Green Anarchist Journal

The Issues Order

Including notes on some of the changes in editorial staff.

• GA UK #1 Jul-Aug 1984 - Richard Hunt, Alan Albon and Marcus Christo found the paper.

• GA UK #2 Sep-Aug 1984

• GA UK #3 Nov-Dec 1984

• GA UK #4 Jan-Feb 1985

• GA UK #5 Mar-Apr 1985

• GA UK #6 May-Jun 1985

• GA UK #7 Jul-Aug 1985

• GA UK #8 Sep-Oct 1985

• GA UK #9 Nov 1985-Jan 1986

• GA UK #10 Feb-Mar 1986 - Alan Albon and Marcus Christo leave around here.

• GA UK #11 Apr-May 1986

• GA UK #12 Jun-Jul 1986

• GA UK #13 Aug-Sep 1986

• GA UK #14 Oct-Nov 1986

• GA UK #15 Late Winter 1987

• GA UK #16 Apr 1987

• GA UK #17 Oct 1987

• GA UK #18 Apr 1988

• GA UK #19 May 1988

• GA UK #20 Jun 1988

• GA UK #21 Mar 1989

• GA UK #22 Apr 1989

• GA UK #23 May 1989

• GA UK #24 Jun 1989

• GA UK #25 Sep 1990

• GA UK #26 Mar 1991

• GA UK #27 Jun 1991

• GA UK #28 Sep 1991 - Richard Hunt leaves after this printing.

• GA UK #29 Dec 1991 - Paul Rogers, Steve Booth, Saxon Wood and Noel Molland are the new and old editors running the show from here.

• GA UK #30 Jun 1992

• GA UK #31 Sep 1992

• GA UK #32 Jun 1993

• GA UK #33 Dec 1993

• GA UK #34 Mar 1994

• GA UK #35 Jun 1994

• GA UK #36 Dec 1994

• GA UK #37 Mar 1995

• GA UK #38 Jun 1995

• GA UK #39 Sep 1995

• GA UK #40-41 Mar 1996

• GA UK #42 Jun 1996

• GA UK #43-44 Sep 1996

• GA UK #45-46 Mar 1997

• GA UK #47-48 Jun 1997

• GA UK #49-50 Sep 1997 - Steve Booth, Saxon Wood and Noel Molland are briefly jailed.

• GA UK #51 Mar 1998

• GA UK #52 Jun 1998

• GA UK #53 Sep 1998

• GA UK #54-55 Mar 1999

• GA UK #56 Jun 1999

• GA UK #57-58 Sep 1999 - Saxon Wood and Noel Molland leave at some point around here.

• GA UK #59 Mar 2000

• GA UK #60-61 Jun 2000 - Steve Booth splits after this issue and produces a paper with the same name, but a smaller distribution.

Post-Split

Paul Rogers and John Connor Faction

• GA UK #64-65 Jun 2001 - Paul Rogers and 'John Connor' produce a paper with the same name, jumped forward two numbered issues, calling the two recent issues by Steve a 'hijacking'.

• GA UK #66 Mar 2002

• GA UK #67 Sep 2002

• GA UK #68/9 Jun 2003

• GA UK #70 Sep 2003

• GA UK #71-72 Mar 2004

• GA UK #73-74 Sep 2004

Steve Booth Faction

• GA UK SB #62 Mar 2001

• GA UK SB #63 Jun 2001

• GA UK SB #64 Dec 2001

• GA UK SB #65 Unknown Date

Sources

• The Sparrows Nest

• greenanarchist.org/issues

• greenanarchist.org/forum

An Introduction & a Critique

Wikipedia

Established in Oxford, UK.

Early years

Founded after the 1984 Stop the City protests, the magazine was launched in the summer of that year by an editorial collective consisting of Alan Albon, Richard Hunt and Marcus Christo. Albon had been an editor of Freedom whilst Hunt had become frustrated with the more mainstream green magazine Green Line for which he had been writing. The younger Christo had come from a more anarcho-punk background – he was also a member of Green CND, and had been involved in the blockade of Ronald Reagan's car at the 1984 Lancaster House summit meeting.

Early issues featured a range of broadly anarchist and ecological ideas, bringing together groups and individuals as varied as Class War, veteran anarchist writer Colin Ward, anarcho-punk band Crass, as well as the Peace Convoy, anti-nuclear campaigners, animal rights activists and so on. However the diversity that many saw as the publication's greatest strength quickly led to irreconcilable arguments between the essentially pacifist approach of Albon and Christo, and the advocacy of violent confrontation with the State favoured by Hunt.

Albon and Christo left Green Anarchist shortly afterwards, and the magazine saw a succession of editorial collectives, although Hunt remained in overall control. During this period he published articles which were increasingly alienating much of the magazine's readership. Matters came to a head after Hunt wrote an editorial which expressed support for British troops in the Gulf War and extolled the virtues of patriotism. Hunt has stated that the rest of the editorial collective wished to bring to Green Anarchist a more left-wing political approach, while Hunt wanted it to remain non-aligned.[1] Shortly afterwards he left to start another magazine Alternative Green, which continued to promote his own particular view of green anarchism, and eventually became closely linked to the National-Anarchist movement from the mid-90s onwards.

The Nineties

During the 1990s Green Anarchist came under the helm of an editorial collective that included Paul Rogers, Steve Booth and others, during which period the publication became increasingly aligned with primitivism, an anti-civilization philosophy advocated by writers such as John Zerzan, Bob Black and Fredy Perlman.

During this period the magazine expressed sympathy for the criminal activities of Ted Kaczynski and published a notorious article entitled "The Irrationalists" that supported actions like the Oklahoma City bombing and the sarin gas attacks carried out by the Tokyo based Aum cult. This once again alienated much of the UK anarchist movement, and led to strong criticism of the magazine by Stewart Home, Counter Information,[2] the Anarchist Communist Federation[3][4][5] and others. Steven Booth, the writer of the article, has since renounced the views expressed in it, as well as the primitivist movement altogether.

The GANDALF trial

Starting in 1995, Hampshire Police began a series of at least 56 raids, code named 'Operation Washington', that eventually resulted in the August to November 1997 Portsmouth trial of Green Anarchist editors Booth, Saxon Wood, Noel Molland and Paul Rogers, as well as Animal Liberation Front (ALF) Press Officer Robin Webb and Animal Liberation Front Supporters Group (ALFSG) newsletter editor Simon Russell. The defendants organised the GANDALF Defence campaign. Three of the editors of Green Anarchist, Noel Molland, Saxon Wood and Booth were jailed for 'conspiracy to incite'. However, all three were shortly afterwards released on appeal.

Booth and Rogers' Green Anarchists

In the late 1990s there was a further split amongst the GA collective, leading to the existence of two entirely separate magazines using the Green Anarchist title. These are respectively published by an editorial team that includes Paul Rogers and 'John Connor' (who subtitle their version of the paper as the original and best), and Steve Booth, who has publicly renounced some of his earlier published views and expressed a wish to 'return to the magazine's roots'.

The Left Overs: How Fascists Court the Post-Left

March 29, 2017

A few months ago, the radical publication, Fifth Estate, solicited

an article from me discussing the rise of fascism in recent years. Following their decision to withdraw the piece, I accepted the invitation of Anti-Fascist News to publish an expanded version here, with some changes, at the urging of friends and fellow writers.

In Solidarity, ARR

Chapter 1: The Early Composition of Fascist Individualism

A friendly editor recently told me via email, “if anti-capitalism and pro individual liberty [sic] are clearly stated in the books or articles, they won’t be used by those on the right.” If this were true, fascism simply would vanish from the earth. Fascism comes from a mixture of left and right-wing positions, and some on the left pursue aspects of collectivism, syndicalism, ecology, and authoritarianism that intersect with fascist enterprises. Partially in response to the tendencies of left authoritarianism, a distinct antifascist movement emerged in the 1970s to create what has became known as “post-left” thought. Yet in imagining that anti-capitalism and “individual liberty” maintain ideological purity, radicals such as my own dear editor tend to ignore critical convergences with and vulnerabilities to fascist ideology.

The post-left developed largely out of a tendency to favor individual freedom autonomous from political ideology of left and right while retaining some elements of leftism. Although it is a rich milieu with many contrasting positions, post-leftists often trace their roots to individualist Max Stirner, whose belief in the supremacy of the European individual over and against nation, class, and creed was heavily influenced by philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. After Stirner’s death in 1856, the popularity of collectivism and neo-Kantianism obscured his individualist philosophy until Friedrich Nietzsche raised its profile again during the later part of the century. Influenced by Stirner, Nietzsche argued for the overcoming of socialism and the “modern world” by the iconoclastic, aristocratic philosopher known as the “Superman” or “übermensch.”

During the late-19th Century, Stirnerists conflated the “Superman” with the assumed responsibility of women to bear a superior European race—a “New Man” to produce, and be produced by, a “New Age.” Similarly, right-wing aristocrats who loathed the notions of liberty and equality turned to Nietzsche and Stirner to support their sense of elitism and hatred of left-wing populism and mass-based civilization. Some anarchists and individualists influenced by Stirner and Nietzsche looked to right-wing figures like Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, who developed the idea of a “conservative revolution” that would upend the spiritual crises of the modern world and the age of the masses. In the words of anarchist, Victor Serge, “Dostoevsky: the best and the worst, inseparable. He really looks for the truth and fears to find it; he often finds it all the same and then he is terrified… a poor great man…”

History’s “great man” or “New Man” was neither left nor right; he strove to destroy the modern world and replace it with his own ever-improving image—but what form would that image take? In Italy, reactionaries associated with the Futurist movement and various romantic nationalist strains expressed affinity with the individualist current identified with Nietzsche and Stirner. Anticipating tremendous catastrophes that would bring the modern world to its knees and install the New Age of the New Man, the Futurists sought to fuse the “destructive gesture of the anarchists” with the bombast of empire.

A hugely popular figure among these tendencies of individualism and “conservative revolution,” the Italian aesthete Gabrielle D’Annunzio summoned 2,600 soldiers in a daring 1919 attack on the port city of Fiume to reclaim it for Italy after World War I. During their exploit, the occupying force hoisted the black flag emblazoned by skull and crossbones and sang songs of national unity. Italy disavowed the imperial occupation, leaving the City-State in the hands of its romantic nationalist leadership. A constitution, drawn up by national syndicalist, Alceste De Ambris, provided the basis for national solidarity around a corporative economy mediated through collaborating syndicates. D’Annunzio was prophetic and eschatological, presenting poetry during convocations from the balcony. He was masculine. He was Imperial and majestic, yet radical and rooted in fraternal affection. He called forth sacrifice and love of the nation.

When he returned to Italy after the military uprooted his enclave in Fiume, ultranationalists, Futurists, artists, and intellectuals greeted D’Annunzio as a leader of the growing Fascist movement. The aesthetic ceremonies and radical violence contributed to a sacralization of politics invoked by the spirit of Fascism. Though Mussolini likely saw himself as a competitor to D’Annunzio for the role of supreme leader, he could not deny the style and mood, the high aesthetic appeal that reached so many through the Fiume misadventure. Fascism, Mussolini insisted, was an anti-party, a movement. The Fascist Blackshirts, or squadristi, adopted D’Annunzio’s flare, the black uniforms, the skull and crossbones, the dagger at the hip, the “devil may care” attitude expressed by the anthem, “Me ne frego” or “I don’t give a damn.” Some of those who participated in the Fiume exploit abandoned D’Annunzio as he joined the Fascist movement, drifting to the Arditi del Popolo to fight the Fascist menace. Others would join the ranks of the Blackshirts.

Originally a man of the left, Mussolini had no difficulty joining the symbolism of revolution with ultranationalist rebirth. “Down with the state in all its species and incarnations,” he declared in a 1920 speech. “The state of yesterday, of today, of tomorrow. The bourgeois state and the socialist. For those of us, the doomed (morituri) of individualism, through the darkness of the present and the gloom of tomorrow, all that remains is the by-now-absurd, but ever consoling, religion of anarchy!” In another statement, he asked, “why should Stirner not have a comeback?”

Mussolini’s concept of anarchism was critical, because he saw anarchism as prefiguring fascism. “If anarchist authors have discovered the importance of the mythical from an opposition to authority and unity,” declared Nazi jurist, Carl Schmitt, drawing on Mussolini’s concept of myth, “then they have also cooperated in establishing the foundation of another authority, however unwillingly, an authority based on the new feeling for order, discipline, and hierarchy.” The dialectics of fascism here are two-fold: only the anarchist destruction of the modern world in every milieu would open the potential for Fascism, but the mythic stateless society of anarchism, for Mussolini, could only emerge, paradoxically, from a self-disciplining state of total order.

Antifascist anarchist individualists and nihilists like Renzo Novatore represented for Mussolini a kind of “passive nihilism,” which Nietzsche understood as the decadence and weakness of modernity. The veterans that would fight for Mussolini rejected the suppression of individualism under the Bolsheviks and favored “an anti-party of fighters,” according to historian Emilio Gentile. Fascism would exploit the rampant misogyny of men like Novatore while turning the “passive nihilism” of their vision of total collapse toward “active nihilism” through a rebirth of the New Age at the hands of the New Man.

The “drift” toward fascism that took place throughout Europe during the 1920s and 1930s was not restricted to the collectivist left of former Communists, Syndicalists, and Socialists; it also included the more ambiguous politics of the European avant-garde and intellectual elites. In France, literary figures like Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud began experimenting with fascist aesthetics of cruelty, irrationalism, and elitism. In 1934, Bataille declared his hope to usher in “room for great fascist societies,” which he believed inhabited the world of “higher forms” and “makes an appeal to sentiments traditionally defined as exalted and noble.” Bataille’s admiration for Stirner did not prevent him from developing what he described decades later as a “paradoxical fascist tendency.” Other libertarian celebrities like Louis-Ferdinand Céline and Maurice Blanchot also embraced fascist themes—particularly virulent anti-Semitism.

Like Blanchot, the Nazi-supporting Expressionist poet Gottfried Benn called on an anti-humanist language of suffering and nihilism that looked inward, finding only animal impulses and irrational drives. Existentialist philosopher and Nazi Party member, Martin Heidegger, played on Nietzschean themes of nihilism and aesthetics in his phenomenology, placing angst at the core of modern life and seeking existential release through a destructive process that he saw as implicit in the production of an authentic work of art. Literary figure Ernst Jünger, who cheered on Hitler’s rise, summoned the force of “active nihilism,” seeking the collapse of the civilization through a “magic zero” that would bring about a New Age of ultra-individualist actors that he later called “Anarchs.” The influence of Stirner was as present in Jünger as it was in Mussolini’s early fascist years, and carried over to other members of the fascist movement like Carl Schmitt and Julius Evola.

Evola was perhaps the most important of those seeking the collapse of civilization and the New Age’s spiritual awakening of the “universal individual,” sacrificial dedication, and male supremacy. A dedicated fascist and individualist, Evola devoted himself to the purity of sacred violence, racism, anti-Semitism, and the occult. Asserting a doctrine of the “political soldier,” Evola regarded violence as necessary in establishing a kind of natural hierarchy that promoted the supreme individual over the multitudes. Occult practice distilled into an overall aristocracy of the spirit, Evola believed, which could only find expression through sacrifice and a Samurai-like code of honor. Evola shared these ideals of conquest, elitism, sacrificial pleasure with the SS, who invited the Italian esotericist to Vienna to indulge his thirst for knowledge. Following World War II, Evola’s spiritual fascism found parallels in the writings of Savitri Devi, a French esotericist of Greek descent who developed an anti-humanist practice of Nazi nature worship not unlike today’s Deep Ecology. In her rejection of human rights, Devi insisted that the world manifests a totality of interlocking life forces, none of which enjoys a particular moral prerogative over the other.

Chapter 2: The Creation of the Post-Left

It has been shown by now that fascism, in its inter-war period, attracted numerous anti-capitalists and individualists, largely through elitism, the aestheticization of politics, and the nihilist’s desire for the destruction of the modern world. After the fall of the Reich, fascists attempted to rekindle the embers of their movement by intriguing within both the state and social movements. It became popular among fascists to reject Hitler to some degree and call for a return to the original “national syndicalist” ideas mixed with the elitism of the “New Man” and the destruction of civilization. Fascists demanded “national liberation” for European ethnicities against NATO and multicultural liberalism, while the occultism of Evola and Devi began to fuse with Satanism to form new fascist hybrids. With ecology and anti-authoritarianism, such sacralization of political opposition through the occult would prove among the most intriguing conduits for fascist insinuation into subcultures after the war.

In the ’60s, left-communist groups like Socialisme ou Barbarie, Pouvoir ouvrier, and the Situationists gathered at places like bookstore-cum-publishing house, La Vielle Taupe (The Old Mole), critiquing everyday life in industrial civilization through art and transformative practices. According to Gilles Dauvé, one of the participants in this movement, “the small milieu round the bookshop La Vieille Taupe” developed the idea of “communisation,” or the revolutionary transformation of all social relations. This new movement of “ultra-leftists” helped inspire the aesthetics of a young, intellectual rebellion that culminated in a large uprising of students and workers in Paris during May 1968.

The strong anti-authoritarian current of the ultra-left and the broader uprising of May ’68 contributed to similar movements elsewhere in Europe, like the Italian Autonomia movement, which spread from a wildcat strike against the car manufacturer, Fiat, to generalized upheaval involving rent strikes, building occupations, and mass street demonstrations. While most of Autonomia remained left-wing, its participants were intensely critical of the established left, and autonomists often objected to the ham-fisted strategy of urban guerrillas. In 1977, individualist anarchist, Alfredo Bonanno, penned the text, “Armed Joy,” exhorting Italian leftists to drop patriarchal pretensions to guerrilla warfare and join popular insurrectionary struggle. The conversion of Marxist theorist, Jacques Camatte, to the pessimistic rejection of leftism and embrace of simpler life tied to nature furthered contradictions within the Italian left.

With anti-authoritarianism, ecologically-oriented critiques of civilization emerged out of the 1960s and 1970s as significant strains of a new identity that rejected both left and right. Adapting to these currents of popular social movements and exploiting blurred ideological lines between left and right, fascist ideologues developed the framework of “ethno-pluralism.” Couching their rhetoric in “the right to difference” (ethnic separatism), fascists masked themselves with labels like the “European New Right,” “national revolutionaries,” and “revolutionary traditionalists.” The “European New Right” took the rejection of the modern world advocated by the ultra-left as a proclamation of the indigeneity of Europeans and their pagan roots in the land. Fascists further produced spiritual ideas derived from a sense of rootedness in one’s native land, evoking the old “blood and soil” ecology of the German völkische movement and Nazi Party.

In Italy, this movement produced the “Hobbit Camp,” an eco-festival organized by European New Right figure Marco Tarchi and marketed to disillusioned youth via Situationist-style posters and flyers. When Italian “national revolutionary,” Roberto Fiore, fled charges of participating in a massive bombing of a train station in Bologna, he found shelter in the London apartment of Tarchi’s European New Right colleague, Michael Walker. This new location would prove transformative, as Fiore, Walker, and a group of fascist militants created a political faction called the Official National Front in 1980. This group would help promote and would benefit from a more avant-garde fascist aesthetic, bringing forward neo-folk, noise, and other experimental music genres.

While fascists entered the green movement and exploited openings in left anti-authoritarian thought, Situationism began to transform. In the early 1970s, post-Situationism emerged through US collectives that combined Stirnerist egoism with collectivist thought. In 1974, the For Ourselves group published The Right to Be Greedy, inveighing against altruism while linking egoist greed to the synthesis of social identity and welfare—in short, to surplus. The text was reprinted in 1983 by libertarian group, Loompanics Unlimited, with a preface from a little-known writer named Bob Black.

While post-Situationism turned toward individualism, a number of European ultra-leftists moved toward the right. In Paris, La Vieille Taupe went from controversial views rejecting the necessity of specialized antifascism to presenting the Holocaust as a lie necessary to maintain the capitalist order. In 1980, La Vielle Taupe published the notorious Mémoire en Défense centre ceux qui m’accusent de falsifier l’histoire by Holocaust denier, Robert Faurisson. Though La Vielle Taupe and founder, Pierre Guillaume, received international condemnation, they gained a controversial defense from left-wing professor, Noam Chomsky. Even if they have for the most part denounced Guillaume and his entourage, the ultra-leftist rejection of specialized antifascism has remained somewhat popular—particularly as expounded by Dauvé, who insisted in the early 1980s that “fascism as a specific movement has disappeared.”

The idea that fascism had become a historical artifact only helped the creep of fascism to persist undetected, while Faurisson and Guillaume became celebrities on the far-right. As the twist toward Holocaust denial would suggest, ultra-left theory was not immune from translation into ethnic terms—a reality that formed the basis of the work of Official National Front officer, Troy Southgate. Though influenced by the Situationists, along with a scramble of other left and right-wing figures, Southgate focused particularly on the ecological strain of radical politics associated with the punk-oriented journal, Green Anarchist, which called for a return to “primitive” livelihoods and the destruction of modern civilization. In 1991, the editors of Green Anarchist pushed out their co-editor, Richard Hunt, for his patriotic militarism, and Hunt’s new publication, Green Alternative, soon became associated with Southgate. Two years later, Southgate would join allied fascists like Jean-François Thiriart and Christian Bouchet to create the Liaison Committee for Revolutionary Nationalism.

In the US, the “anarcho-primitivist” or “Green Anarchist” tendency had been taken up by former ultra-leftist, John Zerzan. Identifying civilization as an enemy of the earth, Zerzan called for a return to sustainable livelihoods that rejected modernity. Zerzan rejected racism but relied in no small part on the thought of Martin Heidegger, seeking a return authentic relations between humans and the world unmediated by symbolic thought. This desired return, some have pointed out, would require a collapse of civilization so profound that millions, if not billions, would likely perish. Zerzan, himself, seems somewhat ambiguous with regards to the potential death toll, regardless of his support for the unibomber, Ted Kaczynsky.

Joining with Zerzan to confront authoritarianism and return to a more tribal, hunter-gatherer social organization, an occultist named Hakim Bey developed the idea of the “Temporary Autonomous Zone” (TAZ). For Bey, a TAZ would actualize a liberated and erotic space of orgiastic, revolutionary poesis. Yet within his 1991 text, Temporary Autonomous Zone, Bey included extensive praise for D’Annunzio’s proto-fascist occupation of Fiume, revealing the disturbing historical trends of attempts to transcend right and left.

Along with Zerzan and Bey, Bob Black would prove instrumental to the foundation of what is today called the “post-left.” In his 1997 text, Anarchy After Leftism, Black responded to left-wing anarchist Murray Bookchin, who accused individualists of “lifestyle anarchism.” Drawing from Zerzan’s critique of civilization as well as from Stirner and Nietzsche, Black presented his rejection of work as a nostrum for authoritarian left tendencies that he identified with Bookchin (apparently Jew-baiting Bookchin in the process).[6]

Thus, the post-left began to assemble through the writings of ultra-leftists, green anarchists, spiritualists, and egoists published in zines, books, and journals like Anarchy: Journal of Desire Armed and Fifth Estate. Although these thinkers and publications differ in many ways, key tenets of the post-left included an eschatological anticipation of the collapse of civilization accompanied by a synthesis of individualism and collectivism that rejected left, right, and center in favor of a deep connection with the earth and more organic, tribal communities as opposed to humanism, the Enlightenment tradition, and democracy. That post-left texts included copious references to Stirner, Nietzsche, Jünger, Heidegger, Artaud, and Bataille suggests that they form a syncretic intellectual tendency that unites left and right, individualism and “conservative revolution.” As we will see, this situation has provided ample space for the fascist creep.

Chapter 3: The Fascist Creep

During the 1990s, the “national revolutionary” network of Southgate, Thiriart, and Bouchet, later renamed the European Liberation Front, linked up with the American Front, a San Francisco skinhead group exploring connections between counterculture and the avant-garde. Like prior efforts to develop a Satanic Nazism, American Front leader Bob Heick supported a mix of Satanism, occultism, and paganism, making friends with fascist musician Boyd Rice. A noise musician and avant-gardist, Rice developed a “fascist think tank” called the Abraxas Foundation, which echoed the fusion of the cult ideas of Charles Manson, fascism, and Satanism brought together by 1970s fascist militant James Mason. Rice’s protégé and fellow Abraxas member, Michael Moynihan, joined the radical publishing company, Feral House, which publishes texts along the lines of Abraxas, covering a range of themes from Charles Manson Scandinavian black metal, and militant Islam to books by Evola, James Mason, Bob Black, and John Zerzan.

In similar efforts, Southgate’s French ally, Christian Bouchet, generated distribution networks and magazines dedicated to supporting a miniature industry growing around neo-folk and the new, ”anarchic” Scandinavian black metal scene. Further, national anarchists attempted to set up and/or infiltrate e-groups devoted to green anarchism. As Southgate and Bouchet’s network spread to Russia, notorious Russian fascist, Alexander Dugin, emerged as another leading ideologue who admired Zerzan’s work.

Post-leftists were somewhat knowledgable about these developments. In a 1999 post-script to one of Bob Black’s works, co-editor of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Lawrence Jarach, cautioned against the rise of “national anarchism.” In 2005, Zerzan’s journal, Green Anarchy, published a longer critique of Southgate’s “national anarchism.” These warnings were significant, considering that they came in the context of active direct action movements and groups like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), a green anarchist group dedicated to large-scale acts of sabotage and property destruction with the intention of bringing about the ultimate collapse of industrial civilization.

As their ELF group executed arsons during the late-1990s and early-2000s, a former ELF member told me that two comrades, Nathan “Exile” Block and Joyanna “Sadie” Zacher, shared an unusual love of Scandinavian black metal, made disturbing references to Charles Manson, and promoted an elitist, anti-left mentality. While their obscure references evoked Abraxas, Feral House, and Bouchet’s distribution networks, their politics could not be recognized within the milieu of fascism at the time. However, their general ideas became clearer, the former ELF member told me, when antifascist researchers later discovered that a Tumblr account run by Block contained numerous occult fascist references, including national anarchist symbology, swastikas, and quotes from Evola and Jünger. These were only two members of a larger group, but their presence serves as food for thought regarding important radical cross-over points and how to approach them.

To wit, the decisions of John Zerzan and Bob Black to publish books with Feral House, seem peculiar—especially in light of the fact that two of the four books Zerzan has published there came out in 2005, the same year as Green Anarchy’s noteworthy warning against national anarchism. It would appear that, although in some cases prescient about the subcultural cross-overs between fascism and the post-left, post-leftists have, on a number of occasions, engaged in collaborative relationships.

As Green Anarchy cautioned against entryism and Zerzan simultaneously published with Feral House, controversy descended on an online forum known as the Anti-Politics Board. An outgrowth of the insurrectionist publication Killing King Abacus, the Anti-Politics Board was used by over 1,000 registered members and had dozens of regular contributors. The online platform presented a flourishing site of debate for post-leftists, yet discussions over insurrectionism, communisation, green anarchy, and egoism often produced a strangely competitive iconoclastism. Attempts to produce the edgiest take often led to the popularization of topics like “‘anti-sexism’ as collectivist moralism” and “critique of autonomous anti-fascism.” Attacks on morality and moralism tended to encourage radicals to abandon the “identity politics” and “white guilt” often associated with left-wing anti-racism.

Amid these discussions, a young radical named Andrew Yeoman began to post national anarchist positions. When asked repeatedly to remove Yeoman from the forum, a site administrator refused, insisting that removing the white nationalist would have meant behaving like leftists. They needed to try something else. Whatever they tried, however, it didn’t work, and Yeoman later became notorious for forming a group called the Bay Area National Anarchists, showing up to anarchist events like book fairs, and promoting anarchist collaboration with the Minutemen and American Front.

An important aspect of the Anti-Politics Board was the articulation of nihilist and insurrectionary theories, both of which gained popularity after the 2008 financial crisis. In an article titled, “The New Nihilism,” Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) pointed out that the rising wave of nihilism that emerged during the late 2000s and into the second decade could not immediately be distinguished from the far right, due to myriad cross-over points. Indeed, Stormfront is riddled with users like “TAZriot” and “whitepunx” who promote the basic, individualist tenets of post-leftism from the original, racist position of Stirnerism. Rejecting “political correctness” and “white guilt,” these post-left racists desire separate, radical spaces and autonomous zones for whites.

Through dogged research, Rose City Antifa in Portland, Oregon, discovered whitepunx’s identity: “Trigger” Tom Christensen, a known member of the local punk scene. “I was never an anti [antifascist] but I’ve hung out with a few of them,” Christensen wrote on Stormfront. “I used to be a big punk rocker in the music scene and there were some antis that ran around in the same scene. I was friends with a few. They weren’t trying to recruit me, or anybody really. They did not, however, know I was a WN [white nationalist]. I kept my beliefs to myself and would shut down any opinions the[y] expressed that seemed to have holes in them. It’s been fairly useful to know some of these people. I now know who all the major players are in the anti and SHARP [Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice] scene.”

For a time, Christensen says he hung out with post-leftists and debated them like Yeoman had done. Less than a year later, however, Christensen followed up in a chilling post titled, “Do You Think It Would Be Acceptable To Be A ‘Rat’ If It Was Against Our Enemies.” He wrote, “I had an interesting thought the other day and wanted peoples opinions. If you were asked by the Police to provide or find evidence that would incriminate people who are enemy’s [sic] of the movement, i.e. Leftists, reds, anarchists. Would you do it? Would you ‘rat’ or ‘narc’ on the Left side?” Twenty one responses came beckoning from the recesses of the white nationalist world. While some encouraged Christensen to snitch, others insisted that he keep gang loyalty. It is uncertain as to whether or not he went to the police, but the May 2013 discovery of his Stormfront activity took place shortly before a grand jury subpoenaed four anarchists who were subsequently arrested and held for contempt of court.

In another unsettling example of crossover between post-leftists and fascists, radicals associated with a nihilist group named Ultra harshly rebuked Rose City Antifa of Portland, Oregon, for releasing an exposé about Jack Donovan. An open member of the violent white nationalist group, Wolves of Vinland, Donovan also runs a gym called the Kabuki Strength Lab, which produces “manosphere” videos. As of November 2016, when the exposé was published, one member of Ultra was a member of the Kabuki Strength Lab. Although Donovan runs a tattoo shop out of the gym and gave Libertarian Party fascist Augustus Sol Invictus a tattoo of the fasces there, a fellow gym member wrote, “Obviously Jack has very controversial beliefs and practices that most disagree with; but I don’t believe it affects his behavior in the gym.” Donovan, who has publicly parroted “race realist” statistics at white nationalist gatherings like the National Policy Institute and the Pressure Project podcast, also embraces bioregionalism and the anticipation of a collapse of civilization that will lead to a reversion of identity-bound tribal structures at war with one another and reliant on natural hierarchies—an ideology that resonates with Ultra and some members of the broader post-left milieu.

It stands to reason that defending fascists and collaborating with them are not the same, and they are both separate from having incidental ideological cross-over points. However the cross-over points, when unchecked, frequently indicate a tendency to ignore, defend, or collaborate. Defense and collaboration can, and do, also converge. For instance, also in Portland, Oregon, the founder of a UK ultra-leftist splinter group called Wildcat began to participate in a reading group involving prominent post-leftists before sliding toward anti-Semitism. Soon he was participating in the former-leftist-turned-fascist Pacifica Forum in Eugene, Oregon, and defending anti-Semitic co-op leader, Tim Calvert. He was last seen by antifas creeping into an event for Holocaust denier, David Irving.

Perhaps the most troubling instance of collaboration, or rather synthesis, of post-left nihilism and the far right is taking place currently in the alt-right. Donovan is considered a member of the alt-right, while Christensen’s latest visible Facebook post hails from the misogynistic Proud Boys group. These groups and individuals connected to the alt-right are described as having been “red-pilled,” a term taken from the movie, The Matrix, in which the protagonist is awakened to a dystopian reality after choosing to take a red pill. For the alt-right, being “red-pilled” means waking up to the “reality” offered by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, misogyny, and white nationalism—usually through online forums where the competitive iconoclasm of “edge-lords” mutates into ironic anti-Semitism and hatred. Among the most extreme forms of this phenomenon occurring in recent years is the so-called “black pill”—red-pillers who have turning toward the celebration of indiscriminate violence via the same trends of individualism and nihilism outlined above.

“Black-pillers” claim to have shed their attachments to all theories entirely. This tendency evokes the attitude of militant anti-civilization group, Individuals Tending to the Wild, which is popular among some post-leftist groups and advocates indiscriminate violence against any targets manifesting the modern world. Another influence for “black-pillers” is Adam Lanza, the infamous mass shooter who phoned John Zerzan a year before murdering his mother, 20 children, and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Zerzan has condemned Individuals Tending Toward the Wild, and months after Lanza’s horrifying actions, he penned a piece imploring post-left nihilists to find hope: “Egoism and nihilism are evidently in vogue among anarchists and I’m hoping that those who so identify are not without hope. Illusions no, hope yes.” Unfortunately, Zerzan developed his short communiqué into a book published by Feral House on November 10, 2015—the day after Feral House published The White Nationalist Skinhead Movement co-authored by Eddie Stampton, a Nazi skinhead.

Conclusion

In light of these cross-overs, many individualist anarchists, post-leftists, and nihilists tend not to deny that they share nodal networks with fascists. In many cases, they seek to struggle against them and reclaim their movement. Yet, there tends to be another permissive sense that anarchists bear no responsibility for distinguishing themselves from fascists. If there are numerous points in which radical milieus become a blur of fascists, anarchists, and romantics, some claim that throwing shade on such associations only propagates fallacious thinking, or “guilt by association.”

However, recalling the information in this essay, we might note that complex cross-overs seem to include, in particular, aspects of egoism and radical green theory. Derived from Stirnerism and Nietzschean philosophy, egoism can reify the social alienation felt by an individual, leading to an elitist sense of self-empowerment and delusions of grandeur. When mixed with insurrectionism and radical green thought, egoism can translate into “hunter versus prey” or “wolves versus sheep” elitism, in which compassion for others is rejected as moralistic. This kind of alienated elitism can also develop estranged aesthetic and affective positions tied to cruelty, vengeance, and hatred.

Emerging out of a rejection of humanism and urban modernism, the particular form of radical green theory often embraced by the post-left can relativize human losses by looking at the larger waves of mass extinctions. By doing this, radical greens anticipate a collapse that would “cull the herd” or cause a mass human die off of millions, if not billions, of people throughout the world. This aspect of radical green theory comes very close to, and sometimes intertwines with, ideas about over-population compiled and produced by white nationalists and anti-immigration activists tied to the infamous Tanton Network. Some radical green egoists (or nihilists) insist that their role should be to provoke such a collapse, through anti-moralist strikes against civilization.

As examples like Hakim Bey’s TAZ and the lionization of the Fiume misadventure, Zerzan and Black’s publishing with Feral House, and Ultra’s defense of Donovan indicate, the post-left’s relation to white nationalism is sometimes ambiguous and occasionally even collaborative. Other examples, like those of Yeoman and Christensen, indicate that the tolerance for fascist ideas on the post-left can result in unwittingly accepting them, providing a platform for white nationalism, and increasing vulnerability to entryism. Specific ideas that are sometimes tolerated under the rubric of the “critique of the left” include the approval of “natural hierarchies,” ultranationalism understood as ethno-biological and spiritual ties to homeland and ancestry, rejection of feminism and antifascism, and the fetishization of violence and cruelty.

It is more important today than ever before to recognize how radical movements develop intersections with fascists if we are to discover how to expose creeping fascism and develop stronger, more direct networks. Anarchists must abandon the equivocations that invite the fascist creep and reclaim anarchy as the integral struggle for freedom and equality. Sectarian polemics are the result of extensive learning processes, but are less important than engaging in solidarity to struggle against fascism in all its forms and various disguises.

---

https://twitter.com/areidross is a former co-editor of the Earth First! Journal and the author of Against the Fascist Creep. He teaches in the Geography Department at Portland State University and can be reached at aross@pdx.edu.

Issue 1

Cover: Picture of punk man and woman about to shake hands with hippy man and woman.

Subtitle: 'The Enemies of the People are those who know what people need'

Date: Jul-Aug 1984

Price: 30p

Keywords: Greenpeace; Poison Girls; Colin Ward.

Read here

---

Statement [on how the editors define Green Anarchism]

Green Anarchism is a synthesis of two political traditions, both as old as history. Indeed that whole history could be interpreted as the theft of the land from the people and the theft of their freedom, the suppression of the greens and the suppression of the anarchists.

Today on the streets of the City the two traditions, the punks and the hippies came together to confront authority. At Stonehenge together, they are fighting the same battle. Greenpeace, the Peace Convoy, Animal Lib, Third World groups, radical greens are beginning to coalesce into a movement that will change the world.

We hope that 'Green Anarchist' will bring together people who see that the exploitative society results in the decimation of natural resources as well as the exploitation of people. Anarchist thought has a long history of concerns that the green movement is interested in. Kropotkin's Field, Factories and Workshop', 'The Conquest of Bread' and 'Mutual Aid' all express concern for the natural environment as part of the liberation process.

There are, equally, many people in the green movement who are dissatisfied with the various political parties who, tied to the very institutions that have ravaged the natural world, set peoples against people and developed the techniques of killing to the stage where total destruction is possible.

Anarchists believe that institutionalised power in the form of the state, and peoples obedience to that power, has resulted in the situation that humanity finds itself. The early powerful states of the Mediterranean with their pressures on the surrounding countryside and exploitative agriculture resulted in rapid extension of desert areas. Now the exploitation is world wide, modern techniques can cause a havoc that a man with a machete was never able to do.

Yet if the possibilities of self-destruction are immense, so are the possibilities of creating a satisfying, free and reasonably fed world. A rational approach to agriculture, transport and production is only inhibited by a power based financial and political system in which people are deprived of any control over the forces which govern their lives. There is no doubt that people are capable of such self government, they did it in Spain in 1936 in the most difficult circumstances.

In a situation that appears to be increasingly hostile, we hope to create a magazine that encourages co-operative effort; that highlights the sort of direct action that Greenpeace has been initiating; that encourages the anti-nuclear movement into forms of direct action as not only a means of defying the nuclear state, but also as a means of discouraging unthinking obedience; to engage in self managing actions leading to thinking about a self managed society.

The News

The Lancaster House Demo, by Nicholas Walter, Alan Albon and Marcus Christo

Reagan held up and re-routed by Summit 84.

In mid afternoon on Saturday, June 9th, the first limousine from Lancaster House had got through. The second, carrying Nagasone, the Japanese Prime Minister, was stopped by a few demonstrators dashing out in front of it and sitting down. They were dragged away by the apoplectic police. But demonstrators in the Mall saw police and security men hurriedly close ranks inside Lancaster House. Reagan's limo was stopped and finally rerouted. The Summit was blockaded.

Nicolas Walter writes:

The first two days of the Economic Summit were marked by small but effective actions by Christian CND and Green CND. The last day began slowly. It steadily improved. The CND march and rally was as large as usual. The CND demo around Grosvenor Square involved about 2, 000 people blockading the area for three hours. The Summit 84 demo involved about 4,000 people blockading the area for five hours. At the time it was impossible for anyone to know what was happening in dozens of places in Central London, but after gathering reports from the police, the media and the demonstrators, it is clear that the Summit 84 action was a complete success.

There were about a dozen sit-downs extending from the front entrance of Lancaster House in the Mall, around St James's Park to Green Park to several road junctions in St Jame's. The largest security presence was in the Mall, where the first sit-down was cleared by arrests soon after 1.00, and where several hundred demonstrators remained until evening.

It was they who saw the effects of the lightning sit-down in Picadilly.

Alan A Ibon writes:

The first limousine, carrying Trudeau swept past us in Picadilly where the were no barriers and few policemen. Then the Japanese limo approached flanked by an outrider. Somebody ran out and halted the outrider. The limo slowed down so we rushed in front and stopped it. I held my hand up in a halt sign then slid swiftly to the ground to join my son and his girl friend. Then we were dragged away, about ten of us.

***

Earlier the police had been bussing out demonstrators. Marcus writes:

In Picadilly outside the Ritz the police had done a wonderful job blocking off exits and entrances with policemen, policewomen and barriers. So we added added to this blockade by sitting down in the road and every now and then we would be dragged out of the way to allow a car through. We then sat back down.

This game continued until more police arrived with large green buses and it was then that our blockade down by at least 500 people who were taken away in the buses. It left us looking pathetic and helpless as we could no longer block the road. We were outnumbered by the police, who formed a horse shoe in the road allowing out the traffic from the Summit. Further along the same thing had happened Those who had been arrested were given a good roasting off and released with no charge.

Throughout the day there were sightings of the anarchists. At one point they were seen running down Oxford St, black banners aloft, chased by more apoplectic policemen. Great.

***

N.W. continues:

And Reagan hadn't seen the last of the demonstrators. That evening the convoy of conference delegates was stopped on the way to the banquet at Buckingham Palace, and Reagan's car was held up at last.

Run -up to the Action

During 1983 there was growing support for non-violent direct action in the nuclear disarmament movement, but in January 1984 the CND National Council decided to organise no demonstrations of non-violent direct action this year and no demonstrations at all during Easter or the Economic Summit.

Activists in the radical wing of the movement replied by circulating proposals challenging both decisions through the Action 84 process. The general proposal for a national demonstration of NVDA as soon as possible won general agreement, and the specific proposal for a mass blockade of the final session of the Economic Summit won most support. In .April these two proposals were discussed by the CND National Council, which decided to compromise by organising a symbolic demonstration of civil disobedience at the American Embassy, at the same time as a conventional march from Hyde Park to a rally in Trafalgar Square.

Some of the people involved in Action 84 accepted the CND decision, but many others decided to ignore it and continue with the original proposal, presenting the movement with a choice of three demonstrations at the same time on Saturday, June 9th. This group adopted the name Summit 84 and formed a working group to coordinate final plans, circulate information, and obtain publicity. The agreed plan was for a non-violent blockade of the Lancaster House area from 12.30 until the conference delegates left; the material circulated included a propaganda leaflet for the movement, a detailed briefing document for the demonstrators, and a manifesto for the day; the publicity was the biggest problem, the national media being indifferent until the last moment, and the movement’s press being generally hostile - with the exception of 'Freedom' and 'Greenline'.

But despite our great difficulties- and small numbers, we achieved our main objectives. We maintained complete non-violence at times. We maintained spontaneous flexibility in the face of changing circumstances and took intelligent initiatives at appropriate times and places. We paralysed central London for the whole afternoon, we delayed the departure of the conference delegates and we obstructed several of their individual cars.

We did our best to bring home to our rulers and to our fellow humans throughout the country and the rest of the world. Now we must learn our lessons from our experience and think of the next step.

***

There is a public meeting of Summit 84 at County Hall, London SEI, on Sunday, July 8th. from 2.00 to 6.00.

Square Sit-Down

Having assembled at Hyde Park with Green CND we set off for the sit-down in Grosvenor Square. Looking around, the police had done a nice job of blocking off every entrance and exit so at these points loads of people sat down in the roads singing peace songs.

Here, the police had no intention. A11 was peaceful. So, having spoken to Tokyo TV, we moved on to Lancaster House.

Later on in the day the remaining Grosvenor Square protestors who tried to get down to Lancaster House found their way blocked by barriers and police.

"But officer it was such a lovely day and my feet were killing me."

Greenpeace UK Big Ben Banner

Greenpeace UK (not to be confused with Greenpeace London) brought their message closer to home, spectacularly. They draped it across the face of Big Ben. A previous action had been aborted by the police, acting, probably, on a phone tap. Greenpeace learnt their lesson. We're all learning it.

Green CND Action

"Cows, not Cruise’, "Bread, not Bombs’. On Friday, June 8th, Green CND tried to link the Summit with the alternative Summit but did not quite succeed. There weren't enough people. But a symbolic action took place. Everyone linked hands up to the Alternative Summit, then pictures of drugs, arms and food were passed up and down the chain. After which the Greens went to gather in Hyde Park. Here they finished the action holding hands in a large circle.

Essays

The Root of the Problem; against the Cold War. Green CND leaflet.

The Cold War is the vital excuse to arm Third World governments to suppress their peoples and take their crops to sell

78% of Guinea Bissau is growing peanuts for export. They had famine in ’69, ’70, ’71 and ’79. In 1972 for every ton of famine relief, Mali exported 4 tons of crops including cotton. Their land is used to grow crops for us and not food for themselves. We wear cotton jeans therefore they starve. It's that simple.

The Superpowers have invented the Cold War to justify the arms sales and repressive regimes that stifle protest and maintain exports.

"Pershing 2 has less to do with our security than with bolstering American American policies in the Third World, which is in the process of being recolonised." (Eppler)

CROPS

To maintain the export of these crops, profitable to both the Third World elites and the multinationals, any local protest must be suppressed, by our guns. To excuse these arms sales our governments have to invent the bogey of communism. 'We have to create an emotional atmosphere akin to a wartime psychology. We must create the idea of a threat from without." (John Foster Dulles) All local protest can the be labelled communist and stamped out.

Likewise Russia, to hold on to its satellite puppets, has to foster the American bogey. Then it can keep its tanks in Hungary and its clients in power.

But having invented the Cold War to hold on to their economic empires, they have to continue the pretence by spending enormous sums on arms to the terrible extent of the bomb. The exploitation of the Third World leads to to the Cold War. The Cold War leads to nuclear annihilation.

EXPORT

The Philippines example

In the Philippines R€agan arms tyrant Marcos to the Teeth on the pre!ext of defending the world against communism. Marcos uses his troops to drive Filipinos off their tribal homeland. He can then sell off (ai great personal profit) the logging concessions to his buddies and their American multi¬national associates. That’s the quid pro quo for the American arms. So the country is being stripped of its trees waich mane our oxygen. With no trees the rainfall decreases. What rain there is erodes the uncovered soil.

Finally the land, now privately owned, is put down to monocultural crops for export. Marcos, his buddies and the multinationals are delighted at this economic growth. The tribes are destitute.

Aid as an "unfriendly act”

We sell arms to Marcos too. So our Commonewalth Development Corporation is able to invest £6m (it’s called development aid) in a 4000 hectare palm oil concession, after first driving off the original inhabitants. Very profitable. No wonder Tanada, a Filipino oppostion politician,has said, "Aid will be considered as an unfriendly act."

The global problem is the guns which support economic imperialism which exploits the Third World.

And what are the Summit leaders talking about?

More arms, more Cold Wai*. More international trade, more Western goods m exchange for more Third World crops, more starvation. It’s called Economic Growth. They want to solve unemployment in the West by sending more goods to the Third World in exchange for their crops. Sc those crops can’t be used to create their own employment. The Summit leaders want to export our unemplome.ui unemployment to the Third World. They want more ’Liberalisation of Trade’ so that we can destroy their indigenous industries with our mass-produced goods.

They are also talking about interest rates, straght talking. Reagan has cut taxes on the rich so he’s got less funds for his increased arms production. He has to borrow, which puts up interest rates in America,. Because we have abolished exchange controls, we are lending him. our money for the nice high interest rates (so our money is creating employment in America instead cf in Britain). That’s the reason for the American boom. But the Third World is having to pay out as well, is also having to pay these high interest rates on its extravagant debts.

For every 1% increase in interest rates the Third World is having to fork out another billion dollar's.

The world's poorest are being starved because of America's increased defence spending fora fraudulent Cold War.

What should be done?

1. End arms sales to Third World governments.

2. Cut American defence spending.

3. Stop all government aid.

4. Solve Western unemployment by Land Reform.

5. (To make small farms economic, cut (indirect) taxes on the pool* to reduce the cost of living.)

6. This was the leaflet that Green CND distributed at their action on June 8th. Thanks, Green CND for letting us print it.

CROPS fOR EXPORT

large source of uranium that can be conditions which, heavily

Namibia F***ed; Against the Botha visit.

WHY did Botha come to Britain. And Why did Thatcher allow it? Their major common interest is Namibia and how to install a compliant government there which will continue the theft of Namibia's mineral resources, to say nothing of her crops. Namibia is the only used in nuclear weapons. So Britain uses Canadian and Australian uranium for the power stations that will weaken the coal miners power and has come to a. cosy arrangement with Rio Tinto Zinc for Namibian uranium for its

disguised, will allow the capitalist exploitation. If the Gang of Five is in apparent control, then independence negotiations, with a gloss of respectability, can impose Free Trade with South Africa, the use of the South African rand as

bombs. It needs a government that will continue that cosy arrangement

Botha needs to pay back the mining multinationals whose political contributions keep him in power. They support him as long as he makes it easy for them to milk Namibia. So he needs a government in Namibia which will continue the headlong depletion of its mineral resources.

That sort of government will not be popular and will need to be kept in power by heavy sales of arms. The excuse for that will be some external 'communist' threat; it always is. The Cold War is essential for capitalism.

At the moment independence negotiations have stalled, again, because some of Botha's tame Multi-party Conference have switched sides to join SWAPO. Having failed to install its own Turnhalle Alliance as a puppet government, and now failing with the more broad-based Multi-party conference, Botha is touring Europe, trying to get Britain, France, Germany, (with Canada and USA, the infamous Gang of Five) to take over during the negotiations for 'independence'.

He has probably now accepted that he can't stop SWAPO and wants to make sure that SWAPO accepts currency and the other essentials for neo-colonialism, in exchange for aid and arms sales. Namibia will be tied into South Africa’s economic empire.

But however much the Gang of Five might approve of Botha's neo¬colonialism, because of South A frica's terrible reputation they can't be «*een to be getting into bed 'with hin ?o eagerly. They are

hoist with their own hypocritical morality.

America has joined in by demanding that Cuban troops leave Angola as a condition for Namibian 'independence'. Europe, embarrassed, has rejected this 'linkage'.

Meanwhile, hidden by South Africa's media blackout, the vital battle is being fought by SWAPO's soldiers. As they get stronger, the repression increases. It is not succeeding.

But the final battle against poverty will not be fought by the soldiers, but by the negotiators. The battle will be won or lost in the economic footnotes of the independence declaration.

Richard Hunt

Thanks to the Namibian Support Committee for the information on which this article is based.

Contact: CANUC, c/o 53, Leverton St, London. NW5.

Riff Raff Chit Chat by Dennis Gould.

Fields and Factories by Colin Ward.

Article about Morris, Kropotkin, Howard etc.

In the Sticks

[article about the Convoy]

In The Smoke by Dave of London Greenpeace.

By Dave of London Greenpeace

There's a war on, a war between humanity all over the globe, and the Systems which control and destroy our lives, our environment and the natural world.

They exploit everything under the sun (literally) - all materials and resources on this beautiful and bountiful planet, all the food, all the nature. They rip up the earth, destroy forests, pollute our seas and dominate the land everywhere.

They exploit every person - build factories, offices and plantations all over and force people to work in them or go hungry. They reduce human communities to economic slaves, numbers to be stuck on graphs in their profit and loss accounts, who must obey and labour for them.

Fighting amongst themselves for influence, land and resources, these institutions fuel (and of course profit from) barbaric wars, causing fear, suffering and death to hundreds of millions of people, trapped in the zones of the Generals. Meanwhile as people's land and food is stolen and resources squandered, millions of others starve.

They don't give a shit about anyone, any of us. We are NOTHING to them. They don't give a fuck for the peoples of the world - never did and never will. So this is a picture without illusions.

The financial and industrial institutions which exploit us and the earth are complemented by those which defend, conquer and expand power blocs (the military) which control people (authorities of all kinds, police and armies) those which service us and make us dependent (shops, the traffic system, the welfare state), which mould people into obedient citizens (schools, media) as well as institutions which integrate us and neutralise our concerns, questioning and resistance (churches, charities, unions, political parties and parliament etc.)

In the past when people have rebelled, they have usually explained their struggle as a class struggle to make improvements in the System, or to seize control of it (the land, workplace and towns) from those who at present have power.

In the second case, by establishing worker councils (Russia 1905, 1917, Germany 1919, Italy 1920, Hungary 1956 ...) and town communes (Spain 1936...) they would be able to shape and exercise power themselves and so end oppression. However, most rebellions and revolutions have been diverted by political parties into struggles to establish a new kind of state control over industry and society generally.

As revolution and class struggle have been turned into problems of who should manage the system, so most working class people have turned away from, and in fact have been pushed out of politics. However, the struggle to protect our humanity, and the conditions and quality of our lives has continued daily.

By the 1960s, movements out of control of political parties began to develop - involving fresh ideas and forms of organisation and activity. Independent movements grew up against nuclear weapons, for women's liberation, wildcat strikes, occupations of housing and workplaces (especially in the 1968 uprising and general strike in France), for non-authoritarian relationships and lifestyle, and against ecological destruction etc. It was within this atmosphere of questioning and self organisation that the group I eventually joined, the London Greenpeace Group, was founded (along with other such groups) in 1970. Primarily to campaign against nuclear bomb testing it gradually broadened out to question this whole society and our personal responsibility to act in our everyday lives to change things.

In 1977, with all political parties and unions defending nuclear energy, a large movement of independent local groups, protest and direct actions (occupations and blockades of sites etc) grew up all over Europe and America to close down all nuclear installations. One of the few independent groups in England to be active during this whole decade, London Greenpeace was able to spread valuable information and contribute practical and theoretical ideas to the anti-nuclear movement. This was especially helpful in the formation of regional, or issue based action networks and federations based on autonomous collectives and groups. Members took part in site occupations and blockades, and blocking nuclear waste transport. There was a great awareness that it was the whole, centralised, destructive system which was being challenged, and that there were radical alternatives which it was up to ourselves to create At the same time there was the resurgence of a wide range of movements for change, including large, anarchistic youth revolts.

By 1980, the anti nuclear struggle had begun to come up against heavy police opposition on one hand, and on the other hand the now familiar attempts by Left groups to co-opt it. At the same time the threat of nuclear war stimulated the rebirth of massive 'anti bomb' protests. Whilst most of these seemed to be channeled into futile appeals to politicians, and into joining single issue hierarchical organisations, there were many involved who knew something more fundamental was needed. In England, this peace movement totally failed to oppose the war in the Falklands. I joined London Greenpeace at this time as one of the very few groups (mostly pacifist and anarchist groups) active in some way against that war. later peace camps began to spring up outside military bases everywhere, and a radical anti war movement began to grow. This inspired us, especially with the large scale blockades to try to close bases. It seemed that people were drawing on the experiences and strengths of the earlier anti nuclear power activities.

It was then that some of us felt the time could be right for significant opposition to the war machine in our towns as well. With our hearts in our mouths we called for an occupation to Stop The City of London, the centre of finance for the arms trade, on 29th September 1983. After 1500 people took part in that encouraging action, a movement developed which decided to re occupy the 'City' in March this year. This time 3000 people from different movements came together for an amazing and determined protest against the profit system itself. Let's hope these actions continue to grow and spread to other towns.

All this time, we in the group felt that mass protests should complement and not detract from the opposition that's needed to everyday oppression all around us. Whilst protest movements give confidence and a focus to discontented minorities and sub cultures, the majority of people face a daily struggle for survival and self respect, to overcome isolation and constant hassles by the Authorities. This daily struggle throughout our society carries the seeds of widespread opposition and community solidarity.

Yet the system is maintained by their authoritarian culture. To encourage each other to question and undermine that culture helps us all to increase our confidence to oppose the controls forced on us. Hence, for us in London Greenpeace, it is vital that we relate our ideas to peoples' everyday lives and struggles.

It's important to actively criticise and oppose the use of money, in favour of sharing to support opposition to the power and violence of the traffic system (probably more effective than the police in ensuring social control);

to encourage respect and defence of animals and the natural world, and for people to stop eating and exploiting animals;

to try to involve children in what we do, and support their struggles, as well as support parents with their responsibilities and hassles;

to encourage people to reject materialism, all the useless junk we are expected to buy and consume, especially junk food;

to explain the way the system buys us off with luxury imports (coffee, sugar, minerals, tropical fruit etc) and the effects this has on people in third world regions;

to encourage opposition to sexist attitudes, and active support for women's struggles;

to oppose the ever increasing dependence of people on drugs of all kinds - tobacco, alcohol, coffee, dope, TV, sugar, vallium etc;

to criticise the idea that 'experts', 'leaders' and Authorities of any kind know what's best for us, or should have any power over us;

to support people creating their own entertainment, developing craft skills and educating each other;

to encourage mutual aid and solidarity in our neighbourhoods, and support all self organisation and resistance to the various Authorities - tenants' groups, workplace organisations, parent and toddler groups, and associations of every kind where people create and participate in to fulfil a need.

To achieve this will be a process of ecological and social revolution, in which we abolish all the structures of the present system and create a world based on our humanity and common sense.

A personal view by Dave (London Greenpeace).

Economics of Affluence, by Alan Albon.

Misc.

Book Review - Cured to Death

'A Great Gig' review of Poison Girls benefit gig by Marcus.

'The Honourable Potato'

'Cycle For Freedom'

Recipe by Marcus.

Actions

Chilwell, Porton Down, CND fund raising, Harvest For The Hungry

Events

...

Back Cover

68a Cassiobury Park Avenue, Watford, Herts WD1 7LE.

Issue 2

Cover: 'Enough is Enough'

Date: Sep-Aug 1984

Keywords: Stop the City Plans; Martial Arts; Punk.

Read here

---

Editorial: Enough is Enough

More and more people are objecting to being pushed about like pawns in a gigantic game of chess called International Finance. There are various, and growing, pockets of resistance, the largest being the miners' strike and many more people are beginning to see this as a struggle in a game against being mere cyphers in a game where people dispose of the many as they see fit.

The judiciary is now openly in cahoots with the Establishment who take actions in secret that effect the lives of a whole population.

As well as the miners in the field of employment, residents in the field of housing in Liverpool, in Glasgow, are beginning to insist on determining how their own environment is to be planned.

Greenpeace is carrying out of direct action all over the world. Actions in the centres of the great Financial Farce in the City are now being subjected to demonstrations to object to decisions being taken in centres remote from peoples' lives.

Commerce is now being exposed, not as a means of communal enterprise and life, but a way a small number of people, for their own ends can blight the lives of millions, at home and abroad.

In every field of human activity we, the people, must call the tune, and not follow the political and financial Pied Piers who are engaged in creating a wasteland on a potentially productive and beautiful planet.

There are people all over the place saying 'Enough is enough' about so many things, womens' lib, animal lib, Greenpeace, environmentalists, inner city people, housing, people. Anarchism brings it all together; property and the State.

Rise like lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number

Shake you chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you.

Ye are many - they are few.

Shelley, 'The Mask of Anarchy'

Leeds Stop The City

Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly punk, converged on Leeds and left their calling cards.

The Leeds 'Stop the City' demo in Leeds on August 9th attracted several hundred people, mostly punks, from all around the country. About 10:30 am the first mass walkabout started into the city from the art gallery assembly point - but with the police around nothing much happened. We went past a Barclays Bank which had been paint bombed - their dragon thing symbol on the wall was covered and dripping red paint - it looked like blood - symbolic and appropriate.

The first march disintegrated throughout the town until everyone was wandering around the streets looking for the action. Later there were scuffles with the police on the Headrow after one pig went into a crowd of us after a bloke and others prevented him from being arrested. This was the signal for other pigs to charge in with boots flying.

There was a sit down at the cross roads by the gallery which was immediately broken up by the pigs - and people arrested after more scuffles. Those sinister pig vans with the blacked out windows (so they can do people over without anyone seeing on the way to the station) were always quick on the scene of anything happening.

The police adopted the tactics of breaking a group up into smaller groups and making them go back to the art gallery assembly point. Individuals were arrested for refusing and / or heading off in a different direction or for looking as if you were co-ordinating any action or movement of a group.

Altogether 70 odd people were arrested over the day. However, Stop The City 'calling cards' (bricks, paint, glue) were left at a number of financial and other relevant institutions.

Finally thanks to those concerned in 'organising' the event, giving people somewhere to doss the night and producing the excellent leaflet with the map of Leeds city centre on the back, amongst many others handed out on the day.

An observation: Mostly the police were quick to react to any large group forming and heading into the centre OR more to the point WE WERE SLOW TO ACT with most people just crawling along and the police eventually dispersing them. The only way to get one over the police and the city is to act quickly in as large a group as possible keeping together and moving along the streets fats.

Contact your local 'Joggers against the City' group and get fit, cos London Sept 27th, here we come!

Glastonbury, Demo at Porton Down

27th September Stop the City meeting

Silver Moon gathering, Cumbria

Doctors, henchmen of Tyranny

Cooking isn't good for you

No dollars at Molesworth, Shelter housing conference at Nottingham University.

Downside Demo, Australia, news from New Zealand, East Germany weighs the odds, Trade War, Season of Summits.

Punk Rools OK by Graeme Hall.

An anarcho-punk's personal view.

WHAT IS PUNK?

IS PUNK just a categorization of a style of music coupled with a way of looking, or is it a way of thinking - an attitude? Punk started out as a rebellion against all the previous conventions of accepted music and dress, to shock people; but wasn't the underlying factor the attitude - the rejection of being controlled by others, of authority - and through the rejection of authority the struggle for real freedom. If punk does not include the attitude then PUNK IS DEAD, just another trend taken over by the media and commercialism which is squeezed dry and eventually dumped. Thankfully, there are those who have seen through the bullshit, media created, caricatures of punk and have developed their way of thinking to what punk was, is and always should be about:

NO SELL OUT!

No compromise to rejecting outside control. The punks to run the punk scene. Participation of all to make it work. We must all be activists! Go in numbers to any demonstrations like 'Stop The City', getting the word spread around for demos and gigs with leaflets, flyposting, graffiting, fanzines and talking to each other. Putting on our own gigs, as cheaply as is possible and as benefits for causes we associate with - and with YOU supporting these gigs by going to them. All the bands should be cooperating with each other NOT competing. THERE SHOULD BE NO ROCK STARS IN OUR SCENE!

To distinguish myself from the 'moral majority' of the punk 'movement' I call myself an 'anarcho-punk' I have no reservations about being called an anarchist. To me Anarchism incorporates every struggle worth fighting for in this sick world. 'You are free to do what you want but your freedom cannot impose or be at the expense of anyone else's freedom, and vice-versa' - you can either agree or disagree with that statement, if you agree it means you reject the concept of people having power / authority over others. This also means that you reject all forms of racism / sexism / Nationalism / exploitation etc ..... then you are an Anarchist (in theory anyway).

Other types of 'punks' I can think of are: the trendy 'my mohicans bigger than yours' unthinking poseurs, the 'macho-men', the 'punks' who have found the other definition of anarchy in the dictionary and put mindless violence and chaos into practice - this includes those racists / fascists that have crawled their way into the scene. In the unlikely event that any of the above mentioned 'punks' read this - then please THINK, realise that you're just a manipulated media caricature and change OR FUCK OFF and go drown in your own shit !!!!

I have one criticism - or rather an observation to make about the scene. Why aren't more wimmin actively involved (and in anarchism for that matter). To me being non-sexist is part of anarchism, and if the reason for the lack of wimmin who would get involved is that many men are still imposing / taking control / pushing wimmin into the background at any discussions etc ... then this should be exposed - because these men are either totally unaware that they are doing it OR they are not Anarchists!

If you are interested in the punk scene on an international scale then get 'Maximum Rock and Roll' produced monthly from the USA - this publication is great and should be supported. It deals with all punk, with the emphasis on the active political (Anarchist) punks and discusses related issues (racism / sexism / squatting etc....) It has reports on what punks are getting up to from countries all around the World. Available over here through Rough Trade.

Graeme Hall

Where We Stand

[Setting out of initial green anarchist position, elaboration of the editorial in issue 1]

Richard Hunt and Alan Albon

We need 50 million leaders and none led

Act - Don't Wait

Take the Plunge

Poison Girls.

The Green Collective

[Bruce Garrard watched and joined as the collective grew out of the gathering.]

The Warriors Path of Energy by Mark Newns

Anarchic Self Sufficency

Winstanley and Kropotkin, by KS of Canterbury.

Did the Quakers become pacifists to save their skins? by Dave Brooks.

Letters

***

Yours pissed off, by Lee

Biased article on convoy complaint by J Pendragon

Lancaster House by Jay

Violence of Football by N Strutt

'Do It!' by Punk of Clydeside.

Oxford Actions, by Paul Mapes

Southend Anarchist Group.

Housing is Theft / Housing is Freedom by Colin Ward.

The Roots of NVDA' by Peter Cadogan.

Laws to torture, Gardens, Recipe.

Back Page

Events, action, report of Crickhowell green weekend.

Issue 3

Cover: A fist of defiance surrounded by police with clubs. 'Police versus Miners'

Date: Nov-Dec 1984

Keywords: Molesworth; Miners' Strike; Stop the City; Stop the Cities; Venice Anarchist Conference; Max Stirner; Squatting.

Read here

---

Editorial: Terrorism - Government

Politicians often shake hands with those whom they once condemned as terrorists. Just as those who blew up the King David Hotel in what was then Palestine, and later successfully became the members of the Israeli Government, were able to cloak their terrorism in legality. The hypocritical condemnation of violence by those who have rejoiced at the recent use of it to achieve political ends, comes when that violence comes home to roost.

There were no howls of anguish at the two miners that died in a conflict in which imported Pinkerton type tactics are employed to impose the government's will. Yet state violence, physical and economic, is the most well equipped and potent source of violence in the world today. In Britain the legal sanctions that are used against any group that obstructs the imposition of the market economy are also backed by state violence. It is also proposed to reduce the legal protection that those in employment have, thus increasing the power of those who control society economically. Economic injustice is also terrorism; it kills people in the Third World just as surely by starvation as with a bomb, and in our own country by saying we do not need you for our free market economy.

A society divided by economic inequality and injustice will always be a violent society, but this lesson will not be learnt by those who experienced the bombing in Brighton; they will add to the great divide, and through their control of the media and its emotional unthinking waffle, will persuade people to add their crosses to enable politicians to add more crosses in the military cemetaries that lie all over the world.

We in this magazine are striving for a world that does not rely on violence to govern human relationships, but to create a society of free and equal people, with different talents, to co-operate to end exploitation of people, and use the world resources sensibly, and end the commercial market place, wanton and wasteful.

Essays

Miners Versus Police by Tarquin.

The Miners' strike is important to us

If they lose, a dangerously reactionary government will have defeated a major obstacle between them and rampant control and exploitation: the power of the organised working classes. A little time to let the dust settle, and then we will all have to watch out.

Whatever doubts many of us have about the Trade Unions, or Marxist theories of class, Tories understand. So whatever the short term financial cost, they are now determined to break the unions, potentially the direct political expression of the working classes. They are the people whose subjugation the Tories need: they are the ones who actually produce the wealth that the capitalists play with.

Many anarchists fail to recognise how important class awareness can be. Many of us are of the middle classes, heavily polluted with bourgeois values. Many of us are from the working classes, but have arrived at anarchism through our individual personal development, forgetting or ignoring that there is an oppressed class behind up. A deep, enduring, inevitable conflict goes on between the working classes and those who exploit them, however much it is denied by the many people who think they can sidestep out of this class struggle.

People are dying because of capitalism. (Although the worst suffering is hid out of sight by national boundaries.) People endure a semi-existence (often not even realising how much life they miss out on) because of modern capitalism. There is only one side that anyone concerned about our world can reasonably choose in the frequently ignored class war. The sooner we all recognise this and do something about it, the better. It is so easy to criticise 'Socialism', 'the unions', 'the Left', that we can lose sight of the greater damage being done now by the Right, by capitalism, by the passivity of so many blinkered 'moderates' throughout our society.

The day government or capitalists willingly support any 'green' venture is the day to be wary: beware whenever capitalism finds a way of incorporating attractive ideas - of taking them from us, making them safe and sterile, and then selling them back to us at twice the price. Fanciful thoughts of a 'Third Way' between the Left and the Right must not blind us to the history of challenges to government and authority, to Commerce and Property, and how these challenges have been overcome in this country.

One feature of capitalism is how successful it is at incorporating and corrupting any hopeful ideas, each time stealing a fresh initiative to buy for itself a new lease of life.

Complete revolution, pushed forward beyond our wildest dreams - that's where hope lies. And there is no better self preparation for revolution than to strike - to refuse absolutely to co-operate for a while with their system of wage slavery - and to do so collectively, not for more money, but as an attack upon the very control the 'bosses' have over our lives.

There are obvious links between the nuclear power programme and the run down of the coal mines. There are grave doubts about the desirability of coal as an energy source. There are criticisms of the insensitivity of some miners to racist and sexist oppression. But these facts pale into insignificance beside the central point: miners and their communities are collectively resisting the destructive control the NCB and the government wish to exercise over their whole way of life. They are fighting for a bit of freedom, defending the things they value. We should stand humbly with them, offering our support.

Tarquin

Molesworth occupied

It's now a growing village called Rainbow Field

2500 people trespassed onto Molesworth airfield and occupied it on the August Bank Holiday. The MoD did nothing, nor did the local police. (Molesworth is due to receive 64 cruise missiles by the end of 1986.)

70 people are now living there, setting up a Green Village. They've ploughed up 10 acres for winter wheat to send to Eritrea. They've built a community kitchen and are organising the education of about 20 children on the site. They've nearly finished the Chapel, which was consecrated by the Bishop of Huntingdon. Now they need cash for roof tiles. And they need cash for lots of other projects.

The number of Greens at Molesworth seems to be increasing all the time. They're hoping that many more will come to celebrate the Winter Solstice on December 21st.

London Stop The City

Demo spreads from the City to the West End

On Sept 27th, an unguessable number of people came to the 'Stop The City' in London. 470 were arrested, in many cases for doing fuck all.

Was the London STC as big a flop as the media made it out to be? Events taking place in the Bank and St Pauls 'City' area were certainly limited and their methods prevented any congregating of people. There was one small rampage not far from the Stock Exchange where windows were smashed and cars jumped on and later a Barclays Bank off Cheapside had windows broken. There was graffiti sprayed all over the place.

However, it was a disaster for the communicators who had all leaflets confiscated and were unable to talk to people, with the police continually moving them on.

There were city workers who entered into the spirit of the occasion by wearing stickers proclaiming 'aggravate an anarchist - support the City'. (!*?)

By the afternoon many people, pissed off by police harassment, started heading out into other parts of the city - where some successful 'hit and run' raids took place. In Soho sex shops were damaged. Saatchi and Saatchi offices were 'trashed' - smoke bombs and thunderflashes let off inside and the windows smashed. Picadilly Circus - windows in the area smashed and building materials thrown into the road. Trafalgar Square's fountains were dyed red. Also reported, attacks on Debenhams and some butchers' shops. A Rolls Royce was damaged and car tyres were let down. A copper or two were reported in the media receiving 'neck injuries and a broken arm'.

Of the 470 arrested most were for 'obstruction' while sitting on a park bench. Most cases of obstruction were released without charge late evening or early morning - they make out that you should be grateful that they're not charging you when you didn't do anything in the first place! One person arrested for obstruction had nothing to do with the demo and was walking home from work at the time!

Camera film was taken out at the station (after possessions had been sealed and taken away .... Is this legal, you may well ask?!!) There were cases of people being beaten up by the police while in custody, and how many cases have been totally fabricated - like ABH on a copper?

When we were getting our possessions back and being released a copper said 'I suppose we'll see you in six months again, lads'. Will he? Did the police tactics deter you or strengthen your resolve? We will see...

************************************

What would be a SUCCESSFUL 'Stop The City'? Is it windows smashed in the thousands, Rolls Royces damaged etc .....? Write in what we should do tacticswise if there's another STC in London or elsewhere.

News

41 charged with criminal damage at research centre

Animal Liberation League protest at Colworth House, Unilever research centre, Bedfordshire, by Dr Rat.

Birmingham STC

Winfrith Leukaemias by Sue Puttock.

Convoy arrested

Police trash buses

Uranium Hexafluoride

It's not nuclear waste. Is there a conspiracy to conceal the dangers?

Essays

A NEW ANARCHISM

The Venice Gathering was heartening, optimistic .... and green

Murray Bookchin at the microphone, saying:

Radical social ecology provides an important, unifying and cohering perspective towards the crucial issues of humanity's relationship with nature and the reconstruction of a future libertarian society .... It calls for a basic change in this image of a biological 'other' to which humanity traditionally opposed itself, and it emphasises the creative, fecund, mutualistic and holistic side of nature as a grounding for a libertarian ethics. As William Trager, a distinguished American biologist observes: 'The conflict in nature between different kinds of organisms has been popularly expressed in phrases like 'the struggle for existence' and 'the survival of the fittest'. Yet few people realise that mutual cooperation between different organisms -- symbiosis -- is just as important, and the 'fittest' may be the one that most helps another to survive.' This conclusion could be easily taken from Kropotkin's Mutual Aid, and adds a vitally new dimension to anarchist theory at a time when ecological breakdown has become one of the greatest problems confronting us in the years ahead.

Murray Bookchin

CONFERENCE REPORT

It was a stroke of genius to call an international anarchist gathering in 1984 -- the year when we are supposed to be cowering under the glare of Big Brother.

There was no cowering in Venice during the last week of September, when about 2,000 anarchists from practically all over the world -- from America north and south, Australia and the Far East and of course all of Europe were welcomed by our Italian hosts and hostesses (if you see what I mean) who had performed a miracle of organisation. For although the gathering had been planned by comrades centred in Milan for over a year, it was not until three days before the gathering date that the Communists -- majority on the communal council of Venice -- yielded to the Socialist mayor's decision and agreed to let the anarchists have their way.

By the time we arrived, however, a huge marquee had been erected, blown down by a freak storm and re-erected in the Campo S Polo, while in the main centre of operations, Campo Santa Marherita, two large shelters for tables and seating, a kitchen and wine bar, a book stall, an information centre and a stage for music and play acting had been built -- while at another venue the Faculty of Architecture, everything had been organised for large meetings with simultaneous translations and, in three other rooms, smaller discussion meetings and an overflow from the main lecture hall.

A wide selection of subjects on 'Anarchism and ....' were presented, starting predictably with considerations of Orwell's 1984 and the real 1984 that we now live in -- and leading through the days, to feminism, syndicalism, urban struggle, state communism, self-management, cultural imperialism, social ecology and other subjects.

It was impossible for one person to cover all the meetings, which went on simultaneously -- but those I did cover all had one heartening characteristic, they all approached their subjects with the attitude of 'Where do we go from here?' Older, middle aged or younger, all the speakers -- and the contributors from the floor -- addressed themselves to the future. Those who looked back to the past did so only to learn lessons for the future as well as the present.

This did not make for dullness. Only those who demand nothing more than calls 'To the barricades!' squeaked from the comfort of a Gondola, could have failed to find the real comfort in this gathering; that the anarchist movement in 1984 is addressing itself to 1984 and not to 1848.

The issues of feminism and ecology were strongly represented, showing the recognition that ruthless exploitation of each other and of the planet are as much a menace to all our futures as the power of the state and are strongly interlined.

This event was called a 'gathering' and that is what it was; people gathering together and talking to each other, formally and informally. I'd like to think I have made some new friends from faraway places -- and I would like to thank our Italian comrades who worked so hard and organised so brilliantly -- freely and voluntarily and anarchistically.

Philip Sansom.

Berlin Squatting by Paul Ransom

Spanish Journey by Alan Albon

Back to South America

Liberation Theology worries Pope Paul

Running out of patience' by Heff

Person and the Planet by Paul Gravett

Are we right to think that this article comes closes to reflecting the views of green anarchists?

THE EARTH is facing a great crisis. We (by which I mean all life on earth) are falling into an abyss that can only end in ecological catastrophe. The most obvious threat is that of nuclear war, but there are many other dangers which receive far less attention. For example, if the present use of artificial fertilisers continues, then within about 30 years the world's top soil will have become so poisoned that a third of it will be infertile. Just imagine the famine that would result from that.

So we are faced with a personal choice - either contribute to the immanent armageddon or in some way resist it. Even non-action - that's what most people prefer - means we are indirectly participating in the road to ruin. Apathy will lead to enslavement and ultimately destruction - look where it's brought us to now.

Unfortunately our society encourages apathy and resignation. The majority of people are opposed to poverty, environmental destruction and abuse of animals, but they feel powerless to change the situation. Likewise, everyone is afraid of nuclear war but most believe in enjoying ourselves before we all go up. The horrible irony is that it is precisely this attitude that will lead us to disaster. Only by taking action individually and collectively will tomorrow be secure..

But what kind of tomorrow? Are the powers that be - the establishment - going to do nothing while the earth is slowly destroyed? some anarchists would reply that they are either ignorant or just do not care and they would do nothing. However, bearing in mind that nobody fancies the prospect of global disaster - nuclear or ecological - particularly the rich and powerful who have much to lose by it, I would have thought there is at least a good chance that they would act to prevent it.

But their way would be very different from ours and in direct contravention to everything that we, as libertarians, believe in. Ivan Illich, one of the world's most perceptive social thinkers, reckons there are two possible future scenarios: either society is planned by ecological engineers and controlled by centralised hierarchical institutions - this he calls the techno-fascist path - or autonomous groups and individuals take control of their own lives to maintain the ecological balances necessary to life - the 'Convivial' Society.

Illich believes we are already half way down the road to techno-fascism, but there's still time to turn back. The only answer is for us all to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives; not to leave our destinies in the hands of others - the authorities, be they the state, corporations, churches, schools etc. The true revolutionaries are those who've said 'enough is enough' and are fighting back. The Greenham Common wimmin and the animal Liberation Front, they are spearheads of a new radicalism, one that works outside all hitherto existing institutions and adopts values concomitant to the new situation. In their resistance they are actually building the framework of a new society, giving us an inviting glimpse of a possible alternative future.

This is where anarchism and the green movement converge. traditionally only anarchists have accorded ordinary people enough common sense and what Orwell called 'common decency' to run their own lives without being told what to do by an elite - be it bourgeois or Marxist - of decision makers. The more power we allow these experts to have, the less control we have over our existence, until every aspect of our lives will be managed for us. Faced with ecological crisis and growing techno-fascism the need for personal responsibility is more vital than ever before. Only the liberatrian creed of anarchism can provide the philosophical framework within which such responsibility can germinate.

The rise of the peace, ecology, animal rights movement is the best [route] so far of avoiding ecological ruin. But while the triad is divided, isolated, it will remain relatively weak and insecure. We need to merge the three prongs of attack into one cohesive coalition for change while fighting individual forms of oppression. We must realise that they are not only the symptoms of a deeper malaise. It is our sick society we must alter and this can only be achieved through non violent revolution.

Paul Gravett

What is Green?

There are many in the green movement who think that revolution must be preceded by self-change. By Marcus.

Squatting

Advisory Service For Squatters

Proudhon or Marx? By Adam Stout.

Stirner By Donald Rooum

Stirner is not an excuse for individualism. Co-operation is in everyone's self interest

Family of Love by Peter Cadogan

Anarchism traces an unbroken line back to the 16th Century

Beware the Hunger Project by Richard Hunt

Letters Page

Anarcho-Syndicalist objections by Keith Campbell, Bradford

Come the Revolution by Dave of Stratford on Avon

Talking to Themselves by Geoff of Thornaby

On Shamens by Dice George.

On 'poser punks' by Krusty Kris of Houghton Regis

White Male Head Trip by Jean Freer

Life Force by Mark Bradley, Belfast.

Misc.

Gardens re - compost heap

Recipe for Sunflower cafe sultana cake by Anne Waterhouse

Light blue touch paper by Dave.

Events: Upper Heyford trespass

Actions

Anarchist bus

Reports, Clydeside Anarchists

Issue 4

Date: Jan-Feb 1985

Cover: by Dave. 'Where there is no vision the people perish.

This was probably the very best GA cover ever, the most complete expression of everything the magazine has been in the past and could be in the future. It shows a giant A in a circle, with badger, humming bird, cat, hedgehog, flowers, corn. A country scene inside the circle, man, woman silhouette, child with balloon, spade, fork, fields. In the circle it says (starting top right going clockwise): Struggle to stop war and the destruction of the earth. Root out the ways of thinking and acting that can allow war and destruction to happen. Realize that you have been repressed and indoctrinated by upbringing, schools, patriarchy, jobs, consumerism, apathy, misinformation, media... Break the state by struggling now for hope, love, peace and freedom,. Nuclear war, pollution and government destroy the earth. Can't make a compassionate society on a barren earth.

Price: 40p

Notes: From the collection of Chris Cook Cann.

Read here

---

Editorial: Individual and the State by Alan Albon.

News

Stop This Fence

Molesworth numbers are growing to stop the missile base construction

Xmas is turning point for miners

Alconbury blockade and break in to support the Alconbury 9

Drug books pulped in Reading

CND demos, a trend is developing

Stanstead

Gays the Word censorship case

Ethiopia, the famine is caused by government

Industrial pollution in the Adriatic

Essays

Class War by a member of the Class War newspaper collective

Class room revolutionaries

Passing notes between desks takes on a new meaning.

Educate Your Desire

Cliff Harper is the leading designer of the Alternative movement

**The Education of Desire. The anarchist graphics of Clifford Harper. Anarres Co-operative, 10 Bradbury Street, London N16, £4:95p*

Nobody who has been in or around libertarian or anarchist circles over the last decade can be unaware of the work of Cliff Harper. I first became aware of it almost exactly ten years ago following his production in 1974 or a series of seven drawings giving his vision of a self-supporting communalised urban utopia. Sadly this set of drawings has long been out of print, but two are reproduced in this present volume to remind us of how good they were - especially as they were among the first works of a self-taught artist.

These are followed by three drawings of communal workshops, and it was looking at them all together that I realised that in all these work scenes everything was being done by women, not a man in sight.

Does this mean I asked myself, that, come the revolution women will do all the work? Or that there will be no revolution until all the men have been eliminated? Turning to the text I discovered the answer to be more simple: Cliff was going through a very strong pro-Feminist period and it transpires that in this Utopian Time he took a conscious decision not to draw any men at all. Unconsciously, it could have been because his companion Ame was working straight jobs and bringing in some money, while Cliff was developing his art.

The text consists of the gist of a tape recorded talk between Cliff and Adam Cornford which started out as an interview, but developed into a discussion with the interviewer contributing, as he admits, a good deal more than is customary. This has worked admirably and we can be sure that this is a much more fruitful text than if it were simply a question and answer session.

In it we get an insight into what you can expect if you determine not to compromise with the system and set out to teach yourself how to fight it on your own terms through learning the disciplines of drawing and designing and putting the resultant skills at the service of the social revolution. This was after some hard, but obviously for a time at least, enjoyable, experiences in living anarchistically, first in Cumberland (hard) and then on an island in the Thames. It was called Eel-Pie Island Commune. It had 25 bedrooms and at one point we had 100 people from all over the world living there. It was anarchy, and I've lived in an anarchistic way for two years now.

This particular hotel, empty when Cliff and his group squatted it in the sixties, has quite a history - for ten years George Melly with Mick Mulligan and his Magnolia Jazz Band, had raised the roof on Saturday nights through the fifties. The anarchist commune, however, finished off the place, for after the gas and electricity was cut off, the wooden building itself became the only source of heating. Before the end, Cliff experienced the weird circumstances of enjoying more financial prosperity than ever before, while at the same time contracting tuberculosis which neglected nearly killed him. Cliff's life shows a certain perversity. While TB is traditionally a disease the suffering artist contracts through neglect, Cliff's case was the other way round. Art was the disease he contracted after losing Eel Pie Island - nearly dying - going through a series of unsatisfactory squats, settling down with Ame and for the first time finding the tranquility to work. Personally I would not describe finding the stability in the love of a woman as a defeat ... but that's how Cliff saw it at the time, for he has, he says ... always regarded my art as the result of a defeat. I've never felt very happy about it.

Very odd that, for later in the book, he clearly shows some pride in the popularity of his work and is one of the hardest workers I now. The defeat he refers to of course, is the feeling that he had given up revolutionary living, settled for rented premises and started work, which he never wanted to do. The fact that he works entirely on his own (that is, until the drawing is done and it's time to cooperate with the printers) and is free to choose what he does more than most workers, must cushion the blow a bit.

I can't hold off any more from discussing the work. I have to admit that I have never warmed to Cliff's drawings more than in admiration for their skill and attention to detail (hence my regard for the Utopian scenes mentioned earlier) for I find them rather static. I realise that this is deliberate (I think) and it certainly gives them a certain power. But then I am always uneasy in considering Art as propaganda. For myself, I have always regarded my own work as a cartoonist as propaganda, not art .... a distinction as clear as that between doggeral and poetry, propaganda tends to be temporary and ephemeral. But Cliff's work has a permanent quality and seen here in mass very impressive. And in spite of different styles from time to time you can tell a Harper a mile off. He is an artist, not a cartoonist, still less a caricaturist ... clearly shown when, in Black Freighter, a song by Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill (Nina Simone does a lovely version) Cliff does a blanket steal from George Grosz's Das Gesicht der Herrschenden Klasse (The Face of the Ruling Class) and well, why not? Black Freighter is a story from 1930s Germany about a cleaning woman in a sleazy dock side hotel, who gets her revenge on her bosses, with a little help from a passing pirate ship. Who better to borrow from than Georg Grosz? There is an element ... deliberate in most cases ... of the sinister in Cliff's work, especially in the recent use of heavy blacks and in these undoubtedly the very stillness reinforces the menace. One unhappy strip, I thought, was the one which deliberately set out to be happy or at least funny in its treatment of Richard Carlisle and his family's struggle for free speech in the 1820s .... but I suppose the technique may be justified if the result is as the last frame: the story being read by Comix readers who wouldn't read a book. Many fascinating points to be got out of this statement. Read the text and enjoy the drawings ... and be sharp eyed about it. For instance, look at the two end papers front and back, consisting of two page spreads of a drawing repeated over and over again. Or is it? Look at the bottom right hand corner of each spread...

Finally one must praise the production. Well laid out and beautifully printed ... no doubt very much due to the process camera operator.

Philip Sansom

Page 10. 'As a pacifist will I be prepared to passively stand by and watch our long struggle destroyed by the uncaring cynicism of the state?' Typewritten rant by Crass.

Page 12. Division of Labour by Kundip Dhoot.

Page 14 Anarchic Self-Sufficiency

I recently talked to a successful 'High Technologist'. He said 'I'm proud of serving mankind. I love to make breakthroughs - to help our economy and my fellow men'. [sic] He worked on armaments. It was computer control for missiles, I believe......

In effect, this technologist was craving for status and power (over people and things) ... and above all - like nearly all of us, for money. I find it extraordinarily difficult to get any 'high flyer' technologist to come along, say, and give an elementary talk or contribution to a group of working class young people in what I have called a 'vernacular technical club'. That these privileged people, in fact all of us, should do this in a convivial society ought, I would have thought, to go without question. But we do not have a convivial society and alienation between have and have nots runs very deep....

Where did the driving force for the dizzying spiral of technological 'advance' with all its status grubbing come from?

The scientific revolution - or what was once called the New Philosophy, is often linked with the remarkable schemes and prophecies of Francis Bacon. He wrote the 'Novum Organum' and The New Atlantis' in the early 1600s. There is much evidence that the Royal Society was founded on the inspiration of 'our Lord Bacon' to quote Thomas Spratt, an officer of the Royal Society at the time. The expansive pattern of what was to follow - and the industrial revolution started shortly after all this, and in Britain - is seen as Bacon's description of his scientific research establishment as written in his science fiction story 'The New Atlantis.' 'The end of our Foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible.' This famous aphorism gives the basis of a breathtaking vision virtually involving the idea of unlimited progress.

This vision, and the dominant forms of the Protestant wing of Christianity after the Reformation, gave the West the go-ahead for this idea of 'progress', and the Puritan work ethic required for its exploitation. The religion had a 'sky Father Figure' and was totally male dominated and hierarchical in nearly all other ways. It was the ideal breeding ground for the rise of capitalism and resource exploitation.. At this point I wish to make clear that in no way do I want to tread on anyone's religious sensibilities. Nevertheless, the libertarian critique that sharply attacks dominating hierarchical religious forms is on firm ground here. In no way can these forms be seen by radical workers as anything but evil. The basis of this interesting line - together with the demonstration that Marxism is an apostate form of this Western religious ideology, is discussed by Professor Lynn White in 'Notes For the Future' [Robin Clarke ed] Not all that is linked with Christianity is hierarchical and rapacious. I met a Quaker last year and when in discussion I said (feeling a little provocative....) 'Quakers are really the Anarchists of the Christian religion, aren't they?' The immediate reply was 'Yes, that's right....' Whether all Quakers would see this point or not I don't know. But Quakerism is a fringe in religion - just as Anarchism is a fringe in socio-political life..... ?

I have contributed this unlikely area of discussion in a piece about technology and ecology because it is profoundly at the base of much of our 'other-worldliness' our disrespect for the Earth and its resources - and our rapaciousness. It helps to account for the social and technological crises which are striking at our existence even more violently. It also accounts with some subtlety for our attitudes towards women and for racism.

WE CAN'T ABANDON TECHNOLOGY

Whatever the original drive to master the world and therefore to master people also, we still have to live with it. As I mentioned earlier, there is no way we can abandon technology and technique. This point applies to both the argument to convince 'society' or 'the state' or those with manipulative power over technical means to give them up (they won't...) and also to those individuals who wish to escape to some nether region away from technology (there's nowhere to run). Nevertheless radical action is called for to take over control and uses of technical means. This is where Alternative Technology and Self Sufficiency (AT&SS) are educative. We may be approaching the so called Post industrial period, but it will certainly not be a post technical age - unless we blast the Earth in a nuclear holocaust. Arguments can be advanced that although Britain was the first to enter the enter the industrial revolution, such change was actually not thorough going here. We may be placed in a good position to pass on to this next phase (post industrial) because we never quite left the pre industrial one.

You should study technology and its effects from a Libertarian point of view, because who controls these, controls people and resources.

technical means tend to normalise language, attitudes and options. There appears to be a vast choice, but in practice there is a high degree of uniformity. Units of measurement are a case on point. Unless you use the S.I. system (metrication) you tend either to be ostracised, or excluded. Again in practice, technical elitism shuffles and grades knowledge so that what was up to the minute, high value knowledge yesterday, becomes old hat today.

This is independent of 'use value' and is a kind of (as I say elitist) ''exchange value' of scarce know how. And such know-how must be a kind of highly objective esoteric knowledge - craft skills or tacit knowledge doesn't count. A good discussion of this point is given in 'Architect or Bee' by Mike Cooley. Actually we as Anarchists know this and we don't require some Marxist analysis to point it out. But everyone else also knows it and jokes about 'knowledge obsolescence' and how Old Jack - aged 40 - 'learned his stuff in the Ark and should be pensioned off'. The majority of people do nothing about such myths because most are totally unradicalised. There is an absence of such attitudes in the radical AT&SS movement because it is 'use value' which counts. But such Libertarian movements remain very small....?

TECHNOLOGY EXPROPRIATES SKILLS

Connected with the last observations regarding knowledge obsolescence is the emphasis on labour elimination by 'robots' or 'automaton', 'computer control' - call it what you will. There is certainly technical means to [automate] job tasks in production and distribution so that simple involvement of workers in these are eliminated. We are treated to a barrage of 'this will eliminate drudgery in repetitive tasks'' by expert pundits - and indeed this may be so, especially if there is a real use value production attached to durable artifacts instead of the highly technical 'planned obsolescence' throwaway attitudes consumption capitalism engenders.. (which it must if you think about it). The problem is that the highly automated throwaway ethos de skills many of us. A most radical part of the AT&SS movement is to rescue these skills and develop them. The capitalist outlook is expropriating skills as it once did property and wealth, therefore anarchic direct action in the AT&SS area is subversive.

this aspect is certainly true if the division between hand and brain work is considered. This elitist barrier between practical skills and theoretical ability clings amazingly and therefore must serve a valuable purpose in maintaining the class / hierarchical structure. In spite of Kropotkin's critique of this artificial barrier continues. But there is a rejection of this division in the Alternative movements.

There is an accompanying problem that could have serious implications for us by reducing the freedom of access and choice. This reduction is achieved by technical means. The State and powerful interest groups can use these means to control populations and individuals. I am not just indicating computer data banks - with limited access to weaker brethren, or the use of powerful drugs developed by chemical technologists to control mood, docility and obedience in children and adults. Nor am I commenting specifically on, say, such problems as the utter domination of the transport system by cars -with their ridiculous inefficiency both thermally and in materials use. All these are problems enough, which we are promised will be overcome by more technical research. (this the famous 'Technical Fix' syndrome - even in conservative circles it is wearing a bit thin.) But without being paranoiac, the comment 'the Technically Strong State' is the one to watch.

TECHNOLOGY FOR SUPPRESSION

Gradually as violence, racism, nationalism, and dissent in general worsens, crowd control, surveillance, physical / technical means of suppression (plastic bullets - water cannon...) and other sophisticated strong arm methods will have to be deployed by the State. Also the technical means of (possible) survival by an elite few in the event of a nuclear conflict requires urgent attention. All these developments, from phone tapping, bugging, TV camera surveillance techniques, to techniques of psychological torture (as used in Northern Ireland) and drug treatment (as used in American prisons - and it is said here also), are already deployed. Discussions of these developments have appeared in great detail by investigative journalists and writers, often from a Libertarian perspective. The 'Spies For Peace' revelations about the secret nuclear shelters that appeared in the 1960s was an excellent example of what can be done.

Thus technology needs its critical edge. This itself must be technically effective but also ecological and people based. I have not found any movement capable of carrying this responsibility except the radical AT&SS movement, based on anarchist principles of networking and Mutual Aid. such action operates mainly in the informal economy, which is an important area of action of the 'voting with your feet' kind. This ignores state controls and the bureaucracy as much as possible. Another branch of this kind of action could be said to include the squatting movement and the freeschoolers / deschoolers at least some (of them) not coopted in education.

Anyone inclined to enter the AT&SS direct action movements should become aware of what is involved. It is certainly not a soft option - a kind of arcadian dream of peaceful workshops, lovely fields, hand-crafter artifacts (only), but involves alternative computer programs, anti surveillance activities, technical investigations into what powerful people are doing with nuclear systems, military technology and other extremely anti human misappropriations of resources.

Ken Smith

Page 15. Make the Third World Connection by Bryn Clark, Dan Coughlin, David Riker.

Page 16 'Meat Means Murder' by Andrea

Page 17. Letters

Violence and Anarchy by Cathy Ashley, Birmingham STC demo criticism answer, Birmingham defendants

On Stirner by S E Parker

On Stirner by Brian Morris

Donald Rooum author of the original piece replies.

Page 18. Uprooting War book reviewed by Alan Albon

E for additives by Marcus

'At Least Cruise is Clean;' Newbury Rotarian business guide re Greenham Common

Green Bikers' Group.

Page 20 Record reviews, film review, Gardens, Recipe by Caroline Bradbury.

Issue 5

Cover: Molesworth: What Now?

Date: Mar-Apr 1985

Keywords: Molesworth; Anti Car.

Read here

---

Editorial: Uniformity and the state

News

Invasion of Molesworth

In the depths of a February night, after 5 months of detailed organisation and training, Field Marshal Heseltine led 3000 troops and police in the successful re-occupation of Molesworth, putting to flight the combined resistance of a hundred peace campers, two goats and a horse. Heseltine's intelligence, which reported that the campers were armed and aggressive, perhaps needs improving. Nevertheless a great victory.

Ponting acquitted!

Stonehenge threatened

Crackdown on Alternatives

Is there an orchestrated action against the dissidents?

Is there a government inspired conspiracy in operation to stamp out 'alternative' lifestyle communities? The straws in the wind could easily lead people to conclude that there is.

The police trashing of the Convoy at Wakefield last August was an outrageous incident (see GA No 3) but it is now looking like part of a pattern. In Wales two 'alternative' communities, the Tipi village at Talley in Dyfed, and Llwyn Piod near Rhaeader in Powys have both been issued with enforcement notices by their respective district councils. These notices allege that these communities - both established over eight years on land owned by the residents themselves - are in breach of the planning laws (ie an unauthorised change of use of agricultural land) and require that everyone should disappear by March. Both communities intend to appeal, and Talley folk are determined to go as far as the European Court of Human Rights if necessary. Support the Tipis Appeal, Wernlas, Cwmdu, talley, Llandeilo, Dyfed (eviction date 14th March 1985)

In Norwich, Argyl Street, one of the largest squats in Britain is scheduled for eviction in February. Residents are resigned to this eviction taking place, but squatters in future are likely to be in an even worse position because of.......

The Criminal Tresspass Bill, announced in the Queen's Speech, which is part of the government's 1985 programme. This is likely to be aimed at not only squatters, but anyone tresspassing anywhere (eg peace campers, free festivals etc) when (or if?) this becomes law, it is likely that eviction orders will become unnecessary and such tresspassers will be liable to immediate arrest.

***************************

YTS OR STARVE

The Government is planning big Social Security cuts

The government plans to keep us all under control through the Social Security system have taken another step in the decision to exclude 16 - 18 year olds from their right to supplementary benefit. This will effectively mean that either under 18s will have to live at home supported by their parents or accept a place on the Youth Training Scheme (YTS). If they do not do either they will simply starve. Furthermore the government plans to cut out all extra payments for special diets, extra heating costs, etc, and all single payments for essential items . The long term rate of benefit will be abolished and students will no longer be entitled to housing benefits and supplementary benefits.

***************************

The Argyle St. squat in Norwich has now been evicted and the houses bulldozed to make way for new houses for those better off than the squatters.

Hunt sabs

Hot Spot getting hotter

The South Pacific is heading towards turmoil.

European Guerillas

Bombing and shooting is on the increase.

Essays

Hope for Palestine by a supporter of Abu Jihad

Alternative Economy by Rupert Hughes

How we get from here to there

More Motorways by the Archway Group.

Car Free World by Martin Low

Harder work for all by Richard Hunt.

What Now Molesworth? by Brig Oubridge

Cruisewatch in East Anglia had already noticed the military convoys, and activists helping the occupation had phoned in a warning. This turned out to be a sort of false alarm. It was just a fortnight too early.

'It was about midnight. We just came out of the sweat lodge and we were standing naked round the fire. Then we saw moving lines of headlights in the dark, the convoys of soldiers and police.

They put a cordon round the Rainbow Village and said 'We want you to move within the hour and if you don't we have the the men and machinery to do it for you'.

It took Jules and her husband Sid Rawl 17 hours to take down their Tipi and bender. And Jules was eight and a half months pregnant. (Jules has now given birth, at Grafham Water. Mother and daughter are doing nicely).

At the Peace Camp, with a black flag and anarchist symbols, Nick said: 'We saw the convoys of lights coming. It was very frightening. I went up to Clopton and stayed there all night and into the morning, phoning all the pledge groups. The police stopped all access to pledgers and press.'

The peace camp is being harrassed by both Health and Planning, and four of the 'permanent' campers are being taken to court for eviction. But they think they were getting too comfortable anyway. So they'll get into tents and benders and be more active.

The Rainbow Village is being evicted from Grafham Water. Some are going to a site at Corby about 17 miles away. Others aren't going so far. They don't think their vehicles will make it.

The best turnout so far was when (February 19th?) about 300 from the Nottingham area arrived. Many groups went over the fence and were held in detention portakabins. Five (it is thought) were held and charged with criminal damage.

Brig Oubridge writes: -

In the first few days there was a constant stream of pledgers in and out of the Molesworth area, despite the thick snow and police harassment. A CND information unit was set up (with police blessing) on the A 604, and as well as the constant vigils at Peace Corner there have been people getting into the base every day, and many others simply keeping lots of MoD police occupied in watching them walk round the outside or escorting them up and down the bridle path from Peace Corner to Cockbrook Lane. (this path is officially still open and if you are lucky you will be allowed to pass along it provided you are escorted all the way and do not stop).

The vital task now is to keep up the pressure so that the MOD's 'vast reinforcements' do not become a fast fading nine day wonder, and so that the authorities have to maintain their police state and pay the full price in both financial and political terms for guarding their seven miles of barbed wire.

Having started in the worst possible weather and in a worse state of preparedness than we might have hoped for, things can only get easier and better organised from now on.

A group of people here want to suggest that we start now to retake the initiative lost at Molesworth in the last few weeks, since the fence went up, people have quite rightly felt that they must visit the place on the strength of their outrage and anger.

As the edge goes off these emotions, we need to develop a campaign that builds on this scattering of individuals. We hope that other people will push for a week long action, with days shared out along the lines of the pledge in three or four months' time. Of course this will give everyone something to look forward to after Easter. The most successful perhaps, of this type was the Upper Heyford action of June '83. Perhaps the end of June or the beginning of July (before holidays) would be best.

Whaddya think?

United We Win

Divided, we remain dreamers

Anarchist Festival by Jon Preston

I won't model for men

I started modelling at an art college about nine months ago. I had thought about it beforehand and decided that modelling was a way of shattering the stereotyped images that are held of women. In simplistic terms women do have body hair, they don't have inverted stomachs and they are people, not merely sex objects.

Most of the time I found myself working with women. I found the atmosphere calm and relaxing. We spent hours talking about the work they were doing, they all became quite concerned about the female images they were presenting and started thinking a lot about how they themselves were presented in art.

As time went by, I became more and more uncomfortable every time a man came into the room. On one occasion a tutor came into the room. I felt so ill at ease with him being there that I just had to leave, making the excuse that I needed the loo. I could not go back until he had left.

in this situation, I felt totally weak and helpless. I knew with all my heart that I did not want him there, but could find no justification for asking him to leave. After all, he was doing his job. I feel this illustration is a situation every woman has found herself in throughout her whole life. A woman finds herself in a situation she cannot reasonably escape from, 'reasonably' being the operative word. In a society like ours, logic and reasons are the only acceptable terms on which someone is allowed to express themselves.

On another occasion a male student asked if he could use me. I was waiting for someone else. A few moments later someone gave him a cassette. He was overjoyed and said 'Cor, isn't that a really sexy woman?' His comment shocked me. How on earth could he expect me to model for him if I knew that he could describe another woman like that. How could I be sure that he wasn't going to mentally rape me too? I couldn't. The other woman artist didn't need me so I left.

It was then that I realised that I could never model for another man again. I was naive to think that male artists were anything more than normal men, unable to dissociate themselves from the stereotyped image that they have of women and from what they consider the right to debase a woman any way they like.

The next afternoon another tutor came in requiring my services. I told him I would not model for his class. He seemed a bit confused and asked me why. I told him I did not like the way the students portrayed my body. The week before I had done the same class. They were supposed to be working with the body mass using clay. I couldn't quite understand why one male student had spent the entire lesson modelling my breasts. He asked me who the hell I was to make such subjective criticism. After all it was only my body! He then said I'd done it once before. He couldn't understand why I couldn't do it one more time. I still ask myself whether he's one of those men among many who believes any woman who is not a virgin can be raped, after all if she's been fucked once, it's not going to hurt her to be fucked again. Her feelings are irrelevant. What she wants to do is irrelevant, and anyway with a bit of persuasion a woman will change her mind.

By this time he was screaming at me. He told me I was getting paid for it and in not so many words informed me that during that time my mind and body were not my own.

Don't assume that this situation is by any means unique. this situation just sums up very well men's general behaviour to women. A woman's body is not her own. It has the right to be stared at, whistled at, hooted at, at any time no matter how she may feel about it. I left.

Children and revolution by Simon Smith.

How We Get From Here to There

Anarchy is here and now

Don't wait for the revolution. We can be anarchists today...

'THE ANARCHISTS ARE RIGHT IN EVERYTHING, in negation of existing order and in the assertion that without authority, there could not be worse violence than that of authority under existing conditions. They are mistaken only in thinking that anarchy can be instituted by a (violent) revolution. But it will be instituted only by there being more and more people who do not ask governmental power for protection, and by there being more and more people who will be ashamed of applying this power ....

To use violence is impossible - one would only become its instrument. One course therefore remains - to fight the government by means of thought, speech, actions, life, neither yielding to government nor joining its ranks and thereby increasing its power.'

This passage by Tolstoy, written 85 years ago, is a valuable contribution that has arisen in (and thanks to) Green Anarchist on the question of Utopia and how to reach it. Just as the labels are confusing (gradualist / quietist / evolutionary / non-violent revolutionary) so too is this Utopia being discussed. The confusion arises not in the features this Utopia has - absence of authority, violence and capital - but in peoples' understanding of its nature: people persist in thinking of anarchy as a cloud cuckoo land that will arrive, no one quite knows how, at some time in the distant future. But anarchy is not some future Eden, anarchy is here and now. Anarchy has existed alongside the state since the beginning of history. Just as in every individual there are authoritarian and libertarian character traits, so in society there are - and always have been - authoritarian and libertarian situations.

'Throughout the history of our civilization, two traditions, two opposing tendencies, have been in conflict; the Roman tradition and the popular tradition, the Imperial tradition and the Federalist tradition, the authoritarian tradition and the libertarian tradition.' [Kropotkin]

Anarchy exists whenever people regularise their lives and solve their disputes without reference to authority; the Utopia anarchists imagine is simply when the libertarian tendency is more widespread than the authoritarian tradition. This interpretation of anarchy places emphasis on people putting their anarchist ideals into practice in their daily lives and trying to overcome their authoritarian character traits.

'The state is not something which can be destroyed by a revolution, but is a condition, a certain relationship between human beings, a mode of human behaviour; we destroy it by contracting other relationships, by behaving differently.' [Gustav Landauer]

Anarchy can only stem from peoples' consciousness - it cannot be imposed by legislation or violence. If the people will not make their revolution, it cannot be made for them by anarchist MPs (a contradiction in terms and a monstrosity which should be banished from the pages of GA and every other anarchist paper) or by anarchist insurrectionaries. Consciousness is the key.

Non-violent revolution supposes a plan for action on three levels:

(1) Personal revolution - people ridding themselves of their authoritarian behaviour patterns and excluding the state from their lives (non co-operation, non payment of taxes, consumer boycotts, using alternative structures) living anarchy through your lifestyle. (2) Creation of alternative structures - whether this be wholefood co-ops, free schools, anti authoritarian alternatives to the state organs for welfare, child care, counselling, housing etc. (3) Non-violent resistance to the state - publicising and seeking to obstruct the state's plans both as individuals and in groups, using symbolic and direct action.

By becoming anarchists in our emotions as well as in our intellect, we will not alienate people from anarchism. Those who advocate revolutionary violence do. By offering an alternative to the authoritarian way of doing things, we can show people that anarchism really can work, that it is not utopian.

Wake up Mate, stop looking for Utopia. Anarchy is Here and Now!

by David Stephens

Cut the State's Lifeblood by David Brooks.

Revolution, reform by Brian Moseley

Stop Militarism by Dennis Gould.

Letters

Rainbow village signed Andy Fennel, Anne, Liz, Monica and Tony from Cloptpn near Kettering

On Pacifism, Jane of Emerald Gate, Greenham Common

Don't wait for the revolution, mark Kinzley, Ilford

Two questions by Senake Attygalle, Coventry

On Plastic Punks by Kris

Misc.

Potassium is good for you

Review: Tears in the Fence

Recipe: Roz's leek and onion flan, by Caroline Bradbury

Poem by Dennis Gould.

Cruise Watch

Snowball, Ride for cycle protest

May 30th Brighton 'Stop The City'.

Issue 6

Cover: Take Back The Land.

Date: May-Jun 1985

Read here

Editorial: Green Anarchism by Alan Albon.

UK News

Liberate Stonehenge

Burned-out: Some of the wrecked and abandoned vehicles left at the site after last summer’s festival at Stonehenge. Clearing us cost some £120,000

THE NATIONAL TRUST, English Heritage and Wiltshire County Council are still trying to prevent Stone-henge Free Festival. The Druids have been told they can’t have their ceremonies at the Stones at the dawn of the solstice. 50 hippies have been named in a precautionary injunction to keep them away.

Bunker Trashed

’a relic of outdated war games.’

The Budget

Non event at Molesworth?

What do mass demonstrations achieve?

20,000 people waded through the mud once round the empty airfield, got back into their buses and went home. Did we achieve anything? Class War got up everyone's noses but managed to throw mud onto Joan Ruddock, live on telly. Right on! At this point all publicity is good publicity.

Dennis Gould writes: CND's day out at Molesworth was an exercise for the police force co-ordination committees. Instead of being a four day camp site and four day march on Molesworth, it was a triumph for police crowd control.

Anyway, Molesworth For Life raised £6,000 for wheat to Eritrea, plus donations of wheat brought by coach and van from all over the country.

The Rainbow Village held a festival at Polebrook, not far from Oundle and Molesworth and sold copies of the 'Molesworth Bulletin' put together largely by Brig's efforts, with a lot of volunteers. The Peoples' Peace Camp survived Easter and took part in a vigil at 'Fire Gate' - the opposite end of Cockbrook Lane from Peace Corner.

The Peace Corner vigil attracted many more people and the Quaker Peace Caravan gave out lots of information and collected donations for the Wheat to Eritrea fund. And a lot of people found out what security and surveillance was really like!

World News

Aussie scene by Alan Albon

Grain fails to help Sudan Puppet.

We are their problem. It's not the drought, It's our arms, by David Brooks.

Essays

Take back the Land. The land is the source of all wealth... Mass Land Squat by Pete Brown.

Creative Action, by Tristan.

Letter to the state by Peanut

Every Six Seconds A Butcher is Bricked by Ian

Direct Action is what has made animal lib successful

Fable for the future by Ken.

Jackie Berkley accused the police of rape by Joanna

On April 19th 1984 Jackie Berkley was arrested for an alleged street disturbance in Manchester; she was thrown into a police van and taken, along with three other women, to Moss Side police station.

Between 7.00 and 7.30 that evening, Jackie was raped by two policemen, while being held down by two police women. Later in the evening she was beaten and throughout Jackie and the two other women were racially abused..

I went for several days to the trial in Manchester Magistrates Court. These are just a few thoughts and feelings I wrote down while in court.

Thursday March 7th. These men surround us and they say women are lying; they rape us and infiltrate our bodies and our minds and then they say we lie when we fight back.

A woman from Rape Crisis in London is giving evidence for the defence on the reactions of women after rape and often the delay in reporting the rape. She says it is no wonder women don't report rapes because they have to convince men and the law that they have been raped. Why should women have to put yet more energy into the male system - and yet if they don't the rapist goes free. Jackie is supposed to have made a false allegation of rape: how can they believe that she is going to put herself through this hell again and again - surrounded by men, surrounded by men in uniforms.

It makes me want to hit out, to hurt those men surrounding Jackie; how dare they treat women like this? Jackie is on trial for being raped; I feel so helpless; how can it be like this?

The prosecution is trying its best to discount the evidence from Rape Crisis because she hasn't got a medical degree, so she isn't qualified, and yet she dealt with hundreds of rape victims. They are making an issue in Jackie's case about the fact that she didn't tell anyone of the rape until 5 days after it happened and yet 75.5% of rape cases never go to court. Often women only tell people years later; they are afraid to talk, ashamed. For Jackie, she found it much easier to write things than talk about what happened. rape destroys many womens' lives, and still men argue against us. Facts, it's all based on facts, not feelings, and they distort the facts to suit them. In the eyes of the law you are only a genuine rape victim if you go to court and the rapist is convicted.

Thursday 14th March. Jackie was found guilty of wasting police time; the magistrate said 'There is no evidence at all supporting what she says in any way. I am satisfied the defendant knows she was not raped.' She was also found guilty of assaulting three policewomen, using threatening behaviour and damaging two policewomens' uniforms.

Jackie suffered the ultimate violation of self, apart from murder, and yet she is to be prosecuted. There is so much anger inside myself and other women against such a system.

At the end of it, it all come down to Jackie being Black and a woman - what chance has she, and what must she feel now, and for the rest of her life?

Joanna

Anarchy, tax cuts and the poor by Tim Eiloart.

Lao Tzu by Brian Morris

The first of a series on anarchist classics

It is difficult to describe what anarchism is. It is a kind of political philosophy. But it has no founder, no standard texts, no political party associated with it. And it is hardly ever discussed by philosophers themselves. As a political movement it is seen by historians as primarily a radical response to industrial capitalism, which developed in Europe towards the middle of the last century. Yet as a social perspective anarchism has a much longer history. Kenneth Rexroth, for example, in his book 'Communalism' traces the history and development of the many attempts that have been made throughout recorded history to establish an organic community based on non-coercive relationships. For that is what is meant by anarchy, not chaos or disorder. The aims and ideas behind these attempts - like that of the Digger movement - were always expressed through published writings - sermons, analects, dialogues, political tracts, mystical writings and the like. These writings of course have historical interest; but they are also important to us in helping us to formulate alternatives to the ideologies of contemporary capitalism - whether of the liberal or statist kind.

One of the earliest of such writings is the short mystical tract entitled 'Tao Te Ching'. It was written by a Chinese sage called Lao Tzu (the 'old philosopher') who is alleged to have lived around 500 BC and to have worked as an archivist. It is one of the earliest books ever written and you can find many translations of it in bookshops. It is considered by everyone to be a religious classic - a book on par with the Vedic scriptures or the Bible. It is described as one of the 'sacred books' of the world. Yet although its ideas are expressed in mystical, even poetic aphorisms it is not really a religious text at all: It is a political tract .... though no political scientist, as far as I am aware, has ever directly faced the issues that Lao Tzu poses. For 'Tao Te Ching' is essentially a text by a scholar giving advice to an imaginary ruler on how best to govern and keep order within the kingdom. And the advice that Lao Tzu gives the ruler is paradoxically that the best form of government is NO government, that the best form of rule is one that leaves the people to order their own lives spontaneously. 'Without law or compulsion', Lao Tzu says, 'people would dwell in harmony.'

'Tao Te Ching' is undoubtedly a classic; but it also happens to be the oldest and most easily available text on anarchism. It is well worth reading. For in memorable phrases it cogently outlines the basic premises of the libertarian tradition.

It advocates an ecological attitude towards nature, suggesting that humans should order their lives so as to be in harmony with the underlying processes of the living world (Tao); it expresses an antipathy towards moralizing, towards ritual observances and piety, and towards the stress on hierarchy that was so much a part of the Confucian ethic - an ethic that was supportive of ancient feudalism: It suggests an attitude towards the world that is both naturalistic and life affirming, and it is unique among religious texts in lacking any reference to a divinity or a set of rules to follow, or to rituals to perform, and finally it offers a consistent critique of militarism, unnecessary wealth, acquisitiveness, prisons, capital punishment, laws and coercive government. The philosophy it expresses is social anarchism; the ideal it propounds is that of an ecological, decentralized community. But in no sense was Lao Tzu an ascetic, or a scholarly recluse, or someone who advocated inertia, laissez-faire or mere passivity.

There is an interesting story about the founders of the three religions of China. One day they stood around a jar of vinegar. In turn they tested it. Confucius, it is said, pronounced it sour. Buddha found it bitter, but Lao Tzu, as a Taoist, declared it sweet. Life was sweet to Lao Tzu, but only if lived in harmony with nature, spontaneously, and without laws and coercive constraints.

Bertrand Russell's interesting book, 'Roads to Freedom' has a quotation from Lao Tzu as a preface. Better than anything else, it sums up the philosophy of 'Tao Te Ching', and so may serve to conclude this piece.

Brian Morris

NHS Cold Turkey. Doctors ignore the addictive effects of tranquillisers, by Pat Britten.

Letters

Re Greenham Common and the psychiatrisation of dissent by Jim

Solidarity from America by Johnny Cook.

Misc.

Page 19. Record review Akimbo

Book review, Easy Vegan Cooking

New Mags: Black Beast, Here and Now, The Mole

Film review: A Private Function

Gardens: Allotments

Vegan Bread recipe by Caroline Bradbury

Migraine cure

Camden Peace Centre announcement.

Events

Festivals 1985, Green roadshow

Ad for poster. 'Fraudulent Cold War!'

Issue 7

Cover: The collusion of state and industry.

Date: Jul-Aug 1985

Keywords: Stonehenge; Henley; radioactivity; nuclear power; industrialism; education; Diggers; Winstanley.

Read here

---

Editorial: The Real Hooligans, editorial by Alan Albon

Last week we buried Dick in the only space he could call his own. After being made redundant from a naval dockyard, he was found collapsed in the street. Housed by a charity, he lived for some years in relative comfort. Then he caught pneumonia. He could not be treated as his lungs were so scarred by asbestos from his years of faithful service.

***************************

We feature an important book in this issue, [Rosalie Bertell, 'No Immediate Danger'] an unanswerable case against the nuclear state as each day adds to the danger of the human race of gradually increasing background radiation. There is no doubt that legal violence in the modern world makes all other sources of violence pale into insignificance. It is evident that the State with its well-paid blue mercenaries is prepared to go to any lengths to stamp out opposition expressed as wanting to live in a different way from the flawed values of the monetary society, or opposition to the finality of nuclear war.

It is time that the frustration and alienation that is expressed in acts of violence against our fellows is redirected against the real hooligans like Rio Tinto Zinc, multinationals raping other peoples' land for raw materials in the first link in the nuclear chain.

We have paramilitary police thugs who have no sense of social responsibility, little understanding of the paramount social issues of the day and will do exactly what those that direct them say.

Hitler had his legal thugs to enforce his deplorable policies. A similar force is being created here. Humbug and Hypocrisy are the two most prevalent features of British politics, like those who preside over our courts, those bewigged buffoons, who protect the powerful and wealthy and perpetuate a state of robbery with legalised violence.

Alan Albon

The State's Brute Violence

Rerun of Issue 6 Essay.

Class War 'bash the rich' march

Rabid dogs liberated

Eccleshill 13, Molesworth.

Page 5 Picnic. Menwith, Swindon, Mayor of Bedford 'shot'.

Page 6 Australia, Germany, Antarctic, billboard detournement

Even the animals know about Mutual Aid.

Page 7. Free theatre in India by Barlal Sircar

Military grip in Indonesia, by Jon Englart.

Page 8 Grasping life. Anarchy Now!

Page 9. Football clubbed by Dennis Gould

Way Behind, report of BASF sponsored symposium on food.

Page 10 Poison in Bhopal. Lifted Fifth Estate article.

Page 11. Cover up on Union Carbide, by Tomas MacSheoin.

Page 12 Radiation Poison. The Nuclear Industry is Poisoning the World. Review of Rosalie Bertell book, by Norman Albon.

Page 13 Cover Up. The Government is suppressing the facts, by Norman Albon.

Page 14 Better School, (on A S Neil, Summerhill) by David Stephens.

Page 15 Or No Schools? Patrick Holdsworth.

Are We Socialists? by Richard Hunt

Page 16. Winstanley, by Brian Morris.

Page 17. Letters Cutting Taxes by Chris from Streatham

Actions in Basingstoke by Carlton

Gradualism and a broad range of opinion by Graham of Southend

Help with fines, bust fund

BLBF of Chesterfield.

Page 18. Info for gigs

Reviews

Venezia by David Koven

Blythe Power

Conflict

Flux, Danbert Nobacon

Autumn Poison Reviewed by Marcus

'When we Build Again' by Colin Ward, reviewed by Tristan

Vegan Custard recipe by Caroline Bradbury

Cheltenham group formed.

Page 20 Henley Regatta

'Revenge the Henge, Bash The Rich' demo.

Revenge the Henge - Bash The Rich Demo

Very little bashing went on. There were loads of people dressed straight so it was hard to tell the numbers exactly. The police had reacted 'Stop The City' style with 2000 of them on duty with a very high profile, riot vans lined up down the main road, though they were pretty tame (too public, I suppose for the Henge-type 'community policing')

Some actions I heard about: Some punks stole a yacht anchor, a biker laid into a Henry on the bridge, a big chant session near the bridge, police lining the road, shoulder to shoulder for 200 yards, definitely a new spectacle for Henley, graffitying of posh places by well dressed anarchs, general hassling of the rich.

Some were disappointed at the lack of violence, but apart from other reasons, the chance of escape from Henley for punks after any riots would have been nil.

Whether it was a success or not depends on what you think the point was. To me it is enough to attack the rich for being rich while this country is in a terrible recession, especially as it is largely the fault of these people in the first place. A second reason though, would be propaganda by the deed, trying to make people see the connection between recession and the class control of the economy, rather than blaming it on unions, blacks, communists, video nasties etc.

If it failed anywhere it was in the lack of communication between us and the ordinary people who were there. A lot of them must have come away thinking pretty badly of us because we didn't explain ourselves better . at all.

An old quote: 'The worst recessions never enter the best restaurants.'

Well, they do now!

Festivals, events.

Issue 8

Cover: Black flag of anarchism. Simple, stark illustration.

Date: Sep-Oct 1985

Keywords: Repression; Italian Punk; Handsworth.

Read here

---

Editorial: :: The indivisible war.

Page 3. Handsworth burns

Euro green gathering

Brambles, Raid Aid.

A nation's economic power is not its supply of natural resources but its CHEAP supply of natural resources, on which it can make its profit, the surplus value, to make individuals rich, or to build libraries or prisons. The natural resources are burnt (fuel) turned into sewage (food), turned into rags (cloth) or turned into scrap. They create no wealth. The economic power lies only in the difference between the buying price to the producer and the selling price to the consumer.

Page 4 South Africa in Revolt

US bank leaves South America

Oil War

Norwegian secrets trial.

Page 5 Government Terrorism

French agents sink 'Rainbow Warrior'

Tahitian jailed

Nuclear Free South Pacific, Farm War

Canadian spent fuel to US

Berlin fun parade, Copenhagen anti police state camp, news.

French Agents sink 'Rainbow Warrior'

To a chorus of hilarious disbelief, a French government inquiry has announced that the French secret service (DGSE) did not sink 'Rainbow Warrior'.

'Rainbow Warrior' was waiting in New Zealand to lead and act as a supply ship for a flotilla of smaller boats going to Mururoa Atoll to protest at French nuclear testing. It was sunk in Auckland harbour by two limpet mines, killing one of the crew.

Two French agents are now in custody in New Zealand. Three others left New Zealand for Konakry (New Caledonia) where they had hired their boat, but never arrived. They have since turned up in France having scuttled the boat.

The French government carried out this bombing to try to prevent the anti-nuclear demo at Muroroa Atoll. Another boat is on its way to replace 'Rainbow Warrior'.

Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaine are now both saying that it is an open secret that two French army swimmers attached the mines. Mitterand has been caught covering up.

Page 6 Techniques of Repression. For 17 years now, Northern Ireland has been the training ground for the British state's counter insurgency techniques, by Class War.

For 17 years now Northern Ireland has been the training ground for the British State's counter insurgency techniques.

On a recent visit to Ireland Arthur Scargill told an audience of Irish people that the miners' strike of 1984 had shown Britain for what it really is, a vicious police state. Roars of laughter greeted the spectacle of an English person coming to Ireland to tell the Irish that they live in a police state. For 17 years now Northern Ireland has been the training ground and the Irish working class the guinea pigs for the British state's counter insurgency techniques.

.... Since 1972 the British state has been able to erect the full apparatus of a totalitarian state here in Northern Ireland in the name of 'a war against terrorism', ie a war against the catholic working class. 'Totalitarian' is no exaggeration. The typical catholic housing estate here has an army barracks / fortress in the middle of it, keeping a close surveillance of everyone on the estate with close circuit TV cameras, infra red cameras for night vision and a radar system which can detect anyone moving out of sight of electronic eyes in cameras. Helicopters hover overhead for most of the day with zoom in cameras, and telephone of anyone 'discontented' is tapped and their mail opened.

Now working class housing estates are built according to a British army architect's specification. They are designed to give minimum room for civil disobedience and maximum room for the British army to step in to crush any outbreaks. Housing estates are built with only one exit / entrance so anyone causing trouble can be easily trapped inside; each block is a different colour or shade, and army helicopters have a special colour code of the estate so that any block or single house can be quickly and easily pin pointed from the air. The pavements of the new estates are tarmac so they can't be ripped up for bricks for a riot; the roads leading into the estates are specially reinforced (some are fly-overs) to take large convoys of armoured cars and Saracens moving into the estate at first signs of a disturbance. This is not paranoia. This is fact - this housing policy has been part of British colonial rule for decades. Estates on the mainland may even now be designed in this way in case of future unrest.

Daily, the estates old and new are patrolled by British soldiers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. But more threatening than that, the undercover SAS, totally ruthless legal assassins walk our streets. They strike the most fear into people here. They work alongside the loyalist Protestant paramilitaries, the UDA and the UVF, to assassinate suspects, mainly at sight. By day they walk catholic estates, dressed like ordinary working class Catholics speaking with a N. I. accent. I have had several SAS men pointed out to me, otherwise I wouldn't have known. They look just like us and speak just like us. The one difference is that they are primed to blow our heads off if we do anything suspicious. people have been shot dead here for painting graffiti on a wall. A lot of the police and local army here are part-timers and in their other jobs as milkmen, breadmen and insurance men etc they keep close watch on the housing estates and note down everything they see.

Once we move out of our estates, we are still under heavy surveillance for the biggest computer system in Western Europe is here in Northern Ireland and can keep track of the daily movements of almost every car in N.I. and carry detailed information on almost every citizen (right down to colour and design of wall paper). There is a special driving licence which is more or less an identity card.

....The law here is (in the words of Britain's leading expert on counter insurgency himself), 'little more than a propaganda cover for the disposal of unwanted members of the public'. Permanent emergency laws have been the norm here since 1922, giving the police unlimited powers of arrest and detention, and like everything else, laws have been used indiscriminately to intimidate and frighten anyone engaged in any form of protest. The courts in N.I. are jury less, with one judge who can pass sentence on the word of a cop alone, or a confession that was beaten out of you, or on the word of a highly paid informer who is schooled by the police with all the information they have in their computers.

The army barracks and police stations here are modern torture chambers where every form of torture has been used to get confessions and produce informers (informers are deadly to any cause) In 1971 an experiment was carried out here on twelve men to see how quickly a man can be broken psychologically. Hoods were placed over their heads by the British army. They were dressed in boiler suits and made to stand spread eagled against a wall balancing on their fingertips till they collapsed from exhaustion (to be repeated again as soon as they recovered). While they stood in this position for hours, they were bombarded with white noise and beaten and kicked if they moved at all. This went on for 4 or 5 days. The human guinea pigs weren't given any food or drink or allowed to go to the bog. At intervals they were taken up in a helicopter and told they were going to be chucked out hundreds of feet up. They were thrown out, but only when the helicopter was a few feet off the ground (but with hoods on they weren't to know this). After 5 days of this barbarity most of the 12 were psychologically destroyed for life, made into nervous wrecks. In less than a week. The 12 were not IRA men. They were randomly chosen by the British government for this experiment in what is known as 'sensory deprivation', a modern torture which leaves not physical but mental scars.

.....The prototype English Bobby has never been seen here. The RUC has been a military style colonial police force since NI was set up in 1921. They have been driving round in armoured cars, armed to the teeth with the latest machine guns and other weaponry since that date. Since 1969 the RUC have been ruling NI in a joint military dictatorship with the British army. The only thing that tells them apart is the uniform, for the RUC is trained by the British army, have their own SAS style killer squads, and now work with the SAS independent of the army. If the police thuggery during the miners' strike looked menacing, then be prepared for more of the same in larger amounts, for the RUC are training your British police - every superintendent has to do a tour of duty here with the RUC.....

The cleverest weapon of all though, in the armoury of the British state is not the massive repressive power of the army, the SAS and computer technology, but the most subtle form of repression that exists - media brainwashing. If you thought that media distortion during the miners' strike was powerful, then you have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

There is strict censorship in the media on Ireland, it must present the British state's version of the war here or else. Just a few of the myths that the British media daily regurgitates about Ireland is that there isn't a war going on here at all, it's an age old religious feud between rival religious maniacs ('The Troubles'); the army are here doing the best job they can keeping the peace and preventing a bloodbath, and the IRA are a relatively small gang of pathological killers and mafia godfathers holding a whole society in a vice grip of terror. All of these myths are total rubbish but are widely believed on the mainland (and therefore responsible for most of the deaths here). The truth can't get through because the media gives very little space to Ireland, the only news it will report is the same daily catalogue of shootings and bombings. It deliberately does not report the reasons for or background to each incident and avoids giving any historical information on Ireland.

I hope then, that we have given you some warning of what the British state will throw at you if you succeed in creating a mass movement of civil disobedience like the one here. It should be clear now that during the miners' strike, the British state only revealed a little of its hand. Maybe you know this already ... If however, after all this you still think that the British state will never turn its guns on you as it did (and is still doing) on us, then you are truly fucked. For the British army will have to leave, or be driven out of here some day, and guess where the next stop is?

This is a shortened version of a paper presented to the 'Class War' rally in London, in July 1985

Page 7. The Class Struggle

Theory and Tactics

The British working class, without land, depends for its necessities of life on the exploitation of the peasants of the Third World, who are dying of starvation because their land is being used to grow crops for the workers of the industrial countries,. (Cotton, one fifth of the world's entire farm land, jute, rubber, vegetable oil, fruit, beans, soya, meat etc.)

While the bosses have always exploited the urban artisans, those artisans have always been dependent on the exploitation of the peasants of the city's hinterland. Today, our hinterland is the Third World.

To recognise that the artisan exploits the peasant is to undermine the whole theory and strategy of those who concentrate on 'The Class Struggle'. Since the exploited British working class is also the exploitation of the Third World, it is unlikely that the working class will take any revolutionary initiative. Theoretically we must expect and support, Third World revolution before a British revolution...

Tactically it is a mistake to try to find revolutionaries in the British working class. Any revolutionaries will be found amongst the unemployed, not at the work place.

Because it disproves the conventional 'Class Struggle' theories and strategies every effort is made to marginalise Green Anarchism by harping on about our odd aspects like hair dos and brown rice and our unsounder, holier than thou aspects like 'lifestyle'.. For the same reasons they underplay world pollution and resource depletion which also falsify their theories of industrialism. They'll try to ignore the awkward basic issues. It's up to you to bring them to their attention.

Green Anarchist

Page 8. Fuck art, let's dance.

Page 9 Italian punk, by Giacomo Oliva.

pages 10 - 11 Triangle of Corruption poster.

Page 12. Death in the Countryside, by Arabella Melville and Colin Johnson.

Page 12. American plans for domination.

Page 14 Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Page 15. Godwin. One of the first writers to offer a consistent outline of anarchist thought, by Brian Morris.

One of the first writers to offer a consistent outline of anarchist thought.

'Hidden away in some old library', writes one biographer of William Godwin, you might one day come across the weighty volumes of 'Political Justice', a work as obscure now as its author.' But there was a time, he continues, when Godwin was the most famous and notorious writer in the land. Times change: yet Godwin in spite of his obscurity is still not forgotten.

Godwin was born in 1756 near Kings Lynn. Early on he became a non-conformist minister like his father. But he soon abandoned the Church, adopted atheism, and after trying his hand as a tutor, eventually became a freelance journalist. His main interests were education and politics. In 1789 came the outbreak of the French revolution, an event that was to change the face of Europe. Godwin sympathised with the aims of the revolution, though he recoiled from the violence of the subsequent 'terror' for he was always to argue against the violent overthrow of governments. But while political reaction set in all over Europe, Godwin always remained true to the radical spirit of the revolution, to its cry for liberty, equality and fraternity.

It was during the tense atmosphere of this revolution that Godwin wrote his philosophical treatise on 'Political Justice'. It was published in 1793. Its message was even more radical than Tom Paine's famous 'Rights of Man' published two years earlier. It is said that the Cabinet considered prosecution, but the Prime Minister William Pitt declared that as it cost 3 guineas it was hardly likely to reach the labouring classes and thus foment revolution. Nevertheless Godwin's study was widely read and discussed, and his outspoken enthusiasm for truth and liberty made him famous, or rather infamous. Many attempts were made to ridicule the study, or as Godwin put it, 'bring into disrepute the truths I have endeavoured to propagate.'

Godwin's 'Enquiry Concerning Political Justice' is a complex book. In his excellent study of its underlying philosophy John Clark describes Godwin as a consistent exponent of 'hedonistic utilitarianism'. This means that Godwin set himself the problem of trying to determine by rational argument what kind of society was most useful and most conducive to the promotion of human pleasure and happiness. He was no dreamer, and was well aware of the fact that history was little more than a 'record of crimes'. He argued in the book five essential themes:

(1) That human beings are not by nature either good or bad. There is no 'original sin' in us. We are what we are largely because of our circumstances.

(2) To attain a happy and free life we must be honest and truthful. How do we know what is true? By following the dictates of reason which is common to all people. This means discussion; relying on proof not on power, on argument not on authority, on openness not on deception.

(3) In a world where reason prevailed Godwin felt that justice too would be promoted. Justice was not just a matter of equity or fairness but the attainment of an ethical society in which disinterested benevolence was widely practiced. If you followed reason, Godwin argued, you would do good to all people equally, as befits their needs, aspirations and abilities.

(4) These premises led Godwin to argue that in a society private property will no longer exist, nor wealth for these only foster vice, envy, robbery and war. Nor will there be any coercive government, along with their laws, courts and prisons - for all these are contrary to justice. He makes a critique of all existing forms of government, as well as the bases of political authority - whether it be sheer force, social contract or divine right. All governments, he wrote, correspond in some degree to what the Greeks called 'tyranny'. Thus the only rational form of government for Godwin was no government at all -- ANARCHY.

(5) Godwin argues that just as there had been progress in scientific understanding so their could be improvement in human society, and in the moral status of individuals. But true progress would come about in the moral status of individuals. But true progress would come about not by violent means but only through education - moral persuasion and political reforms. Godwin rejected the use of force and violence, rather than promoting progress, he said, they actually hindered it.

Reason, truth, liberty, justice, progress, happiness - all these are intimately connected in Godwin's thought. many have described his philosophy as 'utopian' and Godwin has been labelled an 'armchair anarchist' whose 'political justice', while providing a blueprint of an ideal society, offers no viable political strategy. There is no doubt some truth in these criticisms. But importantly, though Godwin never called himself an anarchist, he was one of the first writers to offer a consistent outline of anarchist though, to argue through the need for a decentralised, libertarian society. This vision still has contemporary relevance and it was a vision taken up by later anarchists who as George Woodcock wrote, added the dimension of action' to his philosophical arguments.

Brian Morris

Page 16. Book reviews

The art of aromatherapy, Robert Tisserand, C W Daniel

Hay Fever, Colin Johnson and Dr Arabella Melville

The Slow Burning Fuse by John Quail

The lost history of British Anarchists, by John Quail. Paladin / Granada

**[Review published in Green Anarchist, issue 8, September October 1985, page 16]*

There comes a time for every anarchist when the idea of engaging in a full and frank discussion with the entire Tory Cabinet assisted only by a loaded Kalashnikov AV-45 and two spare grenades is not without appeal. Similar ideas have also occurred to anarchists in the past, but reading this excellent book, a history of the anarchist movement from 1880 - 1930, has convinced me of the basic uselessness of violence as a tactic in Britain.

'The only way to contemplate the future is to have constantly before you the examples of the past.'

TACTICS: These seem to have changed little over the past 100 years and with the exclusion of most radical ideas from media overkill, it looks like staying that way for the next 100. Pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, conferences, riots, mass rallies, picnics, squatting, meetings, even 'Stop the City' demos have their ancestors in the West End riots during the winter of 1885 / 6. There are differences though; street speaking has died away to be replaced by the political busker and street theatre (I feel that street theatre must go beyond mere spectacle to the point where a stage performance on the street becomes indistinguishable, for the onlooker, from a real spontaneous 'happening'). Flyposting has become more radical too; where it used only to advertise meetings and events, today it states its message first, often combined with striking visuals, and advertises meetings etc, second. In reaction to the colonising of our streets by the advertisers, graffiti has come into its own.

Where in the 1880s it was possible to directly heckle politicians ....

'If you want to know what the Conservative Party has done for the working man look -''

'...inside the workhouse!'

'British working men are being thrown out of jobs by foreign dumping. If we tax those imports the workers will -'

'....pay!'

Now politicians have become so remote and well defended, that for the average anarchist without access to Spitting Image type media, the aerosol spray paint can is one of the most effective ways to subvert the media voice of the state. It's not vandalism, it's reclaiming our streets and access to media all rolled into one.

SIMILARITIES: While reading this book, I kept coming across passages like this ...

'A dispute involving seventy men in a seam in one pit spread like wild fire through the whole Combine, involving 12,000 miners. However, the engine men below and the winding men on the surface (in unions separate from the South Wales Miners Federation) stayed at work and the employers as a result attempted to continue to run the mines ... and the direct outcome of that was the police being sent there and later the military - result: riots, trouble of considerable character, the fight still on because of the incompleteness of the fight on the men's side, consequent on sectional unionism' - so said Tom Mann at the time. Miners were fired on at Tonypandy by the troops and many clashes took place. It was not until August 1911 that the men were starved into submission.

1886 or 1961, 1911, or 1985? The past has interesting things to say to the present.

EARLY WOMENS' MOVEMENT: It seems to me that very little effort was made by anarchists to work with the Suffragettes and other womens' groups in an attempt to show them the folly of 'parliamentary action' (though perhaps this would have been the wrong thing to do at the time) But even if the anarchists had wanted to do that, they would have found it difficult. Then, as now, most seemed to be men with a vision of white, male, working class as the creators and holders of revolution.

This book made me aware of the split in Socialism and Anarchism circa 1850. It seems that before then they were pretty much the same thing. [See Christopher Hampton, 'A Radical Reader - The Struggle for change in England, 1381 - 1914, but don't trust him after 1850 as he only follows the Socialist struggle and disregards the Anarchists from then on].

Any history book has its defects, it cannot give the feeling of being swept along by events, or tell how demoralised and frustrated anarchists must have felt during the long quiet years. But even so, it's a good book. Read it!

Dave, Stratford on Avon.

The allergy of diet Records: Hagar the Womb, The Mekons, Ring

New mags: Clydesider, All Systems Go! Tribal Messenger

Recipe: Vegan pizza by Caroline Bradbury.

Page 18. Letters

Leave them alone! against patronising attitudes towards the Third World by Alistair Danter, Swaziland

Letter against violence and Class War by Malc of Derby GA's

Support Gus by Clydeside Anarchists

On Eskimoes eating meat by Sekemarma of Sheffield

Against Speciesism by Ms Paddy Broughton of North Harrow

US Soya beans by Jennifer Wallace, Totnes

Letter against Jailing peace protesters, Kris Dunstable.

Page 19 Coming up festivals and demos

SCAR = Student Campaign for Animal Rights.

Page 20 Molesworth

'Justice is not interested in a little thing like evidence' No water cannons

Hiroshima Day, Snowball trial, Sizewell

CALL raid, Liverpool LDAG

Issue 9. November, December 1985, January 1986.

Cover: 'A' in a circle.

Date: Nov 1985-Jan 1986

Keywords: Stonehenge; heroin; drugs; cannabis; Proudhon.

Read here

---

Editorial: 'Individualism or mutualism?' editorial by Alan Albon.

News

Stonhenge, public order bill

Forced confessions

Deer cull

Tree deaths, green gathering.

Page 4 Indian women replant trees

Geneva

Nicaragua on the turn

Bhopal

Nimbin Hippie Town.

Page 5 Athens anarchist demo

US needs raw materials

Paris

Tanzania, Aborigine Women.

Page 6 Police harassment of the anti apartheid rally in London, by Ann Archy of Colchester.

Page 7 Don't Let Greenham Die by Jill Robson.

Page 8 How the Stonehenge Free Festival Grew, by Mike Stand

Smack and dope, article against heroin by Dice George.

Page 10 - 11. 'The Biggest Bastard in the Universe' poster by Richard Hunt.

Page 12 Proudhon by Brian Morris.

Page 13 Rip Off by Richard Hunt.

Page 14 Grain and Energy by Krozz

Travellers by Mr O' Smith.

Page 15. Music

The Pogues. songs of Praise, the Poison Girls

So Long Trouble, Akimbo

Do Not Go, Jane Gregory

Act of Love, Eve Libertine

Defenders of the Lie, Slave Dance

Conflict 'The Battle Continues', Chumbawumba 'Revolution', Blythe Power Chevy Chase

Reviews by Nik and Marcus.

Page 16 Book reviews

Vegan Cookery by Eva Batt

Stonehenge by John Mitchell, Riff Raff Poets

The Brotherhood book on Freemasonry by Stephen Knight

The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin reviewed by Alan Albon

Recipes: Hazelnut Pie, Festive Cake, Mince Pies, by Caroline Bradbury.

**Murray Bookchin, Cheshire Books, £6:95p*

For those of us committed anarchists who have rejected the simplistic Marxist bias of much anarchist thinking, this book is a major contribution to anarchist thought. The same attitudes that have supported the domination of human by human include also the domination of nature.

Bookchin, with great clarity traces the history of human behaviour and why the domination of one section of humanity by another has arisen. The dangers that increased technical power have put into that hands of hierarchical society is the rape of the natural world has sounded alarm bells far beyond the anarchist movement. It is for anarchists to point out that these problems are inherent in the nature of our society.

Bookchin points out that the idea that man (the male has always been the main motivation in this idea) is by destiny there to dominate nature has only b recently been a widespread feature of human society. To pre-literate and primitive cultures this idea is alien even still in those that have escaped the march of so-called civilised society.

The mutuality and communalism that Kropotkin proposed in the face of Victorian use of Darwinian theories in order to back up the existing social order ... it is the development of these ideas and concern about the living world that Bookchin does so well in this book.

It is a large and complex work, but, being comprehensive, it requires close reading in order to give the book its stature in the annals of modern anarchist literature. No doubt many will say that it is too intellectual, but we have to understand where we are and, more important, where other people are in order to get our ideas across.

As a person Bookchin is a propagandist par excellence in the ability to meet people and reach some understanding. There are many who are beginning to question the nature of our society. There are all too many who accept their role in society and have been thoroughly socialised in that role.

He points out that the gerontocracy in which old men sit on top of a caste system having lost the powers of youth and gained the cunning of age, a caste system in which women have been a lower class in the lower classes. The patriarchal family which affirms the social base of hierarchic society has replaced the communalised structure of pre-literate societies.

In the book the notable eruptions against growing domination are recalled. The book ends: 'Civilisation as we know it today is more mute than the nature for which it professes to speak and more blind than the elemental forces it professes to control. Indeed 'civilisation' lives in hatred of the world around it and in grim hatred of itself. Its gutted cities, wasted lands,, poisoned air and water, and mean spirited greed constitute a daily indictment of its odious morality. A world so demeaned may well be beyond redemption, at least within the terms of its own institutional and ethical framework. The flames of Ragnarok purified the world of the Norsemen. The flames that threaten to engulf our planet may leave it hopelessly hostile to life - a dead witness to cosmic failure. If only because this planet's history, including its human history, has been so full of promise, hope and creativity, it deserves a better fate than what seems to confront it in the years ahead.' [Murray Bookchin, page 366]

Alan Albon

Letters

On Class Struggle by A Revolutionary Anarchist

TVAM, Manchester

D Dane, London

On the Third World by Dave of Stratford on Avon.

Letters praising GA by Laura Biding of Nottingham

Mark Clifton of Rugeley

Misc.

On Greenham, Liz of Crickhowell, Powys Coming up events.

News

Faslane, Nuclear Free Pacific, green top milk, Norwich Aftermath, Birmingham 8 Conspiracy Charges, Kuldip Dhoot, founder member of the Oxford Green Anarchist group jailed

Issue 10

Cover: Young Latin American man with gun in waist belt.

Date: Feb-Mar 1986

Keywords: violence; Travellers; Spain 1918; South Africa; Thoreau.

Read here

---

Editorial: Pieces of Silver by Alan Albon

The 'Pieces of Silver' editorial, Green Anarchist issue 10, Spring 1987, page 2, marked a decline in the magazine. It was an attack on the print workers, who were at that time engaged in a long-running and vicious dispute with Rupert Murdoch at Fortress Wapping. This editorial created a sectarian gulf between GA and class struggle anarchists.

[The editorial, signed Alan Albon, is reproduced on page 72 of 'Into the 1990s With Green Anarchist' - ISBN 0-9521226-4-2, Oxford, 1996]

THE PIECES OF SILVER

The printers who are accusing the people who are working in Murdoch's concentration camp to print the rubbish they have been printing for years, of accepting Judas thirty pieces, should consider their own responsibilities.

The popular press can hardly be said to have contributed to a balanced discussion of the problems that humanity has to face. Indeed it could be said that the media and the popular press have contributed to the situation in which these printers find themselves in which a pirate like Murdoch and his ilk are able to rape the world. Is it necessary to destroy forests to print this crap? I believe that Odhams Press at one time had a large trade union share in it, and one time was in a position to produce a paper that could discuss serious issues. 'Freedom' our contemporary, was at one time printed by an ordinary printer, but owing to the fact that they could only afford to do the artwork voluntarily, the printers refused to print it. So they lost the printing work. The alternative press not only has to deal with the censorship imposed by the distribution magnates but also the print workers.

Advocates of real change suffer from the biased popular press that our printers have been content to print for years, which contributed to the type of attitudes of "I'm alright, Jack" that have made racism, destruction of the environment, starvation in the Third World more difficult to solve.

I was told the other day by an SWP supporter of the printers that they had no responsibility for what is printed in the papers. This is an attitude that has landed the world on the brink of ecological disaster or nuclear holocaust.

Alan Albon

News

Anti Police demo, Stoke Newington

Police versus Army

Stonehenge by Richie Cotterill.

Zapping at Greenham Common

Strong signals of up to one hundred times the normal background level of electro-magnetic radiations have been detected on a number of occasions. They are almost certainly capable of producing harmful effects on human beings.

Although high signal levels are to be expected near a military base, the highest signals found are some ten times above anything we have recorded on the same instruments at other sites.

We have also found that the strongest signals generally appear at those places where the women say they have suffered ill effects, and they followed a well defined path. Strong signals recorded on one occasion near the green gate were found to cover the womens' encampment but stop abruptly at the edge of the road leading up to the gate. The signals were also absent in the area around the nearby house.

The strength of the signals has also been found on occasion to reflect the activity of the women. Signals at scarcely more than the background level have been found to increase rapidly when the women start a demonstration.

Electronics For Peace

Westland

Sellafield union warfare? Class War split.

Marcos clings on

Uganda, Haiti, Multi fibre agreement, Spain and NATI

Anarchism in France.

Page 6 Germany

Vanishing greens by Gernot Lennert

South Africa's revolt is growing.

Page 7. On violence

Why are you reading this? by Richard Benson?

Page 8. Spreading the Word in Andalucia in 1918. J Diaz del l Moral.

Page 9 Anarcho-Syndicalism

Direct Action movement by George. Should we join?

Page 10. New Age gypsies

The Travellers Skool

In 1983 both Festival Welfare Services (FWS) and the Green Collective were concerned for the welfare of the growing numbers of young children at festivals. Both attempted to encourage safe and stimulating play spaces to cater for their needs. FWS helped to establish a 'Play Project' for Stonehenge '84, and in the same year the Green Roadshow took creative workshops to some 20 events and has continued its work since then. Many of the more commercial and established festivals now provide facilities for children; some have permanent play sites and have an appropriate budget. But with 'free' and 'low budget' festivals where there is often no provision at all, the situation has become more extreme.

In 1983 the concern was, as FSW put it 'not only for the large numbers of children of young unemployed families from inner cities, but particularly for the children of a group of about 350 people who spend their summer travelling from festival to festival.' Since then, this number has doubled each year. As time passes, so the children of the festivals grow older and the need for play provision has to extend to more educational and stimulating activities.

DOWN WITH SKOOL

Within the travelling community there are a number of children who do not take part in state education at all. This is as much due to the transient nature of their life style as to their parents' view of state education, which is generally seen as inappropriate to the needs of their children growing up in a world in crisis (under the present system of economic priorities state education is as doomed as the starving in the Third World). Schools are not seen as responding fast enough to the increasing speed of change of the world into which they are educating their pupils to go.

Life 'on the road' for many children is both fascinating and hard, making immediate demands on their resourcefulness; they learn by experience to deal with a wide variety of people and situations. At each new site there is a different environment to explore, offering endless educational possibilities in terms of ecology, geography, history, science, technology and sociology. Within the travelling community (and especially at festivals) there are people with a wide range of skills, knowledge and enthusiasms which they would be more than willing to share; but these potentials for more formal (conceptual) learning are rarely realised. Mostly this is due to lack of resources, energy and continuity caused by the pressures of travelling, poverty and harassment. What is needed is a communal space into which activities can be focused.

A MOBILE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE

At a meeting of concerned travellers and welfare groups at the Festival Forum for a Future in September last year, the Travellers' Skool Bus was conceived as a vehicle for appropriate education, adapting to the variety of situations in which it may be asked to function. We were all agreed on the nature of true education - flexible and child-centred - and the need to build an individually based system to reflect the multicultural society in which we now live.

We have found there to be a majority of travellers in support of this idea, and many parents and young volunteers would be keen to help get the project going and to be involved in the day to day running of the skool: that is so long as it is in keeping with their needs and was run by people who they trust. It would be possible to obtain some payment for expenses from festival organisers at commercial events, but at free / low budget events and winter sites, cash earnings would be limited to donations from people on site.

At a festival proper there is so much to see and do that the skool would almost certainly suspend regular activities for the duration.. In such an event the space could be used (along with an airy awning in front of the bus) as a safe play area, and as a place where visiting children and parents could see the work being done by the travelling children in arts, crafts, writing and even shows (as their parents do with their stalls, shows and life style). The period before and after the events are likely to be the times of least distraction, usually a week or so at either end, and it would be then that the children would be more open to skool work.

NEED FOR SUPPORT

Eventually we would hope to find permanent funding from the government education department, but at present there is not a category into which such an educational facility easily fits, as it crosses so many county and cultural boundaries. The closest links are with gipsy education, but this is a new idea, and would need to be founded on a broad base of support.

We would like your help in establishing such a school for the travellers' children, fitted out with work tops, cupboards, display space and equipment, to travel to appropriate festivals over the summer, and either tour the sites, or stay with one large settlement in the winter. It would be the responsibility of driver teachers to help to co-ordinate activities and focus project work, incorporating the basic skills of literacy, numeracy and communication, in order that the children can understand and express their discoveries.

Obviously, to establish such a project, we would need funds in order to purchase and equip the vehicle, as well as pay the wages of the teachers (I envisage we would need at least two). Before we can seek such funds I feel there needs to be a committee formed to establish the basic outline of the project, giving a broad base of support to apply for funding and to oversee / manage its running.

Initial support for this project is coming from the Green Collective, the Green Roadshow and Festival Welfare Services. I would be pleased to receive correspondence on this matter and meet with interested parties.

Richie Cotterill.

Waterleat, Ashburton, Newton Abbott, South Devon.

Page 12. Addicted to Authority by Tristan

How to create a world without government where everybody eats?

Page 13. Rip Off

The object of money is to take from the poor.

Once an elite has persuaded the people to obey their laws, either by naked violence or the threat of eternal retribution in some mythical after life, the people can be taken to the cleaners. The people can be forced to use money.

Herodotus says that coinage was first introduced in the 7th Century BC by the King of Lydia. Now why should the King of Lydia do a thing like that? No doubt he quoted Keynes about transactions, contingencies and speculation, and was very virtuous about the whole thing. But Kings are not altruistic.

A government makes laws to give the monarch sole rights to all gold mined 'Regalian Rights': it forbids anyone else to mint coinage: it forbids any other coinage to be used as legal tender, and then it forces taxes to be paid in its coinage. So to obtain the coins to pay the taxes forced on them, the people must work for the elite, the only source of the coins. Or they must give their crops to the elite in exchange for the coins which they then give back as taxes.

It's a neat trick. The people are forced to produce natural resources for cash: they are forced into growing crops for cash, the Formal Economy. They are forced to work for the elite, their henchmen and their hangers on, the Establishment who are given the coinage in return for their support or their work.

For example in Africa, 'a Cape Colony Act of 1894 imposed a tax in cash on fit adult males so that, as Prime Minister Cecil Rhodes blandly explained, rural producers might be removed from their life of sloth and idleness and made to give some return for 'our wise and good government.' The idea took on fast. To pay cash taxes the African would have to earn cash and almost invariably in that period that meant leaving the village for European employment. If they faulted to pay they must naturally be punished and would work as prison labourers instead.' [Davidson] And that was the way they forced the African down the mines, with cash taxes.

The King of Lydia introduced coinage in the 7th cent BC. Within a hundred years the King of Lydia was Croesus, the richest man in the world. There were no flies on the Kings of Lydia. Once you've imposed money you can introduce indirect taxation, taxation on trade. That way, people don't realise how much they're being fleeced. And the traders become tax collectors. To maximise the take it is necessary to force all trade into a market where it can be watched, and taxed. A charter to hold a market means that no other market or trade can take place in the area.

Certainly money has its uses in transactions etc, and if the production of a goldmine in the form of coinage was distributed freely and equally, there would be no problem (except for inflation), no unequal distribution. But Establishments make sure that the people always have to work for the money, work for them.

If all the money in a country vanished would that country be any poorer? All the things that had been desireable and obtainable would still be there, still be available. It would mean only that those who manufactured the money, gold, bank note or credit card could no longer remove the desirable objects with their legal enforced tender. Gold or any kind of money is not the desireable object in itself but only the means to acquire it. Money is not wealth. It is simply an I.O.U. When a king gives out gold coins, it is understood that the gold will acquire a certain volume of goods (or services) When he gives a gold coin for support given or work done, that coin is an IOU for food and raw materials, goods and services. The king or government prints the money, his IOUs and buys his food, baubles and soldiery with them. IOUs are redeemable, but coinage is never redeemed.

The peasants are forced to exchange their wheat for cash. The king who printed the money now has the wheat, the desireable object. Until the peasant can get rid of the cash to some other sucker in exchange for other natural resources, the king is richer, the peasant is poorer. Money is a means of taking wealth from the periphery and giving it to the core, taking it from the poor and giving it to the rich.

in the same way, if a country sells its crops for cash, who is richer, the buyer or the seller? While one country is holding another country's cash, it is poorer. Liberia has no currency of its own, it was set up by America and uses American dollars. So America can print dollars and remove Liberian crops.

America quite understands the value of imposing its currency on other countries. After the last war [ie WW2] 'The Americans, anxious for the restoration of the international economy and resentful of the discrimination against the dollar that the machinery of the Sterling area made possible through the close control of the sterling / dollar exchange transaction, agreed to make Britain a loan on the condition that sterling was made convertible within a year. [Harrison]

Money was invented and imposed by governments to enable indirect taxation to fleece the peasants, to con them into producing cash crops, to con them into working without the violence of the sword. In an anarchist society there can be no money for there would be no government to print or enforce it. But how can you trade without money? How can you exchange 2000 doorknobs for a bushel of wheat. You can't. There would be very little trade in an anarchist society.

Page 14. Thoreau by Brian Morris.

Page 15 Reviews

Music

Political Asylum live

The Price of Grain and the Price of Blood poison Girls

Shine On compilation

Smash the Spectacle by the Apostles

Our Voice is Tomorow's Hope Liberty

Tough, Big Flame EP

Page 18. Letters

Criticism of article against drugs by 'Scunge the Acid god'

Stonehenge by Pablo

Against the Biggest Bastard poster from Stephen of Peace Corner Molesworth

Against the Biggest Bastard poster by Robert Saunders of Hadley near Telford

Against the Biggest Bastard poster by O M Shanti of Sevenoaks.

Page 19. Against the Biggest Bastard poster by 'Jesmond pp God' Coming up, March May

Green network meeting Glastonbury.

Page 20 News

Leeds ALF, Huddersfield, Leamington

Animal Rights Militia Croydon and Sheffield

Riots in Southport and Bristol.

Issue 11

Date: Apr-May 1986

Keywords: Housing; Sellafield; Nuclear Power.

Read here

Issue 12

Date: Jun-Jul 1986

Keywords: Class Struggle; Non Violence; Non-Violence; Nationalism; Public Order Bill.

Read here

Issue 13

Date: Aug-Sep 1986

Keywords: Stonehenge; Kropotkin; medical research; Glastonbury.

Read here

Issue 14

Date: Oct-Nov 1986

Keywords: rape; peace camp; medical research; Malatesta.

Read here

Issue 15

Date: Late Winter 1987

Keywords: Stonehenge; Battle of the Bean Field; Public Order Act; Meat; Garments; Clothing.

Read here

Issue 16

Date: Apr 1987

Keywords: Paganism; Pirate Radio; Stonehenge.

Read here

Issue 17

Date: Oct 1987

Issue 18

Date: Apr 1988

Keywords: Industry; Spy; Spies; Bakunin; Anti-Paganism; Homoepathy.

Read here

Issue 19

Date: May 1988

Keywords: Stonehenge; Housing Bill; Festivals; Emma Goldman; Co-Ops; Co-Operatives.

Read here

Issue 20

Date: Jun 1988

Keywords: core/periphery; Paganism; Native Americans.

Read here

Issue 21

Date: Mar 1989

Issue 22

Date: Apr 1989

Keywords: Stonehenge; McDonalds; Green Consumerism; poster.

Read here

Issue 23

Date: May 1989

Keywords: Stonehenge; Eastern Europe; motorbikes.

Read here

Issue 24

Date: Jun 1989

Keywords: Stonehenge; festivals; Chumba Wumba; Poll Tax; riots; sexuality; celibacy; Animal Liberation.

Read here

Issue 25

Date: Sep 1990

Keywords: Development; Developers; Stonehenge; Iraq; Gulf War; Poll Tax; Animal Liberation; marriage.

Read here

Issue 26

Date: Mar 1991

Keywords: science; direct action; guns; Stonehenge; Iraqu; Gulf War.

Read here

Issue 27

Date: Jun 1991

Keywords: Green Party; Bookchin; Animal Liberation; Stonehenge; festivals.

Read here

Issue 28

Date: Sep 1991

Keywords: festivals; Green Party; Animal Liberation; Iraq; Gulf War; nuclear weapons; Chomsky; pollution.

Read here

Issue 29

Date: Dec 1991

Keywords: eco-fascism; Animal Liberation; riots; squatting.

Read here

Issue 30

Date: Jun 1992

Keywords: squatting; anti-fascism; Earth First; Animal Liberation; cities; festivals.

Read here

Issue 31

Date: Sep 1992

Issue 32

Date: Jun 1993

Keywords: Anti-Fascism; Animal Liberation; Anti-Nuclear; Twyford; festivals.

Read here

Issue 33

Date: Dec 1993

Keywords: Searchlight.

Read here

Issue 34

Date: Mar 1994

Keywords: Zapatista.

Read here

Issue 35

Date: Jun 1994

Keywords: Criminal Justice Bill.

Read here

Issue 36

Date: Dec 1994

Keywords: Media; Animal Liberation.

Read here

Issue 37

Date: Mar 1995

Keywords: Surveillance; Criminal Justice Act; Pornography; Pollution.

Read here

News

Claremont Clearances

Earth Night

A30 Extension

Pollok Estate

Quarrying in the Pyranees

Trash in the Mac

Resisting The Criminal Injustice Act

Genetix Demo

Body Shop Stinks

Veal War

S.G. Robbed

Terrorist Attack

Activist Killed

Prawa Zwierzat

Keith Mann

Robin Webb

Diary of Community Resistance

Diary of Animal Liberation

Prisoners of War

Prisoners Update

Pornography

Events Coming Up

The Guilty Men

Directory of Scum

Down with Big Brother!

Down with Big Brother!

Combat 18: Creation of a Pseudo-Gang

Asset Exposed

Their Worst Nightmares Realised

Living Under Surveillance

Articles

We Have To Dismantle All This

The Pollution File

Non-Monogamy

Local Exchange

Letters

Science: Reply to a reply

Reply to Marky Mark

Pretentious

Counter-Culture

Books

Pamphlets

New Zines

Music

Projects

Survival

G.A.: The Zine

The Editorial

MEDIA ATTEMPTS to trash Anarchy In The UK ’94 culminated in the Met’s weeding of the CND march of anarchists. Where was Stewart Home during this? Struggling anarchists at the Independent! This notorious self-publicist says he wasn’t doing this to “earn … brownie points from the media” but because he “is more interested in scission and radical separation”. Given the Independent employs David Rose – who smeared Class War for Searchlight in 1985 – we weren’t surprised to see them print Home’s insinuation that GA is still associated with Rihard Hunt but refused us a right to reply to his libel. …

The Next Issue

THE PRIMITIVIST ISSUE: Anti-nuclear campaigns, those against industrial farming …

The Small Print

Articles

If you’ve got any opinions you want to share, send ‘em in to GA via Oxford Green Anarchists, …

G.A.: The Network

This is Green Anarchism

G.A. Contacts List

G.A. Mail Order

Books

Pamphlets

….

Issue 38

Date: Jun 1995

Keywords: Primitivism; Primitivist; Mumia Abu-Jamal; AIDS.

Read here

---

38

Comin’ Home: Defining Anarcho-primitivism

At the opening of Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!, perhaps the premier anarcho-primitivist text, Fredy Perlman remarks: “This is the place to jump, the place to dance! This is the wilderness! Was there ever any other?” This seemingly innocuous point encapsulates a key aspect of anarcho-primitivism: the sense that the primitive is here and now, rather than far away and long ago. Perlman suggests that his notion is “the big public secret” in civilization: “It remains a secret. It is publicly known but not avowed. Publicly the wilderness is elsewhere, barbarism is abroad, savagery is on the face of the other.” But Perlman knows better than this and, perhaps as a result of his insight, so do we. And this knowledge is crucial. For in asserting the presence of the primitive, even in the midst of the megamachine, Perlman is marking the difference between anarcho-primitivism and other forms of primitivism in the West. And, furthermore, he is reclaiming a primitive identity for those trapped inside Leviathan. This is a crucial activity.

In Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives, a survey of twentieth century Western appropriations of the primitive, Marianna Torgovnick writes:

“The metaphor of finding a home or being at home recurs over and over as a structuring pattern within Western primitivism. Going primitive is trying to ‘go home’ to a place that feels comfortable and balanced, where full acceptance comes freely and easily ... Whatever form the primitive’s hominess takes, its strangeness salves our estrangement from ourselves and our culture” (p.185).

Superficially, this seems an attractive idea and one conducive to anarcho-primitivism. A linkage of the primitive with origins seems a logical one in the West. Living lives of profound alienation in civilization as we do, the idea of going home, going primitive, seems appealing. This notion of a journey back to the primitive as a passage back to origins is echoed in the title of a recent volume edited by Ron Sakolsky and James Koehnline: Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture. As the book’s opening page explains, “The first “drop-outs” from English colonization in North America left the ‘Lost Colony’ of Roanoke and went to join the natives at Croatan.” However, in making this linkage, radicals such as Sakolsky and Koehnline are unwittingly aligning themselves with notions of the primitive that are endemic in the West — notions that are used to underpin racism and imperialism.

The idea the West can discover its origins through a journey into the primitive contains a number of reactionary connotations. For example, one notion underlying such a belief is that primitives inhabit a world that is timeless and unchanging. Perlman has correctly identified history as His-Story, the story of dominance and control that is the narrative of history. Clearly, lacking Leviathanic structures, primitives do not inhabit this kind of chronology. But on the other hand the notion that primitives live in a timeless vacuum, a perpetual state of changelessness, denies them the ability to develop. And this notion has historically been used to characterize primitives as eternally backward and hence in need of Western intervention to progress. So notions of the primitive as timeless have been and are used as a justification for imperialism and the eradication of the primitive.

Moreover, another implication of this conception of the primitive is that history is linear and that no other ways of conceptualizing or experiencing time are legitimate. And thus the whole ideology of progress is also latent within conceptualizations of the primitive as source and origin. Furthermore, the Western notion of the primitive as origin, and the resulting desire to journey ‘back’ to the primitive, is based on an idyllic image of the primitive as a site characterized by simplicity and freedom from troubling differences. Torgovnick states this well when she notes:

“The primitive’s magical ability to dissolve differences depends on an illusion of time and sense in which the primitive is both eternally past and eternally present. For the charm to work, the primitive must represent a common past — our past, a Euro-American past so long gone that we can find no traces of it in Western spaces. But the primitive must be eternally present in other spaces — the spaces of primitive peoples. Otherwise we cannot get to it, cannot find the magical spot where differences dissolve and harmony and rest prevail. The illusion depends on denying primitive societies ‘pasts’ of their own, their own original states and development (perhaps wholly different from ours) ... If we imagine primitive societies as occupying linear time with us, but as developing in ways of their own to their present state, then they could not be our origin; there would be no time and place for us to ‘go home’ to.” (p. 187)

Conventional Western primitivism always draws the distinction between self and other, between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ And in this schema, the primitive is always other, always ‘them.’ The primitive must always be long ago or far away, not right here and right now. Time must render ‘our’ primitive past inaccessible, while space must make ‘their’ primitive present distant but accessible — journeyable — so that we can find the path back to ‘our’ lost origins. In the process, of course, ‘their’ specificity is lost, merely becoming an image of the idyll that ‘we’ have tragically lost, or of the horrible savagery ‘we’ have thankfully overcome. Such primitivism is all about ‘us’ and serves to efface the primitive in ways that are quite compatible with civilization’s eradication of primitive peoples and lifeways. So the notion of the primitive as origin and source needs to be rejected by a primitivism that aims for a radical departure from the Western megamachine.

“To discard the idea of the primitive as ‘origin’ requires radical measures,” Torgovnick says. (p. 186) And it is these radical measures that anarcho-primitivism is prepared to make. Indeed, the readiness to take these measures constitutes one — but only one — of the many features which distinguish anarcho-primitivism from other forms of Western primitivism. Hence, Perlman’s prioritization of affirming the primitive as part of the here and now. For Perlman. as for other mainstream primitivists, civilization is just a veneer that is thinly spread over the surface of the civilized individual. But whereas reactionary primitivists regard the primitive as being characterized by savagery, Perlman sees it as characterized by abundance and possession — and not least by possession of a rich inner life and sense of being. So for him the primitive, in civilized conditions, is always a potential — a potential whose bursting out is always a promise of joy and freedom. The primitive, in such a context, is encased — bound and shackled — but always capable of breaking out. And so the primitive, rather than something that has to be journeyed to, emerges as something that one has to come back to. Something that is rediscovered, rather than discovered. This is an insight that Ursula Le Guin comes to in an essentially anarcho-primitivist fiction when which she entitles, not ‘going primitive’ or ‘going home,’ but Always Coming Home. The primitive, for those trapped in civilization, is a process, a process of renewal and return. A return to roots, but ‘our’ roots as they are now, in all their presence and sense of possibility, rather than some impossible search for origins.

In this sense too, anarcho-primitivism differs radically from other forms of Western primitivism. In a 1986 position paper entitled “Renew the Earthly Paradise,” the participants of the Fifth Estate project outlined their ideological trajectory:

“The evolution of the FE has been characterized by a willingness to re-examine all the assumptions of radical criticism, which has led it away from its earlier libertarian communist perspective toward a more critical analysis of the technological structure of western civilization, combined with a reappraisal of the indigenous world and the character of primitive and original communities. In this sense we are primitivists ...”

The two-fold nature of the project outlined here remains crucial. Anarcho-primitivism crucially combines critical analysis of civilization with a reappraisal of the primitive. These two reciprocally related aspects of anarcho-primitivism are essential. One without the other remains disastrous. For anarcho-primitivism does not seek to replicate primitive lifeways. It reappraises the primitive and seeks to draw inspiration from it, but only insofar as it does not contradict the most far-reaching anarchist analysis — analyses which seek an exponential exposure of power relations in whatever form they take.

Pointing to ‘an emerging synthesis of postmodern anarchy and the primitive (in the sense of the original), Earth-based ecstatic vision,’ the Fifth Estate circle indicate:

“We are not anarchists per se, but pro-anarchy, which is for us a living, integral experience, incommensurate with Power and resisting all ideology ... Our work on the FE as a project explores possibilities for our own participation in this movement, but also works to rediscover the primitive roots of anarchy as well as to document its current expression. Simultaneously, we examine the evolution of Power in our midst in order to suggest new terrains for contestations and critique in order to undermine the present tyranny of modern totalitarian discourse — that hyperreality that destroys human meaning, and hence solidarity, by simulating it with technology. Underlying all struggles for freedom is this central necessity: to regain a truly human discourse grounded in autonomous, intersubjective mutuality and closely associated with the natural world.”

Reconnecting the roots of anarchy and its present expression, always from a perspective sensitive to issues of power, remains at the heart of the anarcho-primitivist project. For, in attempting a provisional definition of anarcho-primitivism, it is always necessary to contrast it with what it is not, and in particular against the backdrop of other forms of Western primitivism. These latter may desire a sentimental return to nature or a going ‘back,’ but this is not the case with anarcho-primitivism, as Fifth Estate indicated in 1979:

“Let us anticipate the critics who would accuse us of wanting to go ‘back to the caves’ or of mere posturing in our part — i.e., enjoying the comforts of civilization all the while being its hardiest critics. We are not posing the Stone Age a model for our Utopia, nor are we suggesting a return to gathering and hunting as a means for our livelihood. Rather, our investigation into pre-civilized modes combats the notion that humans have always lived with alarm clocks and factories. It assails the prevalent amnesia which the species exhibits as to its origins and the varieties of social association which existed for tens of thousands of years before the rise of the state. It announces that work has not always been the touchstone of human existence, and that cities and factories did not always blight the terrain. It asserts that there was a time when people lived in harmony with each other and with their natural surroundings, both of which they knew intimately ... Reduced to its most basic elements, discussion about the future sensibly should be predicated on what we desire socially and from that determine what technology is possible. All of us desire central heating, flush toilets, and electric lighting, but not at the expense of our humanity. Maybe they are possible together, but maybe not.”

Anarcho-primitivism is a label and an inadequate label at that. It is more easily described than appropriately named. It includes a refusal of ideology and the racket of politics with all its power-seeking strategies. It is a process, a process of renewal and recovery. It is a mode of thought and action, a world-view, a mode of being in the sense that Hakim Bey has defined ontological anarchy. It is a refusal to go primitive, but an affirmation of the need to become primitive again.

References

• Anon. “Renew the Earthly Paradise.” Fifth Estate #322 (Winter/Spring 1986).

• Anon. “Searching for the culprit: Introduction to Marshall Sahlin’s The Original Affluent Society.” Fifth Estate #298 (June 1979).

• Le Guin, Ursula. Always Coming Home (London, 1986).

• Perlman, Fredy. Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!: An Essay. (Detroit, 1983).

• Sakolsky, Ron, & James Koehnline. Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1993).

• Torgovnick, M. Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives. (Chicago, 1990).

Primitivism: Back to Basics?

Civilisation is backwards, Primitive societies are advanced!

When we say we want green anarchy, a stateless society, free and in harmony with Nature, people tell us that it’s “a nice dream but it’ll never happen” as “it’s against human nature”. The point is that is has happened — green anarchy was how all people lived for a good 90% of history, how they lived before they were even Homo sapiens, how some still live better than we do today. When we point this out, people start pissing and whining about “going back to the caves” and getting protective about their TVs, cars and other fruits of “Progress”, particularly Lefties and “anarchists” who don’t know the difference and who think “Progress” is some inevitable law of Nature and not part and parcel of State society and the self-serving elites ruling it. We’ll demolish those myths in a future issue — in this we’re looking at why people living in green anarchy are more advanced than those in this sort of society.

A key problem with this society, as any Marxist will tell you, is alienation. They mean alienation from product — that is, the boss takes what you make to sell back to you, it’s not yours — but the intense division of labour that guarantees the commodities that people get so protective about also means we’re separated from each other and the Earth. Never mind not affording all those commodities, they’re no compensation for the lonely crowds, the powerlessness of being pushed around by bosses, the dependence on specialists who screw us over our basics of life, the meaninglessness of a life ruled by events beyond our own control. This isn’t about “capitalism” per se — any mega-machine society based on intense division of labour’s going to run the same, whatever rhetoric power / management specialists and co-ordinators use to mystify their rule.

Marxists look forward to communism, when the material abundance of capitalism is for all — but turn their back on what they call “primitive” communism where people were already equal and had all they wanted in life [6]. We’ve seen why this latter-day “communism” won’t work already and note that Marxists reject the version that did work as 19^th Century racist anthropologist and “Progress” proponent Henry Lewis Morgan argued Civilised men (sic) more “advanced” than pre-industrialised people [7].

The Industrial Revolution certainly warped the dreams of the people. Before it, when people envisaged a better world, it was Eden or its variants — from the medieval Land of Cockayne to the early-20^th century Big Rock Candy Mountain — where the abundance of arcadia lifted the yoke of work and duty from their shoulders [8]. Fantasy met reality in the Age of Discovery, the communism of the North American Indians and South Sea Islanders being oft-quoted as alternatives to European society — some even defected. Others attempted to turn their dreams into reality by establishing communities “like the early Christians” and, ironically, the push to colonise the New World was as much about returning the poor to their own little subsistence “Edens” as the rich plundering its resources. The main current post-Industrial revolution is a faith in “Progress”, a new world through technology not community.

Fantasies have been projected on stateless society because State society is so bad. And the substance? That depends on the society — some are real snakepits — arbitrary rule by tyrants, societies like this one in minature [9]. If there’s one society that isn’t like that — and there are many, particularly those based on hunter-gatherer bands free of shamans — then there’s no reason why everyone shouldn’t live their better way.

In such societies, community practice goes way beyond that envisaged by orthodox revolutionaries [10]. As there is no significant division of labour, specialist tyranny is no threat and there is a strong communal bond of common experience. Instead of alienation, there is particularisation, each person, animal and element of the environment dealt with individually, some societies even lacking collective nouns [11]. Individual/society, society/Nature and other classic polarities are dissolved in this particularism and it also ensures specific consideration of cases rather than appeals to abstract customs (which later become hierarchically-enforced/imposed laws) and thus a surprising toleration of diversity given conventional stereotypes of tribal societies. Attitudes to property also impress — rather than nit-picking over who should own what as orthodox revolutionaries do, primal people practice usufruct, something is someone’s while their using it and everyone else’s to use when not. A lot of shite is talked by precious artsy types about how Civilisation is culturally superior to the rest of the world — so show me the machine that can simulate the Baka’s communal harmonic singing. Culture is not a separated activity for primal people, so they’re better-developed culturally as well as socially.

We’re not saying future society should be like any pre-existing society, just that we can learn from the ones that work and pick’n’mix accordingly. Culture is something we choose to do, to create, not some biological inheritance or unchangeable given. We should get informed and make the best of ourselves.

Issue 39

Date: Sep 1995

Keywords: Zero-Work; Earth First!; Pornography.

Read here

---

The Unabombings: Communique #1

This is a message from the terrorist group FC.

We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive. Among other misdeeds, Burston-Marsteller [sic.] helped Exxon clean up its public image after the Exxon Valdes incident. But we attacked Burston-Marsteller less for its specific misdeed than on general principles. Burston-Marsteller is about the biggest organization in the public relations field. This means that its business is the development of techniques for manipulating people’s attitudes. It was for this more than for its actions in specific cases that we sent a bomb to an executive of this company.

Some news reports have made the misleading statement that we have been attacking universities or scholars. We have nothing against universities or scholars as such. All the university people whom we have attacked have been specialists in technical fields. (We consider certain areas of applied psychology, such as behavior modification, to be technical fields.) We would not want anyone to think that we have any desire to hurt professors who study archaeology, history, literature or harmless stuff like that. The people we are out to get are the scientists and engineers, especially in critical fields like computers and genetics. As for the bomb planted in the [crossed out] Business School at the U. of Utah, that was a botched operation. We won’t say how or why it was botched because we don’t want to give the FBI any clues. No one was hurt by that bomb.

In our previous letter to you we called ourselves anarchists. Since “anarchist” is a vague word that has been applied to a variety of attitudes, further explanation is needed. We call ourselves anarchists because we would like, ideally, to break down all society into very small, completely autonomous units. Regrettably, we don’t see any clear road to this goal, so we leave it to the indefinite future. Our more immediate goal, which we think may be attainable at some time during the next several decades, is the destruction of the worldwide industrial system. Through our bombings we hope to promote social instability in industrial society, propagate anti-industrial ideas and give encouragement to those who hate the industrial system.

The FBI has tried to portray these bombings as the work of an isolated nut. We won’t waste our time arguing about whether we are nuts, but we certainly are not isolated. For security reasons we won’t reveal the number of members of our group, but anyone who will read the anarchist and radical environmentalist journals will see that opposition to the industrial-technological system is widespread and growing.

Why do we announce our [crossed out] goals only now, through we made our first bomb some seventeen years ago? Our early bombs were too ineffectual to attract much public attention or give encouragement to those who hate the system. We found by experience that gunpowder bombs, if small enough to be carried inconspicuously, were too feeble to do much damage, so we took a couple of years off to do some experimenting. We learned how to make pipe bombs that were powerful enough, and we used these in a couple of successful bombings as well as in some unsuccessful ones. Unfortunately we discovered that these bombs would not detonate consistently when made with three-quarter inch steel water pipe. They did seem to detonate consistently when made with massively reinforced one inch steel water pipe, but a bomb of this type made a long, heavy package, too conspicuous and suspicious looking for our liking.

So we went back to work, and after a long period of experimentation we developed a type of bomb that does not require a pipe, but is set off by a detonating cap that consists of chlorate explosive packed into a piece of small diameter copper tubing. (The detonating cap is a miniature pipe bomb.) We used bombs of this type to blow up the genetic engineer Charles Epstein and the computer specialist David Gelernter. We did use a chlorate pipe bomb to blow up Thomas Mosser because we happened to have a piece of light-weight aluminum pipe that was just right for the job. The Gelernter and Epstein bombings were not fatal, but the Mosser bombing was fatal even though a smaller amount of explosive was used. We think this was because the type of fragmentation material that we used in the Mosser bombing is more effective [crossed out] than what we’ve used previously.

Since we no longer have to confine the explosive in a pipe, we are now free of limitations on the size and shape of our bombs. We are pretty sure we know how to increase the power of our explosives and reduce the number of batteries needed to set them off. And, as we’ve just indicated, we think we now have more effective fragmentation material. So we expect to be able to pack deadly bombs into ever smaller, lighter and more harmless looking packages. On the other hand, we believe we will be able to make bombs much bigger than any we’ve made before. With a briefcase-full or a suitcase-full of explosives we should be able to blow out the walls of substantial buildings.

Clearly we are in a position to do a great deal of damage. And it doesn’t appear that the FBI is going to catch us any time soon. The FBI is a joke.

The people who are pushing all this growth and progress garbage deserve to be severely punished. But our goal is less to punish them than to propagate ideas. Anyhow we are getting tired of making bombs. It’s no fun having to spend all your evenings and weekends preparing dangerous mixtures, filing trigger mechanisms out of scraps of metal or searching the sierras for a place isolated enough to test a bomb. So we offer a bargain.

We have a long article, between 29,000 and 37,000 words, that we want to have published. If you can get it published according to our requirements we will permanently desist from terrorist activities. It must be published in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, or in some other widely read, nationally distributed periodical. Because of its length we suppose it will have to be serialized. Alternatively, it can be published as a small book, but the book must be well publicized and made available at a moderate price in bookstores nationwide and in at least some places abroad. Whoever agrees to publish the material will have exclusive rights to reproduce it for a period of six months and will be welcome to any profits they may make from it. After six months from the first appearance of the article or book it must become public property, so that anyone can reproduce or publish it. (If material is serialized, first instalment becomes public property six months after appearance of first instalment, second instalment, etc.) We must have the right to publish in the New York Times, Time or Newsweek, each year for three years after the appearance of our article or book, three thousand words expanding or clarifying our material or rebutting criticisms of it.

The article will [crossed out] not explicitly advocate violence. There will be an unavoidable implication that we favor violence to the extent that it may be necessary, since we advocate eliminating industrial society and we ourselves have been using violence to that end. But the article will not advocate violence explicitly, nor will it propose the overthrow of the United States Government, nor will it contain obscenity or anything else that you would be likely to regard as unacceptable for publication.

How do you know that we will keep our promise to desist from terrorism if our conditions are met? It will be to our [crossed out] advantage to keep our promise. We want to win acceptance for certain ideas. If we break our promise people will lose respect for us and so will be less likely to accept the ideas.

Our offer to desist from terrorism is subject to three qualifications. First: Our promise to desist will not take effect until all parts of our article or book have appeared in print. Second: If the authorities should succeed in tracking us down and an attempt is made to arrest any of us, or even to question us in connection with the bombings, we reserve the right to use violence. Third: We distinguish between terrorism and sabotage. By terrorism we mean actions motivated by a desire to influence the development of a society and intended to cause injury or death to human beings. By sabotage we mean similarly motivated actions intended to destroy property without injuring human beings. The promise we offer is to desist from terrorism. We reserve the right to engage in sabotage.

It may be just as well that failure of our early bombs discouraged us from making any public statements at that time. We were very young then and our thinking was crude. Over the years we have given as much attention to the development of our ideas as to the development of bombs, and we now have something serious to say. And we feel that just now the time is ripe for the presentation of anti-industrial ideas.

Please see to it that the answer to our offer is well publicized in the media so that we won’t miss it. Be sure to tell us where and how our material will be published and how long it will take to appear in print once we have sent in the manuscript. If the answer is satisfactory, we will finish typing the manuscript and send it to you. If the answer is unsatisfactory, we will start building our next bomb.

Earth First! is Dead — Long Live the Earth Liberation Front!

As we all expected, it’s finally happened. Earth First! has officially joined the ranks of the mainstream groups and have thrown their lot in with the hierarchical committees and executives of FoE and Greenpeace. The recent EF! Action Updates report with glee that a top-level meeting was held in July between “leading” (i.e. careerist) Earth First!ers, Road Alert and Reclaim The Streets, with representives of FoE etc, The purpose of the meeting was on how NGO and grassroots groups can best cooperate. It was decided that all grouos would not brand their names in future, but rather work towards one movement. Now this all sounds very nice in theory — we need a strong movement to resist ecological destruction — but what it hides is a move by, some individuals to push their own agenda and tactics for EF! and the direct action movement without really consulting those grassroots and, if anything, acting in the same manner as the larger mainstream groups have done before them.

Before readers start getting upset and accusing me of criticizing EF! for the sake of it or because I might have a grudge to bear, then let’s look at the facts. Since its inception, there has been a drive to pacify and deradicalise EF! and give it a more acceptable face. This began in the early years with ecocrats such as George Marshall of the Rainforest Action Group/Lea Valley EF! who wanted proper membership lists and “central command” to many others who have managed to ride the wind of media attention over Timbmet and Twyford Down and who have now entered careers in Road Alert, Women’s — Environmental Network etc but have stepped down from their fiery words of direct action to much more conciliatory methods. This has been combined with an almost dictatorial control over actions, a fanatic position over nonviolence isolating and stopping those who want to get involved but refuse to be beaten up without trying to defend themselves, especially people from the local community. Fluffies have dropped to even lower depths when they promised to point out ‘disrupters’ to cops. These tactics ensure any ‘militant’ endeavour is greatly curtailed. They fail to acknowledge that in many countries, nonviolent and more forceful protest regularly go hand in hand on the same demo — it’s a matter of live and let live, unifying rather than dividing a movement.

We’ve come back to where we started, falling in with the mainstream. For those of us who have memories remember FoE central office’s attempt to prevent their local groups working with us, sending around a warning letter spreading disinformation about EF! It is not a matter of working or not cooperating with them, it is the whole issue of what their aims are and how they’re structured. Their main goal is environmental protection, not ecological and social revolution that EF! in UK originally sought. Their idea of direct action falls very short of ours, very much within the law, restricted to hand-picked ‘stunt men’ and for media purposes only — such as FoE’s pathetic performance at Twyford where Johnny Porrit chained himself to a fence and left with the cameras. Yes, work with local members as they’re usually fed up with their own organisation’s centralisation and are far more radical than their office counterparts.

This pacification has spread and infiltrated deep into the EF! network, now succumbing to the same middle class values and ethics they wanted to break free from. The movement is now dominated by student groups — the strongest centres anyway — while the other contacts are tiny, constitute in name only. Those inspired by the early actions have gone away, setting up their own camps, becoming totally autonomous and community centred, though carrying out the aims of eco-direct action. no doubt sick of EF!s capitulation.

What scares these new EF! ecocrats is change. They’re terrified that things will happen without them having any control, very much like their counterparts in FoE back in 1991. These ‘activists’ — whose faces and numbers change but whose intentions are basically the same — have failed to realise that the authorities have evolved, have learned how to deal with D-locks and chains, office occupations etc though the movement have failed to do the same. Yes, it may have involved more people and had a nice few protests and day-long blockades but where are the victories? How many road schemes have we stopped in early construction — not those affected by government turnarounds? How many woods have we stopped from destruction? What are the signs the government have given up car culture, where’s the integrated transport system? No — the fact is that Twyford is built, M11 has fallen, Solsbury Hill is under concrete, Wells Relief road has sunk its foundations, Pollok has rerouted but is still built and Skye Bridge spans Midge’s hunting ground. Will there be a 3^rd battle of Newbury or — like everywhere else — just another Road Alert! controlled picnic with imported bored middle class zippies taking control and dictating everything... The list is endless and why? All because we have failed to keep our promise to defend our Earth to the end and have isolated those from working class communities getting fully active in our campaigns. It is these people who usually get the brunt of a road scheme, toxic waste plant etc. We have failed to tap their anger because EF! does not know how to communicate with these people.

EF! has failed to respond to this and continues to pursue the lobbyist methods of other groups while trying to fool people by merchandising the monkeywrench and and words of no compromise. All sorts of trinkets are sold that have no relation to what is professed. EF! forgets its Brighton 1992 agreement to accept and publicise the Earth Liberation Front as its underground wing, instead using every means possible to avoid acknowledging its existence. Actions that put ecoteurs liberty in jeopardy are usually shoved down into some dark column of the Action Update if they’re published at all. They’ve stooped so low as to take ELF’s name off Earth Night circulars and some have even publically declared it “does not exist”, such as Roger Gegen of Reclaim The Streets in a press release defending the Freedom Network from MI5 defamations printed in the Sun by distancing it from the ‘violent’ ALF, ELF, GA etc. No doubt he’s worried about a brake on fundraising and attracting the ‘wrong sort of people’ — the smell of elitist nest feathering and a fear that EF! may get a bad reputation. Are we seeing another Greenpeace in infancy (Paul Watson certainly saw that sellout) with its own set of media presentable leaders such as self-styled EF! spokesperson George Monbiot, who cries for land reform but never takes any back? We remember his past dismay and criticism at criminal damage and direct action at Timbmet, even at EF! itself. Like so many of his kind, he is nothing but a bangwagoner whose circle of friends include the hierarchy of FoE and Guardian Green news pimp and Small World partner John Vidal, and whose credentials and class fit perfectly with his own.

Sucking up to the likes of FoE and Greenpeace will only further restrict imaginative actions. EF! will be reliant and dependent on these large organizations for funding and the legal restrictions that go along with them. They are not about to risk their respectibility, the fear of losing all those membership funds is too much to bear. For this reason, it is now to call it quits. We have had enough of this sell out. It is time for EF! to dissolve and those who still want to defend the planet to go their own way and give substance to their rhetoric. Realise it’s time to take on new tactics, involve those who the careerist deem too violent or militant to be associated with, a movement with closer links with animal liberation, anti-fascists, and is prepared to use the same means to achieve their ends. Let us support ELF actions, not ignore them. We need an underground as much as a surface movement. If careerist fools awant to join the mainstream, let them do it — but damn them if they’re going to drag the rest of us down with them. Let’s stop bickering about Deep and Social ecology, stick together and produce a solid Revolutionary Ecology movement that refuses to surrender its goals and can effectively take the State on.

Issue 40-41

Date: Mar 1996

Keywords: cities; unabomber; Newbury; Earth First.

Read here

---

Front Matter

Double Issue First Cover

Green Anarchism

Mo. 40/41 SPRNG ‘96 ■ FREE TO PRISONERS

For the destruction of Civilisation

THE ANTI-CITIES ISSUE. UNABOMBER. MOVE. NEWBURY. LEEDS LATEST. EARTH FIRST! IS STILL DEAD.

Double Issue Second Cover

Green
Anarchist

40/41 SPRNG '96 £1
FREE TO PRISONERS

For the destruction of Civilisation

THE ANTI-CITIES ISSUE. UNABOMBER. MOVE NEWBURY LEEDS LATEST. EARTH FIRST! IS STILL DEAD.

News

BATTLE OF NEWBURY

SURROUNDED: An early attempt to trash Penn Wood ends in farce.

The battle of Newbury bypass began on 9th January with tripods around Abbey Farm, making it impossible for security to leave. Work was abandoned that day. The day after saw Horseman Coaches blockaded and forced to cancel their cdntract with Reliant. ~100 security arrived by landie and hired minibuses but the digger was stopped in Penn Wood in an hour. By Friday, the cops abandoned their neutral role and made the first 38 arrests. Contractors stopped bringing up heavy, indefensible plant and made lightening raids against unguarded woods using tree surgeons surrounded by tight cordons. Demonstrators responded by occupying trees and locking on to vehicles to stop the contractors moving on. So far 500+ have been arrested under the CJA.

Week 2 started with Reliant leaving Abbey Farm for an ex-MoD buffer at Steventon, near Harwell, Oxfordshire. Despite 100+ coming down with food poisoning, Vale of the White . Horse council couldn't shut it down as the buffer has Crown immunity, despite sordid conditions, freezing weather and John Vidal's expose, Reliant recruited 600+ new guards in the next fortnight to swarm protest by sheer weight of numbers and cordon off large area / make diversions. This, daily mass arrests by cops with all but campers bailed offsite, and declining media interest means numbers are falling at Newbury.

Week 3 saw the first eviction notices being awarded against four of the 20+ camps along the route. Campers are still on the offensive and the treehouses and Cu Chi-style tunnels at the better established ones means physically evicting each will take days. This is likely to happen last, after campers are forced onto the defensive and the rest of the route is cleared.

WHAT TO DO:

• Contact Third Battle of Newbury, PO Box 5520, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 7YW (8 01635 45544) and form your local group

• Come down one day a week every week to ensure regular numbers. Go for ‘choke points' like the entrance to Steventon depot or equipment compounds, security’s coaches &c where a few people can make a lot of difference.

• If living too far away or not on your ‘day on', hit Costain, Blackwells, Reliant or subbie targets in your area. The Berkshire Wood Elves booklet says where. Security' transport -- Ajax of Hornchurch and S & P of Sittingboume — need particular attention!

• If bailed off or not physically fit. fundraise and recruit others in your area from street stalls &c.

GAIA JOINS ELF

Jack the Roadbreaker reports: Cross head beams on the raised viaduct sections of the M4 in London are suffering from chronic corrosion. Built in the early-l970’s, salt water from the road seeps through the roadway expansion joints and into the concrete through failed neoprene seals. The concrete breaks away, revealing the structural steelwork. The extent of the damage isn't clear yet, a lot of it is internal, and they can’t even get a look at it with fibre optics. They are going to dismantle a complete support to see how far it’s gone. Just imagine all the roadworks, traffic cones and contraflows this one’s going to generate. Ha ha ha!

INTERNATIONAL EARTH NIGHTS

APRIL 1ST - 7TH 1996

"APRIL FOOLS DAY BASH"

The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) yet again calls for its annual April Fools day bash, the nights when all those who want to defend the earth come out and do their work. The "Fools" as we are termed are given a chance to seek our revenge on those who are destroying the earth and those who inhabit it. We call on a broad alliance of Animal. Earth and Human liberation, women's. anti-fascist, union/worker, revolutionary, groups. No matter what the targets, be it vivisection labs, MacDonalds, road destruction, Forest issues, live exports, habitat destruction, Fascist groups, multi-nationals anti-union bosses - let all unite as one,,, and do your worst! Let April fools be the night that the "abusers" will never forget.

The ELF calls on no injury to life, only to profit and property.

Thanet Way

Protestors are now at the last remaining defensible site. Chestfield woods.

In June 1995 the Highpoint squat fell and a WW2 bunker in August 1995. On 19th September 1995, 300 security and cops took seven cops took seven hours to remove 18 people from lock ons and tree houses.

Activists have pow retreated to Convicts Wood, just off site. Work is 11 weeks behind despite the police’s Operation Ecowarrior and 70+ arrests under the CJA. Security costs are now £4m.

Contact the Flat Oak Society 9 01227 463368

ECODEFENCE DIARY

Send your cuttings to Ecodefence, BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX.

JUNE

NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - Ecoteur smashes McDonalds window, $1,300 damage.

AUGUST

DEVON — South West Greens picket supermarkwets in both Exeter and Plymouth urging people to boycott French produce in protest against French nuclear tests. .. ' *?

FINLAND, TURKU - ELF trash dozer at roasd construction site and paint abnti-car slogans.

SEPTEMBER

SPAIN — Spanish activist hijacks

French airliner and forces it Switzerland, in nuclear tests.

BANBURY -

in Parma de Mallorca to fly to Geneva, protest against French

Anti-open cast mine

protest occupation in Michael Heseltine's garden.

GUIDE — M65 protestors leave Croxter Hill farm near Blackbum.

CELTIC ENERGY — Protests at public enquiry into open cast mine.

EARL’S COURT - 150 arrests at Reclaim The Streets mass demo against Motor Show.

CHEQUERS — Protestors unfurl huge banner against Chirac’s nuke tests during visit.

NOVEMBER

Dol' — 300 road schemes axed due to tax cuts.

NEW ZEALAND — Demonstrations against UK support for French nuclear tests; Shell stations trashed over MOSOP 9; a hunterfconservationist hijacks a Department of Consevation helicopter at gunpoint and forces flight to the mountains to protest DoC programme of dropping 1080 possumpoisoning pellets.

LONDON — Security forces on red alert over threat of environmental protests against French warships visit.

BURY — M62 relief road scrapped due to weight of local protests.

LANCASTER — Critical Mass cyclists

block city centre during rush hour.

FINLAND. KUOPIO - EVR (Finnish ALF) paintbomb Shell billboard for Earth Night. Elsewhere posh cars trashed; Shell station sloganised the day after MOSOP 9 executions.

ANGLESEY -- Environmental protests at public enquiry into A55 dual carriageway.

WALES: - Open cast protestors send earth to Welsh Office and Gummer.

OCTOBER

USA: OREGON COASTAL RANGE - Ecoteurs pour “abrasive foreign substance’’ into crankcases, radiators, fuel tanks and hydraulics of excavator, dozer, compactor, grader and water truck. All owned by Hull Oakes Logging C°.$ 150,000+damage.

GWENT — Blaneau residents object to health problem causing iron foundry.

PEMBROKE — Protests to HMIP over onmulsion bum. . ’ g

GLASGOW — Angry protestors at M74 planning meeting.

SKYE, — Newly opened bridge blockaded by locals, cars and pipers, pissed off at £4.50 toll.

BRYNHENGLWYS - Four day siege as bailiffs evict open cast tree houses. CONNAH’S QUAY - Hundreds protest at link road planning meeting.

WELSH OFFICE — Protests against Rhymney Valley development site.

ENGLAND — Greenpeace and FoE picket Shell over killing of Ken Saro- Wiwa and other MOSOP activists.

DECEMBER

WHATLEY QUARRY, SOMERSET - EF? attack ARC quarry. £100,000+ damage caused shutting it for a week. Control centre, crane, railway line and conveyer belts trashed. 50 arrests. More protests due.

BERKSHIRE: NEWBURY - Start of work on bypass delayed four days by blockaders. Surveying equipment trashed

FINLAND HELSINKI - Shell vehicle trashed and Shell station sloganised: “Earth Liberation “ Go Shell, Go Hell”; ELF redesign two car ads.

GERMANY - Shell petrol station

M66 GOES ON

Campaigners have now' musdtered to stop the next phase of the schem.e, the destruction of Daisy Nook. “

On 27th November, contractors attempted to set up a Portacabin and were met by nearly 20 people (mostly । locals) who set about obstructing work. The action continued over two days, with all access points blocked by tripods. The Portacabin was eventually smuggled in at midnight.

Activists have organised a camp at Daisy Nook. This country park'and Audershaw reservoir are both at*risk. Two of the remaining four contracts have been taken in the first phase in the Outer Manchester motorway ring. The . existing M66 from M62 and Middleton is also to be widened from four to six lanes. The companies bidding for the other two contracts are Laing, Balfour Beatty, I rafalgar House, Tarmac and Amec McAlpine.

There are actions every Friday and info stalls at Manchester, Ashton and Oldham. Camp numbers have dwindled so fresh faces are desperately needed. '

Contact 14 Eton Avenue, Oldham OL8 4HR(8 0161 627 4862)

CAR CULT

STAMP OUT MAD

RING ROAD DISEASE

The government has OKed the next £ J 7.9m section of Avon ring road which will cut through Biston Common and bulldoze along the Bristol and Bath railway path. If completed the ring road will become Bristol’s M25, causing more traffic, pollution, urban sprawl - and less public transport.

Siston Common Railway Path Public Information learn (SCRAPPIT), has published BETTAR, an 'alternative transport plan based on new bus schemes, park *n' rides, rail and cycling. It’s commissioned a recalculation of the Cost Benefit Analysis of the ring road and supports a legal challenge to it.

Contact SCRAPPIT (XC) c/o 84 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 45BB.

NUKE TESTS GO ON UNABATED

On 27th December 1995, Chirac ordered a fifth 30 kt nuke blast at Muroroa. ignoring a UN resolution demanding testing stop. How much more will the reef take? Geologists warn it’s close to cracking. Even though the French boycott is now international with wine merchants losing millions, Chirac promises more tests for February 1996.

On 17th August 1995, two days after two Greenpeace activists were detained for holding up an anti-nuke banner in Tianamen Square, Beijing, China detonated a 20 kt nuke, the second test since the signing of the Non- Proliferartion Treaty in May 1995. I his may wreck a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty currently being negotiated. China plans 4 more tests in 1996. These are for two new missiles, one for deployment in the late-1990s and the other by 2010. France has similar ideas, admitting its tests are for developing new weapons.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE ARMS TRADE

On 11 th November 1995, the 4th anniversary of the .Dili massacre of East Timorese by genocidal Indonesian invaders, twelve British Aerospace factories were occupied and bosses there citizens arrested for supplying the arms responsible. An enforcement visit arrested for trashing BAe Hawk ground attack aircraft bound for East Timor.

HELP GREENLINE

After asking readers to write letters of complaint to Ascot for hosting the MoD’s COMEX torture equipment fair, Greenline are being sued.

DONATIONS TO: Greenline, PO Box

followed , tjiis Janytoy, ₍three .women 5, Lostvyithiel, (_;orpwa(l ^22,9^,T.

Thumbs up to A30 camper Angel Koyanti who got her kit off last 17th January to protest the worship of a car at Coventry Cathedral. The Church was commemorating 100 years of the car. Angel the 14 million it’s killed since then, including her mother.

NEW ROAD WARS FOR SCOTLAND

Even though Pollok's over, opposition is still continuing over the M77 from Glasgow to Ayre — 9 0141 226 5066.

In the south of the city, Strathclyde Regional Council proposes a £200m extension of the M74 which will expose toxic land. Like Pollok, opposition seems set to be huge and heavy. 80141 424 1797. Further up the M74, Borders Upgrade were firied. £40,000 for polluting local rivers.

DIARY OF COMMUNITY RESISTANCE

SEPTEMBER

9: FRIARTON PRISON - Three escape from Scottish jail. Prison screws' suicides rising: Il in 1994.

9: KNIGHTSBRIDGE — CND protests outside French Embassy over nuke tests.

II: PAISLEY — Mad axe-Tory Allan Stewart fined a derisory £100.

11: LONDON — Stephen Lawrence private murder prosecution brought. Racist Crown Prosecution Service bitterly criticised by family.

13: BOWLAND - Ramblers protest access restrictions.

13: ROCHDALE - Villagers block entrance at reopening of Lane Head quarry. 3 arrests.

16: NEWBRIDGE - Pharmacist Alan Sharpe fined £550 for undercutting NHS prescription charges.

18: KINGS LYNN - Home Office tagging trial fails when victim jailed for breaking curfew.

19: USA: Unabomber manifesto published in Washington Post.

oppressive.

4: ISRAEL — Mordecai Vanunu on hunger strike after 9 years solitary confinement.

6: BRIGHTLINGSEA - Two cops injured during ruck with protestors. Missiles thrown and booby trapped barricades block road.

7: KIRKDALE — Huge gasmain explosion during 8th week of Liverpool firefighters strike.

8: STRATFORD ON AVON - Tory turncoat joins the Tonys. Alan Howarth MP defects to Labour, pissing-off Tories on eve of party conference.

9: LONDON — Protests outside UAE embassy over Sarah Ballabagan execution threat.

10: ARIZONA — Train derailed by terrorists.

11: LIVERPOOL — Sacked dockers picket at dock gates.

12: FRANCE — 5 million public sector workers on one-day general strike against cuts.

13: BURNLEY - TUC ‘Peoples March’ in favour of welfare state, destination eviction. 200 protestors see off bailiffs.

18: ABERDARE — Residents protest against Tescos hypermarket development.

19: OFFSMEG issues ritual

denunciation of smug, greedy, rich bastard water companies while Yorkshire Water (even less popular than BN FL!) extends water ban to Leeds.

20: SRI LANKA - Tamil Tigers blow up oil refineries. Hundreds injured, thousands evacuated. BBC correspondant shot in fighting.

21: NOTTINGHAM - Armed police fired on during security van robbery. 3 arrests.

22: LONDON — Jewish women picket chief rabbi over draconian divorce laws.

22: LONDON — Kingsley Amis, misogynist blimp author, croaks.

22: CHORLEY — Protest march and rally against education cuts.

23: MILTON KEYNES - 4 prisoners in HMP Woodhill siege.

24: LONDON — RMT strike vote. Underground workers sure to be sold out by union bureaucrats (yet again).

tactics mean agency running costs are eight times amount it collects.

2: NEW ZEALAND — Liz Windsor jeered.

3: PETERBOROUGH - Cop suffers whiplash injuries when rammed during car chase.

4: MERSEYSIDE — Firefighters strike on Bonfire Night!

5: ISRAEL — PM Itzak Rabin assassinated by fundie settler.

5: CANADA -- knifeman breaks into EM’s house.

6: WALES — Carry On Fiddling! White collar fraud said to cost Welsh business £40m/year.

6: HEATHROW — Luggage handlers strike hits flights.

7: FRANCE -- Cabinet resign in ongoing French political meltdown

8: LIVERPOOL -- Port entrance blocked by sacked dockers.

10: HASTINGS — 16 newly privatised railway carriages vandalised causing rail chaos.

11: HARARE — Riots .over police shooting of human rights activists.

Send your cuttings to Lancaster Bomber c/o BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX

12: SHROPSHIRE -- Hostage crisis as Bridges Centre bail hostel besieged by armed police.

13: WOLVERHAMPTON - Fans protest against football defeats.

14: DEWSBURY -- protests at start of Yorkshire Water’s drought order enquiry. MPs call for State of Emergency.

15: USA -- Federal government officials sent home due to overspend, but world goes on without them. Did anybody notice they weren't there?

16: LIVERPOOL - Yet another firefighters strike.

17: FORD — unions turn down 4% pay offer demanding two hour working week reduction. Strike spreads.

18: BRADFORD - whole block ot buildings torched in firebomb attack.

19: FULL SUTTON — prison riot.

18: ATHENS - Five days of prison

21: STRATHCLYDE — Asian stuident caught flyposting and viciously assaulted by cops awarded £4,000 damages after suing racist Strathclyde police.

22: HIGH COURT — Live exporter Roger Mills fails to ban 14 protestors from Brightlingsea.

23: PRESTON — Anti-landmine protest.

24: NATIONWIDE - 100 protests on Open Britain Day as ramblers take to restricted footpaths.

26: LONDON — Protest outside Department of Health over Berkshire health rationing.

29: LIVERPOOL - Docker's strike escalates due to management dirty tricks.

30: FALKIRK - College lecturers protest against redundancies.

30: FRANCE - Thousands demonstrate against nuke tests in Paris and Toulouse.

30: BREMEN - Dounreay-bound nuke waste lock-on protest.

OCTOBER

2: BRIGHTON - anti-JSA kick off at job centres, trainings school and Labour conference hotel. 31 arrests. Sanitized live Labour conference Newsnight discussion later disrupted.

3: GWENT - Blaenau residents object to health hazard irron foundry.

4: HIGH COURT - Stonehenge trespass woman doctor refuses to pay CJAfine as

Blackpool Tory Conference.

11: BLACKPOOL - teachers lobby Tory conference over funding.

12: SYDNEY - Rupert Turdoch HQ bums.

13: FLEET WOOD - Fishermen protest at Tory Euroshite.

14: BLACKPOOL - Wave of abuse and derision launched outside Tory conference hotels.

15: SWEDEN - Joe Rottblat, UK antinuke canmpaigner, wins Nobel Peace Prize.

16: BIRMINGHAM - Disabled @ction Network blocks up city centre rush hour. Traffic brought to standstill. Protests also held on rail network.

13: MANCHESTER - D@N holds public transport protest.

14: BIRMINGHAM - D@N lock on to public transport. Third in series of actions.

15: NEW YORK - US government weather equipment at La Guardia airport blown up in protest at Waco atrocity.

16: CARDIFF — Fire crews attacked by 100+ youths on Lansbury Park Estate.

17: RIPON — Stuff your tests! School headmaster sends back every 14 year old’s English test after 76% were marked incorrectly.

18: LIVERPOOL - 24 hour fire fighters strike over sackings and holiday restrictions.

25: CSA -- 55% assessments wrong says government report.

26: FORD - Workers demand 10% pay increase plus two hour working week reduction. Vauxhall also balloted.

26: LIVERPOOL - Scab workers houses daubed and smashed, unions

threat to grass.

26: PRISONS

Tumin condemns

Learmont enquiry as ‘the road to concentration camps”.

riots, four deaths.

19: WEM, SHROPSHIRE - Town hall torched. Building and mayor gutted.

20: MERSEYSIDE - More firefighters' strikes announced.

20. VAUXHALL - 4:1 majority vote for strike action turning down 3.5% pay offer

22: HOLTSFIELD - resists bailiff eviction with follow-up protests outside

Elitestone offices.

22: SCOTLAND - Postal strike in

28: QUEBEC/LONDRES - DJ makes spoof phone call to Liz Windsor in pisstake run-up to Quebec seperatist referendum. “One is not amused...” ' . ....

28: LIVERPOOL - TUC rally in ^24: FRANCE - Public sector strike with support of dockers. Meanwhile stacked ^,ndrc^^{es an}^ protests

24: SCOTLAND — Postal sector strike

Edinburgh and Glasgow. 3 million letters pile up.

23: LONDON - Student grants protest.

containers used as 25' tall shield to prevent ‘missiles’ raining down on scab port workers.

28: MANCHESTER - 7,000 attend TUC anti-racism rally.

30: PRESTON - Prison hostage crisis.

31: CANADA - Separation fails by 0.4% of vote. Canadian flag burned and ‘No’ campaign HQ torched.

stalled. Postal workers attack scabs in Edinburgh. 12 million letters now piled up.

ARGENTINA

Di Windsor

heckled during state visit.

24: NOTTINGHAM - 3,000 protest education cuts and 900 teacher sackings.

LIVERPOOL

Yet another

NOVEMBER

I: LIVERPOOL - Another firefighter’s strike.

I: DOVER — Publicans demo against Euro-booze undercutting.

18: GOWER - Holtsfield protsts against I: CSA

protests and obstruction

firefighters' strike

25: ABERDEEN — Scottish postal strike spreads northwards.

25: STOKE ON TRENT - Children In Need pub spectacular charity event fumigated with CS

25; WEST BRIDGEFORD - More education protests by 1,500 head teachers at Fatty Clarke's constituency office.

25: FRANCE — Railstrike over welfare cuts hits Eurostar trains.

25: DOVER — 4 arested during live exports protest.

26: GREAT YARMOUTH - 86 arrested in CJA rave suppression after Leah Betts death. State reveals the skull behind the mask yet again.

26: NIAROBI —Brit diplomat shot.

26: NOTTINGHAM — More education protests.

26: LIVERPOOL - Yet another fire strike

27: YEOVIL - Paddy Ashdown threatened by drunk with knife. Unfortunately unharmed.

28: BRYN MAWR - Thosands cut off as phone exchange torched.

29: FRANCE — More transport chaos and public sector strikes. - .

30: RHYLL —. armed cops surround suicide bomb threat man.

31: DSS - Job Centre staff strike...

DECEMBER

1: TOWN HALLS — public sector workers demand £4.15/hour minimum wage while Tories wheedle through workfair plans . ’

2: FRANCE — Rail and public sector strikes against ‘Thatcherite' welfare policies. Commuters protest, government in crisis.

5: SKELMERSDALE - delph Side, fifth school torched

5: FRANCE — ■ More strikes and protests. 160,000 demonstrate in Paris.

6: VAUXHAUL — workers start

mass default on repayments.

14: FRANCE — Strike completely shuts down centre of Paris’

15: RAILWAYS - Privatisation thrown into legal disarray over challenge in court by Save Our Railways. .

16: FRANCE - Yet another firefighters' strike while Manchester ambulance crews threaten walkout.

17: BARLEY - Methodist church protests against homelessness.

18: MID-GLAMORGAN - 40,000 homes suffer electricity cut-off after insulators sabotaged.

19: LEEDS — Reclaim the streets demo.

16: FRANCE - Eurostar trains blocked by strikers.

16: GLASGOW — Burger King forced to pay £ 100m compensation to underpaid employees.

16: USA — Yet another Federal government shut-down. 250,000 workers sent home by budget deadlock.

19: FRANCE -- more mass action protests.

20: BELGIUM - Rail and airline strikes. -

21: MIDDLESBOROUGH - Capitalist front man and Rotary Club santa Clause attacked with bricks and bottles.

22: SHEFFIELD - Three week long library cuts protest occupation by pensioners eviction notice served by court.

23: BLACKPOOL - Cop rapist jailed for a year.

24: MANCHESTER - Low pay unit targets scrooge bosses after Darwen company Starlight Garments exposed for paying 62p an hour.

Oklahoma-style office bomb attempt fails to detonate.

29: DEVON — Emma Nicholson, Tory MP, defects to Liberals in ongoing Tory political meltdown.

JANUARY

3: KINGS HEATH -- Gang smashes two Birmingham cops with iron bars and sledge hammers.

4: BEXLEYHEATH- 5 injured by multiple stabbings in Job Centre

5: ELLESMERE PORT — Vauxhaul workers ballot rejects 4% pay offer plus one hour reduction in week — sending Bank of England supremo “Steady Eddie' into a flap.

6: WEST LONDON - Rocklet launchers, explosives and guns found during police raid

7: GLASGOW — Royal Geographical Society meeting with Shell Nigeria could lead to ballot of 13,000 worldwide members

6: BRADFORD — Cops get armoured vests after Lisa Sharpe WPc stabbed in face during incident

8: KEIGHLEY — Tribunal declares allwomen Labour Party shortlists illegal in setback to equal opportunities.

11: LIVERPOOL — Princess Anne stalker arrested -

12: LLANDEILO — Tipi residents defy council eviction notices

12: NEWCASTLE - Pat Fisher of Newcastle women's refuge objects to Yellow M rape’ anti-smoking cinema ad campaign

KEN SARO-WIWA KILLED

On 10th November, Ken Saro-Wiwa and

I eight fellow Ogoni environmental I I human rights activists colleagues were ‘hanged by the Abacha regime with at least the tacit consent of Shell oil. Ail nine had been tortured and starved for days prior to their murder and because of faulty equipment, it took five attempts to finally hang Saro-Wiwa.

In brave defiance of the regime's riot troops and death squads, thousands of Ogoni openly wept and protested Ken Saro-Wiwa's death as his body was unceremoniously dumped in a Port Harcourt cemetary. Troops now occupy his native Ogoniland. 17 other activists await execution for being part of MOSOP, the grassrots democratic move-ment against corporate greed and state terror in Nigeria.

Shell Oil is one of the most bloated business behemoths in the world. Since 1958, Shell has pumped nearly £30 billion worth of crude oil from out of a tiny 400 square mile region of southeastern Nigeria inhabited by 500,000 Ogoni people. Though it formaly left Ogoniland in 1993; Shell remains Nigeria’s largest foreign investor, splitting its million barrels a day output with state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum. The hard currency earned through oil exports goes into Abacha’s warchest.

The Ogoni people have had to endure an industrial action. Talks stalled. :

7: ORLY — riots by airline workers as

French strike spreads. More unrest in eastern France as miners riot.

8: DJAKARTA — Embassy protests on 20th anniversary of genocidal invasion of East Timor.

8. ELLESMERE PORT - Vauxhaul strike.

8: CHANNEL TUNNEL - Traffic disrupted by French strikes, thousands of cars held up.

8: YORK — OutRage protests against Archbishop of York ’s enthronement.

8: WELSH OFFICE - 600 bureaucrats laid off from occupation government offices

9: LIVERPOOL - 35% funding cuts announced Firefighters’ strike.

10: BORDEAUX - 60,000 protest as part of ongoing strike.

11: MANCHESTER - Ambulance union bureaucraps repudiate strike ballot

11: HINKLEY/SIZEWELL - Nuke power stations cancelled.

12: FORD - ballot rejects 4% pay offer.

13: CHANNEL TUNNEL - Blocked by French strikers on best day of strife yet.

14: CARDIFF - Parents and teachers protest opposition to Tory David Lightbum’s nursery school vouchers wheeze...

15: BRIXTON — Demo against Wayne Douglas’s death in police custody. Shops looted, cars burned, at leasdt ten cops and rioters hospitalised. Shots fired at police station &c

16: LONDON — Teacher unions protest school insecurity after fatal stabbing of Maida Vale headmaster Phillip Lawrence. '

14: BANKS — No bank willing to take

21. GERMANY — Protests and vigil against repatriation of Bosnian refugees. 22: CORNWALL - Fishermen vow to cheat Euroquota. '

22. MANCHESTER / HULL - Railway staff take industrial action.

22: GLAMORGAN -- Ammo heist from Tufnells Parcel van

22: KNIFE AMNESTY - one blunt penknife and rustuy WWI bayonet handed in.

23: POLAND - demo against new communist prime minister.

24: YORKSHIRE WATER - Top level

DEATHWISH LAWYER

purges as Water chairman takes Obvious masons Hanslip Ward & Co. of retirement. Company now even less Hill Crest, 193 Main Road, Do vercourt, popular than BNFL. Harwich. Essex CO12 3PQ (8 01233

26: AUSTRALIA — Bondi Beach: 508745) are sending unilluminating 30,000 rioters pelt cops with bottles and threats to Open Eye ordering them to stones. apologise for blowing the whistle on

29: NEVADA — Two charged after turquoise eco-fascist David Icke

RETURN TO THE 1970’S?

Rudolf Docker reports: There’s been a rise in union militancy with both Ford and Vauxhall workers rejecting pay offers and calling for working week reductions. Liverpool’s also been hit with a firefighters strike. In some ways all this sounds like a return to the 1970’s, but one particular dispute, the Liverpool Dock strike has been characterised by loadsa New Realism as workers with their backs to the wall are starting to fight back.

In September the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board tried to casualise dock wooers and reduct wages. 500 dockers struck and then were sacked by the board. Their jobs were advertised but only around a thousand potential scabs applied (only two per job) in a city where each job vacancy normally attracts hundreds of applicants.

At the end of September, the strike escalated when scabs started to be bussed in from outside. Scabs living inside the ‘pool have had to watch their backs with paint daubmgs, bricks thrown through their windows and cars torched A barrier of containers has had to be set up to prevent “missiles” being thrown into the ship unloading area. Then in early Jabnuaty a sniper fired at scabs.

Naturally the trade unions have condemned the violence and threatened to shop th we nasty extremists, but the workers themselves know how every time they have been sold out by Trade Union bureaucrats, and know that only New Realism can offer them any chance of winning this dispute.

up privatised student loans scheme in face of threairned student boycott and

endless nightmare of petroleum contamination and State persecution. From 1982-92, Shell Oil spilled over 1.6m gallons of oil from its Nigerian operations, polluting crops and rivers. Gas flares are everywhere, belching fumes that sicken people and exterminate wildlife. Toxic waste pits and sludge ponds strewn across the delta have poisoned coastal mangroves and jeopardised the livelihood of subsistance fishing communities. Some observers have ironically dubbed Ogoniland the Drilling Fields.

Popular resistance began to grow. By January 1993, 300,000+ people attended a nonviolent demo organised by Saro- Wiwa and the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) against Shell's deadly presence. On 30th April 1993, when - 10,000 villagers gathered to protest laying of more pipelines across newly planted fields, Nigerin troops opened fire and killed 10 people. A subsequent slash and bum by the Abacha regime’s death squads left 30 villages destroyed and hundreds of people dead.

In a 1993 interview to the Wall Street Journal,: Shell attempted to rationalise the violence by saying that “on occassions we’ve been compelled to ask for assistance from the government’’. A far less .subtle 12th May 1994 internal Nigerian military memo states:

Shell operation still

ssiblc

unless

ruthless military operations are undertaken

for smooth economic activities to commence

.... (we recommend] wasting operations against vocal individuals

Ken Saro-Wiwa was subsequently arrested along with others on charges of. murdennmg four pro-regime Ogoni leaders, despite being nowhere near the scene of the crime. Sentence of death you have io be sure that knee-jerk reaction fact. The international environmental

before a military tribunal was almost a won t do more harm than good and human rights community will not

foregone conclusion. As _an apparent reward to the Abacha forget and, if anything, will be out for

Not surprisingly, the heartless oil giant refused to speak on Ken’s behalf stating

that

it is not tor a commercial organisation dike Shell Oil to interfere in the legal processes of a sovereign state such as Nigeria .

In a recent ad, Sheil even argued:

. h’s easy enough to sit in our cmfortablc homes in the West, calling for sanctions and boycotts against a developing country but

SENO SHELL TO HELL MAY 1ST 1996

The Send Shell to Hell Alliance has called for an international day of action aimed at Shell. The Alliance has decided to take this action, since the Death of Ken Saro Wiwa, by the hands of the Nigerian government. Ken a committed environmentalist and human rights activist opposed the exploitation of his region, Ogoniland, by Shell, for its oil, and the repressive Nigerian Government, who tried to protects Shells interests and its own. We now call upon all ELF, Eco-terra-ist, Autonomist, and revolutionary groups to target Shell on May the 1st, doing as much damage as possible, with the aim of forcing it to shut down its operations in Ogomland, and Nigerian itself. We are fighting all multi-nationals, so lets start knocking them down one by one. NO matter if its petrol stations, Shell offices or bill-boards, lets put shell out of business.

The SSHA calls for no injury to life only loss of profits

regime for a ‘job well done’, Shell has since annunced it will be going ahead with plans for a $3.8 billion liquified natural gas operation in the Nigerian delta.

What the Nigerian government — and more so Shell - must remember is that many people have long memories and that the “harm” has been done, the a -

minute Shell walked into Ogoniland, in revenge. This retribution has already begun with Shell stations and offices occupied all over the world. ELF in Finland sabotaged a spate of Shell faclities during Earth Night and now, with the announcement from the Send Shell To Hell Alliance, this sabotage is due to reach profit-threatening proportions. Kill Shell — save the Earth!

PRISONERS OF WAR

A number of eco-warriors have been jailed for their beliefs. Prisoner details - I change rapidly and may be out of date by the time you read GA.

If you'd like a prisoners list, send 50p + SAE to Earth Liberation Prisoners, Box 23, 5 High Street, Glastonbury, Somerset.

PRISONER UPDATES

EARTH LIBERATION:

Bosco Boscovich (Australia)
Helen Woodson (USA)
Jim Chambers (UK)
Maija Catts (Australia)
Milton Bom With A Tooth (Canada)
Paul S (Holland)
Stuart Edwards (UK)

MOVE:

Charles Simms Africa (USA)
Debbie Simms Africa (USA)
Delbert Orr Africa (USA)
Edward Goodman Africa (USA)
Janet Holloway Africa (USA)
Janine Phillips Africa (USA)
Merle Austin Africa (USA)
Michael Davis Africa (USA)
Mumia Abu Jamal (USA)
William Phillips Africa (USA)

LAND RIGHTS

David Penu (Canada)
James Pitawakwat (Canada)
Joseph Ignace (Canada)
Leonard Peltier (USA)
Randy Sam (Canada)
William Ignace (Canada)

ANIMAL LIBERATION:

Angie Hamp (UK)
Barb Trenholm (UK)
Charles Skinner (UK)
Darren Cole (UK)
Dave Callender (UK)
Dominic Peaty (UK)
Gaynor Ford (UK)
Geoff Sheppard (UK)
Gilly Peachy (UK)
Greg Avery (UK)
Gurj Ailja (UK)
Keith Mann (UK)
Erin Sieber (USA)
Michele Naar-Obed (USA)
Mordechai Vananu (Israel)
Rick Sieber (USA)
Steve Kelly (USA)
Susan Crane (USA)

ANTI-FASCIST:

Abidin Eraslan (Germany)
Charles Ryder (UK)
Fatama Balamir (Germany)
John McFeely (UK)
Karl Anacoura (UK)
Mark Gay (UK)
Memhet Ramme (Germany)
Paul Gay (UK)
Russell Wild (UK)
Sanjiv Karla (UK)
Satpal Ram (UK)
Steven Kelly (UK)

ANTI-SEXUAL ABUSE:

Carl Robinson (UK)
Gay Oakes (New Zealand)
Garfield Gabbard (UK)

ANTI-CJA RIOT:

Mark Skelly (UK)
Trefor Harris (UK)
Kirsi Kultalahti (Finland)
Neil Hansen (UK)
Mia Salli (Finland)
Michael Green (UK)
Mike Roberts (UK)
Minna Salonen (Finland)
Mel Arnold (UK)
Rod Coronado (USA)

ANTI-MILITARY:

Amy Moose (USA)
Carl Kabat (USA)

Prisoner Updates

JUNE

New Zealand ecodefender Trevor Heyes was arrested for smashing a McDonalds window. At his trial Terevor said he did it because of McDonalds' “environmental crimes”. He was fined the cost of the window.

August

Nigerian environmentalist / MOSOP activist Clement Tusima dies in custody. Erika Schriever-Abeln is sentenced rto three months inside and two years probation for two meat truck arsons in Sweden. Djurens Hamnare said the case was “a victory for direct action”.

SEPTEMBER

Unnamed Spanish anti-nuclear activist arrested after skyjacking French airliner and redirecting it to Geneva. Animal libber GeofT Sheppard given seven years for possessing a shotgun and ALF incenduary materials. Mike Roberts of anti-fascists jailed for taking part in the October 1993 anti-BNPriot in Welling. Six Native American land rights activists jailed.

OCTOBER

Anti-roads activist ‘Iggy' (Dave Hilton) temporarily remanded. Animal libber Gilly Peachy given suspended sentence and ordered to pay costs for leaving hoax device in pro-hunt hotel. Antifascist Phil de Souza and animal libbers Michelle Ratcliffe, Lise Olsen, Duncan George, Kevin Chapman and Justin Wright all released. Animal libber Laura Nicol jailed for nonpayment of fines. Mark Skelly and Trevor Harris jailed for 1994 Hyde Park anti-CJA riot.

NOVEMBER

Environmental/MOSOP activists Ken Saro-Wiwa, Barinem Kiobel, Saturday Dobee, Paul Levura, Nordu Eawo, Fwelix Nuate, Dan Gbokko, John Kpinen- and Baribor Bera judicially murdered by Abachu military dictatorship, Nigeria. Three Finnish animal libbers fined for smashing butcher s window in May. One also fined $ 1,000 for trashing furstore. Coke signs and Shell station last winter. Animal libber Darren Cole remanded for torching two live export bams. Three Swedish animal libbers arrested for torching Umea hot dog bar. Twelve WoMenwith Hill Peace Campers got off after appearing in court for obstructing a road last May. Gurj Ailja got six years after admiiting sending six JD letter bombs. Keith Mann got his 14 yeasr sentence reduced by three years. Five Oulu, Finland, animal libbers arrested for EVR activity. New Zealand hunter I conservationist nicked for anti-DoC possum poisoning hijack.

DECEMBER

Mia Salli, Minna Salonen and Kirsi Kultalahti tried in Finland for freeing 650 foxes from fur farms. ALF press officer Robin Webb tried for passing press release to media -- trial collapses’ Dominic Peaty remanded for trashing MAFF badger murderer's property. Animal libber Alan Barnard jailed for non-payment of fines. Maija Catts sentenced for PPF firebombing of French Embassy in Perth, Australia. Animal libbwers Gilly Peachy and Gaynor Ford remanded for arson — Sandra White bailed.

HELEN JOHN JAILED AGAIN

Anti-nuclear Helen John was sent down for three months last 17th October 1995 on three counts of criminal damage and thieving a hammer.

This related to the damage she did to Nirex subcontractors digging test holes near Wastwater. She and three colleagues visited the Nirex site last summer to wam workers about the high radiation levels they were dealing with. Helen found time to hammer in headlights and windows of some test equipment.

[Source. WoMen with Hill Women's Peace Camp Newsletter]

HELEN WOODSON

A former US Ploughshare doing 164 years for controversial actions in 1993 against mone, corporate greed and the destruction of the environment. Contact

Diary of Animal Liberation

January

BELGIUM — Mass demo against live exports broken up by riot cops.

DENMARK: COPENHAGEN

Anarchists trash McDonalds

SWEDEN: JONKOPING -- Fur shop torched

SWEDEN: GOTHENBURG - Militant Vegans (MV) attempt arson on meat and fish vehicles; animal libbers open acetylene cylinders in slaughterhouse;

** ■ <- lAi K

10 foxes. 2 wolves. 13 lynx and some owls freed from Froso zoo.

USA: HENRIETTA - ALF Rochester Cell torch two Conti (meat) Packing Plant trucks, one painted “We’re just getting warmed up”.

USA? SAN FRANCISCO - ALF Stockton Unit glue Home Fine Sausages US: SYRACUSE — ALF sioganise NY Eastern Milk Producers; Georgio s Furs paint-bombed and Mazzye’s Meats smashed.

US: VIRGINIA BEACH - ALF cause $4,000 damasge smashing vehicle fur store; smash windows of fur store and McDonalds; break two windows at fur store; smash and sloganise fur store and butchers; glue, sioganise and smash two windows of .hunting shop and spraypaint fur store; and glue five fur stores, paintbomb a sixth, paintbomb a seventh s sign, and glue, paintbomb and smash windows of three more, redesign fur factory sign, glue L’Oreal and paint anti-y iv slogans on studio, and glue and sloganise hunting shop.

FINLAND: KUOPIO - EVR glue, smash and sloganise four fur stores and meat factory — ‘EVR . ‘Mortuary ’, ‘Fur Is Dead’. Fast food outlet sloganised and hunting shop glued; smash five windows at university' leaving ‘stop the torture’ and ‘EVR* slogans behind; then smash uni windows again, leaving ‘Sadists* and ‘EVR* slogans.

FINLAND: MIKKELI - EVR sloganise and glue leather shop; and later glue and sloganise butchers and redesign fur store ad" |

SPAIN: TENERIFE - Bom Free Foundation rescue two lions from pub

Greenayvay MP calls for JD to be outlayved under the Prevention of Teirorism Act. * " ⁷

SUSSEX: BRIGHTON - Two McDonalds and tyvo shops sponsoring animal abuse fair glued.

FINLAND: HELSINKI - EVR redesign McDonalds sign, smash sign and ten yvindows at tyvo others, and smash windows of three fur stores and a butchers; later ten fur stores smashed and another McDonalds trashed; later butchers spraypainted and Valios | (biggest Finnish milk producer) discovers vegan slogans all over its icecream bars FINLAND: KUOPIO - EVR smash windows of four fur stores and a meat factory, slaughterhouse sloganised and its vehicles trashed, and a milk truck has its refrigeration un it turned off; later EVR glue butchers and smash five window's and a photocopier. Three arrests.

FINLAND: VAASA COUNTY - 650 . foxes freed from four fur farms in a two- night period. Three young women from Webbs Poultry Products; hoax bomb left under vehicle of Paul Doyvsett. Garetmar Kennels oyvner; Wickham Lab’s owner, William Cartmell’s car bloyvn up in its garage. ALF paint-strippered it three times in as many months before its explosive demise; ALF torch empty' stable at Torbay Farm lab animal suppliers; tyveseldown Point to Point horse race targeted.

KENT — Three hoax letter bombs sent to John Carter in two dats.

LONDON — Activists disrupt filming of McDonalds commercial; Sea Sabs chain themselves to Norwegian Embassy against whale slaughter

MEON VALLEY — Hoax bomb in Bucks Head, blood junky pub.

SOMERSET — Justice Department (JD) send letterbomb to William Waldergrave, MAFF minister and live exports farmer. - - -

WALSALL — Ex-slaughterman Victor Golding and colleagues free 15 cows from Harlescott abattoir. When arrested. Golding said he was ALF but was

windows, slashing tyres, sloganising and destroying central cooling system at Central Meats & Packing.

FEBRUARY

NORTHAMPTON — Arson attempt at Padbury’s haulage. Great Billig. Padbury involved in live exports.

MORI — ⁷0% in UK oppose hunting.

SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM - Djurens Hamnare (DH) sloganise and etch three fur shops, two meat shops and a hot dog bar in memory of Gill Phipps. Ad banner alscf destroyed; DH sloganise -Burger King with red paint.

US: SAN FRANCISCO - ALF Stockton Unit etch glass doors of Robert's Furs for third time.

US: SYRACUSE — ALF sloganise and paint bomb Georgio s Furs.

March

LONDON — Sir Stephen Mitchell, the

High Court judge who sentenced Keith Mann, recieves death threats:

It is ironic in a country which has abolished the death penalty that you have effectively signed your own death warrant

FINLAND: MIKKELI - Elianten Vapautus Rintama (EVR) smash two windows of fur store. 2nd fur store had windows spraypainted

FINLAND KUOPIO - EVR glue two fur stores. . k J ■ >; <

FINLAND: HELSINKI - EVR glue and utchers

SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM - DH sloganist and etch Skansen zoo.

SWEDEN: UMEA — Animal libbers trash and smash hot dog bar and leather store.

April

DEVON - Wildlife & Wetlands Trust ban Tiverton Staghounds from Kings Nympton Park.

LYNDHURST, HAMPSHIRE - Sabs occupy roof of Forestry Commission HQ. 4 arrested for criminal damage to it. FINLAND JOENSUU - EVR block toilets and trash McDonalds; and later slogamse, glue and -smash windows of fur store * k

FINLAND HELSINKI - EVR glue four fur stores; smash eight windows ot

DIARY OF ANIMAL LIBERATION

Dedicated to Mia & Minna in Finland

Send your cuttings to BM-HEAL, London WC1N 3XX.

For further information: ALF Supporters Group, BM Box 1160, London WCIN 3XX: Arkangel.

BM Box 9240, London …

SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM - DH torch Soina Korv meat truck; Djurens Befrielse Front (DBF) spraypainrt meat shop

SWEDEN: GOTHENBURG - Animal libbers blow up hot dog bar.

US: MINNEAPOLIS - ALF paintbomb Crown fur ranch suppliers and glue and sloganise Brotherson’s Meats, Johnson Meat Company, Finer Meat and Ribnick Furs.

US: -SYRACUSE - ALF incenduary causes $6,000 damage at Oneanta Beef Company

May

CHINA: HAINAN ISLAND - Food stall owner fatally bitten by-two snakes he was beheading.

CZECH REPUBLIC: PRAGUE - 200 not against McDonalds. It suffers £7,500 damage

ESSEX - Live exporter Roger Mills’s landrover trasged a third time.

KENT, DOVER — Animal libbers storm resturant serving veal, ALF daubed another hours earlier

LONDON, BUCKINGHAM PALACE - - JD send razor to blood junky and all- round posh prat Charles Wjndsur .

LONDON, PARLIAMENT -

arrested. Kirsi Kuhalahti grassing up the other two to get her own charges dropped.

FINLAND: LAHTI - EVR smash three window's of a McDonalds and paint ‘EVR’on its wall.

EDINBURGH - Stasff at Roslin Institute (Government genetix lab) warned against ALF and JD

SWEDEN: UMEA - 20 hunting platforms trashed and sloganised; vivisector’s home windows smashed; two hot dog bars smashed; leather furniture store smashed, van destroyed and slogans painted; two leather shops and hot dog bar smashed.

US; SYRACUSE - ALF smash and sloganise Liehs <fc Steigerwald Meats, Honey baked Hams and, Eastern Milk Producers, the latter also having its air

conditioning sabotaged.

June

BEDFORDSHIRE - Sonya Egan, landlady of the Cock, Broom, stops serving crocodile after ALF warning. Tim Webb oi Jontis Brasserie, Ampthill, warned not to serve ostrich.

DEV EON - Live export tanner Wilf Walters has farm decked in ribbons and released without charge as cops didn’t belie

sloganised. BEDFORDSHIRE - Because Tim

John * HAMPSHIRE 7- ALF free five chickens Webb vvouldn’t (ajte th? ALf ’s warning

FINLAND: HELSINKI - Fur store glued, another has windows broken; later EVR paint appropriate slogans on butchers and ice-cream stand. This latter aertion in solidarioty with the May arrestees. .

FINLAND: KUOPIO - EVER paint meat office and fur store.

FINLAND: HAME COUNTY - EVR trash seven hunting platforms.

FINLAND: OULU — EVR suspected of freeing fur farm animals.

NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - 50 animal libbers storm McDonalds; later, one arrested for $1,300 damage to McDonalds window.

NEW ZEALAND: LEVIN - ALF smash KFC windows and leave ‘Kentucky Fried Corpse and ‘Smash Factory Farming slogans.

NEW ZEALAND: PALMERSTON NORTH — ‘McShit painted on three McDonalds signs.

SWEDEN: UPPSALA - Meat vehicle torched — slogans; Murderers’, ‘Meat is Murder’, Nazi’.

not to serve ostrich, Jontis Bistro suffered £1,000 damage.

sm«.

BERKSHIRE - JD send razor to Thames Valley Eggs.

CAMBRIDGE — JD send razor to V Harrison, Interfauna.

CORNWALL — JD send razor to Ian Hodge, bloodsports equipment supplier. DEVON -- JD send razor to Jeran Indian, calf exporter and Waterloo Cup sponsor..-

GOSPORT — Fish & chip shop, Littlewoods and two cancer fraud shops smashed. .

HAMPSHIRE -- Windows broken at homes of David Walker and Paddy Edwards, Wickham Lab scum; later JD send razors to Peter Lloyd MP (hunter), William Cartmell. Paddy Edwartds and Chris Bishop (all of Wickham labs), Croften Manor Farm (allow circuses on their land), Froxfield Farms (lab animal supplier), Paul and Deborah Dowsett and Nicola Scarr (all Garetmar Kennels), Stonegate Farm Eggs, Peter and Caroline Humphries, and Curtis Thompson (all of H&H hunt), Kevin Coker (hunt terrier thug) and Chitty Group slaughterhouse.

HULL -- JD send razors to C Smales, Farose supplier.

HUNTINGDON — JD send razor to Campbell Farms Ltd., part of Interfauna. IPSWICH — JD send razor to David Barnes, blood-junky solicitor.

KENT — JD send razor to Knights, another blood junky solicitors.

KETTERING -- JD send razor to Richard Otley, live exporter. .

LANCASHIRE — JD send razor to Clin Sheddon, BASC

LONDON - JD send razors to Countryside Business (bloodsport sponsors), J Taylor of Bookers (Farose outlet) and Lord Donahue (Labour blood junky); ALF shoot out windows of Imperial Cancer Research shops in Richmond and Twickenham. ICR shops in Barnes and Chiswick also glued and smashed.

OXFORD - JD send razors to David Muir (live exporter). Prof P J Morris (viv) and Penny Mortimer (Leave Country Sports Alone)

SOMERSET - JD send razor to Richard Coates (live exporter), John Dryden (BASC) and Willie Walderegrave (see above). -

SUSSEX — JD send razors to Don Barrett (Wyerh lab), Alan Revell (live exports agent), N Fawcett (hunter) and Philip Lacey (Shoreham port manager).

SUSSEX, BRIGHTON - ALF paintstripper five Brightobn Uni minibuses (twice!) to protest vivisection there; butchers van paintstrippered and nine animal abuse shops glued; four nights later, two more vans paintstrippered; next night, butchers glued

SUSSEX — Small terrier bitch used for breeding freed from Hursley & Hambledon hunt kennels.

YORKSHIRE - JD send razor to Geoffrey Ball, live exporter

WARWICKSHIRE - JD send razor to Christopher Barrett-Jolly, ex-live exporter responsible for Jill Phipp s death.

WILTSHIRE, NEWTON TONY - Foxhound pups rescued from hunt kennel. Cops arrest one rehomer.

WOODRIDGE - JD send razor to Roger Mills, live exporter.

FINLAND: TURKU - EVR sloganise - viv lab and glue four fur stores.

FINLAND: HELSINKI - Fur store’s window smashed.

FRANCE: St GERMAIN - JD send razor to Joy Jackson, Interfauna SARL. IRELAND — JD send razor to G Desmond, general secretary of World Greyhound Racing Federation.

NEW ZEALAND: AUCKLAND - ALF glue butchers and fishmongers on ponsonby Road.

NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - ALF trash butchers .

NEW ZEALAND: WELLINGTON - ALF glue and paintbomb KFC on Cambridge Terrace; later smash front window of Charcoal Chicken, Cuba Street.

NORTHERN IRELAND - JD send razor to Michael McKeekin, BASC; hoax bomb sent to Crossgar live export farmer Sam Smith.

POLAND: BIALYSTOCK - AntiMcDonalds posters across city. Mass demo against circus.

POLAND: HAJOWKA - punks throwing stones and mollies attack circus.

POLAND: POZNAN - McDonalds styinkbombed.

SCOTLAND: MUSSELBURGH - JD send razor to Inversek Research.

SPAIN — Bull gores four during ‘bull run' festival.

SWEDEN: UMEA - Junk food bar smashed three times. Leather sop smashed twice.

August

CANADA:BURLINGTON - Two animal lib women trick their way into house and rescue two animals being tortured inside.

CANADA: VANCOUVER - ALF smash six Starbucks coffee shops.

CANADA: VICTORIA - ALF smash and sloganise Starbuck coffee shop: “Stop supporting the death of animals or it will get worse!”

BOLTON — ALF redesign McDonalds sign.

HAMPSHIRE: Wickham Labs’ Paddv Edwards pelted with water and bottle;. Garetmar Kennel’s Paul Dowsett subject of flyposted hate campaign; windows broken at Torbay Farm and Gartetmar Kennels; Torbay Farms ad sign destroyed during candlelit vigil; ALF redesign Marwell Zoo signs; lab animal supplier David Walker has his home’s windows smashed as he cowered in back garden; two arrested for £2,000 damage to Wickham Labs including sloganising, gluing locks, damaging signs and vehicles and overturning a wheelie bin. HMP LINCOLN — JD prisoner Guri Aujla organises campaign in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison.

HMP HOLLOWAY - 300 cons sign animal lib prisoner Barbara Threnholm's petition for Mumia.

SUSSEX — ALF liberate four-month old Jack Russell terrier from home of joint master of East Sussex & Romney Marsh foxhunt. .

CHANNEL 4 - Pro-ALF Angels of Mercy documentry about Keith Mann shown.

FINLAND: HAMEENLINNA - EVR etch and glue fur store.

FINLAND: TURKU - EVR spraypaint fur store

FINLAND: OULO — Fur srtores" windows smashed. ,

FrNLAND! HELSINKI - EVR/smash.

paint and glue fur stores; ten more fur roof torched.

750,000 Krona

stores glued and an 11 th loses two windows; lastl;y, EVR smash two windows of another fur store.

NEW ZEALAND: WELLINGTON - ALF glue town, hall where viv conference was to be held; later 15 masked animal libbers gatecrashed viv’s dinner at Skyline resturant.

NEW ZEALAND: CHRISTCHURCH - Two National Banks on Columbo Street closed through Daffodil Day (Cancer Society flag day) bomb hoaxes; two McDonalds sloganised..

NEW ZEALAND: AUCKLAND - ALF paint zoo; viv has home painted (‘Bruce Baguley butchers babies') and Cancer . -Society banner detoumed on Daffodil

Day; and Cancer Society offices and med school sloganised (‘viviSICKtion", ‘ALF’).

SLOVAKIA: BRATISLAVA - Six HYKO (turkey producers) ad signs trashed. Liska furshop sloganised. Two butchers glued.

SWEDEN: UMEA - Burger bar smashed and torched for third time.

SEPTEMBER

CANADA: ONTARIO - ALF sloganise Sutton Arena just before furriers conference

DEVON -- MAFF live exports vet harassed by anonymous calls.

EAST ANGLIA, REDD1TCH - Youths

torch joyrided car, taking Clarkes fishing tackle distributor with them.

HAMPSHIRE — ALF glue and paint Wickham labs; bomb hoax at Garetmar ends in controlled explosion; nonelectrical incenduary involving candle, meths and fire lighters found at home of New Forest Foxhounds' Peter Barfott. HMP NEW HALL - ALF prisoner Angie Hamp and lifers save budgie and cockertiel from negligent con. Cockertiel has died but Tinkerbell the budgie is recovering.

THE SOUTH — Hunt Retribution Squad (HRS) trashes inside pages of hunt zines in shops.

FINLAND — EVR frees pheasants from bloodsports farm.

FINLAND: HELSINKI - EVR trash fur stores (“major vandalism attack "); on International Anti-Gillette Day. EVR sloganise Gillette HQ and subsiduaries, Braun and- Oreal-B: “Vivisection is Murder ", “Elainten Vapauus Rintama fights ", “Gillette has blood on its hands'" and “Boycott Gillette”.

three fur styores" windows and glue truck and hot dog bar torched and meat company office. sloganised.

FINLAND: PORVOO - EVR free 80■

fur farm foxes.

NOVEMBER

FINLAND: RIIHIMAKI - EVR trash। -

FINLAND: KUPIO - EVR smasdh leather factory; smash hunt HQ windows; trash sign of tur wholesaler Hameenunna.

NEW ZEALAND: AUCKLAND - ALF sloganise medical school; sloganise and daub McDonalds toilet.

NEW ZEALAND: WELLINGTON - ALF slash tvres of two meat trucks at Prestons Meat, Hopper Street.

SLOVALIA: BRATISLAVA - Fur shop sloganised and windows smashed. I hree others daubed Billboard outside Slovak Hunting Association HQ trashe. Four hunt platforms trashed.

SPAIN: Bullrings sloganised

SWEDEN: UMEA — I wo fish company offices torched?Burger bar smashed¹ and

Dairy truck torched, damage. Leather shop

October

CANADA: CHILLIWACK, BC - ALF free 2,500 mink from Reg & Lydia Dargartz's’ fur farm asnd destroy all breeding records .

CORNWALL — Clumsy farmer contaminates thousands of pints of milk with cleaning product.

DEV.ON — Fur coat wearer in Exter slagged in street; animal libbers torched two bams at Choakford Farm. Smithaleigh (live exports); GA contact saves frogs from speeding traffic.

ESSEX/BRINGHTLINGSEA -Lorrv

J windscreen smashed during live exports mass demo

HAMPSHIRE: Jeanette McClunah of 4, the Butts. Wamford Road, Corhampton SO32 3ND 01489 877807) exposed as grass. -

NORTHAMPTON - ALF torch Genus Breeding company building, Moulton.

FINLAND: HELSINKI - Oikeuttn Elaimille stage mass demos against vivisection and fur farming; EVR break same furrier s windows three times in a week.

FINLAND: KUOPIO - On Earth Night, EVR paintbomb, sloganise and smash two fur stores (‘War continues', ‘Death store).

NEW ZEALAND. AUCKLAND - McDonalds closed on anti-McDonalds Day; ALF sloganise zoo and trash its publicity six times; trucks trashed and sloganised by ALF at Tegel chicken oplant; Inghams chicken plant sloganised; butchers bricked.

NEW ZEALAND: CHRISTCHURCH - ALF catapult three butchers.

NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - McDonalds picketed

NEW ZEALAND: WELLINGTON - Prestons Meat trucks slashed; ALF later catapult them in their depot; Charcoal Chicken resturant catapulted.

SLOVAKIA: BRATISLAVA - Slovak Hunting Association HQ daubed, its bells, mail box and billboard destroyed; three fur shops sloganised; Slovak Hunting Association lose their mailbox again; Zverex (hunt company) glued and sloganised; and fur shop sloganised and 40 Arles Circus ads destroyed.

SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM - Pais- Bruno (big fur store) shut by bomb hoax - coaches full of shoppers turned away. SWEDEN:' VANERSBORG - Meat

AUSTRALIA: MELBOURNE - ALF brick and sloganise three butchers: “Meat Is Murder ”, “This Is The ALF”. $6,100 damage.

CANADA: ALDERGROVE, BC - ALF free 5,000 mink from Rippen’s tur farm and destroy 70 years worth of breeding documents.

CANADA: LANGLEY, BC - ALF free 3,000 mink from fur farm a fortnight before they were to be killed

UK: Cartons of Ribena and press release recieved: “ -

The enclosed carton of RIBENA ha> been contaminated with 20 mis of Surgical Spirit .Hundreds qf, simile cartoiys.qf glBF^l^,

BR1GHTLINGSEA

The official report says cops wearing balaclavas and body armour, wielding long batons were “over-zealous” in torturing and hospitalising protesters.

No cops will be disciplined because it's “not possible Io identify the officers concerned” [Guardian, 26/9/95).

Besr this in mind next time you’re in touch with wharf owners Earnest and Jill Oliver of Shairwood, Colchester Road, Trendring, Clacton-on-Sea CO 16 9AA (S Weeley 830717), Gail Oliver of 15 Farmleigh Avenue, Clacton-on-Sea COI5 4QB (» Weeley 435158), Wendy Sawyer of Poplars Chase Farm, Station Road, Thorrington, Colchester CO7 8HZ (» Great Bentley 251754), and Jane Fish of Chiitem Farm, Crown Lane, Tendring, Clacton-on-Sea CO 16 OBH (S Weeley 830793).

JOYRIDERS

SCHOOL TIME EGGS RAID, SISTON, DECEMBER 1995: ALF liberate sixty battery hens from their existence as egg producing machines

which have been contaminated in the same way. have been placed onto the shelves of ALL major supermarkets in England, from Friday 3rd November.

These outlets consist of: Safeway.

Sainsburys. Tesco. CO-OP. AS DA and smaller stores such as community shops and peuol garages

This press release only relates to the small 250 mis size cartons in the following flavours Blackcurrent, Blackcurrant Light. Apple. Orange & Apricot, Strawberry , Mixed Fruits. Raspberry.

Although this product is not tested on animals, jt is produced by SmithKIme Beecham, one of the biggest animal exploiters both in this country and abroad.

People who buy RIBENA are directly funding the un-necessary infliction of pam. suffering, torture and ulumate death of

freeing 650 foxes from four fur farms in

May. . _

NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - ALF sloganise ten animal abuse premises.

USA: THURSTON COUNTY,

Divided, closing the Tate for two hours. SUSSEX -- Hunt Retribution Squad (HRS) drop rock on Crawley & Horsham huntsman's head and trash hunt vehicles; then HRS attack Barry

A car belonging to an Isle of Wight blood junky was broken into, joyridden and then torched. Hunters blame animal libbers.

[Source: Liberator] ’

WASHINGTON - ALF free 400 mink Turner of Chiddingfold Hunt and his

from ftir farm.

SCANDANAVIA

Scandanavian

millions of animals, none of this testing will ever benefit anyone, so why do it?

Bugger Up All Vivisection (BUAV)

DEVON: GA contact stops traffic save eating owl from being run over

Airlines ban shipments of live animals for vivisection for fear of sabotage by UK animal libbers

SINGAPORE — Animal libbers trash McDonalds

SWEDEN: UMEA - Hot dog bar torched, three arrests; two Scan (meat company) offices torched and others smoke-damaged, anti-meat flyposting near home of Scan employee.

vehicle:

The Hunt Retribution Squad has a philosophy: For every wild animal killed by a hunt on a chosen day. a hunt rider will be dealt with and/or a vehicle trashed This philosophy has been used on several occassions with satisfying results It need not be implemented on all occassions but every hunt should be targetted from time to time just to let them know that “The time for peaceful reasoning is over” — Its now Animal Liberation by any means necessary¹

GUN ATTACK

In May, Englisdh animal libber Vicky Fitch was shot in the back with an air rifle while she handed out leaflets against Circus King. A clown was arrested bu released due to “insufficient evidence”

[Source: Recorder, 24/5/95]

to

HMP EXETER - Darren Cole, ALF remand prisoner, banged up for refusing to wear prison-issue leather shoes HAMPSHIRE. CHURCH COOKHAM - - Houses built - over badget sett sloganised

SOMERSET, YEOVIL - Residents

who hired badgers to threats.

SUSSEX,

badger trapper to sell local MAFF viv lab receive death

CHICHESTER

Arson

attack on Webbs Country Foods FINLAND: KAUHAVA - Oikeutte Emaimille demonstrate outside court trying three women accused of freeing 650 foxes from four fur farms in May. FINLAND: HELSINKI - 80 Oikeuttta Elaimille activists blockade Fur Centre; EVR brick Tuganay and Saukko fur stores:

Our EVR cell has been targeting fur stores in Helsinki In this year at least five fur stores have closed in Helsinki. We re going to get them all¹ ' - ¹

FINLAND: THE EAST ~ $150,000 damage as two fur trade-related buildings torched. Communique threatens the furriers ‘worst nightmare”. GERMANY: BERLIN - Animal lib demo outside Finnish Embassy in

FINLAND

EVR sloganise

DECEMBER

McDonalds and brick another on Night.

FINLAND: HELSINKI -

one

Earth

More

CANADA: TORONTO - ARK2 demo outside Finnish Embassy in solidarity with three activists ibn Finland accused of freeing 650 foxes from four fur farms in May.

AVON, SISTON - ALF free 60 hens from School Time Eggs, Myrtle Farm:

Most of the hens were severely defeathcred, a typical sign of a lifetime in a cage that is so small that they can not even spread their wings Their feet were swollen and sore from never being able to perch -- constantly on a wire mesh floor, and their beaks were semiamputated in order to prevent them causing any serious damage to their fellow inmates in fights, which break out regularly due to stress

Those removed arc now all living comfortably in their new homes They arc able to scratch earth, dust bathe, breathe fresh air, experience daylight and make a nest Their feathers will grow back, wounds will heal within time and they arc no longer regarded as just an egg producing machine

HMP THE MOUNT, BOVINGDON - Animal Rights Militia (ARM) prisoner Niel Hansen rescues his 3rd cockatiel whilst in prison. Three quarters of this 8 week old bird s wings had been cut off with scissors. Although it can’t fly, the bird s wings are now growing back.

LONDON - 100+ anti-live exports activists leave sit-down outside Parliament to protest Damien Hirst’s

Oikeuttn Elainille mass anti-fur demos;

NICE SHOOTING

A German blood-junky was murdered whilst out terrorising wildlife. Hunters blame animal libbers for the killing.

Fur Centre sloganised by EVR as fur [Source: A TA Newsletter, October 1995]

conference was going on inside; two fur stores bricked; furrier's home, caravan and shed daubed by EVR; Ees-turkis and five other fur stores bricked or glued by EVR; on Fur Free Friday (25/11/95), 16 Oikeutta Elaimille activists chain themselves to Finland’s biggest depart

ment store, Stockmann

FINLAND: KUOPIO

For Earth

support of the three women accused of animal corpse sculpture, Mother & Calf

Night, EVR breaks three milk trucks' windows and paint slogans; fur store attacked again.

FINLAND: VANTAA - 40 Oikeutta Elaimille activists picket Fur Centre auction.

NEW ZEALAND: AUCKLAND - ALF smash and sloganise six butchers, Pork market shop, Ingham chicken -plant, home of Lois Armiger (viv), house and car of Laura Mumaw (zoo director), Cancer Society HQ and Dunningham's meat suppliers.

NEW ZEALAND. CHRISTCHURCH - On World Vegan Day, ALF catapult butchers and sloganise Sydenam KFC and Linwood McDonalds; on Earth Night, ALF catapult Charcoal Chicken, butchers and Richmond Shopping Centre and sloganise KFC and Meri vale McDonalds.; local paper, The Press, claims ALF catapult attacks have caused

a total of $25,000 damage

In Ljungby, Sweden, blood-junkies ‘bagged’ two other hunters they mistook for roe deer. Sadly the two injured, blood-junkies will live.

[Source: Djurens Hamnare]

SMASHING!

Finnisgh police estimate one fur store window is broken every' week in Finland. Locks are glued “more often”.

In 1993 there were 25 EVR (ALF) actions in Finland In 1994, there were 175. Last year, over 300.

(Source: EVR]

FINNISHED

I he ALF SG in Finland has closed down due to police raids, mail monitoring &c.

[Source: Finland ALF SG]

Page 9 - NEWS

FACTFILE: GENETICS

Cellmark Diagnostics, Blacklands Way, Abingdon Business Park OX 14 I DY — US owned company, market leader in genetic fingerprinting.

CELLTECH, SLOUGH - Celltech Group plc, 216 Bath Road, Slogh, Berkshire SLl 4EN -- AIDS research, biotech cultures, 374 employees.

The Lancaster Bomber’s Guide to British Biotech, from Addenbrookes to Zeneca

A lot of folks are wound up about genetics, with good reason. The more you find out, the angrier you'll be. Genetic fingerprinting is one area but here we want to focus on the dangerous way its used to alter animals and plants, food and products like rape seed oil. Not for the weak of stomuch is the secretive IMUTRAN of Cambridge. They genetically engineer pigs weith human hearts — eventually for spare parts surgery. Kidneys and liver transplants will be next, a proper little production line to beat the organ donor shortage. Similar is Tracey the Transgenic sheep, bred by PPL near Edinburgh who splice sheep embryos with human genes to make drugs.

GENETIC CHERNOBYL

Nobody knows what will happen when altered genes get out. We've already had two scares: In February 1994, the University of Birmingham did biohazard level 3 cancer gene experiments in open fronted glass cabinets just down the corridor from department offices, in July 1994 at Wytham Field Station, Oxford, scorpion venom genetic insecticide was used on cabbages. People protested, afraid the venom could escape to attack rare butterflies in a nearby nature reserve. Without a limiter, it could have gone on from there to wipe out 64 different moth and butterfly species. Genetics is like taking rabbits to Australia, but molecular — playing about with the basic building blocks of life. It's only a matter of time before we get a genetic Chernobyl. ‘

ALTERED CROPS

AND ALTERED ANIMALS

You never know what you could be eating — human genes spliced into vegetables sounds too much like cannibalism. The Calgene ‘Flavr Savr' (UGH!) is a US tomato with antibiotic

GENETIC ENGINEERING? JUST SAY NO!

A

ADDENBROOKES - Addenbrookes Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ.

B

BRITISH BIOTECH OXFORD -- British Biotechnology Ltd., Ihamers Court, Wallington Road, Cowley, Oxford and British Biotech Products Ltd., The Qudrant, Barton Lane, A t - J I ’w - - - i - W - I A < -

Abingdon.

BIRMINGHAM - Site of Home Office resistant genes - used in tomato purees sold in the UK but don't expect them to tell you on the label. BST uis a growth hormone used on US cows. As yet it’s banned in Europe but for how much longer? Or take the Beltsville pig - stuffed with human growth hormones and so grossly overweight that the poor animal can't move. We re well into dr Mengele territory here but it's big business patenting genes and selling this stuff to unsuspecting’ supermarket customers....

WHAT TO DO?

First we need more information. W'ho is doing what and where? What are the side-effects? They can only do this because it is secret — nobody in their right mind would choose these. So start by finding out what is going on and publicise it. Write letters to the Health & Safety Executive and public health, demand to know. Get people involved. Distribute leaflets telling people. Organize protests outside the shiney new science parks and research labs. Picket supermarkets. Do it now, tomorrow will be too late ... -

DNA database opened IOth April 1995. Precise location unconfirmed.

BIRMINGHAM UNIV - Site of February 1994 cancer gene scare.

BOURN HALL - IO miles west of Cambridge. IVF and embryo research BROMPTON - Royal Brompton Hospital, Sydney Street, London SW3 6NP — working on Cvstic Fibrosis.

C

CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY

Cambridge Antibody Technology (CA I) Ltd., The Science Park, Melbourne,. Cambridge-shire SG8 6EJ — monoclonal antibodies. * ‘ *o Ltjoi ^r»

CELLMARK ABINGDON

EDINBURGH — Edinburgh University, working on human ovaries -- Artificial intelligence Unit, working on genetic’ programmes and computer simulations -- Edinburgh Hospital, doing cystuic fibrosis trials.

G

M

GALTON LAB - Galton Laboratory, University College London, Wolfson House, 4 Stephenson Way, London NW1.

GENETIX — Christchurch, Dorset — computer company building DNA analysis computers.

GLASGOW UNIV -- Legal Department, University of Glasgow —

working on a modified form of patents Genetics systems to cover genetics.

H

HENDON — Metropolitan Police Laboratories — genetic fingerprinting.

HERIOT WATT UNIV -- Ricarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS.

HINXTON HALL -- see Sanger Centre, the Human Genome Project HQ. HUGO -- Hugo (Human Genome Organization) Europe, I Park Square West, London NW I 4LT -- European organization concerned with ethics.

I

IMPERIAL BIOTECH -- Imperial College Road, South Kensington, London SW7 2BT.

IMPERIAL CANCER Imperial Cancer Research Foundation (ICRF), 44 Lincolns Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PX. It s chair, Walter Bodmer, was also chair of HUGO.

IMPERIAL COLLEGE - London IMUTRAN — office at 18 Trumpington Road, Cambridge. Secretive research station located in the Cambridge I Newmarket area that genetically engineers pigs with human hearts.

IVEM — Institute of Virolosv and Environmental Microbiology, Oxford. Scorpion venom gene on cabbages experiment carried out by its exprofessor David Bishop at Wytham Field Station.

K

KINGS - Cell Biophysics Unit. Kings College London, 26-29 Druiy Lane, London WC2.

L

LEICESTER UNIV -- Department of Biochemistry, Leicester University, Adrian Building, University Road, Leicester LEI 7RH. Alec Jeffreys invented genetic fingerprinting here in the late-1970’s. Leicster runs an Msc course in molecular genetics.

LINEAR DRIVES - Linear Technology, Unit 2, 18 Sirdar Road. Weir Industrial Estate, Rayleigh, Essex. Builds robots used in genetic testing.

LISTER -- Lister Hospital, London.

IVF and embryo research.

LONDON UNIV — Department of Biology, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WdF 7HT

MAMMALIAN — Mammalian Genome Unit, Department of Zoology, West Mains Road, Edinburgh EH9 3JT.

MICROBIX. — Water toxicity treatments. No precise trace.

MRC CAMBRIDGE -- MRC Centre, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QH -- laboratory studying nematode worm genome, 234 scientists.

MRC EDINBURGH - Human

Unit, Werstem General Hospital, Crewe Road, Edinburgh EH4 2XU — 147 working on cystic fibrosis. Clinical and Population- Cytogenetics Unit at same address.

MRC HARROW - MRC Clinical Research Centre. Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HAI 3UJ — 424 scientists.

N

NEWCASTLE UNIV -- Newcastle Upon Tyne University, NE1 7RN — implicated in BNFL Sellafield monitoring project. Mapping of X chromosone, cancer research, muscular dystrophy.

NORTHWICK PARK - 8th Floor, Clinical Research Centre building. Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, Middlesex — early HQ of UK Human Genome project and computer database. Relocation die to Hinxton, Cambridge at end of 1995.

NOTTINGHAM UNIV - Nottingham University Medical School working on embryology.

O

OXFORD - Oxford University - various projects including computer simulations and the Oxford Cente for Molecular Sciences. Also home of IVEM.

P

PARYSTECH - Southampton German supercomputers.

PEPTIDE — Peptide Mimetics Ltd., 321 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 4NG - firm working on genetic cure for hay fever.

PORTON DOWN - Cente for Applied Microbiological Research. Porton

Page 10

Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 OJG -- MoD centre for genetic warfare?

PPL — Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland EH25 9PP and 6 Grain House Mill Court, Great Shelford, Cambridge - responsible for Tracey the transgenic sheep,

tt

QUEENS - Queens College, Cambridge University

QUEEN MARY - Queen Mary and Westfield College, London - workingn on mathematical models of genetics.

K

RHONE POULENCE RORER - Ramham Road South, Dagenham, Essex RM 10 7XS — heart disease

ROYAL - Royal Vetinary College, London — muscular distrophy

READING - Institute of Food Research, Reading - genetically engineered foods such as Calgene Flavr Savr.

S

WEST

LAKES INST

TEPNEL KNUTSFORD

BIRMINGHAM POLICE DATABASE

UCL LONDON

PORTON DOWN

CELLMARK ABINGDON

MRC CAMBRIDGE ADDENBROOKES ! HINXTONHALL

TEPNEL — Tepnel Life Sciences plc., Toft Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire WAI6 9PD — also HQ for NorWest Holst roadbuilders’

TERATOLOGY - St George’s Hospital School, London SWI7 ORE -

25 scientists.

U

UCL LONDON -- University College London, Gowerr Street, London WCIE 6BT — working on Y chromosone and chromosone 9, biochemical genetrics unit and human blood groups. Mouse chromosone 2.

V

VANGUARD — Vanguard Medica, 18 Frederick Sanger Road, Surrey Research Park, Guildford GU2 5YD.

WASHINGTON - Washington Hospital, Tyne and Wear -- IVF and embryo research.

WEST LAKES — West Lakes Research Institute, Moor Row, Whitehaven, Cumbria - BNFL Cumbrian children cancer study and cover-uo.

St GEORGE'S — St George's Hospital, Bfackshaw Eroad, London SW17 OQT — MRC Experimental Embryology and Tetrology Unit is located at St George’s Hospital School, Cramner Terrace, London SW17 0RE.

St MARY’S — St Mary s Hospital Medical School.

SANGER CENTRE - Sanger Centre, Hinxton Hall, Cambridge — major UK centre for the Human Genome Project, also Human Genome Mapping Resource

Centre top be relocated from Harrow at the end of 1995 and European Bioinformatics Institute.

Z

ZENECA - Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Mereside, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire SKI0 4TG.

PRIMITIVISM: AGAINST CIVILISATION

AGAINST CIVILISATION

As cities cannot be reformed, they must be abolished

‘Civilisation’ means ‘the culture of cities’. Civilisation is traditionaly opposed to barbarism but my dictionary defines barbarism as “savage, brutal" and there is no apter description for the origin and history of civilisation, the beating heart of the global Leviathan.

Some reconstructed fascists glorify Barbarism, their Golden Age of fuhrerprinzip, and call for cities to be smashed, but they see them as sinks of cosmopolitanism, blaming crime and loss of community identity on ethnic minorities. In fact, newly immigrated ethnic minorities and ‘urban villages’, self-contained communities newly swallowed by urban sprawl, have the strongest sense of community for the few generations it takes them to be fully assimilated into city life.

We take issue with city wealth, its raison d’etre, not poverty. City crime is down to city scale, not ‘race*. The city is big enough to hide in, big enough for the criminal not to care for his victims -- and poverty is so much harder to endure when riches are flaunted before you, even if this relative poverty of the cities is dwarfed by the absolute poverty beyond .them. People in the Third World fleeing rural destitution for ‘city streets paved with gold’ are the biggest contributors to relative population growth currently.

They ’re just going where the money is. CITY-BIRTH

In The City In History, Lewis Mumford argued villages were created by women, such settlements marking the dawn of agriculture and women’s role in it (Morgan’s Falling Apart, p. 66).

This may be so but the first cities were certainly the product of men, bloody tyrants al that. Pre-civilised people don’t work harder than they need to meet their subsistance needs. Primitive society divided between ruler and ruled when some lazy sods conned the others into working for them while they stood around telling them what to do. Scale probably had much to do with iL When a group gets too big for everyone to participate in decision-making,

‘ represen titives’ may make decisions for everyone else. In time they get tilings running their way and then get in heavies to secure their privileges. This is the ‘Golden Age’ of the European New Right, wjjh 4’« ‘heroic *

»* I LI OLLt# $ -L > - - L >

. ... 4 I

chieftains and warriors, actually gangsters and slave-drivers.

When a chieftain’s got a big enough retinue, it’s war. Neighbours are

raided for slaves or forced to pay

ransoms (‘tri

te’r Danegelt) to be

spared such treatment In India, ‘caste’ means ‘colour’, lower castes once

being of a different ethnic group to the ‘heroes’ that imposed on them. Slaves and booty have to go somewhere and that somewhere is the chieftain’s hall.

In time, enough have been robbed of the means of subsislance to force them into specialist trades, trinket-makers to the king’s household. This is ‘culture’, pleasuring Power. They can’t feed themselves as by this lime the king’s gathered everything into the royal granaries or is even minting coin in the royal treasury. By living near the king, the source of all plundered largesse, the craftsmen create city life.

The king’s rule is legitimised — cities became stales. ‘Civil’ actually means ‘relating to [the] ... State' and to talk of civilising someone is to talk of domesticating them in Cametle’s sense of the term, breaking and dehumanising them, making them accept rule. This is inherent to orderly city life and, incredibly, social ecologists see such creation of ‘model citizens’ as a revolutionary goal.

Some city-states grew into great empires. Cities like Rome bloated on the fat of empire until they collapsed from excess taxation, decadence and lead poisoning. Our ancestors thought .imperialism groovy, imagining themselves the Alexanders or Caesers of future history, but Perlman’s Against His-Slory, Against Leviathan tells the majorities story. On their slave-built edifices, pharoahs boasted of their genocides and of lands laid waste. The Aztecs demanded fellow human beings for bloody sacrifice as tribute from their vassals, a practice almost universal in early civilisation. Even the Greeks, authors of ‘Western civilisation’, sterilised their native soil with olive groves and then took to war.

INDUSTRIALISM

It’s no coincidence that the megapolis and industrialism rose together.

Before the Industrial Revolution, there was an agrarian one. By the 18th century, the long process of driving the peasants off the land and concentrating it in fewer and fewer hands was climaxing in England (the Clearances did for Scotland a century later, as did the Potato Famine in Ireland). The slave trade financed these monopolistic acquisitions. The Medieval system of strip agriculture, egalitarian and highly efficient in terms of yield/man-acre, was replaced by Model farms with crop rotation in big fields. New ploughs, threshing machines, you name it came in from the engineer’s hells kitchen. In events forshadowing the Green Revolution of the 1970’s, higher yielding crops and animals were bred, all beyond the means of smallholders.

Progress? Not for the millions driven off the land as surplus to the requirements of this new, more labour- efficient agriculture. There was now the surplus food available to feed a landless; newly urbanised proletariat, themselves needed by industry as factory fodder.

People used to fresh air and sun didn’t want to go into the new ‘manufactories’ to be yoked to machines, driven by steam. Hunger forced them in, first widows and orphans, then all, bound by the same chains of dependancy as the artisans of old. They were engineered like the machines they had to serve. Military discipline was used to organise them en masse, to rob them of their humanity and ability to rebel, and this model was applied to schools, prisons, everywhere mass must reign.

As well as workshop of the world, England became its marketplace, trade imposed by gunboats. When the East India Company opened markets in China, the first product they offered was opium. When the Chinese rejected this imperialist poison, millions were slaughtered and ‘reparations’ (= tribute) imposed for the relative handful of Europeans killed in the Opium War. China was plundered, its people made coolies and junkies. London prospered.

The steam engine meant that people could be moved en masse as well as plunder. Once cities had been restricted in radius to the distance a horse could tow a cart to market and back in a day. Engines covered the same ground in an hour so cities mushroomed. City dwellers could live and die in an urban environment never having seen a green field or breathed untainted air.

Freed from patronage, artists could afford to be sensitive to the environmental squallor produced by industrial-ism but by the end of the 19th century, they started to paint some-thing else around them -- alienation from themselves as well as from Nature, the loss of personal authenticity inherent in city living.

AND NOW?

The sacrifices made to the patron gods of cities aren’t acknowledged now - the victims of road accidents or poor air quality, the sucides and outcasts — but nothing’s changed. A price worth paying when tribute’s still coming in? Now city dwellers don’t see things for what they are. Now it’s called debt interest repayments, ‘free trade’ where rich and powerful States fix all prices and terms, or ‘development’ where developed countries get the food and raw materials their cities need to

survive in ‘exchange’ for city- produced stuff Third World countries don’t Human sacrifices there too, to restructuring and austerity (= hunger, disease and want).

City dwellers claim to enjoy consuming the booty from across the planet but in their hearts they know cities are incomputable with life, that they’re an intolerable oppression. The cities are hollowing and villages filling with suburbanite escapees to the point that they’re destroying the relatvely sociable communities they’ve moved in on. They’re still to learn you must live with a community, not just in it.

As always, ‘revolutionaries’ lag behind the People. Despite being examples of exploitation I alienation fifty miles wide, cities are a non-issue for most ‘revolutinaries’. Most are city dwellers themselves or don’t want to offend the majority who are. Vulgar Marxists who see urbanisation / proletarianisation as “a necessary historical stage” in bringing about communist utopia see opposition to cities as a reactionary attempt to ‘‘roll back the wheel of History” or even fascism. Like the factories and the rest of the apparatus of production, the city is something to be siezed, not destroyed. We have now seen the history of the city and the alienation inherent in it. They mean to sow their seed in a poison field. We know what cannot be reformed must be destroyed.

THE CITY DWELLERS; The price of privilege: urban life as alienation

It is certainly true that the fulfillment of individuality and intellect was the historical privilege of the urban dweller or of individuals influenced by urban life. Indeed, some kind of urban community is not only the environment of humanity: it is its destiny. Only in a complete urban environment can there be complete people: only in a rational urban situation can the human spirit advance its most vital cultural and social traditions.

Bookchin’s Limits of the City, pp. 1-2

Aside from his imperialist rhetoric (“destiny”) and flaunting the fruits of its expropriations (“culture”), Bookchin’s assertion that city dwellers are “complete people” is absurd. They’re fucked up by massification and intense division of labour in cities. Cities themselves are civilisation, prime focuses of alienation, not least from the land they parasitise. Bookchin’s ridicu-lous attempt to contrast the urban (his ideal) with cities (the reality) makes not a jot of difference to such alienation and his failure to cope with the lived realities of city life just illustrate his.

Bookchin secs a bright future where people are freed from traditional constraint to become good citizens - as in civ it as, root of ‘city’ and ‘civilisal-ion’. The restraints he talks of aren’t legal I institutional - he idolises the Greek polis, archaic model

of ‘Western democracy’ — but communal.

He claims Medieval serfs fleeing their feudal obligations said “city air makes free” but they had to flee, forced off the land by the wool trade enclosures. These Masterless Men were free only to be atomised individuals without * community or consequence, proletar- ianised forerunners of capitalism’s homo economicus. They died like flies not because the city fathers didn’t know about sanitation - Latin for lead is plumbum as the Romans used it for their waler pipes, hence plumbing - but because they didn’t care for feudal obligation either, just profit and power.

The ‘tolerance’ of big city life is but a continuation of this indifference. When city dwellers aren’t harassing ethnic or sexual minorities, it’s not because they're positively embracing their lifestyles — rather that they’re blanking them as invisible and not bearing thinking about, just as hundreds will turn a blind eye to a rape going on under their noses on the Underground or by a busy road. If you doubt this, note the hysterical reactions next lime the tabloids whip up a campaign against minorities (‘asylum seekers on the dole’, ‘nursery teacher was lesbian’ &c) powerful enough to crack the shell of city dweller indifference and release the prejudice beneath.

Why this indifference? City dwellers are so overloaded with what’s happening around them - by the city’s mass — that they’d collapse under the stress of coping with it all if they didn’t blank 90% of it out You know the way they stare through you on the Tube or if you ask them the time of day on the street You have to physically block their way to get any reaction. You’ve got to be pretty alienated not to register the evidence of your own senses.

This selective perception means that city dwellers are easily manipulated. They spend most of thair lives working on rules of thumb’ and taken-for- granted assumptions, judging the worth of things by superficialities like price and appearance programmed into them by advertising, the media and the gossip of their peers. They think sad style I consumer crap like Peter Yorke’s The Eighties is brimming with important insights. They’re most likely to make their careers their lives and judge others by their income and things they own.

We’ve found city dwellers will believe anything they're told as long as it conforms to their prejudices and is told them with a straight face. They’re prey to every trend and rumour as their dependency and info overload means they’ve no thoughts of origins and their idea of self is an external constructed from such ephemora. They bullshit, hype and project image as they’re unlikely to meet the same person twice and don’t have to depend on each other anyway. They can always move on to another circle and be someone else somewhere else.

Instead of completeness, we see fragmentation and emptiness. This isn’t humanity’s "destiny”, it’s a purgatory which will end when the cities fall.

The City is Finished

All the world connects up into a global city, but its world is imprisoned in money and can't move across into the gift economy. The city is doomed, writes City-Death author Steve Booth. Green Anarchism will replace it because the city just can't deliver...

WHERE THE CITY IS NOW

It started with the basic fact that people tend to co-operae. People discovered some are better than others at certain tasks so specialisation and different trades began. People shared things and the community

became more sophisticated. They thought specialisation was more effective — not every body could be a metal worker or weaver without the same access to raw materials. Then trade brught a wider variety of things into town and development came to be seen as desirable in itself.

scratch your skin and catch on your designer jacket. One of the funniest examples of this school of thought is that of the archetypal neurotic New Yorker, Woody Allen, who had to fail in a lake in one of his films but was so terrified of contamination by bugs and things living in there he faked the shot and fell into a water tank filled with Evian mineral water instead

Londonocentrism is the doctrine that alarms; the streets, motorways and shopping malls must be overlooked by TV cameras. The rich must hide behind their fenced-off security patrolled compounds.

But it gets worse. They are putting the cameras inside their heads now. Neighbourhood Watch with a vengeance. Milkmen are given police radios. Social workers, doctors, teachers and lollipop ladies are asked to report

Because transport was hazardous, manufacturing tended to go underr one roof or in one street. Markets, towns and cities grew together where trade routes crossed. Raw materials like tin brought the Phoenicians to Cornwall or the spice caravans to Samarkand. As trading centres grew, so came civic priode, water supplies, aqueducts. taxes.

cioaiescing into a single, monolithic, but identifiable global culture.* It all connects up into one global city which imposes its homogeneity from London to Leningrad, Tokyo to Trieste — USA symbols. McDonalds, EuroDisney....

THE DREAM OF THE CITY

Why would anybody want to live in a

has anything suspicious. Paranoia is turning them into a nation of grasses. Then thereis talk about ID cards. It is all turning ingto an authoritarian nightmare, something like East Germany but worsde, more hi-tech. What do you think all these Special Branch raids are about? Their world becomes more and more restricted.

nothing outside the M25 ring validity, ansd his same cultural

chauvinism runs through most of the city type of thinking. The appointed right to strip resources from outside and impose its plastic burger carton culture, its motorways, land-fill sites and toxic waste incinerators. It is always a one way street with the city — the sewage

sewerage. People living in close proximity had to be organised. Barter became trade using currency, political and economic relations formalized into masters and slaves; with this mental work became more highly prized than physical work, gold and then paper substituted for value.

Machines enabled people to repeat operations and reproduce artefacts - again and again and again to a standard pattern. In step with industrialisation, canals, railways and steamships brought raw materials like cotton to the new industrial centres and opened up the whole world to exploitation. The reverse side of the industrialisation coin is colonialism. The value of people and physical work reduces almost to zero, people become commodities, while the value of culture, mental work and notional paper currencies is elevated almost to infinity.

THE GLOBAL CITY

At the same time as the cities became organised, concentrated and heirarchical, they began to compete Each city had a distinctive political -culture which imposed itself over the identitties of its individuals - the Citizenbs. We have gone beyond this now, Presently, the political cultures are city? Mostly because they know no different. Did they have any choice? Perhaps their ancestors were coerced into cities by the enclosures. If s just the way they have always lived. Alongside this, there is the myth, the present day equivalent of the streets of London being paved with gold, and this runs something like this:

Look at all the shops - you can buy anything you want all round the clock Chinese resturants. Indian takeaways, off licences ..

!>ook at the bright lights, the traffic. Canary Wharf, buildings made of steel, glass and concrete Portable phones. computer terminals, fax machines, satellite links - at , my terminal I have the whole world at my

' fingertips...

In the city you can be who you like. Look at all that culture — opera houses, concert halls, an galleries Dillons bookstore Fashion clothes, travel agents, nightclubs ..

Cities arc always vibrant, scientific, businesslike, fast living, exhilarating .....

Coupled with this dream (the carrot) we have the stick; fear of the outside, fear of the unknown, fear of Nature ‘read in tooth and claw’. This was shown up in the TV series Heaven, Hell and Suburbia² by Jonathan Glancey, the architecture critic of the Independent. The countryside was shown as somewhere alien, unpleasant and threatening- Hedges have thorns in that barges making the trip out of the Thames estuary and emblematic of its wider attitude.

ji'j Fbiumab urfj 01 afltfwfe as//

WHERE THE CITY IS GOING

So much for the dream behind the city. The plain fact is the city is turning into a nightmare as its social problems compound Glancey wouldn’t be making his paean of praise to the city if it wasn’t under attack. After the October 1987 stock market crash, the housing maerket, the recession, down-sizing, out-sourcing, "rationalisation’, short term contracts, their confidence has taken a battering. The perception the city isn’t working is spreading. The visibility of poverty and decay keeps the threat of the inner city high in their minds. The middle classes with money esdeape to the suburbs and beyond, meanwhile the former workers starve on income support in the high rise estates.

The city has failed in its peromise to enhance the living standards of all; or to share its products equitably . So we have crime, we have vandalism, drug taking. Shops must have metal grilles over their windows to stop ram raiders. I he chain stores cluster together in the collective security of their glass and plastic shopping malls. I he BMW’s and Porsches have to be fitted with car

The city has failed to carry everyone with it, and so is broken -- divided against itself. We can see the future of this concrete wasteland — conformist, robotic, corrupt, vicious, vindictive and unquestioning. A place where beggars are kicked off the streets, rounded up and recycled as dog food. 1 he world of the city is intrinsically fascistic.

WHERE THE CITY COULD GO

In News From Nowhere (1890), William Morris had a vision of a future full of plenty, where money had been abolished. The gift economy. Even at the time he wrote, the vision was realizable, yet except for a few visionaries, few took any notice. A hundred and five years later, the world is stuffed full of uigliness, even so, Morris’s vision could be brought up to date.

As it is, the city is without vision, without unity and social cohesion. The city has failed to carry everyone with it and so is broken. It is not moving forward but stagnating. As William Morris saw, and others have seen,’ the fact is that since about 1870, automation has enabled production to outstrip demand. The factories could easily fill all our needs, if supply could be matched to demand and if money could

Page 13

is that ever since 1870 we have been in permanent recession -- recession and capitalism are linked. Only the two world wars have been able to break the log jam and the effects of these soon turned from boom to bust.

We want the ‘gift' economy. Instead of fighting, humanity could decide to wage war on want, crime,, poverty, disease, famine and ignorance. The productive capacities of the so-called developed world ought to be thrown into it — feeding the hungry. The sad thing is that it will not be, and that is why the city is finished.

DEVELOPMENT AS AN END IN ITSELF

A major fault in the city mindset is this assumption that development is a good thing. Politicians like Kenneth Clarke always talk about ‘growth*. To the ecological balance of the planet, this ‘growth* is the same thing as cancer. Look at somewherre like Manchester, once described as the cradle of industry*, the birthplace of the industrial revolution* and so on. Manchester has had 200 years to get it right. If development is in itself good, why is Manchester full of dereliction and decay? Closed factories, run down industrial estates. Places like Moss Side and Hulme where crack dealers fight it out with uzis. This is their world.

Development for the sake of development is stupid. Yet a major goal of the global city is to spread itself across the planet, to make India the same as Manchester, with just the same [power stations and chemical plants. What's the point? When they are up and running they will either be in competition with others or absorbed by the global corporations. And yet the Bretton Woods institutions go on lending development money for more dams, hydro-electric schemes, mines, factories... Why? Development is a binding to nothing, an empty objective. Why do they want to make the whole world the same?

COMPETITION

Duplication and competition is wasteful. I he. city needs to find how to increase co-operation. But if Arthur Daley is always ripping you off, co-operation is never on the agenda. In the present, so- called ‘Capitalist system, predator companies carve up the markets and then run the scene for what they can get out of it. Wages and working conditions are kept at minimal levels, prices are way way high, the goods themselves fall apart or wear out as quickly as possible to keep turnover up.

FETISH OF CONSUMPTION

How much of the modern world is built round consumption? Advertising stimulates demand, fashion brainwashes people, plastic packaging entices. Buy, eat, pssess, discard - think of the industrial effort expended in making it, the energy wasted in delivering it; and how much of it ends up in the landfill site on the edge of town?

Materialism is a dead end. Tacky consumer goods are no consolation. Even that great touchstone of Thatcherite materialism, home ownership, has been blighted by the decline in the housing market, negative ‘ equity ?md job Uncertainty A

demographic time bomb has been lit under all the world cruises and tourist industries. (What sort of private pensions package will the Generation X kids in backwards turned baseball caps and naff jackets be paying into?)

Ostentation becomes a big minus, a provocation, when “the poor man at the gate” comes calling to take out revenge for his exclusion:

I know what is going on is really bad. but I . want a Mercedes 450 SL someday and all the designer clothes I can afford I have the uneasy feeling that if there is too much justice and equality in the world, the good life won t be there for me in the future ..

Anonymous US student

How could what is happening be offset by owning a Mercedes? In what way could such a life be said to be ‘good’, grounded as it is in total injustice? The lifestyler is bought off and so reveals his / her radical worthlessness. The possessions themselves become symbols of injustice..

Consumption is the downside of development. If development for its own sake is futile, consumption for its own sake is also stupid ansd empty, a waste of the Earth’s natural resources and potential.

TOWARDS THE GIFT ECONOMY

Suppose we could get away from this and get a vision, draw people together. Suppose we used the awesome

The city is a parasite, all take, giving nothing. Decaying, contracting, free-

wheeling down into the abyss. Look round yourself. How often do you hear the sirens? Ask yourself if it isn't so.

productive capacity of the developed world to benefit all? First we must get past our basic needs; water, food, clothing, shelter, medical care. But how would this be paid for? Supposwed we agreed to scrap the idea of paying for things with money?

SUPPOSE

/11

Imagine .a world where robots and machines did all the work. If nobody worked, how would anybody pay for the things? What would happen is that people would do things they wanted to do, work and leisure would be equally spread out. Freed from the need to work to survive, people would do things for the love of them, and not for the love of money or of power. Once we had provided for the basic things, we could have peoples' workshops where almost anything coyld be made, quickly, easily, without any fuss. In this world people would take pride in the things they created - there'd be no alienation Nothing would be badly made, the designer would feel a deep sense of shame were it to break down, fall apart or not be suited to its purpose.

PEOPLES WORKSHOPS

Suppose people in South America could design things with computers to be made in Russia and then delivered? Suppose this global city could use computer links to co-ordinate mining, farming and precisely matched to supply? Suppose they did distribute work and leisure time fairly and evenly between all people? No more unemployment. Such a world would eliminate useless and inert bureau-cracies, corruption, morning and evening rush hours. People would work in or near their homes. For uch a world to come into being, useless rivalries and selfishness would have to go. Ther global city would have to get a truly global perspective on things, and that is where the vision fails.

manufacturing so that demand was starting to see the demands the city Margaret Thatcher.

The vision fails because in the city it is either do down the other guy, or be done down. The EC asset stripping of British' businesses and Michael Portillo’s xenophobia in the Tory Conference are all of a piece. In a world where the corporations strive to overcome and assimilate each other, true co-operation can ' never happen. I he Enterprise Culture means we can all sell the Big Issue to each other, can can all work down McDonalds for £1.72 an hour. Say it with lead -- as any Toxteth crack dealer could tell you, the city is a battleground.

WHY THE GREEN ANARCHIST VISION WILL PREVAIL

What other alterbnatives are there? What other choices exist, which do not include the city? The gift economy offers the only way forwards for it. The dream of the city could be restated, instead of the streets being paved with gold, some sort of global humanitarian vision like the one outlined above could be adopted. The News From Everywhere programme might begin with just one thing , perhaps by putting into praxctice the principle.that all people in the world have the right to free access to a clean and pure water supply. If the gift economy were to be adopted, then the city would win. Such a proposal could easily be put into place, it is quite a modest project compared with the space race or the nuclear weapons project. There is nothing in this that is not physically achievable. The only thing lacking is the political will to do it. It isn't going to happen folks. Why not? No political party or group would even d^re to frame such a radical programme.

In the water example above - just think. All people have a right to free.... No more privatised water companies, £200 water bills. No more Sir Dennis Pitcher, no more telephone figure salaries. And so, for the sake of their institutionalised selfishness and greed it continues. Instead of giving away pipes, taps, water pumps and purifiers, they would far rather sell them automatic rifles and land mines⁰. They have no vision.

In the absence of the News From Everywhere programme (the only way the glbal city will survive), people are makes on them have no legitimacy. It’s all breaking apart. ‘Revolution on the Periphery* is moving forwards; most recently, rebels in Sierra Leone have siezed the Bauxite mines. The city is not going to provide for our needs, we ourselves are.

Have you ever looked at cars in the rush hour? Thousands of cars on the motorway, all of them stopped or moving at just 10 mph. Eventually, you get to the front of the queue and find the reason for the hold up. Two streams of traffic are trying to merge, each equally trying to push forwards, each refusing to let the other stream in, both of them stopped.

The way the traffic jams up is a microcosm of society - and the way it doesn't work⁷. Of course, we can all be grasping Thatcherite sods, selfishly trying to forge ahead in our BMW’s but going nowhere. And that is how it is with the city. Can't you just see it? The city is a parasite, all take, giving nothing. Decaying, contracting, freewheeling down intop the abyss. Look round yourself. How often do you hear the sirens? Ask yoursef if it isn't so.

In talking about the global economy, one of the buzz words is ‘interdependence’, which a cynical observer of the EC defined as having to rely on people you can't rely on ". How much longer do you have to be stuck in the motorway traffic before you realise that it is quicker to get out of the car and walk?

REFERENCES ¹ Plato’s Republic, section 373 (Penguin translation, pp. 122-123). See City- Death, p. 203. Plato was dismissive of the frugal society, calling it ‘the community of pigs' and saying:

Such a society will not be satisfied it will want couches and tables and other furniture and a variety of delicacies, scents, perfumes, call girls and confectionary. And we must no longer confine ourselves to the bare necessities of our earlier description, houses, clothing and shoes, but must add the fine arts of painting and embroidery, and introduce materials like gold and ivory

‘ Heaven. Hell and Suburbia, Channel 4 TV series broadcast during late-April 1994, ’ - .

³ Francis Fukuvama, author of The End of History has written a book. Trust. which argues that:

only those socicics that enjoy trust to a high degree are able to create the flexible large scale business organisations needed for success in the global economy

⁴ William Morris News From Nowhere (1890), Peter Kropotkin's Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899) and Murray Bookchin's Post-Scarcity' Anarchism (1971).

Capitalism I m reluctant to use the teerm capitalism because it is linked to Marxism. The system, the thing we object to and oppose is not just about money (capital) but it is about power, about stanmping its plastic image onto everything. We need better terminology. We could talk about McDonaldsisation, Disneyland, often I wrtite about ‘The Machine...

Land Mines. A hundred million landmines are estimated to have been planted in sixty countries. One million more are placed each year.

“There is no such thing as society ",

A typical national grid transformer switching centre.

Thirlmere aqueduct crossing the river Brook

Stroke!

How much longer before the city has a stroke in some major part of it?

M25

ENFIELD LOCK

SCRATCHWOOD

ROOKERY

REDBRIDGE

HARROW

FARM

LEA BRIDGE

BLACKWALL

CREEKMOUTH

BULLS BRIDGE

THURROCK

ERITH

TILBURY

GREATER LONDON

MOUNT MASCAL

ASHFORD

MALDEN

NEW HAW

BEDDINGTON

KNOCKHOLT

WEST BYFLEET

LONDON, THE CIRCUfT DIGRAM: There is one interesting point on it - from researching this I found out there was a power station at Bullis Bridge neasr M4 junction 3, but it doesn't seem to be connected to the rest of it. Could be underground cables, of course, but what is in that are that they dn't want to run out of lecky and has its .own little power station? Answers on a post card...______ ___________________________________

A stroke happens when the blood supply to part of the brain is blocked by a clot. Deprived of oxygen, the affected brain cells stop working. It could be just a few cells, or a whole area that are affected. The bigger the area — the more functions that are lost. It could be speech or elsde something else vital, and then the victim dies.

Cities are like the brain. It is obvious that small parts of it are not working. But when you think about this across the whole picture it stsrts to add up. One particular part may only be 5% down on its specification, but suppose this is an important part that radically affects the rest of it? Over all the city that 5% could become 25%. Now what happens if we increase it to 7% ? 9%? Does it become 30%, 50% or what? And what about all the other parts of it that are also falling down?

ELECTRIC

Nearly everything else depends on elecincity - street lights, telecom,

emputers, frozen food industry Deprived-of electricity, the city will quickly die.

Electricity is mostly generated outside the city and brought into it using pylons. Generators depend on coal, oil, hydro-electric and nukles. Sme British power stations like Ferrybridge near Doncaster are among the top polluters in Europe.

WATER

The city takes waler from deep underneath it (aquifers) and from areas around it using reservoirs and pipelines. The london Ring Main has recently

been completed, this water works version of the M25 enables supplies to go direct to places of greatest demand inside the capital. What happens when the ‘provinces’ run out of waler?

FOOD

Food is grown outside the city, or abroad, and shipped to warehouses and supermarket distribution centres. With centralized production if just one part has a problem the whole of it falls down — the rubber pipe that caused a contamination scare with Perrier mineral water a few years back; or a salmonella outbreak at amilk plabnt the public health managed to cover up for three weeks last November...

SEWAGE

Cities produce tons of sewage, which mostly goes into rivwers, the same place they get some of their waler from. With the drought, its only a matter of time before short cuts are taken and public health is comproised. Sewage is a Trojan Turd, a major revolutionary

force against the city.

RUBBISH

. Outside towns everywhere there are landfill sites. Cities slowly crunch up under piles of packaging, plastic and broken consumer goods. Maybe all the crud should be put through the shredder and used to pack up the coadt defences before the sea rises. Will they think of tis before they drown? 1 doubt it.

VIRTUAL REALTY

/

Telecoms use TV transmitters, mobile phone networks and micro wave links. Even satellites now to join from point to point. TV signals, burglar alarm codes, computers controlling gas pipelines, financial sector, news agenciers — everything uses telecoms.

Political systems depend on bureaucracies which use paperwork forms and computer networks. Under the Next Steps diversification scheme, civil service departments moved out of London to places like Leeds (DSS) and Notungham (Inland Revenue).

A bit of fog and

perhaps some snow and it all stiops.

Motorways are the most visible sign of it all cracking up.

Pylons generally run in two sets between power stations and urban switching centres. Often the parallel runs are miles Cellular phone towers tend to have a triangular system of apart but here are both together taking power from SizeweH vertical aerials on top. They cmmunicate with other towers towards London, in the system and conventional telephone exchanges through, microwave links, usually larger versions of TV satellite dishes mounted lower down the tower.

Power for InterCity trains comes through the national grid via tranuformers and switchgear like this, wherever pylons cross the main line.

Microwave link towers

City Limits

Leigh Starcross on Power, Resistance and Global Urbanism

Remember the Thief s city of Baghdad? While the palace guards sought him through labyrinthine streets, there were seemingly innumerable doors behind which to hide, teeming marketplaces in which to become lost, ready disguises with which to evade capture. And. of course, there still existed a wilderness outside the city walls into which one could effectively disappear. Even though we understand that the despotic Caliph's palace contains a rather unpleasant gaol where even more unpleasant physical punishments are meted out to those elements who dare to thwart power, we can at the same time be certain that escape is relatively easy. Doltish guards can be hoodwinked, keys stolen, obstacles overcome. And cries of “ Stop that one in the robes and turban!’’ aren't much of a threat in a city thronging with thousands of similarly garbed, anonymous persons. In fact, in such a context, ultimate detection and capture are only really possible when those in authority rely upon informers and spies.

Virilio's assertion that the city is the generalized paradigm upon which civilization's specific exercises of power are based. In fact, Virilio insists that the political economy from which the city derives is not that of commerce as is commonly purported—“Commerce

doesn't need a city'' (Virilio, p. 5)--but rather an economy of “ pure and total war". Such an economy in Virilio's estimation is dependent upon the technological domination of time and space through speed: ‘‘speed as the essence of war; technology as the producer of speed; war as logistics ..' endocolonization; deterrence ... Pure War" (Virilio, p. 35). Accordingly, the power inherent in cities and thus within civilization itself is reliant upon the

Perlman's conception of Leviathan concurs, “a will to reduce the world to a single place, a single identity'' (Virilio, p. 66). The result is a global city without walls, a space of consensual hallucination, which has achieved exocolonization, eradicated all wildernesses, and is now concerned rather with endocolonization.

By a wicked irony, the inhabitants of this totalizing civilization are not simply reduced to prisoners in a concentration camp writ large, but more particularly they have also become its guards: “All of us are already civilian soldiers, without knowing it ... People don’t recognize the militarized part of their identity, of their consciousness” (Virilio, p. !8).Thus, we are all made to collude,

Such a scenario is that of a totalitarian

directly or indirectly, intentionally or

regime in which power is openly coercive and its violent nature entirely evident. Those subject to such an overt exercise of power perpetually tremble in fear, but they do so in the full awareness that they suffer a terrible oppression. Compliance with this state of affairs is only tolerable when rewarded by the availability of goods, protection and way of life that the city makes possible. Should it prove intolerable, there is always the way of the thief or the renegade.

However, the recourses available to the inhabitants of the Thief s Baghdad are not those possible for present day criminals or political insurgents— inseparable categories since at least the nineteenth century. The contemporary western city's public spaces are subject to the tireless gaze of a power that records all that it sees, a more effective technique of control in that it dispenses with the physical presence of unreliable, limited armed patrols of enforcers. A more direct method of coercive presence is reverted to only when more covert measures of power become less effective for whatever reasons. But usually, force only exists as an adjunct to covert measures of control of which surveillance is only one example. And, even if the eye of Leviathan cannot literally see all of the people all of the time, civilization s inhabitant's must be made to believe that it will detect all eventually. In the meantime, the citizen’s who live under the threat of it’s

otherw ise, in this enterprise of furthering global violent hierarchies.

The watched are also watchers, and the watchers are being watched. Even when an inhabitant of this culture knows him/herself to be entirely alone, s/he will continue to behave in many ways as if s/he were yet subject to the compelling gaze of power. The hegemonic ideology would have us believe that in western cultures, where overt display of power and force has been dispensed with as inefficient and wasteful, that ‘the price of ‘freedom’ is eternal vigilance”. And even if we understand that eternal vigilance is an ideal rather than an existing practicality, still, as in the panopticon scenario, we can never know at any given moment whether we are in actuality subject to surveillance or not. The fact that we will yet act as if we are makes this immaterial. Our collusion with power consists to a large extent in both policing others and policing ourselves.

As Ellul points out in The Technological Society, such a strategy makes for a more efficient technique of control than does mere brutal coercion Under inquisitorial and openly violent regimes, the police operate at will and seemingly arbitrarily. No citizen has any peace of mind,;and everyone is aware that they are subject to an intolerable oppression. It is a world where anyone may be whisked off in the night to a prison camp or insane asylum, or be summarily executed, a world, of desaparecidos,

gaze are to be kept in a permanent state PRISONERS OF THE PANOPTICAN: “the citizens who live under the pogroms and purges. In a culture such as

of awareness that, despite the lack of an

threat of its gaze are to be kept in a permenant state of awareness ^ours» however, the oppression of power

immediate presence of naked power, one that, despite the lack of an immediate presence of naked power, one

could at any given moment be subject to could at any given moment be subject to detection”

detection. _

Relevant to a rigorous, politically Pure War of the city’s martial nature, violence afforded not only by wealth but inorrned critique of the modern city, Foucault’s theory, that Bentham’s also by speed: the speed of automobiles an y extension of civilization itself, is panopticon is the multipurpose paradigm and jet planes, telecommunication, oucau t s conception of the panopticon upon which western civilization has computer networks and television,which outlined in D/sc/pl/ne and Pun/sh, in modelled its techniques of bio-power mobilizes goods, information and conjunction^ writer the cnl ighte nmebCfjJrtflerejj^Jjty peqpl^. Behip^ al| _t -thi*>_# ,^ie^ .and

permeates all of life just as much only it obfuscates its violent nature by assuming a facade of bland ^reasonableness which

is capable of seduction rather than mere repression. This proves a more successful strategy as it allows those

upon whom it operates to cooperate with and like it better. In this improved version ( Ellul, p. 413):

Page 17

citizens"... and there is nothing mysterious about them; therefore they arc not felt to be oppressive. Police work has become “scientific". Their files contain dossiers on every citizen The police arc in a position to

. lay hands on any one “wanted at any moment, and this obviates to a great degree the necessity of doing so. No-one can evade the police or disappear. But. then, no-one wants to.

This represents the kind of mindset that refuses to see Neighborhood Watch schemes and public surveillance cameras as an imposition. After all, if you're not a criminal then you don't have anything to fear or hide, right? Unfortunately, the criteria used to determine just who is a criminal are subject to continual change and reinterpretation. In fact, there are now more ways of engaging in acts defined as “criminal" than there ever have been before. As Foucaulf has shown, categories of the criminal have undergone a process of refinement and proliferation in western cultures, beginning in the enlightenment and increasing in intensity through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This process of course continues at present, the recently instigated CJA being only one of many interrelated examples.

The strategy of identifying and further defining what Foucault refers to as “the dangerous individual" has tended to focus historically on urban areas where social conflicts, class struggles, political confrontations and armed revolts have been taken by hegemonic powers historically to be representative of

OBSCENIC VIEW

CONGRETINIZATION

threats to the general social order. For oppositional contact between the forces

example, I oucault points out that the of power and elements of resistance

"psychiatrization of crime” instituted in

the nineteenth century (Foucault, 125):

Emphasized the character of the criminal rather than the crime in which he had participated This phenomenon demanded that the judicial -system focus on the criminal s potential danger to society instead of on his particular crime. Psychiatry became important in the nineteenth century because it instituted a new ... means to enable the judicial machine to police public hygiene. The "juridico-moral’ concept of the dangerous individual threatens us because it gives society the right to censure based on what the individual is.

Foucault goes on to identify a key fingerprinting. Early this century, the nineteenth century innovation in civic criminal investigation of Sacco and social control which enabled city streets Vanzetti, despite whether or not they to be "cleansed” of “criminally insane’’, were actually innocent of armed “socially dangerous” elements-e.g. “expropriation” and murder, allowed thieves, murderers, sexual perverts, important innovations in the then

revolutionaries-in the supposed interest fledgling science of ballistics (see of “public hygiene” (Foucault, p. 142): Laqueur). Whereas, the related series of

crimes in early twentieth century London undertaken by Latvian and Russian revolutionaries (at least two of whom were self-proclaimed anarchists).

J he intensive development of the police network, which led to a new mapping and closer surveillance of urban space and also to a much more efficient prosecution of minor delinquency ... |and| it must be added that... the machine smashers of the beginning of the century, the anarchists of the last few years of the century, including the violent strikes, the revolutions of 1X48 and the commune of 1870, prompted those in power to treat political misdemeanors in the same way as ordinary crimes in order to discredit them Little by little an image was built up of an enemy who can equally well be a revolutionary or a murderer, since after all revolutionaries do sometimes kill.

I he concept of revolutionary-as- criminal and the presence of such undesirables in urban areas as a perceived threat to socnU order seemed further reinforced by the attentats, "expropriations" and various instances of "propaganda by the deed” undertaken from the nineteenth to the early twentieth cehtury Repeated

provided

information

gathering

p. opportunities and chances for technical

experimentation, allowing innovations in and augmentations of strategies of social control. For example, the late nineteenth century French anarchist/ thief/(and murderer?), Ravachol was identified definitively by the use of Bertillonage. This represented a momentary victory for a systematic method of criminal detection and record keeping based upon physical measurements and photography, although it would later be superseded known as I he Tottenham Outrage, The Houndsditch Murders and The Siege of Sidney Street, furthered public and official suspicions concerning the combined issues of foreign immigration, urban criminality and political agitation (see Rumbelow).

However, let it be said that although the forces of power may continually augment and refine techniques of control, this provides no argument for defeatism. Wherever there is power so there is also resistance. And while areas of the countryside and natural environment may now represent legitimate sites of conflict, cities will also continue to constitute major areas of contestation. The existence of a global Leviathan ensures that both rural and urban cites of opposition are ultimately implicated in the same insurrectionary undertaking-the overthrow of civilization itself.

And of what should this insurrectionary project consist? If, as Virilio asserts, that the city is characterized by the organization of speed in time rather than in space, then all current technologies which likewise “reduce expanse to nothing”(Virilio, p. 69), e.g. the car, airplane, computer, telephone, are also involved in what he terms a "dictatorship or tyranny of movement" (Virilio, p. 65). The danger in this consists in the fact that(Virilio, p. 69):

The field of freedom shrinks with speed And freedom needs a field When there is no more field, our lives will be like a terminal, a machine with doors that open and close...there will be nothing left but absolute control, an immediacy which will be the worst kind of concentration

Therefore, opposition would be situated in terms of what Virilio designates “chrono-politics” (Virilio, pl 16): insurrection in time rather than space. This would consist of ruptures, breaks in the intended smooth flow of the economy of speed, of the cultivation of interfaces and multiplication of fragments which challenge the monolithic, totalizing nature of power. In fact, operations very much like these can be found for example in the actions of the anti-roads movement, in the use of critical masses and the formation of TAZs. Should the fragments and ruptures be multiplied further and further, with commitment and imaginative ingenuity, then the field of freedom will expand in reverse proportion to the destabilization of power and its operations.

PR1MITIV1ST NETWORK, P O BOX 252. AMPTHILL MK45

The Pnmilivist Network promotes networking among anarcho-primitivists and anti-civilization registers. IJie Network is not an organisation and has no fixed id

1

logical line. It is designed to act merely as a means of fostenng contact between like-minded people v^lh the aim of generating anarcho-prunitivut projects

It’s objective is the development of anarcho-primitivist analysis and action. It’s goal is the creation of a world free of all forms of coercion, governance and domination.

Send two postage stamps (p^ an IR(?) to be entered on and receive a copy of the current network hsl Abbreviat'd liitingi available

Page 18

COMMENTARY ON THE ANARCHO-FUTURIST MANIFESTO

John Moore on the Futurist roots of Primitivism

INTRODUCTION -

I don't like the term ‘primitivist' as in 'anarcho-primitivist'. Historically, it is a term that has been attached to those anti- civilisation resisters who have engaged in a reappraisal ol the primitive as part of a search for radical alternatives to the global megamachine. But the term isn't a useful one because it carries with it an accumilated baggage of associations that seem impossible to slough off. despite essays like my Comin Home: Defining AnarchoPrimitivism (GA38. pp. 7-8), which explode notions that primitivism entails atavism and regression. I constantly encounter accusations of retrogression and find myself asserting almost ad infinitum that primitivism does not mean going back to nature or back to the caves.

The term primitivist' has to carry much have little chance of overcoming its of the blame for these problems. It's true istakes and establishing yourself as a

that unbridled ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism is rife in anarchist and other supposedly radical circles. But the word ‘rimitivist’ all too often elicits a knee-jerk response in people who really should know' better. And although I have no intention of backing down in the face of ignorancde and prejudice, a certain shift in terminology, which in actuality concedes no ground whatsoever, might be tactically beneficial, that is to say, it might open up lines of communication that otherwise might remain clogged.

Part of the problem resides in the fact that Western conceptions of time are so resolutely linear. There's the past, the present, and the future, and because of the ingrained Western notion of history as progress, any current that terms itself primitivist will unthinkingly be consired retrograde. And although notions of time as linear and of history as progress need to be challenged. If the word ‘primitivist' is such a sticking point that one can't even get past first base because of it, then it seems to me to be counter-productive to insist upon it.

The term ‘anti-civilisation current' has been used as - an alternative to ■primitivism', but the emphasis in this term remains squarely on what is opposed, rather than on posing an alternative. Given dominant notions of linear history, the term ‘post-civilisation' seems preferable as it at least gives a sense of envisaging something beyond civilisation. However, in this world of post-modernism, post-structuralism and

presence for resistance in the here and now.

Of course there are other issues to consider apart from terminology. But the ‘primitivist' terminology is one that is not only obstructive; it is also a terminology that has a very limited geneology for most people. Primitivism, even for those ‘in the know’, merely denotes an American import — Perlman, Zerzan, Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. And any form of primitivism located elsewhere is consequently seen as merely derivitive, an inappropriate offshoot, particularly in Europe, with its long-established civilisation and urban spaces.

But the fact is that the anti-civilisation current has other sources, some of which are located in the anarchist tradition, and even in the European anarchist tradition. And this current, as the AnarchoFuturist Manifesto indicates, has in the past been neither marginalised nor couched in primitivist terms. This essay, by contextualising and examining the Manifesto, will indicate some ways in which anti-civilisation currents, resolutely anti-urbanist ’ and anti- technological in character, might proceed beyonmd the primitivist’ impasse, might even (dare I say it?) pose their current in terms of the future.

POLITICS

According to Paul Avrich in his introductory remarks to the Manifesto,

Italian futurists on the one hand and the Russian anarcho-futurists on the other, this obscures the fact that the ideology' of the two groups is diametrically opposite. The Italian futurists are notorious for their advocacy of fascism and their support of Mussolini. By stressing the similarity of their style, Avrich clearly wants to imply a shared ideology. In short, he wants to remove the “anarcho-” from their name, and recast them as fascists.

This, then, is part of a smear campaign directed at the anarcho-ftiturists by the eminent American anarchist historian, and is taken up in his only referenfe to the group in his study The Russian Anarchists (Avrich, 1969, p. 186):

One fanatical circle in Kharkov, known as the Anarcho-Futunsts, conjured up the ghosts of Bidbei and Rostoutsev by proclaiming Death to world civilisation!’' and urging the dark masses to take up their axes and destroy everything in sight

Earlier, Bidbei' and Rostoutsev are characterised as advocates of terror, direct action and violent conflict, as fanatics who have “horrendous visions of the revolution (Avrich, 1967, p. 51). Neither, however, on the basis of Avrich's presentation, seem to have envisioned, let alone advocated, an end to world civilisation. Rather, ideologically, they seem merely extreme proponents of anarcho-communism. So Avrich, in his attempt to discredit the anarcho-futurists through smear tactics, isn't even prepared to grant their status as historical innovators of the anticivilisation current. The anarcho- futurists emerge in his account merely as extremists, as proponents of terror, violence and fanaticism, and therefore, like the Italian futurists, they must be fascists. -

But the fact is that despite similarities in language use, the ideologoes inherent in Italian futurism and Russian anarchofuturism are entirely antagonistic. And this is particularly the case in terms of the two groups' attitudes toward** the city and technology. Consider this passage from Marinetti’s The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism (1909), the document to which Avrich referred earlier:

by the anarcho-futurists. Despite Marinetti's references to pleasure, riot anmd revolution, this is not - an insurrectionist manifesto. Pleasure, riot and revolution are just part of the excitements of the modem city, not challenges to it, and the scale and dynamic of the city dwarfs and supercedes both the human and nature. Individuals are subsumed in the faceless masses of “crowds” who are “excited” by the work that makes the city function. But even these crowds are dehumanised: the use of personification to characterise the industries and technologies of the city transfers the humanity of the urban inhabitants to the industrial processes themselves. But rather than regarded as a source of alienation, this forcible transference is celebrated. Nature has been supplanted by the synthetic environment of the urban space, but as with contemporary advocates of cyberspace, this is seen as liberatory and a cause for joy.

This passage articulates the major themes of Italian Futurism: the glorification of urban life, technology, speed, and the dominance of the machine. In short, all those responses to modernity, that render Italian futurism compatable with fascism. The contrast with the Anarcho-Futurist Manifesto could not be more complete.

The city street is the site of action for the anarcho-futurists, but the people in those streets are not the faceless, deindividuated crowd of Marinetti’s urban space. Rather, the call goes out to “all who are still fresh and young and not dehumanised — to the streets!” The emphasis explicitly falls on those who have eluded rthe routinisation of daily life in the modem city. Such people are not the deracinated, thrill-seeking envisaged by Marinetti, but “the Children of Nature”, ie. precisely those who have retained their links with the natural world. The anarcho-futurists share with the Italian Futurists a common desire to extirpate the dull, stuffy and repressive apparatus of the Victorian age, but how they aim to do this and what they propose to replace it with are miles apart.

post-feminism, the use of the prefix post-’ is tantamount to launching a new marketing strategy.

Some readers might find this concern with terminology unnecessary or even irrelevant. But language fc never innocent, never free of ideological connotations, and needs to be used with as much precision as possible. As women and gays have discovered, if you can't name yourself, you don’t have an identify, and if you don’t have an identity, then in a mass-mediated world you might as well not exist - and may not for much longer, as it is all too easy to suppress and efface the nameless. Without a name you have no history, and withoUl a sense of your past, you

the Group of Anarcho-Futurists (Avrich, 1973, p 52):

in their contempt for the old and exaltation of the new. their deliberate effort to shock and outrage, and their call for the wholesale destruction of art and culture, echoed the celebrated f uturist Manifesto published in 1909 by Filippo Marinetti At times, indeed, their language is nearly identical with that of Marinetti, with its unrestrained imagery and cascading metaphors

Avrich then proceeds to give an example of Marinetti’s rhetoric which superficially resembles the style of the A narc ho-futurist Manifesto.

There is a hidden agenda, however, in Avrich’s comment. First, while there may be certain similarities between the language used by Marinetti! ’and' die

We will sing of great crowds excited by work, by pleasure, and by riot, we will sing of the multicoloured polyphonic Udes of revolution in the modern capitals; we will sing of the vibrant mighty fervour of arsenals and shipyards blazing with violent electric moons, greedy railway stations that devour smoke-plumed serpents, factories hung from clouds by the crooked lines of their smoke, bridges that stride the rivers like giant gymnasts, flashing in the sun with the glitter of knives, adventurous steamers that sniff the horizon deep-chested locomotives whose wheels paw the tracks like' hooves of enormous steel horses bridled by tubing, and the sleek flight of planes whose propellors chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.

I he attitude to the city in particular, and modernity in general, in this passage is very different from the one articulated S »7 ;> - Ml lit* 1 I ' » | I »

Marinetti develops a techno-politics in his manifesto. The futurist is someone who rides the wave of urban, technological development.

Sociopolitical conflict remains secondary to the promotion of the technological society and the city, its privileged space. For Marinetti, technology is the motor of social change; politiocal struggle merely aims to create the context in which the unfettered development of technology can occur. Fascism, as the ultimate authoritarian ideology, thus becomes the most appropriate political form for suppressing those who would hinder the technologisation of the human and natural*worlds. 'I he control structures of >'»

Page 19

ANARCHO-FUTURIST MANIFESTO

Ah-ah-ah. ha-ha. ho-ho!

Fly into the streets! All who are still fresh and young and not dehumanisaed — to the streets! The pot-bellied mortar of laughter stands in a square drunk with joy. Laughter and Love, copulating with Melancholy and Hate, pressed together in the mighty, convulsive passion of bestial lust. Long live the psychology of contrasts! Intoxicated, burning spirits have raised the flaming banner of intellectual revolution. Death to the creatures of routine, the philistines, the sufferers from gout! Smash with a deafening noise the cup of vengeful storms! Tear down the churches and their allies the museums! Blast to smithereens the fragile idols of Civilisation! Hey, you decadent architects of the sdarcophagi of thought, you watchmen of the universal cemetery of books -- stand aside! We have come to remove you! The okld must be buried, the dusty archive burned by the Vulcan's torch of creative genius. Past the flaky ashes of worldwide devastation, past the charred canvases of bulky paintings, past the burned, fat, pot-bellied volumes of classics we march, we Anarcho-Futurists! Above the vast expanse of devastation covering our land the banner of anarchy will be proudly unfurled! Writing has no value! There is no market for literature! There are no prisons, no limits for subjective creativity! Everything is permitted! Everything is unrestricted!

The Children of Nature receive in joyous ecstacy the chivalrous golden kiss of the Sun and the lascivious, naked, fat belly of the Earth. The Children of Nature springing from the black soil kindle the passions of naked, lustful bodies. They press them all in one spawning, pregnant cup! Thousands of arms and legs are welded into a single suffocating exhausted heap! The skin is inflamed by hot, insatiable, gnawing caresses. Teeth sink with hatred into warm succulent lovers’ flesh! Wide, staring eyes follow the pregnant, burning dance of lust! Everything is strange, uninhibited, elemental. Convulsions - flesh - life - death - everything! . .

Such is the poetry of our love! Powerful, immortal, and terrible are we in our love! The north wind rages in the heads of the Children of Nature. Somwething frightful has appeared — some vampire of melancholy! Perdition -- the world is dying! Catch it! Kill it! No, wait! Frenzied, penetrating cries pierce the air. Wait! Melancholy! Black yawning ulcers of agony cover the pale, terror-stricken face of heaven. The earth trembles with fear beneath the mighty, wrathful blows of its Children! Oh, you cursed, loathsome things! They tear at its fat, tender flesh and bur}' their withered, starving melancholy in the flowing blood and resh wounds of its body. The world is dying! Ah! Ah! Ah! cry millions of tocsins. Ah! Ah! Ah! roar the giant cannon of alarm. Destruction! Chaos! Melancholy! the world is dying!

Such is the poetry of our melancholy! We are uninhibited! Not for us the wailing sentimentality of the humanists. Rather, we shall create the triuphant intellectual brotherhood of peoples, forged with the iron logic of contradictions, of Love and Hate. With bared teeth we shall protect our free union, from Africa to the two poles, against any sentimental level of friendship. Everything is ours! Outside us is only death! Raising the black flag of rebellion, we summon all living men who have not been dehimanised, who havbe not been benumbed by the poisonous breath of Civilisation! All to the streets! Forward! Destroy! Kill! Only death admits no return! Extinguish the old! Thunder, lightning, the elements - all are ours! Forward!

Long live the international intellectual revolution!

An open road for the Anarcho-Futurists, Anarcho-Hyperboreans, and Neo-Nihilists!

Death to world Civilisation!

• ' ’ Group of Anarcho-Futurists

K Svetu s Shturmovol, opustoshalushchii manifest anakho-futuristov (Kharkhov, 14/3/1919) from Paul Avrich’s The Anarchists in the Ruissian Revolution (London: Thames.& Hudson, 1973).

The city, power node of civilization, must be reduced to a state of the most profound rupture: ruins. And, like the Spanish civil war anarchist, Durruti, we too must affirm that “ We are not afraid of ruins ... we carry a new world in our hearts" (Mitchell, pp. 126-127).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ellul, Jacques. (1964) The Technological Society trans. John Wilkinson, New York: Vintage.

Foucault, Michel. (1988) Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy,

C 'ullure: Interviews and Other

Writings, 1977-1984 ed. Laurence D.

Kritzman, London: Routledge.

Laqueur, Walter. (1987) The 4ge of Terrorism London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Mitchell, David. (1982) The Spanish Civil War London: Granada.

Rumbelow, Donald. (1988) The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street London: Penguin.

Virilio, Paul & Lotringer, Sylvere.

(1983) Pure Bar New York: Semiotext(e).

fascism and the social controls of technology intersect perfectly to produce a technological totalitarian society. Or so Marinetti thought...

The anarcho-futurists, however, are not in the least interested in techno-politics. The aspects of the city stressed in their manifesto are the ones customarily attacked by the Italian futurists: churches, museums, libraries, art galleries, the cultural marketplace. Like the Italians, they are concerned with the cultural institutions that maintain the

The skin is. inflamed by hot. insatiable, gnawing caresses Teeth sink with hatred into warm succulent lovers flesh

Indeed, for the anarcho-futurists, the proposed psychology of opposites acts as an explanation of the necessity for insurrection. Apart from the fdead hand of dominant but moribund authority, the anarcho-futurists also respond to ecocological decimation.' While the Italian Futurists celebrated the triumph of the synthetic environment, the Russians protested against industrial equilibration between opposites. Melancholy, despair, weltschmerz, lifedenial -- these are the states of mind that for the anarcho-futurists, following Nietzsche, are at the basis of power and exploitation. It is thus as a way of preventing the death of the world that anarcho-futurism proposes the death of world civilisation. Civilisation means ultimately the death of ail, so civilisation itself must be put to death if life is to continue.

Even as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, then, in confrontation with the emergence of modernity, radical antircivilisation resisters recognized the inadequacy of political discourse as a way of talking about their concerns and effecting a shift beyond civilisation. And it is from this project that we, facing the even worse horrors of postmodemity, can perhaps learn most from the anarcho-futurists. Fredy Perlman, with his shift toward fictional and poetic discourse in his later work.

status quo, the hegemony of the ruling elites. But for the Russians, this concern with destroying the stranglehold of the dead hand of the past on the present (and thus preventing the birth of a liberated furture), is recast in a more radical form. It is not merely the case that the stranglehold of authority and tradition must be removed; rather, it is civilisation itself — the ultimate source and context of authority — that must be destroyed.

Italian futurists propose to shatter traditional political and cultural authority through the imposition of a new, ultra-authoritarian force: technofascism. The anarcho-futurists, however, propose the destruction of civilisation itself, the abolition of power and authority, through insurrectionary antiauthoritarian upheaval: anarcho- futurism.

At the heart of anarcho-futurism lies the proposed “psychology of opposites". Like Blake’s philosophy of contraries, this comprises a dynamic balance between opposing forces. Hence, the cityscape of the manifesto is filled, not with faceless crowds, but with gigantic anthropomorphic figures, the grand guignol, humanity writ large:

Laughter and Love, copulating with Melancholy and Hate, pressed together in the mighty, compulsive passion of bestial lust

Against the disembodied and lifedenying forces of politico-cultural hegemony, the anarcho-futurists pose, not the abstractions of the machine, but the life-affirming energies of the body, sexuality and nature.

The Children of Nature receive in joyous ccstacy the chivalrous golden kiss of the Sun and the lascivious, naked fat belly of the Earth The Children of Nature springing from the black soil kindle the passions of naked, lustful bodies They press them all in one spawning, pregnant cup’ Thousands of arms and legs arc welded into a single suffocating exhausted heap¹

The anarcho-ftiturists reaffirm the Romantic notion of the creative genius, - but generalise this to all who participae in the insurrection. But cdreativity, in a life-affirming worldview, must be complemented by destruction. Bakunin had announced that "the passion to destroy is a creative passion and Nietzsche had indicated that "he who has to be a creator always had to destroy”, and the ideas of both thinkers are perceptible in the manifesto. The words of Nietzsche’s Z|arathustra are echoed in the anarcho-futprist’s assertion that “Everything is permiotted! Everything is unrestricted!’’, and Nietzsche’s life-affirmative philosophy is perceptible in the manifesto’s affirmation of “Convulsions - flesh - life - death - everything! Everything!" But such life-affirmation entails the affirmation of opposites, and this iemerges in thci manifesto even .amidst the orgiastic insurrection:

assaults on nature:

Black yawning ulcers of agony cover the pale, terror-stricken face of heaven The earth trembles with fear beneath the mighty wrathful blows of its Children! Oh. you cursed, loathsome things! they tear at its tat, tender flesh and bury their withered, starving melancholy in the Bowing blood and fresh wounds of its body I he world is dying¹

The key word in this passage is “melancholy”. While the opening of the manifesto celebrates the copulation ol laughter and love with melancholy and hate, seeing this act as a perfect example of the dynamic balance generated by the psychology of opposites, thjs later passage indicates that imbalance — the dominance of melancholy over other Rainies is_t tye,., root cause of oppression. Hence the need of a re-

LANGUAGE

One of the few positive points Avrich makes about the Manifesto is that (Avrich, 1973, p. 52)

the Anarcho-Fulurists invented a new vocabulary to suit the new post-bourgeois era in the making

Indeed, it could be said that the anarcho- futurists invented a new vocabulary to suit a post-civilised era. At the same time that Dada was assaulting language and attempting to shatter meaning so that new perceptions could develop, the anarcho-futurists, amidst the turbulent conditions of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary Russia, were trying to forge a language commensurate to postfollowed a similar route away from political discourse in our own times. But maybe the anarcho-futurists have their own distinctive lesson to teach us.

The anarcho-futurists did not emerge in a vacuum. Apart from influences already noted such as Bakunin and Nietzsche, the anarcho-futurists were also inevitably influenced by their contemporaries and in particular by the activities of Russian literary and artistic futurists. Once the anarcho-futurists are sirtuated in this context, any lingering doubts about affiliations with Italian futurist fascism are completely extinguished.

Critics of Russian cultural futurism are _t (orthpght _M (n ^eir rejectipp ;.of any

Page 20

connexions between Italian and Russian futurism. Talking of literary' futurism, Vladimir Markov suggests that “in-" its origins the Russian group was quite independent of the Italians" (Markov, 1969, p. 26). He indicates that some

Russian literary futurists ‘deliberately distanced themselves from the Italians: “any connections between the Italian and Russian varieties, except the name, were refuted" (Markov, 1969, p. 151); and goes on to suggest that even the choice of name was accidental. Similarly, writing on Russian artistic futurism, Marion Burleigh-Motley writes that (Burleigh-Motley, 1986, p. 94)

The name ‘futurism is almost all that unites the Russian and the Italian movements

In this context, Avrich's insinuations about anarcho-futurism lose all credence.

Literary futurism, rather than artistic futurism, is likely to have played the more influential role over the anarcho- futurists. if only because the medium they chose for their manifesto was written language. Markov suggests, however, that any generalisations about literary futurism in Russia are difficult to substantiate (Markov, 1969, p. 269):

Russian futurism ... was flexible, varied, and contradictory, and any effort to reduce it to

the aspirations and achievements of only one group or of a single person are bound to end in the worst possible simplifications and distortions ;

And even the most cursory examination of the evidence suggests that Markov is correct.

Clearly there was room for diversity in literary terms. Vladimir Mayakovsky, the most famous of the Russian futurists, was certainlyy able to articulate an ideology that in many respects is compatible with that of Marinetti. In 1913, for ' example, Mayakovsky declared in a lecture that (Markov, 1969, p. 1235)

the poetry of futurism was the poetry of the

modem city He said that the modem city

had enriched the human soul with new

emotions and impressions, unknown to the poets of the past Ail the world was becoming one huge city and nature would soon be obsolete too

Given this intoxication with modernity, it is understandable that after the Bolshevik counter-revolution,

Mayakovsky became for a while the

darling of the communist totalitarian regime, with its Leninist mathematical equation: soviets + electricity = communism. In contrast, the fate of the anarcho-futurists can only be conjectured, but one fears the worst.

Nevertheless, other tendencies within literary futyurism were perceptible. One tendency, which played an important role in the movement, was the Stimer- influenced ego-futurists (Markov, 1969, p. 61):

The very fact that the ego-futurists brought the word “futurism" to Russian literature was full of consequences ... Historically, it is also important to remember that for ' contemporaries futurism meant, for a considerable time, ego-futurism ... The majority of provincial limitations of the eventually fashionable futurism were written in te ego-futurist vein

Moreover, while ego-futurism originated in St Petersburg, Markov points to the presence of ego-futurist activity in Kharkov, home of the anaercho- futurists, from 1914 onward, so there may be a direct link and perhaps even ineraction between the two groups. Certainly, however, in some respects the ego-futurists can be seen to have provided a context for the development of anarcho-futurist ideas (Markov, 1969, P-78):

A real change in ego-futurist orientation became noticeable in the group's fifth miscellany [in 1913] .. The central work in the book is an ambitious, though poorly written, critical essay by Ignatyev (a prominent ego-futurist poet], “Ego- Futurism", in which he attempts a new formulation of the movement's philosophy. Civilization is declared a mortal enemy of self, erasing its immortal element ... Finally, Ignatyev comes to the conclusion that, as - Christianity was a religion of slaves, and socialism is a religion of labor, so egoism is a religion of “spiritual serfs ’, slaves of civilization and the city. The fact that he undermines urbanism, an important aspect of ego-futurist aesthetics, does not dismay Ignatyev...

Clearly, even from this sketchy account, Ignatyev tried to move ego-futurism beyond its Stimerrite ideology, by using a Nietzschean perspective on the geneology of power. Moreover, he challenged the ego-ftiturist urbanist orientation by proposing the city as a site of enslavement and by extension civilisation as the locus of control. From this perspective, it is a relatively short step to the anarcho-futurist position of

not merely attacking civilisation and the city in words, but in action too.

However, questions of ideational influence aside, there are also important issues concerning the common use of style and language. Burleigh-Motley (1986, p. 108) suggests that the

use of epithet, street language, out of context and tumbled words, or erotixcism and infantile language, of archaic language and breaking down words until nothing is left but sound — all these devices were typical of the Russian futurist poets.

It is difficult to know whether the language of the Anarcho-Futurist Manifesto has been toned down in any way in Avrich's translation.

_ -

Nevertheless, the translation shows evidence of many of these devices. Epithets abound throughout the text. Street language, like archaic language, is difficult to spot, but may be present. Incongruous imagery is perceptible in images such as “the pot-bellied mortar of laughter". Eroticism is pervasive in the first half of the manifesto. And there are certain tendencies toward pure sound — such as the opening line “ah-ah-ah, ha- ha, ho-ho". 'Undeniably, some techniques used by futurist writers are present, and certainly enough to indicate a shared concern.

CONCLUSION

Before the prefix ‘anarcho-’ was ever conjoined with the term primitivism’, it was linked with the wiord ‘futurism’. And yetin some ways, though the terms seem so far apart, anarcho-primitivism and anarcho-futurism. are quite compatable. Certainly, theorising has moved on, and it could be argued — another paradox -- that anarcho- primitivist thinking is more developed and more sophisticated than anarcho- futurist thought (at least on the basis of the Manifesto). And yet, as indicated earlierr, the term ‘primitivist’ remains problematic. I am not suggesting that pnmitivists should all adopt the title of anarcho-fiiturists. But I am suggesting that primitivists, if they want to transform the lable into something that isn’t an obstacle to communication, should fill it with a new meaning, or perhaps just with a greatly expanded meaning.

And this is where the anarcho-futurists come in. The important American

anarchist journal Drunken Boat has begun the process of excavating the lost or hidden links between culture and anarchy. In an essay entitled Culture and Anarchy, Richard D Sonn provides an overview of the links between anarchy and avant-garde arrtists in Europe and America from the 1860s to the present, and concludes (Sonn 1994, p. 27):

No one style, but rather the avant-garde demand for destruction of the old and continual renewal, for unbridled creativity, autonomy, and freedom, became the link between art and anarchism This link was far more profound than historians and art historians have imagined until very' recently.

Clearly, to some extent or other, it is this context that anarcbo-fiiturism arose and mjade its quantum leap. But the context may well be the important element here. The fact is that as anti-civilisation resisters, we talk? about communities of resistance and quite rightly point to autonomous zones, affinity ghroups, direct action, and other shared projects. But surely part of the communities of resistance project must be the development of an anarchist cultural politics, an anarchist cultural insurgency, a culture that is vibrant, politicised and innovative. Part of this is emerging right now through DIY culture. But the anarcho-futurists have a thing or two to

teach us in terms of language. The conceptual and cultural breakthrough made by the anarcho-futurists consisted of developing a language, a mode of expression, appropriate to their anticivilisation aims. It s that challenge, I believe, that we now have to pick up.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Paul Avrich's The Anarchists in the

Russian Revolution (London: Thames & Hudson, 1973)

and The Russian Anarchists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967)

Marion Burleigh-Motley’s The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1986)

Vladimir Markov’s Russian Futurism: A History (London: MacGibbon & Kee. 1969)

Richard D Sonn’s Culture and Anarchy in Drunken Boat 2 (New York: Autonomedia/Left Bank Books, 1994)

CITIES - AS THEY CANNOT BE REFORMED
ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO ABOLISH THEM

Articles

Whose Unabomber?

Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous review reactions to FC

Technogogues and technopaths we have had with us for some time. The Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, for instance, was well-known in the early 1980's for his description of the human brain as "a 3 pound computer made of meat." He was featured in the December 1983 issue of Psychology Today, occasioning the following letter:

Marvin Minsky: With the wholly uncritical treatment -- nay, giddy embrace -- of high technology, even to such excrescences as machine "emotions" which you develop and promote, Psychology Today has at least made it publicly plain what's intended for social life. Your dehumanizing work is a prime contribution to high tech's accelerating motion toward an ever more artificial, de-individuated, empty landscape. I believe I am not alone in the opinion that vermin such as you will one day be considered among the worst criminals this century has produced.

(Signed) In Revulsion,
John Zerzan

A dozen years later the number of those actively engaged in the desolation of the soul and the murder of nature has probably risen; but support for the entire framework of such activity has undoubtedly eroded.

Enter the Unabomber (he/she/they) with a critique, in acts as well as words, of our sad, perverse, and increasingly bereft technological existence. Unabomber calls for a return to "wild nature" via "the complete and permanent destruction of modern industrial society in every part of the world," and the replacement of that impersonal, unfree, and alienated society by that of small, face-to-face social groupings. He has killed three and wounded 23 in the service of this profoundly radical vision.

There are two somewhat obvious objections to this theory and practice. For one thing, a return to undomesticated autonomous ways of living would not be achieved by the removal of industrialism alone. Such removal would still leave the domination of nature, subjugation of women, war, religion, the state, and division of labor, to cite some basic social pathologies. It is civilization itself that must be undone to go where Unabomber wants to go. In other words, the wrong turn for humanity was the Agricultural Revolution, much more fundamentally than the Industrial Revolution.

In terms of practice, the mailing of explosive devices intended for the agents who are engineering the present catastrophe is too random. Children, mail carriers and others could easily be killed. Even if one granted the legitimacy of striking at the high-tech horror show by terrorizing its indispensable architects, collateral harm is not justifiable.

Meanwhile, Unabomber operates in a context of massive psychic immiseration and loss of faith in all of the system's institutions. How many moviegoers, to be more specific, took issue with Terminator 2 and its equating of science and technology with death and destruction? Keay Davidson's "A Rage Against Science" (San Francisco Examiner, 4/30/95) observed that Unabomber's "avowed hatred of science and technological trends reflects growing popular disillusionment with science."

A noteworthy example of the resonance that his sweeping critique of the modern world enjoys is "The Evolution of Despair" by Robert Wright, cover story of Time for August 28. The long article discusses the Unabomber's indictment soberly and sympathetically in an effort to plumb "the source of our pervasive sense of discontent."

At the same time, not surprisingly, other commentators have sought to minimize the possible impact of such ideas. "Unabomber Manifesto Not Particularly Unique" is the dismissive summary John Schwartz provided for the August 20 Washington Post. Schwartz found professors who would loftily attest to the unoriginality of fundamental questioning of society, as if anything like that goes on in classrooms. Ellul, Juenger and others with a negative view of technology are far from old hat; they are unknown, not part of accepted, respectable discourse. The cowardice and dishonesty typical of professors and journalists could hardly be more clearly represented.

Also easily predictable has been the antipathy to Unabomber-type ideas from the liberal-left. "Unabummer" was Alexander Cockburn's near-hysterical denunciation in The Nation, August 28/September 4. This pseudo-critic of U.S. capitalism rants about the Unabomber's "homicidal political nuttiness," the fruit of an "irrational" American Anarchist tradition. Cockburn says that Unabomber represents a "rotted-out romanticism of the individual and of nature," that nature is gone forever and we'd better accept its extinction. In reply to this effort to vilify and marginalize both Unabomber and anarchism, Bob Black points out (unpublished letter to the editor) the worldwide resurgence of anarchism and finds Unabomber expressing "the best and the predominant thinking in contemporary North American anarchism, which has mostly gotten over the workerism and productivism which it too often used to share with Marxism."

In Spring '95 Earth First! spokesperson Judy Bari labeled Unabomber "a sociopath," going on to declare, definitively but mistakenly, that "there is no one in the radical environmental movement who is calling for violence." This is not the place to adequately discuss the politics of radical environmentalism, but Bari's pontificating sounds like the voice of the many anarcho-liberals and anarcho-pacifists who wish to go no further in defense of the wild than tired, ineffective civil disobedience, and who brandish such timid and compromised slogans as "no deforestation without representation."

The Summer '95 issue of Slingshot, tabloid of politically correct Berkeley militants, contained a brief editorial trashing the Unabomber for creating "the real danger of government repression" of the radical milieu. The fear that misplaces blame on Unabomber overlooks the simple fact that any real blows against the Megamachine will invite responses from our enemies. The specter of repression is most effectively banished by doing nothing.

For their part, the "anarchists" of Love and Rage (August/September) have also joined the anti-Unabomber leftist chorus. Wayne Price's "Is the Unabomber an Anarchist?" concedes, with Bob Black, that "most anarchists today do not regard the current development of industrial technology as 'progressive' or even 'neutral,' as do Marxists and liberals." But after giving this guarded lip-service to the ascendancy of Unabomber-like ideas, Price virulently decries Unabomber as "a murderer dragging noble ideas

The Unabomber’s manifesto, Industrial Society & Its Future, is available only from Green Anarchist Mail Order, PO Box 407, Camberley GU15 3FL, £1.50.

INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY AND ITS FUTURE

The Unabomber's Manifesto

as published in the Washington Post, Tuesday, September 19,1995

Page 22

through the mud" and withholds even such political and legal support that he would accord authoritarian leftists targeted by the state. Love and Rage is defined by a heavy-handed manipulative organize-the-masses ideology; approaches that are more honest and more radical are either ignored or condemned by these politicians.

But this selective mini-survey of opposition to Unabomber does not by any means exhaust the range of responses. There are other perspectives, which have mainly, for obvious reasons, been expressed only privately. Some of us, for one thing, have found a glint of hope in the public appearance, at last, of a challenge to the fundamentals of a depraved landscape. In distinction to the widespread feeling that everything outside of the self is beyond our control, the monopoly of lies has been broken. It might be said that Unabomber's (media) impact is here today, only to be forgotten tomorrow. But at least a few will have been able to understand and remember. The irony, of course, is that lethal bombings were necessary for an alternative to planetary and individual destruction to be allowed to be heard.

The concept of justice should not be overlooked in considering the Unabomber phenomenon. In fact, except for his targets, when have the many little Eichmanns who are preparing the Brave New World ever been called to account? Where is any elementary personal responsibility when the planners of our daily and global death march act with complete impunity?

The ruling order rewards such destroyers and tries to polish their image. The May 21 New York Times Magazine's "Unabomber and David Gelernter" humanizes the latter, injured by a Unabomber bomb at Yale, as a likable computer visionary preparing a "Renaissance of the human spirit." From no other source than the article itself, however, it is clear that Gelernter is helping to usher in an authoritarian dystopia based on all the latest high-tech vistas, like genetic engineering.

Is it unethical to try to stop those whose contributions are bringing an unprecedented assault on life? Or is it unethical to just accept our passive roles in the current zeitgeist of postmodern cynicism and know-nothingism? As a friend in California put it recently, when justice is against the law, only outlaws can effect justice.

The lengthy Unabomber manuscript will go undiscussed here; its strengths and weaknesses deserve separate scrutiny. These remarks mainly shed light on some of the various, mostly negative commentary rather than directly on their object. It is often the case that one can most readily learn about society by watching its reactions, across the spectrum, to those who would challenge it.

"Well, I believe in FC/Unabomber -- it's all over the country...his ideas are, as the situationists said, 'in everyone's heads'; it's just a matter of listening to yer own rage," from a Midwesterner in the know. Or as Anne Eisenberg, from Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, admitted, "Scratch most people and you'll get a Luddite."

And from the Boulder Weekly, Robert Perkinson's July 6, '95 column sagely concluded: "Amidst the overwhelming madness of unbridled economic growth and postmodern disintegration, is such nostalgia, or even such rage, really crazy? For many, especially those who scrape by in unfulfilling jobs and peer longing toward stars obscured by beaming street lights, the answer is probably no. And for them, the Unabomber may not be a psychopathic demon. They may wish FC the best of luck."

Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous, PO Box 11331, Eugene, Oregon 97440, USA.

The MOVE Organization

MOVE prisoner Merle Africa on its philosophy and the 11^th anniversary of the Philadelphia Massacre

Since the May 13th bombing of our MOVE family in Phila., there has been a lot of questions in peoples' heads about THE MOVE ORGANIZATION and MOVE’S position on May 13th, these questyions are the result of the misinformation and lies that the city officials and news media have been printing about THE MOVE ORGANIZATION and the May 13, 1985 massacre of innocent MOVE children, women, men and animals. The following are some of the questions people have been asking and MOVE'S answer to those questions:

1. WELL WHAT DOES MOVE BELIEVE IN ANYWAY:

MOVE s Belief is Life, Natural Law, we don’t believe in man’s reform world system. Life, Natural Law which is synonymous with GOD. made pure air, clean water, fertile soil, made babies healthy and made the principle of freedom, equality for all Life to enjoy without prejudice of superior, inferior. This is the law MOVE believe in and obey, not mans’ so called laws, it is mans’ law that has created and sanctioned industry that is polluting the air, poisoning the water, the soil ansd causing the retarded babies, deformed, diseased adults from the poison industry, man created and lying to people to cover up their filth. MOVE’S work is to expose this filth, confront and expose it with the truth, JOHN AFRICA’S teaching, which is why this system havp.^qen beating, jailing, killing MOVE

people, killing MOVE babies, persecuting THE MOVE ORGANIZATION for 20 years to try to stop us from telling the truth about this system, this is the real reason behind May 13. This system is persecuting, attempting to exterminate MOVE because we tell the truth and they don t want their Lies exposed, this system knows MOVE Belief, knows our fight to protect Life is right, is the truth and this system don t intend to embrace the truth, be right, don t intend to protect nothing but their money interests whether it be at the expense of your life, all Life. 1 he people running this system know MOVE s purpose is to stop them from imposing on Life, and they don’t want to stop, so theyjntend to try to stop MOVE by any Wans they got, and they saw May 13th as just such an opportunity. This system had no intentions *» Of /, avoiding' f < that confrontation, they had every

intention to kill MOVE, they sent their cops out to MOVE'S house May 13th with specific orders from high up in government to kill MOVE to shut us up from telling the truth.

2. WHAT IS MOVE REALLY ABOUT:

MOVE’S work, JOHN AFRICA’S revolution, is to stop man s system fropm imposing on Life, MOVE’S work is to stop industry from poisoning the air, the water,’the soil and to put an end to the enslavement of Life — people, animals, any form of Life. The purpose of JOHN AFRICA's revolution, MOVE’S work, is to show people how corrupt, rotten, criminally enslaving this system is, show people through JOHN AFRICA s teaching, the truth, that this system is the cause of al! their problems (alcoholism, drug addiction, war, disease, murder, rape, all crimes; unemployment, wife, child avbuse, woman, child pornography, every problem existing in the world) and to set the example of revolution for people to follow when they realize how they’ve been oppressed, repressed, duped, tricked by this system, this government and sec MOVE are revolutionmaries, we are the vanguard, the spearhead of JOHN AFRICA's revolution, our work is. to confront this system up , front, to show people wit .ohiy । that they can fight this system and win,

but to show them the urgent need to fight. People are confronted daily with the threat of industrial poison, police brutality, corrupt government, politicians, judges, unjust jail terms and things ain t getting better it’s getting worse, while the lies to cover this filth is getting even more silky smooth, devious. MOVE ain’t talking about changing governments, replacing one corrupt dictator, enslaver for another, MOVE is talking about the government of self, true freedom, the natural right of all Life to be free, MOVE ain’t talking about making jail so called better, MOYS' is fighting to do away with prisons and the mentality of enslavement that allows prisons to even exist when freedom should be the only force realized This system kows THE MOVE ORGANIZAHON is committed to stopping them, their crimes against Life, they know JOHN AFRICA, MOVE’S COORDINATOR, is the master strategist behind MOVE, they know JOHN AFRICA got the power, the wisdom to stop them, that’s why they dropped that bomb on our house May 13; this system thinks that murdering our family will stop HIE MOVE ORGANIZATION JOHN AFRICA, JOHN AFRICA’S revolution, nothing this system does will Stop K)HN AIRKA. THE MOVE OrtOANlZATldN, anything

Page 23

Merle Africa (#00-6306, PO Box 180, Muncy, PA 17756, USA) being escorted away from MOVE’S besieged Powelton Avenue commune by Philly pigs, May 1978. She and eight other MOVE family members are still inside today for murdering James Ramp, a cop actually shot in the back by his own colleagues at the culmination of the siege.

they do to us only makes us come back at them that much more harder, stronger, because MOVE got the power of Life, MOM NATURE, the power of true GOD as our ally and no man can stand up against this power long and win! LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA! -

3. WHAT DO MOVE BELIEVE IN WHEN IT COMES TO LIFE AND WHEN IT COMES TO THE SYSTEM:

MOVE Belief is that Life NATURE GOD is the same, we are taught by JOHN AFRICA to love Life, revere it, move in harmony with it, not go against Life as this system is doing. This system don't believe in Life, they claim their belief is in GOD (which is the same as Life) but we know their belief is in money not GOD and they prove it by the way they mistreat GOD's Life for the sake of money. This system have historically abused, raped, bartered Life (including people) for the sake of money. This system's rulers, its policy makers want money and don't care who they kill, enslave, cripple, make sick to get it. To quote JOHN AFRICA'.

INDUSTRY IS AN EXCESS OF LIFE, AN ADDITION TO GODS LAW, THAT HAS CAUSED AIL DISORDERS, MURDER. RAPE, THEFT. SLAVERY, WAR. GUNS. BOMBS. CRIPPLES. INDUSTRY HAS HEART DISORDER. HEAD DISORDER. LUNG DISORDER. TEETH DISORDER. IT HAS CAUSED WIVES TO HAVE DISORDERS FROM HUSBANDS. HUS BANDS TO HAVE DISORDERS FROM THEIR JOBS AND CHILDREN TO HAVE DISORDERS FROM THEIR MOTHERS THEIR FATHERS AND

THEIR JOBS. INDUSTRY HAVE ( AUSI D 11 IF DIS-ORDER Ol SMOKING, THE DISORDER OF DRINKING, THE DISORDER OF PILLS AND THE PROBLEMS THAT COME AFTER, INDUSTRY HAS CAUSED BIRIH PROBLEMS DEATH PROBLEMS AND ALL OF THE BILLIONS OF PROBLEMS IN BETWEEN, INDUSTRY HAVE TWISTED PEOPLE AROUND SO BAD THAI PEOPLE WILL COM- ........ ^pMJ.>l₍AIR.FpR_lAIKI*O|.L|J/iqN.

WATER FOR WATER POLLUTION. SOIL FOR SOIL PLLUTION FOR A PAY CHECK FROM INDUSTRY. CAUSING PEOPLE TO PUT A PRIORITY ON POLLUTION FOR THE SAKE OF MONEY AND FORSAKE THE HEALTH THAT GOD INTENDED. FOR POLLUT-ION IN THE AIR IS INDUSTRY AND* INDUSTRY IS MONEY. POLLUTION OF THE WATER IS BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN BUSINESS. POLLUTION OF THE SOIL IS ACCEPTED AS A SO CALL WAY OF LIFE. ANY SYSTEM THAT SELLS THE AIR. BARTERS THE WATER. PUTS A MONETARY PRICE ON SOIL. MARKETS THE HEALTH. THE WORTH. THE FREEDOM OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE FOR A GODDAMNING DOLLAR IS .TO BE EXPOSED. CONDEMNED. CUT DOWN FOR GOOD, CUT DOWN FOR THE GOOD OF LIFE, THE GOOD OF LOVE. THE GOOD OF FREEDOM. THE NECESSITY OF HEALTH. CUT DOWN FOR THE GOOD OF GOD. THE LAW OF AIR. THE LAW OF SOIL. THE LAW OF WATER .

JOHN AFRICA

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!

4. HOW DOES MOVE EXPLAIN

THE SYSTEM:

This system is mans' invention, his idea, it ain't got nothing to do with GOD, GOD's law is love, peace, freedom, sanity, health, security, mans' idea of law, his system is designed to be his way, which is in opposition to Life, GOD and is seen in the examples that follows, in the jails that are designed to enslave when GOD dictate freedom, in the industry that is designed to make money although it is poisdoning, crippling, deforming Life when GOD dictate Life to be healthy, free of sickness, and much more. This system ain't about correcting nobody. JOHN AFRICA teach that jail is a money making industry just l;ike zoos where animals are enslaved are money making industries. The people that control these jails ain’t about to try to correct nobody 'cause if people are correct then they won't be going to jail and that means that this system . »wi If dose mioney. They tgoltaj ktJep - J . . , r >. 4 . - ’ * I A , . .4

liv .1 A « { - 4 - f i >4 \ A ,

people filling these prisons cause without prisons cops would be out of a job, judges would be out of a job, sheriffs, superintendents, wardens, matrons and guards would be out of jobs, and politicians would be out of the thousands of dollars they pocket from the industry of prisons. This system didn't build prisonms with correction in mind, they built prisons with slavery and the money to be had from enslaving the mind. JOHN AFRICA teach that prison wouldn't exist without slavery, prisons ain’t nothing but slave compounds, but unlike the slavery of the southern plantations, prison is acceptable in Today's society, it is acceptable systematic slavery and all for the sake of money at the expense of peoples; lives. This system don't care nothing for Life, this system is the inventor, the innovator, the author of problems, it is the peddler of cigarettes, alcohol. drugs, prostitution, woman, child pornography and all for the sake of a dollar. Cigarettes cause cancer, alcohol causes alcoholism, drugs cause sickness and death, and all three are addicting yet this system «

deliberately, calculatingly push.these killing addictions on people to weaken 'em, take the strentth, the fight out of 'em so they become weak, submissive to the rule of government- and will punish the victims after victimizing them, locking up drug users when this system’s scientists are the ones who are making drugs and influencing drug use. Locking up the prostitute and keeping the inventor of prostitution, the inequality of this system, flourishing. This system gone keep making cigarettes, alcohol and drugs no matter how many people it kills cause they are all big money making industries, this system ain't gone stop the rape of women, child pornography cause that's big money and women nor children ain't important to this system, money is, women, children

and five children died, and 100* neighbouring houses were (destroyed as the fire raged out of control. , _t

Aftermath of the 13th May 1985 siege of MOVE'S Osage Avenue commune, during which Philly cops dropped a thermite bomb on the roof from a helicopter and then fired with machine guns at women aiW children to stop them escaping the inferno. Only one adult, Ramona Africa, and one child, Birdy, made it out. Six adults

are of GOD, as is all Life, but in this system GOD is just a word, a utterance with no meaning to man as is seen in the rape of GOD's subjects ' by man. Money is the GOD of this system but Life is MOVE'S Belief. MOVE'S GOD\ Prisons are money so they re gonna be kept going, but not only are prisons money-making institutions, this system uses prisons as a form of intimidation to kep people from fighting against the oppression of the government. This is what they're trying to do to MOVE but it ain't working. MOVE people have been in jail since 1978 for a crime we did not commit, we re innocent and this system knows MOVE is innocent but they put us in jail despite our innocence to try to shut MOVE up from telling the truth. Our family took the stand they took May 13 because they wanted innocent MOVE people out of jail, our family took the strong stand they did cause family is MOVE’S Belief, we don't put nothing before family.

This system is trying to make people think MOVE is wrong for being family, when the principle of family comes from GOD, the law of Life, 4»

and everybody wants, needs the principle of family. JOHN AFRICA told us that the one thing people who criticize MOVE'S position cannot get around is that if they were innocent and in prison they would want their family to fight for them like our family fights for us, they would not want their family to take the compromising position they are telling MOVE we should take if they were innocent and ip prison. But instead of people criticizing this government for jailing, murdering MOVE unjustly, people criticize MOVE for fighting against this corrupt government, the very' same government they' complain about everyday when they voice dissatisfaction with this system. JOHN AFRICA explain that these people who criticize MOVE for our uncompromising fight with this

Page 24

system will support the black South Africans who are fighting the corrupt government in South Africa, blacks and whites will support the fight against apartheid, the corrupt government of South Africa no matter how manv blacks or whites *

are killed and thev don t never blame those fighting apartheid for getting themselves killed, thev blame the corrupt government for killing those fighting apartheid. But when MOVE fight this corrupt government people want to blame MOVE and support the government JOHN AFRICA wisely pointed out that those fighting apartheid in South Africa would welcome MOVE cause were fighters, we fight this system but those fighting apartheid would kill those who criticize MOVE and support this government if the people who criticize MOVE were in South Africa the black - South Africans would kill them.

5. PEOPLE ASK WHY DIDN'T MOVE GET THE CHILDREN OUT THE HOUSE MAY 13:

MOVE people that were in the house on Osage Avenue May 13, did try to get the childen out the house. They were calling over the loud speaker for over an hour telling the cops there were children in the house and to let the children out but the cops ignored them: when the MOVE people saw the cops weren't gone let the children out, they started coming out carrying the children and the cops shot them all back into the house while it was burning up with fire ‘cause the cops. the government's aim was to kill all MOVE people in that house including the children. The city deliberately ordered the cops to surround and attack the house at a time when they knew everybody would be in the house but a few days before May 13, a court order was issued to bring MOVE children in and place them in protective custody,

released from prison. For seven years our family exhaused every legal channel to obtain our release, all to no avail, even though this entire government knows MOVE is innocent and don't belong in jail, and instead of this government Mayor Goode doing right by MOVE b) investigating our families charges MOVE members are being jailed unjustly , this government and Goode bombed our families house, know ing MOVE'S position was that if just one official had said they would honestly investigate the situation. the maniacs out tohurt people which is a lie: JOHN AFRICA teach MOVE sensitivity', love, not hate or violence. People familiar with MOVE know this but those who don't know MOVE will believe the news media, the government cause they trust these people, they respect ‘em and they'll believe MOVE is getting what we deserve cause we're suipposed to be crazv maniacs which is just how the government wants people to think so this government can do what they want to MOVE without public opinion against them.

Despite judge Sabo’s stay of execution, MOVE supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal is still on Death Row for a 1981 cop killing he didn’t do. Support him by writing to Pennsylvania's suprem court demanding a prompt and fair retrial:

Justice Robert NC Nix, Suite 500, Widener Building, One South Penn Square, Philadelphia PA 19107, USA

Justice Ralph J Cappy, 3130 One Oxford Court, Pittsburgh PA 15219, USA. -

It should be clear at this point to all fair-minded folks, that MOVE people are not violent or killers, we ain't never killed nobody. All MOVE have ever done is protect, defend our family, our Belief against the murderous intent odf the system. To give you an example: When a man leaves his environment, his place of security ands goes into a lions den, he violates, thrweatens the lions place of security' and when the lion defends his home, his security, instinctively by fighting off this threat and eliminates the man. the lion ain't wrong cause the lion is defending himself and seif defense is right. The man- is wrong for intruding where he don t belong, imposing on that lion, his family. All animals will defend their home, their family when threatened just} as MOVE will defend ours when threatened and this is right cause self-defense is right, it is the GOD given right of all Life. On August 8, 19*78 and May 13. 1985. the cops came to MOVE'S home, surrounded our house with machine guns, rifles, grenades, deluge guns and bombs, they' attacked MOVE, they bombed MOVE for defending ourselves against the unjust imprisonment of our family, but this system is labeling MOVE as the criminals, calling MOVE violent killers, but MOVE ain't surround ex-Phila. Mayor Wilson Goode’s house with machine guns, grenades, deluge guns and bombs, MOVE didn't bomb Goodes family and shoot his children back into a burning building, Goode, this government did that tp MOVE.

Despite all of the physical and mental torture we've been subjected to by this system, we am t slowing down, ain t backing down from this system. We've had a bomb dropped on our family in Phila. and although we feel this deeply, and are greatly hurt by it because of the love, the ' family JOHN AFRICA have instilled

but that order was ignored. The house was under a 24 hour police surveillance for over a year and the

cops knew that every morning all the children left the house to go to the

pie have a pattern of doing things -and anybody observing MOVE knows this. The

cops, the city of Phila. officials knew when the children would be out the house and knew when they would be in the house. They wanted to kill our children, along with the adult MOVE members, that's why' they attacked the house at a time when they knew our children would be in there

This government, ex-Phila. Mayor Wilson Goode could have avoided May 13th if that’s what they wanted to do because our family made it clear to Phila. city officials that they would stop the confrontation at any time if the city would make an honest effort to investigate the unjust jailing of MOVE people on August 8, 1978 murder charges Our family talked to Mayor Goode, to judges, to politicians, told them all the reason for the confrontation was because innocent MOVE people were in jail

think we re getting what we deserve, want people to think the government is justified in what they’re doing to us based on how we’ve been and MOVE members wanted their portrar₇ed to the public by the me^ia

innocent sisters and brothers¹ as a bunch of sick, crazy, violent

To support Mumia and the MOVE prisoners, write to:

MOVE, PO Box 19709, Philadelphia 19113, USA

confrontation would have been stopped

6. PEOPLE WANT TO KNOW' WHY THE NEWS MEDIA HAS

PLAYED MOVE UP TO BE VIOLENT, CRAZY

MURDERERS W'HO HAVE NO BELIEF:

This system have deliberately, calculating!} portrayed MOVE as violent, crazy, as having no Belief and other lies to the public so people will be scared of us, hate us, be prejudiced against us so when this government does things to MOVE like giving us outrageous sentencdes of 100 years each in jail for 3rd degree murder for a crime we didn't Commit, or when they drop a bomb on our home buring our family alive for protesting our unjust imprisonment, they want people to

People must understand that the work MOVE is doing ain't just for MOVE, it is for all Life, including people. We ain't interested in

dealing with a part of this thing but the whole thing, because as JOHN AFRICA teach, when you got a problem you got to get rid of the whole thing if you expect to get rid of the problem, you can’t just deal with a part of the problem and expect it to be solvedc, MOVE is talking about solution to the problem of man's imposition on Life, we'rwe talking about cleaning up man’s poison in the air, the water, soil so health can be realized. We’re talking about doing away with jail, enslavement so that freedom can be realized truly, not just the illusion of freedom represented by the streets. The work we re doing will benefit all Life not just MOVE, when the air is clean you benefit from breathing it just as MOVE, when jails are done away with you ain’t no longer threatened by this environment as

^wellasMOVE ^A

in us, we still will not stop, cannot stop fighting this rottem ass system, for to give into this system would be to give into the very people that drpped a bomb on our family. Despite our family being mass murdered, desite the fact that we’ve been in jail for 14 years for a crime we did not commit, we are getting stronger, more committed, loyal to our Belief, thanks to JOHN AFRICA This system resents it cause they can t accomplish what they set out to do, can Vbreak us, can’t stop us. JOHN AFRICAN revolution ain’t stopped and ain’t never gone be stopped! LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA THE COORD!NA TOR OF MOVE FOREVER’!!

IN MOVE LAW WE TRUST?

ALL PRAISES TO THE ORDER OF LIFE!

THE POWER OF TRUTH IS FINAL!

LONG LIVE MOVE!

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA’S

REVOLUTION!

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA'.

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA'.

LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA THE COORDIN A TOR FOREVER

Page 25

A BOSNIA OF CONSEQUENCE

The truth about Leeds, Paul Bowman and Tony White

The only solid manifestation of the fog of disinformation around the Tony White affair rolling out of Leeds is a leaflet circulated at the October 1995 Anarchist Bookfair, A Bosnia of Trivia, stating “The allegation [that Leeds AFA have a ‘state asset’ in them] is out in the open now, surely the evidence should be too?” Despite a systematic campaign of lies and intimidation by the fan club surrounding Paul Bowman of Leeds AFA to make damn sure the evidence that follows is never debated, we ll take the leaflet’s author, “a concerned person in Leeds” at his word.

SEARCHLIGHT'S STRAW MAN

A Bosnia of Trivia lies that Larry O’ Hara says “a member of Leeds AFA is an MI5 agent" and got this from Leeds BNP’s White Lies. O’ Hara first analysed Leeds in Turning Up The Heat, published in October 1994, six months before the BNP pamphlet, and he’s never said Bowman is an MI5 agent. Even Searchlight’s Gerry Gable isn’t an M15 “agent” — he’s their asset. The leaflet’s setting up a ‘straw man’ to knock O’ Hara down. All O’ Hara has ever said of Bowman is that he’s a Searchlight asset, which Bowman himself admitted to London Class War last autumn.

He had to admit it, given his reaction to A Lie Too Far (ALTF), O' Hara’s expose of Searchlight's Tim Hepple and his attempts to provoke conflict between GA, Class War and C18 by passing hit lists between them. Instead of seeing its relevance to Leeds, Bowman had a hostile review of ALTF published in Class War, dismissing it by claiming to know already how dodgy Searchlight was. Given the vicious smear campaign Searchlight have directed against CW since 1985, the one thing more surprising than anyone in CW not knowing Searchlight were dodgy was anyone in it prepared to work with this M15 front, which Bowman admits he did.

The June issue of Searchlight implies that 1 AFA activist in the north of England is not to be trusted. Nobody in the north has any doubt in him as an anti-fascist and we wil all continue to work with him. No evidence has been presented to AFA to suggest any different and we trust that Searchlight's criticism wiO be substantiated or withdrawn

AFA has always said that we must be on our guard against potential infiltration by the fascists and the state However, many of the accusations recently made by Searchlight about individuals such as Scargill and O'Hara are as yet unproven. We beheve these people should be treated with caution It is worth pointing out however that neither of these individuals are involved in the anti-fascist movement and have made hvstencai and unfounded accusations of their own They have offered no useful assistance to the movement to date and try to prove their 'mnocenie^- with documents rather than furtnenng the anti-fascist cause. Around the question of 7argetters Targetted lists and 'Wombat 92'. someone is deliberately attempting to cause division and confusion within the anti-fascist movement proper. It is easy to be drawn into these games but we prefer to concentrate our efforts on the practical anti-fascist work that we do

The June 1993 'Security AJert'

Bowman also used his Anti-Fascist Infos io circulate a Europe-wide attack on O’ Hara and Tim Scargill, implying the Searchlight smears rebutted in ALTF were true. Most outrageously, both Scargill and O’ Hara were “involved in the anti-fascist movement” — Scargill was smeared by Gable for founding Surrey AFA, and the small matter opf him being CW-’s national organiser at the time, and O’ Hara was later expelled in absentia from TWAFA because of Bowman’s Searchlight-serving ‘security alert’ saying he wasn’t involved in AFA! Anyone spot that kangeroo? Bowman did, however, have AFA back Nick Astells, now a big fan of his - Searchlight had dredged his fascist past to coerce co-operation from him.

You could believe Astells that working with Searchlight as ‘their politics 'is dodgy but they’ve got good information’ - - an excuse acceptable in some anti-fascist circles pre-1993 - was a past mistake- if Bowman hadn’t persisted in it. In December 1994, he was still pushing Searchlight/MlS bullshit that O’ Hara’s a fascist collaborating with Pat Harrington, Steve Brady and C18 in CW’s 1994 IB. The Brady reference is the giveaway - Gable’s obsessed with him as he had his wife when she was infiltrating the League of St George and still plain Sonia Hockfelder.

Maybe Bowman’s the only Searchlight asset in Leeds AFA — unless their zinc. Attitude, is edited by someone else. Il’s packed with Searchlight sourcing and even the odd word from Gerry Gable and he’s as keen io plug them in his own publication (Searchlight, April 1994, p. 3, well illustrates this chummy relationship).

JUST ONE OF THE FASCISTS

A Bosnia of Trivia says Tony White is just “One of the fascists (who) grassed up all his males" and Bowman’s fan club preiend he’s jusi “a Waller Mitty character”. They cope with While’s own handwritten admission he had an “AFA contact” by claiming the documents in White Lies are “forgeries”. Handwriting is easily ^v * indepcndantly verified

December 1995’s Searchlight admits the White Tapes - in which he covers pretty much the same grounds but makes even worse admissions - are “genuine”.

Bowman let the side down again at the 1995 Bookfair. Pressed by a London CWer whether White had passed hit lists to both fascists and anti-fascists and informed to Special Branch and Leeds AFA, Bowman replied “Yeah - we’ll take information from anyone”. This one admission makes O’ Hara’s case,and all the fuss about White Lies irrelevant.

In Spring last year, nazi activist Tony White went into the 'Northern Star' offices and stole the address book belonging to the editor

Attitude on White, Spring 1994

White’s theft of the Northern Star address book is unmentioned in A Bosnia of Trivia or Here &. Now’s cowardly regurgitation of the Paul Bowman fan club’s version, What A Tangled Web We Weave. When Searchlight and Attitude were hyping White as Leeds C18 last spring 1994, it was another matter. Now the street war White started with this theft and then filling his “AFA contact” in on where to ‘get the fascists’ in classic provocateur style is quiet, we can see the Northern Star adress book’s broader significance. He got it published in C18, Labour MPs named in the C18 hitlist and Searchlight pressed MI5 to investigate C18 (Yorkshire Evening Post, 14th February 1994), and next thing you know revolutionary action just gets so much harder... Those without tunnel vision can see this as a tad more important than whether Leeds AFA occassionally get to “kick fuck out of Leeds fascists" on While’s info. Gable even gets Dispatches along to film it - money in his pocket and good job-creating hype for MI5.

Those doubting collaboration between elements of Leeds AFA and cops need only hear Astell’s admission io us at the 1995 Bookfair that this was “a matter of expediency” and Search-light’s comments that there was a good “working relationship" between Leeds AFA (not just ANL!) and cops. Why Bowman gets so heated about this when he's admitted collaborating with an M15 front beats us!

Those still doubling White (hyped by Searchlight and Attitude as Leeds Cl8, remember?) was a State provocateur are referred to his own father’s admission that he was an agent before he even approached Leeds BNP. The old man also notes White featured prominently in Dispatches footage of Leeds city centre bui wasn’t named. Why do you think Gaty$'4idn*t poirit him but — his job as

h1.»|A \ l» otic the programme’s credited researcher?

Another “Waller Mitly”? The White Tapes show a year after White met his “AFA contact”, he was still trying to supply CS, thunderflashes and machetes to fascists and footie crews for use

“Reds”, “jews” &c.

MINOR CHARACTERS

Before concluding, we’ll show up some less well-known Bowman fans.

One of the slimy editors of Leeds-based Here & Now wrote to O’ Hara hiding behind the name Stephen Dobson trying to compromise the CW enquiry into Bowman then ongoing.

At the 1995 Bookfair AK Press’s Rc

Ilf

say

Kavagh claimed O’ Hara wildly accused

Russ Bradshaw, author of Germany

Calling, of being a Searchlight agent When challenged to produce O’ Hara’s accusing letters, AK’s Dean Plant admitted Bradshaw had spun this line to AK al their stall on the day of the Bookfair and Kavagn mouthed off without proof. O’ Hara keeps copies of all his letters — he’d actually written to Bradshaw to ask him to join an independant anti-fascist research effort alternative to Searchlight¹. Note, however, that Germany Calling is introduced by Michael Bi ling, a Searchlight team member, uses their figures and Plant said

Bradshaw was much involved in a

Searchlight-dominated 1993 campaign in the Notts area.

AK lied to cover Bowman’s arse as

Plant’s heavily involved in Bowman’s Anti-Fascist Aid for Bosnia and thought O’ Hara might accuse them of being State assets because they’re so useless at selling his stuff. Just business, then.

Black Flag's last issue supported us over Hepplegaie but this slates O’ Hara’s Turning Up The Heat without once engaging with its content Why? AK’s money keeps Black Flag going. Surely enough to make longtime Searchlight adversary and ex-Black Flag editor Stuan Christie weep.

SO WHAT?

AFA’s supposed to be independant from the State as it uses fascists and may even become fascist in crisis.

Anti-fascists working with an M15 front, cops and a Branch provocateur aren’t independam. At best they were naive lapping up While’s info — maybe its called Leeds as these good anarchists were so easily led — al worst some were provoking a street war to promote Searchlight, M15 and State interests. Blackpool AFA was suspended for less — Branch photos of Cl8 in Searchlight — so why’s AFA’s Leeds branch suddenly so Rangely .ftep fi^m a^ism

Page 26

’

FLUFFIES GET THE HUMP

Twinkletoes the Tooth Fairy of the Thornmoor Mud Imps on the recuperation of Earth First!

Snorky got a bit of an ear bashing from some quarters and I presume he never thought his little article would have such a controversial impact. Everyone is either gunning for him or wants to shake him by the hand. A friend sent a message to say that they even had a visitor over the Xmas holidays who complained about how such an article would only divide the movement and turn all these middle class activists away from joining. Possibly what the article reinforced was how divided the movement is already, and that these divisions have been there since the beginning.

An old activist once told me that you always knw when you've struck a raw nerve, one that has some truth, that ios when people try to pick you up on specifics, totally ignoring what you were actually aiming at in the first place. In this case. Do Or Die and other EF’ers have been highlghting the fact that the Earth First gathering did show some opposition to FoE and Paul DeLuce’s proposal and that they were divided on the issue &c. Also they're saying that many FoE activists are radical and have mucked in on actions. This kind of nit-picking could go on for years. The fact is that FoE was invited to the Gathering and that there are a great many who are satisfied with this arrangement. I have nothing against local activists, as some can remember Hampshire FoE members reversing their shirts and geeting stuck in breaking open the dammed Itchen river. It's te leadership one needs to be careful of, even though they now present themselves as radicals and have apologised for their anti-EF! stance during the early- 1990’s. Like any other centralised and mainstram organisaton, they will only take so

much radicalism and militancy and then they will draw back through worries over their reputation, assets, and the concerns of their directors. FoE and Greenpeace are not - revolutionary movements and were J

never designed to be. They work within the existing system, not to dismantle it. By aligning itself with such . organisations, taking their funding and info &c, joining their discussion groups, EF! will find itself (even unconsciously) losing its real identity, even though that is one mirroring an American image.

A classic exanmple of this was Oxford in 1992 when many tried to gather support for mahogany protests and tropical import blockades. Members of Oxford EF! began to get invited onto broad alliance committees, sending (often selfappointed) delegates, working with all the big grouos like FoE, WWF &c. In the end, these individuals' agenda began to water itself down, they turned away from linkuing up with community groups, worried that they might upset their relationship with these international organisations. They even set about renting an office, making up a national contact point for (EF’HQ,

some called it) which offered itself as a resource centre for eco and community groups but in reality only pursuing their own agenda which alienated community groups and gave some individuals the presige of being “environmentalists" and te opportunity' of increasing their own careerist dreams.

Defenders of EF! give Whatley Quarry' as an example of a w onderful action with much done and which FoE mucked in with. I'm not disputing this but the reality is that it may be a one-off. It will naturally upset those within - EF! who are concerned about its image and it will upset the higher echelons of FoE. As seen at Twyford. criminal damage and even forceful direct action were frowned on and denounced in the end. Once a movement becomes settled and tries to reach a broad spectrum of the population, it will compromise its credentials. This happened with Green-peace and it's certainly happened with EF!

What all this “ranting” does is show what many in the ELF and GA have said before -- that EF! has failed to evolve. Because it does not have a real cultural base for its actvists. Most members have never heard of biocentrism or deep I social / revolutionary' ecology. EF! is rooted in an exported philosophy that is based on evil disobedience not confrontation, on wilder-ness not urban sprawl or countryside, on American values and pioneer protection-ism not internationalism. EF! in Britain advocated sabotage but never realised the potential of what they were creating and when groups did begin to do things, they

distanced themselves and dismissed it through the media. As Snorky said before, it's all very nice to wear a jersey with a monkey wrench on it but what’s the point when what lies behind it is just hot air. The new hooded versin with the bomb thrower is a prime example. “Fuck civil -- let's get disobedient” it says, but when have we seen anyone on mainland Britain chuck one at a police line, eh? Some brave EF’ers praise the American First Nations and wear a feather in their ear but how many would raise a rifle and put their lives on the line to prevent machines from entering a site like the Mohawks, did back in the early- 1990's and others have done since? We may have a laugh about a pensioner who refuses to have his house levelled for a development and threatens the bailiff with a shotgun but he’s defending all of what he regards as precious and sacred in his life. If we re really sincere about defending the Earth, then it's about time we do it properly. We don't have the time to play semantics and trendy popular merchandising.

In my eyes, Earth First! in Britain is dead. The ELF has its origins in thv GA (which long predated EF!UK> and the animal liberation and autonomous tradition. Let’s see a real eco-guerilla movement and forget the D-locks and the like, that's in the past. It s now time to go into the loft or garden shed and dig around for something better. Otherwise you'd just as well kiss your Mother goodbye now.

Earth, Animal and Wimmins

F -

liberation!

NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT BUT FORWARDS

The Shadow Fox thinks Green should reject class war

I recognise this to be a gross over-generalisation, but many people in the radical green movement are influenced by either Social Ecology or Deep Ecology.

As we all know, purist advocates of Social Ecology argue relentlessly with. purist advocates of Deep Ecology. I do not wish to dredge up these arguments here, instead I would like to look at what these ideologies have in common.

One of the first things to strike you, that they have in common, is both ideologies support direct action

Both Social Ecologists and Deep Ecologists engage in civil disobedience in order to draw public attention to a particular issue.

Another thing both Social Ecology and Deep. Ecology have in common is a rejection of ‘class conflict'. Social Ecologists, such as the eco- libertarian, Murray Bookchin, argue fur 'a ^c ftiture* ' soerety ^v wrthout heirarchy, with out class, that will benefit all the members of that society regardless of their former ‘class’ status.

Deep Ecology is much less well- defined in its social goals, however the advocates of Deep Ecology, such as the ex-monkeywrencher Dave Foreman, again argue against class based politics. In his book - Confessions of an Eco-Warrior (New York: Crown Trade, 1991, pp. 30-32), Foreman states that Deep Ecogists have

An unwillingness to set any ethical, class, or political group of humans on a pedestal and make them immune from questioning Its easy, of course, to recognise that white males from North America and Europe (as well as Japanese males) hold disproportionate share of responsibility for the mess we’re in; that upper- and middle-class consumers from the first World take an excessive portion of the world s “resources’ and therefore cause greater per capita destruction than do other peoples But it docs not follow that everyone else is blameless

The Earth First! movement has great affinity will) aborigional groups througjioul ’Jie world They arc clearly m

Page 27

the most direct and respectful relationships with the natural world Earth First’ should back such tribes in the common struggle whenever possible without compromising our ideals For example, wc arc supportive of the Dine (Navajo) x>f Big Mountain against .relocation, buit this does not mean we overlook the severe overgrazing by domestic sheep on the Navajo Reservation, wc may be supportive of subsistence life-styles by natives in Alaska, but wc. should not be silent about cicarcutting old-growth forest in southeast Alaska by native corporations, or about the Eskimo Doyon Corporation's push for oil exploration and development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.¹ It is racist to cither condemn or pardon someone based on their ethnic background.

Similarly, wc are inconsistent when wc ' castigate Charles Hurwitz for destroying the last wilderness redwood forest, yet feel, sympathy for the loggers working for him Industrial workers, by and large, share the blame for the destruction of the natural world They may be yoked by the bog-moncy boys, but they arc generally willing serrvants who share the worldview of their bosses that Earth is a smorgasbord of resources for the taking Sometimes, in fact, it is the sturdy yeoman from the bumpkin proletariat who hold the most violent and dcastructive attitudes towards the natural world (and towards those who defend it). Workers arwe victims of an unjust economic system, but that does not absolve them from what they do. This does not deny that some woods workers oppose the destruction of ancient foresdts, that some may even be Earth Firstlcrs, but merely that it is inappropriate to overlook abuse of the natural world simply because of the rung the perpetrators occupy on the economic ladder, .

Some argue that workers are merely struggling to feed their families and are not delighting in destroying the natural world, they say that unless you deal w ith the needs of loggers to make a living, you can t save the forest They also claim that loggers arc manipulated by their bosses to express anti-wilderness viewpoints. I find this argumemt to be patronizing to loggers and other workers. When I read comments from timbger fellers expressing hatred towards pristine forests and towards conservationists, it is obvious that they will willingly buy into the worldview of the lumber barons. San Francisco's Image Magazine reports on a letter to the editor written by one logger: "Working people trying to teed families have littler time to be out in the woods acting like children and making things harder for other working people .. Anyone out there have a recipe for spotted owl? Food stamps won't go far. I'm afraid And since they're always . being shoved down my thrpat, I thought

I d like mine fried *. Bumper stickers proclaimed "Kill an owl. Save a logger arc ride in the Northwest I at least respect the logger who glories in felling a giant tree and who hunts Spotted Owels enough to grant him the mental ability to have his own opinions instead of pretending he is a s'.up.d oaf. manipulated by his bosses and unable to think for himself.

Of course the big timber companies do manipulate their workers with scare tactics about mill closings and wilderness lockups, but many loggers (or cat-skinners, oilfield workers, miners and the like) simply hate the wild and delight in “civilizing" it Even educating workers about ecological principles will not necessarily change the attitude of many; there arc basic differences of opinon and valyues Conservationists should try to find common ground ^with loggers and other workers whenever possible, but the sooner we get rid of Marxist views about the noble proletariat, the better

Over the past few years Green Anarchist magazine has seemingly been moving towards a class conflict ideology. I feel such a shift will be to the detriment of GA magazine as it will alienate the many militant greens who do not come from traditional working class backgrounds. ’

Class conflict argues that because white middle class males hold certain privileges within our current society this is justification for creating hatred of white middle class males. Regardless of whar that person is like as an individual. Regardless of what views or opinions that person holds. Regardless of that persons actions. That individual is an ‘enemy* because they are a white middle class male.

Under this logic we can justify any prejudice we want. British people of African and Asian cultures can rightly say that ‘White* people in Britain are privileged and have certain advantages. Therefore are class conflict advocates in favour of race conflict?

Men generally have more advantages . than women in our patriarchal society. Are the class conflict people in favour of the Radical Feminist idea that all men oppress and desire to rape women?

Diasabled people are less privileged in our society than able-bodied people. How many able-bodied people have been told they can’t go

DS4A

BOOKS FOR

MAGAZINES, MUSIC

CATALOGUE SEND

DS4A, BOX

82 COLSTON

to the cinema because they are a ‘fire hazard’. How mant able-bodied people have been denied access to public transport because there isn’t the appropriate seating? Should we advocate conflict between the- disSbled and able-bodied people because of this difference in privilege? - - -

1 could quite easily continue with my examples, but I hope people are realising my point. Yes our Capirtalist society does favour White, Christian, heterosexual, ablebodied, middle-aged, middle-class men/ And yes these people do generally have certain advantages. But that is no reason to condemn the individual as a “rich bastard". You should seek alliances with people who share your views and people who will fight your fight. Don't condemn people because they come from a different family background as yourself, or seek false allegiance with those who do not share your

DISTRIBUTION WITH ATTITUDE

AND MUCH SAE TO . BRISTOL, BSI

MORE

5BB

views but happen to be of the same class as yourself.

There is nothing inherent in Anarchism that automatically leads to class conflict. The word anarchy comes from the Greek word anarchos which means “without a ruler”. Some of the most famous Anarchists have been middle or upper class, including Tolstoy and Kropotkin (both of whom were Russian Aristocrats. Just like Barunin [s/c] and Herzen).

In his/her/their recently published manifesto the Unabomber/Freedom Club argues that militant greens/primitivists should actively distance themselves from ‘Leftist’ ideologues. This inevitaqbly will include the dinosaur ideolgy of class conflict. As a Social Ecologist friend once said - . *

It's not about advantaging the Working Class at the expense of the Middle Class It is about building a better, more holistic, biocentric, naturalistic society that will benefit evervone w

Greens, Get Real

Class is a reality that must be acknowledged and superceded

As Derek Wall showed in his GJ28 article, Eco-Fascism. the slogan “neither Left or Right but forwards” was first coined by die Grunen’s Herbert Gruhl, who later went on to form an extreme conservative split with neo-Nazi links! 1 hat Shadow Fox adopts this slogan reveals the same sort of ignorance

Green ideas as maintaining they are either “Social Ecology of or Deep Ecology”.

A specific problem with deep ecology is (hat it poses a culture / nature duality, as it it doesn’t recognise that Nature is a cultural construct — or the existence of any other cultural constructs either, such as heirarchy. Most ironically, though, this duality excludes humans from the natural world, making deep ecology a self-defeating and logically absurd philosophy.

An ex-Goldwater Republican, Dave ‘Ego-warrior’ Foreman’s opinions on class aren’t worth hearing. They retlect exactly the sort of bankruptcy of deep ecology already mentioned and refer specifically to the 1990 dispute with revolutionary ecologists like Judy Bari in EF’US that Foreman lost because he couldn t take on class issues and they did.

Remaining Foremanistas gathered round the journal, Wilci Earth, which elevates scientistic pronounciations about ecology over the practical community organising ot the Bari faction. The group closest to Earth’s thinking in UK is the Conservers, ex-Green 2000 types actively hostile tQ direct action who go on endlessly about overpopulation* and Hardin’s ‘lifeboat ethic’, indiscriminately blaming the entire human race for the current

Page 28

ecocide instead of seeing some people as more responsible for it than-others. Such Ideas and those advanced by Chris ‘Miss Anthropy'

Recently we learnt that Ken Loach had done some film work for McDonalds, but he didn't want anyone to know about it. He was worried about his radical image. From Lenin to McDonalds, a real animal farm!

Manes have been broadly described as eco-fascist and provoked the 1990 split in EF’.US in the first place!

It's a blatant misrepresentation of Rnnkrhin to claim social ecologists

“reject class conflict' when he sees heirarchy as the central problem of relationships within human society and beyond it to human beings relationship with Nature. The guy's an ex-Marxist, for Gaiasakes!

As anarcho-primitivists, were particularly pissed off that Shadow Fox ignored our current entirely, except for a crap little aside about FC wholly void of understanding. In Industrial Society & Its Future, class, race, gender and other oppressions are recognised, even if as only subsiduary to technocratic oppression -- FC takes issue with ideological Leftists that make a ‘cause of others oppression. Perlman's Against History’. Against Leviathan opens with a description of the formation of class society in ancient Mesapotamia. formed from the heirarchy-free ‘primitive communist' societies that preceded it. One primitivist contention with social ecology is that they kudicruously believe pressing on to create a societv based on a new ethic of citizenship and civil virtue will abolish heirarchy when this represents one step further from the primitive “free society in harmony with Nature" he so glowingly opens The Ecology' of Freedom with.

What we think Shadow Fox is actually driving at is not a class analysis of this society per se but a reductive one that oresents it rhe

only explanation of social reality to the exclusion of eco/animal lib/&c and a seperatist one that refuses the participation of those not defined — usually by some self-selecting ‘in' group — as working class. Rich people are obviously bastards — they're .rich because they exploited others, profiting from their needs.

Instead of Shadow Fox making a damn fool of him/herself by way of equal and opposite reaction' to class reductionists, s/he should consider why they take the line they do.

The main reason is that most middleclass people -- presumably defined by origin/parent's profession &c as woe betides any ‘full-time activist' with a job! - don't ‘leave their past behind them'. They go round behaving in such MC ways as:

• Appointing themselves as organisers, keeping the paperwork to themselves and ordering this privileged position to order everyone else about.

• Having a profound contempt for internal democracy, always preferring to sort.things covertly amongst their own clique — crippling broad recruitment drives

• Thinking, whatever their public rhetoric, that they can ‘use the system to get things done’, turning political activity into media spectacles -- with them as spokespersons - and ‘lobbying with their arses’

• Constantly appealing to ‘morality and irritatingly asserting their self- proclaimed ‘moral superiority over ‘lower class others

• Harping on about nonviolence — usually putting that before their actual goal — and being badly unrealistic about authorities like cops and courts.

• Playing ‘professional victim — usually after provoking violence -- and generally opting for passsive. masochistic tactics

• Being oh so serious about the (usually single-issue) Cause (“the struggle is my life, slackers!' ) for a couple of years before sloping off back to their career as bosses

Class struggle activists won't enter into cross-class alliances if their allies act like the new boss class.

GA is undecided whether seperatist politics is important in factioning and destroying organised society -- hardly the class reductionists massifying (eg. ‘One Big Union ) intent — or whether the surrender of individuality to ideology involved in it is too high a price to pay. It's certainly the case that heirarchy in all its forms needs to be recognised, tackled in our own heads as well as the world, and then superceded for the alienation it is.

Page 29

[censored by the source]

Letters

Send your letters to Oxford Green Anarchists, BCM 1715, London WCIN 3XX, but remember:-

• We print all letters recieved on a ‘no censorship, no endorsement basis. Your letters are your responsibility, not ours. We think readers are grown up enough to think for themselves, so won't usually comment on lettrers we print — even those we don t agree with — unless asked. The only exception to this are letters from fascists and other such bigots and piss-takers. These will be binned, though we will note their arrival.

• We will ruthlessly edit all letters we think too long or boring. So keep ‘em short so everyone can have their say too. Cut letters are marked with a ( ] w ith the original number of words inside the bracket.

• If you don't want your letter, your name or your address printed, make sure we know. - .

INDIFFERENCE TO ICKE

Dear GA,

GA38 Letters (about Justice?'s indifference to David Icke in 1994) mentions the Brighton Unversity Students’ Union. As the encloswed leaflet shows, despite having equal opportuities and anti-racist/fascist policy, the union were unconcerned about the threat to Black, jewish & gay students. Indeed the Union were founder sponsors of ANL — and despite claiming a jewish president. Matt Dauncey, the ANL's first Brighton action was to demonstrate over a non-existant jewish cemetry desecration, so causing untiold heartache for relatives. They later w'ould love to see an anarchist viewpoint on it but supporting a lynch mob mentality is surely not the way to go. ♦

13. Why the fuck do you give Stewart Home all that free publicity? besides a handful of sad art students who hang round the ICA. nobody else has ever heard of him. 1 am sure that giving him a whole half page plus photo is very gratifying to his sense of self importance but lets face it NOBODY FUCKING CARES’ He is irrelevant so lets forget him and get on with the important stuff.

4. Your answer to Anonymous of Southampton appeared to miss most of the point that I felt they were trying to raise. The logical-positivist approach to health and medicene does have application in a logical-positivist world. Only Hi-Tech surgery and X-rays can dogmatic anti-scientism. Before making moral judgements on ‘anti-human’ science, scientists or anyone else you might take a look at yourselves.

For instance, just what the fuck did the Paris Metro bombing have to do with ‘community resistance ? The people who did that are just murdering scum and if you applaud from the sidelines, you are no better. -

What do you think the effect of your support for that kind of thing would be on the average tube commuter? I'd guess they'd be glad there's such a thing as the Special Branch to keep an eye on people like you. If this is the type of morality ‘subjectivist’ thinking produces you can stuff it. It's not an isolated example eg. the ‘communique’ from another set of heroes the so-called ‘anarchists' of the FC. ‘Do anything we disapprove of and we ll kill you'. Very libertarian 1 don’t think.*

■J

You should take time out from Dr Kuhn's vague speculations about ‘paradigms' and learn some basic physics. Solar cells do not ‘generate' ie. produce any energy at all. They convert the incoming energy of sunlight into another form, electricity. However this energy is used it cannot affect the Earth s overall heat balance. Since, unlike fossil fuels, they produce no Greenhouse gases or other pollutants, solar cells are a feasible techno-fix for needed are hard scientific arguments, not wild Daily Sport-style sensationalism. That fools nobody anymore.

I don’t think the mind of a scientist is necessarily any more objective than anyone elses. But science starts from the assumption, the only dogma essential to it, that there is a separate, objective reality ‘out there' apart from the mind of the observer. That's the only rigid certainty' involved. It's much easier to swallow than all the trendy ‘subjectivist’ crap about all ideas being equally true, reality being what goes on in their own heads etc. If there’s no such thing as reality, there’s no such thing as pollution, poverty, oppression is there? Now just whose interest does that line serve?

There is a separate reality out there, it’s called Nature. If we want to live in harmony with it we’ll have to understand it. The best methods for doing that are scientific methods, not religious ones. It’s no use substituting Nature for God. If we're plugging books at each other, read Richard Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker or River Out Of Eden. You might learn that the real Nature is not a loving Mother goddess but a blind evolutionary process callously indifferent to the sufferings of individual creatures or even species.

But Dawkins is a middle class scientist so his ideas must be lies? In the 30's the

condemned a jewish activist I know for removing 100s of bits of racist/fasciast grafitti when they only removed one. 1

deal with the sort of injuries produced by the by-products of mass industrialisation and those by-products will not

know the SU I SWP I ANL have remorse over this. -

What kind of people are they?:

Yours

no_: disappear overnight, no matter how hard

A FEW POINTS

Suzin, Mark + Arran of Brighton.

Dear GA, ■

Glad to see that you are still going despite the attention of the stasi. I doubt if you ve seen the last of them though so I hope that you have sorted out your security and are better prepared for the next demonstration of policing in a democracy

A few points about issue 39 I d like to get off my chest.

1. In Diary of Community Resistance you mention the alleged stabbing of a copper at Brightlingsea during a live export protest. According to what I have heard, the copper fell off a lorry and impaled himself on a piece of jagged metal (Aw diddums’). The police response to that was to nick the only black person there and release them without charge a few hours later. I don't have problem with coppers being I stabbed but don’t see why we should I take the credit when they manage to stab I themselves. I

2. In the same diary, you also mention ¹ the arson attack on the home of the alleged killer of Sophie Hook and comment “pity he wasn't inside it”. How do you know he is guilty? You got access to inside info not available to the rest of us? or have you decided that everything you read in the papers must be true? The issue of what to do with the sick bastards who commit these sort of acts is one that needs discussing and I

we all try. If you are ever smeared along a road by one of Henry Ford's little planet killers, 1 bet you won’t be fighting off the ambulance crew and insisting on being treated by a herbalist.

5. How did the stasi get the name and address of your GAMO customer? Surely you lose that sort of info as soon as the order has been sent, don’t you? I think we should be told if only for our own security. Record keeping gets people caught. Don’t do it! -

Love, peace and freedom.

Technowob of Hope, The Bottom, Tory Britain. .’

• GA replies: On your last question, GAMO doesn't keep customer records. The customer s name and address is cut from their order and stuck to GAMO’s outgoing parcel. Maybe the Branch got to this particular customer’s order before GAMO could collect it from the PO box or maybe from more conventional mail interception. There s only so much we can do to protect you — ultimately you’re responsible for your own security and that means using an alias and a drop in communication with us.

global warming, acid rain and other problems. Far more feasible than primitivist fantasies about huntergathering. Maybe that was an idyllic way of life when the human population was 10 million. But when its 6 billion and rising paradise is the last thing it would

be. I suppose we cannibalism, get the real fast that way.

Techno-fixes like

could take up population down

solar cells are

fantasies as long as we live in a capitalist society where their introduction threatens established vested interests. This is one of the best arguments against

Nazis rejected relativity as ‘Jewish science'. Your scapegoating of science as a whole for the evils of capitalism is akin to the Nazis scapegoating the jews. A tendency to substitute scaremongering propaganda for hard arguments, a taste for terrorism, a superstitious glorification of Nature in place of the Nazi glorification of race. It couldn't be that Stewart Home, whatever his faults, has a point about you lot after all, could it?

Anon (never been to Southampton in my life)

the system and why primitivism

techno-phobia on the revolutionaries can only enemy. -

I’ve no strong feelings farming as such. I'm not

part serve

and of

the

on organic conviced it

• GA replies: ‘“objectivity” here — understanding.

If you knew your you’d know your

Precious little or even scientific

thermodynamics, solar * cells will

SCIENTISTS

would be productive enough especially for crowded islands like these. What I was attacking was the capitalist racketeering that goes on in the health

food business. That isn't

a valid

argument against organic farming any more than the capitalist misuses of science and technology are an argument for technophobia.

No apologies for ‘trumpeting’ x-rays. When you re facing the big D you won't give a shit about trivialities like a little

ultimately convert solar to heat energy — they “generate” heat as it will exist where previously it didn’t. Unless something’s done to clear Greenhouse gases (eg. grow more trees), that’ll just add to global warming. And this is your “best argument against the system”? Not a thirst for liberty, just a gadget.

As your failure to take on Bertell’s critique of the irradiation of our environment (“a little low level radioactive waste” — grow up!) shows, you haven’t bothered to read the books referred to in

our last reply as you don’t want to know, low level radioactive waste. Yes, 1 was _fYou exhibit the classic signs of the hit by a car, so what? I suppose in the

scientistic

ideologue,

Al IP ^AVini IR^ l^{good old pnmi,}'^{visl days nobody ever}'locating what you don't Qnvivunu [cracked any bones at all. So far as cars - ■ ■ ■ - ■

So Auschwitz and Hiroshima were products of ‘scientific thinking ? I always thought capitalism and authoritarianism had something to do with them.

Hitler was a vegetarian and heavily into astrology. Iherefo/e all vegetarians and astrologers are Nazis and should be shot.

Daft? Yes, but no more so than your

go, I’d be happy to see the bloody lot scrapped, but in a society where the majority drives or has access to a car we’ve got a hell of a job of education and persuasion to do first. You don’t help by blowing up every problem into a doomsday scenario. People have heard it all before. Remember heterosexual AIDS? We re all supposed to be dead by now, according to the hype a few years ago. You can cry wolf too often. What ’s

aggressively

even

understand and closing your mind to all

that might contradict your simple faith.

Kuhn doesn't say there’s no such thing as reality, just that scientists pick and choose from it to serve their prejudices just like the rest of us. We’re all stuck behind that veil, lad, so start living with it. To qpote Dawkins, of all people, as some objective revelator of Nature shows how sick with the pop science bug you are. I ve read his Selfish Gene

Page 31

but also David Rose’s critique in New Scientist. Rose is a scientist too, yea a vivisector, but rightly points out Dawkins' grotesque, reductive sociobiology is just warmed-over Huxleyite social Darwinism, the ‘objective’ scientific justification for laissez faire capitalism's excesses in the Victorian era and even eugenics under the Nazis. Next you’ll quote us Eysenck’s ‘scientific proof Blacks are thicker that Whites!

Face it, science is ideological, the third leg of the same tripod of domination as capitalism and authoritarianism. The A- bomb was nothing to do with science? More than to do with vegetarianism, I’d suggest. You look at Auschwitz, the ‘factory of death ", and can’t see the logical end-product of Taylorism, the “scientific management'' that’s made the modem world the hell it is today?

You call us “scaremongering’’ when the

AIDS panic was manufactured by the likes of Wellcome to peddle AZT, as GA31 made clear.’No crisis though? Just breathe the air, chum!

There aren’t only two ways of thinking, scientific and religious. Following Zerzan, GA explicitly rejects religious mystification as a prime source of alienation -- but then so is scientific objectification. Plain common sense was around a good while before science and they’re pretty distant cousins. Rainforest people knew their world well enough to each be able to name and use - 1,000+ plant species millenia before any scientist came along to patent them. Against this, we have those wi$e words' of Claude Bernard: “Why think when you can vivisect?”

Maybe Bernard was a ‘bad' scientist, like the defining horrors of the 20th century were ‘bad' science, but these days his followers are a multitude and

they’re in society’s driving seat. Science doesn’t just serve power, it is power, technocrats are a power unto themselves. They shape all our futures in their “objective ”, morality-free way and we have to cope with the consequences!

All this about the Paris Metro attack is just beating around the bush on the way to what you really can't take. FC’s actions name the enemy Ind you can't bear being on the wrong side. It’s their targets you don't approve of, not their- tactics. Presumably you’d cheer violence against capitalists and authoritarians other than scientists — or do you repudiate centuries-old anarchist (not “Nazi”) traditions?

Techno-fixes have always made things worse in the past and will in future — what are they but reformism and in the hands of a small, technical elite at th&t? Instead of complexifying the system still further, simplify it — sweep away the sources of our alienation, don’t add to them. Hunter-gathering may not be a majority option but there’s more than enough land for everyone to live self- sufficiently, independantly and most certainly organically, even in a country with a population density as great as UK, and that means it’s only force and ignorance that keeps State society going Your cult of science, technology and progress is part of that ignorance, an ideology maintaining people’s faith in and dependance on State society.

A final - footnote: the Diary of Community Resistance lists examples of community breakdown alongside those of its recreation. It amuses us to leave it to readers to sort the two out.

COUNTER-CULTURE

• Send books, pamphlets and new zines for review to Oxford Green Anarchists, BCM 1715, London WC'IN 3XX. Reviews from readers, projects and survival tips also welcomed but keep 'em short and send us a photocopy of the cover of what you’re reviewing.

• Send records, tapes and music zines and reviews to Alder Valley Anarchists c/o PO Box 407, Camberley GUI5 3FL. AVA can also do distribution through GA Mail Order.

BOOKS

BOLO’BOLO BY PM. PRICE

FROM SEMIOTEXT(E), 522 PHILOSOHY HALL, NEW YORK, NY 10027, USA.

The second edition of the original 1983 German text, complete with a prefaced authorial ‘apology’ attempting to explain why the Planetary Work Machine hasn’t yet been abolished and all nation-states not replaced by bolos (small-scale communes).

holo 'bolo starts with the original affluent society but - for all its gloss - ends with de facto world government, distribution and supply, and half the human race still stuck in cities. It s methods for achieving this utopian state reflects the mood of it’s early- 1980’s origins, the usual peacenik trip of the System falling through mass nonviolent non-cooperation and building a new economy in the shell of the old. You know, Crass’s ‘destroy power, not people' (= ‘the System’s your enemy, not any individual responsible for it’) stuff. Frankly, we can't see computer-

yuppies and technocrat scum (bolo bolos A deal' types) wanting to destroy a system that they do nicely out of -- however empty and boring they may privately find it - and Zerzan’s nailed the myth of the ‘revolutionary potential' of organized industrial workers (the B deal’).

Bolo'bolo's main strength is in it's detailed visualisation of a commutarian future, much like Callenbach’s Ecotopia. in the 1995 preface, PM insists bolos should be around 500 strong (“the size of the traditional tribe") but ridicules those readers that have slavishly tried to recreate other elements of the bo/o-future using the book as a-blueprint. There also seems to be the traditional confusion between creating the bolo revolution here and now (‘elistist islands') and somehow making it globally and simultaneously.

bolo'bolo contains a lot of useful insights and iminable nuggets despite these reservations. It's a considerable improvement on a lot of more recent and conventional ‘alternatives' around.

TWYFORD DOWN BY BARBARA BRYANT. £12.99 FROM E & FN . SPON.

Barbara Bryant was a lory councillor in Winchester and she’s joined in this book by eco-bore Johnnie Porritt, the editor of Construction News and some law professor. So, no, it’s not the story of the 1992-4 direct action campaign to save Twyford.

Before booing and hissing, see the book for what it is. Bryant put half a decade of her life into the light to save Twyford - as did all the key I wyford Down Association people - and

165/ V/t I I 5 1711 5ill 01 lilt! Ki \f'< f

» tnilW ijfo no¹ Ho* nt" i i ' t

campaigned against her own part)', almost splitting it. You have to acknowledge this commitment. Here, in the greatest detail, is the 1 DA’s battle against the odds, the rigged game of the planning process and a juggernaut-1 ike road lobby careering out of control. You know the poor woman hasn't a hope but it's a magnificent spectacle.

Prof. Kunzlik’s section on Ripa di Meana's clash with Major over EC law and subsiduarity is no doubt historically important but we tound it so dense with legalese that it was unreadable.

Less well-intentioned and welcome was Porritt’s contribution, highlighting potential revisionist uses for this text. It's bad enough Bryant pretends June 1992 was the last anyone protested Twyford’s destruction and hails the reactionary control freak Andrew Lees. Despite FoE’s post-Lees change of line, Porritt consistently presents EF!s involvement as futile, unpopular and mediapathic and in doing so dismisses what distinguished Iwytord from all previous road campaigns — popular direct action being taken to stop it, not the futile lobbying and legalism that forms the bulk of Bryant's book. 1 remember seeing the FDA's David Croker thrown off the diggers by security time and again and in the end he almost lost his home over it. 1 here

was a local with bottle, a man that didn't throw in the towel and who knew what it takes to beat the land-rapers. He wasn't the only local like that. Against this you have a tosser like Porritt who couldn't bear to return to Twyford after some pathetic photo-opportunity symbolically chained to a meaningless fence. The CPRE and other mainstream conservation bodies are indicted here for failing Twyford Down but FoE failed there too and what Porritt really can’t face is that EF! then stepped in to prove real change doesn't come from Establishment chaps like him doing backroom deals with the rich and infamous. That Porritt refers to the December 1994 meeting between EF! and FoE as “promising” is exactly what you'd expect from an old Etonian advising Prince Charles.

The need for a balancing book on the direct action struggle at I wyford is now urgent. It would be disgraceful and tragic if only the opinions of those viscerally hostile to direct action were to dominate the history of this pivotal campaign. - . '

THE BATTLE FOR LANCASHIRE'S

FUTURE BY SIMON JONES. PALANT1NE BOOKS, ISBN 1- 874182-04-7.

This is the story of your typical flufty sensible middle class residents against the nasty motorway pressure group. In

Page 32

this case the motorway was the M65, the time 1989-1992.

Simon Jones is a Chorley Liberal councillor, and together with others set up SHOL (Save the Heart Of Lancashire) — a wholesome sounding campaign group to voice opposition to the M65 at the public enquiry. They didn't just oppose the motorway that devoured Cuerden, Earcroft and Stanworth, but also a planned south west ring road around Preston.

The book scores one or two hits, particularly the trashing of pro-M65 Jack Straw (Later Shadow Environment spokesman), p. 31:

JONES Have you studied the country-side'’ (Holds up several poster sized photos of Brindle and Pippin Street)

STRAW A lot of rather nice countryside will be disrupted. 1 could not identify the precise areas and am not intimate with them ...

Mostly though, it is a practical demonstration of the futility’ of the protest group approach. They may well win the arguments in the public enquiry , but the eroad still goes ahead. By the end. Jones is half w aking up to the corruption of the system. He tells us of a certain Mr Leakey, campaigning against corrupt planning who tried to expose the M65 as part of the “Secret motorway across the dales”. Few took him seriously but “paradoxically, it seems much of what he said that day is now being proved right” (p. 30).

Jones finds out about dodgy land deals behind closed doors — the Bolton Green business park; 188 acre Cuerden Business Park at Lindle Lane; Riley Green, set to become the M65 motorway services; and the Zeri theme park at Huncoat. “The British system seems to be paralysed” Jones discovered by p. 58. He seems sympathetic to the Green Party (remember the events described here are contemporary with the Greens scoring 15% in the Euro-elect ions) but even so slates them for their antiEurope “Romantic self-sufficiency theory” (p. 43). His only defence against the road is to appeal to Berussels and Euro-Directive 85/337. Some hope!

OUR GLOBAL NEIGHBOURHOOD BY THE COMMISSION ON GLOBAL GOVERNANCE. £6.99 FROM OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS.

It started with the Brandt Commission (1977-80) who produced North-South:

A Programme for Survival. This drew attention to the economic disparity between rich countries and the Third World. Times have changed since 1980 -- the Cold War ended, economic and social decline have set in. The world is full of problems; Bosnia, Chiapas, Chechnya, drugs, pollution, violence. It spills out into newspapers and onto TV screens, again and again showing the ‘Global Community' in its impotence.

Despite this, the new' Commission follows a similar track as before — the Palme Commission, Brundtland Commission, Julius Nyerere s South Commission. A few' personnel are the same as Brandt, this latest group also includes people like Allan Boesak and Jacques Delors. There are favourable comments on the book cover from Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandeia. They believe the answer lies in strengthening the classic intergovernmental agencies: the United Nations, World Trade Organisation, IMF. They call dfor strengthening the rule of law, an international criminal court to rule on, for example, thje extradition of the Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing; they call for an Economic Security Council; perhaps their worst proposal is that the UN establishes a 10,000 strong elite military force, paid for by member states. Thus their model includes all the features of a world state

Naturally, the Commission denies it is trying to create global government. Instead they write about “governance*’ which is defined as “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions manage their common affairs ’. This is just a semantic subterfuge.

The tone of this book is that of Joyce Grenfell’s 1950’s school teacher, determined, no matter what crisis strikes her, to put a positive gloss on everything:

No George I really don t think it is a good idea to try to bum down the school.. - George* Put down those matches*

In the present historical context, the effect of this sustained, rose-tinted false optimism is sick-making. The book is surreal, quite divorced from reality. A chart shows 14 UN operations between the 1940’s and 1980’s (p. 103) and 20 in the five years since 1990. Despite this collosal expansion they say “There is less ideolgical contention and less global confrontation in the world of the 1990’s!” (p 45). We see in this the authentic voice of the New World Dis/Order — bland as in Tony Bland, as disconnected from the truth as the unemployment statistics. Because we do not have justice, equality, liberty etc (their so-called ‘core values) the virus compels bureaucrats' and their word processors to spool out more and more documents asserting our rights to these mythological attributes.

In asserting Euro-Con buzz words and phrases — ‘Neighbourhood Values’, ‘Interdependence , ‘subsiduarity’, ‘regionalism , ‘Multilateralism -- the Commission commits the Yugoslavian Fallacy (asserting the unity of that which has no unity) on a grand and global scale.

Like the ickie-yuckie Joyce Grenfell schooln)j>trp{>s, they are too nice to ever condemn. The result is a book of

pious platitudes. The road to Eurogeddon is paved with waffly good intentions. On arms deals: “We propose all arms exporters exercise restraint” (p. 126). Wow ! They refuse to state the obvious truth: “The failure of the Rio Conference to agree on an Earth Charter was a setback” (p. 216). More charter-itis, but the Rio Summit was an exercise in futility.

With its calls for more law, global taxation, more government, more leadershhip, more international bodies - - we can see where all this is leading. On p. 298 we leam the whole UN costs SI0.5 billion in 1992. The UK spends three and a half times that amount on alcohol. Yes, but at least the alcohol has some effect. The whole book is shot through with delusions -- the delusion that governments are accountable, that they rerspond to peoples wishes, that development is of itself a good thing, naive faith in the merely moral authority of toothless watchdogs, the looking glass delusion that talking shops are important, he myth that more government makes people better. Centralised top-down systyems like the USSR and Yugoslavia have failed -- or like General Motors etc are in deep deep doo doo, so let s have more of the same....

So who is this waffle aimed at? Perhaps middle class Westerners who think ‘something should be done about global poverty'. This book is the voice of the softer, gentler, caring cocacolonialism of the next century. “The world needs credible and sustained leadership”. Like it needs Windows 95, no doubt. The world needs more and more talking shops in exotic locations, more bureaucrats and platitudinous verbiage. This is a book of naive selfdeception.

GANGLAND BRITAIN BY TONY THOMPSON. HODDER & STOUGH-TON (ISBN 0 340 60824 2)

A London hitman called Max (p. 16):

You're better off doing a couple of body shots, then a couple to the head. There s no way anyone s going to walk away from that .

Do you check them to make sure they re dead⁹ .

Oh no. they re dead No doubt As soon as someone dies from a gunshot they instantly piss and shit themselves You know what you vedone..

Now the Soviet Menace has evaporated, the spooks are looking for new groups to demonize. This book takes an Eley N° 5 approach and spatters everybody in sight Londoners, Jamaicans, Asians, Hells Angels, Japanese, Colombians, Russians, Chinese, Italians and I urkish people. All of these have their own version of the Mafia, sinister organized criminals shooting their way into the British scene.

Gangland Britain is a tabloid-style shock horror job. It’s a hysterical stampede to condemn the gangs. Ihompson doesn’t stop to consider there are positive aspects too — the sense of identity, the sense of belonging the gangs give their members.

ife was a good man ... he built me a house

and he has never even met me

an old woman at the funeral of Medellin drug cartel boss Pablo Escobar

Sure, there are a lot of bad aspects to the gangs, a lot of stupid things going on, but if the good aspects are mentioned at all they are cynically dismissed. In this book it's all bad, so hold up your hands in horror.

Tony Thompson writes for Time Out, GQ, Independent and the Guardian. Throughout the book, the story is basically the same. Typically: Long ago and under threat, each ethnic group started a protection squad. At first traders willingly pay up and the squads make the threat diminish. The traders still pay them, and the gang becomes a protection racket. They move into prostitution and other Arthur Daley antics. Then they discover drugs and with that comes violence and guns. Relay teams of confused men take carrier bags of used £10 notes into banks. It all becomes more businesslike, with dummy companies, faxes, telexes, letters of credit, trucks, couriers and ships importing Columbian cocaine or heroin from the Golden Crescent. Overloaded with the profits, the big men move over into property and “legitimate” business. It's more of a way of mind than a conspiracy. The police are up against it, folks: “Confronted with this wall of silence, we are powerless to act” says Inspector Derek Himmler' Grudgington of the Yard as he shrugs his shoulders, pockets the plain brown envelope and walks off into the mist.

In turn, each ethnic group thus smeared is hyped as the biggest threat since the Four Horsemen rode into town. 75% of high value armed robberies ae commited by Londoners. 50-90% of the crack trade is down to Yardies. Hells Angels do more killings and woundings than all other organized crinme gangs in Britain put together. The Yakuza are eight times bigger than Toyota. One family in Columbia control 80% of the world s cocaine trade. The Russian Mafia is 40% of their GDP. And so it goes on. You get the sense you ought to panic at this rising tide of hype but the figures don t add up. In the I riad chapter (p. 249) more than half the European heroin market is controlled from South East Asia. Relying on our short term memory span, he later tells us more than half the European heroin market is controlled from Turkey (p. 318). Neither is it very easy to take a book seriously when the author thinks Derby is in the north of England (p. 149) or that Wolverhampton is in the North West (p. 150).

The gang problem is so big, the Cops try to staunch it with corny stings like - Operation Lucy, Operation Enmesh (bikies) and Operation Takeaway (Triads) but it’s “Like fighting a plague of ants”.

On gang shootouts (p. 58):

in London, Birmingham and Manchester, the police now tell the public not to bother handing in used shell cases ... there arc simply too many

On Russian vice rings (p. 214):

In March 1995, the year long Project Ivan > (NCIS, Met, MIS, MI6, Customs and Immigration Service) failed to find a single Russian prostitute..

On an Italian Mafia fugitive who was exposed in the Sunday Times (p. 264):

Thanks to a spiral of phenomenal incompetence. Mr D became the least pursued mafia fugitive the world has ever known...' Life for Di Carlo continued exactly as before.

We are left with the impression the cops aren't even trying. (Rustle of plain brown envelopes?) That's no surprise because it's just so fuckin' obvious how this book works and which agenda it serves. The MFI job created scam. With all these terrors lapping at English shores (not forgetting the Mafia s links with terrorist groups) and MFI wanted to move over into organized crime, talk of Europol and a new' centralized FBI sty le law enforcement agency, every one wants a piece of the action. We can expect many more books like this, all of them playing their part in creating the appearance of a climate of opinion, the illusion of consensus....

A SMALL CITY IN FRANCE BY FRANCOISE GASPARD.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS, £9.95.

The ‘small city’ is Dreux, 60 miles west of Paris, and the question this book asks is ‘How could the French National Front of Jean Marie Le Pen capture 61⁶/o of the Dreux vote in 1989?’

Francoise Gaspard was once the Socialist mayor of Dreux, and brings her knowledge of local demographics and history to bearon the question. Up until the early-1950’s Dreux was a small rural town of 16,000. During the next two decades, its population doubled. Large engineering, electronics and pharma-ceutical factories were built. To house the workers, cheaply built estastes mushroomed in the fields around the old town. At first, unskilled workers from Brittany, Italians, Hungarians and Spanish workers manned the prduction lines. Then in 1962, after a bloody war of independence, the French quit Algeria. Many North Africans migrated to France and came to Dreux for work in the factories.

Prosperity ended in the early- 1970’s, stagnation and recession set in. Factories closed, the estate car parks filled up with North African youths with nothihg to do and nowhere to go. 1 he tacky estates started to crack up.

H II t I i ll I ( । J li 4 i 4 - - I UL * I* । - I

At this point, the Nationa Front entered the scene. From its groundbase of exVichyites, extreme Guallists and OAS supporters (militant pro-colonialists opposed to withdrawl from Algeria) the NF capitalized on Left weakness and Right divisuions to force its way inrto electoral politics. A local NF politician, Jean Pierre Stirbois, formed an electoral pact with the CDS, a Right wing party. This was a shrewd political move giving him the electoral leverage to get mto the local council chambers. The elections were characterized by dirty tricks like the ‘Dear Mustapha’ letter intended to whip up racial hatred and fake posters suggesting central gvemment were about to settle thousands of foreign workers in the empty estate flats.

From the beginning in 1979, the NF moved up from 303 votes to 4,716 eleven years nine months later, (from 2.5 to 61% of the votes cast) while at the same time - voter apathy and disillusion with the mainstream political parties ensured a low election tum-ourt. What solutions does Francoise Gaspard offer⁹ -- Not much. The militant anti-fascist Left has been “unable to mobilize anyone but themselves” (p. 115) The intellectuals have been silent or ineffectual. The Right has actively collaborated with the fascists and (as with the Tories in Britain) taken onboard their xenophobic rhetoric. Central government allowed the situation to continue as a demographic callibration exercise, the so-called ‘Matignon Experiment' ... About the only ray of hope on the horizon were the ordinary people who went round the high rise estates recounting their experiences of the Vichy era and the mass deportations (p. 163). Aside from that, Gaspard offers no real answers, just the bog standard rhetoric about rediscovering the citizen', the need for the political parties to make links with the voters, and so on. As such, this well-meaning book is a demonstration of the bankruptcy of the liberal paradigm.

THE PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL & SPIRITUAL BENEFITS OF MARIJUANA BY JOAN BELOS.

$12.95 + $2 POSTAGE FROM RD#3, BOX 476, SUSQ. PA 18847, USA.

1 here’s a war going on in Amerika between Drug Enforcement Agency - .t4»cri l .*<? JlitH - -

stormtroopers and marijuana activists, a struggle as significant as that between Clinton and the ATF with the Right over gun control.

Mrs Belos’s book is therefore very important in attacking the DEA’s justification for their gross violation of civil liberties, that marijuana is harmful. For 60+ pages she brings to light the latest medical evidence that marijuana is quite the opposite, in fact alleviating human suffering across a broad range of ailments. As a reference work, it will no doubt rank alongside Jack Herer’s Emporer's New Clothes.

The problem with this approach is that marijuana's enemies -- as some of its advocates — aren't interested in the facts, just its bohemian image. Prove it makes people work harder and shine their shoes and drug companies will all be prescribing it tomorrow....

WHIP ANGELS BY ANONYMOUS. £4.95 FROM VELVET.

A beautifully produced book that is perfect to read alone or with a friend. Each page recounts the darkest secrets of Victoria as she is introduced into the underground world of sexual submission and dominance. There is no denying that there is more sex than story in this book but it is one of the most beautifully written pieces of pornographic fantasdy you’ll read for a long time. It’s not something I'd reconimend for Dworkin or McKinnon but is definitely worth a nose through if you fancy your juices going.

PAMPHLETS

THE GEMSTONE FILE BY BRUCE ROBERTS. £1.50 FROM X-RAY PRESS c/o BM CHRONOS, LONDON WCIN 3XX

More folder than pamphlet, the 30+ pages available here are the skeleton key to 1,000+ pages of documentation about the Kennedy conspiracy accumilated by Roberts since I960. It’s prefaced by grim warnings about how “it is dangerous to transmit or even possess this information” and the key concludes by listing all the Kennedy- connected people who’ve come to a nasty end in consequence.

I960⁹ But JFK was hit in 1963, so how come? Well, that's when mystery' millionaire Howard Hughes crossed him over a process to synthesise rubies. Roberts claims the JFK conspiracy’s l < If if

On the assassination of JFK Key tacts disclosed Names revealed only a part of a bigger one that started in 1932 when JFK’s old man. Joseph, went into the bootlegging business with Ari Onassis and organised crime. It's really more an Onassis conspiracy than a Kennedy one really, him calling the shots, kidnapping Howard Hughes, buying Nixon &c. The brothers Kennedy were apparently knocked off for welching on deals with Onassis-run Mafiosi, then the ‘invisible government' of the US.

Some of Gemstone is proven — the CIA-Mob alliance to unseat Castro, for example — but some is outlandish. Hughes as some zombie-puppet of Onassis, 15+ assassins and back-ups all over Dealy Plaza — almost as.unlikely as the Warren Commission's “lone assassin ’. The Pentagon Papers forged to divert attention from the Kennedy conspiracy. The SLA a psy-op to incite state repression - Zebra too. Wierd shit about whether Jesus was an Arab and Vatican conspiracies around this question.

Gemstone has endured as much of it is unprovable and, like classic conspiracy theory, it has the Mob as a “them’’ secrefly controlling everything, explaining why facts are not forthcoming. We're not saying the Mob aren't a force in Amerikan society or that they like people pointing fingers at them, nor are we saying that Gemstone be dismissed entirely because of its anomalous elements. Rather read it with care, sifting genuine gems from dross.

REASON IS THE CAUSE BY E EDWARDS. PRICE FROM GORDON HOUSE, UNION ROAD, CREDITON.

A 48 page tale of derring-do from the author ot Cement Cross, the animal liberation epic, and - not wishing to blow the ending or anything — quite the most blatant plug for it I've yet seen!

All of Edwards' themes are here - the upstanding and muscular vegetarian hero, in this case one Arthur ‘The Fox' Maynard, the heroe s surprise stand and the preachy courtroom bit on animal liberation. Arthur's case is well-made in the end — it has surprising persuasive force if you haven't guessed the novelette's punchline.

Page 34

SHORT STORIES

SHORT STORIES BY E EDWARDS.

95p + SASE FROM HOUSE, UNION CRED1TON.

GORDON ROAD,

All supposed to be “based on FACT', there s a recognisable world here of country cottages and odd job men, boldly drawn in surprising incident and character. Believe us, in this small world, anything can happen — The Doll *

. In The Alfie and Sunbathing Can Damage Your Health were particularly striking. A couple of stories. The Day 13 Has Unlucky and The Coming* make the most commonplace seem alien, even if last line revelations have been done to death.

We had trouble believing the last and longest story in this collection, Dead Liberty'* was very closely '‘based on FACT as it recapitulates so many of Edwards familiar themes — but it was well-drawn enough to have us rooting for veggie hero Big Joe Downs and not being too disappointed by the excesses of it 's last page.

CA RI BEA N COOKER Y FOR VEGANS. £3 FROM PETER MASON, 30 WYNTER STREET, LONDON SW11 2TZ.

I must admit I’ve .never actually considered Caribean cooking to be vegan. I don't know what I expected it to be, but not vegan. Therefore I was in for a delicious surprise!!’

Peter Mason's book is packed full of exotic recipes that come with very easy to follow instructions.

If you’re willing to try new foods and follow the recipes you'll find yourself exploring new foods and experiencing new tastes

If you're a vegan looking for sonething new, a meat-eater wanting to cut down, a veggie uncertain of boring vegan food, or just interested in Caribean cooking, this book will satisfy all who are prepared to adventure with their cooking. Forget your lentil burgers and tofu stew, fry Doubles, Channa, Pelau or Pone. Munch your way through Rum Potato and Patties. Then down it all with a Peanut Punch. Also discover that Coconut Milk is not the same as - Coconut Water’ And ask .the timeless question “is Sorrel really meant to be quite so purple?”

NEW ZINES

iiatimv ami mtio

Mart rtan

NEW LUDDITE* NOVEMBER 1995. PRICE c/o GREEN, YORKLEAF, STUDENT'S UNION,

GOODRICKE COLLEGE, YORK UNIVERSITY YO1 5DD.

The newsletter of an encouraging little ‘disorganised' group operating in Green Party circles, “challenging the legitimacy of science and technology ".

We aren't sure how far their opposition to technocracy goes — talk of opposing only “harmful” technologies implies all technology is not part of the same interdependant system of domination -- and planning to do for anti-tech what The Land Is Ours has done for land reform is hardly encouraging. Better do for anti-tech what the ALF has done for animal liberation, true Luddites in their assertion of morality over technocracy - and in their practice of genuine direct action, not its ‘‘NVDA’ parody.

We don’t want to come across as though we re trampling on fresh green shoots though - certainly worth finding out more about.

BLACK CAT #1. FREE BUT UNADDRESSED.

The Black Cat is the publication of an anonymous individual who refers to it as the first and perhapslast issue of “my crappy rant & ‘art' thing". Another issue is proposed for December 1995 and contributions are solicited, but as no addrewss (apart from the University of Brixton) is given, any future issue is likely to consist of all the writer’s own work!

Despite the author’s self-depreciating attitude, this publication isn’t crappy at all. I rue, some of the artwork is rather basic, but nonetheless effective. Some of the writing, however, is quite incisive. Apart from the editorial, the written text consists of a number of short pieces on the negation of media, the commodification, language and social control, single issue politics and the politics of difference, the fashion system, cycling and consumerism, medicene and the medical system, the Internet, self-organisation, and the politics of envy. Inevitably, the quality ' of writing is variable, but often the author gets the balance just right between anger, analysis and wit. the pieces demystifying the Internet and

assailing th we medical system, for example, are particularly useful.

All this is done in the belief that

the best way to effect social revolution is to do it This crappy pamphlet is my own attempt to begin this process

So what more can you ask? I picked up my copy at the 121 Centre in Brixton. Try to get hold of a copy if you can. I wish I could tell you where from. If the author reads this: let us know, will ya?

PRA HA ZHTERZA T: BIL’LETYN INFORMACYJNY. PRICE FROM 46-100 NAMYSLOW,

UL.REMONTA 59/7, POLAND

Prawa Zwierzat is a Polish animal lib zine. Sadly youcan only get PZ in Polish and if you're like me and can’t read Polish, you may have problems understanding it.

I've worked out it has articles on the Polski Front Wyzwolenia Zwierzat (Polish ALF) and repors on the Brytyjski (British) ALF. It carries news of prisoners and supporting them. And lots of animal lib articles — in #2, one on vivisection.

If you read Polish and support animal lib direct action, this looks good.

ZIELOMOWGLaWIE biuletzyn nr 3

CHRONMY LAS PRZED LESNIKAMI

Z!EL ONO WGL O W/E B U!L E T YN.

PRICE FROM KRZYSIEK, UL. STAROBOJARSKA 13 M 2, 15-073 BIALYSTOCK, POLAND

Zielonowglowie is another Polish animal lib mag. I still can t read Polish but it s very pro-direct action. It tells you about ALF activities in Poland and England (Anglia). In #3 there's a report on the Justice Department and even a small diary of actions. There’s a;so an

interview with Igor Strapko from AFERRA, whoever he is.

BEAR HATCH JOURNAL. PRICE FROM 1472 COMMERCIAL DRIVE, SUITE 201, VANCOUVER, BC, V5L3X9, CANADA

Bears come to mind as you read this journal. The whole journal is full of news about bears. Brown bears. Black bears. Grizzly bears, Spirit bears. Polar beasrs, they all get a mention. And its not just North American bears Bear Watch is interested in. In the curent issue there are articles about Russian bears and bear farming' in China.

Besides some interesting articles about bears, there are also articles about peoples attitudes to bears. According to an opinion poll, 91% of Briotish Columbians are opposed to Black bear ‘trophy hunting’. 78% want a ban on Black bear trophy hunting’ and 70% want more land put aside for wildlife sanctuaries.

On a critical note, I personally would have been interested in reading more articles about direct action to save the bears/against hunting. However, despite the lack of direct action new$, the Bear Watch Journal is a good read and if you're interested in bears, then it’s certainly worth checking out. .

FIGHTING BACK #10. £7 SUB FROM BOX 25, 136-138 KINGSLAND HIGH STREET, LONDON E8 2NS.

The national newsletter of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse is in black and white A4 format and is filled with well-presented articles, poems and information.

This issue contains articles from many contributors including a very interesting one on ‘knowing our limits' about problems that arise running survivors groups and helplines. It raised the imporant point of knowing our limits of what we can put into projects without draining ourselves completely An important lesson not just for those running survivors groups but any project or group. Alongside articles and information are personal articles, the Pear free story and much moving poetry.

Fighting Buck is an invaluable newsletter for survivors of childhood abuse and should also be read by everyone so that we all become

@

This law was part and parcel of the same package that allows squatters to own land after occupying it uncontested for 12 years It was all to encourage the poor to colonise wilderness still existing in the British Isles at the time.

Sadly all this has now been superceded, both by planning law and by land registration. You need planning permission to build anything and the land only becomes yours by dint of continuous occupation if it's not registered to anyone else before you occupy it.

PREPARING

FOR THE FIGHT

Before embarking on defending an area of land or taking part in confrontational or riot conditions, one must remember to consider the type of equipment and clothes &c that should be worn to protect oneself from too much injury, all the kinds of body armour and accessories that can be worn. The data below can give a few tips and ideas for modification. -

HEADWEAR

Many of us have been head bashed on demos, some serious, usually from truncheons &c. The best policy is to find a helmet or impact hat. Naturally a crash helmet would be ideal but can be quite claustrophobic, hot and sticky. An American football helmet is pretty useful as the metal grille can deflect blows from the face. One of the easiest, cheapest and lightest types is a basic construction helmet with a wooly hat underneath for a bit of padding. You can actually get a plastic visor for it too, though some folk in the past have attached a metal mesh that can be taken from a shopping trolley. With it painted black for camoflage and blending-in purposes, you re made.

FACE PROTECTION

Some elves have used the gauze or plastic cycling masks in the past but they can get very heated and you may feel dizzy adfter a while, so the best policy is to get a shamir — or PLO scarf, to you less educated -- which can be tucked in under the helmet so that it can hang down in front of your face and neck. It can also be doubled over so that you have a bit of padding between your helmet snd shoulders at the back. I -

CLOTHES AND PADDING

Generic clothing should be wom at all tifties so that identification becomes difficult for cops or security. If one knows that they are due for a clash, stick sections of foam around yur vulnerable parts — chest/kidneys, groin and back — but keep it light enough so you can still walk or run Steel toecapped boots are best, the small workboots as ■ they are lighter. Shin, shoulder and elbow pads are also a jnust.

SHIELDS AND PERSONAL DEFENSIVE TOOLS

commited to fighting back against abuse instead of so often silently ignoring it. -

SLOW LEEK Hl . PRICE FROM 4 ROBIN HOOD ROAD, HAVRE DE GRACE, MD 21078, USA. )

Short personalzine, mainly about art but with a page on ’’this month's topic” animal rights. .

VIDEO

RIOT POLICE. PRICE FROM WH SMITHS!

The video of “violent public disorder” is available at most major retail outlets. Its narrators are Peter Waddington. Sociology professor at Reading Diversity, and the criminologist Geoffrey Pearson, author of Hooligan.

The disorders covered are: anti-Mosely riots in 1936 and the 1950s, Grosnevor Square 1968, Brixton 1981, Toxteth

trained in specialist anti-riot units.

• -

Riot police use similar tactics to the old military strategies. The baton charge is used to ‘rouf the enemy like the old bayonet charge. Mounted police cut through enemy lines like medieval cavalry. Police with plastic bullet guns are concealed behind the riot shields of the front row of police. This gives the element of surprse. rather like unexpected archery fire.

Specialist riot police, like the French CRS,- are expensive to maintain. They're not used very often and are based in major cities, so if a riot breaks out in a small town it could be many hopurs before the specialist riot police arrive in large numbers.

Waddington and Pearson are very sceptical regarding the victories gained by rioting. They ignore the breakthroughs when issues like racism, unemployment and democracy are put. on the political agenda after riots. The 1990 poll tax riot in Trafalgar Square reduced many people's sense of isolation and encouraged them to campaign against the poll tax. Instead Waddington and Pearson claim that in' a riot the mob wins for a dat but nothing is changed afterwards. The video ' had a very sombre ending showing wide-spread looting to make rioters look like thieving scumbags.

After watching the video 1 came up with-a few ‘hypothetical' observations. As the police are not likely to risk being attacked "’by rioters posing as

bystanders, you shouldn't

be a

1981, -Orsreave

1984, Handsworth

1985. Trafalgar Square 1990. Celtic v Rangers march, 1990 World Cup,

bystander. You should join the riot, not just stand there and watch, especially as police will probably attack you anyway. If you get injured by a police officer, that’s too bad as you wanted to see him get injured after all.

Riot police are well-disciplined and so the baton and cavalry charges are

England v Sweden match. Germany v Holland match, French farmers 1992, Los Angeles 1992' India 1992, - Waterloo J992, eastern Germany 1993, and Soth Korea 1994.

Unfortunately Waddington and Pearson tend to dwell on the negative aspects of riots. The racist attack on a White truck ' driver in the LA riots is shown along with thje looting of stores and the nurning of innocent people's cars.

Police violence is described as almost inevitable in a riot situation. The police

effective in ‘routing^- the crowd. A counter to the police charge could be to push burning rubbish skips at them as they advance. Also activists with catapultd, fireworks and petrol bombs should stay about 50 metres behind the front line so they can fire without being %

routed. -

However the riot police are effective so it'would take a hell of a-lot of selfconfidence to stand rthere rolling rubbish skips .at an advancing mounted police charge.

3

0

but it is a great ska core sound with Hammond organ, trumpet and sax. It’s well worth checking out so if you're into this kind of stuff, this tape is a must.

DUS GETTING PATHETIC BY ACTIVE MINDS. £1.50 FROM LOONEYTIMES, 69 WYKEHAM

STREET,

Sounds a bit like the Clash with a sax thrown in in a few songs.

SUCK BY WITCHKNOT, 7” EP. £2 FROM FLAT EARTH RECORDS, P O BOX 169, BRADFORD BD7

Isuppose some people would call Witchknot a riot grrl band but this sounds to me like some early 1980’s band on Crass Records. The first song Pianist Envy (comparisons with Crass’s

- Penis Envy could be made) is about a school for women musicians helping them in a very male dominated industry. Other tracks cover topics as powered baby milk, sabotage and the CSA. Apparently MRR refused to take Hat Earth Records adverts with this record on aas it doesn't fit into their narrow idea of what punk/HC should be. Maybe Witchknot are too punk for MRR. ■ -

SUFFER EP. £2 FROM FLAT EARTH RECORDS, P O BOX 169, BRADFORD BD7 1YS.

A great EP from Bradford's Suffer who formed from the ashes of the mighty (loud) Health Hazard. It reminds me a bit of Deviated Instinct, but louder.

Nice booklet/cover ecogeddhon, Zapatistas.

professional-looking with lyrics coverring fighting back and the

SCARBOROUGH,

NORTH YORKSHIRE YO12 75A.

This single of raging punk comes with u booklet in German, French, Polish. Spanish and other languages 1 don't recognise. The topics range from religion, pollution, fashion, violence, politics, punk and its bloody good loo. Essential for listening for all punks so wake up to this band, cabbage heads!

DIVERSIONARY TACTICS BY AOS3. £7 (LP) OR £7.55 (CD) FROM DS4A c/o BOX 8, 82 COLSTON STREET, BRISTOL BSl 5BB.

Lovely orange viny! — fab! threat skanker stuff from this now-defunct Tvneside band. The) were great live and this is a grer*! remake of that and a good record io kick off the new Inna State Records. Good stutt v ith intelligent lyrics and great music. .

BAPTISED

SHIT BY

EXTINCTION OF MANKIND, LP. SKULD RELEASES AVAILABLE THROUGH YOUR FAVOURITE DIY PUNK/HC D1STRO.

What you have here is a whole LP (I I tracks) of Manchester s finest crusty punk. EOM's first album is as good as, if not better than their previous 7” on Split Releases. This kicks ass. mental

crust punk rock -- yeah!

PRISONS’S NO PLACE FOR PUNISHMENT CASSETTE BY PAIN

This is eight tracks of PAIN live at the Robev, PAIN being ex-members of RDF and AOS3. The music is therefore punky dub reggae, but is more powerful than RDF or AOS3. w ith a cover of the Ruts' Babylon Is Burning and Punx With Guns taken with them from RDF.

Hopefully some stupid stuff soon.

officers experience ‘Red Mist' when they are antagonised to a point where they have to lash out. Police develop a ‘Them and Us' mentality and lash out at anybody not in uniform. The narrators claim tat at this stage the police and rioters are caiught in the “same pyschological web”. Police will want to clear the streets so bystanders are just as likely to be attacked as the rioters are. Police can I distinguish between rioters and bystanders so anybody not in uniform is likely to be attacked during a dispersal operation.

Undisciplined, untrained security guards are easier targets. The security guards used at fox hunts, horse races and construction sites act as individuals and so are often some distance from - their colleagues. They can be tripped up by kicking their heel forward. Their equipment usually consists of just hard hats so darts, sand and fireworks can be thrown into their faces.

MUSIC

British police’s attitude to public disorders is quite “amateurish” compared to police on the European mainland. A police officer could be helping people with traffic directions one dat an(i then policing violent demo the next. Only a small number are

KNUCKLEHEAD LIVE 16.8^4. £3 I ROM DS4A c/ BOX X, 82 COLSTON STREET, BRISTOL BSI 5BB. .. .

An AFA benefit tape of Knucklehead’s last ever gis. After getting over the disappointment of being told that this sounds like the Bosstones, it doesn’t n« < i. i * m ?no i >r. I.) xmb th in?

ARBEITSSCHENS OSTLER’S

FLUCHTWEG FROM

TOI LSIIOCK RECORDS, FF218, 10182 BERLIN, GERMANY.

13 punchy German punk songs from Fhichtwen. Not being able to speak German, I don't know what they’re singing about but I still found myself singing along, so it must be good. 11. it rrit ii hi

There's no address on the tape, so you II have to catch rthem live

I AM NICE, I AM SPLAM DEMO CASSETTE BY MUCKSPREADER. £2 FROM FERNSIDE, DEADMILL LANE, LOWER SWAINSWICK, BATH

Poweful heavy crust punk with an ex- Amebix. This band have a sound of their own, no dis-core here. This is brilliant, it’s never out of my tape player. What more can I say? Get it!

PROJECTS—]

DON'T VOTE, GOVERN YOURSELVES ANARCHIST LEAFLET, BM 1715, LONDON WC1N 3XX.

We want ideas and money to help put

Page 36

together a short (A5 double-sided) leaflet about anarchism to distribute during the next General Election. .

We'd like every GA reader to contribute some ideas about what this leaflet should say. We d also like you to send us £2 and take at least 200 copies to give out during the election period.. Enclose an SASE so we can get back to you.

Things you think an anarchist antielection leaflet should say to the address above.

SURVIVAL

THE BIG ISSUE

HOUSE IN A DAY

In the Middle Ages, if you could build a house in a day and have smoke going up the chimney by midnight you could legally live in it.

Have any readers of GA ever thought about doing this?

Have you seen how much building material is throwm out of your average building site? So if a load of us got together with a few skips, it could be doner. What a way to bust the housing

shorage... - -

BASE WASTE

While on the subject of houses, in the 1950's and 1960's army camps and air bases had huge housing estates built round them, housands of people lived there, they were like small towns out in the countryside miles from anywhere with schools and shops....

Now the Cold War is over most of them are run down and these military council estates are completely empty. A lot of them are in East Anglia, one example is RAF Upwood near Ramsey in Huntingdonshire. Part of it is a US military Hospital but the rest of it, maybe a thousand homes, is empty. So any of you out there and homeless...

MAKE YOUR OWN CLOTHES

The revolution starts by how we think about ourselves. After seven yeasrs of recession permanoso by now its obvious enough who the repulsive systemites are by the way they dress.

Anyone with clothes less than 3 years old that didn t come from Oxfam is obviously one of them. So, instead of Oxfam, why don t we make our own clothes? - .

We don't have fancy overlooking sewing machines and the design techniques of modem fashion industry but we do have our own ideas. If we made our own clothes we would look completely different abnd scare the systemites shitless. Making our own clothes shows how we reject their system. Once we start looking different, we start feeling different, once we feel different, we act different and become ourselves and that's what makes a revolution. - -

So all you clothesmakers out there — come on and show us what you think the best dressed anarchists should be wearing for 1996!

- GA notes: Medieval self-housing law was used by Bradford strikers as recently as the turn of the century. They occupied land to feed themselves during a dispute that ran for over six months (see Squatting: - The Real Story).

shields and other useful tools for years, maybe why they've been more successful in resisting the State than us at times.

There are two types of shields, depending on your strength, size and the situation you may find yourself in.

The first is the heavy metal dustbin lid. The rim &c should be caved in until the surface is flat. This can be done either by heating the lid in a fire or jumping up and down on it until it gives in, though this can take a while. Cover the handle with a rubber inner tube and then cloth. Paint the shield black. The weight and size of the shield means I can also be used as a club.

The second type is the usual plastic dustbin lid which surprisingly can be used for a few clashes until it starts cracking. Again, bind the handle &c. This can easily be carried on one’s back. This kind of shield is ideal for quick skirmishes or attacks. Of course, better still, are any copper's shields you find lying about..,.

Along with the shield, a stick of some sort is very seful, possibly a broom handle, a thickish piece of (kosh) wood, or a sawm-off piece of piping.

A catapult or sling is also a useful side arm. It can be used sending back an aggressor, especially if a few are used at once or if windscreens are targeted. The Black Widow model is your best bet and has an arm rest which folds up, so securing your aim.

Smoke, paint and thunderflash cannisters can be bought at your local paint ball gun shop at reasonable prices. They're very useful, especially the smoke and thunderflashes when storming an enemy . position. But remember that coloured smoke is your best option.

FORTIFYING CAMPS

Many camps are now building defences, but these seem to centre more around things to lock on to than proper stockades or defensive earthworks. If you really want to hold a piece of land, then forget tree houses, as these are only delaying tactics.

In Germany stockades have been successfully combined with ditches and spiked fences. Earth works should be at least 6-1 O' high with ditches in front at least IO' wide and 6' deep. Pointed stakes are also useful to have protruding outwards, even razor wire wire wrapped around them.

Any entrances to the site should be tunnels so that the ground will give way the moment heavy machinery goes over it.

Gorse and rhododendron bush are great for barriers and can also be lit when desired. Bails of the stuff about 4’ high can also be pulled together and left on inclines or at the tp of earthworks so they can be used as rolling fireballs.

BREAKING POLICE LINES

Poice break demonstrators' lines and morale by attacking in a spear shape, immediately confusing and disorientating activists. The best way to deal with this is to either scatter to make the maneuver useless so that you can then attack the sides of the spear, or to form

a semi-circle so that you can encircle them and come from behind.

If you want to break a police or security line, then there are various tips apart from using the spear shape yourselves.

The barrow method is ideal. Find a cart- or wooden barrow and construct a 3' high wooden attachment on front, about 6-10’ wide. Activists can then get behind it as a battering ram. Pallets can be used likewise. If a spear shape is going to be used, then have sticks coming out the front so thast it resembles a porcupine.

If on a concrete surface and pursued, then marbles or spikes.are a good retreating tactic. Remember never to use anything that will injure horses. If attacked by cavalry, then a strong pungent stink bomb can be quite useful, possibly combined with smoke cannisters. Alternatively, elephant dung from your local zoo bolts 'em — say you need it as fertilizer for your allotment....

DIY MACE

Pigs think they're so smart demanding mace. Well, two can play at that game:

3 parts alcohol

1/2 parts iodine

1 /2 parts salt

or

3 parts alcohol

I part iodized salt (Mortons)

It’s trendy, tribal and trippy, the world’s oldest operation — trepannation’

Our ancestors learned c. 8,000 BC that a hole in the head "was a real high. All the cranial fluid between skull and brain is freed, so more blood can circulate. Trepannation might even , make you smarter!

Something so good is, of course, illegal. Only doctors are allowed to trepan someone else and they won’t.

If a mate’s prepared to help, the traditional tool is a shed deer antler. If you’re staying within the law, operating on yourself, make concessions to technology. A hand drill will probably be too slow - try a Black & Decker cordless in front of the mirror.

Go in through the crown of the head. Read biology books so you know what blood vessels to avoid but don’t worry about your scalp bleeding. Once in, come straight out again. Your brain can take a bit of drilling out not churning!

G.A.: The Zine

THE EDITORIAL

A ZINE WORTH RAIDING

ARNI were al it again last 16th January 1996, knocking down doors across the country in simultaneous early-morning raids only days after the editorial meeting that created this new-format issue. They re-arrested four alleged GA editors they’d kept on police bail since March 1995, as well as ALF press officer Robin Webb and SG editor Simon Russell. Whisked off to two hick cop shops in the depths of the New Forest, arrestees were all finally charged with conspiracy to incite criminal damage by fire. The trial date isn’t yet set but looks many months off.

We believe from the questioning that the “criminal damage by fire’’ referred to was an ARM arson wave on the Isle of Wight a couple of years ago. The supposed “conspiracy” is distribution of Into The 1990’s With The ALF as Hampshire cops claim to have found a number in Robin’s home last time they raided. Obviously this is ridiculous — that sort of thing happens only informally and if they can ‘prove’ “incitement” from this, they can ‘prove’ it against any paper in UK.

What it’s really about, of course, is Special Branch cops in Hampshire trying to ‘keep their iron in the fire’ after their attempt to do Robin for a one-man conspiracy to pass a press release to the press was laughed out of court in December 1995. They’ve gone for GA as we’ve made no secret of our support for Robin, pointing out ARNI planted a shotgun on him to silence him. That hardly makes us ‘conspirators’ but the cops can’t abide anyone contradicting their - - bizarre ‘animal lib terrorist’ hype — even journos wouldn’t be stupid enough to - publish it unquestioned if there are alternative voices to be heard.

Another reason they attacked GA is that it gives them an ‘in’ to the Greenie scene and ‘eco-terrorist* hype too. ARNI started filing Greenies during Twyford and now admits to having 1,000’s databased. Instead of dismissing this as paranoia (it derives from ARNI’s own public statements!) or using it as an excuse to become inactive, eco-warriors should learn fast from animal liberation! sts.

GA will continue BAMN so disregard all rumours to the contrary. Help us by:

• Sending money (not cheques!) to cover our legal costs to BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX - GAMO already have a benefit tape available from PO Box 407, Camberley GUI5 3FL '

• Volunteering to help edit GA or distro for GAMO in future — but take due care doing so (see our security warning opposite)

• Preparing to take the sort of action the defendants are accused of inciting if they’re convicted — so the juries verdict will be the incitement, not this.

THE NEXT ISSUE

TECHNOCRACY IS TYRANNY: You may look to your lifestyles of convenience and luxury when technology is questioned but don’t forget techno- industrial civilisation is only possible because of intense division of labour and pillaging of global resources. Our everyday lives are at the mercy of unaccountable experts and systems beyond our control - if technology is not questioned, they will determine our future instead of us. It’s not about replacing one set of experts with another either — tyranny is inherent in the logic of the techno-industrial system. It must all be destroyed if Anarchy is to live!

Articles for GA42’s core to BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX.

GA42 DEADLINE: 15TH JUNE 1996

THE SMALL PRINT

A BOSNIA OF CONSEQUENCE

We’ve published the latest on Leeds in this issue (p. 25) to help AFA’s deliberations into this cause for concern. Given the amount of disinformation disseminated by Bowman’s fans and the willingness of know-all know-nothings in the movement to uncritically circulate it, we felt it necessary to set the record straight before possible imprisonment (see above) intervened.

Too many stupid and misinformed people think everything published in GA on

anti-fascism eminates from Larry O’ Hara. It doesn’t A Bosnia of Consequence is our article, not his. As his liberty is not currently in jeopardy, he still awaits the outcome of AFA’s enquiry into Leeds with interest.

EARTH FIRST! IS STILL DEAD?

Earth First Is Dead was published in GA39 (p. 15) because EF! was sliding into the sort of recuperation so satisfactorily critiqued in As Soon As You’re Born They Make You Feel Small (World) — a pity space prevented us reproducing it here, for all its minor inaccuracies.

As soon as we went to press, Whatley happened, then Newbury. How could Earth First! be “dead” in face of such effective militancy?

It’s not about actions, numbers, resources — they’re all good reasons to gel in with big Green lobbyists. It’s about compromising with reformists. FoE and Greenpeace have only got more militant and attentive of their own grassroots as EF!s been a critical revolutionary alternative. Coming to terms with them ends this, yoking EF! to those that want to do deals with Industrialism, not destroy iu

Date

SUBSCRIBE!

Forename

Contact Address

। 10 issues for £7.50. 5 issues for £3.75 starting with issue #........................................................

* Send to BCM 1715, London WCIN 3XX

ARTICLES

If you've got any opinions you want to share, send 'em in to BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX: We’ll eventually print anything that’s interesting, readable and short on a no censorship, no endorsement basis. If you read an article yoyu don’t like, send in a better one yourself. GA isn't published on Planet Trotsky -- anarchy is about thinking for yourself

SUBS & STREETSALES

If you want to streetsell or subscribe to GA, send the form and blank postal orders — not cheques -- to the general editor. Add 30% to cover postage if you're overseas.

If you're a prisoner or living in the former Eastern Bloc, we'II send you a free GA each time you write for one.

MAILORDER

Fill in p.27, stating how many of what you want. Send it off to GA Mail Order, PO Box 407, Camberley GUI5 3FL with blank postal orders or cash -- not cheques. Add 30% to cover postage if you're overseas.

We reserve the right to substitute items of equal value if stuff is out of stock.

ADVERTISING

Send camera-ready ads to GA via the general editor. We charge £60 for a full page, with smaller ads pro rata. We can be persuaded to swap ads with other zines. Small ads cost 6p a word.

SECURITY

This is not a free country — the State regularly monitors and periodically steals our mail.

You are responsible for your own security!

When writing to us, use a false name or

your forename only, and a PO box or c/o address if you want a reply. If you want a reply but haven’t got one in six weeks, assume your communication's

been intercepted and write again!

DISCLAIMER

This zine and all items sold through GA Mail Order are produced for entertainment purposes only. No material in it is intended to incite any action liable to lead to criminal or civil charges. Can't you take a joke?

THE DISTRIBUTORS

AUTONOME DISTRO, PO Box 791191, New Orleans, LA 70179-1191, USA (mail order)

WIND CHILL FACTOR, PO Box 81961, Chicago, IL 60688, USA (mail order)

TERRA LIVRE, REVOLTA, Apt. 1141, 2750 Cascao, Portugal (mail order)

VICTIMAS DEL PROGRESSO, Apdo.

24037, 28080 Madrid, Spain

BLACKADDER c/o Kristel St Lieven, Poortstrasse 251, 55000 Ghent,

Belgium

KELEINES MADCHEN c/o Stephane Brocheir, Qualde la Tour, Bat. H2, 78200 Manes ca Joice, France

SUMMERSAULT, Holger Ohst,

Bremen, Germany

TIM, VEGAN RESOLUTION co Avalon, Friedrich Ebert Strasse 24, 45127 Essen, Germany

NO COMPROMISE, PC 345, 5DI00

Mikkeli, Finland

BOKCAFEN JAAP, Hselmsgt. 3, 0355 Oslo, Norway

MATUS RITOBMSKY, Uslakova 2, 84401 Bratislava, Slovakia

CEC, . PO Box 5090, South Murwillumbah, New South Wales 2484, Australia

LIZ, FORCED SLAVER c/o Anerely DC, Annerly 4103, Bris. Qld Australia. ANIMAL INFO, PO Box 13585, Christchurch, New Zealand

PO Box 6387, Wellingon, New Zealand

Schwachhauser Heerstrasse 285, 28211

¹ Date

j STREETSELL GA

। Forename........................................................

Contact Address.............................................. ..........................................................................

i i i i

10 copies for £5. 50 copies for £20. Cash up-front, non-returnable.

Send to PO Box 407, Camberley GU15 3FL.

G.A. The Network

This is Green Anarchism

Civilisation is Exploitation

Mass society is too complex to work without specialisation. Specialised division of labour alienates us from each other and creates a hierarchy needed to co-ordinate production. Hierarchy divides society into the powerful and powerless. The powerless are treated as objects to be exploited. Exploitation on grounds of class, gender, ethnicity and sexual preference is intrinsic to mass society. Mass society cannot be reformed. It must be replaced.

Small is Beautiful

Mass society must be replaced with communities small enough for each person in them to be respected as an autonomous individual. In small communities, self-determination would replace hierarchy. You can’t fight mass with mass. If our means and ends are to be consistent, we must organise in networks of autonomous small groups to replace mass society.

Land or Death

Mass society alienates people from the Earth. By controlling the Earth’s resources, the State controls society. We must end our dependence on the State by taking back the land and living self-sufficiently. By re-establishing our relationship with the Earth, we undermine the hierarchical thinking that is destroying it.

Revolution on the Periphery

Mass society needs resources from across the planet to survive. Those most exploited by it are those that work the land in the Third World, only to have the fruits of their labour exported to profit the rich. They have nothing to lose by taking back the land at the expense of mass society. As less resources are imported from the Third World, mass society won’t be able to come up with the goods in this country. Self-governing, self-sufficient small communities will be more needed and easier to establish as the State loses control of the rest of the planet.

Autonomy Now

We must support the revolution on the periphery by making our own here. We must share the skills needed to survive without the State, create a culture of resistance to free us from the alienation of mass society, live free of exploitation by boycotting banks and multinationals, building an alternative green and black economy and defending ourselves and the Earth by taking direct action against military bases and labs, developers and industry, exploitation and bigotry.

G.A. CONTACTS LIST

WANT TO BE A CONTACT?

Agree with This Is Green Anarchism? Send off the form below with a large SASE to your nearest Regional Co-ordinator and we ll send you a free GA Contacts Briefing with suggestions on how to get a group organised.

WANT TO BE A U.A.B.? .

If you haven't time to organise a local group, join our confidential Urgent Action list also available via your Regional Co-ordinator. Your nearest local group will contact you when the next issue of GA is published and all contact groups will mail you Urgent Action Bulletins from then on. -

WANT URGENT ACTION?

If you’ve got hassles as a result of dfending the Earth, send us details, action suggestions and an address where we can put you in touch with our nearest contact. They II organise a UAB mail-out to support you.

SCOTLAND

CO-ORDINATOR

HAGGIS, Solidarity Centre, 3 Royal Exchange Court, 85-87 Queen Street, Glasgow Gl 3PA

SOUTH WEST

CO-ORDINATOR

MID-SOMERSET EARTH FIRST!, Box 23, 5 High Street, Glastonbury

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS

ANARCHISTS ANONYMOUS, PO Box 87, Hampton, Middlesex TW12 3TF.

HAMPSHIRE GREEN ANARCHISTS, Box GA, 4 Onslow Road, Southampton

INTERNATIONAL

CO-ORDINATOR

ALDER VALLEY ANARCHISTS, PO Box 407, Camberley GU15 3FL

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS

KIF DAVIES, PO Box 2062, Westminster, MD 21158, USA

JON EWING, PO Box 7385, Fullerton, CA 92634, USA

GALE c/o Filipa Visnjica 10, 11420 Smederevska Palanka, Yugoslavia

MUT, Gruneburgweg 154, 60323 Frankfurt am, Germany

MANUEL c/o lb Xelmirlt I, Campus Um Vessitomio, 15705 Santiago, Spain TERRA LIVRE, Revolta, Apartado

1141,2750 Cascais Copex, Portugal BIALYSTOK GREEN ANARCHISTS c/o PO Box 129, 15-662 Bialystok 26, Poland

LIZ, FORCED SLAVER c/o Annerly DC, Annerly 4103, Bris. Qld Australia ANIMAL INFO, PO Box 22-459, Christ-church, New Zealand.

ERIK c/o Nieuwstraat 246, 9000 Ghent, Belgium.

(OPEN FORUM)

Complete & unequivocal freedom of expression through any media.,. Freedom for all sexual/sensual interactions between consenting individuals without any interference from theofascist zealots & government automatons.. Tolerance...

Enlightenment... Empowerment of the individual... You'll find: personal contacts, letters from readers, stories, essays, poetry, artwork & reviews Copy: $10. Advert of 30 wds: $5. Cash only to: LIANOS, P.O.Box 8343, Athens (Omonia), GR-10010, Greece

NORTH

CO-ORDINATOR

LANCASTER BOMBER. BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX

WALES

CO-ORDINATOR '

STEVE c/o 7 Glanmor Road, Uplands.

Swansea SA2 0PX.

EAST ANGLIA

CO-ORDINATOR

CAMBRIDGE ANARCHISTS, Box A. Arjuna, 12 Mill Road, Cambridge

R^BBIX BM HEAL, London WON 3XX.

JAMES c/o 10 Churchfields, Wellington, Somerset TA21 8SD

SHAUMUS c/o 132 Cheltenham Road, Bristol BS6 5RW.

SOUTH EAST

CO-ORDINATOR

OXFORD GREEN ANARCHISTS, BCM 1715, London WCIN 3XX

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS

ALDER VALLEY ANARCHISTS, PO Box 407, Camberley GUI5 3FL.

SOUTH DOWNS EARTH FIRST! c/o Priory House, Tilbury Place, Brighton BN2 2AY

AUTONOME DISTRIBUTION

THE CITY NEVER SLEEPS & NEITHER DO WE! PROVIDING THE BEST BOOKS, MAGS. SHIRTS, & MORE ON: ANARCHY - INDIGENOUS STRUGGLES - FEMINISM SQUATI1NG - RADIO - PSYCHEDELICS - AGRICULTURE FOOD NOT BOMBS - ARTS - COLLECTIVES & MORE!!!

SEND $2 FOR OUR CATALOG & UPDATE TO:

POB 791191, NEW ORLEANS, LA 70179-1191

Date...................... i

MAKE ME A CONTACT!

Send me a free GA Contacts Briefing

Date........

PUT ME ON YOUR

URGENT ACTION LIST

Forename.

Forename

Contact Address

Send to your nearest regional co-ordinator I Send to your nearest regional co-ordinator.

G.A. Mail Order

BOOKS

CITY DEATH Stephen Booth’s apocalyptic novel of social collapse. Critiques the city and advocates its alternatives. £5

TEST CARD F The Institute of Social Disengineering's image/text assault on the media. £2.50

TURNING UP THE HEAT Larry O’ Hara's expose of Ml5’s post-Cold War role. £5

#35 SUMMER 1994: Sex ‘issue.

PAMPHLETS

GREEN ANARCHISM Its Origins & Influences. More history than manifesto, this pamphlet charts the development of GA's ideas in a broader green and anarchist context £l

INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY & ITS FUTURE Amerika’s most wanted, the Unabomber's declaration of war on technocracy £1.50

THE ABOLITION OF WORK Bob Black's pro-situ American classic, lucidly arguing for ludic revolution 50p THE BOOK OF LEVELLING John Moore’s anthology of primitivist short storigs - £2

ANTI-MASS Methods of Organisation for Collectives. Seminal anthology of short essays attacking mass organisation and arguing for affinity group/cell structure alternatives. 50p

DEAR MOTORIST The Social Ideolgy of the Motor Car. Andre Gorz’s deconstruction of car culture 40p

L.A. WAS JUST THE BEGINNING Well-researched prophecy of the class war sweeping Amerikkka. 70p

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

Eyewitness account of the 1992 LA riots, challenging media lies. 50p A LIE TOO FAR Mina Productions’ ' unprededented expose of ‘anti-fascist’ magazine Searchlight, and its attempts to set up and smear anarchists. £ I

AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH Further expose of Searchlight and State links with its asset, Tim Hepple. £ 1.50 NO COMMENT Basic briefing on what to do if arrested. Good advice whether or not the CJA removes the ‘right’ to silence. SAE

LAND & LIBERTY Argues for self- sufficiency and re-establuishing contact with the land £ I SO

OUR ALLOTMENT Illustrated book for children, designed to encourage an interest in growing food 40p

WELL FED - NOT ANIMAL DEAD

Veganism as opposition to exploitation rather than simply a vegetable diet. Recipes, growing your own, and food for free. £1

RADIO SERMONETTES Essays by Hakim Bey on the essential importance of immediate experience and of the body as the least mediated of all media. Brill! £1

SMASHING THE IMAGE FACTORY A Complete Manual of Billboard Subversion and Destruction. A how as well as why pamphlet on turning the Image Empire against itself. 50p

TV TIMES A Seven Day Guide To Killing Your TV. Written in the spirit of Spectacular Times. £1

THE TYRANNY OF TYRANNY Cathy Levine’s critique of Jo Freeman's Tyranny of Sructurelessness and the bureaucratisation of the early Womens Movement. 35p

BEYOND SEXUALITY- ANSLIM’s controversial challenge to conventional notions of sexuality 75p

ASTERIX & THE ROAD MONSTER Hilarious anti-roads detoumment of the Asterix cartoons £ I

THE ECO-WARS AND OTHER POEMS Benefit for the McLibel Support Campaign £2

ZINES

ARNIE #7. Classic cult comic. 50p

DARK DIAMONDS #3/4. Shocking expose of how the Third World’s* getting fucked over. £ I

LANCASTER BOMBER #11. Controversial liberation theory, general outrage and anarchist excess! 50p

BYPASS Cross Currents In Under The Counter Culture #1-5. UK Factsheet

F/ve-style review zine. £1

LESBIAN AND GAY Freedom Movement Newsletter. 40p

E.L.P. JOURNAL #3. Listing of Earth Liberation Prisoners and others 60p

ECO-VEGAN #3. Short but sharp Earth 7 animal liberation newsletter. MOVE supplement. SAE

MUSIC

Crass Live. Tape of their last concert and first demo.

We Control The Horizontal, We Control The Vertical. Compilation tape with Conflict, Crass, Poison Girls and more, live.

Internal Autonomy. Single.

BACK ISSUES 4o_P

Countdown On Spanner, practical anarchy tips.

#36 WINTER 1994: Anti-Media and 10th anniversary issue. Free anti-CJA flexi-disc included!

#37 SPRING 1995: Anti-State / Surveillance issue. Directory of Scum, Searchlight expose, pomgraphy and non-monogamy.

i Date

GA MAIL ORDER

I

I ' ' -

! Forename................................................ _.. ................................................................. :

। Contact Address.............................................. .......................................................................... ..........................................................................

I......................................................................... ..........................................................................

। When you've completed this page (see p. 25 on how to order), send it to i GAMO. PO Box 407, Camberley, GU15 3FL.

#38 SUMMER 1995: Primitivist issue. Mumia Abu-Jamal, veal war, Swedish ALF, AIDS fraud. Searchlight exposed again.

#39 AUTUMN 1995: Zero-work issue. Renew the Earthly Paradise, Earth First! is Dead, pom debate. Home exposed.

T-SHIRTS

Large. Black or multi-coloured on unbleached cotton £5.50 each

1. Don’t Send Guns

2. ' GA Dragon H

3. Warriors Of The Rainbow

4. Disobey

5. Where There Is No Vision

6. Stuff Your Jobs

7. GA Logo

20. ELF — By All Means Necessary

21. ELF Faeries . 7

22. ELF On Tour

POSTERS

A3 black and white 30p each

I. Don’t Send Guns

3. Warriors Of The Rainbow

4. Disobey

6. Stuff Your Jobs

8. * Justice Is Injustoce

9. Pyramid Of Oppression

10. Triangle Of Corruption

11. Biggest Bastard

12. Grow Up!.

13. Tax Is Theft

14. Only Guns Give Us Rights

15. Levellers -

16. Beguinning Of The World

17. Harmony With Nature

18. New W'orld Order

19. Fascism = Murder

BADGES

GA star, black & green, enamel.

GA logo, 1” round, black on green

ELF, 1” round, black on red

£1 30p 3 Op

Page 40

ARC GET A PASTING

On 4th December 1995, a national day of action was called at Whatley Quarry in Somerset This was to oppose ARC’S new plan to extend the existing quarry another 6 miles which would trash a lot of fertile farm land and upset the area's natural water systems. ARC attempted to push through this proposal before but were defeated two years ago. They thought by letting the matter rest, they could gen a new application throufgh with no resistance. In fact they gave locals more time to organise despite ARC’S feeble justification that the quarry will bring more jobs.

South Somerset Earth First!, with the assistance of FoE and the Green

Party’, began networking in the summer. This paid off. Nearly 500 turned up on the day. Police and ARC were unprepared for the huge turnout as people gathered at Whatley gates at 5.30 am. ARC had optimistically presumed they could cany ion work as usual that day. In fact no trucks were allowed in or out as hundreds of activists invaded the compund, occupying machinery and gravel heaps. A tripod was even set up across ARC’s private railway. Police were overwhelmed — and were annoyed by the number of masked-up activists as well as those protestors physically dc-arrcstcd by their comrades.Frustrated by their inferiority, police did get out of hand, injuring demonstrators with punches and kicks. 62 arrests.

Apart from the occupations, ELF made good use of the day, causing £50,00ftp damage and forcing the quarry to close for over a week for repairs, lost production costing an extra £50,000 a day. Rails were ripped up early in the morning, making it impossible for stone to come in or out.

All in all, a good day, with EF! getting a bit more radical for a change, many locals involved, and

BSE COVER UP

Government figures show <600 BSE-infected cows arc slaughtered for human consumption each week in UK (Western Morning News, 13/11/95].

Farmer Geoff Nicholls had already experience BSE in his herd so he knew the symptoms when they arose in another cow. He called the government inspector but the official passed the cow fit for human consumption. Nicholls kept hold of the cow — which did develop fullblown BSE shortly afterwards.

The government’s been encouraging farmers with BSE-infected herds to register them ‘free of infection’ after an inadequetc period of nonincidence - so they can be sold on here and overseas at first opportunity [Green World #12].

Is it any coincidence Creutzfold Jakob Disease (CJD - human BSE), is on the increase? In 1994, 55 officially died of CJD, doubled the death toll a decade ago. One recent death was a farmer, the fourth so far [New Scientist, 14/10/95].

Watchdog found a quarter of people in UK won’t eat beef in case it’s BSE-infected [Western Morning News, 13/11/95]

another demo due at Dumford Quarry on 19th February.

SUPPORT THE DEFENDANTS via Hills Not Holes, 31 Hamdon Close, Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset TA 14 6QN.

Issue 42

Date: Jun 1996

Keywords: Anti-Technology; Technocracy.

Read here

---

Free Ted!

Stop the FBI frame-up of Ted Kaczynski

After 18 year [sic] of humiliating failure hunting the Unabomber, the FBI were relieved to announce to the worldwide media that they'd arrested Ted Kaczynski last Thursday, 5th April 1996.

Ted is a hermit whose lived alone in a mountain shack outside Lincoln, Montana, since 1971. He was so shy he found it difficult to talk to Lincoln residents when he got his weekly provisions from town, though he did manage to play pinocle with 84 year old Irene Preston. Townspeople can't believe he's the Unabomber.

...

Industrial-Technological Society Cannot Be Reformed

Mass organisation and the division of labour destroy freedom: extracts from the Unabomber's Industrial Society & Its Future

Restriction of Freedom is Unavoidable in Industrial Society

114. ... modern man is strapped down by a network of rules and regulations, and his fate depends on the actions of persons remote from him whose decisions he cannot influence. This is not accidental or a result of the arbitrariness of arrogant bureaucrats. It is necessary and inevitable in any technologically advanced society. The system HAS TO regulate human behavior closely in order to function. At work, people have to do what they are told to do, when they are told to do it and in the way they are told to do it, otherwise production would be thrown into chaos. Bureaucracies HAVE TO be run according to rigid rules. To allow any substantial personal discretion to lower-level bureaucrats would disrupt the system and lead to charges of unfairness due to differences in the way individual bureaucrats exercised their discretion. It is true that some restrictions on our freedom could be eliminated. but GENERALLY SPEAKING the regulation of our lives by large organizations is necessary for the functioning of industrial-technological society. The result is a sense of powerlessness on the part of the average person. It may be. however. that formal regulations will tend increasingly to be replaced by psychological tools that make us want to do what the system requires of us. (Propaganda, educational techniques, “mental health” programs, etc.)

115. The system HAS TO force people to behave in ways that are increasingly remote from the natural pattern of human behavior. For example, the system needs scientists. mathematicians and engineers. It can’t function without them. So heavy pressure is put on children to excel in these fields. It isn’t natural for an adolescent human being to spend the bulk of his time sitting at a desk absorbed in study. A normal adolescent wants to spend his time in active contact with the real world. Among primitive peoples the things that children are trained to do tend to be in reasonable harmony with natural human impulses. Among the American Indians, for example, boys were trained in active outdoor pursuits—just the sort of things that boys like. But in our society children are pushed into studying technical subjects, which most do grudgingly.

116. Because of the constant pressure that the system exerts to modify human behavior, there is a gradual increase in the number of people who cannot or will not adjust to society’s requirements: welfare leeches, youth-gang members, cultists, anti-government rebels, radical environmentalist saboteurs, dropouts and resisters of various kinds.

117. In any technologically advanced society the individual’s fate MUST depend on decisions that he personally cannot influence to any great extent. A technological society cannot be broken down into small, autonomous communities, because production depends on the cooperation of very large numbers of people and machines. Such a society MUST be highly organized and decisions HAVE TO be made that affect very large numbers of people. When a decision affects, say, a million people, then each of the affected individuals has, on the average, only a one-millionth share in making the decision. What usually happens in practice is that decisions are made by public officials or corporation executives, or by technical specialists, but even when the public votes on a decision the number of voters ordinarily is too large for the vote of anyone individual to be significant. Thus most individuals are unable to influence measurably the major decisions that affect their lives. There is no conceivable way to remedy this in a technologically advanced society. The system tries to “solve” this problem by using propaganda to make people WANT the decisions that have been made for them, but even if this “solution” were completely successful in making people feel better, it would be demeaning.

118. Conservatives and some others advocate more “local autonomy.” Local communities once did have autonomy, but such autonomy becomes less and less possible as local communities become more enmeshed with and dependent on large-scale systems like public utilities, computer networks, highway systems, the mass communications media and the modern health-care system. Also operating against autonomy is the fact that technology applied in one location often affects people at other locations far away. Thus pesticide or chemical use near a creek may contaminate the water supply hundreds of miles downstream, and the greenhouse effect affects the whole world.

119. The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is not the fault of capitalism and it is not the fault of socialism. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity. Of course the system does satisfy many human needs, but generally speaking it does this only to the extent that it is to the advantage of the system to do it. It is the needs of the system that are paramount, not those of the human being. For example, the system provides people with food because the system couldn’t function if everyone starved; it attends to people’s psychological needs whenever it can CONVENIENTLY do so, because it couldn’t function if too many people became depressed or rebellious. But the system, for good, solid, practical reasons, must exert constant pressure on people to mold their behavior to the needs of the system. Too much waste accumulating? The government, the media, the educational system, environmentalists, everyone inundates us with a mass of propaganda about recycling. Need more technical personnel? A chorus of voices exhorts kids to study science. No one stops to ask whether it is inhumane to force adolescents to spend the bulk of their time studying subjects that most of them hate. When skilled workers are put out of a job by technical advances and have to undergo “retraining,” no one asks whether it is humiliating for them to be pushed around in this way. It is simply taken for granted that everyone must bow to technical necessity. And for good reason: If human needs were put before technical necessity there would be economic problems, unemployment, shortages or worse. The concept of “mental health” in our society is defined largely by the extent to which an individual behaves in accord with the needs of the system and does so without showing signs of stress.

120. Efforts to make room for a sense of purpose and for autonomy within the system are no better than a joke. For example, one company, instead of having each of its employees assemble only one section of a catalogue, had each assemble a whole catalogue, and this was supposed to give them a sense of purpose and achievement. Some companies have tried to give their employees more autonomy in their work, but for practical reasons this usually can be done only to a very limited extent, and in any case employees are never given autonomy as to ultimate goals—their “autonomous” efforts can never be directed toward goals that they select personally, but only toward their employer’s goals, such as the survival and growth of the company. Any company would soon go out of business if it permitted its employees to act otherwise. Similarly, in any enterprise within a socialist system, workers must direct their efforts toward the goals of the enterprise, otherwise the enterprise will not serve its purpose as part of the system. Once again, for purely technical reasons it is not possible for most individuals or small groups to have much autonomy in industrial society. Even the small-business owner commonly has only limited autonomy. Apart from the necessity of government regulation, he is restricted by the fact that he must fit into the economic system and conform to its requirements. For instance, when someone develops a new technology, the small-business person often has to use that technology whether he wants to or not, in order to remain competitive.

The “Bad” Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated from the “Good” Parts

121. A further reason why industrial society cannot be reformed in favor of freedom is that modern technology is a unified system in which all parts are dependent on one another. You can’t get rid of the “bad” parts of technology and retain only the “good” parts. Take modern medicine, for example. Progress in medical science depends on progress in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and other fields. Advanced medical treatments require expensive, high-tech equipment that can be made available only by a technologically progressive, economically rich society. Clearly you can’t have much progress in medicine without the whole technological system and everything that goes with it.

122. Even if medical progress could be maintained without the rest of the technological system, it would by itself bring certain evils. Suppose for example that a cure for diabetes is discovered. People with a genetic tendency to diabetes will then be able to survive and reproduce as well as anyone else. Natural selection against genes for diabetes will cease and such genes will spread throughout the population. (This may be occurring to some extent already, since diabetes, while not curable, can be controlled through the use of insulin.) The same thing will happen with many other diseases susceptibility to which is affected by genetic factors (e.g., childhood cancer), resulting in massive genetic degradation of the population. The only solution will be some sort of eugenics program or extensive genetic engineering of human beings, so that man in the future will no longer be a creation of nature, or of chance, or of God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions), but a manufactured product.

123. If you think that big government interferes in your life too much NOW, just wait till the government starts regulating the genetic constitution of your children. Such regulation will inevitably follow the introduction of genetic engineering of human beings, because the consequences of unregulated genetic engineering would be disastrous.

124. The usual response to such concerns is to talk about “medical ethics.” But a code of ethics would not serve to protect freedom in the face of medical progress; it would only make matters worse. A code of ethics applicable to genetic engineering would be in effect a means of regulating the genetic constitution of human beings. Somebody (probably the upper middle class, mostly) would decide that such and such applications of genetic engineering were “ethical” and others were not, so that in effect they would be imposing their own values on the genetic constitution of the population at large. Even if a code of ethics were chosen on a completely democratic basis, the majority would be imposing their own values on any minorities who might have a different idea of what constituted an “ethical” use of genetic engineering. The only code of ethics that would truly protect freedom would be one that prohibited ANY genetic engineering of human beings, and you can be sure that no such code will ever be applied in a technological society. No code that reduced genetic engineering to a minor role could stand up for long, because the temptation presented by the immense power of biotechnology would be irresistible, especially since to the majority of people many of its applications will seem obviously and unequivocally good (eliminating physical and mental diseases, giving people the abilities they need to get along in today’s world). Inevitably, genetic engineering will be used extensively, but only in ways consistent with the needs of the industrial-technological system.

Technology is a More Powerful Social Force than the Aspiration for Freedom

125. It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. Imagine the case of two neighbors, each of whom at the outset owns the same amount of land, but one of whom is more powerful than the other. The powerful one demands a piece of the other’s land. The weak one refuses. The powerful one says, “Okay, let’s compromise. Give me half of what I asked.” The weak one has little choice but to give in. Some time later the powerful neighbor demands another piece of land, again there is a compromise, and so forth. By forcing a long series of compromises on the weaker man, the powerful one eventually gets all of his land. So it goes in the conflict between technology and freedom.

126. Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.

127. A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go where he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man’s freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn’t want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much faster and farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man’s freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially in densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one’s own pace; one’s movement is governed by the flow of traffic and by various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, driver test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so that they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Even the walker’s freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to wait for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated with the case of motorized transport: When a new item of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)

128. While technological progress AS A WHOLE continually narrows our sphere of freedom, each new technical advance CONSIDERED BY ITSELF appears to be desirable. Electricity, indoor plumbing, rapid long- distance communications…how could one argue against any of these things, or against any other of the innumerable technical advances that have made modern society? It would have been absurd to resist the introduction of the telephone, for example. It offered many advantages and no disadvantages. Yet, as we explained in paragraphs 59–76, all these technical advances taken together have created a world in which the average man’s fate is no longer in his own hands or in the hands of his neighbors and friends, but in those of politicians, corporation executives and remote, anonymous technicians and bureaucrats whom he as an individual has no power to influence. The same process will continue in the future. Take genetic engineering, for example. Few people will resist the introduction of a genetic technique that eliminates a hereditary disease. It does no apparent harm and prevents much suffering. Yet a large number of genetic improvements taken together will make the human being into an engineered product rather than a free creation of chance (or of God, or whatever, depending on your religious beliefs).

129. Another reason why technology is such a powerful social force is that, within the context of a given society, technological progress marches in only one direction; it can never be reversed. Once a technical innovation has been introduced, people usually become dependent on it, so that they can never again do without it, unless it is replaced by some still more advanced innovation. Not only do people become dependent as individuals on a new item of technology, but, even more, the system as a whole becomes dependent on it. (Imagine what would happen to the system today if computers, for example, were eliminated.) Thus the system can move in only one direction, toward greater technologization. Technology repeatedly forces freedom to take a step back but technology can never take a step back—short of the overthrow of the whole technological system.

130. Technology advances with great rapidity and threatens freedom at many different points at the same time (crowding, rules and regulations, increasing dependence of individuals on large organizations, propaganda and other psychological techniques, genetic engineering, invasion of privacy through surveillance devices and computers, etc.). To hold back any ONE of the threats to freedom would require a long and difficult social struggle. Those who want to protect freedom are overwhelmed by the sheer number of new attacks and the rapidity with which they develop, hence they become apathetic and no longer resist. To fight each of the threats separately would be futile. Success can be hoped for only by fighting the technological system as a whole; but that is revolution, not reform.

131. Technicians (we use this term in its broad sense to describe all those who perform a specialized task that requires training) tend to be so involved in their work (their surrogate activity) that when a conflict arises between their technical work and freedom, they almost always decide in favor of their technical work. This is obvious in the case of scientists, but it also appears elsewhere: Educators, humanitarian groups, conservation organizations do not hesitate to use propaganda{3) or other psychological techniques to help them achieve their laudable ends. Corporations and government agencies, when they find it useful, do not hesitate to collect information about individuals without regard to their privacy. Law enforcement agencies are frequently inconvenienced by the constitutional rights of suspects and often of completely innocent persons, and they do whatever they can do legally (or sometimes illegally) to restrict or circumvent those rights. Most of these educators, government officials and law officers believe in freedom, privacy and constitutional rights, but when these conflict with their work, they usually feel that their work is more important.

132. It is well known that people generally work better and more persistently when striving for a reward than when attempting to avoid a punishment or negative outcome. Scientists and other technicians are motivated mainly by the rewards they get through their work. But those who oppose technological invasions of freedom are working to avoid a negative outcome, consequently there are few who work persistently and well at this discouraging task. If reformers ever achieved a signal victory that seemed to set up a solid barrier against further erosion of freedom through technical progress, most would tend to relax and turn their attention to more agreeable pursuits. But the scientists would remain busy in their laboratories, and technology as it progressed would find ways, in spite of any barriers, to exert more and more control over individuals and make them always more dependent on the system.

133. No social arrangements, whether laws, institutions, customs or ethical codes, can provide permanent protection against technology. History shows that all social arrangements are transitory; they all change or break down eventually. But technological advances are permanent within the context of a given civilization. Suppose for example that it were possible to arrive at some social arrangement that would prevent genetic engineering from being applied to human beings, or prevent it from being applied in such a way as to threaten freedom and dignity. Still, the technology would remain, waiting. Sooner or later the social arrangement would break down. Probably sooner, given the pace of change in our society. Then genetic engineering would begin to invade our sphere of freedom, and this invasion would be irreversible (short of a breakdown of technological civilization itself). Any illusions about achieving anything permanent through social arrangements should be dispelled by what is currently happening with environmental legislation. A few years ago it seemed that there were secure legal barriers preventing at least SOME of the worst forms of environmental degradation. A change in the political wind, and those barriers begin to crumble.

134. For all of the foregoing reasons, technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom. But this statement requires an important qualification. It appears that during the next several decades the industrial-technological system will be undergoing severe stresses due to economic and environmental problems, and especially due to problems of human behavior (alienation, rebellion, hostility, a variety of social and psychological difficulties). We hope that the stresses through which the system is likely to pass will cause it to break down, or at least will weaken it sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. If such a revolution occurs and is successful, then at that particular moment the aspiration for freedom will have proved more powerful than technology.

135. In paragraph 125 we used an analogy of a weak neighbor who is left destitute by a strong neighbor who takes all his land by forcing on him a series of compromises. But suppose now that the strong neighbor gets sick, so that he is unable to defend himself. The weak neighbor can force the strong one to give him his land back, or he can kill him. If he lets the strong man survive and only forces him to give the land back, he is a fool, because when the strong man gets well he will again take all the land for himself. The only sensible alternative for the weaker man is to kill the strong one while he has the chance. In the same way, while the industrial system is sick we must destroy it. If we compromise with it and let it recover from its sickness, it will eventually wipe out all of our freedom.

Simpler Social Problems Have Proved Intractable

136. If anyone still imagines that it would be possible to reform the system in such a way as to protect freedom from technology, let him consider how clumsily and for the most part unsuccessfully our society has dealt with other social problems that are far more simple and straightforward. Among other things, the system has failed to stop environmental degradation, political corruption, drug trafficking or domestic abuse.

137. Take our environmental problems, for example. Here the conflict of values is straightforward: economic expedience now versus saving some of our natural resources for our grandchildren. But on this subject we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from the people who have power, and nothing like a clear, consistent line of action, and we keep on piling up environmental problems that our grandchildren will have to live with. Attempts to resolve the environmental issue consist of struggles and compromises between different factions, some of which are ascendant at one moment, others at another moment. The line of struggle changes with the shifting currents of public opinion. This is not a rational process, nor is it one that is likely to lead to a timely and successful solution to the problem. Major social problems, if they get “solved” at all, are rarely or never solved through any rational, comprehensive plan. They just work themselves out through a process in which various competing groups pursuing their own (usually short-term) self-interest arrive (mainly by luck) at some more or less stable modus vivendi. In fact, the principles we formulated in paragraphs 100–106 make it seem doubtful that rational, long-term social planning can EVER be successful.

138. Thus it is clear that the human race has at best a very limited capacity for solving even relatively straightforward social problems. How then is it going to solve the far more difficult and subtle problem of reconciling freedom with technology? Technology presents clear-cut material advantages, whereas freedom is an abstraction that means different things to different people, and its loss is easily obscured by propaganda and fancy talk.

139. And note this important difference: It is conceivable that our environmental problems (for example) may some day be settled through a rational, comprehensive plan, but if this happens it will be only because it is in the long-term interest of the system to solve these problems. But it is NOT in the interest of the system to preserve freedom or small-group autonomy. On the contrary, it is in the interest of the system to bring human behavior under control to the greatest possible extent. Thus, while practical considerations may eventually force the system to take a rational, prudent approach to environmental problems, equally practical considerations will force the system to regulate human behavior ever more closely (preferably by indirect means that will disguise the encroachment on freedom). This isn’t just our opinion. Eminent social scientists (e.g., James Q. Wilson) have stressed the importance of “socializing” people more effectively.

Revolution is Easier than Reform

140. We hope we have convinced the reader that the system cannot be reformed in such a way as to reconcile freedom with technology. The only way out is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.

141. People tend to assume that because a revolution involves a much greater change than reform does, it is more difficult to bring about than reform is. Actually, under certain circumstances revolution is much easier than reform. The reason is that a revolutionary movement can inspire an intensity of commitment that a reform movement cannot inspire. A reform movement merely offers to solve a particular social problem. A revolutionary movement offers to solve all problems at one stroke and create a whole new world; it provides the kind of ideal for which people will take great risks and make great sacrifices. For this reason it would be much easier to overthrow the whole technological system than to put effective, permanent restraints on the development or application of anyone segment of technology, such as genetic engineering, for example. Not many people will devote themselves with single-minded passion to imposing and maintaining restraints on genetic engineering, but under suitable conditions large numbers of people may devote themselves passionately to a revolution against the industrial-technological system. As we noted in paragraph 132, reformers seeking to limit certain aspects of technology would be working to avoid a negative outcome. But revolutionaries work to gain a powerful reward-fulfillment of their revolutionary vision-and therefore work harder and more persistently than reformers do.

Top Ten Reasons to Vote Unabomber

Lydia Eccles on your presidential write-in choice for '96

THE BOYS. Clinton, Gingrich, Powell, Perot, Forbes, Dole, Gramm, Lugar, Alexander, Dornan, Keyes, etc.

HE'S HOT! His favorability ratings may be low, but his name recognition is close to 100% ...

Issue 43-44

Date: Sep 1996

Keywords: Anti-Technology; Newbury; ALF Animal Liberation Front;.

Read here

---

Free Ted!

Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski was extradited to Sacramento, California. On 18th June 1996, he was charged with mail-bombing deforestation lobbyist Gilbert Murray, computer pusher Hugh Scrutton, ...

Issue 45-46

Date: Mar 1997

Keywords: Anti-Ideology.

Read here

---

Fixed Ideas and Letter Bombs

Unfortunately, the response of american anarchists to the 'unabomber' (hereafter, FC) has mostly been one of knee-jerk disavowal verging on reactionary hvsteria. It seems these anarchists fear for their good reputation by which they plan to convert the masses to anarchism So there has not yet been an actual critical response from an anarchist perspective to FC s tract Industrial Society dr its Future. Since FC claim to be anarchists (defining this in terms of favouring self- determination for individuals and small groups over (he domination of large scale systems over our lives) and have involved themselves in doing something (whatever problems we have with their tactics), this non-response is absurd Industrial Society & Its Future is an attempt to deal with some significant questions often ignored or dealt with by sloganeering in the anarchist press FC's statement has many faults, often is shallow and inadequate to the challenge it is attempting to meet This stems from a lack of thorough social analysis, reliance on concepts which seem to come from pop psychology and adherence to fixed ideas (a fixed idea is a thought or idea that dominates the thinker, causing her to channel all thinking and analysis through that one idea, eg for the religious, god is a fixed idea, for the patriot the country). FC correctly sees that the industrial tot domination, but miss the fact that complex social system which needs let’s examine FC’s theses.

Leftism: a Neurotic Response to a Psychotic Society (Fc’s Theses 1-32)

FCs tract strangely begins with several pages critical of leftism Stringer still this criticism relies completely on psychology (and that of a rather crude pop[-] form) FC use this as n basis, later on. for a more general description of the psychology of people under the industrials system.

FC see leftism as having a psychological basis in ’feelings of inferiority'’ and 'ovcrsocialisation'. Modem amencan leftism is certainly based in what Mux Sinner called ragamuffinism and Nietzsche called ressentiment" Some recent anarchist writings have referred to it as the ’’ideology of victimisin' This ideology does seem to reftecl and promote feelings of inferiority, but FC seems to be, unfamiliar with these ideas and adopt instead a methodology reminiscent of pop psychology in their critique Fortunately for FC, leftists are apparently so afraid of any sort of criticism, that they could only respond to FC’s inadequate criticism with hysterical yammering.

FC are correct in saying that most amencan leftists come from middle or upper-class buckgrounds But FC miss what may be the most significant aspects of thia in terms of the psychology of leftism namely, that manv leftists believe Ural they are privileged, that they have an excess of social power, and they lied guilty about this. In a very Christum, messianic manner, thry "give themselves" to those who - according to their ideology - have received the short schnft from society This guilt and secular chnstianist activism explain the leftist masochism, self-sacrificc and dogmatism quite well Recognising the religiosity of leftism, we cun sec that it cun be compassionate, morally based and hostile all al once just like Christianity which compassionately and morally instituted pogroms, technological system is a system ol it is an integral part of a more to be attacked in its totality But inquisitions. wars and genocide against heretics and non-believers.

FC's attempts to interpret every aspect of the leftist’s life in terms of a pop psychology inferiority complex severely weakens the argument leftists, like nearly every one else in this society, lead very compartmentalised lives. I have known leftists who seem to like the blues or world beast music because they imagine such music is a way to gel tn touch with the feelings of black or thud world people Thus to the extent that leftism affects the art preferences of the leftist*it does not seem Io be in the direction of embracing defeat or irrationalism, but of trying to get in touch with' other cultures fhis is absurd and merely reinforces the commodification of these cultures but it does not. in itself, indicate inferiority feelings.

Certainly, leftists spend far too much tinw trying to prove the equality of oppressed groups and demanding that it be granted bv the state, but this does not so much prove the inferiority need to develop analyses of society and the left’s role therein thut go far deeper feelings of leftists as their adherence to relying on authority It is the leftist belief m a democratic social order — which is to say, a structure of democratic authority - which causes them to embrace vic t must tc ideology, an ideology which begs those in power to grant equality’, ’rights’, 'justice , etc This practise of constantly begging for what one wants (particularly when those wants have been transformed into abstractions which one can never sue accomplished) inevitably makes one feel weak and incapable — and so inferior. Leftist activists promote this form of radicalism because it guarantees their role within the present social structures When women, gays, blacks, etc., start taking their lives as their own as individuals, it brings them into conflict equally with leftist ideologues and with society, precisely because they are no longer begging and so no longer need lire leftists Io beg for them.

FC's concept of “oversociiliMUun" also proves to be inadequate because it depends on psychology rulhcr than an analysis of the social role of the leftist Leftism is a form of liberal democratic / humanist poliucs - that is, it is part of the political system to which the rise of capitalism and the industrial system gave birth So it is no surprise that leftists subscribe to the ’’liberty, equality, fraternity’' which are the shibboleths of such politics But the totality of the social system is far more complex and irrational than FC dunk Ihe real values of (his system, the ones for which it sacnfices all others, can be summed up rather simplistically as follows (I) the expansion of capital; <2) efficiency in production. (3) increasing social control in the daily lives of individuals to guarantee the first two Bcvond these fundamentals, die social system is quite irrational and full of contradictions Thus, the social structure is both anti-racist and racist us each of this tendencies max under different circumstances better serve the above-mentioned values (and. of course, aspects of earlier social structures do not disappear overnight) Ihe same can be said about sexism / anti-sexism, violence ! non-violence, war / peace, etc Leftists arc no more or less "ovCTKOciahzed” than conservatives, moderates or most radicals Leftists believe that the sopcial system can be rationalised, that Us contradictions can lie removed without destroying the system as a whole So they try to convince the authorities to abolish sexism, racism, violence, war - without realising that, within this social system, these arc a necessary pan of the same mcchamasm of control of which anh-sexism, anti- racism, non-violence and peace arc a pan - the one side needs the other, just as the nght needs the left and vice versa.

I do not deny the neuroses of leftism as evidenced in its guilt, masochism and moral stndencv But if we want to make an intelligent attack on the social system - as FC apparcntlv does – we than FCs pop psychology.

Fixed Idea #1: The Power Process (FC’s Theses 33- 98)

The first major fixed idea that dominates FC’s thoughts is 'the power process’’ This idea seems to form the basis of most of FC’s analysis, and that's too bad because it's a (lawcd idea - |>op psychology reminiscent of 70 s management strategies and self- help books FC describes the power process ‘Everyone ncols to have goals whose attainment requires effort. and needs to succeed in attaining at least some of these goals But do I need goals? No, I need or want specific dungs Some effort is inherently involved in getting these things and, of course, 1 will be happier if 1 do get diem and if I determine how I gel them But to transform tins need for actual dungs into an abstract need lor goals, effort and attainment which are simply words dial can be used to describe how one gels what one needs, and then to base an analysis of the present social svstem on this abstraction is absurd I have goals simph because I need or want specific things, but I do not need goals -- so I not need a 'power process”

The ‘power process ' is a psychhlogical model and. like all such models, springs from and is only useful w ithin u specific social context The ‘oedipus complex’ was a model developed in Victorian Europe which worked well for explaining much of the sexual psychology of victonun Europe Iver time il has pruned less and less useful and is nowe used <»nlv bv die-hard Freudians It has no applicability ro ancient Romans, Hopi Indians. Mbute pygmies, medieval English jicasants, etc The “power process' assuming irt has any application outside of pop psychology would also have to be understood in terms of a specific social context FC’s attempt to univcrsulise it leads lo a sloppy understanding of history and anthropology.

FC's anthropology is about 30 years behind the lunes FC socm to assume that primitive people needed to spent most of their time and energy satisfying biological needs It has been preitv well established that even in harsh envinximenls. the amount of time primitive people spent m activities which provided their basic needs is about one quarter of the amount of time spent by the average pcrason in industrial societv at work In other words, primitive pu»»ple got the things they wanted wrth less effort than most of us expend to get what we want In fact since there was no lime schedule which they had to follow to perform these activities, so thev could he done whenever «ine pleased (except in emergencies), it can be argued thast primitive societies were societies of total 'leisure With the nse of agriculture and cities about iO.tXK) yeasrs ago. the new technological sy stem doubled the amount of time that those who used it had to spend m meeting their basic needs and placed this activity on a *tnct seasonal time schedule — this could be considered the origin of work Industnal technologs drasticallv increased both the amount of work tiime and the ngidits of scheduling necessan f<» work So most

(xxiple in our society find themselves so exhausted bv activities not of their own making that in what little leisure time thev have they often chooac to vegetate through passive entertainment This problem is ahenatum EC are not completely unaware of thu in otu society people do rau satisfi their biokvgical needs AUTONOMOUSLY, but by functioning ax parts of an immense social machine

Alienation is noi merch a psychological problem Often the most alienated people arc the m»»st adjusted to their alienation Alienation is the realm of a social system m which our Ines, our activities and our interactions arc not our own to create as we choose, but haw been made for us in such a way that we become the pretpertv of society I he wav s oJ fulfilling our needs and.wants become ven convoluted and indirect, like a Rube Goldberg machine — but it isn i comical I want ftxxL shelter, a few things in give me pleasure So I travel — In car or public transit iwhich have bcawne another necessity I -- to a place where I spend eight hours — not masking niv own food »w shelter or phivihtngs — Inil maybe 'hullling papers ar welding paru to parts or serving food tn ■trangas .v sitting tn front of a computet processing information that means nothing to me 1 do not do these things because they give me am pleasure — usually thev arc miserably tedious tasks In themselves these

Civilisation as a system of social relationships makes my life and my corporation lor which I do (hex tasks ..ne ,hc _ac^j_vj-ti_es alien to me, so that they are

Mxnal system - m other words me " "

nerve piBjsKcs alien lo me What 1 get fin giving up io much of my life to >crw an alien cause is munei So after wi>rk. I have to go out to the shops with the tivmk’v I got from working to get kxxi clothing and pleasure items I want - vince n is as compulsory as a job. thi> chopping time should also be c» Hinted as w ork tunc — and J must pay rent to a land-lord or mortgsage to a hank fdor shelter In fact, with the cxceptnwi of a few who refuse, most people sacrifice most of iheir lives to huv survival and a few plastic trinkets Here there is a goal, an eflart of (he most horrendous sort and the attainment of liasic necessities — but there is no life, not one that is mv own

Ibc ledu*.'logical system is an essential part of this ahenasuon but not the totality A complex social system incorporating work. technology, capital, authmtv. ideology (including religion) and w on. all of which are integrally mien ui this is what turns our Ines into mere resources for society And it must be attacked in its totality bv those of us who want to take hack our Ines FC * “power process seems to me to have a meagre, palijctic view of the world as a constant struggle for -•unival This may well indicate the meagre, sdngv social context from which it springs — for the present era certamh is that But such meagreness will never get us out of tins mess That will take something strong and lively, something so certain of its abundance Oiat it has no fear of squarxiering Stimer speaks of such a thing calling it one s “own might the might of which one makes «me s life one s own. and so cornm u» have an excess of lie — and it is this, rnv lite as mv own, and n«A “the freedom to go tlirough the power process' . that I want

FCs reliance on tiieir fixed idea, the power process’ makes for very (xior — and. in my opinion dangerous — social unahsiA I have already punted out the fallacies this has caused in FC's understanding of primitive societies and the acquisition of necessities in industrial sucictv But I C take these lallacics further Wc II leave aside such minor absurdities as FC s a tin but ion of a lack of interest in having children to a durupb«) of the pnver process Ihe danger of FC’s use of the power pr<xxss as a basis for social analysis become- evident when it is applied to science I or FC science is essentially a tunogaie activity Scientists get involved in order to "go through the power pruccvs . <m*J xkikz is eniphaMis added oliedicnt only to thepiytluiloyical needs of the scientists and of Ilir govurrunent official* and corporation executives who provide the funds lor research

If only it were that simple, but science is rn»i just a surrogate activity to help a few people meet their psychological needs Science i> an integral part of the social svstem under which we live, an ideological and practical tool for the maintenance and expansion of that social svstem It is this goal to which science is Hindis obedient, and for the oiciul s\ stem, science is not a surrogate acinny. but u necessary component for its survival Whatever psychological lultillmcnt science mass provide to its ITHClitioiKTs is simply, like the paxcheck part of the bribe necc'san to make people willing to serve the needs of socieh m this wav

FC are obvmuslv aware of llic sv starnc

not my own, but are molds into which I am to try to fit. I try to destroy the system for myself as a way of taking back my life.

nature at least of industrial technology (even though they don't make the tuai to the social system as a whole), yet (hey are so fixated on their pop psychology concept of the power pnxccss that they develop tunnel vision and interpret everything through this faulty idea So then end up lacking a clear analysis of society This fixation <m the power process causes FC to describe ihmgs as universal problems which are only problems within this prcseni social context because of the necessary contradictions of this society Ihus. transexuahty among American the tribes m which it occured accepted it without censure If FC were to study sexual anthrojxjlogy thev would discover that many sexual practise which are considered perverted by our society are pcascticed by masny frumtivc people without the stigma of jiervcTxion and so were no problem Such aclivities l>ecome prHilcmauc in this society because sexuality is most useful to it when repressed and promoted at the same lime — transforming n into a hard-to-get commodity and into an identity Thus, the problematic nature of sexuality stems not from a disruption of thr power process' as FC would have it, but from its commodificatHMi Such separahon of sexuality from life is rarely a problem in primitive cultures

FC define freedom^ as The opportunity t<» go through the power jxocexs ' The only freedom I consider lo be worth pursuing is that my life he mv own to determine fruit nn interactions be my own to create, that rm iiclfienjuvmcnl be central to liow I Ine my life FC may try to claim that (hi* is uh/it tlsc 'power pfoyeM” is. but (heir own use of the (erm proves otherwise It is a fixed idea through which to interpret the world and w hich one should sacrifice oneself The desire for self-determination and scif-cnjoymcni will move me to fight for inysclf and possibly even to sacrifice vane ihtnys. but J will sacrifice them lo mysrlf and will never sacrifice myself Itoi adherence to a fixed idea (such as the power process ) moves one to tight for the CAUSE, to sacrifice oneself to the

CAUSE As I will show, EC call tor just such self-sacrifice, showing that the |x»wcr process’ lias nothing to do with making one's life one’s own. but is a fixed idea to be served having laid the grvnuxiwork wiolh die fixed idea of the power process FC now present their “analysis’ (more a description) of industrial- (ccghnological socictv FC introduce this jwrt of their essay with fiovc principles ot histiry As with most radicals for whom “history " is a central concept, thev refrain from defining it I find the five principles to be useless abstractions Ihev arc concerned with vast social trends and express only the most banal generalities about these trends The only positivbe thing I have to say on il is that they would lead anyone who desires individual self-detcmunaUon to conclyudc that they musty destroy society itself But FC use these principles' as logmas ny which ihev interpret induxtnal society

Nonetheless, this is the best section of FC s essay Their descriptions of this society are often accurate, though their interpretations are fcrquentlv shallow and poorly thopught out because of Ihor dqjendence on fixed ideas and dogma

FC rightly recognise that the industnal- technological system w .tot compatible with self-determination, dial it must, out of inhcreo! necessity, rcgulaste people s lives and thasi tlie level of regulation must increa.se as the system expands, but FC do not recognise that this is true exif the system as an integrated whole — including its political, cultural and ideological institutions. The whole is beyond reform and revolt against the totality is necessary - which means thast attacks against any part of the social sy stem can be worthwhile as long us they are aimed at taking back one's life In the same light just as g<xxl and 'bud’ ports of leduxjlogy cannot bv sejjcraicd. neither can good' and ‘had’ parts of civilisation as a whole

Ihr<>ugh<Mil this section. FC describe many horrbic aspects potentiuh of industrial technology, but provides no social analysis, no recognition that there is an entire social context which creates this technology One is left to wonder of FC think social context has any significance Several times, ihcy bring up their bchefin the genetic basis of human behaviour as if it were proven fact Stphcn Jay Gould has effectively argued that this is an unproven hvp»<ficMs which does nol explain human bchavuxir very well In any case I wonder if FC's reliance on psyetiological models might mot stem from their aiiltcrcncc to geneticism It certainly impoverishes FC’s argument by causing them to ignore the social syy stern of which technology is an integral part making their argument inadequate and unconvincing in many wavs And it leads FC to propose a revolutionary strategy that is self- sacrificial and. furthermore, absurd

FC's Fixed Idea #2: The Revolution Against the Industrial-Technological System (FC’s Theses 161-232)

I oppose not the industrial technology, but technology and civilisation tn their totality. So why do I call FC’s revolution against industrial technology a fixed idea? Because my opposition to civilisation is based on a recognition that civilisation as a system of social relationships makes mv life and mv uxctivities alien to me, so that they are not my own, but arc molds into which I am to try u to fit I would never willingly sacrifice mvself lor the destruction of civilisation Rather I try to destroy this system for myself as a way of taking back my hie

For FC the destruction of [tlx* industrial) svsiem must be the revolutionaries ONL Y goal no other goal can be allowed to compete w ith that one

So I am to be second to the gousl of destroying industnasl technology Haviong a goasl for which one is w illing to sacrifice oneself changes the nature of the battle against the sociasl system FC’s strategics, aside from being frequently absurd, are also strategics on an immense scale One almost gels the impression that FC expect to convert u large number of people to their cause who will then be willing to participate in a unified revolution Since FC make comparisons to the French and Russian revolutions, it seems that this is then model for icvolution. sufficiently modified for use against industnal (cclinology But both of these revolutions actual moved in the opposite direction to thst which FC calls for Each created modem states which msde transition to an industrial system easier 1 would argue that a unified rcvolutiion of the sort for which FC call can most likely only lead to the creation of a unified system, nol to the destruction of one If the goal is individual self-determination, then the struggle must start from the individual who united only us one chooses with whom one fights.

fhosc who have a cause with which to fight rather than fighting for themselves want converts So FC recommend a method of propagandising which involves inventing an ideology of “Wild Nature vs Induslriusl technology Ihn manipulative strategy hardly seems conducive to promoting individusl (or small group) autonomy FC’s strategy seems to promote a large grouop dynamic whec a few would lead and most would follow If this did not seem mostly like FC's fantasy, 1 would find this part of FC's ideas detestable Bui FC arc explicit rthc destruction of the industrial system must be the top priority For this, wc should be willing to support dictatorships if that will destablisc the industrial system, support agreements like NAFTA and GATT if they can mask? the system topheavy and so easier to push over, and have lods and loads of children because children of revolutionaries supposedly bec<»me rcvolutionariocs (al least according to the genetic theories to which FC apparently subscribe), For FC. there is no social context in which these things arise and for which they occur — capitalism technology, the slate, the family - all arc nothing for FC. onlv industrial technology and its destruction matter FC make an important point when they tell us that primitive people ru individuals were actually much better able to take care of themselves than industnalused people who haw aUowud themselves lo become dependent on an immense social system Hie significance of this for me is that it means (hat. to a much grweater extent than we can know, their lives were their own But is it only industrial technology dial ends this ownness? I haw already pointed out that hunter- gatherers apparently pursued the activities necessary for survival without compulsion, except in emergenev situations >eg droughts, severe storms), doing them when tliey felt like it — more for the joy of it than out oi need Individuals ware constantly figuring ways of making these activities easier and more enjoyable but these wavs werre not immense systems, but merclv tools and methods thin individuals could make and use lor them selves The rise of agnculturc(nol to be mistaken for small-scale gardening) was the intnoductivn of a technological system It created a compulsory seasonal schedule for the production of food But agriculture did not nsc in a vacuum Archaeological evidence indicates that agriculture developed in conjunction with the rise of early cities Cities mav, in fact, have come first There can be no doubt that a concept of exclusive (private or communal) property must have coincided with the development of agriculture There is also evidence of a connection between religion and agriculture The early cities already give evidence of structured hierarchies and a specialised warrior class which can nghliy be called a slate and its armv In other words, the technological system of agriculture arose as pasrt of an integrated social system - whast we call civilisation Ihis system, in its totalirty and thnxigh all of us structures (technology, the state economy, religion the family, work exclusive property .). took the lives of individuals from (hem and made these lives the propertv of society John Zerzan has presented evidence in a number of his writings that this ahenastion began well before the rise of civilisation, but this system of social rchitionshijis called civilisation changed life qualitatively in ways fruit made alienation a central defining quality of life The fatalism and religiosity that arc so much u part of agricultural societies can be seen as an expression of this alienation Peasants feel more as though things happen to them than (hat they du things Industrial technology certainly made a further qualitative change in the nature uf alienation Though farmers are forced to comply with a time schedule rad kt than doing things in their own tunc, they still (in peasant cultures, ru>t in agribusiness) arc directly producibng their food In industrial society, the activities into which one is forced in order to cam survival are not even directly related to one's survival needs in any way. They have become complexdy alien But once again, the Uxlinology is only part of an entire complex, integrated social system, all of which acts together to guarantee fruit we can only gain our survival by giving up our lives to the reproduction of the social system Those of us who want our lives back anno! limit ourselves to

FC ss "only goasl" We have much m.ore to destrov than the industrial system — wc have the whole civilisation to bring down and will attack it on asll fronts, the state and its protectors (cops, the military, bureaucrats ), economy (capitalism, work, property rights asnd so on), technology, religion, education, the family, ideology... And we won t do this as a cause, but selfishly , because we want our lives back I want to determine my own life, create my own activities and interactions for my own enjyment So any “revolution” that demands that I sacrifice mvself for its cause is as much my enemy as the social system which demands the same of me < )nlv a revolution which attacks society in a way that allows indinduusls to take back their lives interests me, and such a resolution would grow out of the revolts of uidividuals against their own alienation, not from u mass programme

FC a hatred of die technological system has my sympathy and agreement But 1 vehemently reject their adherence to fixed ideas, particularly their dependence on a psychological model, the "power process ”, as a means of analysing the technological system I wonccr if this psychological conception of the problem is why FC. who say that the destruction off the industrial sy stem is "the ONLY goal”, has chosen to blow up technicians, researchers and other human servants of the machine rather than large-scale industrial facilities which are more essential parts of the industrial system Don’t get me wrong, everyoner who has been attacked by FC has Ixxri working actively toward drastically increasing social control and destruction of wild places Ihe few deaths arc no loss to me - in fact, I smile, tghinking ‘One less technician to control my life" But kihng oil technocians one by one seems like an extemely slow wav to destroy ihe industrial system

I have many problems with FC s ideas Fhcir lack of a clear social analysis and their adherence to fixed ideas prevent them from making a coherent and convincing critique out of their often accurate descriptions of industrial society Furthermore, FC's fixed ideas channel the whole into an authoritarian and ven self-sacrificial conception of revolution. Nonetheless, FC has been doing sonething to fight the present social system One may question their tactics, but those who do so from an anarchist armchair or from the position of typical, ineffective and unsatisfying radical activism had best direct equally probing questions at themselves

Afterword: Some Thoughts on Violence

While there has been little response at all to FC’s essay, the rwactiobn to their vuiolence has come from nenrlv all sides Even Tad Kcpley's mostly sympathetic article in Anarchy. A Journal of Desire Armed #42 was tainted with morahsms regarding violence, in spite of Tad s claim to the contrary Tad says

The anti-authonianan who niakes use of violence ... must be aware of the contradictions in destroy mg to create, tn using violence in the hopes of creating a world without violence

Ihere are no contradictions in destroying to create — Every act of creation involves destruction When one makes a meal, one directly or ¥ indirectly kills or mutilates other living things making a shelter will involve destruction of one form of thing to make another But it is Tad’s second phrase that is more relevant to this question Fherc certainly would be contradictions in using violence if what one wanted was a world without violence, but FC never claims to want a world without violence FC want a world without a huge global system that destroys the artonomy of individuials and small groups I also do not want a world without violencdc I want a world in which individuals cun create their own lives and interactions in accordance w nh then desires - and, in such a world, conflict and therefore, violence is inevitable It is the state s monopoly on violence that 1 oppose, and when individuals use violence against the stale (or any other aspect of the system of social control) and its tools, they are breaking that monopoly

Tad Keplev and the critics of violence are wrong, Taking a life is not the ulumate act of domination Forcing someone — or hundreds, thousands, millions, billions - into dependency on a social system that bleeds their Ines away to rcpnxlucc itself and in exchange for survival (in the worst cases, not even that) and possibly also a few trinkets and glass beads - that is the ultimate act of domination The killer lavs no claim to the life of the victim until thev kill them, and even then they lay no claim to the life but only to the ending of that life Domination consists of forcing people to give away their life energy while they are living Certainly, donunators (or dominating institutions) sometimes kill to enforce their power, but as the cliche says "the living envy the dead" FC’s targets are precisely people who choose, bv their research or other work activities, to uphold and increase domination The "absolute irrevocable removal" of such a person takes nothing away from me that I would want to keep Because I am selfish. I will never willingh sacrifice myself, but I will gladly sacrifice anything or anyone that interferes with my ability to create my own hfe and interactions as I choose 'Human community’ is an abstraction Real interactions and associations arc those experienced by individuals - cither as self-determined creations or as impositions - not the mystical connections which spnng from such abstractions as humanity' or species being My interactions with cops. high-Uxh researchers m social control, stale bureaucrats, capitalists, religious leader* or any other authority figure, no matter how indirect the interaction. is one in which I am imposed upon, one aimed at making mv life alien from me Such an interaction can only impoverish me Ihc death of any such a figure of authonny. therefore. docs not impoverish me and may well enheh me Indeed, il can add a little brightness to my hfe. knowing that I have successfully managed to attack, in however small a wav. the structures of authority - even if that involves killing someomc who has willingly chosen to be a bully-boy lor authority. Certainly, it makes more sense tactically to attack targets of more significance than anty individual can ever be in maintaining authority — but such attacks on property also get condemned by those in power as mindless terrorism' And they are equally condemned by those who prefer to do nothing but continually beg the state to. please, abolish itself and, in the nicantine. be nicer to poor, sweet, harmless little anarchists

I am not meaning to be overly harsh to Tad His article at least shows some sympathy for FC's hatred of the technological system and avoids he reactionary hyslena found in Slingshot and numerous <h1k.t anarchist periodicals Bui m his assessment of violence. Tad seems to be kissing a bit too much pacifist ass Destruction of n global social system will involve violence, and that violence would not be ironic or contradictory' with its goal, it would be the uncons trained expression of the passion that those who are taking their lives back feel against the system that keeps them alienated

Issue 47-48

Date: Jun 1997

Keywords: anti-nationalism; Quebec.

Read here

---

The Machine in Our Heads

Introduction

The environmental crisis consists of the deterioration and outright destruction of micro and macro ecosystems worldwide, entailing the elimination of countless numbers of wild creatures from the air, land, and sea, with many species being pushed to the brink of extinction, and into extinction. People who passively allow this to happen, not to mention those who actively promote it for economic or other reasons, are already a good distance down the road to insanity. Most people do not see, understand, or care very much about this catastrophe of the planet because they are overwhelmingly preoccupied with grave psychological problems. The environmental crisis is rooted in the psychological crisis of the modern individual. This makes the search for an eco-psychology crucial; we must understand better what terrible thing is happening to the modern human mind, why it is happening, and what can be done about it.

Deep Thinking

The solution to the global environmental crisis we face today depends far less on the dissemination of new information than it does on the re-emergence into consciousness of old ideas. Primitive ideas or tribal ideas, kinship, solidarity, community, direct democracy, diversity, harmony with nature provide the framework or foundation of any rational or sane society. Today, these primal ideas, gifts of our ancestral heritage, are blocked from entering consciousness. The vast majority of modern people cannot see the basic truths that our ancient ancestors knew and that we must know again, about living within the balance of nature. We are lost in endless political debates, scientific research, and compromises because what is self-evident to the primitive mind has been forgotten.

For hundreds of thousands of years, until the beginning of civilization about 10,000 years ago, humans lived in tribal societies, which produced tribal consciousness a set of workable ideas or guiding principles concerning living together successfully on a diverse and healthy planet. The invasion of civilization into one tribal locale after another, around the globe, has been so swift and deadly that we may speak of the trauma of civilization. Because tribal peoples were unprepared and unable to deal with the onslaught of civilization, tribal consciousness was driven underground, becoming something forbidden and dangerous. Conquered peoples became afraid to think and act according to the old ways, on pain of death. There is much fear that lies at the origin of civilization.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny that is to say, the development of the individual is an abbreviated repetition of the development of the species. In childhood, a modern person travels an enormous distance between stone-age primitive creature and responsible contemporary citizen. When confronted with the awesome power of civilization whose first representatives are parents, teachers, priests (and, later on, police officers, legislators and bosses) the child faces, psychologically, the same situation as its tribal ancestors, namely, conform to the dictates of civilization or die. The helplessness of childhood makes the threat of bodily harm or loss of love, which is used by the parents and others to enforce civilized morality and civilized education, a traumatic experience. The developing little person becomes afraid to express its own tribal nature. There is much fear that lies at the bottom of becoming a civilized adult.

When the child becomes aware of ideas and impulses that oppose the dictates of civilization, s/he experiences anxiety, which is the signal for danger. It is not the insights and urges themselves that the child fears, but rather the reaction to them on the part of those in charge. Since the child cannot escape from those who control its life, s/he runs away from dangerous thoughts and feelings. In other words, the child institutes repression of its primitive self. Tribal ideas are now isolated, cut off from awareness, and unable to properly influence the future course of events.

The trauma or inescapable terror of civilization is responsible for the derangement of reason. That inner dialogue in the human mind that is the hallmark of self-consciousness has ceased, because the depth-dimension of reflective thought, which is the primitive mind, has been silenced. Modern people no longer hear their own primal voice, and without interaction between new ideas and old ideas, the demands of the individual and the demands of the tribe (and species), there is no deep thinking. On the contrary, when reason is cut off at the roots, it becomes shallow, unable to determine what is of true value in life.

The passage of tribal ideas from the oldest and deepest layer of the mind into individual consciousness is part of the natural, normal functioning of the human mind. Deep thinking is not the result of education; it is innate, our birthright as Homo sapiens. What civilization has done is to disrupt the free flow of ideas in the human mind by shutting down the primitive mind through traumatic socialization. In such a situation, cut off from the time-tested and proven ideas of prehistory, reason becomes one-dimensional, and is unable to solve the problems of modern life. No amount of new information can replace tribal wisdom, which provides the foundation for any good and decent life.

None of what has been said here denies the concept of progress, but it means that genuine progress is the outcome of deep mental dialogue in which new ideas are accepted or rejected by reference to that great complex of old ideas that have been perfected and passed down from one generation to the next generation over many millennia. In other words, genuine progress builds on basic truth. This is not idealization of primitive culture, but conscious recognition of its solid, intelligent achievements. Because civilization repudiates primitive, basic truth, we have no frame of reference for a good and decent life. What we call progress in the modern world is the aimless and reckless rampage of lost individuals. When one is lost, it is necessary to go back to the place where one had one’s bearings, and start anew from there.

The False Self

We have internalized our masters, which is a well-known psychological response to trauma. When faced with overwhelming terror, the human mind splits, with part of itself modeling itself after the oppressor. This is an act of appeasement: “Look,” the mind says in effect, “I am like you, so do not harm me.” As a result of the civilizing process, together with this psychological defense mechanism known as “identification with the aggressor”, we now hear the alien voices of the various representatives of civilization in our heads. Because of these alien ego-identifications we no longer hear our own tribal/primal voice. In order for deep thinking to commence again in the human mind, it is necessary to break down these internal authorities, overcome the resistances, that prevent tribal ideas from coming to consciousness. The modern problem is not simply that we do not listen to primal ideas, but rather that primal ideas are unable to come to consciousness at all, because of the internal counterforces, or ego-alien identifications, that contradict and overpower them.

These ego-alien identifications, built up over the course of a lifetime, cohere and form a distinct, circumscribed personality, or false self, that represents and enforces the rules and regulations of civilization. This false self is observable in the frozen facial expressions, stereotypic gestures, and unexamined behavioral patterns of the general public. This false self determines much of our everyday lives, so that we are seldom the origin of our actions. We lapse into the false self at the first sign of danger, under stress, or simply because it is the path of least resistance. In this unthinking mode of social role playing, we internally reproduce our own oppression.

Trauma is a necessary part of civilizing someone, because a natural, maturing individual will not otherwise accept the ideals of civilization. These ideals — hierarchy, property, the State, for example — are so contrary to our tribal nature that they must be forcibly thrust into the human mind. This causes the mind to rupture, to divide its territory that is, to surrender a part of itself to the invading enemy. For this reason, the false self is never really integrated into the human mind, but instead occupies the mind, as a foreign body, standing apart from and above normal/healthy mental life.

The Original Self

Beneath the false self, there still lives the original identity of the person. This original self is older than, and other than, the foreign personality that has been imposed upon it. This original self or primitive ego is the person one was in childhood before the mind was ruptured by the trauma of civilization and the person one still is at the core of one’s personal identity. This original self is closely connected to the oldest layer of the psyche. It is an individually differentiated portion of the primitive mind the first, personal organization of the primitive mind. As such, it has direct access to primal wisdom, an internally directed perceptivity, that permits the entry into consciousness, as well as the passage into activity, of tribal ideas.

In civilization, this original self is caught in the middle of a war between the status quo false self and the uprising of the tribal self. Even when an individual succeeds in holding its own personal identity, refusing to slip into the false self, the primal voice may remain unheard, smothered by the false self. As a distinct, circumscribed personality, the false self achieves a counter-will of its own that is always operational in the sick mind, at least in terms of repressing tribal ideas. Tribal ideas threaten civilization, so they cannot pass through the censorship of the false self, which functions specifically to ward off all serious challenges to civilization.

Furthermore, the false self tends to become more autonomous and extensive, owing to improved forms of social control and manipulation of consciousness in the modern world advertising, for example. Once the mind is broken, the false self, backed by the relentless power of civilization, takes over our lives. The original or primary self has become autistic, or severely withdrawn from active engagement with social reality. However, there remains some awareness, at least sometimes, of our primary identity beneath the false self, and so there is hope for lifting the repressions set down most effectively in childhood on primitive mental processes.

The True Self

Through identification, which is a normal psychological basis of personality development, the original identity of the person is stretched into something more and greater, on its path to the true self. This process of identification becomes pathological only when the continuity of the personality is not preserved, i.e. when there is a splitting in two of the mind, giving rise to a new psychic structure, a false self. This rupture of the mind is unfortunately precisely what occurs through compulsory training and education of contemporary civilized human beings. In contrast, the development of the natural and sane human mind does not entail any sharp delimitations between its various stages and functions. The true self is a continuation and culmination of the original self; it develops out of the original self, just as the original self develops out of the tribal self. In sum, psychical reality consists of the tribal self, together with the original self, and the dynamic interplay between them is responsible for the development of the true self. The true self is something that unfolds/progresses. Traumatic civilization has not eliminated the original self, but it has stopped the flow of tribal ideas into consciousness, which arrests or distorts the higher/maturer development of the personality. In order to resume deep thinking in the human mind, so that we can become our true self, it is necessary to push back and ultimately dissolve civilization, internally and externally.

The Message

The sadness of the modern age is that the public needs to be reminded of “unchangeable human needs.” This truth is not something to be imposed upon them, but something to be evoked within them. The fact is that people do not feel satisfied in the roles assigned to them by civilization. There is a widespread feeling that one’s true identity or potential is not being fulfilled, but unfortunately there is no awareness of the tribal self except among a small minority of individuals. Once the message of a tribal self is re-introduced into public consciousness, it may lie dormant in the minds of individuals for a long time, but it is never entirely forgotten again, as it was in childhood. This message is the catalyst for an intellectual awakening among the population, accompanied by the feeling that something old and familiar has been uncovered.

The power of this message to move an individual is due to the psychological fact that, although repression shuts down deep thinking, tribal ideas continue to push for entrance into consciousness. The mind seeks always to integrate all its ideas into one comprehensible whole. Whatever is part of the repressed unconscious is trying to penetrate into consciousness. When an individual gets the idea of a tribal self from an external source, via the message, it takes hold deep down. The message appeals to the conscious mind, tugs at it, rings true because it touches and stirs the repressed truth that is striving to break into awareness. For this reason, the triumph of civilization over the tribal self is never secure, so there must be a constant bombardment of lies and distortions from the representatives of civilization.

Whether or not an individual awakens to the message of a tribal self depends on the mental condition of one’s personal life. Crisis can open a person to ideas that would otherwise be shunned or rejected. A desperate or confused person seeking help may accept the notion of a tribal self intellectually, because it makes sense of one’s life-history; but this is not yet to grasp tribal ideas from within, the result of deep mental dialogue. Intellectual awareness of one’s tribal self, via the message, is the first prerequisite of a sane person, but it is not enough, not the same thing as hearing one’s own primal voice. Each individual must validate or prove, for itself, the message or theory of a tribal self.

The Journey Outward

What is required in order to hear one’s own primal voice and resume deep thinking is a journey outward by the original self, which is a matter of fighting to live according to fundamental ideas that one recognizes as good and right, a tribal ideal. This is the path of a warrior because civilization without (laws, institutions, and technologies) and within (the false self) is organized against it. It takes inner resolve and courage to go against civilization, outwardly or inwardly. The path of a tribal warrior in the modern world has nothing to do with picking up a spear or wearing a loin cloth; rather, it involves committing to, and standing up for the great ideas of prehistory: face-to-face democracy, rivers and streams as drinking places, respect for wildlife, etc. These ideas do not require more data, arguments, congresses or conferences because they are the irrefutable elements of original knowledge. The warrior stands on the unshakable foundation of basic truth, and the vicious lies of civilization that the Earth is property, or that the common good results from each person maximizing its own self-interest, for example are dismissed as the meaningless babble of the ignorant.

The psychodynamics of the cure consists in overcoming our fear of deep thinking by strengthening the original ego, through everyday practice, to the point that it no longer turns away from its own subversive ideas. We are afraid to think deeply or critically, due to the horror of the past. It is safer not to think about tribal ideas, and spare oneself the painful memories of punishment (and the attacks of anxiety) that are associated with the recall of these ideas. The childhood fear that one will be murdered or grossly harmed for primitive thinking lives on.

The child settles for an unsatisfactory adaptation to social reality namely, repression of its tribal self because it is unable to deal with the threatening menace of civilization in any other way. However, adults are no longer in the helpless position of childhood; it is no longer necessary to give up the struggle with civilization. There is plenty of opportunity in our everyday lives to question and refuse humiliating and debilitating authority. What matters, for now, is not that we win this or that battle with external reality, but that we stay true to tribal ideas in the face of civilization, and integrate them into the conduct or character of our lives. This is what slowly brings about a radical change in the personality.

The path of a warrior is that of upholding a tribal ideal with the therapeutic aim of bringing a strengthened ego into direct and open communication with the tribal mind, which dissolves the false self (and its punishment mechanism).

The personal journey of loosening the grip of the false self by strengthening the primary self is certainly not by itself going to bring about the overthrow of civilization; but it is the subjective precondition for building an environmental movement that will achieve this end. The public is firmly in the grip of the false self, which means that a revolution is definitely not on the agenda. The influencing machine of civilization is in our heads, and we must defeat it there first; for it is not to be expected that people brutally held down (for 10,000 years) by counter-revolutionary forces will revolt until the psychological groundwork of liberation has been adequately prepared. After enough of us have done the hard inner work of self-restoration, that is, re-claimed enough of our sanity, then we will come together in tribal units and smash civilization.

Crossroads

Human unhappiness within civilization is widespread and growing. People feel increasingly empty, anxious, depressed, and angry. Everyone is seeking an answer to serious mental problems. The Chinese ideogram for crisis combines the sign of “danger” with that of “opportunity.” This is exactly where we are in history, at the crossroads between two radically different futures. On the one hand, there is the danger of insanity, and on the other hand, the opportunity for a return of tribalism.

The Path to Insanity

Basic, vital needs or tribal needs are not being satisfied in civilization, and this produces frustration, which in turn activates aggression. As civilization “progresses” toward global interlock among new technological forms, we are removed farther and farther from the simple and basic joys of life, sitting in a shaft of sunlight, conversing around a fire, food-sharing, walking, the blue sky overhead, and so frustration and aggression also progress. More and more of a person’s concern and compassion for others and the natural world are withdrawing, and re-focusing on the self, in order to neutralize the growing frustration and anger within. This is the psychological explanation for the culture of selfishness that is underway everywhere in the modern world the first step on the road to insanity.

The second step, which is now on the horizon, is megalomania, a severe pathological state of consciousness in which the steady withdrawal of love from others and nature gives rise to the deluded mental condition of exalted self-importance. The megalomaniac feels more and more powerful, euphoric, and in control of things (due to an abnormally inflated self-love), while in reality s/he is becoming more and more isolated, impotent, and out of control (due to an excessive loss of love for others and nature). This pathological condition of megalomania is fueled by inner hatred, which is desperately seeking pacification by consuming more and more of a person’s available love, but it fails entirely to deal with the root-cause of our mental illness, namely, unmet primitive needs.

If people cannot access the tribal ideas that inform them of basic needs, then they cannot find the proper targetnamely, civilizationfor their frustration and aggression. As a result, rage is trapped in our minds and bodies and is destined to reach heights that are psychologically unbearable for any individual, which leads to madness. Insanity, the third and final stage of civilization, occurs when the original self becomes a tortured prisoner within the walls of its own fears, frustrations, and hostility. It is now extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach and influence the original self with any rational message.

The Path to Sanity

Civilization has enslaved us in the chains of dependency, isolation, and artificiality. All that we have suffered in civilization still exists in our minds for nothing vanishes from the human mind and it is accumulating into rage. The mechanism that civilization employs in order to prevent this rage from discharging itself against its source namely, civilization is the establishment of a dictatorship in our heads, a false self, that re-directs this rage toward the citizen in the form of self-blame. According to the false self, each individual is to blame for its own misery. The false self gets the energy it needs to punish and enslave us from our own blind frustration and aggression. Without conscious commitment to a tribal ideal, a firm hold on basic truth, by which to evaluate, condemn, and go against civilization, a person is at the mercy of its own mounting disappointment and aggression that the false self is designed to turn inward.

The tribal ideal is a staff for strengthening the original self and fighting off the false self. By upholding a tribal ideal, sometimes through the spoken word, sometimes through action, and sometimes through silence, we build self-respect on a solid foundation; for at the core of our being we are still fiercely independent, intelligent creatures, with strong affective ties to small human groups and large natural/wild places.

The importance of this self-respect as a prime motivator of human nature can hardly be overstated; it may enable an individual to defy civilization, even in the face of the hatred of the whole modern world. When an individual acquires fundamental self-respect, then s/he will be made a fool no longer, and all the blows of civilization are nothing but the battle scars of a proud warrior. Civilization is powerless against it, because a person who has re-claimed fundamental self-respect cares nothing about the laws and standards of civilization.

This self-respect leads to genuine self-love, the second and decisive step on the path to sanity, for self-love (and happiness in large measure) consists in becoming one’s own ideal again, as in childhood. This self-love eventually overflows and becomes love for others and for external nature. Concern for life on Earth is the result of a surplus of love, or as Nietzsche put it, “abundance in oneself the over-great fullness of life the feeling of plenitude and increased energy.” In other words, caring for life on Earth flows from an unbroken and expanding primary and healthy narcissism. Without this caring that flows from self-love, science and ethics will preach in vain for the preservation of biological diversity, ecological integrity, and real wilderness.

The megalomaniac or pathological narcissist has no love for others or for nature, because s/he needs all available psychic energy, and even more, in order to stave off a false self that is becoming more demanding and brutal. In megalomania, the backward flow of love, away from others and nature and toward the self, is a defensive reaction to the underlying reality of intensifying personal hurt and hatred: the original self is becoming weaker, and the false self stronger, because the gross injury to the psyche of the human being, by the trauma of civilization, festers.

Identification with the tribal ideal is the antidote to the massive narcissistic wounds inflicted on us by civilization, and it threatens civilization with disintegration because it goes to the source of our injury and begins to heal it. The third and final stage of the making of a revolutionary or eco-radical occurs when an individual, after arduous intellectual praxis, either remembers or intuits basic truth. The individual now hears its own primal voice, which rises up from within as an unstoppable conscious drive to assist fellow creatures and to make a positive contribution to the planet.

In sum, the path to sanity begins with the awareness of a tribal self. A personal commitment to this ideal builds self-respect, which in turn builds self-love. This self-love eventually overflows to take in others and nature. At last, individuals are psychologically secure and strong enough to enter into cooperative associations with one another in favor of a mass movement aimed at re-establishing small human villages, embedded in a healthy/wild landscape.

Conclusion

When the final crisis of civilization comes in the 21^st Century, the present system will do whatever is necessary to perpetuate itself. People who are in the stranglehold of the false self will support whatever the system does, including the exploitation and destruction of National Parks, Designated Wilderness Areas, and The Wildlands Project (whatever it achieves). Unless people possess an assured, sane psychological core, everything else is in jeopardy. The personal pursuit of sanity is, or will shortly become, the overriding issue for the vast majority of people, and toward this end, each person, isolated and fearful in modern society, must be armed with an ideal or vision of what s/he would like to be and should be. There is nothing better to offer people than a tribal ideal. It is, then, up to each person to do the difficult psychological work of personal liberation that must precede real change. This personal task of healing the mind can be and must be accomplished, to a decisive point, in modern-day circumstances.

Issue 49-50

Date: Sep 1997

---

Free Ted K

Former maths professor and Montana hermit Ted Kaczynski will be facing trial as the Unabomber in Sacremento, California, from 12th November 1992. His trial -- which could last three months, will se whether FBI claims that he killed two technocrats and injured two others as a result of a 17 year long letter bombing campaign are lies.

We know for a fact that Ted K has been framed. It'd have been impossible for him to have heard about the Oklahoma City bombing, travelled from Lincoln, Montana, to Oakland California three states away by Greyhound bus, and then posted out a parcel bomb and three communiques there all on the 13th May 1995 as the FBI maintain. It's just physically impossible! ...

Issue 51

Date: Mar 1998

---

Concerning The Case of Theodore Kaczynski

A post-trial letter from the ex-Maths professor and Montana hermit framed as the Unabomber

Last 22nd January 1998, Ted Kaczynski was sentenced to life imprisonment ...

"For a matter of months preceding the beginning of my trial on Nov. 12, 1997, I had been aware that my attorneys wanted to use a defense that would be based on supposed evidence of mental impairment. However, my attorneys had led me to believe that I would have a considerable measure of control over the defense strategy, hence I was under the impression that I would be able to limit the presentation of mental evidence to some items that at that time I thought might have some validity.

The first weeks of the trial were devoted to selection of a jury, a process that told me little about the defense that my attorneys planned to use. But in late November I discovered that my attorneys had prepared a defense that would virtually portray me as insane, and that they were going to force this defense on me in spite of my bitter resistance to it.

For the present I will not review in detail what happened between late November 1997 and January 22, 1998. Suffice it to say that the judge in my case, Garland E. Burell, decided that my attorneys had the legal right to force their defense on me over my objections; that it was too late for me to replace my attorneys with a certain distinguished attorney who had offered to represent me and had stated his intention to use a defense not based on any supposed mental illness; and that it was too late for me to demand the right to act as my own attorney.

This put me in such a position that I had only one way left to prevent my attorneys from using false information to represent me to the world as insane: I agreed to plead guilty to the charges in exchange for withdrawal of the prrosecution's request for the death penalty. I also had to give up al right to appeal, which leaves me with a virtual certain of spending my life in prison. I am not afraid of the death penalty, and I agreed to this bargain only to end the trial and thus prevent my attorneys from representing me as insane. It should be noted that the defense my attorneys had planned could not have led to my release; it was only intended to save me from the death penalty.

By concealing their intentions from me and discouraging me from finding anohther attorney before it was too late, my attorneys have done me very great harm: they have forced me to sacrifice my right to an appeal that might have led to my release; they have already made public the opinions of supposed experts who portray me as crazy; and they have caused me to lose my opportunity to be represented by a distinguished attorney who would have portrayed me in a very different light.

Perhaps I ought to hate my attorneys for what they have done to me, but I do not. Their motives were in no way malicious. They are essentially conventional people who are blind to some of the implications of this case, and they acted as they did because they subscribe to certain professional principles that they believe left them no alternative. These principles may seem rigid and even ruthless to a non-lawyer, but there is no doubt that my attorneys believe in them sincerely. Morever, on a personal level my attorneys have treated me with great generosity and have performed many kindnesses for me. (But these can never compensate for the harm they have done me through their handling of my case.)

Recent events constitute a major defeat for me. But the end is not yet. More will be heard from me in the future.

Theodore J. Kaczynski
January 26, 1998

P.s. Feel free to publish this message."

The Framing of Ted Kaczynski

An hour-long video exposing how the Unabomber suspect was set up, only £5 from BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX.

Write letters of support to:

Ted Kaczynski (X-Ref 316854), ...

Beyond the Fragments: A Reaction to Industrial Society and Its Future

Two polar positions have been assumed by most commentators on ‘the Unabomber’, even within the anarchist milieu. On the one hand, there is the predictable ‘fluffy’ repudiation of violence. On the other hand, there is a romanticization of the bomber(s) as outlaw hero(es — never -ines). Both responses are in error. The first can be rejected out of hand as just another symptom of bourgeois playacting at being revolutionary, all the more irritating when it is accompanied by praise of violent activity in other times and other places. The second is more problematic because ‘the Unabomber’ does raise a crucial issue of our time: the urgent necessity of outright assault on the industrial system. Rather, however, than appraise the acts of ‘the Unabomber’ (which others can do much better), this essay focuses on something more tangible: the ‘Unabomber’ manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future. If the following discussion remains largely critical of FC, this is due, not to any condemnation of the bombings, but to a question of ideological motivation. Emma Goldman refused to condemn Leon Czolgosz when he assassinated President McKinlay, even though was suspicious of his motivations and disagreed with his action, and this seems like an admirable anarchist example — even in the present instance, when I offer critical support for FC’s acts. But FC, unlike Czolgosz, act from a set of formulated principles, and these demand scrutiny. This essay questions FC’s commitment to anti-authoritarian radicalism and thus is intended to give pause for thought to those who would lend uncritical support to ‘the Unabomber’.

Introduction: Bomb culture

Baudrillard asserts that the explosion of the terrorist’s bomb causes an implosion of meaning, a gaping hole in the social fabric that power frantically seeks to cover in order to restore the tyranny of meaning. If this is correct, then Industrial Society and Its Future is unwittingly on the side of power.

On reading FC’s text, I feel, not disgust, horror or outrage, but disappointment. Given the opportunity, on a national or even international platform, to express at length a damning critique of the totality and pose a radical alternative, FC fail miserably. As other commentators indicate, the acts of FC are not unethical: they are scandalous, yet inadequate. But the words of FC are worse — they are inept. In place of critique, in place of vision, FC offers more dreary ideology. When rebel words are needed, FC gives tawdry tag-ends from the shopworn ideas of pop culture. Silence might have been better. In this instance, acts might have spoken louder than words. The acts may have been insufficient, but they do not need the apology of Industrial Society and Its Future.

Scattered among the garbage, the careful examiner can find some gems in FC’s text, although they need to be carefully disentangled from the ideational debris, the detritus of this system of institutionalised misery. The essays ‘Whose Unabomber?’ and ‘Letter Bombs and Fixed Ideas’, reproduced elsewhere in this volume, ably undertake this scavenging, and I do not intend to replicate their work. Rather, focusing largely on theses 180–206 of Industrial Society and Its Future, which concentrate on issues of strategy, I will intend to move discussion beyond the fragments of FC’s explosions.

Ideology and strategy

Like the Leftists critiqued in the opening theses of the manifesto, FC have little to offer except ideology. Summarising their attitude toward social change, they state (Thesis 166):

Therefore two tasks confront those who hate the servitude to which the industrial system is reducing the human race. First, we must work to heighten the social stresses within the system so as to increase the likelihood that it will break down or be weakened sufficiently so that a revolution against it becomes possible. Second, it is necessary to develop and propagate an ideology that opposes technology and the industrial society if and when the system becomes sufficiently weakened.

The notion of ‘social stresses’ is ambivalent, but in the context of FC’s actions it presumably refers (in part) to the letter bombs for which they are notorious. The problem with such a notion is that capital, in such a state of perpetual crisis, feeds on social stress, and power uses such stress as a way of reinforcing its controls — particularly in the present era, where socio-economic restructurations daily usher in a new form of democratic managerialist totalitarianism. Increasing such ‘social stresses’, in the absense of any radical alternative, thus plays into the hands of the control complex. But the only ‘alternative’ offered by FC is more of the same — just a different brand of ideology (Thesis 183):

But an ideology, in order to gain enthusiastic support, must have a positive ideal as well as a negative one; it must be FOR something as well as AGAINST something. The positive ideal that we propose is Nature. That is, WILD nature; those aspects of the functioning of the Earth and its living things that are independent of human management and free of human interference and control. And with wild nature we include human nature, by which we mean those aspects of the functioning of the human individual that are not subject to regulation by organized society but are products of chance, or free will or God (depending on your religious or philosophical opinions).

Nature — and particularly wild nature — is of course an ideological construct and one cannot escape from the clutches of ideology by posing ‘nature’ — a relatively recent concept in human thought — over and against culture. Here, FC just repeats the mistakes of deep ecologist biocentrists and the older philosophical errors of Rousseau. Moreover, at this advanced stage in civilisation’s trajectory, it is rather too late to take of human nature. Human ‘nature’ has been lost, compromised by civilisation’s restructurings of the human, and we can no longer determine what the natural behaviour of human beings might be. Human beings can only now consciously choose to go wild: such a condition is no longer spontaneous ‘second nature’. The tiger (for example) does not need to think about acting ‘naturally’, it just does. For humans, going wild means consciously choosing to imitate which behaviours of one or another animal species which are coded as ‘wild’ in the dominant ideological system. Such an action is not an escape from civilisation, but a further binding into its categories. Nature (or wilderness) is at best a metaphor for certain qualities that are regarded as valuable — and this is how FC uses it. But it is a very suspect metaphor, precisely because it is a product of civilization’s ideological categories, not an opponent of them.

This becomes all the more clear when FC proceed to outline the target for this ideology(Theses 187, 188):

On the more sophisticated level the ideology should address itself to people who are intelligent, thoughtful and rational. The object should be to create a core of people who will be opposed to the industrial system on a rational, thought-out basis, with full appreciation of the problems and ambiguities involved, and of the price that has to be paid for getting rid of the system. It is particularly important to attract people of this type, as they are capable people and will be instrumental in influencing others .... On a second level, the ideology should be propagated in a simplified form that will enable the unthinking majority to see the conflict of technology vs. nature in unambiguous terms.

FC accept the hierarchical divisions of civilisation, rather than challenge them. And lurking beneath the overt distinction between thinking and unthinking or sophisticated and unsophisticated individuals is a barely concealed class agenda. FC share more in common with Leftists than they care to admit — hence perhaps the virulence of their (thoroughly justified) attack on the Left at the very beginning of the manifesto. Like the Left, FC are not only articulating a political ideology, and thus are already talking in terms of control structures and governance; they are also propounding a bourgeois ideology which aims at the continued subjugation of ‘the unthinking majority’. The asceticism, monomania and authoritarianism of the political vanguard cannot be far away, and it isn’t (Theses 200, 201, 206):

Until the industrial system has been thoroughly wrecked, the destruction of that system must be the revolutionaries’ ONLY goal. Other goals would distract attention from the main goal .... Suppose for example that revolutionaries took “social justice” as a goal. Human nature being what it is, social justice would not come about spontaneously; it would have to be enforced. In order to enforce it revolutionaries would have to retain central organization and control ... Not that we have anything against social justice, but it must not be allowed to interfere with the effort to get rid of the technological system .... With regard to revolutionary strategy, the only points on which we absolutely insist are that the single overriding goal must be the elimination of modern technology, and that no other goal can be allowed to compete with this one.

The shrill rhetoric and imperative language (’must be the revolutionaries’ ONLY goal’, ‘must not be allowed’, ‘we absolutely insist’, ‘no other goal can be allowed’) indicate the presence of an authoritarian politics. This mixture of arrogance and myopia is just as likely to result in totalitarianism as in a world of self-realization and self-enjoyment. Social justice — — i.e., equitable treatment within the current system of dominance — remains a very limited goal. But even social justice is rendered subordinate to the destruction of the industrial system: even minimal impulses toward human liberation must not be permitted to ‘interfere’ or ‘compete’ with ‘the single overriding goal’ of eliminating modern technology. And such is the bad faith of FC that despite their earlier assertion of spontaneity and ‘wild nature’ as an oppositional ideological position, they now reveal their cynicism, referring to human nature as a fixed category (’human nature being what it is’) as a justification for an inevitable need for post-revolutionary ‘central organization and control’. Just as women were told by Leftists that ‘after the revolution’ women’s issues would be addressed, so after the anti-industrial revolution, social justice issues might (not even will) be ‘fixed’ — no doubt by the same central committee!

The drums and the spears

Leaving aside the plainly absurd and often reactionary elements of Industrial Society and Its Future (such as the notion that (Thesis 204)),

Revolutionaries should have as many children as they can. There is strong scientific evidence that social attitudes are to a significant extent inherited

this is the essence of FC’s strategies for change. The fact that these strategic considerations are framed in terms of an authoritarian, political discourse (’revolutionary strategy’) is telling in itself. It suggests that at least in the manifesto, FC have nothing new, no radical alternative to offer. Although they rightly pose the necessity for the destruction of the industrial system, they fail to situate this aim as part of a wider project of human regeneration through negation of the totality. And in the absence of such a contextualisation, their ideas are recuperated by the lure of authoritarian politics. Their ideological emphasis, and hence ideological bankruptcy, merely reflects the bankruptcy of the social formulation of which their ideology is a product.

To put it bluntly, at best FC have got things arse-backwards. Human regeneration can only emerge from cultural regeneration. (By ‘cultural’ I mean not the system of commodified mediations that currently pass under this term, but freely chosen actions and interactions characterised by spontaneous creativity). The attempt to prompt human regeneration in the absense of cultural regeneration can all too easily result in totalitarianism. Human and cultural regeneration are dialectically interrelated, but the latter provides the all-important context within which the former can succeed.

Fredy Perlman, talking of indigenous resistance to civilisation, says (Against His-story, Against Leviathan!, 258):

The resistance is not primarily a clash of arms ... The resistance is in the drums, not in the spears; it is in the music, in the rhythms lived by communities whose myths and ways continue to nurture and sustain them

This passage raises the question of the relationship between drums and spears, culture and armed resistance. but we are not in the position of these indigenes: civilisation has deprived us of those things that Perlman sees as the heart of resistance. We have no free communities of individuals, no life-sustaining myths and ways, no substantive community. So we cannot resist in the same way. We have no drums, and so FC suggest that we should just use the spears. Perlman indicates that this just leads to more war machines, more control systems. So what options are left?

Clearly, for us, there must be a closer, more informed relationship between the drums and the spears, even if the latter are subordinate to the former. But to forego the spears would be madness. The spears must have their place — but their place remains rooted in the world of the drums. And if the drums no longer sound, then we must beat them. And if we have no drums, we must build them. And if we’ve forgotten how to play them, we must remember or learn again. And if we can’t renew our continuity with the past, then we must make a virtue of our discontinuity and make it all anew.

Anarchists can best show their solidarity with the flawed if historically significant interventions of ‘the Unabomber’ by reformulating FC’s anti-industrial insurgency in radical anti-authoritarian terms — i.e., by advancing the insurrectionary project through direct actions and regenerative projects aimed at abolishing power in its totality.

The Irrationalists

Steve Booth on resistance in the new millennium

Eat Shit or Fight Back: The Choice is Yours

The irrationalists commit acts of intense violence against the system, with no obvious motives, no pattern. More important, there is no organization to claim responsibility, offer explanations, make apologies or demands. Then, with the Tokyo sarin gas attack, Florence Rey and Audry Maupin, the Unabomber, Oklahoma and many other such incidents, we entered the Age of the Irrationalists.

One Office Block, One Blue Truck

The Oklahoma bombers had the right idea. The pity was that they did not blast any more government offices. Even so, they did all they could and now there are at least 200 government automatons that are no longer capable of oppression.

Let a Thousand Aum Cults Sarinate…

The Tokyo sarin cult had the right idea. The pity was that in testing the gas a year prior to the attack, they gave themselves away. They were not secretive enough. They had the technology to produce the gas but the method of delivery was innefective. One day the groups will be totally secretive and their methods of fumigation will be completely effective…..

I Have a Dream

One day there will be blue trucks rolling off underground production lines. Missiles will be fired into government buildings and financial institutions. Politicians will be shot. Microlights will spray botulism over every millionaire’s ghetto. More beautiful than all this, there will be no organisations claiming ‘responsibility’, no explanations whatsoever. The whole thing will seem as mysterious as the menacing laughter heard in the Roman baths at Colchester must have been shortly before the Iceni sacked the city.

Cold War into Cola War

Back in the 1970s we used to think the East was oppressive, totalitarian. Their people were brainwashed, elections rigged, dissident groups suppressed. We used to think the West was free, democratic, tolerant. Things were so bad under communism people built balloons out of bed sheets in order to escape. Their repression was so total, military forces were quite prepared to blow up the entire world with nuclear weapons to keep ourselves free. Then with the 1980s people discovered that East and West were the same. Britain had the Economic Leauge to blacklist dissidents. Nixon was as corrupt and as nepotistic as Brhznev. Thatcher was the English Hitler. We had the 1984 Miners’ Strike. Waves and waves of helicopters, miles of razor wire and the full might of the military machine were deployed just to evict a few CND peaceniks at Molesworth. Hilda Murrell was murdered by the State.

New World Ordure

The 1991 Gulf War shows how things are now. World US hegemony, a sordid little was for the oil companies. How can the soldiers go along with it? If they don’t get hit with Saddam’s Scuds, they’ll get Gulf War Syndrome from the West’s own anti-nerve gas tablets. Who could fight for this? Who could fight for Major, Tory Blair and his spin doctors? Europe? With all the world like this, where do we fly our home-made balloon now?

The crowd are passive. In their flight from the truth, people submerge themselves in irrelevancy. Aromatherapy,

---

WELCOME TO THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE! YOU JUST WATCHED AND DID NOTHING SO HERE ARE YOUR SIDE-HANDLED BATON BLOWS AS YOU TRAVEL ON THE EBOLA SUBWAY, SUCKERS!

---

drugs, role-playing games, the lottery, selling Amway. They all have their negative equity mortgages, unemployment, job insecurity, MuckDonalds Happy Meals, the Sun, Gulf War Syndrome…. In 1992, even after the poll tax and all that, thirteen million brain-dead morons voted Conservative. How many will vote for Blair? People pay money for the Sun. Millions of them buy lottery tickets. As Mystic Meg once said (echoing Sir Gerard Ratner with his “culture of crap”) “The people want trash, so let’s give them trash…”. All this goes on. Do they act to stop it? Do they bollocks. So in the long run, they get exactly what they deserve, and by heck they are going to get it….

---

IT’S A LINE SO THIN YOU CANNOT STAND OVER IT – YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE WHICH SIDE TO STAND ON. YOU ARE EITHER FIGHTING IT. THE POINTN IS TO CHOOSE…

---

The Importance of Ethics

As a fundamental, people are free and entitled to ercise that freedom and defend it. Freedom can never be granted grudgingly by authority (only to later be rescinded). Freedom has to be taken. Where we are faced with the systematic annihilation and negation posed against ourselves by The Machine, we are required to find ways to give value to our lives.

We have ethical criteria to judge actions it is wrong to lie, it is wrong to coerce people, it is wrong to stand back and do nothing to prevent injustice. Yet the whole Machine is founded on lies, run by coercion and lubricated with complicity. This requires a response.

The Ethical Void

Several years ago, an article was published in *Freedom (Politics and the Ethical Void, 7^th March 1992, p.7) showing how the ethical has no point of contact with the political. To call on politicians to recognize the ethical is as futile as writing a letter “Dear Mr Himmler, please be moral!” To try to bring the ethical to bear on the political is to be like the boy with his finger in the dyke, while 100 yards away, water pours through a gap as wide as the Atlantic. Politics is without ethics but that does not absolve us of our own responsibilities towards the ethical.

---

IF JUST ONE PERSON CAN BE FREE, THE REST ARE WITHOUT EXCUSE

---

The Ethical Imperative To Act

If I can do just one thing to fracture that Iron Grip I will have done something. Then again, if everybody did just one thing. The Machine would be abolished. But we are not in that situation yet, nowhere near it. The numbers of activists are few, very low indeed. Even so, the Sunday Express (14th January 1996, p.14) expo of Green extremists admitted the Stasi had identified as many as 1,700 road protesters in London and the Home Counties. 1,700 committed road protesters would easily stop the road provided they did not waste their energy in futile fluffy NVDA gesture politics but always go for the jugular.

Numbers are Not Important

It doesn’t matter how many of us there are, one, a hundred, or a thousand. All that matters is that I myself act. The duty to act against the tyrant system is always present and cannot be evaded. …

Issue 52

Date: Jun 1998

Keywords: punk and communism; Workerism; Developers; festivals.

Read here

---

The Case Against Art

Art is always about “something hidden.” But does it help us connect with that hidden something? I think it moves us away from it.

During the first million or so years as reflective beings, humans seem to have created no art. As Jameson put it, art had no place in that “unfallen social reality” because there was no need for it. Though tools were fashioned with an astonishing economy of effort and perfection of form, the old cliche about the aesthetic impulse as one of the irreducible components of the human mind is invalid.

The oldest enduring works of art are hand-prints, produced by pressure or blown pigment — a dramatic token of direct impress on nature. Later in the Upper Paleolithic era, about 30,000 years ago, commenced the rather sudden appearance of the cave art associated with names like Altamira and Lascaux. These images of animals possess an often breathtaking vibrancy and naturalism, though concurrent sculpture, such as the widely-found “venus” statuettes of women, was quite stylized. Perhaps this indicates that domestication of people was to precede domestication of nature. Significantly, the “sympathetic magic” or hunting theory of earliest art is now waning in the light of evidence that nature was bountiful rather than threatening.

The veritable explosion of art at this time bespeaks an anxiety not felt before: in Worringer’s words, “creation in order to subdue the torment of perception.” Here is the appearance of the symbolic, as a moment of discontent. It was a social anxiety; people felt something precious slipping away. The rapid development of the earliest ritual or ceremony parallels the birth of art, and we are reminded of the earliest ritual re-enactments of the moment of “the beginning,” the primordial paradise of the timeless present. Pictorial representation roused the belief in controlling loss, the belief in coercion itself.

And we see the earliest evidence of symbolic division, as with the half-human, half-beast stone faces at El Juyo. The world is divided into opposing forces, by which binary distinction the contrast of culture and nature begins and a productionist, hierarchical society is perhaps already prefigured.

The perceptual order itself, as a unity, starts to break down in reflection of an increasingly complex social order. A hierarchy of senses, with the visual steadily more separate from the others and seeking its completion in artificial images such as cave paintings, moves to replace the full simultaneity of sensual gratification. Lévi-Strauss discovered, to his amazement, a tribal people that had been able to see Venus in daytime; but not only were our faculties once so very acute, they were also not ordered and separate. Part of training sight to appreciate the objects of culture was the accompanying repression of immediacy in an intellectual sense: reality was removed in favor of merely aesthetic experience. Art anesthetizes the sense organs and removes the natural world from their purview. This reproduces culture, which can never compensate for the disability.

Not surprisingly, the first signs of a departure from those egalitarian principles that characterized hunter-gatherer life show up now. The shamanistic origin of visual art and music has been often remarked, the point here being that the artist-shaman was the first specialist. It seems likely that the ideas of surplus and commodity appeared with the shaman, whose orchestration of symbolic activity portended further alienation and stratification.

Art, like language, is a system of symbolic exchange that introduces exchange itself. It is also a necessary device for holding together a community based on the first symptoms of unequal life. Tolstoy’s statement that “art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling,” elucidates art’s contribution to social cohesion at the dawn of culture. Socializing ritual required art; art works originated in the service of ritual; the ritual production of art and the artistic production of ritual are the same. “Music,” wrote Seu-ma-tsen, “is what unifies.”

As the need for solidarity accelerated, so did the need for ceremony; art also played a role in its mnemonic function. Art, with myth closely following, served as the semblance of real memory. In the recesses of the caves, earliest indoctrination proceeded via the paintings and other symbols, intended to inscribe rules in depersonalized, collective memory. Nietzsche saw the training of memory, especially the memory of obligations, as the beginning of civilized morality. Once the symbolic process of art developed it dominated memory as well as perception, putting its stamp on all mental functions. Cultural memory meant that one person’s action could be compared with that of another, including portrayed ancestors, and future behavior anticipated and controlled. Memories became externalized, akin to property but not even the property of the subject.

Art turns the subject into object, into symbol. The shaman’s role was to objectify reality; this happened to outer nature and to subjectivity alike because alienated life demanded it. Art provided the medium of conceptual transformation by which the individual was separated from nature and dominated, at the deepest level, socially. Art’s ability to symbolize and direct human emotion accomplished both ends. What we were led to accept as necessity, in order to keep ourselves oriented in nature and society, was at base the invention of the symbolic world, the Fall of Man.

The world must be mediated by art (and human communication by language, and being by time) due to division of labor, as seen in the nature of ritual. The real object, its particularity, does not appear in ritual; instead, an abstract one is used, so that the terms of ceremonial expression are open to substitution. The conventions needed in division of labor, with its standardization and loss of the unique, are those of ritual, of symbolization. The process is at base identical, based on equivalence. Production of goods, as the hunter-gatherer mode is gradually liquidated in favor of agriculture (historical production) and religion (full symbolic production), is also ritual production.

The agent, again, is the shaman-artist, enroute to priesthood, leader by reason of mastering his own immediate desires via the symbol. All that is spontaneous, organic and instinctive is to be neutered by art and myth.

Recently the painter Eric Fischl presented at the Whitney Museum a couple in the act of sexual intercourse. A video camera recorded their actions and projected them on a TV monitor before the two. The man’s eyes were riveted to the image on the screen, which was clearly more exciting than the act itself. The evocative cave pictures, volatile in the dramatic, lamp-lit depths, began the transfer exemplified in Fischl’s tableau, in which even the most primal acts can become secondary to their representation. Conditioned self-distancing from real existence has been a goal of art from the beginning. Similarly, the category of audience, of supervised consumption, is nothing new, as art has striven to make life itself an object of contemplation.

As the Paleolithic Age gave way to the Neolithic arrival of agriculture and civilization — production, private property, written language, government and religion — culture could be seen more fully as spiritual decline via division of labor, though global specialization and a mechanistic technology did not prevail until the late Iron Age.

The vivid representation of late hunter-gatherer art was replaced by a formalistic, geometric style, reducing pictures of animals and humans to symbolic shapes. This narrow stylization reveals the artist shutting himself off from the wealth of empirical reality and creating the symbolic universe. The aridity of linear precision is one of the hallmarks of this turning point, calling to mind the Yoruba, who associate line with civilization: “This country has become civilized,” literally means, in Yoruba, “this earth has lines upon its face.” The inflexible forms of truly alienated society are everywhere apparent; Gordon Childe, for example, referring to this spirit, points out that the pots of a Neolithic village are all alike. Relatedly, warfare in the form of combat scenes makes its first appearance in art.

The work of art was in no sense autonomous at this time; it served society in a direct sense, an instrument of the needs of the new collectivity. There had been no worship-cults during the Paleolithic, but now religion held sway, and it is worth remembering that for thousands of years art’s function will be to depict the gods. Meanwhile, what Glu:ck stressed about African tribal architecture was true in all other cultures as well: sacred buildings came to life on the model of those of the secular ruler. And though not even the first signed works show up before the late Greek period, it is not inappropriate to turn here to art’s realization, some of its general features.

Art not only creates the symbols of and for a society, it is a basic part of the symbolic matrix of estranged social life. Oscar Wilde said that art does not imitate life, but vice versa; which is to day that life follows symbolism, not forgetting that it is (deformed) life that produces symbolism. Every art form, according to T.S. Eliot, is “an attack upon the inarticulate.” Upon the unsymbolized, he should have said.

Both painter and poet have always wanted to reach the silence behind and within art and language, leaving the question of whether the individual, in adopting these modes of expression, didn’t settle for far too little. Though Bergson tried to approach the goal of thought without symbols, such a breakthrough seems impossible outside our active undoing of all the layers of alienation. In the extremity of revolutionary situations, immediate communication has bloomed, if briefly.

The primary function of art is to objectify feeling, by which one’s own motivations and identity are transformed into symbol and metaphor. All art, as symbolization, is rooted in the creation of substitutes, surrogates for something else; by its very nature therefore, it is falsification. Under the guise of “enriching the quality of human experience,” we accept vicarious, symbolic descriptions of how we should feel, trained to need such public images of sentiment that ritual art and myth provide for our psychic security.

Life in civilization is lived almost wholly in a medium of symbols. Not only scientific or technological activity but aesthetic form are canons of symbolization, often expressed quite unspiritually. It is widely averred, for example, that a limited number of mathematical figures account for the efficacy of art. There is Cezanne’s famous dictum to “treat nature by the cylinder, the sphere and the cone,” and Kandinsky’s judgement that “the impact of the acute angle of a triangle on a circle produces an effect no less powerful than the finger of God touching the finger of Adam in Michelangelo.” The sense of a symbol, as Charles Pierce concluded, is its translation into another symbol, this an endless reproduction, with the real always displaced.

Though art is not fundamentally concerned with beauty, its inability to rival nature sensuously has evoked many unfavorable comparisons. “Moonlight is sculpture,” wrote Hawthorne; Shelley praised the “unpremeditated art” of the skylark; Verlaine pronounced the sea more beautiful than all the cathedrals. And so on, with sunsets, snowflakes, flowers, etc., beyond the symbolic products of art. Jean Arp, in fact, termed “the most perfect picture” nothing more than “warty, threadbare approximation, a dry porridge.”

Why then would one respond positively to art? As compensation and palliative, because our relationship to nature and life is so deficient and disallows an authentic one. As Motherlant put it, “One gives to one’s art what one has not been capable of giving to one’s own existence.” It is true for artist and audience alike; art, like religion, arises from unsatisfied desire.

Art should be considered a religious activity and category also in the sense of Nietzsche’s aphorism, “We have Art in order not to perish of Truth.” Its consolation explains the widespread preference for metaphor over a direct relationship to the genuine article. If pleasure were somehow released from every restraint, the result would be the antithesis of art. In dominated life freedom does not exist outside art, however, and so even a tiny, deformed fraction of the riches of being is welcomed. “I create in order not to cry,” revealed Klee.

This separate realm of contrived life is both important and in complicity with the actual nightmare that prevails. In its institutionalized separation it corresponds to religion and ideology in general, where its elements are not, and cannot be, actualized; the work of art is a selection of possibilities unrealized except in symbolic terms. Arising from the sense of loss referred to above, it conforms to religion not only by reason of its confinement to an ideal sphere and its absence of any dissenting consequences, but it can hence be no more than thoroughly neutralized critique at best.

Frequently compared to play, art and culture — like religion — have more often worked as generators of guilt and oppression. Perhaps the ludic function of art, as well as its common claim to transcendence, should be estimated as one might reassess the meaning of Versailles: by contemplating the misery of the workers who perished draining its marshes.

Clive Bell pointed to the intention of art to transport us from the plane of daily struggle “to a world of aesthetic exaltation,” paralleling the aim of religion. Malraux offered another tribute to the conservative office of art when he wrote that without art works civilization would crumble “within fifty years” ... becoming “enslaved to instincts and to elementary dreams.”

Hegel determined that art and religion also have “this in common, namely, having entirely universal matters as content.” This feature of generality, of meaning without concrete reference, serves to introduce the notion that ambiguity is a distinctive sign of art.

Usually depicted positively, as a revelation of truth free of the contingencies of time and place, the impossibility of such a formulation only illuminates another moment of falseness about art. Kierkegaard found the defining trait of the aesthetic outlook to be its hospitable reconciliation of all points of view and its evasion of choice. This can be seen in the perpetual compromise that at once valorizes art only to repudiate its intent and contents with “well, after all, it is only art.”

Today culture is commodity and art perhaps the star commodity. The situation is understood inadequately as the product of a centralized culture industry, a la Horkheimer and Adorno. We witness, rather, a mass diffusion of culture dependent on participation for its strength, not forgetting that the critique must be of culture itself, not of its alleged control.

Daily life has become aestheticized by a saturation of images and music, largely through the electronic media, the representation of representation. Image and sound, in their ever-presence, have become a void, ever more absent of meaning for the individual. Meanwhile, the distance between artist and spectator has diminished, a narrowing that only highlights the absolute distance between aesthetic experience and what is real. This perfectly duplicates the spectacle at large: separate and manipulating, perpetual aesthetic experience and a demonstration of political power.

Reacting against the increasing mechanization of life, avantgarde movements have not, however, resisted the spectacular nature of art any more than orthodox tendencies have. In fact, one could argue that Aestheticism, or “art for art’s sake,” is more radical than an attempt to engage alienation with its own devices. The late 19^th century art pour l’art development was a self-reflective rejection of the world, as opposed to the avantgarde effort to somehow organize life around art. A valid moment of doubt lies behind Aestheticism, the realization that division of labour has diminished experience and turned art into just another specialisation: art shed its illusory ambitions and became its own content.

The avant-garde has generally staked out wider claims, projecting a leading role denied it by modern capitalism. It is best understood as a social institution peculiar to technological society that so strongly prizes novelty; it is predicated on the progressivist notion that reality must be constantly updated.

But avant-garde culture cannot compete with the modern world’s capacity to shock and transgress (and not just symbolically). Its demise is another datum that the myth of progress is itself bankrupt.

Dada was one of the last two major avant-garde movements, its negative image greatly enhanced by the sense of general historical collapse radiated by World War I. Its partisans claimed, at times, to be against all “isms,” including the idea of art. But painting cannot negate painting, nor can sculpture invalidate sculpture, keeping in mind that all symbolic culture is the co-opting of perception, expression and communication. [nor can writing negate writing, nor can typing radical essays onto diskettes to assist in their publication ever be liberating — even if the typer breaks the rules and puts in an uninvited comment] In fact, Dada was a quest for new artistic modes, its attack on the rigidities and irrelevancies of bourgeois art a factor in the advance of art; Hans Richter’s memoirs referred to “the regeneration of visual art that Dada had begun.” If World War I almost killed art, the Dadaists reformed it.

Surrealism is the last school to assert the political mission of art. Before trailing off into Trotskyism and/or art-world fame, the Surrealists upheld chance and the primitive as ways to unlock “the Marvellous” which society imprisons in the unconscious. The false judgement that would have re-introduced art into everyday life and thereby transfigured it certainly misunderstood the relationship of art to repressive society. The real barrier is not between art and social reality, which are one, but between desire and the existing world. The Surrealists’ aim of inventing a new symbolism and mythology upheld these categories and mistrusted unmediated sensuality. Concerning the latter, Breton held that “enjoyment is a science; the exercise of the senses demands a personal initiation and therefore you need art.”

Modernist abstraction resumed the trend begun by Aestheticism, in that it expressed the conviction that only by a drastic restriction of its field of vision could art survive. With the least strain of embellishment possible in a formal language, art became increasingly self-referential, in its search for a “purity” that was hostile to narrative. Guaranteed not to represent anything, modern painting is consciously nothing more than a flat surface with paint on it.

But the strategy of trying to empty art of symbolic value, the insistence on the work of art as an object in its own right in a world of objects, proved a virtually self-annihilating method. This “radical physicality,” based on aversion to authority though it was, never amounted to more, in its objectiveness, than simple commodity status. The sterile grids of Mondrian and the repeated all-black squares of Reinhardt echo this acquiescence no less than hideous 20^th century architecture in general. Modernist self-liquidation was parodied by Rauschenberg’s 1953 Erased Drawing, exhibited after his month-long erasure of a de Kooning drawing. The very concept of art, Duchamp’s showing of a urinal in a 1917 exhibition notwithstanding, became an open question in the ’50s and has grown steadily more undefinable since.

Pop Art demonstrated that the boundaries between art and mass media (e.g. ads and comics) are dissolving. Its perfunctory and mass-produced look is that of the whole society and the detached, blank quality of a Warhol and his products sum it up. Banal, morally weightless, depersonalized images, cynically manipulated by a fashion-conscious marketing stratagem: the nothingness of modern art and its world revealed.

The proliferation of art styles and approaches in the ’60s — Conceptual, Minimalist, Performance, etc. — and the accelerated obsolescence of most art brought the “postmodern” era, a displacement of the formal “purism” of modernism by an eclectic mix from past stylistic achievements. This is basically a tired, spiritless recycling of used-up fragments, announcing that the development of art is at an end. Against the global devaluing of the symbolic, moreover, it is incapable of generating new symbols and scarcely even makes an effort to do so.

Occasionally critics, like Thomas Lawson, bemoan art’s current inability “to stimulate the growth of a really troubling doubt,” little noticing that a quite noticeable movement of doubt threatens to throw over art itself. Such “critics” cannot grasp that art must remain alienation and as such must be superseded, that art is disappearing because the immemorial separation between nature and art is a death sentence for the world that must be voided.

Deconstruction, for its part, announced the project of decoding Literature and indeed the “texts,” or systems of signification, throughout all culture. But this attempt to reveal supposedly hidden ideology is stymied by its refusal to consider origins or historical causation, an aversion it inherited from structuralism/poststructuralism. Derrida, Deconstruction’s seminal figure, deals with language as a solipsism, consigned to self-interpretation; he engages not in critical activity but in writing about writing. Rather than a de-constructing of impacted reality, this approach is merely a self-contained academicism, in which Literature, like modern painting before it, never departs from concern with its own surface.

Meanwhile, since Piero Manzoni canned his own feces and sold them in a gallery and Chris Burden had himself shot in the arm, and crucified to a Volkswagen, we seen in art ever more fitting parables of its end, such as the self-portraits drawn by Anastasi — with his eyes closed. “Serious” music is long dead and popular music deteriorates; poetry nears collapse and retreats from view; drama, which moved from the Absurd to Silence, is dying; and the novel is eclipsed by non-fiction as the only way to write seriously.

In a jaded, enervated age, where it seems to speak is to say less, art is certainly less. Baudelaire was obliged to claim a poet’s dignity in a society which had no more dignity to hand out. A century an more later how inescapable is the truth of that condition and how much more threadbare the consolation or station of “timeless” art.

Adorno began his book thusly: “Today it goes without saying that nothing concerning art goes without saying, much less without thinking. Everything about art has become problematic; its inner life, its relation to society, even its right to exist.” But Aesthetic Theory affirms art, just as Marcuse’s last work did, testifying to despair and to the difficulty of assailing the hermetically sealed ideology of culture. And although other “radicals,” such as Habermas, counsel that the desire to abolish symbolic mediation is irrational, it is becoming clearer that when we really experiment with our hearts and hands the sphere of art is shown to be pitiable. In the transfiguration we must enact, the symbolic will be left behind and art refused in favor of the real. Play, creativity, self-expression and authentic experience will recommence at that moment.

Issue 53

Date: Sep 1998

Keywords: Education; Anti-Vaccination and other dangerous, stupid nonsense Blurgh!

Read here

Issue 54-55

Date: Mar 1999

---

John Connor on reaction and Civilised values

...

Our Obvious Critics

...

But It's More Than This

...

False Flag

An expose of the Black Flag racket

Black Flag # 215 spent six times more space slagging off Steve Booth's Irrationalists than on their story on the Gandolf case, which they were so noncommittal in reporting that they didn't even bother to end it with the defence campaign's address. This and repeated trashy references to GA throughout this issue suggests Black Flag might have a problem with us.

The article, coincidently titled Irrationalism - Steve Booth against "the Machine" implied Steve is "a fascist, misanthrope", although they hadn't got the bottle to say this plainly and don't believe it anyway as ... --------

"I do not find it difficult to survive here"

A letter from Ted Kaczynski on his imprisonment

Thank you for your letter of September 8. I don't know what press reports you may have said about the ADX, but you should bear in mind that press reports are wildly inaccurate - as I learned from press reports about my own case.

I think it is inhuman to keep people locked up under any conditions, but beyond the mere fact of imprisonment I don't feel that the conditions here are bad as you seem to believe. I'll describe them briefly, but it must be understood that this description applies only to the part of the prison where the high-profile (that is, the famous) prisoners are kept. I know nothing about the rest of the prison.

...

Ted K. Update

State-styled Unabomber Dr Kaczynski's trial in December 1997 was a farce. His lawyers kept him virtually incommunicardo and ignored his instructions. ...

Emporia State: The Crystal Palace And Its Aftermath

The Crystal Palace is Dostoevsky’s crowning symbol for the barrenness of industrial civilization ... In the Crystal Palace everything will be provided, man’s every desire will be satisfied, he will be insulated from pain — but the more he becomes the automaton consumer the more he will also suffer from excruciating boredom ... The Crystal Palace is the supreme economic manifestation of the utilitarian, liberal-rationalist philosophy: and it is the bourgeois paradise.

— John Carroll

The Crystal Palace burned down, of course, in 1936. But like a phoenix, or dragon’s teeth sown in the earth, it sprang up everywhere as the shopping mall.

May 1998

Earth First! amnesiacs complain that council plans to build 18 multiplex cinemas plus 1000 rooftop car parking spaces on the vacant site of the Crystal Palace break the understanding that further building on the site would ‘reflect the style of the original Crystal Palace’.

Welcome to the Milton Keynes of the soul.

In the hothouse environment of the mall, designer label commodities hold their grand parade, showing off their trophies, their human conquests.

During previous centuries millions died due to a wasting disease called consumption; in the present century millions also die due to a wasting disease called consumption.

In the emporia state, production is concealed, energy congealed, eyes sealed and hearts annealed.

The UK shopping centre encourages inwardness. The elements and inclement weather conditions are banished, and the massed ranks of shops haughtily turn their backs on the hostile outside world. The chill wind gusting along the back alley should find no place here. And yet still the draught penetrates. For when shoppers look within they find a barren wasteland of commodities, and shiver as the wind howls through their empty souls.

Laughter is not permitted in the shopping mall, neither outbursts of joy nor corrisive mockery. Consumption is a serious business, and misery finds a ready counterfeit in solemnity.

Some women refer, only half-jokingly, to the idea of ‘retail therapy’: shopping as consolation for the fact that domesticated life is shit. If you can’t change yourself or your world, change your image, change your commodities.

Thirty years of built-in obsolescence was condemned as a capitalist con; now both capital and consumers benefit from it. Capital maximises profit; consumers gain a pretext for consuming again and again.

Designer labels

Identifying with capital, acquiring a corporate identity — even during leisure-time, labour’s twin. Paying to act as a mobile advertisement and to extend capital’s empire to all time and space. An acceleration of capitalist fashion: a desire to connect with the increasingly elusive moment by purchasing a brand new commodity. ‘Brand’ — a term used for the branding of cattle as property, or human flesh for penal purposes; also indicates a stigma, as in the phrase ‘the brand of Cain’. Ever murdered your kin? Ever feel you’ve been shopped?

The myth of postindustrialism

We inhabit the factory and the factory inhabits us. The clothes we wear, the food we eat, the buildings in which we live, work and die, the books we read, the media we ingest, the ideas we think — are all factory produced. And yet chaos is everywhere. Even as I walk through the barren waste of the shopping centre, I look up and see the sun boiling, the clouds scudding by, a flock of birds veering across the sky — and I feel the exquisite pulses, flows and currents that flow through my body.

The capitalist imperative: adapt or perish

A third alternative: rebel!

August 1998

Shopping centre travel agency poster: ‘Cut-price flights to the sun’.

Summer 1999

Total eclipse.

Ted Speaks

This June, Ted Kaczynski-the State-styled 'Unabomber'-gave an unprecidented interview to an ex-EF! Journalista. Below is Ted's story which we publish jointly with Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed.

Kaczynski’s story represents a parable:

Once upon a time there was a continent covered with beautiful pristine wilderness, where giant trees towered over lush mountainsides and rivers ran wild and free through deserts, where raptors soared and beavers labored at their pursuits and people lived in harmony with wild nature, accomplishing every task they needed to accomplish on a daily basis using only stones, bones and wood, walking gently on the Earth. Then came the explorers, conquerors, missionaries, soldiers, merchants and immigrants with their advanced technology, guns, and government. The wild life that had existed for millennia started dying, killed by a disease brought by alien versions of progress, arrogant visions of manifest destiny and a runaway utilitarian science.

In just 500 years, almost all the giant trees have been clear-cut and chemicals now poison the rivers; the eagle has faced extinction and the beaver’s work has been supplanted by the Army Corps of Engineers. And how have the people fared? What one concludes is most likely dependent on how well one is faring economically, emotionally and physically in this competitive technological world and the level of privilege one is afforded by the system. But for those who feel a deep connection to, a love and longing for, the wilderness and the wildness that once was, for the millions now crowded in cities, poor and oppressed, unable to find a clear target for their rage because the system is virtually omnipotent, these people are not faring well. All around us, as a result of human greed and a lack of respect for all life, wild nature and Mother Earth’s creatures are suffering. These beings are the victims of industrial society.

Cutting the bloody cord, that’s what we feel, the delirious exhilaration of independence, a rebirth backward in time and into primeval liberty, into freedom in the most simple, literal, primitive meaning of the word, the only meaning that really counts. The freedom, for example, to commit murder and get away with it scot-free, with no other burden than the jaunty halo of conscience.

My God! I’m thinking, what incredible shit we put up with most of our lives — the domestic routine, the stupid and useless and degrading jobs, the insufferable arrogance of elected officials, the crafty cheating and the slimy advertising of the businessmen, the tedious wars in which we kill our buddies instead of our real enemies back home in the capital, the foul, diseased and hideous cities and towns we live in, the constant petty tyranny of the automatic washers, the automobiles and TV machines and telephones-! ah Christ!,... what intolerable garbage and what utterly useless crap we bury ourselves in day by day, while patiently enduring at the same time the creeping strangulation of the clean white collar and the rich but modest four-in-hand garrote!

Such are my thoughts — you wouldn’t call them thoughts would you? — such are my feelings, a mixture of revulsion and delight, as we float away on the river, leaving behind for a while all that we most heartily and joyfully detest. That’s what the first taste of the wild does to a man, after having been penned up for too long in the city. No wonder the Authorities are so anxious to smother the wilderness under asphalt and reservoirs. They know what they are doing. Play safe. Ski only in a clockwise direction. Let’s all have fun together.

— Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire, 1968

“I read Edward Abbey in mid-eighties and that was one of the things that gave me the idea that, ‘yeah, there are other people out there that have the same attitudes that I do.’ I read The Monkeywrench Gang, I think it was. But what first motivated me wasn’t anything I read. I just got mad seeing the machines ripping up the woods and so forth...”

— Dr. Theodore Kaczynski, in an interview with the Earth First! Journal, Administrative Maximum Facility Prison, Florence, Colorado, USA, June 1999.

Theodore Kaczynski developed a negative attitude toward the techno-industrial system very early in his life. It was in 1962, during his last year at Harvard, he explained, when he began feeling a sense of disillusionment with the system. And he says he felt quite alone. “Back in the sixties there had been some critiques of technology, but as far as 1 knew there weren’t people who were against the technological system as-such... It wasn’t until 1971 or 72, shortly after I moved to Montana, that I read Jaques Ellul’s book, The Technological Society.” The book is a masterpiece. I was very enthusiastic when I read it. I thought, ‘look, this guy is saying things I have been wanting to say all along.’”

Why, I asked, did he personally come to be against technology? His immediate response was, “Why do you think? It reduces people to gears in a machine, it takes away our autonomy and our freedom.” But there was obviously more to it than that. Along with the rage he felt against the machine, his words revealed an obvious love for a very special place in the wilds of Montana. He became most animated, spoke most passionately, while relating stories about the mountain life he created there and then sought to defend against the encroachment of the system. “The honest truth is that I am not really politically oriented. I would have really rather just be living out in the woods. If nobody had started cutting roads through there and cutting the trees down and come buzzing around in helicopters and snowmobiles I would still just be living there and the rest of the world could just take care of itself. I got involved in political issues because I was driven to it, so to speak. I’m not really inclined in that direction.”

Kaczynski moved in a cabin that he built himself near Lincoln, Montana in 1971. His first decade there he concentrated on acquiring the primitive skills that would allow him to live autonomously in the wild. He explained that the urge to do this had been a part of his psyche since childhood. “Unquestionably there is no doubt that the reason I dropped out of the technological system is because I had read about other ways of life, in particular that of primitive peoples. When I was about eleven I remember going to the little local library in Evergreen Park, Illinois. They had a series of books published by the Smithsonian Institute that addressed various areas of science. Among other things, I read about anthropology in a book on human prehistory. I found it fascinating. After reading a few more books on the subject of Neanderthal man and so forth, I had this itch to read more. I started asking myself why and I came to the realization that what I really wanted was not to read another book, but that I just wanted to live that way.”

Kaczynski says he began an intensive study of how to identify wild edible plants, track animals and replicate primitive technologies, approaching the task like the scholar he was. “Many years ago I used to read books like, for example, Ernest Thompson Seton’s “Lives of Game Animals” to learn about animal behavior. But after a certain point, after living in the woods for a while, I developed an aversion to reading any scientific accounts. In some sense reading what the professional biologists said about wildlife ruined or contaminated it for me. What began to matter to me was the knowledge I acquired about wildlife through personal experience.

Kaczynski spoke at length about the life he led in his small cabin with no electricity and no running water. It was this lifestyle and the actual cabin that his attorneys would use to try to call his sanity into question during his trial. It was a defense strategy that Kaczynski said naturally greatly offended him. We spoke about the particulars of his daily routine. “I have quite a bit of experience identifying wild edible plants,” he said proudly, “it’s certainly one of the most fulfilling activities that I know of, going out in the woods and looking for things that are good to eat. But the trouble with a place like Montana, how it differs from the Eastern forests, is that starchy plant foods are much less available. There are edible roots but they are generally very small ones and the distribution is limited. The best ones usually grow down in the lower areas which are agricultural areas, actually ranches, and the ranchers presumably don’t want you digging up their meadows, so starchy foods were civilized foods. I bought flour, rice, corn meal, rolled oats, powdered milk and cooking oil.”

Kaczynski lamented never being able to accomplish three things to his satisfaction: building a crossbow that he could use for hunting, making a good pair of deerhide moccasins that would withstand the daily hikes he took on the rocky hillsides, and learning how to make fire consistently without using matches. He says he kept very busy and was happy with his solitary life. “One thing I found when living in the woods was that you get so that you don’t worry about the future, you don’t worry about dying, if things are good right now you think, ‘well, if I die next week, so that, things are good right now.’ I think it was Jane Austen who wrote in one of her novels that happiness is always something that you are anticipating in the future, not something that you have right now. This isn’t always true. Perhaps it is true in civilization, but when you get out of the system and become re-adapted to a different way of life, happiness is often something that you have right now.”

He readily admits he committed quite a few acts of monkeywrenching during the seventies, but there came a time when he decided to devote more energy into fighting against the system. He describes the catalyst:

“The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It’s kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it” His voice trails off; he pauses, then continues, “You just can’t imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge. That wasn’t the first time I ever did any monkeywrenching, but at that point, that sort of thing became a priority for me... I made a conscious effort to read things that were relevant to social issues, specifically the technological problem. For one thing, my concern was to understand how societies change, and for that purpose I read anthropology, history, a little bit of sociology and psychology, but mostly anthropology and history.”

Kaczynski soon came to the conclusion that reformist strategies that merely called for “fixing” the system were not enough, and he professed little confidence in the idea that a mass change in consciousness might someday be able to undermine the technological system. “I don’t think it can be done. In part because of the human tendency, for most people, there are exceptions, to take the path of least resistance. They’ll take the easy way out, and giving up your car, your television set, your electricity, is not the path of least resistance for most people. As I see it, I don’t think there is any controlled or planned way in which we can dismantle the industrial system. I think that the only way we will get rid of it is if it breaks down and collapses. That’s why I think the consequences will be something like the Russian Revolution, or circumstances like we see in other places in the world today like the Balkans, Afghanistan, Rwanda. This does, I think, pose a dilemma for radicals who take a non-violent point of view. When things break down, there is going to be violence and this does raise a question, I don’t know if I exactly want to call it a moral question, but the point is that for those who realize the need to do away with the techno-industrial system, if you work for its collapse, in effect you are killing a lot of people. If it collapses, there is going to be social disorder, there is going to be starvation, there aren’t going to be any more spare parts or fuel for farm equipment, there won’t be any more pesticide or fertilizer on which modern agriculture is dependent. So there isn’t going to be enough food to go around, so then what happens? This is something that, as far as I’ve read, I haven’t seen any radicals facing up to.

At this point he was asking me, as a radical, to face up to this issue. I responded I didn’t know the answer. He said neither did he, clasped his hands together and looked at me intently. His distinctly Midwestern accent, speech pattern, and the colloquialisms he used were so familiar and I thought about how much he reminded me of the professors I had as a student of anthropology, history and political philosophy in Ohio. I decided to relate to him the story of how one of my graduate advisors, Dr. Resnick, also a Harvard alumni, once posed the following question in a seminar on political legitimacy: Say a group of scientists asks for a meeting with the leading politicians in the country to discuss the introduction of a new invention. The scientists explain that the benefits of the technology are indisputable, that the invention will increase efficiency and make everyone’s life easier. The only down side, they caution, is that for it to work, forty-thousand innocent people will have to be killed each year. Would the politicians decide to adopt the new invention or not? The class was about to argue that such a proposal would be immediately rejected out of hand, then he casually remarked, “We already have it — the automobile.” He had forced us to ponder how much death and innocent suffering our society endures as a result of our commitment to maintaining the technological system — a system we all are born into now and have no choice but to try and adapt to. Everyone can see the existing technological society is violent, oppressive and destructive, but what can we do?

“The big problem is that people don’t believe a revolution is possible, and it is not possible precisely because they do not believe it is possible. To a large extent I think the eco-anarchist movement is accomplishing a great deal, but I think they could do it better... The real revolutionaries should separate themselves from the reformers... And I think that it would be good if a conscious effort was being made to get as many people as possible introduced to the wilderness. In a general way, I think what has to be done is not to try and convince or persuade the majority of people that we are right, as much as try to increase tensions in society to the point where things start to break down. To create a situation where people get uncomfortable enough that they’re going to rebel. So the question is how do you increase those tensions? I don’t know.”

Kaczynski wanted to talk about every aspect of the techno-industrial system in detail, and further, about why and how we should be working towards bringing about its demise. It was a subject we had both given a lot of thought to. We discussed direct action and the limits of political ideologies. But by far, the most interesting discussions revolved around our views about the superiority of wild life and wild nature. Towards the end of the interview, Kaczynski related a poignant story about the close relationship he had developed with snowshoe rabbit.

“This is kind of personal,” he begins by saying, and I ask if he wants me to turn off the tape. He says “no, I can tell you about it. While I was living in the woods I sort of invented some gods for myself” and he laughs. “Not that I believed in these things intellectually, but they were ideas that sort of corresponded with some of the feelings I had. I think the first one I invented was Grandfather Rabbit. You know the snowshoe rabbits were my main source of meat during the winters. I had spent a lot of time learning what they do and following their tracks all around before I could get close enough to shoot them. Sometimes you would track a rabbit around and around and then the tracks disappear. You can’t figure out where that rabbit went and lose the trail. I invented a myth for myself, that this was the Grandfather Rabbit, the grandfather who was responsible for the existence of all other rabbits. He was able to disappear, that is why you couldn’t catch him and why you would never see him... Every time I shot a snowshoe rabbit, I would always say ‘thank you Grandfather Rabbit.’ After a while I acquired an urge to draw snowshoe rabbits. I sort of got involved with them to the extent that they would occupy a great deal of my thought. I actually did have a wooden object that, among other things, I carved a snowshoe rabbit in. I planned to do a better one, just for the snowshoe rabbits, but I never did get it done. There was another one that I sometimes called the Will ‘o the Wisp, or the wings of the morning. That’s when you go out in to the hills in the morning and you just feel drawn to go on and on and on and on, then you are following the wisp. That was another god that I invented for myself.”

So Ted Kaczynski, living out in the wilderness, like generations of prehistoric peoples before him, had innocently rediscovered the forest’s gods. I wondered if he felt that those gods had forsaken him now as he sat facing life in prison with no more freedom, no more connection to the wild, nothing left of that life that was so important to him except for his sincere love of nature, his love of knowledge and his commitment to the revolutionary project of hastening the collapse of the techno-industrial system. I asked if he was afraid of losing his mind, if the circumstances he found himself in now would break his spirit? He answered, “No, what worries me is that I might in a sense adapt to this environment and come to be comfortable here and not resent it anymore. And I am afraid that as the years go by that I may forget, I may begin to lose my memories of the mountains and the woods and that’s what really worries me, that I might lose those memories, and lose that sense of contact with wild nature in general. But I am not afraid they are going to break my spirit.” And he offered the following advice to green anarchists who share his critique of the technological system and want to hasten the collapse of, as Edward Abbey put it, “the destroying juggernaut of industrial civilization”: “Never lose hope, be persistent and stubborn and never give up. There are many instances in history where apparent losers suddenly turn out to be winners unexpectedly, so you should never conclude all hope is lost.”

Operation Washington and the Gandalf Trial. A Personal View by Stephen Booth

‘Government gunning for the Green Alliance’ — Guardian headline, 28^th May 1995, page 11.

In March 1995, the Hampshire police began ‘Operation Washington’, a long series of raids, at least 55 of them [12] up and down the UK. Many of the people raided were animal rights activists, some were greens, others, like myself, were anarchists. At least two alternative bookshops in Oxford, EoA and Artemis Books, as well as Frontline in Manchester, were turned over. On January 16^th, 1996, a second wave of arrests took place. Saxon Wood, Noel Molland and the ALF press officer, Robin Webb, were taken to Lymington police station. Paul Rogers, Simon Russell and myself were taken to Lyndhurst police station in the New Forest. After interrogation, we were all charged with Conspiracy to Incite Criminal Damage [13], and bailed. The committal hearing began on 9^th December 1996, at Portsmouth Magistrates Court, and lasted a week. At the end of this, Robin Webb was acquitted, but the police appealed against this decision and his case went for judicial review at the high court. The Crown Court trial itself started on August 26^th 1997, and lasted 12 weeks. Early in the trial, the barrister acting for Paul Rogers, Ken McDonald QC, refused to call secret state witnesses like the agent provocateur, Tim Hepple, and resigned the case rather than accept instructions. As a result of this, Paul was ‘severed’ from the trial on September 15^th. Of the remaining four, one, Simon Russell, was acquitted, and the other three, Saxon, Noel and myself, were jailed for three years. The jailings brought widespread international outcry, with a campaign mounted by London Greenpeace, and Index on Censorship putting information about the case on the internet. After four and a half months in prison, we were released, pending appeal, which was eventually heard at the High Court on July 21^st and 23^rd, 1998. The second Gandalf trial, of Paul Rogers and Robin Webb, began on November 2^nd 1998, but eventually collapsed on November 25^th, due to the legal unsoundness of the first trial.

Protest and Direct Action Politics. The Political Context of ‘Operation Washington’

During the 1990’s, the politics of protest and direct action has grown. Perhaps most prominent in this area are the road protesters. Twyford Down, near Winchester, in Hampshire, during 1991–1993 was the first large road protest, and the state employed Brays Detectives, of Southampton, to spy on the protesters [14] Group 4 and Reliance Security, large numbers of yellow jacketed security staff, were used to evict the Dongas protest camp on December 9^th 1992, but this did not break the back of the road protest movement, as had the Molesworth Rainbow Village Fields peace camp eviction in the mid 1980’s. Instead, the anti-road protest movement spread: Solsbury Hill, Wanstead, Cuerden near Preston, Pollok in Scotland, Stanworth Valley and Earcroft near Blackburn, and Newbury were all examples. Their tactics developed, from tree houses to tunnels, and Swampy became a national figure.

Direct action politics has many other forms. The 1990 anti poll tax campaign [15] marked a turning point where many people lost faith in the representational political paradigm, and used their own capacities to oppose the government policy. The same methods could be adopted to protest against multi-national corporations or different government bureaucracies. New movements responded to the growing awareness of environmental problems. [16] Earth First! blockaded the tropical hardwood importer Timbmet, at Cumnor near Oxford on 11^th May 1992. Peat cutting machinery on Hatfield and Thorne Moors was smashed on April 8^th 1992. In the Summer of 1994, Michael Howard’s Criminal Justice Act (=CJA) brought together a whole swathe of disparate groups. On the 17^th February 1995, the Department of Transport HQ in Marsham Street, London, was broken into and computers were interfered with. On 14^th July 1996, Reclaim The Streets (=RTS) blockaded the Westway in London, causing widespread traffic chaos in the metropolis. The execution of writer Ken Saro Wiwa and the threat of dumping the Brent Spar oil platform in the Atlantic brought a vigorous anti Shell campaign in 1995. The Ploughshares, natural successors to the 1980’s Peace Protesters, smashed Hawk jets at Warton, planes destined to be used for genocide in East Timor, on January 16^th 1996. Through 1994 and onwards, there was the long running McLibel case [17].

Animal Liberation

Animal liberation is a special category of the area outlined above. Animal liberationists have mounted big protests, like the anti-live exports showdown at Shoreham, Brightlingsea, Dover, Coventry Airport, in early 1995. More recently, there has been a long-running, ongoing series of protests at Hillgrove Cat Farm, near Witney, in Oxfordshire. At the same time as the large protests, there are militants like the ALF (Animal Liberation Front), breaking into laboratories, ‘liberating’ animals used in experiments, burning meat trucks, sabotaging slaughterhouses. Protesters can pull off ‘spectaculars’ as they did in April 1993, reducing the Grand National horse race to a total shambles, reportedly costing bookmakers ?63M. There are people like the Hunt Sabs, disrupting hunts. Groups like the ‘Justice Department’ (=JD) or more likely, lone individuals, have posted tubular incendiary devices to vivisectors, and intervened in the live exports controversy — bombs were sent to the offices of Stenna Sealink in Ashford, June 3^rd 1994. The so-called ‘Animal Rights Militia’ (=ARM) firebombed outdoor sports and leather goods shops in Cambridge, York, Harrogate, Oxford, and the Isle of Wight during the summer of 1994. The Isle of Wight bombings (24^th August 1994) swamped the fire services on the island, and it is thought that this is one reason why Hampshire Police chose to attack the protest movements by mounting ‘Operation Washington’

Hepplegate

If Green Anarchist (=GA) is the most militant publication [18], drawing together elements from all across the protest movements, the secret state in particular, would have a a more immediate and distinctly personal reason to persecute GA. Green Anarchist had an important part in the Tim Hepple affair, as exposed by Larry O’Hara in his April 1993 pamphlet ‘A Lie Too Far’ (=ALTF), and subsequently ‘At War With The Truth’. (=AWWTT) [19]

Tim Hepple was an enthusiastic activist, if a somewhat changeable character, who hung about in the GA orbit. In September 1991, at the Green Party Wolverhampton conference, he took part in a banner unfurling stunt, protesting at the take over of the Green Party by the ‘Green 2000’ Jonathan Porritt / Sara Parkin faction [20]. Action of this sort was calculated to gain him credibility with the green movement. He introduced a friend of his to GA, Ray Hill, a shop keeper in the Caton village, who also wrote a column in Searchlight. At this stage we were naive enough to believe in Searchlight as a positive anti fascist credential. Ray Hill wrote an article ‘Creating a Community’ advocating people donate ?1,000 each to buy a Scottish island. This article was published in GA 28, pp 14–15.

Early in 1992, Hepple went off to Welling, in order to infiltrate the BNP (=British National Party, fascists) during the 1992 General Election period, on behalf of Searchlight. After this, he was supposedly hiding out in Scotland, but late in 1992, resurfaced, telling tales about a street war, with fascists attacking left wing people, Socialist Workers, and anarchists. The fascists were said to be publishing hit lists, ‘Redwatch’ and ‘Target’. In order to redress the balance, Hepple offered to supply a list of fascists’ names and addresses to GA. After all, who better to give these than the infiltrator who just seven months earlier had been inside the BNP ?

Hepple pleaded with GA to publish the details he had handed across in the magazine or as leaflets under our own logo. We would not do this. Many, but not all of the details on Hepple’s list were spurious; one of the addresses given that of the National Badminton Centre, for example. Hepple also demonstrated suspicious foreknowledge of the contents of ‘Target’ issue two, three months before it came out [21]

In early 1993, fascists from Combat 18, or perhaps state agents posing as C18, attacked alternative bookshops: Key Books in Birmingham, Mushroom in Nottingham, as well as an arson attack on the Morning Star newspaper, and the smashing of the Freedom bookshop and press in Aldgate [22]

On April 19^th, 1993, Tim Hepple appeared on ‘World in Action’ admitting his BNP infiltration, and being present at the vicious assault on the SWP paper seller so graphically described in that spook-opera. Syndicated highlights of his Searchlight ghosted biography were published in the New Statesman [23]. Shortly after the ‘World in Action’ programme, Larry O’Hara published ‘A Lie Too Far’, the booklet which first exposed Tim Hepple as an agent provocateur, and which began a chain of other events which eventually brought AFA (Anti Fascist Action) to proscribe Searchlight [24].

John Harlow and Jason Bennetto. Two Studies in Media Bias

If Green Anarchist was being made a target for manipulation by state-sponsored agent provocateurs like Hepple, the mainstream mass media were likewise concentrating their attention on the protest movements. I would like to present you with two key examples:

1. The John Harlow ‘Green Guerrillas Booby-Trap Sites’, Sunday Times, July 4^th 1993 [25]

The John Harlow ‘Summer of Hate’ piece is probably the archetypal anti green smear, claiming eco-protesters had dug Vietnam style pits with metal spikes in the bottom to trap and injure construction workers. The Harlow piece was published to coincide with an anticipated mass trespass at Twyford Down. Some of the same material later re-appeared in a TV documentary ‘Ride On’ in October 1994 [26]. Such false negative publicity self-evidently supports the security forces ‘make work’ project.

2. Jason Bennetto ‘Crackdown on Green Terrorists’, Independent, 28^th December 1994.

As with the Chester Stern Grand National piece, Bennetto specifically named Green Anarchist, but this article went further. GA was claimed to be a terrorist organization, in a re-cycling of the Harlow ‘Summer of Hate’ mantraps lie. ‘Nationally, organizations such as the Environmental Liberation Front (sic) and Green Anarchist have been credited with using booby traps to disrupt work on several motorway sites.’ [27]

This type of fabrication, hype and hysteria is not a one off or a mistake, but part of a consistent, consciously arranged pattern. Mostly, the media ignores the protest movements. On rare occasions, when it suits the state, it makes a splash, as with the August 1998 Ringwood mink releases, or the 10^th December Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ anti-ALF spook opera [28]. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see now how Bennetto was clearing the propaganda path for the start of ‘Operation Washington’ just over two months later.

Make Work

Police chiefs want Anti Terror Squad to Spy on Green Activists

Guardian top of page 1, March 27^th 1996

The central police in Frankfurt are themselves of the view that what is at stake above all is the need to secure the existence of the secret police, and what means we use to achieve this are of complete indifference.

State Asset Stieber [29]

With the end of the cold War, the IRA ceasefire, MI5, Special Branch and the other spooks have to justify their continued existence. Stieber, a police agent contemporary of Marx, describes the agenda perfectly. Outfalls like Harlow, Bennetto and Mike Durham repeatedly tell how the secret state is watching the ‘eco-warriors’. On March 6^th 1995, at just the same time that ‘Operation Washington’ was starting, it was reported that ARNI (the Animal Rights National Index, a Scotland Yard department and police data base) was being expanded to take in the greens. During the early 1990’s, ‘Operation Snapshot’ and various police / council schemes logged movements of so-called ‘New Age’ travellers. Other police groups like the ‘Forward Intelligence Team’ collected information about the RTS movement. All of this appears to be collecting together under one organization, the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). There is a certain parallel between all this and similar state actions against the Autonomen in Germany, and anarchists in Italy, which suggests a certain unity of action and policy. ‘Operation Washington’ falls into place within a Europol / SCHENGEN Europe-wide clamp down on dissent.

MI5 Against the new Superpower

All the technological resources formerly used against Communism are now ranged against us greenies. So we had better start thinking and acting accordingly.

GA 49/50 page 11

The Concepts of Incitement and Conspiracy

Seven months before the beginning of the 1926 General Strike, on 13^th October 1925, twelve Communist leaders, including William Rust and Wal Hannington, were raided, arrested, tried and jailed for ‘Unlawfully conspiring to publish seditious libels and to incite others to commit breaches of the Incitement to Mutiny Act 1797.’ [30]

Thus, we can see how ‘conspiracy to incite’ has a certain pedigree among British political charges. In the Autumn of 1979, the ‘Persons Unknown’ trial saw six people; Ronan Bennett, Stewart Carr, Vincent Stevenson, Irish Mills, Dafydd Ladd and Trevor Dalton charged in the same way with ‘Conspiracy to incite...’ Such a charge is a vague, catch-all type of ‘offence’, in that it is a multiple inchoate charge (inchoate — just begun). Nothing need have happened, it is all about desires and intentions. It is a different business from, for example; an animal rights activist breaking a butchers’ shop window. Here, in legal terms, an obvious crime, criminal damage, has occurred. These are substantive offences. Inchoate charges are incomplete, amorphous, fog like.

The real offence is that we exist.....

Something as broad and far-ranging as the radical protest movement is more of a culture, a revolutionary climate. As with the Taunton genetically modified crops, people know that the law will never protect their interests, and so trash the fields themselves. Direct action is so much more direct. It is not ‘smash this window’ but ‘smash the system’. If you steal a loaf from the bakery, this is serious theft, but how can the law deal with people who want to take the whole bakery?

Powerful though they are, even the police and the secret police state cannot suppress a whole ideology. So they grasp hold of shapeless legal concepts like ‘incitement’, attempting to make individual writers and editors responsible for the things they report. (Retrospective incitement). By a sort of legal osmosis, the publishers are made responsible for every action undertaken by the movement. It is all about your opinions and desires. The climate of protest is so wide, that by the time they get around to holding individuals responsible for it, the ‘guilt’ has to be spread a little thin.

Is it possible for publications to ‘incite’ protest? I do not think so. I think that the facts of the world as we find it are sufficient cause, a clear enough explanation for the origins of our climate of protest and the culture of resistance. The actions of the state and system are so outrageously unjust, that people will act against them. As the Oxford statement has it: ‘Environmental degradation, animal abuse, economic injustice and poverty, attacks on freedom, weapons exports, nuclear weapons — these among many others are the real inciting factors, not the reporting of direct action protests.’ [31]

Because the police are lazy, and because conspiracy is easier to ‘prove’, the police are increasingly turning to conspiracy charges in order to convict people. The concept of ‘Conspiracy’ is a politically dangerous legal weapon, and in any decent, democratic society, it would be abolished. A conspiracy is a joining together of people with a common purpose, under a tacit or implied (read non-existent) agreement to do harm. Thus most political groups could be said to be conspiracies. The fact the police resort to conspiracy charges shows that they cannot prove that a substantive offence has taken place; which in itself ought to start alarm bells ringing. In the legal sense, the radical movement as a whole is one big ‘conspiracy’, and as Desmond Thomas, the police officer in charge of ‘Operation Washington’ testified, virtually anyone connected with the radical movement could be prosecuted for participation. A connects to B, B connects to C and so A and C are in the same conspiracy, even though they never met. The only real limitations on the use of the conspiracy repression weapon, were the physical size of the dock and the capacity of the sixty police officers to process the paperwork. The fact that it could be anybody in there was part of its intended effect.

Exhibit 988A was a list of supporters / participants in the October 1994 ‘Anarchy in the UK’ Festival.

The legal notion of ‘conspiracy’ might be applied to any political group which the state takes a dislike to. The best defence against this is for people to exercise their capacity to speak freely more and more; not for the movement to be silenced but to develop and strengthen its own, multiple-path methods of communication. Experience shows that we cannot rely on the mainstream media to report what is happening [32] A stronger, more effective movement, with increasing political momentum for change, is the only real answer.

The December 1996 Committal Hearing

The committal took place at Portsmouth Magistrates Court, between the 9^th and the 16^th December. Portsmouth was chosen because as a reactionary right wing town, prosperous, southern and the capital of the Royal Navy, it gave the greatest likelihood of conviction after Winchester. Prior to the case starting, the defendants had been served with somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 photocopied pages of ‘evidence’. More was constantly being added to this during both the committal and the crown court case proper. This ‘evidence’ consisted of issues of GA, the ALF Supporters’ Group Newsletter [=ALF(SG)], together with many other anarchist, animal rights, environmentalist, punk and other magazines. [33] There were letters, invoices, art work, receipts, the animal rights bomb maker’s manual ‘Into the 1990’s With The ALF’, ‘Urban Attack’, and many other things. Basically, we six were being held responsible, not just for what we ourselves had written, nor collectively for each others’ writings, but for any and every other radical piece of protest literature collected during the 55 police raids, and produced or sold between 1990 and 1996.

The court process consisted of going through these documents page by page, picking out all the choice sentences of passages. It was here that we were first introduced to the concept of incitement by reviewing another publication. We also learned about retrospective incitement (just reporting the facts), incitement through commentary, incitement by slogan, incitement through expressing an opinion, incitement by advertising, and indirect incitement. Anyone who thinks that by allowing a barrister to read out a long, continuous selection of choice quotations could ‘prove’ that people who never met could be part of some vast but indistinct ‘conspiracy’ is a fool. I for example, as an anarchist who wishes to develop human capacities and freedoms, would like to see the state overthrown by a physical revolution, but I had little or no interest in animal rights. I had never met Robin Webb before the arrests, I had not even heard of Simon Russell; but here we all were — ‘co-conspirators’ for having some sort of place in very different parts of the ‘same’ broad protest culture and movement.

The main point of interest at the committal, was the testimony of Detective Superintendent Desmond Thomas. Quite a lot of words have been written about the mental state of DSI Thomas, particularly in animal rights publications. It is clear that he has mounted a crusade against animal liberation, and it is also clear that he has a personal vendetta against Robin Webb. The danger is that we personalize the Hampshire Police activities, so that the issue becomes Thomas. We personalise the police as Thomas, and end up with a mirror image of the Channel 4 ‘Dispatches’ pastiche of ‘That evil terrorist Robin Webb’; or to give another example of the same type of process, the 1984 miners strike becomes that of Arthur Scargill’s mortgage. Thomas has a grudge, but he is also a ‘useful idiot’ to do the dirty work for the secret state.

Thomas himself testified, that during 1995, 56 police raids took place. [34] ‘Operation Washington’ had 15–20 officers working on it, with 24–30 active plus 30–40 support staff at peak times. For example, we can note that for the 16^th January 1996. Washington could command the exclusive use of two police stations. Thus, it compares with a murder case or a major anti-drugs operation. In money terms, the cost of the case has been put at somewhere between ?2M and ?10M. [35] A decision to commit police and CPS resources to this extent, is not within the remit of just one middle-ranking police officer with a personal grudge. It would have to be a policy decision, taken higher up. Obviously, given the politically charged character of the case, Thomas is not the ultimate point of control.

DSI Thomas himself, testified that the secret state was involved in the Gandalf case:

Could you just help me about this? You have told us that there were other forces involved in this investigation, that there has been public debate about the role of the secret services. Were they involved in this investigation?

I did. [quoting previous PLO trial transcript-] ‘They were involved in one part of it which was not significant until after Mr Webb had been arrested that other people had been arrested but may I just say that it does not relate to these proceedings today’ My answer did not refer to those proceedings or to Mr Webb in these proceedings and any other issues related to the security services, I would ask the court deal with by means of public immunity hearing. It related indirectly to these proceedings.

It would have been the middle of 1995. [36]

A lot of the cross-examination related to the earlier Robin Webb and Gillian Peachey Poultry Liberation Organization (=PLO!) egg contamination press release conspiracy trial, held in Winchester in late 1995. This trial was the result of the so-called ‘Operation Washington Part 1’ which held Robin Webb responsible for handing a press release out to the press, in his capacity as ALF Press Officer. The PLO trial collapsed on 11^th December 1995, when DSI Thomas revealed that some evidence taken during a raid on Gillian Peachey had been left unattended in the boot of a WPC’s car over the weekend. As a result of this, Peachey could no longer be charged, and for a conspiracy you need at least two people, so the whole case fell.

Why did Thomas reveal the fact that his own chain of evidence was broken? Four days after the PLO trial collapsed, on December 15^th 1995, the decision was taken to go ahead with ‘Operation Washington Part 2’, the arrests and raids taking place a month later. January 16^th 1996 was just three days after an openly advertised GA editorial meeting — this timing is not coincidental. Did Thomas receive orders from elsewhere to stop the first trial in order to widen his frame? [37]

James Wood, the barrister at the December 1996 Gandalf committal, argued for abuse of process. Robin Webb had been tried under the same evidence at Winchester. On the Friday, almost at the end of the committal hearing, the prosecutor, Richard Onslow, made a gross mistake, and conceded that were Webb to be re-prosecuted on his own, that would indeed be oppressive. However, he was being prosecuted along with others. James Wood, in reply, pointed out that each defendant must be considered on his own, each particular case weighed on its own merits. It was no less oppressive than if Robin Webb were there on his own. They could not use the fact that others were being prosecuted alongside to justify the prosecution of Mr Webb.

James Wood’s argument is just, of course, but this is what a conspiracy prosecution does. You need others to make a conspiracy, and their ‘guilt’ confirms you ‘guilt’. Wood’s objection lays bare the flaw behind the whole trial. Yet it was the mistaken concession by Onslow, which persuaded the Stipendiary Magistrate, Mr Clarke, to halt the case against Robin Webb, but allow those against the rest. At this point, it looked as though the whole Gandalf farce would unravel in the Hampshire Police’s hands.

In early 1997, we organised a Gandalf Tour to try to raise awareness of the case. We had begun campaigning in 1996, coining the name ‘Gandalf’ (Green Anarchist aND Animal Liberation Front) as a handy acronym to describe the defendants. During the 1997 general election, we carried out an anti Jack Straw campaign in Blackburn, Straw’s constituency, which failed to generate any media support — no surprises there. If nothing else, the Blackburn campaign gave us the chance to talk to sympathetic people opposed to censorship.

The Trial Itself Begins

‘Court hears men were devoted to anarchy’

Portsmouth cop outfall, the News, 29^th August 1997, page 7

The police appealed against the Webb acquittal, but went ahead with the trial of the rest of us anyway. The Crown Court trial began on 26^th August 1997, and did not get off to a good start. The first day was given over to ‘Public Interest Immunity’ or as I renamed it ‘Police Interest Impunity’. [38] PII certificates were used to convict innocent men in the Matrix Churchill case, and the mere fact they were used in the Gandalf trial, in my opinion, discredits the entire case. PII is incompatible with an open society. PII is an iniquitous procedure, a closed session, attended by the judge and prosecutor, but with the defence counsel and defendants excluded. Thus the one sided nature of the whole trial was shown on day one.

At the start of the trial, a list of questions were prepared, to try to exclude potential jurors who had connections with blood sports, road building, or the armed forces. [39] At the time, this seemed a fair procedure, but in retrospect, it would probably have been better not to have done this. To ask people about their awareness of environmental issues and politics automatically excluded the intelligent and aware. Decent people would have nothing to do with the trial, and we just provided people with ready-made excuses to avoid jury service. We ended up with the people too stupid to adopt an excuse, a jury of Sun readers. The anticipated length of the trial, 6 to 8 weeks, selected the older, middle class conformist types. The state’s choice of the Portsmouth venue had already determined the Blimpish, Nineteenth Century centre of political gravity of the jurors, in any event.

In my opinion, the state never intended to hype the Gandalf prosecution as a show trial. The mainstream media hardly reported the police raids or build up; except for one small item in the Guardian reporting the raid on the Frontline bookshop in Manchester, and a riposte to this, a character assassination piece on Paul Rogers in the Observer. [40] After the conviction, the more lurid selective quotes could be used, as with the Harlow and Bennetto above. The trial itself was aimed at the alternative press, and for this the alternative press and the radical rumour mill could be relied on to spread the message. It would not do to tell the dreaming public too loudly that they are living in a police state.

The timid conformity of the mainstream media is epitomised by the Portsmouth News reporter Graham Keely, who appeared to be wholly at the beck and call of the state. [41]

Any adverse mainstream publicity there might have been in the opening week [42] was wiped out by the crash of Princess Diana in Paris, and the tsunami of mass hysteria which followed this. Shortly after the start of the trial, between September 5^th and 7^th, in Oxford, the ‘Alternative Media Gathering’ [43] published a statement condemning the trial, and endorsed by many different groups. This was posted on the internet, and endorsed by many all over the world. We were filmed by the Undercurrents radical video makers. The Oxford Declaration was the real turning point in the radical fight-back against the trial.

Severance of Paul Rogers

It was a surreal experience to be on trial, with Robin Webb as a named co-defendant, without Robin being present in court, except perhaps in some notional sense, as a ‘virtual defendant’. Much was made of the now familiar story of the gay ex-Special Branch detective, who talked too much at a party somewhere, and revealed where the bug was planted in Robin Webb’s car. Much was made of a loan from the ALF(SG) to Robin Webb, to buy a Lada car to help him get around to meetings and protests. The fraud squad were called in but found nothing improper in the loan. This prompted a little rhyme about our virtual defendant:

What or where is Robin Webb?

Is he alive or is he dead?

Speeding off inside his Lada

Making cops work that much harder.

The first big crisis came on Thursday 11^th September. From the point of view of GA, the main part of the defence strategy was to raise the political cost of the trial by calling secret state assets like Hepple and others, putting Searchlight and the Secret State itself in the dock. We already had Thomas’s testimony at the committal, and the fact of the PII itself as starting points. In this, August 26^th and the Shayler Case, (much in the news at the same time), ought to have been used to develop momentum and discredit the trial in the minds of the jury, if possible, but certainly to the wider public. Our analysis and ambitions ran far ahead of our capacities. What was needed was not just a legal defence inside, but also political action outside. We also needed psychological warfare against the CPS and the judge. These strands would have worked together to turn it into a circus. The problem was that the animal lib defendants lacked the political confidence to try this. They just wanted a purely legal defence, which would obviously fail. Their dogma that ‘It’s all about Robin Webb’ depoliticised the trial.

I am not criticising the animal lib people for this, but simply trying to tell it how it was, then. Various attempts to politicise the trial were made; the free speech demonstration on PII day, which was successful, the Princess Diana Death Celebration, which was prevented. Hepplegate, which failed, the publication of GA49/50, a classic act of defiance in the face of oppression, and lastly the Selwood effigy burning. These five had some potential to turn it over, but because the initial momentum never developed, each event began from a lower point. Staging political events contradicted the animal lib purely legal approach. A political trial cannot be opposed in purely legal terms.

It is not about whether you are ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent’, as if these judicially fabricated categories have meaning; but whether you’ve got enough treacle to gum up the machinery. All the PII and Hepple / secret state stuff were our best shot at stopping the trial, but the defence barristers just would not run with it. The crisis came to a head on the morning of the 11^th, when Ken McDonald QC, Paul’s barrister, refused to accept instructions to follow Paul’s strategy, and resigned the case. There was an almighty row over this, and harsh words were spoken. This left Paul unrepresented, with Judge Selwood demanding that Paul represent himself, adjourning the trial until the next week, to give him time to ‘prepare’. This led to one fortunate political consequence; in that Paul got a chance to look at and photocopy part of the unused evidence. The point about the unused is that this is the inconvenient stuff the police and prosecution would rather bury, for example material about informers within the movement, and provocateurs like Hepple. The unused stuff would be most useful for discrediting the case, politically.

However, when the court resumed , Paul was severed from the trial on the 15^th September, lest he do more damage. As Paul was the main editor of Green Anarchist, and in the absence of Robin Webb the principal defendant, this destroyed a lot of the intended effect. Paul could continue to publish the magazine, and he was left free outside to campaign on behalf of the rest.

ONSLOW: (Working his way through the case papers)

A Lie Too Far, Searchlight, Hepple and the Left — I’m not going to refer you to any of that....

— Tuesday 16^th September 1997

We can learn a lot from this. The legal system is terrified of secret state stuff. So one possible response, when being questioned by the police in a repression of freedom of speech case, is not to say ‘no comment’ but to answer every question with a statement like ‘Tim Hepple is an MI5 sponsored agent provocateur.’ In my opinion, when faced with a trial with some spook content, it would be a good idea to have at least one defendant unrepresented by barristers, and so free to ask the most awkward of awkward questions, assisted by a ‘McKenzie Friend’. In my opinion, political trials should be slowed down — we ought to bung them all up like the Mc Libel case. Challenge every page of evidence. If the political cost of the trial is raised enough — it just won’t happen.

The Plea Bargain

To join yourself to the law is to become part of the corruption.

Four Brothers, page 102

The political situation demands that when faced with a desperate situation like the Gandalf trial, it is important not to show weakness. Unfortunately, on 19^th September, the defence barristers decided they would attempt a plea bargain. This was a completely outrageous move, in my opinion, because it surrendered to the state the right to censor our magazines and punish the editors for their contents. We had no business to make such an abdication. Pleading guilty would also have implications for Paul Rogers and Robin Webb, and would make the next Gandalf type prosecution easier, and therefore certain. You have to draw a line somewhere. Simon was in favour of the plea bargain for pragmatic reasons. Noel, who sought animal rights martyrdom, was also in favour. Saxon and myself were against. I explained to the others that I would have no part of it, and if it came to that then I would sooner take the ferry than plead guilty. I had my passport with me, somewhere, but as far as I remember I did not actually wave it in their faces. During the lunch hour, I went out for a walk round the Portsmouth city centre. I felt so angry about it. I reasoned that Judge Selwood, who was obviously a bastard but not as big a bastard as I am would probably only tell them to ‘shove it’ and add five years on to the sentence for cowardice. So I walked back to the court, and I think I might have been a little late getting back. The others looked a bit worried, they were probably thinking ‘Perhaps he really has taken the ferry’. Luckily, Judge Selwood did tell them to ‘Shove it’, and saved them from themselves, but all the same it was a bad display of defence weakness, and something I wish hadn’t happened.

The Venton Memorandum

The police ignored their legal adviser because his advice did not suit their political objectives. One of the key prosecution documents of the case, among the unused evidence but revealed, perhaps unintentionally by the prosecution, was the ‘Venton Memorandum’. [44] Mr Venton, a solicitor and legal adviser working for the CPS in Portsmouth, had earlier testified during the committal hearing of December 1996. Among the facts learned there, about policy and the management of the case, was that the decision to go ahead with ‘Operation Washington Part 2’ was taken on the afternoon of 15^th December 1995.

Mr Venton had written out legal advice and notes about the case. He argued for a narrow definition of ‘incitement’, comprising the ‘How to do it’ articles, like the instructions on how to make an incendiary device contained in the animal rights pamphlet ‘Into the 1990’s with the ALF.’ Venton was afraid that a broad definition of ‘incitement’ would lay bare the political nature of such a prosecution. He was right, and it did.

‘All the subjects of this investigation are people who hold extreme political views, basically anarchists.’ Venton admitted near the top of his memorandum. Lower down, he then went on to say ‘I left out of the equation all general exhortations for direct action, as the literature is full of it, and it would be too easy to confuse specific incitement to commit crime with the expression of political views (however extreme) and the methods to achieve the aims’.

The uncovering of Roger Venton’s memorandum in the unused police papers was a good piece of legal work by Naim, Tim Greene and Ben Emmerson. Venton’s memo exposed the methodological flaw at the heart of the police process. Venton’s narrow definition of ‘incitement’ did not fit with the political intention of the case, and so was sidelined. Instead, the broadest possible definition (see note 22) of ‘incitement’ was taken, encompassing every type of radical literature, the ALF, eco protest and community resistance diaries in GA; slogans like Robin Webb’s ‘Take courage, take heart, take action’. Venton specifically denied that T-Shirts were capable of inciting, but on 29^th August, there they were; ALF T-shirts with pro JD slogans like ‘Animal Liberation — It’s Quicker By Tube!’ were paraded through the court like trophies of war, and being held up by Jill the court usher. If Venton’s advice had been followed, the trial would have been a lot shorter, but it would not have had the desired political effect of criminalising an entire ideology and movement.

Desmond Thomas in the Box Again

DSI Thomas took the stand on 8^th October 1997, and was asked more questions about the poultry product contamination press release case, covering much the same ground as before. Thomas then went on to ludicrously claim that Robin Webb is an anarchist, and that the ALF is an anarchist front! Much of Thomas’s hatred was directed against Saxon Wood, indeed the judge himself seemed to dislike Saxon more than the rest, aside from the Virtual Defendant, Robin Webb. DSI Thomas also ridiculously claimed Saxon had ‘duped’ his brother, Scott Wood, into writing for GA. The presence of Saxon in the dock was a continual reminder of Hampshire Police incompetence — initially they had arrested the ‘wrong’ S Wood.

From Thomas and Venton’s testimony at the committal, and also here, we learned that prior to ‘Operation Washington Part 2’ there was another trial intended (Operation Washington 1a?) a follow on to the PLO egg contamination trial, centred on a list of postal bombings carried out by the JD from October 1993 onwards [45] and published in the ALF(SG) newsletter and on the internet. Some of the same people prosecuted in the Gandalf trial would also have been present in Washington 1a, together with ‘at least four others’ including, as Thomas put it in his rabidly hyperbolic declamatory style ‘the animal rights terrorist, John Curtin.’ [46]

Thomas had a notion that anarchism was all about exploiting irreconcilable differences in society to create trouble. Thomas claimed to have discovered this from reading the works of ‘Guy de Bard’; and he found this author’s concepts of ‘Spectacle and Recovery’ (sic) helpful in understanding anarchy. At this point the barristers handed back a note saying that I must not laugh out loud at this tosh or make adverse comments. Thomas was asked what he thought was inciting about the phrase ‘we must recreate, and turn our backs on technology’ taken from GA 31, and he claimed that it ‘resonates’ with the concepts of ‘Spectacle and Recovery’. Thomas linked together GA, Robin Webb, Saxon, the Angry Brigade of the early 1970’s, into one seamless ‘conspiracy’. Even the judge seemed to reject Thomas’s laughable interpretation of anarchist politics. Thomas was obviously out of his intellectual depth.

The object of the police is to arrest people. As at the committal, Thomas was quite proud of the fact that he had discovered a crime he could arrest virtually anybody for. When being asked about that long list of raids, Thomas boasted ‘All the people referred to on the searches could potentially have been defendants’. [47] He was questioned about the arbitrariness of his procedure; some of the other editors and former editors of GA, like John Rogerson or Kevin Lano, or Richard Hunt for that matter, had not been charged. Another individual, who was known by the police to be the author of a magazine called the Terra-ist, and who was arrested selling it at a World Day event, on 23^rd April 1994, in Hyde Park, but not charged then nor put in the Gandalf dock, was asked about. Thomas said the police had to stop somewhere. There had to be limits — the dock could only hold so many.

Thomas made a damaging declaration, which openly proclaimed the circularity of all thei