements in the Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve. The operations took place January 21st and 22nd at the settlements of Laguna El Suspiro and Laguna San Pedro—the last one a base community of the Zapatista rebel movement. Homes were destroyed, and the inhabitants forcibly taken by helicopter to the nearby town of Palenque, where they were given temporary shelter in resettlement center—and interrogated by federal agents about supposed marijuana cultivation on their lands. Officials from the Federal Prosecutor for Environmental Protection and National Commission for Protected Areas were helicoptered in along with the police contingents to oversee the evictions. Other settlements also face imminent eviction, including Nuevo San Gregorio, Nuevo Salvador Allende, Nuevo San Pedro, 6 de Octubre, Poblado Laguna El Suspiro, Ojo de Agua el Progreso and San Jacinto Lacanjá. Shortly after on January 26th, state and federal environmental authorities issued a new plan for the “Ruta Maya”—including the Montes Azules reserve—emphasizing eco-tourism development. Many believe that the lands of the evicted peasants could be turned over for “biofuel” production, noting that in January the Chiapas state legislature had approved funds for establishing African oil palm plantations. Capitalism makes constant war on the earth and all those that need and depend on it to survive--whether it is green capitalism or industrial capitalism makes no difference. Chile: As mentioned in previous issues of this magazine, Mapuche indigenous communities in Chile continue to face massive repression as they courageously resist colonization and eviction from their lands. FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 96 In February, courts agreed to keep a Mapuche youth charged under antiterrorism laws in preventative custody after his arrest for an arson attack that occurred on September 11th last year. Over 360 hectares of land as well as property and machinery belonging to local Elsa Fernandez was torched during the attack. Police allege that the youth were trying to flee the country when detained. Stockon, California: Indigenous activists and anarchists converged in the Central Valley town of Stockton to occupy a foreclosed home owned by the California Valley Miwok Tribe (CVMT), as they resisted the eviction of their home by a bank. The house was occupied by about 40 people and people inside barricaded themselves by welding the metal gate shut and prepared for a confrontation with police. As Silvia Burley, CVMT chairperson stated, “We will not budge and are willing to die... Everything has been taken. This is the last.” The occupation was successful, and by the end of the first day of occupation the bank buckled and granted the tribe more time to pay their mortgage. As a report from the action stated: “The point that really resonates here though, is that a group of people are drawing a line and standing their ground against the forces of capital. Our homes, our futures, and our lives will not be taken away without resistance. We are not few enough to be easily pried apart. Today, anarchists resisting foreclosure will stand with indigenous people resisting disconnection from their territory. And tomorrow? The occupants of this house are prepared to keep out the sheriffs, the developers’ thugs and anyone else that tries to fuck with us. If the house can be held until Feb. 9 there is a court date which may release funds to the tribe and save the house, so it would be concretely really helpful for more people to join the resisters here. It would also be awesome if more people started occupying foreclosed houses, resisting eviction, and occupying fucking everything.” Mindanao Island, Phillppines: The community of Anislagan on the island of Mindanao has successfully blocked the Philex mining company from entering their lands. According to a press release from the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRC-CdO), nearly the entire community gathered to greet Philex, the largest mining firm in the Philippines, with a makeshift checkpoint they put together, on January 11th. To reinforce the checkpoint, the community formed into a human a human barricade, leaving the company with nowhere else to go. “Women and children here are ready anytime to defend our land. This land is where we survived. We should fight for it!” said Rizalina Lisbos, a mother of four, who was on the front line of the barricade. Makassar City, Indonesia: More than 50 youth with black hoodies attacked and destroyed the central office of the PTPN (state owned plantation companies) in Makassar City, South Sulawesi. The action was conducted on the 100 day anniversary of SBY-Boediono’s corrupt government that was celebrated by large number of mass demonstrations. Many are angry over the monoculture farming of crops for oil palm. As one report stated, monoculture “...converts the islands of South East Asia into one big plantation, as commodity capitalism continues its troublesome advance over Indonesia and Malaysia’s rural areas. The rainforests fall, to be replaced by oil-fields, as in distant capitals politicians with their eyes shut proclaim a new green biofuel, and the trees keep falling. Yet the effects of the industry are not limited to ecology. Where there is oil there is conflict, and that is true for the oil that grows on the ground just as much as for the oil that is mined from under it. In the Indonesian Province of North Sumatra, nearly every oil palm plantation is a zone of friction. The palm trees are all planted on stolen land, and farmers are desperately fight- ing to get their land back. “If the people own the land but the company owns the trees – who gets to farm the land? The answer will not surprise many: whoever can wield the most force. The company simply made a deal with the police, military and local mafia to work together and the farmers were denied access to their land once more. The crops they sowed between the palm trees, clearly within their legal rights according to the court’s decisions, were ripped out of the ground... in nearly every oil palm plantation in North Sumatra there is a community that has been dispossessed and in nearly every case that community is still struggling to get the land back again. Several land occupations are ongoing at any one time and there are heavily armed police, military and private thugs that defend the company’s investments.” Warsaw, Poland: Things are getting hot for bureaucrats and property speculators as Warsaw tenants take more and more action. In January, tenants protested at the parliament, burning the Law on the Protection of Tenants which they claim is meaningless and only protects the interests of property owners. “At least we’ll put this meaningless paper to good use - by keeping warm,” claimed the tenants as they lit a bonfire. They reminded people that throughout Warsaw, people must resort to burning all sorts of things in their homes to keep warm as many houses still have no heat and as slumlords cut off gas to drive people out of their homes. At a time when many tenants, often elderly, are sitting home freezing, it is much better to take to the streets - where there is no heat, there will be fire - our fires, the bonfires of resistance. As one report stated: “The Tenants’ Defense Committee has declared war on city bureaucrats who make horrendous policies to enrich speculators and to redistribute property to elites, heirs of former elites, speculators and developers. Their cronies also earn on overpriced public tenders, often related to gentri- FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 97 fication, but not the real improvement of public housing standards. The Committee has been exposing corruption, blocking the plans of the local bureaucrats and intervening on behalf of tenants with direct actions. It has publicly opened a list of empty flats and buildings, suitable for squatting... Some tenants will fight losing their homes in any way possible. Some refuse to move, blockade themselves in their houses, fight with the landlords, become illegal tenants or squatters. Others are fighting now to overturn illegal privatization - only again the law does not protect tenants. Illegally privatized housing is often resold and the courts consider that the new owners purchased the property “in good faith”. It is increasingly clear to even non-politically minded tenants that the law was made by property holders and speculators, for property holders and speculators, and tenants are only treated as possible sources of income for the parasitic speculators and landlords.” Slovenia: In March, migrant workers launched a hunger strike in order to get back unpaid wages. The workers have been fighting for better conditions and wages in a hut situated on the outskirts of Kocevje. The hut itself is made out of wood and polyvinyl, with gaps in the walls, which makes for entirely inappropriate living conditions. A contractor by the name of Perkovic has not compensated them for the work they have done in the past 15 months. The current work permit regime enables that the employers to exploit migrant workers for a minimum of two years, however the amount of time is often even larger due to a specific status of different types of work permits. All this enables the employer to exploit the workers and ignore basic labor regulations. San Paulo, Brazil: Two civilians were killed and a police station was burned to the ground during a clash between residents and cops in the northern Brazilian state of Para, authorities said. While leaders claimed that the clash started when police want- ed people in the town to hand over a suspect in a deadly robbery, the real purpose of the protest was to drive out the cops. Local pigs also noted that the attack was unprecedented in a spontaneous protest, as the rebels used Molotov cocktails in the attack on the police station. British Columbia, Canada: In late February, the Okanagan Indian Band (OIB) launched a “protective blockade” at the Okanagan campsite near Bouleau Lake in southern British Colombia. Tribal members stated that the blockade was enacted in order to stop the logging company Tolko Industries from endangering the tribe’s water supply. This action comes after and exhausted legal battle to protect the tribe’s water and land, which has been logged extensively for more than forty years. Despite the Canadian government’s awareness of this, and the fact that there is ongoing litigation concerning Aboriginal title to water, on January 11th, the British Colombia Supreme Court gave Tolko Industries permission to commence logging in eight separate “cutblocks”. Following this, on February 20th, the OIB held an emergency meeting to discuss their options. As a result of the meeting, Elders and band members unanimously agreed to establish checkpoints. They also agreed to establish a protective blockade in the watershed. Chief Alexis declared a full moratorium on all logging in the watershed, stating that “no commercial logging will be permitted in these areas until further notice.” Juyjuy Province, Argentina: Campesinos are demanding and end to logging and violence was violently driven from their land in early January. According to a statement from the family, employees from the company KRAM SA, which is owned by a relative of the Argentine Ambassador to Bolivia, illegally evicted them to make way for a new transgenic soy plantation on their land. Tofu anyone? During the eviction, an 80 year old campesino, Gloria Mamani, was beaten and dragged across the ground. “They killed our animals, they shot them[...], they disposed of the whole ranch of cattle, horses and goats, the pigs, they shot everything. They poison[ed] our water, we don’t have drinking water” says Gloria’s granddaughter. “We are trying to organize to see how we can stop them.” Black Mesa, Arizona: Black Mesa, the traditional lands of Hopi and Dineh people, has been a site of struggle for indigenous people and their supporters for years, due to resistance to massive coal mine projects. In January, Peabody Coal’s massive coal mine project in northeastern Arizona, was dealt another major blow by an administrative judge in Salt Lake City. The permit was supposed to “guarantee” Peabody’s operation until 2026, or “until the coal runs out.” But now all of that is on hold while the impact of Peabody’s coal plant on the environment is put under further scrutiny. Violence at Pubugou dam in China: During Chinese authorities’ attempts to relocate people and demolish homes to make way for dam construction, residents resist and threaten to blow up themselves and their homes on April 24. The Pubugou dam construction has been the scene of resistance and violent struggle since 2004, when the army fired on protestors marching against it. Villagers arson resort construction in China: On April 24th, more than 10 villagers set fire to the construction site of a government resort complex in the Emei Mountains in southwest China’s Sichuan Province to protest the forced demolition of their homes by the touristdevelopment project involving luxury hotels, resorts, clubs and parks. Clashes occurred between protestors and police, resulting in seven injuries. FTTP #9-Accounts of Agitation-Pg. 98 UPDATES IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST GRASSROOTS FASCISM EVERYWHERE Picture of Jewish prisoners at the Dachau concentration camp right before beating a Nazi soldier to death. May Day San Francisco: During San Francisco’s main May Day march, a group of white supremacist youth called “Bay Area National Anarchists” were allegedly attacked by a group for counter-protesting the immigrant demonstrations planned that day with signs like “no amnesty”. Two were arrested, a woman and a man, and were both booked for possessing a deadly weapon, robbery, and conspiracy. Reports also say that they were originally charged with a misdemeanor hate crime because the reason they were fighting the Nazis is because they were Nazis. Their original bail was set at 210,000 dollars, but on their May 5th arraignments it was dropped to 75,000 dollars. The 75,000 dollars was obviously another opportunity for the state to drain resources for communities of resistance, in this case, those who chose to show no tolerance for intolerance. Funds from comrades were gathered around the country and both have been released on bond, which means roughly 6,000 dollars a person lost to the bails bondsman forever. Both were released pending trial, and are still facing 5 felony charges each; 4 counts of assault and 1 count of robbery (the Nazi youth white supremacists of “BANA” claim of the arrested tried to steal their bags). The “Bay Area National Anarchists” is a front name for a youth white supremacist group in Northern California The group uses the term anarchist to appeal to other young and frustrated people that would be excited by such a word, but this is a front for their fascist/racist agenda which also hides in what they call “tribalism”. Members of the group spend most of their time uploading videos of themselves talking or picking up trash, but they seem to spend a lot of their time trying piss off actual anarchists, if there name isn’t enough. One of the most essential and inherent traditions of every anarchist force or movement in history has been the complete disdain and intolerance for Nazis, considering anarchy is the antithesis of fascism, in the most extreme way. The group can be seen on corny youtube videos of themselves they have posted on their websites, where you can see them picking up trash on the beach, “as a tribe”. Honestly though, by tribe they mean a bunch of douchebags who simply listened to too much Korn and probably got made fun of as children, only focusing on the black kids that tormented them. These kids really are lame, and they deserved a beating at one time or another. Sorry, but really fuck these morons. In their attempts to piss off local anarchists, they would attend large “anarchist” events or conferences and take pictures or video footage and upload it online, so the anarchists knew that Nazis were there, even if they cowardly remained silent. FTTP #9-Struggle Against Fascism-Pg. 99 These so called “anarchists” finally got what’s coming to them, and honestly not enough. Like a cop buying crack in Oakland, seriously fuck you. After years of talking shit, they were spotted with signs of “no amnesty” at the immigration march and apparently a scuffle broke out. These “anarchists” are now also using the state to defend themselves, hiding behind “free speech” and even fabricating stories to try and add charges to those arrested. In regards to the free speech, we have to say that they spoke, and they were entitled to that, what happens after you say what you need to say, is life. Police say that they saw the two arrested were seen following the white supremacists when they were leaving their counter-demonstration of the immigration march. The cops also say that they did not see who threw the first punch, but since the white supremacists were on the ground crying like little babies, the police chose to help out their fascist comrades and arrest a black male and young woman. When the police arrived the white supremacists requested to press full charges, stating that the attackers had brass knuckles, and tried to steal their bag to get more information on their organization (which is a complete joke; the allegation and organization). Reports say that no brass knuckles were ever recovered at the scene, but a can of mace was, and even after the arraignment and police statements, they both still face 5 felony charges. The two arrested both are pleading not guilty. It’s incredibly important to show our utmost support for these two comrades who are making the streets safer, simply in the process of defending themselves. Please send donations of support to: Kelsey & Dee Support: 3030b 16th street San Francisco, CA 94103 You can also donate via paypal at: paypal@freemfone.org Mid-April Chico, California: Racist attack near campus in Chico, California. Respond! Chico: Joseph Igbineweka, a 23 year old senior from Nigeria was stabbed repeatedly after being jumped and called racial slurs. Joseph was on his way home from a party when he was attacked, very close to college campus in Chico. Although he fought back against his attackers, he was then attacked with a knife. Luckily, bystanders came to his aid and quickly got help and bound his wounds. Considering the alleged solidarity that’s been discovered across campuses in California this last year, we would hope that this will be another unifying occurrence. Beyond the budget cuts and tuition escalation, students should consider coming together to liquidate any dividing attitudes and racist behavior, really taking over not only the campus infrastructures, but society’s relations. No tolerance for racism, or as some had said, “no tolerance for intolerance”. April 17th: Los Angeles On April 17th a demonstration again the Los Angeles Police Department ended with the arrest of a known antifascist fighter; Julio Rodriguez. We are writing this almost 2 weeks later, and unfortunately Julio remains in jail. He is being held on 50,000 dollar bail, and is facing a felony charge of “assault with a deadly weapon on a police or fireman”. According to reports, Julio was originally arrested for “misdemeanor battery”, and after his arrest, it is understood that the police tampered with his belongings, somehow escalating the charge to “assault with a deadly weapon”. The LAPD is one of the most notorious police departments in the United States if not the world, if is important for those interested in confronting fascism, both in its direct and passive form, to prove to Julio that he is not alone. Donations for bail have been requested. Information on how to donate, find out more, or different ways to support him are available by contacting his support group here: MapachinABC@gmail.com Vancouver: A member of Anti-Racist Action in Vancouver was the survivor of a firebomb attack. The attack comes in the wake of a rally organized in late march against neo-Nazis in the local area. The rally drew out hundreds of anti-fascists, but the planned neo-Nazi rally never materialized, leading many in ARA to declare a tactical victory. Chicago: Neo-Nazis associated with the group National Socialist Front planned on having a march entitled “White Pride World Wide” in Chicago, but for the few racists who did materialize for the event, got a healthy ass kicking instead. According to militants in ARA: “Southside ARA had been scouting in the downtown area early on, watching out for neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacists. Within minutes of their pathetic march of four boneheads waving white pride flags, clandestine anti-fascists took formation and confronted them, successfully delivering U-lock justice to the unsuspecting Nazi trash with trained precision. In broad daylight on Michigan Avenue, Nazis helplessly had flags ripped from their hands and were beaten down as pedestrians watched in awe. Later, a police car pulled up and arrested the bewildered and injured boneheads while the anti-fascists swiftly disappeared into thin air. Showing up seconds later, the pro-diversity / anti-hate rally laid the final icing on the cake by surrounding the humiliated and obviously defeated boneheads and taunted them with chants, holding a rally directly in the path of their march.” Militants prepared for the actions by launching a campaign against the NSF that included confrontations with racists, flyering neighborhoods and FTTP #9-Struggle Against Fascism-Pg. 100 schools, posting up home address and phone numbers of various Nazis, and infiltration of the NSF itself. Bolton, UK: Anti-fascists gathered in the UK against the far-right English Defence League as various groups gathered to confront them in the streets, despite massive police presence. Larissa, Greece: A fascist demo in the city of Larissa in Greece was smashed by anti-fascists. During clashes with the police which ensued 4 comrades have been arrested. The Medical School of the city is under occupation demanding the release of the anti-fascists. According to posts on LibCom.org: “On Sunday noon fascists of the Patriotic Club of Thessaly tried to hold a racist demo against the new law which gives citizenship to hundreds of thousands of second generation immigrants. According to the communique of the occupied Medical School of the city, before the fascists even began to gather, Visarionos square where their march was supposed to start was occupied by anti-fascists. When the fascists finally arrived they were attacked and beaten while the van with which they patrol the streets of the city at night in vigilante immigrant hunt type of operations was destroyed. After the fascists retreated the antifascist counter-demo was attacked by riot police forces who pushed the radicals towards the central square of the city (Post-Office square) with an intention to encircle them. During the clashes 4 people have been arrested, while the rest took refuge to the city’s Medical School. The School remains under occupation by people demanding the immediate release of the anti-fascists. The cops have demanded a lift of the academic asylum, but the rector has refused to grant it. The developments come on the same day that two members of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party were arrested in Athens carrying a 9mm ZASTAVA gun and propaganda material of their orga- nization. The police has raided their houses and the headquarters of the neonazi party but has announced it found no more incriminating evidence. The two men are held in custody.” Dresden, Germany: As in previous years, the neo-Nazi scene tried to exploit the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden during World War II for their own propaganda. Dresden Nazifrei, a huge alliance, formed in response to this historical revisionism and made a broad mobilization of people from all over Germany possible -- more so than ever in the years before. According to a report on LibCom. org: “And despite some massive police violence and neo-Nazi attacks during the day, the strategy of the anti-fascists was a complete success. Well coordinated and massive actions of civil disobedience created a situation the police couldn’t control -- and in the end they had to forbid the march of the neo-Nazis.” Russia: The 19th of January has become a day of solidarity between Russian antifascists across the country, in response to the murder of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and anarchist journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot in cold blood in Moscow. According to a report online: “Around 7 PM 19th of January, people started to gather at Petrovskiy boulevard, a section of “Boulevard ring” in center of Moscow. People formed a long queue, as police searched everyone joining the action. As loudspeakers were banned, little was heard of the speeches. Police had allowed “passage” from this picket to the next at Griboyedov statue next to Chistye Prudy metro station, however any slogans and banners were banned. Demonstrators had no intentions to follow these orders, thin police lines were promptly broken and a group of around 200 demonstrations went to move down the boulevard, scanning “Alerta antifascista!”, “Get to the streets, reclaim the city!” and “ACAB!”. In the front banner, there were names of dozens of Nazi victims of the previous years. In other cities across the country, hundreds of people gathered for memorial events, banner drops, marches, and other events to mark the day. Chile: In late February, according to a post on Total Liberation, “...acting under the cover of informal organization, we carried out an incendiary attack at the headquarters of the right-wing, ultraconservative Independent Democratic Union (UDI) political party. Along with fire and paint-bombs, we left the following communiqué: The true voice of the people obeys nothing! A few days after the change of scenery (and clowns) in the circus of the rich and powerful, we ventured out together with our friend the night in order to attack a symbol that has oppressed our country for decades: the headquarters of the extreme right-wing, neo-liberal, nationalist, religious UDI political party (popular, ha ha), which—with the help of the Catholic Church—has endeavored to impose a militarized, authoritarian morality based on fear and false divinity. We are screaming at you! You did not win this election democratically, because the real majority is not reflected in your ballot-box spectacle. The people are beginning to understand that representative democracy is only for the rich, and forces the workers to conform to its margins. We know that no matter who governs, things will not change. Those afflicted will always be the workers, whether they are construction workers, professors, or clerks. This is why, seized by insurrectionary fire, we demonstrated our hatred for the consumerist, exploitative society to which the rich subject us. FTTP #9-Struggle Against Fascism-Pg. 101 They call us utopians, but look at yourselves! You who believe in incompetent parliamentarians—the “people’s representatives” ($enators and deputie$) who represent no one but themselves— are the utopians. We are calling for those who are organized, and those who are not, to take action against the hypocritical, bourgeois normality in which we are immersed. But also keep building popular organizations in each neighborhood and town, as these are the true bases of change. - Wicked Antiauthoritarian Cell” Late march: Portland, Oregon A local anti-fascist was shot in killed in downtown Portland in late March. According to a post online: “Shortly after midnight on Saturday, March 27, a man was brutally attacked in the heart of downtown Portland. His attacker shot him and left him lying in the street. He is currently fighting to overcome extensive injuries. It is no secret that this man, Luke Querner, is a long-time antifascist activist. He has devoted over a decade of his life to opposing the most vicious elements of our city’s white supremacist movement. Rose City Antifascists, the Portland chapter of the Anti-Racist Action Network, believe that the local neo-Nazis whom Luke has opposed for years attempted to murder him on Saturday morning. Luke is proud to be an anti-racist skinhead. The true skinhead movement has always been anti-racist, tracing its origins to the cultural intersection of Jamaican immigrants and working class whites in England during the 1960s. After racists and the far-Right attempted to hijack the skinhead movement in the late 1970s and ‘80s, a movement known as SkinHeads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) emerged in 1987 to reaffirm the anti-racist roots of the subculture. As with many other antiracist skins, Luke is deeply committed to racial equality and social justice. This commitment has caused Luke to be targeted in the past.” It is believed that the local well organized and regimented neo-fascist group Volksfront carried out the attack. Portland has a long and bloody history of neo-Nazi organizing; as well as antifascist resistance to it. We owe much to those that would physically combat these scum and our hearts go out to people like Luke who pay the price for such defense of our communities. As Rose City Anti-fa posted: “Luke is currently looking at a mountain of medical bills. The Anti-Racist Action Network is currently hosting benefits from coast to coast to raise funds. In addition, the ARA Network has set up a PayPal account to send Luke donations. As always, Rose City Anti-fa is looking for any and all information related to fascist organizing in our town. Contact us at fight_them_back@riseup. net or leave a voice mail message at 971.533.7832. We will not rest until we see some measure of justice for Luke.” April 24th, 2010Bialystok, Poland: In Bialystok, Poland anti-fascists staged a public demonstration against the re-occurring racist violence of nazi skinheads in the local community. Poland is notorious for nazi skin heads and soccer hooligans, and simply being one of the most racist and unapologetic nations in Eastern Europe. Similarly to those in Russia, publicly denouncing or confronting racism can lead not only to arrest or harassment, but death. Like the United States, and most likely everywhere, Neo-Nazis have a huge place in active police forces. When the demonstration began, it was immediately attacked by local Nazis, but those attending the demonstration held their ground and beat the Nazis off. Once the Nazis ran away bruised and bloody, the police step in to take their place. Out of the 130 who attended the demonstration, around 90 were arrested. It is also reported that when in jail, police were photographing those arrested, taking information from their private phones, and letting them know that they were sympathizers of the Nazis, and intend to share information with them. April 22nd, 2010: Pearl, Mississippi Going into print we heard a story when looking through some news articles. Although the case we are about to report on is somewhat ironic and controversial, we chose to take the bias position, and make it inspiring and positive. Richard Barrett, 67, was a white lawyer originally from New York City, who last lived in Pearl, Mississippi. He was a white supremacist and nationalist, who focused most of his efforts in getting media attention, and recruiting young skin heads. In his autobiography: The Commission, he called for “resettling minority groups” to “Puerto Rico, Mexico, Israel, the Orient and Africa.” He also states in his book that “the Negro race … possess[es] no creativity of its own [and] pulls the vitality away from civilization.” In the same book he concludes that there is a need for sterilizations and abortions of those deemed “unfit”, to halt re-population of “minority groups”. He is also responsible for Mississippi’s “Spirit of America Day” marked as a holiday over 40 years ago. The day honors high-school athletes whom have been chosen to be rewarded for being role models. In the 40 years of the holiday, not one non-white/straight/male student has ever been chosen, considering Barrett is the one whom created the holiday, and chooses the students, it is obviously a front for one of his many nazi media campaigns. In 1984 he ran for U.S congress against 3 other black candidates in Mississippi. His campaign slogan was to “decide between a cotton boll and 3 lumps of coal”. In the late 80’s he tried starting a new campaign against integration in public schools, which was seen mostly in the form of him and 40-60 robed Klansmen marching down the street. During this anti-integration campaign FTTP #9-Struggle Against Fascism-Pg. 102 he started a petition for the “Forstyth County Covenant” which argued for the advancement of “America’s heritage as a free, white, Christian, English-speaking democracy” and asserted that “all efforts to make us a bilingual, bisexual or biracial society must be defeated.” He held multiple demonstrations motivated by uncompromising fascist politics; rallies against MLK day in Atlanta; in California he held two demonstrations in support of the officers who beat Rodney King getting acquitted; in Boston he held a rally when a court order forbid the exclusion of gay groups at the annual St. Patrick’s day; another notorious protest of his was in Morristown, NJ, where he commemorated “Independence from Affirmative Action Day”. He used the little legal knowledge he had to start petitions for state politicians to pardon specifically murderers in prison for killing civil rights leaders in the 60s. One of Barrett’s most recent demonstrations were held in Jena, Louisiana, when 6 black youth were arrested and charged with adult felony assault charges for fighting another student whom was white at school. He was noticed here specifically for his chant: “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right”. Barrett, 67, can not torment any more. He is now dead. Vincent McGee a 22 year old black man, whom some how did landscaping for Richard, is in custody for allegedly stabbing and beating Richard Barrett to death, and than using gasoline to burn his house down, and melt 40% of his white skin, maybe enough that he almost looked black. The media is saying that Vincent Mcgee, a man Richard was paying to do his landscaping, killed Barrett after he made sexual advances on him, as well as offering him money to have sex with him. The irony here is that it is hard to tell what Vincent’s motivation was. Was it that Richard was threatening to rape or sexually assault him, or was it that he was coming out to Vincent and he was uncomfortable with it? Could it have also been that Richard dedicated his life to liquidating Vincent, his family, and his entire race? Whatever the reason, a young black man killed Richard Barrett, burnt his old white nazi body to a crisp, while destroying his home (and we are assuming a lot of Nazi propaganda). Richard Barrett is now dead, and that’s positive. Although we are repulsed by the negative associations the media is suggesting with Richard’s closet homo-sexuality, Richards violent resentment towards queer groups and himself obviously stems from this society’s demonization of gay or queer peoples, hence how people like Richard come to exist. At the same time, we are sure that nazi, fascist, or white supremacist groups around the world are either desperately denouncing McGee’s allegations or Richard himself, or just simply not touching the subject due to the sheer irony and embarrassment involved. Whatever reason Mcgee did what he did, Richard Barrett is now dead, and looks even uglier (which is maybe why he couldn’t get any) than he did in real life. Therefore props to Mcgee, and hopefully the kid gets off. “Cause the only good nazi, is a dead one.” FTTP #9-Struggle Against Fascism-Pg. 103 AGAINST THE RECUPERATION OF TRAGEDY C harity has been used in many different ways. While some choose to recognize this as the most prominent source for what it is we understand as compassion, concern, or mutuality today, others choose to feel nothing but the utmost disdain for this term’s meaning. While some work to become professionals in this field, others are confused by their stupidity, annoyed with their naivety, or feel lied to by their sincerity. How could there be an industry that relies on consciously recognized suffering? More importantly, how is that not more offensive than all the other industries that produce this suffering, when the salaries of the charitable are fulfilled by this permanent demise? Charities are capitalism’s recuperation of the same tragedy that stems from its very existence to begin with. Charities are the mediums provided to the public to communicate a feeling of mutuality or solidarity with others sharing similar conditions. They are provided to the wealthy as a bank account for either the expendable incomes of the guilt ridden rich, or in most cases a free and tax deductible advertising opportunity in an era where “ethics” or “consciousness” in business and consumption has become hip or an opportunity for price mark up. So and so endangered species, so and so starving children, so and so oil spill, so and so fill in the blank. There are some things that people just can’t ignore, therefore, there is money to be made. With a world as tragic and bluntly cruel as the global industrial world of today, there is insanely awful shit everywhere, like super fucked up, horror movie shit. What is worse than starving children or redwoods dying? What is worse than natural disasters wrecking only the poorest of the already poorest, or people having no money to eat or live? Of course we are told that there is no connection between these events, but that there is a career opportunity in each of them. Based on what you like most, you can give back to the less fortunate, and never even meet them in person. It’s actually quite convenient, like a drug dealer that delivers to your house, except in this case, the product is relief from one’s own guilt. Social workers pride themselves on the lack of blood on their hands, but ironically, without the same blood, they would be without the job. Charities are the industry of issues. Animals across the world die because forests across the world are destroyed, because people in the world found a way to make a bunch of money off of it. Whales or elephants are dying because FTTP #9-Against Charity-Pg. 104 some rich people will pay a lot of money to have it on their wall, or in their stomachs. Some children and adults are starving because the wealth and resources of the world are reserved for different groups or regions of the world, because “that’s the way it is” and, “they were just the designated unlucky ones”, “its a system”. Charities choose to isolate these events and keep us focused on the really “bad” stuff as a separate entity from the world that is everywhere and chooses to regulate everything. For anyone who sees the charity as an outlet we have access to for the “better” (whatever that is), you are simply wrong. There are no better jobs available, there are no salaries that don’t come at the expense of our or anyone else’s blood, there are no better versions of what is here and now. and capitalism’s very bureaucratic “compassion”, we propose a common solidarity over conditions created by the social order of today, that looks to confront the suffering inherent to it’s existence in a totalizing way. In regards to careers in social aid, we see this as no different from any identity for how one would survive capitalism; it’s probably better than working at McDonalds. As opposed to picking and choosing the issues, we propose for a recognition of the global catastrophe of capitalism and domination today. With this understanding of we encourage energy and resources to be put into to the actualization of the end of this tragedy, as opposed to the futile recognition of it’s more offensive behavior. For charities to exist, the tragedy of the world today must continue to as well. We recognize the connectedness of everything today, and refuse to compare better and worse. In our contempt for charity, “Nothing resembles a representative of the bourgeoisie more than a representative of the proletariat...” FTTP #9-Against Charity-Pg. 105 On “bigger cages, and longer chains” A nimal rights, human rights, environmental defense: some of the terms we hear when people push for the “better”, the “more”, or “progress” so desperately needed to preserve the “integrity” of this awful world. Rights usually follow the logic of political demands. But what are the politics of “rights”, or a struggle that looks to make demands? A movement, moment, or organization that exists with the intention of “making better” or “achieving” rights, is a movement that falls victim to the logic of demands. In the case of this sort of outlook, one proves to have faith in the opposing force they are confronting or demanding things from. What we mean by faith, is that one has hope that achievements can be made by searching for success within the confines of the existing conditions or opponents keeping a group or individual un-achievers. To express demands is to expect two things: one of which is that there will be a response, and two, that satisfaction is at any point feasible with the response of DEMAND NOTHING ACCEPT NOTHING. what or who it is you are demanding from. The logic of these campaigns or tendencies is a very dangerous logic for our humanity, and a very helpful logic to our containers. As opposed to questioning the origin or reason of our frustration in its entirety, we focus on the surface, and simply ask for a less harsh visual. In most cases, organizations or groups of people making political demands are looking to engage in the decision making process (politics), the same decision making process that regulated the conditions they were frustrated with driving whichever campaign. They are in most cases looking to achieve what the world of politics refers to as either rights or policies to help regulate an issue differently. We want to really stress our last sentence, specifically our last word: differently. They are not looking to remove the issue completely, but to change the issue, or make it different. They are not looking to stop what is motivating the issue, but change the operations or appearance of what is driving the issue with the issue to begin with. Rights are demands for more choices or capabilities within the context of a world that regulates all choices and capabilities. FTTP #9-Against Demands-Pg. 106 “The workers who, during a wildcat strike, carried a banner saying, ‘We are not asking for anything’ understood that the defeat is in the claim itself (‘the claim against the enemy is eternal’). There is no alternative but to take everything. As Stirner said: ‘No matter how much you give them, they will always ask for more, because what they want is no less than the end of every concession’.: When we think of the political game of rights or the logic of demands, we think of a starving person chained to a wall in a very small cell. There is a plate of his most favorite meal right across the room and an aroma of her favorite restaurant where the meal was discovered coming through the cell’s walls. Each day he begs with all of her might to get to this meal, completely ignoring the proximity of the nearby restaurant where the meal is available in mass. Each day those with the key to his room enter the room when the screaming has just been too much, and add a small little link to the chain, making it so the meal appeared to be closer and closer. With each link he can reach just enough of the plate to chew one tiny morsel of food; these little nibbles help to keep her quiet till the next day. As this continues all he can focus on is getting that chain longer and longer. She ignores the door those with the chain link equipment enter through, and choose to not focus on the proximity of the restaurant and its aroma, but only to get one more link, one more inch closer to his favorite meal; to easing her starvation. Finally the day came when he needed one more chain to really devour the meal. As her screaming was simply so intense, the chain linkers had to enter the room to respond to his demands. Finally the chain was long enough for her to devour the meal. Once she finished the plate, he laid in silence for the night. Only to wake up starving the next day. For days he screamed because she was hungry, but confused as to what he was screaming for. The meal was gone, but all of his complaints seemed worthless, as her stomach continued to grumble. The meal was gone, and the chain was as long as it would go, but still restricted him to the cell that stood between her and a consistent access to this food source. Since the chain went as long as the cell allowed, the people with the key to his room simply ignored her cries. He sat in silence, taken over with not feelings of hunger, but feelings of regret and confusion. She then died of starvation a few days later. Rights are demands granted. Rights are choices allowed. Rights are the logic of a sheep begging to be slaughtered later, or in a less painful fashion. We do not propose rights. We do not demand anything. We recognize that there is a system, a framework, or an order per se that we are forced to survive. We wish to be the exception when we make no demands, and retain a permanent tension with the circumstances in their entirety. It’s not the size that matters. It’s not the amount we are allowed to have. It’s not how things are done. The cell will never be pretty enough to ease our proposals, because we wish not for more space or a nicer circumstances, but to leave the cell completely. FTTP #9-Against Demands-Pg. 107 Our day to day lives are spent suffering indignities; we find our time and energy being animated not for our own desires and needs, but instead for the benefit of those that profit off and dominate us. W e are asleep, and the alarm clock rings. Our bodies cry out for more sleep, as we hit the snooze button in an attempt to buy more time. Finally, we roll over and look at the clock, our eyes grow wide as we curse ourselves for sleeping in and we bound out of bed, hitting the shower. Coat in hand, and of course, no time for breakfast, we rush off to another day at a job that we hate for assholes that think they are smarter and better than us. Later, off work, we are on the street, or perhaps driving home, and we see the police man. He pulls us over, he stops us, his pig snout looking for something, anything, to fuck us with. We have to resist every urge in the world to stop ourselves from beating his pig snout in with a baseball bat, as he berates us like children, issues us tickets, takes us to jail, or threatens us with (or carries out) violence. On and on it goes; the faces may change, but the relationship between us and those above us, be they land lords, lawyers, bosses, judges, managers, administrators, social workers, teachers, cops, and so on, remains the same. We are always made to feel small, to feel powerless, and always to feel bad about fighting back. There are channels in place, we are told, for anger. It is reserved for the letters page of the local paper, the well managed room of the union hall, or the tightly choreographed antics of the Leftist demonstration. At the end of the day, we are made to feel that there is something wrong with resisting the way things are. “Why are you angry?,” they ask? “Why the fuck aren’t you angry!,” we yell back. “You are a bad person for wanting to fight back,” they tell us. “No, we are sane. We are here and we are alive. We do not want to live only to die,” we reply. We do not wish to exist only to submit to the regime of work, school, traffic, rent, and paying for things. “We have ways of making you play the game,” they whisper to us. Oh, but so do we, my enemy. COWARD DON’T BE A Thus, while the landlord may smile now, tomorrow when the rent is late it will turn to a frown, and you will see their friend, the policeman. And, that officer may come into your school with a happy face today, but tomorrow you will see them in a raid with guns drawn. I am among those that see through the game and I find associates among those that do so as well. FTTP #9-Don’t Be A Coward-Pg. 108 We see clear enemies, and we wish to attack them and their system. We find enemies as well, with all those that collaborate with our exploiters day in and day out; for these people are cowards. There is no way to mince words. They are those that toe the party line and go along with the logic of their own domination. But, cracks are always visible in the social fabric of this society, we can find the ways in which we can fight back as individuals and together. We can link up with others doing the same and grow more powerful. We can begin to turn the tables. In our day to day lives, we find ways as individuals of fighting back. On the job, we avoid work as much as possible. We don’t do our jobs, we come in late, we take money from the boss when possible, we lie about our hours, we spend more time on our lunch breaks than we are supposed to, and so on. At home, we lie to our land lords and attempt to get them to pay for as many things as we can. On the streets, we enjoy ourselves as much as possible; drinking in parks and stealing from stores. We evade and dodge the police as much as we are able, and lie to them when they do catch us. We know what lies at the other end of the police car ride; simply an extreme version of this world: the prison cell. We sneak into movie theaters, write graffiti, steal pallets from the back of stores for firewood, and break into vacant buildings to live in. We are trying to push out of simply surviving, and into real life, but we are poor and workers, so in doing so, we become criminals. But, we are not bad people for doing this, nor are we simply criminals; we are people who are forced into a position where such acts are in our interest. These actions are a small way of resisting a world that seeks to destroy us and our lives; to turn the meaning of our existence simply as cogs in the machine of those of a higher class. Any talk by anyone, be they union officials, liberal do gooders, or right-wing bureaucrats, against such actions, is simply the same logic of the bosses, reverberated back to us from different mouths. But shoplifting, squatting, sabotage, graffiti...these are little victories; they do not win us control over our lives, simply more breathing room. Everyone takes from the rich when no one is looking; but what do you do when you are faced with social situations in which it becomes possible to fight back with others? It is in these situations that people often become either cowards or courageous. Snitches or comrades. We need to cultivate a culture that shuns the cowards and snitches in our society. A culture that frowns on those that would cooperate with the government and the police and instead put more stock in their neighborhoods and other poor and working people around them. All of us can think of many situations on the job, renting a house, and on the street, where people faced with the opportunity to fight or turn coward, has gone down. At work, people resist all the time. They either refuse work, evade it, argue or fight with the bosses, sabotage machinery, steal from work, and go on strike and beyond. For those of us that have engaged in these activities, we know that cowards, snitches and friends of the bosses, are always our biggest enemies. Several years ago, I had a horrible job. In the middle of the summer I would wake up at 5:30 AM every morning to go and work in a cabinet shop as a delivery person. It was owned by a rich family, which meant that bosses connected to that family were scattered throughout the facility. The work was hard and it was very hot, we (myself and several other people) hauled cabinets out to various construction sites. We resisted in ways that we could; taking breaks whenever possible, driving the truck different places and resting, smoking in the truck, etc. It was bad enough that racism between white, Latino, and black workers kept us divided, but we also had to worry about those workers who were friends of the bosses snitching on us. Once, when myself and another worker were talking about how we could take the boss to labor court over some violations, another worker snitched on us and told the boss of our plans. He scolded us and even later threatened to fire one of us. Because of this coward we almost lost our job; I was laid off soon after. At another job site, a friend was busy stealing as much food as possible from their job with their coworkers. The boss owned a health food store that sold medicine and vegan products, yet paid his workers horribly and did not give them benefits. Soon, the workers in the store that were friends began taking whole items home for dinner, then lunch, then medicine, and then for their friends and families. “Fuck this rich asshole,” they said. But then, a friend of the boss became hired and soon video cameras started to dot the store, and many became afraid of them snitching. A friend of the bosses cannot be a friend of other workers, because the interests of workers and bosses are opposed. It takes bravery to risk being fired from your boss to save you and your family money - and it is a coward who sides with the rich and not their fellow workers. Several years ago, I moved into a new place in town. I was excited about the move, as I had grown up in the neighborhood and worked for several years at a place around the corner and knew the area well. I moved in with some friends from high school and I thought everything was going to go well. Quickly a problem developed however, as one of my roommates was the child of the landlord. While at first I thought this would make renting easy, quickly it became clear that I had two landlords. One that collected my rent check, and the other that complained and told me what to do. I became angry at the situation of the house, which was in complete disarray, but when I raised too much of a stink about it, the landlords child complained about me to them. I came home from work one day to find an eviction notice on my door. What is sad about this situation, is that the other people in the house decided not to even tell me of my coming eviction, FTTP #9-Don’t Be A Coward-Pg. 109 which would have given me time to find another place to live. They felt more of a closeness to their friend; someone’s who’s parent had bought them a house to live in, than other renters who were in the same situation. Recently, I heard that one of those people became so angry at the (still) horrible conditions of the house, that they decided to possibly go on rent strike until the landlord fixed what was wrong with the house. They ultimately didn’t however, because they still had to contend with the landlord’s child living in the house with them. Recently, people in Modesto (as regular readers of this magazine will know) became alarmed at the spreading epidemic of Hepatitis C and HIV through the sharing of needles from drug use. After the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors shot down the suggestion of a grand jury to form a needle exchange program, people organized an autonomous needle exchange to do the work that the government refused to do. For several months, the needle exchange program was a great success and operated out of a park known for high amounts of drug use, getting dirty needles off the streets and disposing of them safely. Quickly however, a “community activist” in the local area, Robert Stanford, became alarmed that people were taking initiative themselves and confronting problems in their communities on their own terms. He worked with the Sheriff’s Department, which launched a sting operation that shut the program down and issued misdemeanor charges to two volunteers. Now, those volunteers face possible jail time and the park is still awash in dirty needles. In a recent clean up, volunteers found up to 60 dirty and discarded needles in the same park that the program started in. With the exchange now nonexistent, the park is once again home to a sea of possibly infectious syringes. Robert Stanford is the classic example of a coward: someone who was willing to side with the police and not the community that they claimed to “fight” for. All this was done during while they were running for a seat on the Modesto City Council, and their collaboration with the police was a talking point in their quest for power. We can learn much from all of these instances. What would have happened if all of these people in these various examples would have decided to side with other working and poor people instead of bosses and the police? What would have happened at my work if other workers would have teamed up to resist their conditions as a group instead of running to lick the boots of some rich piece of shit? What would have happened if renters of a house would have banded together to demand better conditions instead of siding with their landlord? What would have happened if “community activists” would have tried to work with autonomous projects instead of working with the pigs? Obviously, people would have been in a way better position then they are now, and people would not be facing jail time. At work, on the streets, in our neighborhoods, snitches and cowards are everywhere. But, then again, so are people who are willing to stand up and not collaborate. Instead, they stand with other people like them who have the same interests and realize that they run counter to those that own, control, and dominate our lives. It is not just the bosses and their dogs we need to fight, but also all those among us who side with them. Whatever happens, don’t be a coward, stand together. eyes blinking in the face of the “Disinterest is no longer an expression of an individual idealism, but a mass phenomenon.” infinite Where are we? W impressive mark up. e are not allowed to have a present or a future. Originality, rebellion, curiosity, experience, growth: some of the defining traits that come to mind when we contemplate the word “youth”. Today, these words seem to have all been refined, recuperated, and packaged for us to purchase, read about, wear, or watch. Somehow we have allowed ourselves to become an era of stagnancy. We are the stand still generation, realizing ourselves within the confines of boredom and predictability. The most original part of our generation is our complete neglect of originality. This celebration of boredom and selfhatred as a dead-era in human history has helped to calculate what we understand as “youth culture” today; an industry that sells us our identities. Our curiosity and desire for purpose, identity, or “distinction” from everyone else, has helped to create new phones that can “capture our every need, personally and socially”, clothes that can determine our associations, or technology that can “satisfy our every desire”. Are we a PC or a MAC? Are you a PBR person or a cosmo? Are we liberals or conservatives? Artists or musicians? The youth of today, is quite possibly the most lethargic, pathetic, or boring generation in the history of humanity. Fashion has helped to fully claim our identities, and ever so brilliantly prove a new dawn of brilliance in laziness. New lines and styles have placed Goodwill and the Salvation army in competition with boutiques and chains like Buffalo exchange. The unwanted aesthetics of the prior generations are helping to clothe the pathetic bodies of a new generation; of course at a very “Never has humanity been reunited in such great number, but also never have they been separated to such a degree.” Our disconnection and irony has helped to create a new dawn of obscure urban real estate. “Gentrification” is the ever so used term describing the development of inter-cities today. In some major cities, community gardens and social centers, achieved through histories of Neighborhood struggle with law or inter-city development and mediation, have become museums for the successful and content of the more liberal of the cosmopolitan world. The mission district in San Francisco, Manhattan’s lower east side, or Brooklyn’s “East Williamsburg”, South Philadelphia, East Montreal; the list continues. An almost lost youth has discovered an even more incredibly lost context: being there, while also not being there. The Neighborhood is dead, or going to be killed, as the histories of community struggle are now concluded as novelty with a price tag. If you can afford it, you can be part of it. You can live anywhere, but also be completely disconnected. Our identities or everyday lives need to have nothing to do with the immediate, the present, or the moment. Who we are has nothing to do with where we are. We live and discover ourselves through pre-determined mediums provided for us to communicate and relate through. We can sleep all day and catch up online, there is no real need to get up. Similarly we can live in a neighborhood for years and speak to no one in it, because it’s not indispensable to the modern social being. The urban neighborhood is deteriorating and being appropriated, with the irony and “willingness” of our lost youth helping to pave a space for the future homes of the wealthy; helping to provide a home for those we are sup- posed to be rebelling against; and forcing us to be almost an appendage of the wealthy; a subsidiary of their class; a sub-culture of their mainstream; an experiment in their attempts of constantly expanding. We help to set a tone for the neighborhood. We help to warn the neighborhood of what is to come. We make it more comfortable for more frightened commuters, and as more and more recognize the new found comforts of the historic ghetto, the irony deteriorates, and is replaced with a new price tag. We enter the neighborhood as the non-class, the lost youth without the stability the wealthy flaunt before our desires. The neighborhood then becomes recognized as a convenient spot valued by its location in relation to the already valued location, our lost youth is so desperately looking to become part of. With this new comfort, and with time, the isolated bubble of a non-community, operating within the confines of another neighborhood will burst. The neighborhood will deteriorate as the value rises and its location is more and more attractive to those who were at one time frightened of it. The irony ends, when there is no longer any neighborhood, additionally when there is no longer a non-neighborhood. When the neighborhood no longer becomes valued for its location in relation to a more valuable area, it then simply becomes the more valuable area. In the case of the Western world’s urban geography, we have become the guinea pigs of capital’s domestic expansion. We are helping those who own the neighborhood but do not live there go through the motions needed to help with the transitions desired with their “properties”. In this case we are helping them to either exploit, exclude, or appropriate a neighborhood. The police help with this process, the real estate developers help with this process, and the city helps with this process; what is most sad, is that we begin this process. We have no neigh- FTTP #9-Eyes Blinking in the face of the Infinite-Pg. 112 borhood, we have nothing. We are a constantly wandering non-class desperately trying to discover a place to become an us, but always running away when we realize what we are expected to become, only stupidly choosing a path granted and designated for our “youth” by those with the forceful expectations we are running from to begin with. “So, he has replaced the emptiness of experience with the experience of emptiness, while awaiting the adventure for which he always keeps himself prepared but which never comes: all possible scenarios have already been written. Of ecstasy in deception, the solitary mob of hipsters ever-already disappeared, ever-already forgotten, follows doggedly their mislaid course, like a raft of suicidal people adrift, lost in a depressionist ocean of images and abstractions. It has nothing to transmit, nothing but the conventional formulas of missing pleasures and a life without purpose in a furnished nothingness.” While Budweiser sets up at the Stonewall(1) gathering point at NYC’s Gay Pride March, or the Gap shows off their May 68’(2) influenced clothing line, our creativity must be realized in the errors of generations before us. If everything has been done. If we truly are the stand still generation, and the entirety of our reality is calculated by the totality of a global condition we had no choice but to accept, our goals and creativity must be discovered in the process of overcoming this conditioned reality. That is to say if we are interested in ever being interesting, or existing on OUR terms. While frustrated generations before us compromised to the deception of progress’s gradual approach, their stories have been told to us with no intention of us correcting their mistakes, or taking up where they left off. Their stories are simply another item on the shelf, to purchase or fancy, not to embrace or create. Rebellions of the past have become the text books and movies of the current. They were something that happened in history, like slavery (as we’re taught). “No forms of it are happening now”, so were told, “nor are they possible under the conditions of “freedom” that define western society”. Rebellion has become music, art, clothing, language, or food. Rebellion has been taught and appropriated so it is no longer threatening to this society. With capitalism, if something is not serving profit, or if it is threatening the normalcy of a regulated capitalist society and cannot be liquidated simply through police action, it must become a product; something to appreciate in the form of purchase, not experience. “Unemployment is only the visible concretion of the estrangedness of each from his own existence in the world of authoritarian merchandise.” We live the lives of adventure’s pasts, through the purchases brought forth in the present. This is done with an understanding that in the present, our desires can only be sought through purchases or pre-existing mediums set by generation’s before us. While the aesthetics of past social threats have been appropriated by the capitalist system, the actual traits that defined movements or events as threatening, are not possible to re-present or disempower through capitalism’s recuperation methods. While the GAP gives us an opportunity to mock the outfits of specifically French student rioters in the sixties, it only allows us to embarrass ourselves, as we are all dressed up, but with nowhere to go. Although they can satisfy our urges with representations and fakes, our hearts still go stale, and our bodies will only remain de-hydrated. Rebellion or the desire for something “new” that truly defines the “youth”, is not discovered in the framework of this society, it is only practiced in the process of removing ourselves from this society. If we choose to accept the victimizing experience and identity designated to us as modern youth in this pedophile social reality molesting our possibilities, it makes sense that we would first look to buy ourselves a piece of rebellion. If we are looking to satisfy our urges that define our youth on our own terms, then it is indispensable that we explore the unknown. It is not aesthetics that have made these rebellions in history we flatter with our mocking, it is their refusal to accept the conditions of their reality. Not refusing by only reacting defiantly to the surface of the mainstream’s petty norms or conventional expectations, but refusing through a materialized and complete negation of their understood role in society. Refusing by taking the offensive on reality, and destroying what appears to destroy their possibilities. Negating their position as another motion in the planned history of an ever progressing civilization. We can look and feel “LIKE” anything, but maybe say in the case of the GAP, similarly to the case of our lost youth, until we are taking the clothes and burning the store after what is needed, we will continue to be clothed, but still feel ever so naked. Our youth rebellion can be victorious in the realization that no compromise can be made, only the complete negation of our roles in society through the complete refusal to accept society. It is up to us to stop looking for possibilities in our distinction from each other, and seek affinities in our search for becoming something new together. A totalistic critique, followed with an uncompromising offensive, will create a context where we can truly rebel. FTTP #9-Eyes Blinking in the face of the Infinite-Pg. 113 Where we are no longer a lost youth, but know our place; that being anywhere but here. -Author Unknown* *EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was submitted anonymously. Although we do not know the person who submitted it or the person they say wrote it, we will include the message that came with the submission: “This article was found on the bathroom wall of a basement bar in Manhattan’s lower east side. The poster was barely on the wall, with what seemed to be flower and water (although it smelled like urine). I was very lucky to find this, as it seemed like one more person opening or closing the door would have knocked the piece of paper off the wall forever, leaving it to maybe only been read by a few drunk early 20’s folks before me in line that night. I managed to improvise a make shift glove out of toilet paper to remove it from the wall without completely vomiting. Although I gagged and barely managed to get it out of there, in retrospect I am happy I did. I got a few things out of it, maybe your magazine will too. I typed it up for you guys, assuming you might find it interesting. Really hope you use it, because this shit was a NASTY process to get to you!” order that is inherent to western or Judeo-Christian society since its dawn) where the gay or queer community in New York, or in all of America actually refused to continue taking the beatings and intimidation of the police, and violently fight back. While the city has turned the memory simply into a memory with its commemorating statues and wealthy gay bars that have now become the entire area, some groups have chosen to take inspiration from these events as a way of dealing with the same order and abuse that provoked the stone wall riots and continues to haunt queer or gay communities today. The insurrectionary queer group “Bash Back”, would be an example of one of these groups that takes inspiration from the stone wall riots, while also choosing an anti-assimilationist perspective when communicating their desires as a queer struggle. (2)May 1968 was a notorious month in French history, and a month of events that make their way into the wet dreams of militant students today. Both students and workers went on general strike, while also wreaking mayhem around Paris and all of France. While May 1968 was a moment that almost paralyzed France’s status as a first world capitalist nation- state, leaving much of its factories and movie theatres in shambles, it has now found its way into the text books of academics, rhetoric of political artists, and apparently in the case we are referring to here, the GAP’s clothing lines. Specifically the trends and aesthetics of the student portion of May 68’ has been used as an influence. “You need to know how to experience freedom in order to be free. You need to free yourself in order to experience freedom. Within the present social order, time and space prevent experimentation of freedom because they suffocate the freedom to experiment.” Editor’s Footnotes: (1)The Stonewall Riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against the police, in response to a raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn (a gay hang out spot), in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. The riots are recognized as being one of the first instances (Maybe according to Wikipedia; obviously queer, gay, lesbian, or trans communities have been struggling against the hetero-normative and patriarchal FTTP #9-Eyes Blinking in the face of the Infinite-Pg. 114 BOOKS Amor Y Resistencia: Reports from the global social war. amoryresistencia.blogspot. com Make Total Destroy: A Shameless Riot Porn Blog maketotaldestroy.blogspot. com This is Our Job Insurrectionary missives and tidbits from the Spanish-speaking world, translated into English: thisisourjob.wordpress.com Social War Chicago: Violence is the fundamental truth of politics. socialwarchicago.blogspot. com LINKS 325: Insurgent News and Publishing from the UK 325.nostate.net Social Rupture socialrupture.blogspot.com Bash Back News: “Not Gay as in happy. But queer as in fuck you”. bashbacknews.wordpress. com After the Greek Riots Updates and analysis of unrest in Greece. occupiedlondon.org/blog Direct Action in Germany: directactionde.blogspot. com Anything Can Happen By Fredy Perlman Available in book format from Red and Black Press. At Daggers Drawn Available from Eberhardt Press. The Theory of the Bloom By the Invisible Committee Society of the Spectacle By Guy Debord Available in most bookstores. Fires Never Extinguished firesneverextinguished. blogspot.com LIBCOM libcom.org Social War in Greece greeceriots.blogspot.com Our War: Insurrectionary News from South America ourwar.org Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua: Anti-Colonialism and AntiCapitalism. uriohau.blogspot.com ‘Til It Breaks: Denver Social War itbreaks.wordpress.com Bite Back: News in defense of animals. directaction.info NAELFPO: News in defense of the earth. elfpressoffice.org Intercontinental Cry: Indigenous struggle reports from around the world. intercontinentalcry.org Survival International: The Movement for Tribal Peoples survivalinternational.org The Anarchist Library theanarchistlibrary.org Modesto Anarcho: modestoanarcho.org FTTP #9-Links-Pg. 115 S FOR NO-THING AGAINST EVERY THING Why we used this... ome have accused issue number 7’s cover slogan: “For Nothing, Against Everything”, as sheer nihilism. We are assuming this was an opportunity for people to criticize without ever opening the magazine and reading it, or to discourage others from reading it. These haters have simply passed us off as “juvenile delinquents interested in achieving nothing but destruction in itself”. In some ways, they could be correct, but we in no way identify as “nihilists”; and as for “revenge” for the conditions we experience everyday, this is certainly a theme in this publication, but it in no way is the main source that drives us to continue. Our contempt for surviving the present society, is driven by a desire to live in a contrary world. What was intended with using that cover was two things: one of which was simply to captivate and encourage a larger readership (even if that was due to something as superficial as a shocking cover) and also to represent and communicate a certain sentiment. The world around us presents itself when we wake up in the morning, and the social order of today re-presents it for us. The every-thing we were referring to with that statement is the totality of the world we are forced to experience, as the entirety of the social order today forces us to accept its medium for living: survival. Value is determined for us, as our surroundings become a painting of things and objects, or more or less expensive. A world of “things” is not one we look to achieve by the resistance we support. In the case of what we are experiencing now, we look to fight for the contrary, the anti-thesis of a commodified and reified (“thingified” if you will) world where everywhere is every-thing. We look for the desert of things to become the paradise where no-things exist. Where our value is ours, and the world around us is seen as a context of permanent possibility, as opposed to a stale, dull, and hyper mediated environment. So yes, we are for no-thing because we are against every-thing, because we are not the objects or things that have determined our everyday lives. Nor are we accepting of the dead-ended reality we are told is the only thing there is. We must burn every-thing, and retrieve our absolute being in the ruin that is no-thing. “It is necessary to think of another concept of strength...” “Relations of affinity do not exist on the basis of ideology or quantity, but start off from reciprocal knowledge, from feeling and sharing projectual passions. But projectual affinity and autonomous individual action are dead letters if they cannot spread without being sacrificed in the name of some claimed higher necessity. It is the horizontal link that concretizes the practice of liberation: an informal link, of fact, without representation...” “—burn the census lists and change reality.” One part of this society has every interest in its continuing to rule, the other in everything collapsing as soon as possible. Deciding which side one is on is the first step. -Quote from “At Daggers Drawn” NOT ART. NOT MEDIA. THIS MAGAZINE IS KINDLING. No change is possible with out a violent break with habit.