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\title{Green Anarchist Journal}
\date{1984-2005}
\author{Alan Albon, Richard Hunt, Marcus Christo, Paul Rogers, Steve Booth, etc.}
\subtitle{}
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\tableofcontents
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\part{The Issues Order}
Including notes on some of the changes in editorial staff.
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
GA UK \#1 Jul-Aug 1984 - Richard Hunt, Alan Albon and Marcus Christo found the paper.
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GA UK \#2 Sep-Aug 1984
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GA UK \#3 Nov-Dec 1984
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GA UK \#4 Jan-Feb 1985
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GA UK \#5 Mar-Apr 1985
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GA UK \#6 May-Jun 1985
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GA UK \#7 Jul-Aug 1985
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GA UK \#8 Sep-Oct 1985
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GA UK \#9 Nov 1985-Jan 1986
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GA UK \#10 Feb-Mar 1986 - Alan Albon and Marcus Christo leave around here.
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GA UK \#11 Apr-May 1986
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GA UK \#12 Jun-Jul 1986
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GA UK \#13 Aug-Sep 1986
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GA UK \#14 Oct-Nov 1986
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GA UK \#15 Late Winter 1987
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GA UK \#16 Apr 1987
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GA UK \#17 Oct 1987
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GA UK \#18 Apr 1988
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GA UK \#19 May 1988
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GA UK \#20 Jun 1988
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GA UK \#21 Mar 1989
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GA UK \#22 Apr 1989
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GA UK \#23 May 1989
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GA UK \#24 Jun 1989
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GA UK \#25 Sep 1990
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GA UK \#26 Mar 1991
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GA UK \#27 Jun 1991
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GA UK \#28 Sep 1991 - Richard Hunt leaves after this printing.
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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.
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GA UK \#30 Jun 1992
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GA UK \#31 Sep 1992
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GA UK \#32 Jun 1993
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GA UK \#33 Dec 1993
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GA UK \#34 Mar 1994
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GA UK \#35 Jun 1994
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GA UK \#36 Dec 1994
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GA UK \#37 Mar 1995
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GA UK \#38 Jun 1995
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GA UK \#39 Sep 1995
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GA UK \#40-41 Mar 1996
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GA UK \#42 Jun 1996
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GA UK \#43-44 Sep 1996
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GA UK \#45-46 Mar 1997
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GA UK \#47-48 Jun 1997
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GA UK \#49-50 Sep 1997 - Steve Booth, Saxon Wood and Noel Molland are briefly jailed.
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GA UK \#51 Mar 1998
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GA UK \#52 Jun 1998
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GA UK \#53 Sep 1998
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GA UK \#54-55 Mar 1999
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GA UK \#56 Jun 1999
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GA UK \#57-58 Sep 1999 - Saxon Wood and Noel Molland leave at some point around here.
\item\relax
GA UK \#59 Mar 2000
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GA UK \#60-61 Jun 2000 - Steve Booth splits after this issue and produces a paper with the same name, but a smaller distribution.
\end{itemize}
\bigskip
\textbf{Post-Split}
\textbf{Paul Rogers and John Connor Faction}
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
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'.
\item\relax
GA UK \#66 Mar 2002
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GA UK \#67 Sep 2002
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GA UK \#68\Slash{}9 Jun 2003
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GA UK \#70 Sep 2003
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GA UK \#71-72 Mar 2004
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GA UK \#73-74 Sep 2004
\end{itemize}
\bigskip
\textbf{Steve Booth Faction}
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
GA UK SB \#62 Mar 2001
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GA UK SB \#63 Jun 2001
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GA UK SB \#64 Dec 2001
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GA UK SB \#65 Unknown Date
\item\relax
GA UK SB \#66 2004
\end{itemize}
\bigskip
\textbf{Sources}
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
\href{https://thesparrowsnest.org.uk/search.php?query=green\%2Banarchist\&logic=and\&digital=0\&digital=0}{The Sparrows Nest}
\item\relax
\href{http://web.archive.org/web/20050401233723/http://greenanarchist.org/issues.html}{greenanarchist.org\Slash{}issues}
\item\relax
\href{http://web.archive.org/web/20050402015512/http://greenanarchist.org:80/forum/forum.php}{greenanarchist.org\Slash{}forum}
\end{itemize}
\bigskip
\part{An Introduction \& a Critique}
\chapter{Wikipedia}
Established in Oxford, UK.
\section{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.\footnote{\href{https://web.archive.org/web/20050312153033/http://www.national-anarchist.org/articles/INTERVIEWHunt.html}{"An Interview with Richard Hunt"}. Web.archive. 12 March 2005. Archived from the original on March 12, 2005. Retrieved 14 May 2015.} 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.
\section{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,\footnote{\href{http://www.counterinfo.org.uk/ga.htm}{"Counter Information on Green Anarchist"}. www.counterinfo.org.uk. Retrieved 2016-12-27.} the Anarchist Communist Federation\footnote{\href{http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/ga/}{"Green Anarchist Documents"}. Stewart home society. Retrieved 14 May 2015.}\footnote{\href{http://www.counterinfo.org.uk/ga.htm}{"Counter Information on Green Anarchist"}. Counterinfo. 28 April 1999. Retrieved 14 May 2015.}\footnote{\href{http://autonomous.org.uk/ace/aceonga.htm}{autonomous.org.uk} \href{https://web.archive.org/web/20070927125737/http://autonomous.org.uk/ace/aceonga.htm}{Archived} September 27, 2007, at the Wayback Machine} and others. Steven Booth, the writer of the article, has since renounced the views expressed in it, as well as the primitivist movement altogether.
\section{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.
\section{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'.
\bigskip
\chapter{The Left Overs: How Fascists Court the Post-Left}
March 29, 2017
\emph{A few months ago, the radical publication,} \href{https://www.fifthestate.org/}{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.
\textbf{In Solidarity, ARR}
\section{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy\_of\_Max\_Stirner}{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\dots{} a poor great man\dots{}”
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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism}{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 \href{https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/renzo-novatore-toward-the-creative-nothing}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges\_Bataille}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice\_Blanchot}{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 \href{http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/18/arts/ernst-junger-contradictory-german-author-who-wrote-about-war-is-dead-at-102.html}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl\_Schmitt}{Carl Schmitt} and \href{http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/39848-beyond-the-acid-filled-jacuzzi-sinister-truths-about-bannon-s-fascism}{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 \href{http://koenraadelst.bharatvani.org/articles/fascism/savitri.html}{Savitri Devi}, a French esotericist of Greek descent who developed an anti-humanist practice of Nazi nature worship not unlike today’s \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep\_ecology}{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.
\section{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 “\href{http://kersplebedeb.com/posts/false-front-the-left-and-the-anti-imperialist-right/}{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 \href{https://libcom.org/library/socialisme-ou-barbarie-linden}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomism}{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, \href{http://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/alfredo-m-bonanno}{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 \href{https://godsandradicals.org/2016/12/07/with-enemies-at-the-gate-a-discussion-between-alexander-reid-ross-and-shane-burley-on-paganism-and-the-resistance-to-fascism/}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nouvelle\_Droite}{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, \href{https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jan-d-matthews-an-introduction-to-the-situationists}{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 \href{http://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/bob-black}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson\_affair}{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 \href{https://antifascistnews.net/2016/12/27/the-complete-anti-fascist-reading-list/}{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, \href{https://nycantifa.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/nata-unwanted-at-anarchist-bookfair-420-conference-or-seemingly-anywhere-else/}{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 “\href{https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-what-is-anarcho-primitivism}{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 “\href{https://hermetic.com/bey/taz\_cont}{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 “\href{https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-social-anarchism-or-lifestyle-anarchism-an-unbridgeable-chasm}{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).\footnote{Black writes, “Bakunin considered Marx, ‘the German scholar, in his threefold capacity as an Hegelian, a Jew, and a German,’ to be a ‘hopeless statist.’ A Hegelian, a Jew, a sort-of scholar, a Marxist, a hopeless (city-) statist — does this sound like anybody familiar?’ Full text available on The Anarchist Library at \href{https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-anarchy-after-leftism}{https:\Slash{}\Slash{}theanarchistlibrary.org\Slash{}library\Slash{}bob-black-anarchy-after-leftism}}
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 \href{http://anarchymag.org/}{Anarchy: Journal of Desire Armed} and \href{https://www.fifthestate.org/}{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.
\section{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 \href{https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2012/american-front-members-accused-violence-planning-\%2525E2\%252580\%252598race-war\%2525E2\%252580\%252599}{American Front}, a San Francisco skinhead group exploring connections between counterculture and the avant-garde. Like prior efforts to develop a \href{http://www.detoxorcist.com/satanism-and-the-far-right.html}{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, \href{http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2010/10/michael-moynihans-seige-mentality.html}{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, \href{https://www.miis.edu/media/view/18971/original/balenouvelleresarticle.pdf}{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\Slash{}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, \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green\_Anarchy}{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 \href{https://nycantifa.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/exile-is-a-fascist/}{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 \href{https://libcom.org/library/rebranding-fascism-national-anarchists-spencer-sunshine}{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 \href{https://libcom.org/library/insurrectionary-anarchy-revolutionary-organization}{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 \href{https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/california-racists-claim-they\%2525E2\%252580\%252599re-anarchists}{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 \href{https://www.facebook.com/SHARPCREW/}{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 \href{https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/stormfront}{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 \href{http://rosecityantifa.org/articles/the-wolves-of-vinland-a-fascist-countercultural-tribe-in-the-pacific-northwest/}{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 \href{https://godsandradicals.org/2016/03/24/fascism-against-time-nationalism-media-blindness-and-the-cult-of-augustus-sol-invictus/}{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 \href{https://antifascistnews.net/2016/10/11/confronting-fascist-entryism-bioregionalism-left-hand-path-and-the-brooklyn-commons/}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacifica\_Forum}{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 \href{http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/28/defining-the-alt-right-and-the-new-american-fascism/}{alt-right}. Donovan is considered a \href{http://wagingnonviolence.org/feature/alt-right-safe-space-racism-college-campuses/}{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 “\href{https://www.vice.com/en\_us/article/how-to-tell-if-your-alt-right-relative-is-trying-to-redpill-you-at-thanksgiving}{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 \href{http://www.cnn.com/2014/01/16/us/newtown-shooter-possible-radio-interview/}{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.
\section{Conclusion}
In light of these cross-overs, many \href{http://www.infoshop.org/AnarchistFAQSectionG}{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 \href{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoist\_anarchism}{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 \href{http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/38935}{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 \href{https://antifascistnews.net/2017/02/28/twin-cities-anti-fascists-smash-white-lives-matter-rally/}{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 \href{https://antifascistnews.net/2017/01/23/responding-to-the-fascist-creep-an-interview-with-alexander-reid-ross/}{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.
\hairline
\href{Alexander\%20Reid\%20Ross}{https:\Slash{}\Slash{}twitter.com\Slash{}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.
\bigskip
\part{Issue 1}
\textbf{Cover:} Picture of punk man and woman about to shake hands with hippy man and woman.
\textbf{Subtitle:} 'The Enemies of the People are those who know what people need'
\textbf{Date:} Jul-Aug 1984
\textbf{Price:} 30p
\textbf{Keywords:} Greenpeace; Poison Girls; Colin Ward.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/8696.pdf}{Read here}}
\hairline
\chapter{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.
\chapter{The News}
\section{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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."
\section{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.
\section{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.
\chapter{Essays}
\section{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)
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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?
\begin{enumerate}[1.]
\item\relax
End arms sales to Third World governments.
\item\relax
Cut American defence spending.
\item\relax
Stop all government aid.
\item\relax
Solve Western unemployment by Land Reform.
\item\relax
(To make small farms economic, cut (indirect) taxes on the pool* to reduce the cost of living.)
\item\relax
This was the leaflet that Green CND distributed at their action on June 8th. Thanks, Green CND for letting us print it.
\end{enumerate}
CROPS fOR EXPORT
large source of uranium that can be conditions which, heavily
\section{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\Slash{}o 53, Leverton St, London. NW5.
\section{Riff Raff Chit Chat by Dennis Gould.}
\section{Fields and Factories by Colin Ward.}
Article about Morris, Kropotkin, Howard etc.
\section{In the Sticks}
[article about the Convoy]
\section{In The Smoke by Dave of London Greenpeace.}
\textbf{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 \dots{}) and town communes (Spain 1936\dots{}) 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).
\section{Economics of Affluence, by Alan Albon.}
\chapter{Misc.}
\section{Book Review - Cured to Death}
\section{'A Great Gig' review of Poison Girls benefit gig by Marcus.}
\section{'The Honourable Potato'}
\section{'Cycle For Freedom'}
\section{Recipe by Marcus.}
\chapter{Actions}
Chilwell, Porton Down, CND fund raising, Harvest For The Hungry
\chapter{Events}
\dots{}
\chapter{Back Cover}
68a Cassiobury Park Avenue, Watford, Herts WD1 7LE.
\part{Issue 2}
\textbf{Cover:} 'Enough is Enough'
\textbf{Date:} Sep-Aug 1984
\textbf{Keywords:} Stop the City Plans; Martial Arts; Punk.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9162.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{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.
\begin{quote}
\begin{center}
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.
\end{center}
Shelley, 'The Mask of Anarchy'
\end{quote}
\section{Leeds Stop The City}
\textbf{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 \Slash{} 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!
\section{Glastonbury, Demo at Porton Down}
\section{27th September Stop the City meeting}
\subsection{Silver Moon gathering, Cumbria}
\subsection{Doctors, henchmen of Tyranny}
\subsection{Cooking isn't good for you}
\subsection{No dollars at Molesworth, Shelter housing conference at Nottingham University.}
\section{Downside Demo, Australia, news from New Zealand, East Germany weighs the odds, Trade War, Season of Summits.}
\section{Punk Rools OK by Graeme Hall.}
\textbf{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 \Slash{} authority over others. This also means that you reject all forms of racism \Slash{} sexism \Slash{} Nationalism \Slash{} exploitation etc \dots{}. 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 \Slash{} 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 \Slash{} taking control \Slash{} pushing wimmin into the background at any discussions etc \dots{} 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 \Slash{} sexism \Slash{} squatting etc\dots{}) It has reports on what punks are getting up to from countries all around the World. Available over here through Rough Trade.
Graeme Hall
\section{Where We Stand}
[Setting out of initial green anarchist position, elaboration of the editorial in issue 1]
Richard Hunt and Alan Albon
\section{We need 50 million leaders and none led}
\subsection{Act - Don't Wait}
\subsection{Take the Plunge}
\subsection{Poison Girls.}
\section{The Green Collective}
[Bruce Garrard watched and joined as the collective grew out of the gathering.]
\section{The Warriors Path of Energy by Mark Newns}
Anarchic Self Sufficency
\subsection{Winstanley and Kropotkin, by KS of Canterbury.}
\section{Did the Quakers become pacifists to save their skins? by Dave Brooks.}
\chapter{Letters}
***
Yours pissed off, by Lee
\subsection{Biased article on convoy complaint by J Pendragon}
\subsection{Lancaster House by Jay}
\subsection{Violence of Football by N Strutt}
\subsection{'Do It!' by Punk of Clydeside.}
\section{Oxford Actions, by Paul Mapes}
\subsection{Southend Anarchist Group.}
\section{Housing is Theft \Slash{} Housing is Freedom by Colin Ward.}
\section{The Roots of NVDA' by Peter Cadogan.}
Laws to torture, Gardens, Recipe.
\chapter{Back Page}
Events, action, report of Crickhowell green weekend.
\part{Issue 3}
\textbf{Cover:} A fist of defiance surrounded by police with clubs. 'Police versus Miners'
\textbf{Date:} Nov-Dec 1984
\textbf{Keywords:} Molesworth; Miners' Strike; Stop the City; Stop the Cities; Venice Anarchist Conference; Max Stirner; Squatting.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9163.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{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.
\chapter{Essays}
\section{Miners Versus Police by Tarquin.}
\textbf{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
\section{Molesworth occupied}
\textbf{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.
\section{London Stop The City}
\textbf{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 \dots{} 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\dots{}
************************************
What would be a SUCCESSFUL 'Stop The City'? Is it windows smashed in the thousands, Rolls Royces damaged etc \dots{}.? Write in what we should do tacticswise if there's another STC in London or elsewhere.
\chapter{News}
\section{41 charged with criminal damage at research centre}
Animal Liberation League protest at Colworth House, Unilever research centre, Bedfordshire, by Dr Rat.
\section{Birmingham STC}
\subsection{Winfrith Leukaemias by Sue Puttock.}
\section{Convoy arrested}
Police trash buses
\section{Uranium Hexafluoride}
\textbf{It's not nuclear waste. Is there a conspiracy to conceal the dangers?}
\chapter{Essays}
\section{A NEW ANARCHISM}
\textbf{The Venice Gathering was heartening, optimistic \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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
\subsection{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 \dots{}' 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.
\section{Berlin Squatting by Paul Ransom}
\section{Spanish Journey by Alan Albon}
\section{Back to South America}
\textbf{Liberation Theology worries Pope Paul}
\section{Running out of patience' by Heff}
\section{Person and the Planet by Paul Gravett}
\textbf{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
\section{What is Green?}
There are many in the green movement who think that revolution must be preceded by self-change. By Marcus.
\section{Squatting}
\textbf{Advisory Service For Squatters}
\section{Proudhon or Marx? By Adam Stout.}
\section{Stirner By Donald Rooum}
\textbf{Stirner is not an excuse for individualism. Co-operation is in everyone's self interest}
\section{Family of Love by Peter Cadogan}
Anarchism traces an unbroken line back to the 16th Century
\section{Beware the Hunger Project by Richard Hunt}
\chapter{Letters Page}
\section{Anarcho-Syndicalist objections by Keith Campbell, Bradford}
\subsection{Come the Revolution by Dave of Stratford on Avon}
\section{Talking to Themselves by Geoff of Thornaby}
\section{On Shamens by Dice George.}
\section{On 'poser punks' by Krusty Kris of Houghton Regis}
\section{White Male Head Trip by Jean Freer}
\section{Life Force by Mark Bradley, Belfast.}
\chapter{Misc.}
\section{Gardens re - compost heap}
\subsection{Recipe for Sunflower cafe sultana cake by Anne Waterhouse}
\subsection{Light blue touch paper by Dave.}
\chapter{Events: Upper Heyford trespass}
\chapter{Actions}
\section{Anarchist bus}
\section{Reports, Clydeside Anarchists}
\part{Issue 4}
\textbf{Date:} Jan-Feb 1985
Cover: by Dave. 'Where there is no vision the people perish.
This was probably the very best \emph{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\dots{} 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.
\textbf{Price:} 40p
\textbf{Notes: } From the collection of Chris Cook Cann.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/3929.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{Editorial: Individual and the State by Alan Albon.}
\chapter{News}
\section{Stop This Fence}
Molesworth numbers are growing to stop the missile base construction
\section{Xmas is turning point for miners}
\section{Alconbury blockade and break in to support the Alconbury 9}
\section{Drug books pulped in Reading}
\section{CND demos, a trend is developing}
\section{Stanstead}
\section{Gays the Word censorship case}
\section{Ethiopia, the famine is caused by government}
\section{Industrial pollution in the Adriatic}
\chapter{Essays}
\section{Class War by a member of the Class War newspaper collective}
\section{Class room revolutionaries}
Passing notes between desks takes on a new meaning.
\section{Educate Your Desire}
\textbf{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 \dots{} but that's how Cliff saw it at the time, for he has, he says \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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 \emph{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 \dots{} deliberate in most cases \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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\dots{}
Finally one must praise the production. Well laid out and beautifully printed \dots{} no doubt very much due to the process camera operator.
Philip Sansom
\section{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.}
\section{Page 12. Division of Labour by Kundip Dhoot.}
\section{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\dots{}..
In effect, this technologist was craving for status and power (over people and things) \dots{} 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\dots{}
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\dots{}) 'Quakers are really the Anarchists of the Christian religion, aren't they?' The immediate reply was 'Yes, that's right\dots{}' 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\dots{}. ?
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.
\begin{center}
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.
You should study technology and its effects from a Libertarian point of view, because who controls these, controls people and resources.
\end{center}
\subsection{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\dots{}) 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\dots{}?
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 \Slash{} 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.
\subsection{TECHNOLOGY FOR SUPPRESSION}
Gradually as violence, racism, nationalism, and dissent in general worsens, crowd control, surveillance, physical \Slash{} technical means of suppression (plastic bullets - water cannon\dots{}) 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 \Slash{} 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
\section{Page 15. Make the Third World Connection by Bryn Clark, Dan Coughlin, David Riker.}
\section{Page 16 'Meat Means Murder' by Andrea}
\section{Page 17. Letters}
Violence and Anarchy by Cathy Ashley, Birmingham STC demo criticism answer, Birmingham defendants
\subsection{On Stirner by S E Parker}
\subsection{On Stirner by Brian Morris}
\subsection{Donald Rooum author of the original piece replies.}
\section{Page 18. Uprooting War book reviewed by Alan Albon}
\subsection{E for additives by Marcus}
\subsection{'At Least Cruise is Clean;' Newbury Rotarian business guide re Greenham Common}
\subsection{Green Bikers' Group.}
\section{Page 20 Record reviews, film review, Gardens, Recipe by Caroline Bradbury.}
\part{Issue 5}
\textbf{Cover:} Molesworth: What Now?
\textbf{Date:} Mar-Apr 1985
\textbf{Keywords:} Molesworth; Anti Car.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9164.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\section{Editorial: Uniformity and the state}
\chapter{News}
\section{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.
\section{Ponting acquitted!}
\section{Stonehenge threatened}
\section{Crackdown on Alternatives}
\textbf{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\dots{}\dots{}
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.
***************************
\section{YTS OR STARVE}
\textbf{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.
\section{Hunt sabs}
\section{Hot Spot getting hotter}
\textbf{The South Pacific is heading towards turmoil.}
\section{European Guerillas}
\textbf{Bombing and shooting is on the increase.}
\chapter{Essays}
\section{Hope for Palestine by a supporter of Abu Jihad}
\section{Alternative Economy by Rupert Hughes}
\textbf{How we get from here to there}
\section{More Motorways by the Archway Group.}
\section{Car Free World by Martin Low}
\subsection{Harder work for all by Richard Hunt.}
\section{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.
\textbf{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?
\section{United We Win}
\textbf{Divided, we remain dreamers}
\section{Anarchist Festival by Jon Preston}
\section{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.
\subsection{Children and revolution by Simon Smith.}
\chapter{How We Get From Here to There}
\section{Anarchy is here and now}
\textbf{Don't wait for the revolution. We can be anarchists today\dots{}}
'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 \dots{}
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 \Slash{} quietist \Slash{} evolutionary \Slash{} 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.
\textbf{Wake up Mate, stop looking for Utopia. Anarchy is Here and Now!}
by David Stephens
\section{Cut the State's Lifeblood by David Brooks.}
\section{Revolution, reform by Brian Moseley}
\subsection{Stop Militarism by Dennis Gould.}
\chapter{Letters}
\section{Rainbow village signed Andy Fennel, Anne, Liz, Monica and Tony from Cloptpn near Kettering}
\section{On Pacifism, Jane of Emerald Gate, Greenham Common}
\section{Don't wait for the revolution, mark Kinzley, Ilford}
\section{Two questions by Senake Attygalle, Coventry}
\section{On Plastic Punks by Kris}
\chapter{Misc.}
\section{Potassium is good for you}
\section{Review: Tears in the Fence}
\section{Recipe: Roz's leek and onion flan, by Caroline Bradbury}
\section{Poem by Dennis Gould.}
\section{Cruise Watch}
\subsection{Snowball, Ride for cycle protest}
\subsection{May 30th Brighton 'Stop The City'.}
\part{Issue 6}
Cover: Take Back The Land.
\textbf{Date:} May-Jun 1985
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/3931.pdf}{Read here}}
\chapter{Editorial: Green Anarchism by Alan Albon.}
\chapter{UK News}
\section{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.
\section{Bunker Trashed}
\textbf{’a relic of outdated war games.’}
\section{The Budget}
\section{Non event at Molesworth?}
\textbf{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!
\chapter{World News}
\section{Aussie scene by Alan Albon}
\section{Grain fails to help Sudan Puppet.}
\section{We are their problem. It's not the drought, It's our arms, by David Brooks.}
\chapter{Essays}
\section{Take back the Land. The land is the source of all wealth\dots{} Mass Land Squat by Pete Brown.}
\section{Creative Action, by Tristan.}
\section{Letter to the state by Peanut}
\subsection{Every Six Seconds A Butcher is Bricked by Ian}
Direct Action is what has made animal lib successful
\section{Fable for the future by Ken.}
\section{Jackie Berkley accused the police of rape by Joanna}
\begin{center}
\textbf{Accused the police of rape \dots{}}
Out of the sadness flows the tears.
Out of the tears burn the anger.
Out of the anger rises the strength.
The strength which helps us
Reach for the moon.
\end{center}
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
\section{Anarchy, tax cuts and the poor by Tim Eiloart.}
\section{Lao Tzu by Brian Morris}
\textbf{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 \dots{} 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.
\begin{center}
Production without possession
Action without self-assertion
Development without domination
\end{center}
Brian Morris
\section{NHS Cold Turkey. Doctors ignore the addictive effects of tranquillisers, by Pat Britten.}
\chapter{Letters}
\section{Re Greenham Common and the psychiatrisation of dissent by Jim}
\subsection{Solidarity from America by Johnny Cook.}
\chapter{Misc.}
\section{Page 19. Record review Akimbo}
\subsection{Book review, Easy Vegan Cooking}
\subsection{New Mags: Black Beast, Here and Now, The Mole}
\subsection{Film review: A Private Function}
\subsection{Gardens: Allotments}
\subsection{Vegan Bread recipe by Caroline Bradbury}
\subsection{Migraine cure}
\subsection{Camden Peace Centre announcement.}
\chapter{Events}
\section{Festivals 1985, Green roadshow}
\section{Ad for poster. 'Fraudulent Cold War!'}
\part{Issue 7}
\textbf{Cover:} The collusion of state and industry.
\textbf{Date:} Jul-Aug 1985
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; Henley; radioactivity; nuclear power; industrialism; education; Diggers; Winstanley.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6329.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{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
\section{The State's Brute Violence}
Rerun of Issue 6 Essay.
\section{Class War 'bash the rich' march}
\subsection{Rabid dogs liberated}
\subsection{Eccleshill 13, Molesworth.}
\section{Page 5 Picnic. Menwith, Swindon, Mayor of Bedford 'shot'.}
\section{Page 6 Australia, Germany, Antarctic, billboard detournement}
\subsection{Even the animals know about Mutual Aid.}
\section{Page 7. Free theatre in India by Barlal Sircar}
\subsection{Military grip in Indonesia, by Jon Englart.}
\section{Page 8 Grasping life. Anarchy Now!}
\section{Page 9. Football clubbed by Dennis Gould}
\subsection{Way Behind, report of BASF sponsored symposium on food.}
\section{Page 10 Poison in Bhopal. Lifted \emph{Fifth Estate} article.}
\section{Page 11. Cover up on Union Carbide, by Tomas MacSheoin.}
\section{Page 12 Radiation Poison. The Nuclear Industry is Poisoning the World. Review of Rosalie Bertell book, by Norman Albon.}
\section{Page 13 Cover Up. The Government is suppressing the facts, by Norman Albon.}
\section{Page 14 Better School, (on A S Neil, Summerhill) by David Stephens.}
\section{Page 15 Or No Schools? Patrick Holdsworth.}
Are We Socialists? by Richard Hunt
\section{Page 16. Winstanley, by Brian Morris.}
\section{Page 17. Letters Cutting Taxes by Chris from Streatham}
\subsection{Actions in Basingstoke by Carlton}
\subsection{Gradualism and a broad range of opinion by Graham of Southend}
\subsection{Help with fines, bust fund}
\subsection{BLBF of Chesterfield.}
\section{Page 18. Info for gigs}
\subsection{Reviews}
Venezia by David Koven
\subsection{Blythe Power}
\subsection{Conflict}
\subsection{Flux, Danbert Nobacon}
\subsection{Autumn Poison Reviewed by Marcus}
\subsection{'When we Build Again' by Colin Ward, reviewed by Tristan}
\subsection{Vegan Custard recipe by Caroline Bradbury}
\subsection{Cheltenham group formed.}
\section{Page 20 Henley Regatta}
\subsection{'Revenge the Henge, Bash The Rich' demo.}
\textbf{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.
\part{Issue 8}
\textbf{Cover:} Black flag of anarchism. Simple, stark illustration.
\textbf{Date:} Sep-Oct 1985
\textbf{Keywords:} Repression; Italian Punk; Handsworth.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6330.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{Editorial: :: The indivisible war.}
\section{Page 3. Handsworth burns}
\subsection{Euro green gathering}
\subsection{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.
\section{Page 4 South Africa in Revolt}
\subsection{US bank leaves South America}
\subsection{Oil War}
\subsection{Norwegian secrets trial.}
\section{Page 5 Government Terrorism}
\subsection{French agents sink 'Rainbow Warrior'}
\subsection{Tahitian jailed}
\subsection{Nuclear Free South Pacific, Farm War}
\subsection{Canadian spent fuel to US}
\subsection{Berlin fun parade, Copenhagen anti police state camp, news.}
\textbf{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.
\section{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.}
\textbf{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.
\dots{} 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 \Slash{} 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 \Slash{} 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.
\dots{}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.
\dots{}.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\dots{}.
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 \dots{} 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
\section{Page 7. The Class Struggle}
\textbf{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\dots{}
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
\section{Page 8. Fuck art, let's dance.}
\section{Page 9 Italian punk, by Giacomo Oliva.}
pages 10 - 11 Triangle of Corruption poster.
\section{Page 12. Death in the Countryside, by Arabella Melville and Colin Johnson.}
\section{Page 12. American plans for domination.}
\section{Page 14 Anarcho-Syndicalism.}
\section{Page 15. Godwin. One of the first writers to offer a consistent outline of anarchist thought, by Brian Morris.}
\textbf{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
\section{Page 16. Book reviews}
\subsection{The art of aromatherapy, Robert Tisserand, C W Daniel}
\subsection{Hay Fever, Colin Johnson and Dr Arabella Melville}
\subsection{The Slow Burning Fuse by John Quail}
\textbf{The lost history of British Anarchists, by John Quail. Paladin \Slash{} 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 \Slash{} 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 \dots{}
'If you want to know what the Conservative Party has done for the working man look -''
'\dots{}inside the workhouse!'
'British working men are being thrown out of jobs by foreign dumping. If we tax those imports the workers will -'
'\dots{}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 \dots{}
'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 \dots{} 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.
\subsection{The allergy of diet Records: Hagar the Womb, The Mekons, Ring}
\bigskip
\subsection{New mags: Clydesider, All Systems Go! Tribal Messenger}
\bigskip
\subsection{Recipe: Vegan pizza by Caroline Bradbury.}
\bigskip
\section{Page 18. Letters}
\bigskip
\subsection{Leave them alone! against patronising attitudes towards the Third World by Alistair Danter, Swaziland}
\bigskip
\subsection{Letter against violence and Class War by Malc of Derby GA's}
\bigskip
\subsection{Support Gus by Clydeside Anarchists}
\bigskip
\subsection{On Eskimoes eating meat by Sekemarma of Sheffield}
\bigskip
\subsection{Against Speciesism by Ms Paddy Broughton of North Harrow}
\bigskip
\subsection{US Soya beans by Jennifer Wallace, Totnes}
\bigskip
\subsection{Letter against Jailing peace protesters, Kris Dunstable.}
\bigskip
\section{Page 19 Coming up festivals and demos}
\bigskip
\subsection{SCAR - Student Campaign for Animal Rights.}
\bigskip
\section{Page 20 Molesworth}
\bigskip
\subsection{'Justice is not interested in a little thing like evidence' No water cannons}
\bigskip
\subsection{Hiroshima Day, Snowball trial, Sizewell}
\bigskip
\subsection{CALL raid, Liverpool LDAG}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 9. November, December 1985, January 1986.}
\textbf{Cover:} 'A' in a circle.
\textbf{Date:} Nov 1985-Jan 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; heroin; drugs; cannabis; Proudhon.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6331.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{Editorial: 'Individualism or mutualism?' editorial by Alan Albon.}
\chapter{News}
\section{Stonhenge, public order bill}
\subsection{Forced confessions}
\subsection{Deer cull}
\subsection{Tree deaths, green gathering.}
\section{Page 4 Indian women replant trees}
\subsection{Geneva}
\subsection{Nicaragua on the turn}
\subsection{Bhopal}
\subsection{Nimbin Hippie Town.}
\section{Page 5 Athens anarchist demo}
\subsection{US needs raw materials}
\subsection{Paris}
\subsection{Tanzania, Aborigine Women.}
\section{Page 6 Police harassment of the anti apartheid rally in London, by Ann Archy of Colchester.}
\section{Page 7 Don't Let Greenham Die by Jill Robson.}
\section{Page 8 How the Stonehenge Free Festival Grew, by Mike Stand}
\subsection{Smack and dope, article against heroin by Dice George.}
\section{Page 10 - 11. 'The Biggest Bastard in the Universe' poster by Richard Hunt.}
\section{Page 12 Proudhon by Brian Morris.}
\section{Page 13 Rip Off by Richard Hunt.}
\section{Page 14 Grain and Energy by Krozz}
\subsection{Travellers by Mr O' Smith.}
\section{Page 15. Music}
\subsection{The Pogues. songs of Praise, the Poison Girls}
\subsection{So Long Trouble, Akimbo}
\subsection{Do Not Go, Jane Gregory}
\subsection{Act of Love, Eve Libertine}
\subsection{Defenders of the Lie, Slave Dance}
\subsection{Conflict 'The Battle Continues', Chumbawumba 'Revolution', Blythe Power Chevy Chase}
\subsection{Reviews by Nik and Marcus.}
\section{Page 16 Book reviews}
\subsection{Vegan Cookery by Eva Batt}
\subsection{Stonehenge by John Mitchell, Riff Raff Poets}
\subsection{The Brotherhood book on Freemasonry by Stephen Knight}
\subsection{The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Bookchin reviewed by Alan Albon}
\begin{center}
\href{https://web.archive.org/web/20030509144944/http:/www.greenanarchist.org.uk/Bookc.htm}{\textbf{The Ecology of Freedom review}}
\end{center}
\subsection{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 \dots{} 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
\chapter{Letters}
\section{On Class Struggle by A Revolutionary Anarchist}
\section{TVAM, Manchester}
\section{D Dane, London}
\section{On the Third World by Dave of Stratford on Avon.}
\section{Letters praising \emph{GA} by Laura Biding of Nottingham}
\section{Mark Clifton of Rugeley}
\chapter{Misc.}
\section{On Greenham, Liz of Crickhowell, Powys Coming up events.}
\chapter{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
\part{Issue 10}
\textbf{Cover:} Young Latin American man with gun in waist belt.
\textbf{Date:} Feb-Mar 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} violence; Travellers; Spain 1918; South Africa; Thoreau.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6332.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{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
\chapter{News}
\section{Anti Police demo, Stoke Newington}
\subsection{Police versus Army}
\subsection{Stonehenge by Richie Cotterill.}
\section{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
\section{Sellafield union warfare? Class War split.}
\section{Marcos clings on}
\subsection{Uganda, Haiti, Multi fibre agreement, Spain and NATI}
\subsection{Anarchism in France.}
\section{Page 6 Germany}
\subsection{Vanishing greens by Gernot Lennert}
\subsection{South Africa's revolt is growing.}
\section{Page 7. On violence}
\subsection{Why are you reading this? by Richard Benson?}
\section{Page 8. Spreading the Word in Andalucia in 1918. J Diaz del l Moral.}
\section{Page 9 Anarcho-Syndicalism}
\subsection{Direct Action movement by George. Should we join?}
\section{Page 10. New Age gypsies}
\section{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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 \Slash{} 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.
\subsection{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 \Slash{} 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.
\section{Page 12. Addicted to Authority by Tristan}
\subsection{How to create a world without government where everybody eats?}
\section{Page 13. Rip Off}
\textbf{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 \Slash{} 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.
\section{Page 14. Thoreau by Brian Morris.}
\section{Page 15 Reviews}
Music
Political Asylum live
\subsection{The Price of Grain and the Price of Blood poison Girls}
\subsection{Shine On compilation}
\subsection{Smash the Spectacle by the Apostles}
\subsection{Our Voice is Tomorow's Hope Liberty}
\subsection{Tough, Big Flame EP}
\section{Page 18. Letters}
Criticism of article against drugs by 'Scunge the Acid god'
\subsection{Stonehenge by Pablo}
\subsection{Against the Biggest Bastard poster from Stephen of Peace Corner Molesworth}
\subsection{Against the Biggest Bastard poster by Robert Saunders of Hadley near Telford}
\subsection{Against the Biggest Bastard poster by O M Shanti of Sevenoaks.}
\section{Page 19. Against the Biggest Bastard poster by 'Jesmond pp God' Coming up, March May}
\subsection{Green network meeting Glastonbury.}
\section{Page 20 News}
Leeds ALF, Huddersfield, Leamington
\subsection{Animal Rights Militia Croydon and Sheffield}
\subsection{Riots in Southport and Bristol.}
\part{Issue 11}
\textbf{Date:} Apr-May 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} Housing; Sellafield; Nuclear Power.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9165.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 12}
\textbf{Date:} Jun-Jul 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} Class Struggle; Non Violence; Non-Violence; Nationalism; Public Order Bill.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9166.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 13}
\textbf{Date:} Aug-Sep 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; Kropotkin; medical research; Glastonbury.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6333.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 14}
\textbf{Date:} Oct-Nov 1986
\textbf{Keywords:} rape; peace camp; medical research; Malatesta.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6334.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 15}
\textbf{Date:} Late Winter 1987
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; Battle of the Bean Field; Public Order Act; Meat; Garments; Clothing.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9167.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 16}
\textbf{Date:} Apr 1987
\textbf{Keywords:} Paganism; Pirate Radio; Stonehenge.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9948.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 17}
\textbf{Date:} Oct 1987
\bigskip
\part{Issue 18}
\textbf{Date:} Apr 1988
\textbf{Keywords:} Industry; Spy; Spies; Bakunin; Anti-Paganism; Homoepathy.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9168.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 19}
\textbf{Date:} May 1988
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; Housing Bill; Festivals; Emma Goldman; Co-Ops; Co-Operatives.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9169.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 20}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1988
\textbf{Keywords:} core\Slash{}periphery; Paganism; Native Americans.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6336.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 21}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1989
\bigskip
\part{Issue 22}
\textbf{Date:} Apr 1989
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; McDonalds; Green Consumerism; poster.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6337.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 23}
\textbf{Date:} May 1989
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; Eastern Europe; motorbikes.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6338.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 24}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1989
\textbf{Keywords:} Stonehenge; festivals; Chumba Wumba; Poll Tax; riots; sexuality; celibacy; Animal Liberation.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6339.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 25}
\textbf{Date:} Sep 1990
\textbf{Keywords:} Development; Developers; Stonehenge; Iraq; Gulf War; Poll Tax; Animal Liberation; marriage.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6340.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 26}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1991
\textbf{Keywords:} science; direct action; guns; Stonehenge; Iraqu; Gulf War.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6341.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 27}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1991
\textbf{Keywords:} Green Party; Bookchin; Animal Liberation; Stonehenge; festivals.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6342.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 28}
\textbf{Date:} Sep 1991
\textbf{Keywords:} festivals; Green Party; Animal Liberation; Iraq; Gulf War; nuclear weapons; Chomsky; pollution.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6343.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 29}
\textbf{Date:} Dec 1991
\textbf{Keywords:} eco-fascism; Animal Liberation; riots; squatting.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6344.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 30}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1992
\textbf{Keywords:} squatting; anti-fascism; Earth First; Animal Liberation; cities; festivals.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6345.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 31}
\textbf{Date:} Sep 1992
\bigskip
\part{Issue 32}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1993
\textbf{Keywords:} Anti-Fascism; Animal Liberation; Anti-Nuclear; Twyford; festivals.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6347.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 33}
\textbf{Date:} Dec 1993
\textbf{Keywords:} Searchlight.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6346.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 34}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1994
\textbf{Keywords:} Zapatista.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6348.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 35}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1994
\textbf{Keywords:} Criminal Justice Bill.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9170.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 36}
\textbf{Date:} Dec 1994
\textbf{Keywords:} Media; Animal Liberation.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6349.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 37}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1995
\textbf{Keywords:} Surveillance; Criminal Justice Act; Pornography; Pollution.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9171.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\chapter{News}
\section{Claremont Clearances}
\section{Earth Night}
\section{A30 Extension}
\section{Pollok Estate}
\section{Quarrying in the Pyranees}
\section{Trash in the Mac}
\section{Resisting The Criminal Injustice Act}
\section{Genetix Demo}
\section{Body Shop Stinks}
\section{Veal War}
\section{S.G. Robbed}
\section{Terrorist Attack}
\section{Activist Killed}
\section{Prawa Zwierzat}
\section{Keith Mann}
\section{Robin Webb}
\section{Diary of Community Resistance}
\section{Diary of Animal Liberation}
\section{Prisoners of War}
\section{Prisoners Update}
\section{Pornography}
\chapter{Events Coming Up}
\chapter{The Guilty Men}
\textbf{Directory of Scum}
\chapter{Down with Big Brother!}
\section{Down with Big Brother!}
\section{Combat 18: Creation of a Pseudo-Gang}
\section{Asset Exposed}
\section{Their Worst Nightmares Realised}
\section{Living Under Surveillance}
\chapter{Articles}
\section{We Have To Dismantle All This}
\section{The Pollution File}
\section{Non-Monogamy}
\section{Local Exchange}
\chapter{Letters}
\section{Science: Reply to a reply}
\section{Reply to Marky Mark}
\section{Pretentious}
\chapter{Counter-Culture}
\section{Books}
\section{Pamphlets}
\section{New Zines}
\section{Music}
\section{Projects}
\section{Survival}
\chapter{G.A.: The Zine}
\section{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 \dots{} 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. \dots{}
\section{The Next Issue}
THE PRIMITIVIST ISSUE: Anti-nuclear campaigns, those against industrial farming \dots{}
\section{The Small Print}
\subsection{Articles}
If you’ve got any opinions you want to share, send ‘em in to GA via Oxford Green Anarchists, \dots{}
\chapter{G.A.: The Network}
\section{This is Green Anarchism}
\section{G.A. Contacts List}
\chapter{G.A. Mail Order}
\section{Books}
\section{Pamphlets}
\dots{}.
\part{Issue 38}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1995
\textbf{Keywords:} Primitivism; Primitivist; Mumia Abu-Jamal; AIDS.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9172.pdf}{Read here}}
\hairline
38
\section{Comin’ Home: Defining Anarcho-primitivism}
At the opening of \emph{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 \emph{Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives}, a survey of twentieth century Western appropriations of the primitive, Marianna Torgovnick writes:
\begin{quote}
“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 \dots{} Whatever form the primitive’s hominess takes, its strangeness salves our estrangement from ourselves and our culture” (p.185).
\end{quote}
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: \emph{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:
\begin{quote}
“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) \dots{} 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)
\end{quote}
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 \emph{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 \emph{Fifth Estate} project outlined their ideological trajectory:
\begin{quote}
“The evolution of the \emph{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 \dots{}”
\end{quote}
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 \emph{Fifth Estate} circle indicate:
\begin{quote}
“We are not anarchists per se, but pro-anarchy, which is for us a living, integral experience, incommensurate with Power and resisting all ideology \dots{} Our work on the \emph{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.”
\end{quote}
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 \emph{Fifth Estate} indicated in 1979:
\begin{quote}
“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 \dots{} 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.”
\end{quote}
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.
\subsection{References}
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
Anon. “Renew the Earthly Paradise.” \emph{Fifth Estate} \#322 (Winter\Slash{}Spring 1986).
\item\relax
Anon. “Searching for the culprit: Introduction to Marshall Sahlin’s The Original Affluent Society.” \emph{Fifth Estate} \#298 (June 1979).
\item\relax
Le Guin, Ursula. \emph{Always Coming Home} (London, 1986).
\item\relax
Perlman, Fredy. \emph{Against His-Story, Against Leviathan!: An Essay}. (Detroit, 1983).
\item\relax
Sakolsky, Ron, \& James Koehnline. \emph{Gone to Croatan: Origins of North American Dropout Culture} (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1993).
\item\relax
Torgovnick, M. \emph{Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives}. (Chicago, 1990).
\end{itemize}
\section{Primitivism: Back to Basics?}
\subsection{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 \emph{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 \Slash{} 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\footnote{“The original affluent society” of Marshall Sahlins’ \emph{Stone Age Economics}, where people only had to work a leisurely couple of hours a day to get together the basics of life — a lived just as long as people do in industrialized societies.}. We’ve seen why this latter-day “communism” won’t work already and note that Marxists reject the version that did work as 19\textsuperscript{th} Century racist anthropologist and “Progress” proponent Henry Lewis Morgan argued Civilised men (sic) more “advanced” than pre-industrialised people\footnote{Fredy Perlman’s \emph{Against His-Story, Against Leviathan} (Black \& Red, Detroit, 1983), pp.13–15.}.
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\textsuperscript{th} century Big Rock Candy Mountain — where the abundance of arcadia lifted the yoke of work and duty from their shoulders\footnote{Power-crazed scum saw Imperial Rome as their model of the ideal society. Such Classicism culminated in fascism.}. 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\footnote{Eli Sagan’s \emph{At the Dawn of Tyranny} (Vintage, 1985), must reading for pop tribalists who ignorantly assume all things tribal are good, not that most get beyond facepaint and fashion\dots{}}. 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\footnote{All from Murray Bookchin’s \emph{Ecology of Freedom} (Cheshire, 1982), chap. 2. A reformist, he offers “new ethics” instead of following through the logical, primitivist conclusion of this chapter.}. 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\footnote{People dismissing John Zerzan’s critique of symbolisation in \emph{Elements of Refusal} (Left Bank, 1988), Part 1, as weird should appreciate such thinking is more familiar to primal people.}. Individual\Slash{}society, society\Slash{}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\Slash{}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.
\bigskip
\part{Issue 39}
\textbf{Date:} Sep 1995
\textbf{Keywords:} Zero-Work; Earth First!; Pornography.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9173.pdf}{Read here}}
\hairline
\section{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.
\section{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\Slash{}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\textsuperscript{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\dots{} 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.
\bigskip
\part{Issue 40-41}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1996
\textbf{Keywords:} cities; unabomber; Newbury; Earth First.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/6350.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\chapter{Front Matter}
\section{Double Issue First Cover}
Green Anarchism
Mo. 40\Slash{}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.
\section{Double Issue Second Cover}
\textbf{Green}
\forcelinebreak \textbf{Anarchist}
\textbf{40\Slash{}41 SPRNG '96 £1}
\forcelinebreak \textbf{FREE TO PRISONERS}
\textbf{For the destruction of Civilisation}
THE ANTI-CITIES ISSUE. UNABOMBER. MOVE NEWBURY LEEDS LATEST. EARTH FIRST! IS STILL DEAD.
\chapter{News}
\section{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. \textasciitilde{}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 \Slash{} 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.
\textbf{WHAT TO DO:}
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
Contact Third Battle of Newbury, PO Box 5520, Newbury, Berkshire RG14 7YW (8 01635 45544) and form your local group
\item\relax
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.
\item\relax
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!
\item\relax
If bailed off or not physically fit. fundraise and recruit others in your area from street stalls \&c.
\end{itemize}
\section{GAIA JOINS ELF}
\emph{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!
\section{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\Slash{}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.
\subsection{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.
\emph{Contact} the Flat Oak Society \emph{9} 01227 463368
\section{ECODEFENCE DIARY}
Send your cuttings to Ecodefence, BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX.
\subsection{JUNE}
NEW ZEALAND: DUNEDIN - Ecoteur smashes McDonalds window, \$1,300 damage.
\subsection{AUGUST}
DEVON — South West Greens picket supermarkwets in both Exeter and \emph{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.
\subsection{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 \emph{Heseltine's garden.}
\emph{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.
\subsection{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 \emph{of} Consevation helicopter at gunpoint and forces flight to the mountains to protest DoC programme \emph{of} dropping 1080 possumpoisoning pellets.
LONDON — Security forces on red alert over threat \emph{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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 \emph{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
\section{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. '
\emph{Contact} 14 Eton Avenue, Oldham OL8 4HR(8 0161 627 4862)
\textbf{CAR CULT}
STAMP OUT MAD
RING ROAD DISEASE
The government has OKed the next £ J 7.9m section of Avon \emph{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.
\emph{Contact} SCRAPPIT (XC) c\Slash{}o 84 Colston Street, Bristol BS1 45BB.
\section{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.
\section{CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE ARMS TRADE}
On 11 th November 1995, the 4th anniversary \emph{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.
\section{HELP GREENLINE}
After asking readers to write letters of complaint to Ascot for hosting the MoD’s COMEX torture equipment fair, \emph{Greenline} are being sued.
DONATIONS TO: Greenline, PO Box
followed , tjiis Janytoy, \textsubscript{(}three .women 5, Lostvyithiel, (\textsubscript{;}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.
\section{NEW ROAD WARS FOR SCOTLAND}
Even though Pollok's over, opposition is still continuing over the M77 from Glasgow to Ayre — \emph{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.
\section{DIARY OF COMMUNITY RESISTANCE}
\subsection{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 \emph{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\Slash{}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\Slash{}o BCM 1715, London WC1N 3XX
\bigskip
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
\bigskip
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.
\subsection{OCTOBER}
2: BRIGHTON - anti-JSA kick off at job centres, trainings school and Labour conference hotel. 31 arrests. Sanitized live Labour conference \emph{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\Slash{}LONDRES - DJ makes spoof phone call to Liz Windsor in pisstake run-up to Quebec seperatist referendum. “One is not amused\dots{}” ' . \dots{}
28: LIVERPOOL - TUC rally in \textsuperscript{24:} FRANCE - Public sector strike with support of dockers. Meanwhile stacked \textsuperscript{,ndrc}\^{}\textsuperscript{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
\subsection{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\dots{}
\subsection{DECEMBER}
1: TOWN HALLS — public sector workers demand £4.15\Slash{}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 \emph{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.
\emph{19:} FRANCE -- more mass action protests.
\emph{20:} BELGIUM - Rail and airline strikes. -
\emph{21:} MIDDLESBOROUGH - Capitalist front man and Rotary Club santa Clause attacked with bricks and bottles.
\emph{22:} SHEFFIELD - Three week long library cuts protest occupation by pensioners eviction notice served by court.
\emph{23:} BLACKPOOL - Cop rapist jailed for a year.
\emph{24:} \emph{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.
\subsection{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
\subsection{KEN SARO-WIWA KILLED}
On 10th November, Ken Saro-Wiwa and
I eight fellow Ogoni environmental \emph{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\Slash{}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\dots{}
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 \Slash{} 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 \emph{Open Eye} ordering them to stones. apologise for blowing the whistle on
29: NEVADA — Two charged after turquoise eco-fascist David Icke
\section{RETURN TO THE 1970’S?}
\emph{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 \emph{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
\dots{} (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 \textsubscript{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
\section{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!
\section{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 \emph{GA.}
If you'd like a prisoners list, send 50p + SAE to Earth Liberation Prisoners, Box 23, 5 High Street, Glastonbury, Somerset.
\section{PRISONER UPDATES}
EARTH LIBERATION:
Bosco Boscovich (Australia)
\forcelinebreak Helen Woodson (USA)
\forcelinebreak Jim Chambers (UK)
\forcelinebreak Maija Catts (Australia)
\forcelinebreak Milton Bom With A Tooth (Canada)
\forcelinebreak Paul S (Holland)
\forcelinebreak Stuart Edwards (UK)
MOVE:
\noindent Charles Simms Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Debbie Simms Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Delbert Orr Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Edward Goodman Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Janet Holloway Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Janine Phillips Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Merle Austin Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Michael Davis Africa (USA)
\forcelinebreak Mumia Abu Jamal (USA)
\forcelinebreak William Phillips Africa (USA)
LAND RIGHTS
David Penu (Canada)
\forcelinebreak James Pitawakwat (Canada)
\forcelinebreak Joseph Ignace (Canada)
\forcelinebreak Leonard Peltier (USA)
\forcelinebreak Randy Sam (Canada)
\forcelinebreak William Ignace (Canada)
ANIMAL LIBERATION:
Angie Hamp (UK)
\forcelinebreak Barb Trenholm (UK)
\forcelinebreak Charles Skinner (UK)
\forcelinebreak Darren Cole (UK)
\forcelinebreak Dave Callender (UK)
\forcelinebreak Dominic Peaty (UK)
\forcelinebreak Gaynor Ford (UK)
\forcelinebreak Geoff Sheppard (UK)
\forcelinebreak Gilly Peachy (UK)
\forcelinebreak Greg Avery (UK)
\forcelinebreak Gurj Ailja (UK)
\forcelinebreak Keith Mann (UK)
\forcelinebreak Erin Sieber (USA)
\forcelinebreak Michele Naar-Obed (USA)
\forcelinebreak Mordechai Vananu (Israel)
\forcelinebreak Rick Sieber (USA)
\forcelinebreak Steve Kelly (USA)
\forcelinebreak Susan Crane (USA)
ANTI-FASCIST:
Abidin Eraslan (Germany)
\forcelinebreak Charles Ryder (UK)
\forcelinebreak Fatama Balamir (Germany)
\forcelinebreak John McFeely (UK)
\forcelinebreak Karl Anacoura (UK)
\forcelinebreak Mark Gay (UK)
\forcelinebreak Memhet Ramme (Germany)
\forcelinebreak Paul Gay (UK)
\forcelinebreak Russell Wild (UK)
\forcelinebreak Sanjiv Karla (UK)
\forcelinebreak Satpal Ram (UK)
\forcelinebreak Steven Kelly (UK)
ANTI-SEXUAL ABUSE:
Carl Robinson (UK)
\forcelinebreak Gay Oakes (New Zealand)
\forcelinebreak Garfield Gabbard (UK)
ANTI-CJA RIOT:
Mark Skelly (UK)
\forcelinebreak Trefor Harris (UK)
\forcelinebreak Kirsi Kultalahti (Finland)
\forcelinebreak Neil Hansen (UK)
\forcelinebreak Mia Salli (Finland)
\forcelinebreak Michael Green (UK)
\forcelinebreak Mike Roberts (UK)
\forcelinebreak Minna Salonen (Finland)
\forcelinebreak Mel Arnold (UK)
\forcelinebreak Rod Coronado (USA)
ANTI-MILITARY:
Amy Moose (USA)
\forcelinebreak Carl Kabat (USA)
\section{Prisoner Updates}
\subsection{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.
\subsection{August}
Nigerian environmentalist \Slash{} 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”.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{NOVEMBER}
Environmental\Slash{}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 \emph{I} conservationist nicked for anti-DoC possum poisoning hijack.
\subsection{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.
\bigskip
\section{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]
\section{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
\section{Diary of Animal Liberation}
\subsection{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;
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" \textbar{}
SPAIN: TENERIFE - Bom Free Foundation rescue two lions from pub
Greenayvay MP calls for JD to be outlayved under the Prevention of Teirorism Act. * " \textsuperscript{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 \textbar{} (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
\bigskip
windows, slashing tyres, sloganising and destroying central cooling system at Central Meats \& Packing.
\subsection{FEBRUARY}
NORTHAMPTON — Arson attempt at Padbury’s haulage. Great Billig. Padbury involved in live exports.
MORI — \textsuperscript{7}0\% 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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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 \dots{}
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
\subsection{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 been contaminated with 20 mis of Surgical Spirit .Hundreds qf, simile cartoiys.qf glBF\^{}l\^{},
\bigskip
\section{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” \emph{[Guardian,} 26\Slash{}9\Slash{}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).
\section{JOYRIDERS}
\textbf{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.
\emph{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 \emph{COUNTY,}
\emph{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: \emph{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\Slash{}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 necessary\textsuperscript{1}
\section{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: \emph{Recorder,} 24\Slash{}5\Slash{}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 all\textsuperscript{1} ' - \textsuperscript{1}
FINLAND: THE EAST \textasciitilde{} \$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
\subsection{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;
\section{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: \emph{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\Slash{}11\Slash{}95), 16 Oikeutta Elaimille activists chain themselves to Finland’s biggest depart
ment store, Stockmann
FINLAND: KUOPIO
For Earth
\emph{sup}port of the three women accused \emph{of} animal corpse sculpture, \emph{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 \emph{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, \emph{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]
\section{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]
\section{FINNISHED}
I he ALF SG in Finland has closed down due to police raids, mail monitoring \&c.
[Source: Finland ALF SG]
\section{Page 9 - NEWS}
\section{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 \emph{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
\subsection{GENETIC ENGINEERING? JUST SAY NO!}
\subsection{A}
ADDENBROOKES - Addenbrookes Hospital, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 2QQ.
\subsection{B}
BRITISH BIOTECH OXFORD -- British Biotechnology Ltd., Ihamers Court, Wallington Road, Cowley, Oxford \emph{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\dots{}
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 \emph{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 \dots{} -
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.
\subsection{C}
CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY
Cambridge Antibody Technology (CA I) Ltd., The Science Park, Melbourne,. Cambridge-shire SG8 6EJ — monoclonal antibodies. * ‘ *o Ltjoi \textsuperscript{r}»
CELLMARK ABINGDON
EDINBURGH — \emph{Edinburgh University,} working on human ovaries -- \emph{Artificial intelligence Unit,} working on genetic’ programmes and computer simulations -- \emph{Edinburgh Hospital,} doing cystuic fibrosis trials.
\subsection{G}
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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 \emph{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.
\subsection{K}
KINGS - Cell Biophysics Unit. Kings College London, 26-29 Druiy Lane, London WC2.
\subsection{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 \emph{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{O}
OXFORD - Oxford University - various projects including computer simulations and the Oxford Cente for Molecular Sciences. Also home of IVEM.
\subsection{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
\bigskip
\section{Page 10}
\bigskip
Down, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP4 OJG -- MoD centre for genetic warfare?
PPL — Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland EH25 9PP \emph{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{S}
\begin{center}
MRC EDINBURGH
\end{center}
WEST
LAKES INST
\begin{center}
IMUTRAN
\end{center}
TEPNEL KNUTSFORD
\begin{flushright}
BOURN HALL
\end{flushright}
BIRMINGHAM POLICE DATABASE
UCL LONDON
\begin{flushright}
READING
\end{flushright}
PORTON DOWN
\begin{flushright}
MRC HARROW
\end{flushright}
\begin{center}
NORTHWICK PARK
\end{center}
\begin{flushright}
CELLTECH SLOUGH
\end{flushright}
CELLMARK ABINGDON
\begin{flushright}
VANGUARD GUILDFORD
\end{flushright}
MRC CAMBRIDGE ADDENBROOKES ! HINXTONHALL
\begin{center}
s \emph{■ I} PEPTIDE \emph{? I '} PPL
\end{center}
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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\bigskip
St \emph{GEORGE'S} — St \emph{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.
\subsection{Z}
ZENECA - Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, Mereside, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire SKI0 4TG.
\bigskip
\chapter{PRIMITIVISM: AGAINST CIVILISATION}
\section{AGAINST CIVILISATION}
\textbf{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{relative poverty of} the cities is dwarfed by the \emph{absolute} poverty beyond .them. \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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’« \emph{‘heroic *}
\emph{»* I LI} OLLt\# \$ -L > - - L >
\textbf{. \dots{} 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 \emph{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] \dots{} 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 \emph{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 \emph{highly} efficient in terms of yield\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \Slash{} 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.
\bigskip
\section{THE CITY DWELLERS; The price of privilege: urban life as alienation}
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{civ it as,} root of ‘city’ and ‘civilisal-ion’. The restraints he talks of aren’t legal \emph{I} institutional - he idolises the Greek \emph{polis,} archaic model
of ‘Western democracy’ — but \emph{communal.}
He claims Medieval serfs fleeing their feudal obligations said “city air makes free” but they \emph{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 \emph{homo economicus.} They died like flies not because the city fathers didn’t know about sanitation - Latin for lead is \emph{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 \emph{I} consumer crap like Peter Yorke’s \emph{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.
\bigskip
\section{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 \emph{City-Death} author Steve Booth. Green Anarchism will replace it because the city just can't \emph{deliver\dots{}}
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{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
\emph{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
\bigskip
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\dots{}
THE DREAM OF THE CITY
Why would anybody \emph{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
\bigskip
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 \emph{of} the industrialisation coin is colonialism. The value of people and physical work reduces almost to zero, people become commodities, while the value \emph{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 \emph{of} its individuals - the Citizenbs. We have gone beyond this \emph{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\dots{}
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 \dots{}.
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 \emph{Heaven, Hell and Suburbia\textsuperscript{2}} by Jonathan Glancey, the architecture critic of the \emph{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.
\emph{ji'j} Fbiumab urfj 01 afltfwfe as\Slash{}\Slash{}
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 \emph{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
\section{Page 13}
is that ever since 1870 we have been in \emph{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\dots{} 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 \Slash{} 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
\textbf{The city is a parasite, all take, giving nothing. Decaying, contracting, free-}
\textbf{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
\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{all} people in the world have the right to \emph{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. \emph{All} people have a right to \emph{free\dots{}} 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 \emph{sell} them automatic rifles and land mines\textsuperscript{0}. 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 work\textsuperscript{7}. Of course, we can \emph{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 \textsuperscript{1} Plato’s \emph{Republic,} section 373 (Penguin translation, pp. 122-123). See \emph{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
\emph{‘ Heaven. Hell and Suburbia,} Channel 4 TV series broadcast during late-April 1994, ’ - .
\textsuperscript{3} Francis Fukuvama, author of \emph{The End of History} has written a book. \emph{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
\textsuperscript{4} William Morris News \emph{From Nowhere} (1890), Peter Kropotkin's \emph{Fields, Factories and Workshops} (1899) and Murray Bookchin's \emph{Post-Scarcity' Anarchism} (1971).
\emph{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\dots{}
\emph{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 ",
\bigskip
\textbf{A typical national grid transformer switching centre.}
\textbf{Thirlmere aqueduct crossing the river Brook}
\section{Stroke!}
\textbf{How much longer before the city has a stroke in some major part of it?}
M25
ENFIELD LOCK
\begin{center}
BRENTWOOD
\end{center}
SCRATCHWOOD
ROOKERY
\begin{center}
EDMONTON
\end{center}
REDBRIDGE
HARROW
FARM
LEA BRIDGE
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EAST HAM
\end{flushright}
\begin{center}
UXBRIDGE
\end{center}
BLACKWALL
CREEKMOUTH
\begin{center}
SLOUGH
\end{center}
BULLS BRIDGE
THURROCK
ERITH
TILBURY
GREATER LONDON
\begin{flushright}
ELTHAM
\end{flushright}
MOUNT MASCAL
ASHFORD
MALDEN
\begin{center}
WANDLE PARK
\end{center}
NEW HAW
BEDDINGTON
KNOCKHOLT
WEST BYFLEET
\bigskip
\textbf{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} \emph{3,} \textbf{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\dots{}\_\_\_\_\_\_ \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_}
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{centralized} production if \emph{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 \emph{for three} weeks last November\dots{}
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
\Slash{}
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.
\emph{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).
\textbf{A bit of fog and}
\textbf{perhaps some snow and it all stiops.}
\textbf{Motorways are the most visible sign of it all cracking up.}
\textbf{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.}
\textbf{Power for InterCity trains comes through the national grid via tranuformers and switchgear like this, wherever pylons cross the main line.}
\textbf{Microwave link towers}
\bigskip
\section{City Limits}
\textbf{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 \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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 \emph{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 \emph{of} coercive presence is reverted to only when more covert measures \emph{of} power become less effective for whatever reasons. But usually, force only exists as an adjunct to covert measures \emph{of control of} which surveillance is only one example. And, even if the eye \emph{of} Leviathan cannot literally see all \emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{}herself to be entirely alone, s\Slash{}he will continue to behave in many ways \emph{as if} s\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{desaparecidos,}
\bigskip
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
\emph{of} awareness that, despite the lack \emph{of} an
threat of its gaze are to be kept in a permenant state of awareness \textsuperscript{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. \emph{\_}
Relevant to a rigorous, politically \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{outlined in D\Slash{}sc\Slash{}pl\Slash{}ne and Pun\Slash{}sh, in} modelled its techniques of bio-power mobilizes goods, information and conjunction\^{} writer the cnl ighte nmebCfjJrtflerejj\^{}Jjty peqpl\^{}. Behip\^{} al\textbar{} \textsubscript{t} -thi*>\textsubscript{\#} ,\^{}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):
\section{Page 17}
citizens"\dots{} 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 \emph{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
\bigskip
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 \dots{} 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 \dots{} \textbar{}and\textbar{} it must be added that\dots{} 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 \emph{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\Slash{} thief\Slash{}(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 \emph{terminal,} a machine with doors that open and close\dots{}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 \emph{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
\section{Page 18}
\bigskip
\section{COMMENTARY ON THE ANARCHO-FUTURIST MANIFESTO}
John Moore on the Futurist roots of Primitivism
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{ad infinitum} that primitivism does \emph{not} mean going back to nature or \emph{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 \emph{of the} problem resides in the fact that Western conceptions \emph{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 \emph{of} linear history, the term ‘post-civilisation' seems preferable as it at least gives a sense of envisaging something \emph{beyond} civilisation. However, in this world \emph{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, \emph{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 \emph{AnarchoFuturist Manifesto} indicates, has in the past been neither marginalised nor couched in primitivist terms. This essay, by contextualising and examining the \emph{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 \emph{Manifesto,}
Italian futurists on the one hand and the Russian anarcho-futurists on the other, this obscures the fact that the \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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.
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{it} is all too easy to suppress and efface the nameless. Without a name you have no history, \emph{and withoUl} a sense \emph{of} your past, you
the Group \emph{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, \emph{echoed} the celebrated \emph{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 \emph{of} Marinetti’s rhetoric which \emph{superficially} resembles the style \emph{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 \emph{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 ' » \textbar{} 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 >'»
\section{Page 19}
\subsection{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!
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
' ’ Group of Anarcho-Futurists
\end{itemize}
K Svetu s \emph{Shturmovol, opustoshalushchii manifest anakho-futuristov} (Kharkhov, 14\Slash{}3\Slash{}1919) from Paul Avrich’s \emph{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 \dots{} we carry a new world in our hearts" (Mitchell, pp. 126-127).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ellul, Jacques. (1964) \emph{The Technological Society} trans. John Wilkinson, New York: Vintage.
Foucault, Michel. (1988) \emph{Michel Foucault: Politics, Philosophy,}
C \emph{'ullure: Interviews and Other}
\emph{Writings, 1977-1984} ed. Laurence D.
Kritzman, London: Routledge.
Laqueur, Walter. (1987) \emph{The 4ge of Terrorism} London: Weidenfeld \& Nicolson.
Mitchell, David. (1982) \emph{The Spanish Civil War} London: Granada.
Rumbelow, Donald. (1988) \emph{The Houndsditch Murders and the Siege of Sidney Street} London: Penguin.
Virilio, Paul \& Lotringer, Sylvere.
(1983) \emph{Pure} Bar New York: Semiotext(e).
\bigskip
fascism and the social controls of technology intersect perfectly to produce a technological totalitarian society. Or so Marinetti thought\dots{}
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, \emph{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.
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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 heap\textsuperscript{1}
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\textbar{}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 dying\textsuperscript{1}
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\textsubscript{t} tye,., root cause of oppression. Hence the need of a re-
LANGUAGE
One of the few positive points Avrich makes about the \emph{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 \textsubscript{t} (orthpght \textsubscript{M} (n \^{}eir rejectipp ;.of any
\section{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 \dots{} 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 \emph{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 \dots{} Historically, it is also important to remember that for ' contemporaries futurism meant, for a considerable time, ego-futurism \dots{} 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 \dots{} 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\dots{}
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 \emph{Manifesto).} And yet, as indicated earlierr, the term ‘primitivist’ remains problematic. I am \emph{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 \emph{Drunken Boat} has begun the process of excavating the lost or hidden links between culture and anarchy. In an essay entitled \emph{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 \emph{The Anarchists in the}
\emph{Russian Revolution} (London: Thames \& Hudson, 1973)
and \emph{The Russian Anarchists} (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967)
Marion Burleigh-Motley’s \emph{The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922} (London: Thames \& Hudson, 1986)
Vladimir Markov’s \emph{Russian Futurism: A History} (London: MacGibbon \& Kee. 1969)
Richard D Sonn’s \emph{Culture and Anarchy} in \emph{Drunken Boat 2} (New York: Autonomedia\Slash{}Left Bank Books, 1994)
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CITIES - AS THEY CANNOT BE REFORMED
\forcelinebreak ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO ABOLISH THEM
\chapter{Articles}
\subsection{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 \emph{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, \emph{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,
\forcelinebreak 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\Slash{}she\Slash{}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 \emph{Terminator 2} and its equating of science and technology with death and destruction? Keay Davidson's "A Rage Against Science" (\emph{San Francisco Examiner}, 4\Slash{}30\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{The Nation}, August 28\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{Love and Rage} (August\Slash{}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, \emph{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
\bigskip
\section{Page 22}
\bigskip
through the mud" and withholds even such political and legal support that he would accord authoritarian leftists targeted by the state. \emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{}Unabomber -- it's all over the country\dots{}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 \emph{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.
\bigskip
\section{The MOVE Organization}
\textbf{MOVE prisoner Merle Africa on its philosophy and the 11\textsuperscript{th} anniversary of the Philadelphia Massacre}
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{all} Life to enjoy without prejudice of superior, inferior. This is the law MOVE believe in and obey, \emph{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 \emph{industry,} man created and lying to people to cover up their filth. MOVE’S work is to expose this filth, confront and \emph{expose} it with the truth, JOHN AFRICA’S teaching, which is why this system havp.\^{}qen beating, \emph{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 \emph{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, \emph{knows} our fight to protect Life is right, is the truth and this system don t \emph{intend} to embrace the truth, be right, don t \emph{intend} to protect nothing but their money interests whether it be at the expense of \emph{your} life, \emph{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 \Slash{}, 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, \emph{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 \emph{of} Life — people, animals, \emph{any} form of Life. The purpose \emph{of JOHN AFRICA's} revolution, MOVE’S work, is to show people how corrupt, rotten, criminally enslaving this system is, show people through \emph{JOHN AFRICA s} teaching, the truth, that this system is the \emph{cause} of \emph{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 \emph{JOHN AFRICA's} revolution, our work is. to confront this system up , front, to show people wit .ohiy । that they \emph{can} fight this system and win,
but to show them the urgent \emph{need to} fight. People are confronted \emph{daily} with the threat of industrial poison, police brutality, corrupt government, politicians, judges, unjust jail terms and things \emph{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 \emph{self, true freedom,} the \emph{natural} right of \emph{all} Life to be free, MOVE ain’t talking about making jail so called better, MOYS' is fighting to do \emph{away} with prisons and the mentality of enslavement that allows prisons to even \emph{exist} when \emph{freedom} should be the \emph{only} force realized This system kows THE MOVE ORGANIZAHON is \emph{committed} to stopping them, their \emph{crimes} against Life, they \emph{know JOHN AFRICA,} MOVE’S \emph{COORDINATOR,} is the master strategist behind MOVE, they know \emph{JOHN AFRICA} got the \emph{power,} the \emph{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 \emph{JOHN AFRICA, JOHN AFRICA’S} revolution, \emph{nothing} this system does will Stop \emph{K)HN AIRKA.} THE MOVE OrtOANlZATldN, anything
\section{Page 23}
\bigskip
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 \emph{more harder, stronger,} because MOVE got the power of \emph{Life, MOM NATURE,} the power of \emph{true GOD} as our ally and \emph{no} man can stand up against this power long and win! \emph{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 \emph{JOHN AFRICA} to \emph{love} Life, \emph{revere} it, move in harmony \emph{with} it, not go \emph{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 \emph{as} Life) but we know their belief is in money \emph{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 \emph{who} they kill, enslave, cripple, make sick to get it. To quote \emph{JOHN AFRICA'.}
INDUSTRY IS AN EXCESS OF LIFE, AN ADDITION TO GODS LAW, THAT HAS \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{BILLIONS} OF PROBLEMS IN BETWEEN, INDUSTRY HAVE TWISTED PEOPLE AROUND SO BAD THAI PEOPLE WILL COM- \dots{}\dots{} \^{}pMJ.>l\textsubscript{(}AIR.FpR\textsubscript{l}AIKI*O\textbar{}.L\textbar{}J\Slash{}iqN.
WATER FOR WATER POLLUTION. SOIL FOR SOIL PLLUTION FOR A \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{GOOD,} CUT \emph{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 .
\emph{JOHN AFRICA}
\emph{LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!}
4. HOW DOES MOVE EXPLAIN
THE SYSTEM:
This system is mans' invention, \emph{his} idea, it ain't got \emph{nothing} to do with GOD, GOD's law is love, peace, freedom, sanity, health, security, mans' idea of law, \emph{his} system is designed to be \emph{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 \emph{GOD} dictate Life to be healthy, free of sickness, and much more. This system ain't about correcting nobody. \emph{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
\textbf{liv .1} \emph{A « \{ - } \textbf{4 - f i >4 \textbackslash{} 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. \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{out} of 'em so they become weak, submissive to the rule of government- and will \emph{punish} the victims after \emph{victimizing} them, locking up drug users when this system’s \emph{scientists} are the ones who are \emph{making} drugs and influencing drug use. Locking up the prostitute and keeping the inventor of prostitution, the \emph{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 \emph{big} money making industries, this system ain't gone stop the rape of women, child pornography cause that's \emph{big} money and women \emph{nor} children ain't important to this system, \emph{money} is, women, children
and five children died, and 100* neighbouring houses were (destroyed as the fire raged out of control. , \textsubscript{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 \emph{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 ' \emph{by} man. Money is the GOD of this system but \emph{Life} is MOVE'S Belief. \emph{MOVE'S GOD\textbackslash{}} 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 \emph{ain't working.} MOVE people have been in jail since 1978 for a crime we did \emph{not} commit, we re \emph{innocent} and this system \emph{knows} MOVE is innocent but they put us in jail \emph{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 \emph{innocent} MOVE people out of jail, our family took the strong stand they did cause \emph{family} is MOVE’S Belief, we don't put \emph{nothing} before family.
This system is trying to make people think MOVE is wrong for being family, when the principle of family comes from \emph{GOD,} the law of Life, 4»
and \emph{everybody} wants, \emph{needs} the principle of family. \emph{JOHN AFRICA} told us that the one thing people who criticize MOVE'S position \emph{cannot} get around is that if they were innocent and in prison they would want \emph{their} family to fight for them like our family fights for us, they would \emph{not} want their family to take the compromising position they are telling MOVE \emph{we} should take if \emph{they} were innocent and ip prison. But instead of people criticizing this government for jailing, murdering MOVE \emph{unjustly,} people criticize MOVE for fighting against this corrupt government, the very' \emph{same} government \emph{they'} complain about everyday when they voice dissatisfaction with this system. \emph{JOHN AFRICA} explain that these people who criticize MOVE for our uncompromising fight with this
\section{Page 24}
\bigskip
system will \emph{support} the black South Africans who are fighting the corrupt government in South Africa, \emph{blacks} and \emph{whites} will support the fight against apartheid, the \emph{corrupt} government of South Africa no matter how manv blacks or whites *
are killed and thev don t \emph{never} blame those fighting apartheid for getting themselves killed, thev blame the corrupt government for killing those \emph{fighting} apartheid. But when MOVE fight this corrupt government people want to blame \emph{MOVE} and \emph{support} the government \emph{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 \emph{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, \emph{did} try to get the childen out the house. They were calling over the loud speaker for over an \emph{hour telling the cops there were} children in the house and to let the children out but the cops \emph{ignored} them: when the MOVE people saw the cops weren't gone let the children out, they started coming out \emph{carrying} the children and the cops shot them all \emph{back} into the house while it was burning up with fire ‘cause the cops. the government's aim was to kill \emph{all} MOVE people in that house \emph{including the children.} The city deliberately ordered the cops to surround and attack the house at a time when they \emph{knew} everybody would be in the house but a few days \emph{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 \emph{entire} government \emph{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 \emph{bombed} our families house, \emph{know ing} MOVE'S position was that if just \emph{one} official had said they would \emph{honestly} investigate the situation. the maniacs out tohurt people which is a \emph{lie: JOHN AFRICA} teach MOVE sensitivity', love, \emph{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 \emph{trust} these people, they \emph{respect} ‘em and they'll \emph{believe} MOVE is getting what we deserve cause we're suipposed to be crazv maniacs which is \emph{just} how the government \emph{wants} people to think so this government can do what they \emph{want} to MOVE without public opinion against \emph{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 \emph{not} violent \emph{or} killers, we ain't \emph{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 \emph{his} home, \emph{his} security, \emph{instinctively} by fighting off this threat and eliminates the man. the lion ain't wrong cause the lion is \emph{defending} himself and seif defense is \emph{right.} The man- is wrong for intruding where he don t belong, imposing on that lion, \emph{his} family. All animals will defend their home, their family when threatened just\} as MOVE will defend \emph{ours} when threatened and this is \emph{right} cause \emph{self-defense} is right, it is the \emph{GOD} given \emph{right} of \emph{all} Life. On August 8, 19*78 and May 13. 1985. the cops came to \emph{MOVE'S} home, surrounded \emph{our} house with machine guns, rifles, grenades, deluge guns and bombs, \emph{they'} attacked \emph{MOVE, they} bombed \emph{MOVE} for defending ourselves against the unjust imprisonment of our family, but this system is labeling \emph{MOVE} as the criminals, calling \emph{MOVE} violent killers, but \emph{MOVE} ain't surround ex-Phila. Mayor Wilson Goode’s house with machine guns, grenades, deluge guns and bombs, \emph{MOVE} didn't bomb \emph{Goodes} family and shoot his children \emph{back} into a burning building, \emph{Goode, this government} did that tp \emph{MOVE.}
Despite all of the physical and mental torture we've been subjected to by this system, we \emph{am t} slowing down, \emph{ain t} backing down from this system. We've had a bomb dropped on our family in Phila. and although we \emph{feel} this \emph{deeply,} and are greatly hurt by it because of the love, the ' family \emph{JOHN AFRICA} have instilled
\bigskip
but \emph{that} order was ignored. The house was under a 24 hour police surveillance for over a year and the
cops \emph{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 \emph{wanted} to \emph{kill} our children, along with the adult MOVE members, that's \emph{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 \emph{wanted} to do because our family made it clear to Phila. city officials that they would stop the confrontation at \emph{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 \emph{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 portrar\textsubscript{7}ed to the public by the me\^{}ia
innocent sisters and brothers\textsuperscript{1} 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 \emph{lies} to the public so people will be scared of us, hate us, be prejudiced \emph{against} us so when this government does things to MOVE \emph{like giving} us outrageous sentencdes of 1\emph{00} years each in jail for 3rd degree murder for a crime we didn't Commit, \emph{or when they} drop a \emph{bomb} on our home buring our family \emph{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 \emph{all} Life, \emph{including} people. We ain't interested in
dealing with a \emph{part} of this thing but the \emph{whole} thing, because as \emph{JOHN AFRICA} teach, when you got a problem you got to get rid of the \emph{whole} thing if you expect to get rid \emph{of} the problem, you can’t just deal with a \emph{part} of the problem and expect it to be solvedc, MOVE is talking about \emph{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 \emph{truly,} not just the \emph{illusion} of freedom represented by the streets. The work we re doing will benefit \emph{all} Life not just MOVE, when the air is clean you benefit from breathing it just as MOVE, when jails are done away with \emph{you} ain’t no longer threatened by this environment \emph{as}
\^{}wellasMOVE \textsuperscript{A}
in us, we \emph{still} will not stop, \emph{cannot} stop fighting this rottem ass system, for to give into this system would be to give into the \emph{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 \emph{did not} commit, we are getting stronger, \emph{more} committed, loyal to our Belief, thanks to \emph{JOHN AFRICA} This system resents it cause they \emph{can t} accomplish what they set out to do, can \emph{Vbreak} us, can’t \emph{stop} us. \emph{JOHN AFRICAN} revolution ain’t stopped and ain’t never gone be stopped! \emph{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 \emph{JOHN AFRICA’S}
REVOLUTION!
LONG LIVE \emph{JOHN AFRICA'.}
LONG LIVE \emph{JOHN AFRICA'.}
\emph{LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA THE COORDIN A TOR FOREVER}
\section{Page 25}
\bigskip
\section{A BOSNIA OF CONSEQUENCE}
\textbf{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, \emph{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.
\emph{SEARCHLIGHT'S} STRAW MAN
\emph{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 \emph{White Lies.} O’ Hara first analysed Leeds in \emph{Turning Up The Heat,} published in October 1994, six months \emph{before} the BNP pamphlet, and he’s \emph{never} said Bowman is an MI5 agent. Even \emph{Searchlight’s} Gerry Gable isn’t an M15 “agent” — he’s their \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight asset,} which Bowman himself admitted to London Class War last autumn.
He \emph{had} to admit it, given his reaction to \emph{A Lie Too Far (ALTF),} O' Hara’s expose of \emph{Searchlight's} Tim Hepple and his attempts to provoke conflict between \emph{GA,} Class War and C18 by passing hit lists between them. Instead of seeing its relevance to Leeds, Bowman had a hostile review of \emph{ALTF} published in \emph{Class War,} dismissing it by claiming to know already how dodgy \emph{Searchlight} was. Given the vicious smear campaign \emph{Searchlight} have directed against CW since 1985, the one thing more surprising than anyone in CW not knowing \emph{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 \emph{hvste}ncai and unfounded accusations of their own They have offered no useful assistance to the movement to date and try to prove their 'mnocenie\textsuperscript{-} 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 \emph{Anti-Fascist Infos} io circulate a Europe-wide attack on O’ Hara and Tim Scargill, implying the \emph{Searchlight} smears rebutted in \emph{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 \emph{in absentia} from TWAFA because of Bowman’s \emph{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 - \emph{Searchlight} had dredged his fascist past to coerce co-operation from him.
You could believe Astells that working with \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight\Slash{}MlS} bullshit that O’ Hara’s a fascist collaborating with Pat Harrington, Steve Brady and C18 in CW’s 1994 \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight} asset in Leeds AFA — unless their zinc. \emph{Attitude,} is edited by someone else. Il’s packed with \emph{Searchlight} sourcing and even the odd word from Gerry Gable and he’s as keen io plug them in his own publication \emph{(Searchlight,} April 1994, p. 3, well illustrates this chummy relationship).
JUST ONE OF THE FASCISTS
A \emph{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 \emph{White Lies} are “forgeries”. Handwriting is easily \textsuperscript{v} * indepcndantly verified
December 1995’s \emph{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 \emph{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
\textbf{\emph{\emph{Attitude on}}} \textbf{\emph{White, Spring 1994}}
White’s theft of the \emph{Northern Star} address book is unmentioned in A \emph{Bosnia of Trivia} or \emph{Here \&. Now’s} cowardly regurgitation of the Paul Bowman fan club’s version, \emph{What} A \emph{Tangled Web We Weave.} When \emph{Searchlight} and \emph{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 \emph{provocateur} style is quiet, we can see the \emph{Northern Star} adress book’s broader significance. He got it published in \emph{C18,} Labour MPs named in the C18 hitlist and \emph{Searchlight} pressed MI5 to investigate C18 \emph{(Yorkshire Evening Post,} 14th February 1994), and next thing you know revolutionary action just gets so much harder\dots{} 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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight} and \emph{Attitude} as Leeds Cl8, remember?) was a State \emph{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 \emph{Dispatches} footage of Leeds city centre bui wasn’t named. Why do you think Gaty\$'4idn*t poirit him but — his job as
h1.»\textbar{}A \textbackslash{} 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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{Germany}
\emph{Calling,} of being a \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight\textsuperscript{1}.} Note, however, that \emph{Germany Calling} is introduced by Michael Bi ling, a \emph{Searchlight} team member, uses their figures and Plant said
Bradshaw was much involved in a
\emph{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.
\emph{Black Flag's} last issue supported us over Hepplegaie but this slates O’ Hara’s \emph{Turning Up The Heat} without once engaging with its content Why? AK’s money keeps \emph{Black Flag} going. Surely enough to make longtime \emph{Searchlight} adversary and \emph{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 \emph{become} fascist in crisis.
Anti-fascists working with an M15 front, cops and a Branch \emph{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 \emph{Searchlight,} M15 and State interests. Blackpool AFA was suspended for less — Branch photos of Cl8 in \emph{Searchlight} — so why’s AFA’s Leeds branch suddenly so Rangely .ftep fi\^{}m a\^{}ism
\bigskip
\section{Page 26}
\emph{’}
\bigskip
\section{FLUFFIES GET THE HUMP}
Twinkletoes the Tooth Fairy of the Thornmoor Mud Imps on the recuperation of Earth First!
\bigskip
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. \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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, \emph{EF!} will find itself (even unconsciously) losing its real identity, even though \emph{that} is one mirroring an American image.
A classic exanmple of this was \emph{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. \emph{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 \emph{I} social \Slash{} 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 \emph{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 \emph{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!
\bigskip
\section{NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT BUT FORWARDS}
The Shadow Fox thinks Green should reject class war
\bigskip
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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{fur} 'a \textsuperscript{c} ftiture* ' soerety \textsuperscript{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 - \emph{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 \emph{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
\section{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.\textsuperscript{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 \emph{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 \emph{Green Anarchist} magazine has seemingly been moving towards a class conflict ideology. I feel such a shift will be to the detriment of \emph{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
\textbf{DS4A}
\textbf{BOOKS FOR}
\textbf{MAGAZINES, MUSIC}
\textbf{CATALOGUE SEND}
\textbf{DS4A, BOX}
\textbf{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\Slash{} 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
\textbf{DISTRIBUTION WITH ATTITUDE}
\textbf{AND MUCH SAE TO . BRISTOL, BSI}
\textbf{MORE}
\textbf{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 \emph{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\Slash{}c] and Herzen).
In his\Slash{}her\Slash{}their recently published manifesto the Unabomber\Slash{}Freedom Club argues that militant greens\Slash{}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 \emph{w}
\bigskip
\section{Greens, Get Real}
Class is a reality that must be \emph{acknowledged and superceded}
\bigskip
As Derek Wall showed in his GJ28 article, \emph{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 \emph{problem} with deep ecology is (hat it poses a culture \Slash{} 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, \emph{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 \emph{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
\bigskip
\section{Page 28}
\bigskip
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!
\emph{Manes} have been \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{further} from the primitive \emph{“free} society in harmony with Nature" he so glowingly opens \emph{The Ecology' of Freedom} with.
What we think Shadow Fox is actually driving at is not a class analysis of this society \emph{per se} but a reductive one that oresents it rhe
\emph{only} explanation of social reality to the exclusion of eco\Slash{}animal lib\Slash{}\&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\Slash{}herself by way of equal and opposite reaction' to class reductionists, s\Slash{}he should consider \emph{why} they take the line they do.
The main reason is that most middleclass people -- presumably defined by origin\Slash{}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:
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
Appointing themselves as organisers, keeping the paperwork to themselves and ordering this privileged position to order everyone else about.
\item\relax
Having a profound contempt for internal democracy, always preferring to sort.things covertly amongst their own clique — crippling broad recruitment drives
\item\relax
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’
\item\relax
Constantly appealing to ‘morality and irritatingly asserting their self- proclaimed ‘moral superiority over ‘lower class others
\item\relax
Harping on about nonviolence — usually putting that before their actual goal — and being badly unrealistic about authorities like cops and courts.
\item\relax
Playing ‘professional victim — usually after provoking violence -- and generally opting for passsive. masochistic tactics
\item\relax
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
\end{itemize}
Class struggle activists won't enter into cross-class alliances if their allies act like the new boss class.
\emph{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.
\section{Page 29}
[censored by the source]
\chapter{Letters}
Send your letters to Oxford Green Anarchists, BCM 1715, London WCIN 3XX, but remember:-
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
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.
\item\relax
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.
\item\relax
If you don't want your letter, your name or your address printed, make sure we know. - .
\end{itemize}
\section{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\Slash{}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 \emph{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 \emph{are} a feasible techno-fix for needed are hard scientific arguments, not wild \emph{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 \emph{only} dogma essential to it, that there \emph{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' \emph{Blind Watchmaker} or \emph{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
\bigskip
condemned a jewish activist I know for removing 100s of bits of racist\Slash{}fasciast \emph{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 \emph{I} SWP \emph{I ANL} have remorse over this. -
What kind of people are they?:
Yours
no\textsubscript{:} disappear overnight, no matter how hard
\section{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 \emph{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. \emph{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 \textsuperscript{1} the arson attack on the home \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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. .’
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
GA replies: On your last question, GAMO \emph{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.
\end{itemize}
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
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
GA replies: ‘“objectivity” here — understanding.
\end{itemize}
If you knew your you’d know your
Precious little or even scientific
thermodynamics, solar * cells will
\section{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 \textsubscript{fY}ou exhibit the classic signs of the hit by a car, so what? I suppose in the
scientistic
ideologue,
\textbf{Al IP \^{}AVini IR\^{} l\textsuperscript{good old pnmi,}'\textsuperscript{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 \emph{of} ‘scientific thinking ? I always thought capitalism and authoritarianism had something to do with them.
Hitler was a vegetarian and heavily into astrology. Iherefo\Slash{}e all vegetarians and astrologers are Nazis and should be shot.
\emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{Selfish Gene}
\section{Page 31}
but also David Rose’s critique in New \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{GA31} made clear.’No crisis though? Just breathe the air, chum!
There aren’t only two ways of thinking, scientific and religious. Following Zerzan, \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{serve} power, it \emph{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 \emph{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.
\bigskip
\chapter{COUNTER-CULTURE}
\bigskip
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
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.
\item\relax
Send records, tapes and music zines and reviews to Alder Valley Anarchists c\Slash{}o PO Box 407, Camberley GUI5 3FL. AVA can also do distribution through \emph{GA} Mail Order.
\end{itemize}
\section{BOOKS}
\emph{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 \emph{bolos} (small-scale communes).
\emph{holo 'bolo} starts with the original affluent society but - for all its gloss - ends with \emph{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 \emph{(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’).
\emph{Bolo'bolo's} main strength is in it's detailed visualisation of a commutarian future, much like Callenbach’s \emph{Ecotopia.} in the 1995 preface, PM insists \emph{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\Slash{}o-future using the book as a-blueprint. There also seems to be the traditional confusion between creating the \emph{bolo} revolution here and now (‘elistist islands') and somehow making it globally and simultaneously.
\emph{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.
\emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{} V\Slash{}t I I 5 1711 5ill 01 lilt! Ki \emph{\textbackslash{}f'<} f
» tnilW ijfo no\textsuperscript{1} 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 \emph{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. - . '
\emph{THE BATTLE FOR LANCASHIRE'S}
\emph{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
\section{Page 32}
\bigskip
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 \dots{}
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 \emph{“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\Slash{}337. Some hope!
\emph{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 \emph{North-South:}
\emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{}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 \emph{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\dots{}
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.
\emph{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 dead\textsuperscript{9} .
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.
\emph{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 \dots{} 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 \emph{all} bad, so hold up your hands in horror.
Tony Thompson writes for \emph{Time Out, GQ, Independent} and the \emph{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 \dots{} 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 \emph{Sunday Times} (p. 264):
Thanks to a spiral of phenomenal incompetence. Mr D became the \emph{least} pursued mafia fugitive the world has ever known\dots{}' 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 \emph{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 \emph{appearance} of a climate of opinion, the illusion of consensus\dots{}
\emph{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 61\textsuperscript{6}\Slash{}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.
\textbf{H II \emph{t I} i ll I (} \textbf{।} \textbf{\emph{J} li 4 i \emph{4} - - I UL * \emph{I*}} \textbf{।} \textbf{ - 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 offer\textsuperscript{9} -- 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' \dots{} 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.
\emph{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 \emph{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\dots{}
\emph{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.
\section{PAMPHLETS}
\emph{THE GEMSTONE FILE} BY BRUCE ROBERTS. £1.50 FROM X-RAY PRESS c\Slash{}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.
I960\textsuperscript{9} 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
\begin{center}
\textbf{Gemstone}
\end{center}
\begin{center}
\textbf{Bruce Roberts}
\end{center}
\begin{center}
London 1992
\end{center}
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 \emph{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.
\emph{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 \emph{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.
\section{Page 34}
\section{SHORT STORIES}
\emph{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 — \emph{The Doll} *
\emph{. In The Alfie} and \emph{Sunbathing Can Damage Your Health were} particularly striking. A couple of stories. \emph{The Day 13 Has Unlucky} and \emph{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, \emph{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.
\emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{not} the same as - Coconut Water’ And ask .the timeless question “is Sorrel really meant to be quite so purple?”
\section{NEW ZINES}
\begin{center}
NEW LUDDITE
\end{center}
iiatimv ami mtio
\textbf{Mart rtan}
\emph{NEW LUDDITE* NOVEMBER 1995.} PRICE c\Slash{}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.
\emph{BLACK CAT \#1.} FREE BUT UNADDRESSED.
\emph{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' \emph{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 \emph{of} the artwork is rather basic, but nonetheless effective. Some \emph{of} the writing, however, is quite incisive. Apart from the editorial, the written text consists of a number \emph{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 ' \emph{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?
\emph{PRA HA ZHTERZA T: BIL’LETYN INFORMACYJNY.} PRICE FROM 46-100 NAMYSLOW,
UL.REMONTA 59\Slash{}7, POLAND
\emph{Prawa Zwierzat} is a Polish animal lib zine. Sadly youcan only get \emph{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.
\textbf{ZIELOMOWGLaWIE biuletzyn} \textbf{nr 3}
CHRONMY LAS PRZED LESNIKAMI
\emph{Z!EL ONO WGL O W\Slash{}E B U!L E T YN.}
PRICE FROM KRZYSIEK, UL. STAROBOJARSKA 13 M 2, 15-073 BIALYSTOCK, POLAND
\emph{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.
\emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{}against hunting. However, despite the lack of direct action new\$, the \emph{Bear Watch Journal is} a good read and if you're interested in bears, then it’s certainly worth checking out. .
\emph{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.
\emph{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.
\textbf{PREPARING}
\textbf{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 \emph{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 \emph{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\Slash{}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. -
\emph{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. .
\subsection{VIDEO}
\emph{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 \emph{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.
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
-
\end{itemize}
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\textsuperscript{-} 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.
\textbf{3}
\textbf{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.
\emph{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.
\emph{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 \emph{Pianist Envy} (comparisons with Crass’s
\emph{ - 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 \emph{MRR} refused to take Hat Earth Records adverts with this record on aas it doesn't fit into their narrow idea of what punk\Slash{}HC should be. Maybe Witchknot are \emph{too} punk for \emph{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\Slash{}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!
\emph{DIVERSIONARY TACTICS} BY AOS3. £7 (LP) OR £7.55 (CD) FROM DS4A c\Slash{}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. .
\emph{BAPTISED}
\emph{SHIT} BY
EXTINCTION OF MANKIND, LP. SKULD RELEASES AVAILABLE THROUGH YOUR FAVOURITE DIY PUNK\Slash{}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!
\emph{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' \emph{Babylon Is Burning} and \emph{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.
\textbf{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
\emph{KNUCKLEHEAD LIVE 16.8\^{}4.} £3 I ROM DS4A c\Slash{} 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« < \emph{i.} i * m ?no i >r. I.) xmb th in?
ARBEITSSCHENS OSTLER’S
\emph{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
\emph{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!
\textbf{PROJECTS—]}
\emph{DON'T VOTE, GOVERN YOURSELVES} ANARCHIST LEAFLET, BM 1715, LONDON WC1N 3XX.
We want ideas and money to help put
\section{Page 36}
together a short (A5 double-sided) leaflet about anarchism to distribute during the next General Election. .
We'd like every \emph{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.
\section{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 \emph{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\dots{} - -
BASE WASTE
While on the subject of houses, in the 1950's and \emph{1960's army camps and air} bases had \emph{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\dots{}
Now the Cold War is over most of them are run down and these military council estates are \emph{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 \emph{of} it, maybe a thousand homes, is empty. So any of you out there and homeless\dots{}
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 \emph{of} them. So, instead \emph{of} Oxfam, why don t we make our own clothes? - .
We don't have fancy overlooking sewing machines and the design techniques \emph{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!
\emph{ - 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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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\dots{}
\subsection{DIY MACE}
Pigs think they're so smart demanding mace. Well, two can play at that game:
3 parts alcohol
1\Slash{}2 parts iodine
1 \Slash{}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!
\chapter{G.A.: The Zine}
\section{THE EDITORIAL}
\textbf{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 \emph{GA} editors they’d kept on police bail since March 1995, as well as ALF press officer Robin Webb and \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{fast} from animal liberation! sts.
\emph{GA} will continue BAMN so disregard all rumours to the contrary. Help us by:
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
Sending money \emph{(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 '
\item\relax
Volunteering to help edit \emph{GA} or distro for GAMO in future — but take due care doing so (see our security warning opposite)
\item\relax
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.
\end{itemize}
\section{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.
\emph{GA42} DEADLINE: 15TH JUNE 1996
\textbf{THE SMALL PRINT}
\textbf{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 \emph{GA} on
anti-fascism eminates from Larry O’ Hara. It doesn’t \emph{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.
\textbf{EARTH FIRST! IS STILL DEAD?}
\emph{Earth First Is Dead} was published in \emph{GA39} (p. 15) because EF! was sliding into the sort of recuperation so satisfactorily critiqued in \emph{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
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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. \emph{GA} isn't published on Planet Trotsky -- anarchy is about thinking for yourself
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\chapter{G.A. The Network}
\section{This is Green Anarchism}
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\subsection{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.
\bigskip
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\section{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\Slash{}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.
\section{PAMPHLETS}
GREEN ANARCHISM Its Origins \& Influences. More history than manifesto, this pamphlet charts the development of \emph{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\Slash{}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 \emph{Searchlight,} and its attempts to set up and smear anarchists. £ I
AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH Further expose of \emph{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
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THE TYRANNY OF TYRANNY Cathy Levine’s critique of Jo Freeman's \emph{Tyranny of Sructurelessness} and the bureaucratisation of the early Womens Movement. 35p
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\section{MUSIC}
Crass Live. Tape of their last concert and first demo.
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\section{Page 40}
\bigskip
\section{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
\section{BSE COVER UP}
Government figures show <600 BSE-infected cows arc slaughtered for human consumption each week in UK (Western \emph{Morning News,} 13\Slash{}11\Slash{}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 \emph{[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 \emph{[New Scientist,} 14\Slash{}10\Slash{}95].
\emph{Watchdog} found a quarter of people in UK won’t eat beef in case it’s BSE-infected [Western \emph{Morning News,} 13\Slash{}11\Slash{}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.
\bigskip
\part{Issue 42}
\textbf{Date:} Jun 1996
\textbf{Keywords:} Anti-Technology; Technocracy.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9174.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\section{Free Ted!}
\textbf{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.
\dots{}
\section{Industrial-Technological Society Cannot Be Reformed}
\textbf{Mass organisation and the division of labour destroy freedom: extracts from the Unabomber's Industrial Society \& Its Future}
\section{Restriction of Freedom is Unavoidable in Industrial Society}
114. \dots{} 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.)
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\section{The “Bad” Parts of Technology Cannot Be Separated from the “Good” Parts}
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\section{Technology is a More Powerful Social Force than the Aspiration for Freedom}
\textbf{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.
\textbf{126.} Let us explain why technology is a more powerful social force than the aspiration for freedom.
\textbf{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.)
\textbf{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\dots{}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).
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\section{Simpler Social Problems Have Proved Intractable}
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\section{Revolution is Easier than Reform}
\textbf{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.
\textbf{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.
\section{Top Ten Reasons to Vote Unabomber}
\textbf{Lydia Eccles on your presidential write-in choice for '96}
\textbf{THE BOYS.} Clinton, Gingrich, Powell, Perot, Forbes, Dole, Gramm, Lugar, Alexander, Dornan, Keyes, etc.
\textbf{HE'S HOT!} His favorability ratings may be low, but his name recognition is close to 100\% \dots{}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 43-44}
\textbf{Date:} Sep 1996
\textbf{Keywords:} Anti-Technology; Newbury; ALF Animal Liberation Front;.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9175.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
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\chapter{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, \dots{}
\bigskip
\part{Issue 45-46}
\textbf{Date:} Mar 1997
\textbf{Keywords:} Anti-Ideology.
\textbf{\href{http://web.archive.org/web/http://www.thesparrowsnest.org.uk/collections/public\_archive/9176.pdf}{Read here}}
\bigskip
\hairline
\section{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 \emph{Industrial Society} dr \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{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.
\section{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 \emph{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 \emph{authority -} which causes them to embrace vic t must tc ideology, an ideology which \emph{begs} those in power to \emph{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 \emph{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 \Slash{} 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 \Slash{} anti-sexism, violence ! non-violence, war \Slash{} 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.
\section{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 - \textbar{}>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 \emph{have} goals simph because I need or want specific things, but I do not \emph{need} goals -- so I not \emph{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 \emph{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 \textbf{\textsubscript{ac}}\textbf{\^{}j\textsubscript{v}j-ti\textsubscript{es}} \textbf{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 \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{of FC’s use of the} power pr 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 \emph{this} goal to which science is Hindis obedient, and for the oiciul s\textbackslash{} 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 \emph{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 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 \emph{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\Slash{}it tlsc 'power \emph{pfoyeM}\emph{”} 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 \emph{ihtnys}\emph{.} but J will sacrifice them \emph{lo mysrlf} and will \emph{never} sacrifice myself Itoi adherence to a fixed idea (such as the power process ) moves one to tight for the CAUSE, to sacrifice \emph{oneself to} the
CAUSE As I will show, EC call tor just such self-sacrifice, showing that the \textbar{}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 \emph{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 \emph{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 gugheg 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 \emph{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 \emph{part} of an entire complex, integrated social system, \emph{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\dots{} 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
\section{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 \emph{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 \dots{} 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 \emph{¥} 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 \emph{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 \emph{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 - \emph{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 \emph{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 \emph{Slingshot} and numerous in early 2004.
PLEASE NOTE: the BBB has a new email address and website\dots{}
bbb?..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}..\Slash{}bioticbakingbrigade.org][\Slash{}bioticbakingbrigade.org bioticbak- ingbrigade.org
Friends of the BBB: c\Slash{}o POB 40130, San Francisco, CA 94140, Amerika
\bigskip
\chapter{The Large Cover}
ORIGINAL AND BEST
No. 70 AUTUMN‘03 £1\Slash{}\$2 FREE TO PRISONERS
GREEN
\forcelinebreak ANARCHIST
For the destruction of Civilisation
ALTERNATIVE TECHNOLOGY ISSUE. LIGHTS OUT IN HEW YORK. THE PERENNIAL WILD MEN. BETRAYAL ON BOUGAINVILLE. DIRECT ACTION DIARY. PRISONER SUFFORT. COMBAT DISPATCH. BOB BIACKS APES OF WRATH. HAMMER OF WITCHES.
AUGUST 1, 2003, SAN DIEGO:
IF YOU BUILD IT
\forcelinebreak WE WILL BURN IT
\bigskip
\chapter{News}
\section{DIARY OF DIRECT ACTION}
More info: ALF Supporters Group, BM 1160, London WC1N 3XX; \emph{Arkangel,} BCM 9280, London WC1N 3XX; North American ALF Supporters Group (NAALFSG), PO Box 428, Brighton, Ontario, Canada K0K 1HO; \emph{Earth First! Action Update} c\Slash{}o PO Box 2971, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 2TT; and \emph{Earth First! Journal}, PO Box 3023, Tucson, AZ 85702, USA.
\subsection{FEBRUARY}
1: CAPRALBA, ITALY - ALF free 2,000 mink.
2: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA - 58 trucks damaged by ALF at lobster wholesalers. \$50,000 damage.
6: UPPSALA, SWEDEN - ALF break windows at chinchilla farmer’s home.
9: VOLKEL, NETHERLANDS - US military satellite dish trashed, - 11 nuclear missiles off-line for 24 hours. \$500,000 damage.
11: PIEVE DI TECO, ITALY - Phone mast torched, ‘Free Marco’ slogans left.
15: PONTEDURA, ITALY - Two Benetton shops bricked and slo- ganised.
17: UPPSALA, SWEDEN - ALF break more windows at chinchilla breeder’s home.
19: AMELIA, ITALY - Phone mast torched. ‘ALF’, ‘Free Marco’ slogans left.
19: ROME, ITALY - Attempted phone mast torching - ‘Free Marco, Free Everyone’ slogans left.
DUBLIN, EIRE - US Navy warplane trashed at Shannon airport. Five areests.
\subsection{MARCH}
5: LECCE, ITALY - Benerron shop damaged.
7: TRENTO, ITALY - Four Esso garages sabbed.
9: HUMBOLDT COUNTY, CALIFORNIA, USA - Thousands of surveyors flags removed by Forest Defenders to prevent logging.
13: TURIN, ITALY - Duck freed from ornamental pond built for Olympic complex.
18: SIDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Huge ‘No War’ slogan painted on roof of Opera House.
20: BRISTOL, AVON - Two cop cars trashed and Labour offices sloganised: ‘No War’, ‘Murderers’.
21: ROME, ITALY - 8 Esso garages torched.
22: BROADMEAD, BRISTOL, AVON - McDonalds bricked.
21: SUPERIOR TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN, USA - ELF trash urban sprawl under construction: \$400,000 damase.
22: MILAN, ITALY - Mollies thrown at McDonalds and Israeli tourist agency during peace demo.
23: TRIESTE, ITALY - 5 Esso garages sabbed.
24: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, USA - Fur and Andrews- related windows catapulted.
25: TURIN, ITALY - Two uni departments using Morini (HLS subsiduary breeder) animals daubed and sloganised. Peace flag substituted for ‘No Peace for Killers’ banner.
26: BRISTOL, AVON - Starbucks trashed. ‘Stop the War’ slogan.
27: AVIANO, ITALY - US military car torched.
27: DANTIAGO, CHILE - Cashpoint machine blown up at US-owned BankBoston.
27: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, USA - Car and home of HLS.
27: VICENZA, ITALY- More US Army personnel cars torched.
27: ROME, ITALY - 12 cards at Ford dealership torched. Like attempt at Jaguar dealers. Antiwar protest.
29: MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, USA - ELF torch US Nany truck and sloganise five more: ‘Stop the War’, ‘Leave Iraq’.
30: MILAN, ITALY - Esso garages sabbed.
31: PIETRASANTA, ITALY - Six city council cars torched in antiincinerator action.
30: BOLOGNA, ITALY - Bomb found I front of IBM offices.
31:WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND - ALF brick two McDonalds, three butchers and another burger outlet.
\subsection{APRIL}
1: CAGLIARI, ITALY - Esso garage torched.
2: ALFEN \Slash{} BORCHEN, GERMANY - 24 dogs freed from vivisection breeder.
3: BRISTOL, AVON - BP petrol station trashed. ‘No War’, ‘No Blood for Oil’ slogans.
4: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA - ALF torch tiger meat store. \$100,000 damage.
5: TARRANO, ITALY - 11 tourist chalets torched.
8: SANTA CRIZ, CALIFORNIA, USA- ELF sloganise 65 SUVs and trucks: ‘No War’, ‘SUVs Suck’, ‘No Blood for Oil’.
10: ESSUNGA, SWEDEN - ALF free 8,000 mink from fur farm.
10: LIVORNO, ITALY - Forest Service manager’s house dynamited.
10: LIVORNO, ITALY - Phone mast torched.
10: SASSARI, SARDINIA - Two Natural Reserve boats torched in access dispute.
11: FORLI, ITALY - Two fur shops, Benetton and Blockbusters paintbombed.
16: TURIN, ITALY - Sumitomo (HLS customer) glued and slo- ganised.
18: DUBLIN, EIRE - Peace protestors plant potatoes on Shannon airport runway.
19: ORISTANO, ITALY - McDonalds bomb-damaged.
25: PIETRASANTA, ITALY - Three Benetton shops trashed.
27: TURIN, ITALY - University customer of Morini (HLS customer) glued.
\subsection{MAY}
3: LIVORNO, ITALY - Benetton bricked. ‘Solidarity with Mapuche people’ slogan.
9: ALBANY, NEW YORK, USA- Office trailer of asphalt company torched.
9: PISA, ITALY - phone mast torched.
18: MODENA, ITALY - Forty quail liberated by ALF, two hunt kennels trashed.
22: PISA, ITALY - Two Sisley (Benetton subsiduary) shops bricked.
30: VENICE, ITALY - Satirical masked individuals shove shit in psychiatrist’s face.
30: CASALMORANO, ITALY - Fires set amongst trucks and machinery at Sygenta site. ‘No GMOs, No Sygenta, No Pesticides, Sab Biotech’ slogan left.
GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA, USA - Thirty SUVs at dealership trashed with etching fluid.
\subsection{ JUNE}
3: CHICO, CALIFORNIA, USA - ELF opposing sprawl try torching luxury home: "Civilization as a whole has provenm detrimental to human and non-human animals. We won’t settle for anything less than complete collapse."
4: DETROIT, MICHIGAN, USA - ELF torch two homes under construction. \$700,000 damage.
7: TREVISO, ITALY - 24 cashpoint machines for biotech-funding back sabbed.
7: LECCO, ITALY - Two Esso garages damaged.
14: SASSARI, ITALY - Phone mast bombed.
14: DORGAZI, ITALY - Phone mast torched.
18: ROME, ITALY - Transport company supporting Morini (HLS subsiduary breeder) superglued and sloganised.
19: ROME, ITALY - Two Morini- connected vivisectors’ homes sloganised.
20: CAGUARI, ITALY - Shop owned by beach-polluting local politician torched.
23: EDMOND, OKLAHOMA, USA- ALF trash HLS unvestor’s home.
26: NUORO, ITALY - Tourist structure bombed before opening. WINSHILL, BURTON, STAFFORDSHIRE - Halls (viv breeders) employee’s car paint- strippered by ALF.
\subsection{JULY}
12: PISA \Slash{} FLORENCE \Slash{} LIVORNO, ITALY - ARPAT (Tuscany regional agency) offices sent bullets and Green Core communique: "In these years you destroyed our land, now it’s enough. Your peace is finished"
13: SARDGNA, SARDINIA - Proletarian Cores for Communism send bullet to senoir military officer to oppose waste dump construction.
14: SURREY - Three HSS Hire shops (HLS-related) glued by ALF. Cancelled HLS contract.
13: PUCKAPUNYAL, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA - Australian ALF destroy electrified fencing trapping thousands of kangaroos the night before a military cull.
20: AUSTIN, TEXAS, USA- ALF trash home of HLS lobbyist in solidarity with Lindsey Parme. ‘Abbott Kills’ and ‘ALF’ slogans.
HAMPSHIRE - thousands of pheasants freed from fattening pens and sheds.
WINSHILL, BURTON, STAFFORDSHIRE: Halls (vivisection breeders) employee trapped in home by house-wrapping chains.
\subsection{AUGUST}
1: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA - ELF torch condo complex, \$50 million damage.
10: REGGIO EMILIA, ITALY - Morini (HLS subsiduary breeder) farm owner’s car dramatically destroyed.
12: SONOMA, CALIFORNIA, USA - Foie gras resturant trashed.
15: PARMA, ITALY - Pioneer Hi- Brred production plant torcned, stopping production in peak-harvest. ‘Pioneer pollutes seeds. Fire to GMOs’ slogan left.
\subsection{SEPTEMBER}
27: KATHIMERINI, GREECE - Unidentified assailants threw molotov cocktail bombs at a National Bank branch in Thessaloniki at around 3 a.m. before launching another two at a nearby branch of McDonald’s. Minor damage to bank’s ATM and a fire in the McDonald’s branch.
\section{SAN DIEGO CONDOS BURNT}
The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) has accepted responsibility for a \$50 million fire in San Diego, California, that destroyed an unfinished five-story condominium complex on August 1. No one was hurt in the blaze, which was credited to the ELF through a painted slogan: “If you build it, we will burn it. E.L.F.”
The Golden Triangle area, where the complex was located, is adjacent to Rose Canyon—home to bobcats, coyotes, ash-throated flycatchers, red- shouldered hawks, barn owls and orioles, as well as at least two rare and threatened plants.
From 2,000 years ago until the last century, the Kumeyaay people inhabited a seasonal village in Rose Canyon, gathering acorns from the once abundant coastal live oaks, weaving baskets from the arroyo willow and hunting not far from where a seven-million-dollar crane was destroyed by the ELF fire.
This particular project, La Jolla Crossroads, when completed would comprise 1,800 apartments with an average monthly rent of \$1,340. The 42-acre Nobel Research Center, which will house the biotechnology company IDEC Corporation, is planned to be built adjacent to the site. Following the fire, a small, handprinted sign was taped to a traffic barrier near the construction site: “Thank-You E.L.F. Burn Baby Burn.” Tad Simmons of Carlsbad said that as an environmentalist he had mixed feelings about the fire. “Part of me thinks it’s kind of cool that somebody had the guts to stand for something like this-a cause, and that nobody ever gets hurt.”
No arrests have been made, but the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force said several suspects were being tracked. On August 14, FBI agents raided the home of animal rights activists affiliated with the San Diego-based Compassion for Farm Animals (CFA). CFA organized a lecture with Rod Coronado on the day of the ELF fire. Agents seized phone lists, a computer, a video camera and videotape of the lecture, which was part of ongoing Revolution Summer events in San Diego.
Since the fire, CFA activists have been under constant surveillance and have had their home mysteriously broken into and vehicle stolen.
Thanks to the \emph{Earth First Journal} http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.earthfirstjournal.org][www.earthfirstjournal.org representative daubed with red paint by ALF.
\section{ELF PUTSSUV’S OFF-ROAD FORGOOD}
On August 22, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) simultaneously carried out acts of property destruction at several auto dealerships in California.
Clippinger Chevrolet of West Covina, California, sustained more than one million dollars in damages after 20 SUVs-mostly H2 Hummers- were set on fire. Twenty additional vehicles were damaged by the fire, and a warehouse on the site was destroyed.
In Duarte, California, SUVs from Advantage Ford were spray-painted with messages such as “ELF,” “Gross Polluter” and “We (Heart) Pollution.” Across the street, thirty cars at Duarte Mitsubishi were also hit with graffiti that condemned SUV ownership.
At Rusnak Mercedes Benz in Arcadia, California, 10 luxury SUVs were spray-painted with the words “terrorist,” “killer” and “ELF.” Rusnak estimated losses of up to \$300,000.
According to the ELF Press Office, “ELF actions are a reminder to SUV owners of how their personal choices affect the society and environment in which they live.”
\section{PRISONERS OF WAR}
These revolutionaries have been jailed for their beliefs so you can write them letters of support (nothing compromising!). Those not listed shouldn’t take it as a sleight they’ve been excluded - just send us your details and we’ll put you on our free mailing list! Prisoner details change rapidly and may be out of date by the time you read GA.
More information from: Earth Liberation Front Prisoners Newsletter, BM Box 2407, London WC1N 3XX and North American ELP, POB 11331, Eugene, OR 97440, USA. ELP-Poland PO Box 43, 15-662 Bialystok 26, Poland.
On the web, see http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk][www.spiritoffreedom.org.uk
\subsection{ECO-DEFENCE PRISONERS}
\textbf{Dr. Yurl Bandazhevsky}, Ul. Kalvarijskaya 36, PO Box 35K, Minsk 220600, Belarus.
Serving 8 years for telling the world that the nuclear radiation around Chernobyl is worse than the Belarus Government has admitted.
\textbf{Jose Bove,} N° d'ecrou 22377 Y, Bloc A 07, 34753 Villeneuve-les-
Maguelone, France.
Serving 10-months for trashing GM crops.
\textbf{Jen Bradley}, (CS\# 057 454 68), Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women, 7900 Fraser Park Drive, Burnaby, BC V5J 5H1, Canada.
On remand for forest defence activity.
\textbf{Marco Camenisch}, Hornlistrasse 55,8330 Pfdffikon\Slash{}ZH Switzerland
Serving 10-years for anti-nuclear eco-bombings. In 2002 he completed a 12-year sentence in Italy for similar actions. Charges relating to his escape from prison in the 80s are also expected. Marco reads French, German, Spanish \& Italian.
\textbf{Ted Kaczynski} (04475-046), US Pen - admin Max Facility, PO Box 8500, Florence Colorado 81226, USA.
Is serving multiple life sentences for the infamous 'Unabomber' anti-technology bombing campaign.
\textbf{Inaki Garcia Koch}, Carcel de Pamplona, C\Slash{}San Roque. Apdo. 250, 31080 - Irunez - Pamplona, Navarra (Espana), Spain.
Serving just under 5 years for sabotaging a dam construction site.
\textbf{Betty Krawczyk}, (CS\# 037 939 24), Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women, 7900 Fraser Park Drive, Burnaby, BC V5J 5H1, Canada.
On Remand for forest defence.
\textbf{Jeffrey Luers}, \#13797671, OSP , 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310, USA.
Serving 22 years \& 8 months for arson on a car dealership \& attempted arson of an oil truck.
\textbf{Craig Marshall}, \#13797662, SRCI, 777 Stanton Blvd, Ontario, OR 97914 USA.
Serving 5 years 5 months for conspiracy to commit arson and possession of incendiary devices, having used the devices to destroy SUV's to raise attention to the environmentally destructive nature of these vehicles.
\textbf{Fran Thompson}, 1090915,
Chillicothe Correctional Center, 1500 W. Third St, Chillicothe, MO 64601, USA.
An eco-activist serving Life for killing, in self-defence, a stalker who had broken into her home.
\textbf{Helen Woodson}, 03231-045 FMC Carswell, POB 27137, Fort Worth, TX 76127, USA.
Serving 27 years for:
1) Robbing a federal bank of \$26,000 and burning the money whilst distributing a statement denouncing materialism, wealth and power that caused environmental destruction.
2) Mailing .38 calibre bullets with warning letters to various Government \& corporate officials stating that their actions were like bullets fired into the heart of creation.
3) Using a jackhammer, she carried out a Ploughshares direct disarmament against a Mintueman II missile silo.
\textbf{Raul Zapato}s, Dorm 6-C, Maximum security compound, Bureau of corrections, Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Serving Life for shooting dead, in self-defence, armed men connected with illegal logging after they tried to attack him.
\subsection{ANIMAL LIBERATION}
\textbf{Dave Blenkinsop} EM7899, HMP Bullingdon, Oxfordshire OX6 0PZ England.
Serving 10 years.
1) Three years for a stave attack on the Managing Director of HLS.
2) 18 months for rescuing 600 guinea pigs from a lab supplier.
3) 5? years for planting incendiary devices under abattoir vehicles.
\textbf{Benjamin Persky}, DIN: 03R3916, Lakeview Shock Incarceration Corr. Fac., PO Box T, Brocton, New York 14716-0679 USA.
SHAC activist serving 2-6 years for "Criminal Mischief'.
\subsection{ANTI-CAPITALIST}
\textbf{Kratoumeno SIMON CHAPMAN}, Dikastikes Fylakes Diavaton, T.K. 540 12, Thessaloniki, Greece
(On Remand)
\textbf{Robert Thaxton} \#12112716, OSP, 2605 State St, Salem, OR 97310, USA
(86months)
\subsection{PEACE \& ANTI-WAR \textasciitilde{}}
Carol Gilbert, PO Box 518, Georgetown, CO80444, USA.
Jailed for 2 years 9 months for antinuke action.
\textbf{Tony Haughian}, JM9774, HMP Pentonville, Caledonian Rd, London N7 8TT,England.
On remand for alleged anti-war activities.
\textbf{Jackie Hudson}, PO Box 518, Georgetown, CO80444, USA.
Jailed for 2? years for anti-nuke action.
\textbf{Ardeth Platte}, PO Box 518, Georgetown, CO80444, USA.
Jailed for 3 years and 5 months for anti-nuke action.
Ulla Roder, HMP Corton Vale, Stirling, FK9 5NY, Scotland.
Jailed for disarming a Tornado war plane.
\subsection{INDIGENOUS RESISTANCE}
\textbf{Leonard Peltier} \#89637-132, PO Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048, USA.
Serving Life after being framed for murdering 2 FBI agents.
\textbf{Eric Wildcat Hall}, \#BL-5355, Unit I\Slash{}A 10745 Route 18, Albion, PA 16475-0002, USA.
Serving 35-75 years for helping ship arms to Central American indigenous activists.
\subsection{MOVE}
\textbf{Debbie Simms Africa} (006307), Janet Holloway Africa (006308) and Janine Philips Africa (006309) all at: SCI Cambridge Springs, 451 Fullerton Ave, Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238, USA.
\textbf{Michael Davis Africa} (AM4973) and Charles Simms Africa (AM4975) both at SCI Grateford, PO Box 244, Grateford, PA 19426-0244, USA.
\textbf{Edward Goodman Africa} (AM4974), 301 Morea Rd,
Frackville, PA 17932, USA.
\textbf{William Philips Africa} (AM4984) and Delbert Orr Africa (AM4985) both at SCI Dallas Drawer K, Dallas, PA 18612, USA.
\textbf{Mumia Abu Jamal}, (AM8335), SCI
Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg PA 15370, USA.
In 1981 Mumia, was framed for the murder of a cop. Awaiting re-sentencing.
\subsection{ANTI-FASCIST}
\textbf{Matthew Lamont} T90251, A-5-248 UP, Centinella State Prison, PO Box 901, Imperial, CA 92251. USA. Serving 3 years for possessing an incendiary device, allegedly intended to be used to disrupt a neo-nazi gathering.
\textbf{Tomasz Wiloszewski}, Zaklad Karny, Orzechowa 5, 98-200 Sieradz, Poland.
Serving 15 years for accidentally killing a neo-nazi whilst defending himself.
\section{SPANISH ANARCHIST PRISONERS}
The latest news we have from our Barcelona comrades imprisoned in September say that they're all under FIES-3 Classification (FIES:Special Prisoners Survey File), which is applied to members of armed band or group.
They were arrested on the morning of September 16th, being held without bail for a trial that could take years. They’re being accused of sending a book-bomb, urban terrorism, planning 2 assassinations, illegal possession of firearms, arson attacks, belonging to a terrorist group, etc.
Communications with the outer world are reduced to two letters in and two outside of prison every month. Their families say they are still healthy.
We still have no news about the other ones being driven to other prisons, or if they're still held at Soto del Real Prison, where Roger and Igor were sharing a cell. We also don't know nothing about Joaquin, which isolation was kept even after declaring in Audiencia Nacional and who wasn't allowed to be assisted by the lawyer who travelled there from Barcelona. We have no clue if he was carried to the same prison or to another one, and also don't know about his health.
the two whose location is known:
\textbf{Rafael Tomas y Gaspar}, C.P.
Madrid - 3. Ctra Pinto a San Martin de la Vega, Km 5, 28340 Valdemoro - Madrid
\textbf{Carolina Forne Roig}, C.P. DE AVILA, Ctra. Vicolozano-Brieva, s\Slash{}n. 05194 Brieva (Avila)
Protests at spanish embassy or other actions appreciated. Bail and legal fees needed. International bank account open.To make a donation you will need the following codes:
IBAN: ES58 0182 7028 2102 0153 0482
BIC: BBVAESMMXXX
This is an ongoing process against anarchist movement in Spain which started almost a year ago.with the arrest of 4 people in Valencia, and four more 10 months later.
\section{MARCO SOLIDARITY RAIDS}
On 24. Sept, Italian police from the Carabinieri Special Operation Branch (ROS) conducted fifty house raids against suspected eco-activists. The ROS is investigating an alleged conspiracy to create economic sabotage against environmentally destructive creations like skiing resorts, incinerators, mobile phone masts and television towers.
This alleged conspiracy is meant to be led by Marco Camenisch, who is currently imprisoned for eco-bomb- ings against the Swiss nuclear power industry. Marco’s cell in Pfaffikon prison was also raided.
This is not the first time that Italian police have tried to link Marco with alleged conspiracies in a blatant attempt to try and break his spirit and destroy the solidarity Marco gets from his friends and supporters alike.
Between thirteen \& twenty activists are under investigation for this alleged conspiracy. All those who were raided are eco-activists\Slash{}eco- anarchists who have actively supported Marco either by taking part in demonstrations outside Swiss Embassies or by creating websites and other information about Marco.
This investigation appears to be concentrating on a series of direct actions which occurred in solidarity with Marco when he was on hunger strike earlier this year. The actions being investigated include an arson attack on 18. January, against a nearly built chairlift at a ski resort which resulted in six million euros worth of damages. A spray painted slogan at the scene of the arson read “Free Marco - Fire to destructors”. The same slogan was found the same night near a phone mast torched and a television tower bombed elsewhere. More actions followed against phone masts, all claimed in solidarity with Marco.
\section{ELF PRESS OFFICE STATEMENT ON JOSH CONNOLE'S ARREST \& RELEASE}
On September 12th Josh Connole, a known environmentalist and peace activist, was arrested by the FBI. Josh was accused by the FBI of involvement with the ELF-claimed fire and vandalism of SUV dealerships in West Covina, California on August 22nd, which resulted in over a million dollars in damages.
On September 15th, Connole was released without charges due to a lack of evidence to make the case against him. It is obvious that the FBI seriously blundered in this case, rushing to make an arrest in the middle of the night based on no physical evidence at all.
Even during the lead-up to josh's release, no concrete evidence was put forward by the FBI to suggest that Josh Connole was in any way involved with the West Covina Hummer dealership action. They apparently based the raid on a likeness comparison from blurry security-video footage and nothing else. While there no physical evidence to suggest that Josh was at the site, there "is" plenty of evidence that Josh was assisting a friend moving into their house on the night the Hummer action took place, and wasn't anywhere near West Covina.
The arrest is part of a pattern of harassment the FBI has been visiting on activists in Southern California since mid-August in a desperate attempt to claim "success" in their hunt for ELF members. Since 1997, very few ELF activists have been arrested which has led to a growing frustration in the FBI as evidenced by the recent raids against activists in the San Diego area and now this arrest on what appears to be nonexistent grounds.
The Earth Liberation Front Press Office would like to send a message of solidarity and support to those activists undergoing harassment by the FBI in Southern California and elsewhere. We encourage people who wish to support Earth Liberation prisoners to contribute to the Earth Liberation Prisoners Support Network.
\bigskip
\section{COMBAT DISPATCH 106: VOLUNTEERS}
\textbf{Going To War with Brian McCarvill}
\section{Combat Dispatch 106: Volunteers}
\subsection{Part I}
I chose the term “Volunteers” because it is apropos to \textbf{combat}. “Comrade” or “comrades” is another term that I like to use a lot in conjunction with \textbf{combat}. I feel as though the two terms are genuinely applicable to Anarchists. I am an Anarchist. As an Anarchist I try to frame my thoughts, my mode of Life, my spirit, in terms of Anarchism. My Anarchism. My Anarchism is what I believe it to be, not what I am told it should be. Still, my Anarchism is fluid. I constantly thirst for, and seek out, Anarchist literature and comraderie, from anywhere and everywhere that I can. As a prisoner in the Oregon gulag, all contact with outside Anarchists was gradually being choked off. More on that in a moment. Let me close this opening paragraph by stating that “Volunteers” and “\textbf{combat}” extend beyond the confines of Anarchism. “Volunteers” and “\textbf{combat}” encompass the struggle to move the revolution forward. Given this very simple request, both “Volunteers” and “\textbf{combat}” will tolerate and seek extra-Anarchist support.
Back to the situation within the Oregon prison system.
In 2000 the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) “documented”\footnote{This is ODOC’s terminology. Webster describes a document as: “A paper that furnishes information, proof, or support of something else”.} Anarchists as a security threat group (STG).\footnote{This according to a sworn statement by Benny Ward, ODOC’s STG manager.} At first, this STG designation by ODOC definition earned Anarchists designation as a gang. Prior to this secretive documenting, interaction between myself and outside Anarchists was relatively free and open. Rejection of Anarchist publications was rare. As far as I know, no Anarchist publication has ever caused an actual security problem within an ODOC prison facility that I had the pleasure of being interned in.\footnote{Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution at Pendleton, Oregon, and the Oregon State Penitentiary at Salem, Oregon. My interaction with outside Anarchists earned me my transfer from EOCI to OSP for “administrative security concerns”.} Once the documentation occurred, almost all Anarchist literature was intercepted and rejected by ODOC. The reasoning tendered for almost all of the rejections was the display of the circle-A or Anarchist Black Cross symbol. It is the rare Anarchist publication that does not contain either a circle-A symbol or an ABC symbol. ODOC was aware of this and they wrote a provision into their mail rule which declared the circle-A, the ABC cross, and the black flag depictions within Anarchist publications to be “gang \Slash{} STG paraphernalia”. They followed up this declaration with a policy of “zero tolerance for any gang \Slash{} STG-related activity”. My interaction with outside Anarchists essentially ceased to exist. I was pissed.
I was not the only one pissed off. Other Anarchist prisoners, comrades of mine and yours, were equally pissed off. We all attempted to challenge the rejection problem by utilising ODOC’s administrative review process. While I was at EOCI (Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution), every once-in-a-while one of these administrative reviews would terminate in my favour. This did not last long before I was transferred to OSP (Oregon State Penitentiary). At OSP, not one single administrative review for any anarchist prisoner that I knew of terminated in the Anarchists’ favour.\footnote{At least not until the date this dispatch was written.}
We were in a quandary as to what to do about this problem. It became obvious to me that only a court injunction was going to get us any relief. I was loathe to file such an action. Tried pleading our case with all of the ODOC brass who’s sphere of influence touched upon the mail rule, or whom could influence the mail rule. It was totally fruitless. It appeared that the lawsuit avenue was to be our only chance of relief. It was a big chance. I was an experienced prison litigator and prison legal assistant. I knew that the courts were not friendly to prisoner litigation. Coupled with the bad press that Anarchists were getting in Oregon it seemed hopeless. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We were already in a position of total repression. We could only improve our situation. However, a loss in court would only seal our fate in the form of our current dilemma. I filed suit, McCarvill v. DeHaan et al., United States District Court, District of Oregon, case no. 02-1167-KI, Portland, Oregon.
The combat had begun. I do not want to bore you with the ins-and-outs of litigating the suit. Anyone truly interested in this aspect of the combat can access the court file and gain a pretty good idea of the massive effort required to prosecute such a suit from the perspective of a prisoner.\footnote{The court file will show you documentation actually filed. It will not show you the tremendous amount of written discovery that took place in the form of Requests for Production and Requests for Admissions submitted to each of the ten separate defendants. This was a brutal, voluminous task, but proved to be exceptionally effective. The court file should be accessible online for anyone wishing to view the documents filed.} It was formidable, I can tell you.
We won the suit. Notice that I said “we”. I could not have accomplished this win alone. This is the point that I wish to make. Had I been alone in this effort I would have lost.
There was all manner of support in this combat. This is Anarchism at work. This is revolution at work. In the matter at hand this was victory. Of course, not all Anarchists, particularly those who pose themselves as ethically pure Anarchists, or principled Anarchists, chose to participate. This is certainly OK. I support them in their principalities. They are often keepers of the flame, the ones that can be relied upon to perpetuate both theory and history, to pacify with knowledge and truth, noble, pertinent, and necessary tasks to be sure. But, be that as it may, there is a war in progress, the litigation that I started was a battle in that war, militarily speaking, an engagement.
Once started, the litigation was, in fact, approached as a battle. It was all or nothing. This was no skirmish. As in any battle, militarily speaking, to win against a formidable enemy, a firmly entrenched enemy, an enemy with superior firepower that holds the high ground, the tactics would necessitate creating multiple fronts and out-flanking the enemy on all of those fronts. This required more than me as the litigator, much more.
My cellmate at the time, and comrade, Rob los Ricos, came up with a plan to mobilise outside forces. A second front was born. Rob, with myself in full agreement, organised a campaign wherein outside supporters were requested to protest ODOC’s repression by sending both of us postcards with a large circle-A symbol displayed over the words “This is not a gang symbol”. Hundreds of postcards flowed in. ODOC reacted by throwing both of us in the hole for 120 days, convicting us of “unauthorised organisation 1”.\footnote{Of course we first had a fair trial!}
The hole time turned out to be a blessing in disguise as far as litigating the lawsuit was concerned. Approximately 90\% of the written discovery efforts were conducted by me from the hole. Yes, I had to hand print it all on unlined paper with a miniature pen the size of a run-of-the-mill birthday cake candle, but I had plenty of time to accomplish it all. Had I been in general population, I would not have had the opportunity to perfect the tremendous amount of written discovery. This proved to be a key downfall in the enemy’s defences on the central front.
As I hammered at the enemy with the full frontal attack of the litigation, the outside support network kicked into full mobility. The Anarchist Prisoners Legal Aid Network, with us from the beginning, both raising and supplying monies that supported the litigation, went on line and otherwise organised massive publicity for the battle. APLAN also coordinated the continued postcard campaign, as well as an effort to arrange declarations in support of the litigation from interested Anarchists from all over the world.\footnote{Declarations are sworn statements on par with affidavits. Federal courts allow declarations. Declarations do not require the declarant to swear before a notary public. The court accepts the declarant’s statement as true as a matter of independent honour.} Break the Chains and \emph{Green Anarchy} of Eugene, Oregon, mirrored APLAN’s efforts, providing a position statement and kicking the bushes for declarations. John Connor and \emph{Green Anarchist} of London, England, provided an in-depth position statement. Joanne Rankin and comrades of Dublin, Ireland, held a fundraising event and provided much appreciated moral support — thank you, Joanne. Ryan Foote and \emph{Mishap} zine of Eugene, Oregon, provided an in-depth position statement and support that considerably freed-up ODOC restriction on zines. John Zerzan provided much-needed declarations that substantially took the legal substance away from ODOC’s position. Countless others from everywhere contributed declarations, postcards and, probably most important to me, moral support.
It turns out that, had I approached the litigation on my own, the cause would have failed. Had ODOC been approached without the litigation, the cause would have failed. Because we approached the battle multilaterally, with full force and conviction, we won. Anarchist comraderie was the binding influence. In this age of information we are a power to be reckoned with. The isolation that accompanied Anarchist individualism in the past is no longer a detriment. Organisation, as a verb, not an entity, as in this instance, is a proven battle winner.
Winning the war is next. It involves \textbf{combat}. Fuck Uncle Sam, the revolution needs you.
\subsection{Part II}
Combat begets casualties. War is hell. How true. Revolution is not a dinner party, after all.\footnote{Please forgive my quoting of Mao but many of his observations are fairly astute on removal from the ideology.} Casualties were suffered by us all around. Impact, both immediate and long-term, varied by degrees as to the participants. I am reminded of a conversation that I had with two of the defendants from the lawsuit, Greg Atkin, the OSP safety officer, and Jacy Duran, the then-central mail administrator.\footnote{Duran proved to be extremely vindictive. She rose to her position of ODOC authority via a stint as a line officer and an Internal Affairs officer. Since the prosecution of this action, she has been supplanted as head Central Mail Administrator by Randy Geer. Duran’s vindictiveness was instrumental in the backlash against this author.} Prior to my actual filing of the suit I had told Duran and Atkin (to his credit, Atkin had brought Duran to my cell door in an effort to solve the circle-A problem) that the only avenue of relief that I had left was to actually file suit. I asked them both if there would be any hard feelings in the event that I did file suit and of course they both professed that there would not be any “paybacks”.
I am currently sitting in ODOC’s showcase isolation unit prison, Two Rivers Correctional Institution (TRCI). How and why did I arrive here? If you have had enough wherewithal to read this far, you obviously are able to rationalise the answer. I am getting ahead of myself here somewhat. Let me back up.
The first casualties in the battle were absorbed by you, our supporters, and us prison rank and file, in the form of monetary cost. Court filing fees were \$150.00. Legal copies and postage expenses quickly took off exponentially, costing multiple hundreds of dollars all total. You raised these funds for us. Your actions and support in doing so constituted a state defence. Although the state complains of costs, there is no impact upon its individuals, it simply squeezes its taxpayers a little harder. The costs to you and I are intended to deter. Capital at work controlling us.
For me this has never been an obstacle. For you, well, I must say, thankfully, that those of you who were not deterred, occurred, and hopefully will continue to occur, in adequate numbers to move the revolution forward. To those of you who were deterred by either financial cost, time incurred, or simply by the necessary effort, I implore you to get the fuck out of the way, take your social-climbing non-committal arse elsewhere — there is no place in the revolution for you.
I recognise that outside support for us prisoners, whether it be monetary, physical effort and\Slash{}or moral support, takes away from other valuable life experience. I think I speak for more than myself when I say that we prisoners deeply respect and appreciate your efforts.
Economic impositions upon us, the prisoners involved (Rob los Ricos and I here) are, of course, amplified very quickly as we deal with very small amounts of money in our lives. We were immediately impacted when we lost our jobs and were thrown in the hole for the postcard campaign.
As long-term prisoners, it was rather easy to take this in stride, particularly because of the outside support that we receive. Still, the state imposes the penalty as a deterrent, it’s all that it knows. Personally, I lost 100 or so days of good-time as well as my prison job. In the long run, the loss of income will become a considerable hardship factor in my quality of life and my ability to interact with the outside. The hole time (120 days) and the loss of good-time are somewhat inconsequential deterrents.
The greatest casualty suffered by me is my transfer to TRCI. The state knows this, it is why they did it. There was a clamour from the outside and from me to ODOC high-rankers to restore Rob and I as cellies and to our jobs. Even the attorney general’s office recommended return of the jobs and no transfers. But authority must have its pound of flesh, gained in this case through the mental anguish inflicted upon me through the transfer to TRCI. Not only did they knowingly separate Rob and I, the worst thing they could do to me, they transferred me to the only prison in Oregon that has no means of ever sitting with back support. They did this with the full knowledge that I suffer from severe spinal trauma and wedged discs. So they know they are torturing me mentally and physically. Still, separating Rob and I was and is a tremendous blow to my good mental health. We pose absolutely no threat to ODOC of any kind. Filing of the lawsuit, your support, the engagement, was an affront to ODOC security’s fascist ego, nothing more, nothing less. They simply cannot stomach that they were wrong, both morally and legally. Authority, like a trod-upon viper must bite and bite it has.
\subsection{Conclusion}
I am currently in physical and mental agony as I write this piece. Perhaps by the time it is read conditions will have improved. I know that comrades at APLAN have put out a call for a write-in campaign to ODOC officials on my behalf. Asking that I be returned to OSP and be given adequate medical treatment via indy-media on the Net. Regardless, I’m a casualty of war, of \textbf{combat}, a willing casualty. We must not be daunted by authority, by capital, or by combat. It has been said that history is written by the winner. My friends, we should have and maintain every intent to write that history.
\bigskip
\chapter{Articles}
\section{NEW YORK, NEW YORK}
\textbf{That’s the way to do it: John Zerzan on when the lights last went out.}
\section{New York, New York: When the lights last went out}
\begin{quote}
\textbf{“Amid All the Camaraderie is Much Looting this Time.”}
“Seeing the City Disappear”, \emph{Wall Street Journal} headline, 15 July 1977
\end{quote}
The \emph{Journal} went on to quote a cop on what he saw, as the great Bastille Day break-out unfolded: “People are going wild in the borough of Brooklyn. They are looting stores by the carload.” Another cop added later: “Stores were ripped open. Others have been leveled. After they looted, they burned.”
At about 9:00 p.m. on July 13 the power went out in New York for 24 hours. During that period the complete impotence if the state in our most ‘advanced’ urban space could hardly have been made more transparent.
As soon as the lights went out, cheers and shouts and loud music announced the liberation of huge sections of the city. The looting and burning commenced immediately, with whole families joining in the “carnival spirit”. In the University Heights section of the Bronx, a Pontiac dealer lost the 50 new cars in his showroom. In many areas, tow trucks and other vehicles were used to tear away the metal gates from stores. Many multistorey furniture businesses were completely emptied by neighborhood residents.
Despite emergency alerts for the state troopers, FBI and National Guard, there was really nothing authority could do, and they knew it. A \emph{New York Times} editorial of July 16 somewhat angrily waved aside the protests of those who wondered why there was almost no intervention on the side of property. “Are you kidding?” the \emph{Times} snorted, pointing out that such provocation would only have meant that the entire city would still be engulfed in riots, adding that the National Guard is a “bunch of kids” who wouldn’t have had a chance.
The plundering was completely multi-racial, with white, black and Hispanic businesses cleaned out and destroyed throughout major parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. Not a single “racial incident” was reported during the uprising, while newspaper pictures and TV news bore witness to the variously coloured faces emerging from the merchants’ windows and celebrating in the streets.
Similarly, looting, vandalism, and attacks in police were not confined to the City proper; Mount Vernon, Yonkers and White Plains were among suburbs in which the same things happened, albeit on a smaller scale.
Rioting broke out in the Bronx House of Detention where prisoners started fires, seized dormitories, and almost escaped by ramming through a wall with a steel bed. Concerning the public, the Bronx District Attorney fumed, “It’s lawlessness. It’s almost anarchy.”
Officer Gary Parlefsky, of the 30\textsuperscript{th} Precinct in Harlem, said that he and other cops came under fire from guns, bottles and rocks. He continued:
\begin{quote}
We were scared to death\dots{} but worse than that, a blue uniform didn’t mean a thing. They couldn’t understand why we were arresting them.
\end{quote}
At a large store at 110\textsuperscript{th} Street and Eighth Avenue, the doors were smashed open and dozens of people carried off appliances. A woman in her middle-50s walked into the store and said laughingly: “Shopping with no money required!”
Attesting to the atmosphere of a “collective celebration”, as one worried columnist put it, a distribution center was spontaneously organized at a Brooklyn intersection, with piles of looted goods on display for the taking. This was shown briefly on an independent New York station, WPIX-TV, but not mentioned in the major newspapers.
The transformation of commodities into free merchandise was only aided by the coming of daylight, as the festivity and music continued. Mayor Beame, at a noon (July 15) press conference, spoke of the “night of terror”, only to be mocked heartily by the continuing liberation underway throughout New York as he spoke.
Much, of course, was made of the huge contrast between the events of July 1977 and the relatively placid, law-abiding New York blackout of November 1965. One can only mention the obvious fact that the dominant values are now everywhere in shreds. The “social cohesion” of class society is evaporating. New York is no isolated example.
Of course, there has been a progressive decay in recent times of restraint, hierarchy, and other enforced virtues; it hasn’t happened all at once. Thus, in the 1960s, John Leggett (in his \emph{Class, Race and Labour}) was surprised to learn upon examining the arrest records of those in the Detroit and Newark insurrections, that a great many of the participants were fully employed. This time, of the 176 people indicted as of August 8 in Brooklyn (1,004 were arrested in the borough), 48\% were regularly employed. (The same article in the August 9 \emph{San Francisco Chronicle} where these figures appeared also pointed out that only “six grocery stores were looted while 39 furniture stores, 20 drug stores and 17 jewelry stores and clothing stores were looted”). And there are other similarities to New York, naturally; \emph{Life} magazine of 4 August 1967 spoke of the “carnival-like revel of looting” in Detroit, and Professor Edward Banfield commented that
\begin{quote}
Negroes and whites mingled in the streets [of Detroit] and looted amicably side by side\dots{}”
\end{quote}
The main difference is probably one of scale and scope — that in New York virtually all areas, even the suburbs, took the offensive and did so from the moment the lights went out. Over \$1 billion was lost in the thousands of stores looted and burned, while the cops were paralyzed. During the last New York rioting, the ‘Martin Luther King’ days of 1968, 32 cops were injured; in one day in July 1977, 418 cops were injured.
The Left — all of it — has spoken only of the high unemployment, the police brutality; has spoken of the people of New York only as objects, and pathetic ones at that! The gleaming achievements of the unmediated \Slash{} unideologized have all the pigs scared shitless.
\section{Advert: Green Anarchy \#13 OUT now!}
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mailto:collective@greenanarchy.org][collective@greenanarchy.org
\bigskip
\section{Apes of Wrath}
From the Associated Press (which did such a bang-up job on the Iraq war), dateline Boston, September 29, 2003: A 300-pound gorilla will be kept off display after it escaped from its zoo enclosure and roamed through the Franklin Park Zoo and along nearby streets for nearly two hours before it was sedated with tranquiller darts, according to Zoo New England CEO and President John Linehan.
Even zoos, it turns out, have CEO’s. Undoubtedly so do circuses, and I don’t mean the one in Washington, and so does every other institution which once thrilled children with icons and images and visions of another life, a life of magic and marvel. Of course now they view images quite as exciting or more so when they go on-line. But a zoo or a circus (they are not too different), even in our flattened down era, puts on a show which, for all its phoniness, surpasses anything virtual.
18-year-old Courtney Roberson worked at the zoo and was taking 2-year-old Nia Scott, her friend’s little sister, for an outing when Little Joe escaped, according to family members. The gorilla grabbed the child, threw her to the ground and jumped on her, according to Dale McNeil, Scott’s godmother.
If so, there was remarkably little harm done: “Neither zoo officials nor Boston Police could provide any information on the injuries. But family members said Scott had a gash on her cheek and needed several stitches. Roberson [who was not thrown to the ground and jumped] was bitten on the back and scratched on the leg, said her mother, Shamika Woumnm.” (I find her name even less likely than her story.) Clearly the family members saw their chance for a score and wasted no time creating evidence. The accusations against Little Joe are grave but, I suspect, self-serving. If a 300 pound gorilla jumped on a two year old girl, I would expect her to incur serious injury, if not death, but probably not just a gash on the cheek. For a rounded picture, we need to look at it from Little Joe’s point of view. From the Associated Press we further learn: In August, the 5 foot, adolescent gorilla also escaped from its section of the Tropical Forest exhibit, which had a 12-foot-wide, 12-foot-deep, moat. No one was hurt then, and zoo officials installed electrified wires to keep him from escaping again.
The Associated Press story, aided by the family’s litigation-oriented statements, is all too obviously scripted under the influence of the King Kong and Mighty Joe Young films, with adjustments for details. Little Nia Scott is Fay Wray. Mighty — er, Little Joe is framed, perhaps literally, by these evocative antecedents, which it is not necessary for the word-thrifty Associated Pressman to mention because they are deeply rooted in popular consciousness. Little Joe, at a first pass from the sensitive, anonymous Associated Press reporter, is strikingly depicted as an African American rapist: “The gorilla grabbed the child, threw her to the ground and jumped on her, according to Dale McNeil, Scott’s godmother.” Then, and only after that impression has sunk in, the AP journalist indicates that Little Joe is perhaps as much like Houdini as he is like King Kong. Little Joe has twice thwarted the best efforts of his captors to hold him in bondage. Not a 12 foot moat, not even an electrified fence stopped the 5 foot tall, 300 pound young primate.
The movie the AP guy should have reviewed, at least in his mind, before writing his story was not King Kong or Mighty Joe Young but The Great Escape. Young male gorillas like Little Joe, who was born in captivity, pose problems because of their agility and restlessness, according to Linehan. “They go through a stage where, physically and psychologically, they’re growing much stronger, and become much more lean and long, and containment can be an increasing challenge at that age,” he said.
Other young male primates go through the same stage. Some of them formed the anarchist Black Blocs in Seattle, Genoa and elsewhere. Others disperse their “agility and restlessness” in frat parties, liberal politics, music subcultures or even by joining the Army to meet cute dumb hillbillies like “Daisy Mae” Jessica Lynch. As that astute psychologist\Slash{}CEO Linehan explains, they go through a stage where they’re becoming strong (which, after the indignities of childhood, is a heady realization) and naturally they cast about for something to test their strength against. For Little Joe, there was an only and obvious challenge: his captivity.
I used to live in the Boston area and I knew exactly where Little Joe escaped from, and where he was recaptured. Needless to say, there was nowhere for him to live in Boston as the magnificent animal that he is. He would not survive the coming winter. And since he was born in captivity, he would not even survive in the rain forest where gorillas belong, were he released there.
This the CEO obviously does not intend for his investment, since Little Joe is one of 6 of the exhibition gorillas he has acquired since 1998. Except that now Little Joe, after his recent adventure, is not on exhibit — he’s locked down — which is perhaps a partial victory for Little Joe. I remember Charlton Heston, in Spartacus, howling in his cell, “I am not an animal!” Would it have made any difference if he were?
Truth being, as Nietzsche taught us, multi-perspectival, we might set the measured, classical restraint of the Associated Press story beside the romantic exuberance of the version in the \emph{New York Daily News} (“Teen Was Helpless Against Raging Ape,” Sept. 30, 2003). Much of the story is the same, as we might expect, since the writers are both American Journalists pledged to Objectivity, but the \emph{Daily News} story focuses on the romantic interest. For it seems that Little Joe is not the only 300 pound adolescent primate in the picture. “He was too strong for me, and I’m a big person,” says teenage nanny and zoo employee Courtney Roberson. “I weigh close to 300 pounds.” In this, slightly more plausible version, Little Joe knocked Little Nia out of Roberson’s hands “and stomped on her before going after Roberson again.” There is nothing about what happened to Roberson, or what happened at all, after Little Joe’s “going after” her. Presumably he did nothing ungentlemanly. Since the incidents recounted could not have taken more than a minute, and Little Joe was on the loose for two hours, evidently once he got a good look at Roberson he betook himself elsewhere. Love hath no fury like a woman scorned. And did Little Joe “jump on” Little Nia (AP) or “stomp” on her (\emph{Daily News})?
According to Nia’s godmother, “When he snatched the baby, the gorilla took the baby and ran with it. And when he went to run, he turned around and he looked at Courtney and he dropped the baby and ran after Courtney” — contradicting her immediately previous statement that Little Joe stomped Little Nia. Dropping is not stomping. Or did he drop-kick her? By the time the case comes to trial, I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. The \emph{Daily News}, then, departs from the Hollywood paradigm of the Associated Press — this is not a Fay Wray situation at all. Here the helpless, innocent human female, Little Nia, was a sort of bystander who got in the way. This was something between Little Joe and Big Courtney Roberson, who probably looked more like a young female gorilla in heat than any animal the born-in-captivity, hormonally charged up Little Joe had ever seen. She may have played on that. There’s some monkey business here. After Little Joe’s August breakout, “zoo officials installed electrified wires to keep him from escaping again,” in addition to the 12 foot wide, 12 foot deep moat. How did he get past all of that? “There’s a lot we have to find out, and we’ll be reviewing what happened,” as CEO Linehan is quoted in both stories as saying, so it must be true. I have a theory. It was an inside job. Little Joe got out just before closing time, i.e., just when many zoo employees were probably getting off work. I think Big Courtney Roberson was one of them. She claims to have been taking Little Nia “for an outing” — not at the zoo, which was closing — but apparently right outside, although the neighborhood has no other attractions. I think Roberson, recalling the publicity around Little Joe’s first escape, turned off the juice and let him out, and then planted herself, babe in hand, in his path. I wouldn’t be surprised if she were the aggressor. I think what Courtney was courting was a juicy lawsuit, or a tryst, or both.
If I am right, the “raging ape” was the victim here in a most immediate way. He was set up and he was exploited. But if I am wrong he is still a victim, but in that case not the only one. Incarceration in a zoo is a far more serious wrong than a bite on the back from a runaway gorilla.
Now that we know that we share something like 98\% of our DNA with Little Joe and his kind, we might rethink our relations with gorillas. About 15 years ago, a visiting Slovenian anarchist, Gregor Tomc, joined me for a visit to the renowned Washington Zoo. An anti-Communist dissident, he was especially curious to see the pandas donated by the Red Chinese. (Nobody calls them the “Red Chinese” any more. Why not? They haven’t changed.) The monkey house depressed him: “They’re too human,” he said.
I know what he meant. I spent a minute alone before a gorilla in a cage. I looked him in the eye and he looked me in the eye. Anyone could see the intelligence and the pain — and it was in his eyes too. Tomc was quite right but I would rephrase what he said. ‘We’re too animal” is more like it. The enslavement of Little Joe and so many other animals eerily reminiscent of ourselves really indicates our failure to come to terms with our own nature, which is an animal nature. In domesticating animals we have made ourselves the ultimate domesticated animal. For us to escape, on an individual basis, from civilization — from the state, the market, the class system, from religions and moralities — that is scarcely more realistic than for Little Joe to pass a quiet winter in Boston where he was recaptured, “near a football stadium.”
But we do differ in an important way from our fellow animals. We have language. Recent research establishes that this is not the qualitative break it was long thought to be. Gorillas appear to have a rudimentary vernacular language, and they can even be taught English sign language in controlled circumstances. Noam Chomsky does not believe this, not because it isn’t true, but because it refutes his Cartesian linguistic theory. He is like those 16\textsuperscript{th} century prelates who looked through Galileo’s telescope and denied what they saw because it could not be true.
In tribute to Chomsky’s Scholastic obtuseness, the researchers who study Koko and her fellow gorillas have named their dumbest gorilla student “Nim Chimsky.” Language — especially written language — has served as an instrument of domination. Like most truths about the life we live, this one sounds extravagant or overstated or metaphorical, but that is only because it is so difficult to stand apart from that life, if only in thought, to see it as it is. It is a finding of sober archaeological fact that for the first one thousand years of writing (in ancient Sumer — now known as Iraq), it was devoted exclusively to government record-keeping and occasional chest-thumping by the Ozymandias-style autocrats who still rule in the Cradle of Civilization, only now they are American. Literacy was so restricted to bureaucrats that Hammurabi, for instance, probably could not read the Code of Hammurabi. Now history is not necessarily destiny, but it certainly should inform those who would be makers of destiny, if they know what’s good for them.
The question is whether there is any other way than through language to get out of what language has gotten us into. Even those who say “no” contradict what they say just by saying it. Language posits the only possibility, if there is one, of the Great Escape. And it has to be a Great Escape, a collective adventure, because anything less than that is just like Little Joe busting out to — to where? to what? That’s just it. Little Joe got out, but while he had a place to escape from, he had no place to escape to. I wonder what he thought of the streets of Boston which he wandered for two hours. He could hardly have found there what he was looking for, if he’d even thought that far ahead. I know I never did.
I have given my reasons for doubting whether Little Joe went ape, but even if he did, going ape is something apes never do in the wild and in the society (for they have one) of other apes. Going human is really a better, if also an inadequate description of what he is accused of doing. Our prisons — our human zoos — are filled with humans who have gone ape, which really just means, stir-crazy. They experience domestication literally with a vengeance. Elsewhere, in school or in the workplace, it’s not usually so obvious. But your boss has made a monkey out of you all the same. Alexander Pope wrote a couplet — about a dog, not an ape, but he was saying the same thing I am (Kew was a royal palace):
\begin{quote}
\emph{I am his Highness’ dog at Kew\forcelinebreak
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? }
\end{quote}
Free Little Joe and all other political prisoners! A zoo and a circus — these words are not only effective metaphors for our civilized society, they really surpass metaphor by verging on straight reportage, much like the Objective reportage of the Associated Press and the \emph{Daily News}. It is no accident that we so often reach for one of these words to disparage some feature of the political or social scene. They fit the hand so well. It never required DNA evidence, not for anyone “with ears to see,” as Ivan Stang once phrased it, to notice that the animals deservedly called the great apes are amazingly like ourselves. I have never understood how any creationist moron could visit a zoo and look at the primates and come away with his Bible bigotry intact. He is, I suppose, our own Nim Chimsky. Unfortunately, our Nim Chimsky has the right to vote.
\bigskip
\section{Winning the War, Losing the Peace: Ecological Revolution Flounders on Bougainville}
With a population of only 160,000 Bougainville has managed to close and keep closed one of the biggest copper mines in the world. Despite having to fight the Australian-armed Papua New Guinea (PNG) army, they have held their ground for twelve years with home made guns made out of water piping and planks, scavenged mine trucks and petrol made from coconuts.
In 1969 a RTZ plc copper mine was forcibly established. From the beginning the people resisted. News footage of women fighting with riot cops over survey pegs received international coverage. In Bougainville women are the traditional landholders; land is passed from woman to woman. On this occasion it was clear their land was not being passed on in the traditional manner.
The building of the mine made 800 villagers landless and another 1,400 without fishing rights as land was seized and the subsistence life of gardening and fishing was destroyed. 220 hectares of rainforest was poisoned, burned and bulldozed.
After 20 years the mine had grown to a crater half a kilometre deep and nearly 7km in circumference. Over a billion tonnes of waste was dumped into the Jaba River valley creating a wall of waste hundreds of metres high, turning one of the islands biggest river systems bright blue.
After ignored protests, petitions and legal claims the Bougainvilleans had had enough. A handful of islanders stole company explosives, destroying electricity pylons, buildings and machinery. By using guerrilla tactics they succeeded in closing the mine. Until the war broke out in 1988, the mine accounted for around 45\% of PNG’s total export earnings. Without these earnings PNG is going bust. PNG, with the assistance of Australia, responded by sending in the military. State soldiers strafed villages from helicopters. The Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) was formed to defend the land and people from further exploitation. Ten years of war followed.
PNG herded people into ‘care centres’ (concentration camps) and enforced a medical blockade on the island. 10,000 Bougainvilleans died in the conflict. Despite being heavily outgunned the BRA succeeded in keeping the mine closed. They pushed the state soldiers off most of their island and forced a peace. The land of the mine is slowly regenerating. The people have returned to their age-old subsistence agriculture.
Unfortunately the people who originated the revolution — the people local to the destruction and with the most to lose — have now become isolated from the rest of Bougainvilleans. Most of the others seem to want to re-open the mine and instigate other developments, The locals are holed up in their mountain stronghold.
Francis Ona, the instigator of the original revolution, is vilified by the mainstream press and virtually all communication with the rest of the world is controlled by the prodevelopment lobby. Ona’s group, the Me’ekamui Defence Force, (MDF) have about fifty armed people to defend the site of the mine, and the BRA now stand in opposition to them, with about a thousand.
Recently the BRA tried to remove a MDF roadblock barring foreigners passage to the mine, killing some of the defenders. All the NGOs who once supported the struggle against colonialism now seem to see nothing wrong with what they call the ‘peace process’ and are slagging off Ona and his people, who are ultimately the ones whose decision about their land should be final. There are lessons to be learned here about both NGOs and ‘nationalist’ struggles (not to mention ‘peace’ processes), and the wisdom of co-operating with those who hold views antipathetic to our own.
Very little news comes out at all from the MDF; the little that does is hopelessly mangled by corporate lackey journalists. Unsurprisingly, Ona doesn’t trust outsiders, and particularly not journalists. He hasn’t been interviewed in the 6 years since the BRA won the war, until recently. In that interview, after being accused of having no connection with the Bougainville peace process, he said:
\begin{quote}
“I never have any no connection with the peace process on Bougainville. You know, peace on Bougainville is always here, yeah, but what they are trying to import on Bougainville is trying to\dots{} economise peace, you know, they want to put money into the process and then try to\dots{} I see it as a psychological warfare on Bougainville, yeah.”
\end{quote}
Papua New Guinea has most graciously agreed to allow Bougainville a referendum on independence in ten years time, but Ona says there’s no reason to wait. Bougainville can go it alone. “I don’t know why ten years\dots{}” he says. “Right now we can have a referendum. Bougainvilleans through the last 14 years have proven that we can look after ourselves.”
Francis Ona has literally stuck to his guns. His men remain heavily armed, untouched by the ‘disarmament process’ (the BRA and foreign interferers still have guns\dots{}) which they’ve rejected. At the roadblock, the MDF exchanged fire with the BRA as recently as March this year. Ona says “It’s really a violation of the peace process on Bougainville\dots{} I’ve got a paper here which proves that the UN and PNG has planned all this. You know, it’s written here.” He asked the fuckwit journalist to take the paper but was ignored.
In spite of the situation, the MDF appear confident. “The outside input into Bougainville has destroyed our people’s lives. We’ve gone through fourteen years without money and we still exist.” As with all people who are truly resisting the onslaught of civilisation, it’s hard to know what we can do in the west in solidarity with them. It seems that anything we do to undermine civilisation here will be more useful than trying to get through the maze of disinformation put up by the ‘human rights’ and development organisations.
There is an international spokesperson for the MDF, Clive Porabou, working out of PNG. Typically, he has support only from a few individuals; the cowardly NGOs go along with the oppressors.
To get news out and gather support for the struggle the MDF need to get their transmitter repaired.
If you can help to fund new communications equipment (even just a few quid will help), contact \emph{GA} and we can put you in touch with them. See P.14 for addresses.
The Panguna landowners’ story shows that there is really no point in working with such organisations. These are the enemies of freedom as much as the more obvious ones are.
\subsection{Desire for Freedom: MDF Statement, 26 Sep 2003}
From the South to the Northern tip of Bougainville there is a growing “restlessness” for freedom and that freedom is total Independence. In Central Bougainville No Go Zone where Inter-Government Relations Minister sir Peter Barter focus his attention, Francis Ona and his Me’ekamui National council and the Me’ekamui Defence force have no right to stop people from seeking medical assistance or joining the imported peace.
Even in the peace areas there are Me’ekamui Hardliners with Me’ekamui basic aims and principal, Independence. Me’ekamui Defence Force are not the party to weapons disposal, those are BRA A company who joined the peace process the same people who signed the petition. The road block at Morgen junction will remain. Bougainvilleans go in and out of the No Go Zone areas freely but outsiders are not allow.
No Go Zone does not prevents people from proper service, assistance and medical treatment but it is helping them to keep their birth right. Me’ekamui Goverment and its Millitary Arm [ MDF ] is not disrupting the peace process, why blame the Me’ekamui Government?
Bougainville peace is from time immemorable, long live peace on Bougainville.
Clive Porabou, MDF Spokeperson
\section{Green Anarchists Gather in Pennsylvania}
The 1\textsuperscript{st} Green Anarchist Gathering took place July 10–13, despite the FBI. The first site was a private campground at the intersection of the Appalachians and Alleghenies. The Feds thought it too close to one of the largest underground natural gas storage facilities in the US, a facility on the Homeland Security watch list, so we got a call from the campground owner: “Your event is being canceled. We’ve had several visits from the FBI and other law enforcement. You lied to us. You didn’t tell us you were terrorists.”
The FBI under Mike Hudak of the Scranton \Slash{} Wilkes-Barre office had not only visited the campground but sent Pennsylvania state troopers to the township meeting to inform citizens of this redneck idyll of the vipers poised to descend on their community. “Just look at their web site,” they urged, giving them the URL to the Black and Green pages. Helicopters and black sedans then showed up. With help from a State Park official, we were back on track within a week at a new location only 60 miles away.
\subsection{The Gathering}
There were 100+ pre-registered via the web site and we were hoping for even more, so I opted for communal catering, like the Anarchist Teapot at EF!UK Gatherings. It was a younger crowd; out of the 80 there, only 10 of us were over 30. Most were from eastern and southern states. The downside of larger workshops was that organizers spoke too much and newbies too little.
A real highlight of the gathering was the two full days of primitive skill share with Tim, a ‘professional’ from the Teaching Drum School, who instructed the future primitives in tracking, shelter building, wild plant identification skills, and answered lots of questions in an informative and good-natured way.
There was a conflict resolution workshop where many of us found we faced the same issues with regards to finding alternative ways of dealing with conflict without making appeals to authorities. Many had been involved in conflicts with individuals who could be clinically categorised as ‘mentally disturbed’. We discussed how we all are misfits, but those who’d really lost all grasp of reality are drawn to activist communities whose tolerance and openness to society’s oppressed may be well known. Those with truly anti-social, if not violent, tendencies can cause real problems in terms of the emotional health of those around them.
Ted Kaczynski’s ‘Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts’ article (\emph{Green Anarchy} \#8) led to lively and most interesting discussion, especially to Fed infiltrators. Some of us tried clarifying arguments for economic and infra-structural sabotage.
There was a civ and patriarchy session that I found boring, with men in attendance professing their genuine open-mindedness and unconditional support of women in general and the women bringing up anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
I find this inevitably veers into the issue of rape, and then tends to be discussed in the same hypersensitive terms liberals use. As a woman and anarchist I find this discouraging. I can’t help but feel that elevating that particular violation to the status of most heinous just an ideology of women’s victimization beyond remedy. Too bad that the state has the monopoly on violence, our communities could sort out that issue amongst ourselves with much more success.
One goal of the Gathering was to exchange info, facilitated by the presence of the ‘A-Hole’, the Coalition Against Civilization’s tent full of Anarcho-primitivist scholarship and agit prop. The only security issue was potential confrontation with ‘Young Marines’ in the adjacent camping area, whose cries of “Yes Sir!” we had to endure each day, all day long, but nothing happened except their complaint that they saw someone from our group naked next to a car, changing clothes. Hope to see you there next year!
\chapter{Alt Tech}
\section{Fuck ‘Alternative’ Technology! Fuck the ‘Alternative’ Green Ghetto!}
Standing up on this hill, as the sun filters through the trees you occasionally catch the reflection of solar panels on the roofs of the houses beyond the wind farm. The gentle swishing of turbine blades is inaudible here, but the hum of a tractor is just perceptible as it sows next year’s bio fuel crop in the fields below\dots{}
Though the reality of alternative technology providing a “green” and sustainable life for us all in the 21\textsuperscript{st} century may seem a long way off, may seem an almost impossible task of enormous proportions, it is becoming more widely accepted as a necessary step in the progress of our industrial society. It is, however, rarely seen for the sham it is.
The disastrously clichéd picture painted above is incomplete without a quick look behind the scenes. Though minute details of the industrial processes employed are beyond the scope of this article, and frankly do not interest me, even a cursory examination will show that the manufacture of photovoltaic panels, wind gennies and bio fuel production facilities is not a particularly green (or alternative) business. From mineral and metal ore extraction (think open cast, think indigenous land rights, think health and safety) to metal purification (think blast furnace, think slag heaps, think massive energy consumption) to manufacturing (think conveyer belts, think toxic effluents, think wage slavery) to transport (think container ships, think road deaths, think more and more fucking airports) to mass consumer society (think, no don’t think, consume), when western industrial society decides it wants something, regardless of the apparently benign nature of the product (or even it’s intended use in excusing the excesses of our society), the product has a price attached to it, namely the “concealed drudgery of many and the despoliation of the natural world”\footnote{John Zerzan ‘On the Transition; Postscript to Future Primitive’ or on the web here \href{http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/fp.htm}{www.insurgentdesire.org.uk}}
There seem to be many people in the alternative green ghetto who have become engrossed in the provision of power through ‘alternative’ means, usually at festivals and free parties, and who even see this as a form of green activism. Embarrassingly this mostly takes the form of boys playing with their (hi-tech) toys. An unfortunate group caught out by technological determinism. Just because it’s possible it doesn’t follow that it’s a good idea.
Many have been fooled into thinking that this new product of consumer capitalism will further the goals of those seeking sustainability without questioning the use of electricity itself and the innately unsustainable nature of all the industries involved in its consumption.
Although industrial production (of alt-tech gear or otherwise) is inherently unsustainable (surely with just a bit more technology\dots{}) some products are often justified if they, for instance, allow autonomy or independence to those in struggle, but then the same goes for making use of any of the tools of civilization in order to fight against it. But people tend to consume ‘alt tech’ as a lazy alternative to using more inventive methods, which are usually more in conflict with the system.
The problem arises around so-called ‘ethical’ consumption and the quasireligious zeal that surrounds the cult that is alternative-technology. Ethical consumption is steeped in petty moralism and guilt, but rarely challenges consumption itself.
As anarchists we shouldn’t look to the marketplace to fulfil our needs — but rather seek to feed off the detritus of civilization whilst attacking the pillars that are its foundation.
What are we doing with all this ‘alternative’ electricity? Whether it’s being fed into the grid or used where it’s made (via lead-acid batteries), it is the use of electricity itself that must be questioned, not where it comes from. In the same way that the suggestion that our vehicles could be fuelled by vegetable oil does not question car culture, the cult of electricity is rarely examined. From computers to sound-systems, light-bulbs to fridge-freezers all of these things just add to the devastation of the natural world, and severely limit any chance of salvaging a genuine unmediated human existence.
It would be foolish to forget that a green city is still a city. It comes down to whether you merely want to tinker with the system (however you dress that up in anarcho-leftist rhetoric), creating a green tinged society a la Bookchinite ‘Social Ecology’) whether your desire is to embark upon a project that seeks to dismantle all that curtails a more authentic exitence. Though there are apparently still some anarchists who believe that controlling the means of production would somehow allow the develoment of a libertarian society, it must be realised that the technological system is simply a part of the structure domination that (one would think) anarchists strive to destroy.
Technology is the sum of mediations between us and the natural world and the sum of those separations mediating us from each other. It is all the drudgery and toxicity required to produce and reproduce the stage of hyper-alienation we live in.\footnote{John Zerzan ‘Technology’ \emph{Future Primitive} CAL Press or on the web here www.insurgentdesire.org.uk\Slash{}technology.htm}
It may have become apparent that I am using the terms “technology” and “alternative technology” interchangably, but it should be obvious by now that there can be no reasonable differentiation between them. The notion that technology is neutral and exists independently of social relationships has no basis.
\begin{quote}
Technology is not a simple tool which can be used in any way we like. It is a form of social organization, a set of social relations. It has its own laws. If we are to engage in its use, we must accept its authority. The enormous size, complex interconnections and stratification of tasks which make up modern technological systems make authoritarian command necessary and independent, individual decision-making impossible.\forcelinebreak
(\emph{Fifth Estate} Quoted from ‘The Primitivist Primer’ by John Moore).
\end{quote}
At the heart of the technological system are the division of labour and specialisation. Resulting from these are dependency. We are held to ransom, dependent on others, childlike in the face of the complex organisation of technological society, alienated from the natural environment.
\begin{quote}
Most anarchists recognise that the state, private property, the commodity system, the patriarchal family and organized religion are inherently dominating institutions and systems that need to be destroyed if we are to create a world in which we are all free to determine our lives as we see fit. Thus, it is strange that the same understanding is not applied to the industrial technological system.\footnote{from ‘The Machinery of control: A Critical Look at Technology’, \emph{Wilful Disobedience} Vol. 3, No. 2}
\end{quote}
It appears that what is needed is a seditious mutiny of the technological mindset that seems to be so pervasive even within so called ‘alternative’ green and radical circles. That ‘alternative’ technology will fail to avert any of the pitfalls of conventional technological approaches is clear. Therefore its status among many as some form of tool of a future ecological society is grounded in shallow and ill thought out analysis of the current technological society we find ourselves in and the historical forces that brought this about.
\begin{quote}
Never before have people been so infantalised, made so dependent on the machine for everything; as the earth rapidly approaches its extinction due to technology, our souls are shrunk and flattened by its pervasive rule. Any sense of wholeness and freedom can only return by the undoing of the massive division of labour at the heart of technological progress. This is the liberatory project in all its depth.\footnote{from ‘Technology’ by John Zerzan from \emph{Future Primitive} CAL Press. Or on the web here \href{http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/}{www.insurgentdesire.org.uk} technology.htm}
\end{quote}
\section{More Alternative Problems}
\subsection{Geothermal Plot}
The Shasta, Modoc and Pit River nations peoples have told Calpine corporation and CalEnergy General that they do not want development in the Medicine Lake region.
Two 50 Megawatt plants are proposed. Sitting on the southern edge of the Cascade Mountains, the treeshrouded Lake, the watershed of the Sacramento River, is critical to Indians. The mountains are considered sacred.
Around Telephone Flat, the areas are used for vision quests and for the gathering of healing herbs. And there are also women’s mountains, where they go to get their power. Over 100 years ago the same tribes were decimated by gold rush miners.
\subsection{The Death of Rivers}
If the James Bay project in Quebec is completed, it will embrace over 30 major dams and 500 dikes. Completed in 1995 LG1 is churning out 1,368 megawatts of electricity. More is added all the time.
The project threatens the way of life of the Cree and the Inuit. The James Bay wetlands and forests are habitat of lynx, black bears, waerfowl, and one of North America’s largest caribou herds.
The new complex would take a tumbling, 225-mile-long river and convert much of its length into a series of artificial slack-water lakes. These reservoirs would submerge more than a thousand miles of riverine lands and untamed forests.
\subsection{Fusion is No Solution: An antidote to the usual, incredible hype}
Alternative technology tends to be sold as small \Slash{} human scale and so decentralisable and autonomous until such time as the ‘powers-that-be’ actually take it seriously, at which point it becomes a mega-project under centralised expert control. Witness wind power spawning huge 100m high wind farms, with wave power next to get the same treatment — and it’s typically those pushing such energy generation as ‘alternatives’ that get to be the experts ‘benevolently’ imposing them as soon as the government money starts to come in.
No one could pretend fusion is anything but hi-tech, highly centralised, highly expertise-dependant and demanding huge injections of funding and power, but some still believe it is somehow “clean” and can yield massive amounts of energy, like the old ‘Atoms for Peace’ \Slash{} ‘too cheap to meter’ codswallop they used to sell us fission back in the 1950s. Needless to say, this is the opposite of the truth.
First off, the isotopes of hydrogen smashed together at super-hot (plasma) temperatures are radioactive. Sure enough, deuterium only has a half-life of 12 years — one reason why its use as a ‘doping agent’ in US nuclear weapons has quietly rendered most of them obselete — but the free neutrons generated by this process often impact the torus’s cladding and not the hydrogen fuel, which really is a long-term waste disposal problem.
Secondly, as well as being radioactive, tritium can cause cancer, birth defects and other such problems. Dealing with tritium emissions incidental to conventional fission reactors, the Conception Group discovered a Health \& Welfare Canada (HWC) report admitting:\footnote{Conception Research, Postal Station “B”, Box One, Toronto Ontario, Canada M5T 2T2.}
\begin{quote}
a ‘statistically significant’ correlation of central nervous system (CNS) birth defects with large releases of tritium to air: five Pickering infants with CNS defects (anencephaly, microcephaly, spina bifida with hydrocephalus, and two others whose defect code was not on record) were born in January-July 1978, following the airborne tritium releases of April-October 1977. Medical experts link CNS birth defects to radiation exposure, as found after the atomic bombing of Japan.
\end{quote}
Fusion researchers concede this is a problem, but claim they only need a small amount of tritium to initiate neutron emission from the deuterium. Engineers admit, however, that “a tritium inventory of 40 kg” as the minimum required to ensure viability.
Thirdly, as hydrogen is such a small molecule, virtually anything is porous to it, making containment much, much more difficult than for fissionable materials. Hydrogen is highly explosive (witness the Hindenberg!) and will be used in combination with super-high temperatures, making plant safety a big issue. One nuclear engineer frankly stated:\footnote{Personal e-communication}
“I would be a lot more concerned about a Tritium fire twenty miles away than a meltdown at a fission plant”. There are also likely to be day-to-day hazards caused by the intense electromagnetic forces used to keep the hydrogen plasma off the torus wall, likely affecting workers’ reproductive and central nervous systems and potentially causing leukaemia, if typical of other nonionizing radiation hazards. The same spectacle as occurred at Sellafield — where workers there were warned not to have children — is likely to occur at any future viable fusion plant.
Fourthly, as noted already, both tritium and deuterium are key components of nuclear weapons — indeed, it was Lawrence Livermore’s Edward Teller (a.k.a. ‘Doctor Strangelove’) that first promoted them in the form of the hydrogen bomb, while he was still at Los Alamos — and so represents a proliferation risk, with all the ‘security state’ ramifications of that. So much for ‘fusion for peace’, not that anyone has ever pretended anything so patently stupid — and as Karl Jung argued against fission in his Nuclear State three decades ago, a nuclear state is inevitably ultimately also a totalitarian state.
Fifthly, fusion is mega-science feeding a Promethian mega-science mentality, with huge resources diverted into keeping such experts on the hitech gravy train. The CANDU torus (also known as ITEC) cost the Canadian government £14 billion when established in 1992. It is a pure research facility which will never generate a watt of electricity for nonresearch use and, typical of those that have had a living gifted to them, all objections by citizen groups such as Sierra Club Canada have so far arrogantly been waved aside.
Finally, despite the industry hype we’d all be on fusion power by 1980, not a watt of electricity has been generated by fusion for research purposes as well as for non-research ones. Nuclear engineers admit:\footnote{ibid.}
\begin{quote}
The biggest issue facing DT is the actual breeding of the tritium in the Lithium blanket. It is not a simple problem and may be the death of DT fusion if no practical way of efficiently breeding the tritium and harvesting it quickly without having even minimal losses. This is the part that is the most pessimistic, in my opinion.
\end{quote}
In other words, that fusion has always been complete hype and that they may never get it working at all. In this, it certainly is fission+, where at least it was only the safe disposal of the waste they hadn’t figured out before spinning stories to suck the public purse dry.
\subsection{ Hydrogen Fuel Cells: Energy of the Future, or South Seas Bubble?}
\textbf{by Mr. Blobby}
In a world facing wars for oil, we desperately need an ‘alternative’ energy source for the future. Hydrogen fuel cells, as used in the Space Shuttle, are the energy source of the future, according to the hype surrounding fuel cell research. But research funds are worth lots of \$\$\$; so how well founded in scientific reality is the current optimism in the face of problems which beset the hydrogen fuel cell industry?
Look at a working model of a hydrogen fuel cell, and you see a wonder of science: Hydrogen ‘burned’ with no smoke, water the only exhaust. Look a little deeper into this miraculous technology, and you see that the heavy and cumbersome hydrogen fuel tank is only large enough to supply fuel for barely a few minutes if it is fitted into a car used to give a flashy film promotion of fuel cell technology.
The car in a video to hype the fuelcell technology stops moments after the 2 minute video stops. It’s run out of fuel already. To get the number of miles between refills you’d expect from a petrol or diesel powered car, the super cold liquid hydrogen fuel tank would need to be bigger and heavier than the car could fit. Recent developments have brought smaller and lighter fuel tanks, but the problem of fuel storage will not go away.
Then there is the problem of how to make the hydrogen to use in the fuel cells.
\begin{quote}
Naturally, no non-nuclear means is known to make terrestrial hydrogen that does not consume considerably more energy than it delivers. Note that commercial hydrogen is nearly always produced by the reformation of methane. But the methane really has to want to reform. Please also note that because of the staggering loss of energy, use of electrolysis for bulk hydrogen apps is a really, really dumb thing to do. It is the equivalent of exchanging two US dollars for one Mexican peso. www.tinaja.com\Slash{}h2gas01.asp
\end{quote}
Harnessing energy from geothermal springs in Iceland, to make hydrogen, has led the fuel-cell hype industry to claim Iceland will become the “Kuwait of the North.” In reality, it’s a scenario similar to the bullshit claims made about vegetable oil biodiesel fuel. It can never supply more than a tiny fraction of world energy needs, even when exploitation levels reach their natural boundaries.
On Internet sites that contribute to the hydrogen fuel-cell hype, there is little or no mention of these insurmountable problems: At the time of writing this, I did an Internet Google search for “hydrogen fuel cell” and got 32,200 results. I didn’t have many hours to click through hundreds of links looking to find a site not part of the bullshit hype\dots{}
Hydrogen’s potential use in fuel and energy applications includes powering vehicles, running turbines or fuel cells to produce electricity, and generating heat and electricity for buildings. The current focus is on hydrogen’s use in fuel cells.
A fuel cell works like a battery but does not run down or need recharging. It will produce electricity and heat as long as fuel (hydrogen) is supplied. A fuel cell consists of two electrodes — a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode (or cathode) — sandwiched around an electrolyte. Hydrogen is fed to the anode, and oxygen is fed to the cathode. Activated by a catalyst, hydrogen atoms separate into protons and electrons, which take different paths to the cathode. The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity. The protons migrate through the electrolyte to the cathode, where they reunite with oxygen and the electrons to produce water and heat. Fuel cells can be used to power vehicles or to provide electricity and heat to buildings.
The hype industry gets off scot-free with outrageous bullshit. One Stanley Meyer claimed to have invented a new way of making hydrogen which violated thermodynamic laws, energy conservation, Faraday’s laws, the nature of Fourier Series, hydrogen overvoltage properties, the concept of mathematical integration, the max power transfer theorem, and at least one fundamental current standard. His little scam ripped off investors life savings, and eventually they complained. Judge Corzine of the Ohio court system found a “gross and egregious fraud”, but imposed a fine of only \$1.
The Hype continues, and dreamers still think this technology will bring in a new era of pollution free transport.
\section{HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS}
Energy of the Future, or South Seas Bubble?
\bigskip
\textbf{by Mr. Blobby}
In a world facing wars for oil, we desperately need an ‘alternative’ energy source for the future. Hydrogen fuel cells, as used in the Space Shuttle, are the energy source of the future, according to the hype surrounding fuel cell research. But research funds are worth lots of \$\$\$; so how well founded in scientific reality is the current optimism in the face of problems which beset the hydrogen fuel cell industry?
Look at a working model of a hydrogen fuel cell, and you see a wonder of science: Hydrogen ‘burned’ with no smoke, water the only exhaust. Look a little deeper into this miraculous technology, and you see that the heavy and cumbersome hydrogen fuel tank is only large enough to supply fuel for barely a few minutes if it is fitted into a car used to give a flashy film promotion of fuel cell technology.
The car in a video to hype the fuelcell technology stops moments after the 2 minute video stops. It’s run out of fuel already. To get the number of miles between refills you’d expect from a petrol or diesel powered car, the super cold liquid hydrogen fuel tank would need to be bigger and heavier than the car could fit. Recent developments have brought smaller and lighter fuel tanks, but the problem of fuel storage will not go away.
Then there is the problem of how to make the hydrogen to use in the fuel cells.
Naturally, no non-nuclear means is known to make terrestrial hydrogen that does not consume considerably more energy than it delivers. Note that commercial hydrogen is nearly always produced by the reformation of methane. But the methane really has to want to reform.
Please also note that because of the staggering loss of energy, use of electrolysis for bulk hydrogen apps is a really, really dumb thing to do.
It is the equivalent of exchanging two US dollars for one Mexican peso.
http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.tinaja.com\Slash{}h2gas01.asp][www.tinaja.com\Slash{}h2gas01.asp
Harnessing energy from geothermal springs in Iceland, to make hydrogen, has led the fuel-cell hype industry to claim Iceland will become the “Kuwait of the North.” In reality, it’s a scenario similar to the bullshit claims made about vegetable oil biodiesel fuel. It can never supply more than a tiny fraction of world energy needs, even when exploitation levels reach their natural boundaries.
On Internet sites that contribute to the hydrogen fuel-cell hype, there is little or no mention of these insurmountable problems: At the time of writing this, I did an Internet Google search for “hydrogen fuel cell” and got 32,200 results. I didn’t have many hours to click through hundreds of links looking to find a site not part of the bullshit hype\dots{}
Hydrogen’s potential use in fuel and energy applications includes powering vehicles, running turbines or fuel cells to produce electricity, and generating heat and electricity for buildings. The current focus is on hydrogen’s use in fuel cells.
A fuel cell works like a battery but does not run down or need recharging. It will produce electricity and heat as long as fuel (hydrogen) is supplied. A fuel cell consists of two electrodes—a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode (or cathode)—sandwiched around an electrolyte. Hydrogen is fed to the anode, and oxygen is fed to the cathode. Activated by a catalyst, hydrogen atoms separate into protons and electrons, which take different paths to the cathode. The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity. The protons migrate through the electrolyte to the cathode, where they reunite with oxygen and the electrons to produce water and heat. Fuel cells can be used to power vehicles or fl to provide electricity and J heat to buildings.
The hype industry gets off scot-free with outrageous bullshit. One ic laws, energy conservation, Faraday’s laws, the nature of Fourier Series, hydrogen overvoltage properties, the concept of mathematical integration, the max power transfer theorem, and at least one fundamental current standard. His little scam ripped off investors life savings, and eventually they complained. Judge Corzine of the Ohio court system found a “gross and egregious fraud”, but imposed a fine of only \$1.
Stanley claimed
Meyer to
have invented
new way of ’ making hydrogen which violated tliennodynam-
\begin{flushright}
The
\end{flushright}
\begin{flushright}
Hype con-
\end{flushright}
tmues, and
dreamers still think this technology will bring in a new era of pollution free transport.
\bigskip
\chapter{Modern Primitives}
\section{The Perennial Wild Men. The ‘war on terror’ is their fear of a wild planet}
Despite 9\Slash{}11, Americans are still more likely to be struck by lightening than by terrorists, but only obsess about the latter.\footnote{Joseba Zulaika and William A Douglass’s \emph{Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism} (Routledge, 1996), p.6.} They are thousands of times more likely to be shot by spouses, neighbours or workmates than terrorists, despite which they vigorously defend their ‘right to bear arms’. The sociologist William Catton has done us all the favour of putting fears about terrorism in context:\footnote{\emph{ibid.}, p.5.}
\begin{quote}
The annual death toll from influenza in the United States is almost ten times the seven or eight year global toll from terrorism, yet most people tend to think of flu as more of a nuisance than a dire peril.
\end{quote}
US foreign policy is led by a ‘war on terror’ that has killed more people — typically as ‘collateral damage’ — than the ‘terrorists’ targeted by several orders of magnitude and blithely draws up lists of conveniently oil-rich ‘terrorist states’ to intimidate or invade when it is in fact only the US itself that has been judged terrorist by the International Court for Reagan’s 1987 mining of Nicauragua’s harbours. Claiming the ‘war on terror’ is in defence of Freedom (capital F used ironically to indicate the ‘freedom’ concerned is purely abstract rhetoric never to be applied in practice), administrative ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation has practically extinguished any freedoms of assembly, association and expression, reinitiated internment without trial and McCarthyism in America, and jailed Black people (called ‘Portland Asians’ as they were devout Moslems!) for exercising their supposed ‘right to bear arms’ for self-defence against transparently obvious state tyranny in the more hick, Islamophobic parts of the nation.
The absurdities and hypocrisies of the ‘war on terror’ should be obvious to anybody not mummified by the Flag, but on that you can go and read anything by Noam Chomsky or the small industry of liberal publishing around him if you need to. The purpose of this essay is not to further elaborate on such detail, but to examine why ‘terrorism’ has exercised such a firm grasp on the modern imagination. ‘Terrorism’ has not just been sold through the spectacle of media manipulation or its logical flipside, public gullibility — those are but the techniques of power — but has actually taken root. We must go a lot deeper to understand the unique appeal of ‘terrorism’ — why it is being sold, rather than some competing compliance brand.
\subsection{Power and Chaos}
The term ‘terrorism’ has been so tainted by political expediency that it now has no agreed definition. As the Reagan administration showed over Nicaraugua, those labeled ‘terrorist’ by others won’t willingly accept their definitions, and even when someone takes the rare and strange decision to label themselves ‘terrorist’ — as FC (the Freedom Club) did in the Unabomber manifesto, \emph{Industrial Society and Its Future} — others may refuse them this label because they feel it confers \emph{too much} prestige!
Thus, having sold FC as a much-needed example of domestic terrorism throughout the entire 1980s, the FBI relabeled Unabomber suspect Ted Kaczynski a “serial killer” when he came to trial in 1995 as they’d been so humiliated by their inability to catch him in almost two decades, undermining their credibility (and potential funding) as an effective counter-terrorist force (and, incidentally, FC’s potential to inspire further militancy).
At best, terrorism is defined as some sort of non-state-level indiscriminate targeting intended to bring about a crisis in the state unable to meet its Social Contract obligations to protect its own citizenry. At worst — and this is really the point, its utility as a mechanism for maintaining State power — terrorism’s definition all too easily broadens out to mean ‘anything opposed to us’.
Again, you can check out concerned liberal scholarship for the more obvious implications of this — such as how, by appealing to Social Contract theory, terrorists paradoxically affirm the State they’re attacking and statehood generally, although this should hardly come as a surprise concerning nationalist groups — but that is not my purpose here. What interests me is that the indiscriminate nature of terrorism is mirrored in the indiscriminate nature of its definition. Lacking numbers or firepower to take on the armed forces of the state toe-to-toe, the terrorist adopts tactics of clandestinity and unpredictable, symbolic attacks. Consequently, the terrorist could be just about anyone and — more significantly — so could his or her target.
Many advocates of armed struggle will huff and puff about this, insisting \emph{they} are not terrorists because \emph{they} are very careful in their selection of targets. Well, all the best to them, but the State is playing the equally inevitable opposite game of narrowing down who the terrorist is likely to be to as small a group as possible and presenting potential targets as as large a group as possible, as everyone else, to isolate and provoke discrimination against the struggle’s supporters. It is standard militant rhetoric that unlike in conventional warfare, one successful action is the equivalent of a thousand additional symbolic ones, those that \emph{could} have been hit and \emph{may} be in future. This, in part, explains why reactions to terrorism in terms of overestimation of personal threat is so great — so useful both to terrorist \emph{and} counter-terrorist. Clearly, the target’s perception of their targetability is something largely out of the militants’ control. Even if they have been strict about what is and is not an appropriate target to date, the very virtue of guerilla warfare, its unpredictability, means that new targets will be sought in future. Also, aside from rare highly-disciplined and typically compromised groups, militant groups are highly Protean, inclined to splits, breakaways and even government pseudogang activity, meaning splinter groups may well hit targets the parent group refuses.
What, then, are we really looking at here, this perception of anonymous, random violence? \emph{We are looking at chaos.} And how does this culture deal with chaos? What is its perception of that? As the celebrated anthropologist Mary Douglas writes in her seminal \emph{Purity and Danger}:\footnote{Mary Douglas’s \emph{Purity and Danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo} (Routledge, 1966), p.2.}
\begin{quote}
As we know it, dirt is essentially disorder. There is no such thing as absolute dirt: it exists in the eye of the beholder\dots{} Dirt offends against order. Eliminating it is not a negative movement, but a positive effort to organise the environment.
\end{quote}
On a visceral cultural level, then, terrorists are not the worthy chaps with legitimate grievances and desperate but necessary measures they take themselves for, \emph{they are dirt}, social pollution to be removed from State society like some deadly plague organism — typically by the State itself and its loyal subordinates, the better to magnify its own power. The Bush administration, for one, uses exactly this rhetoric — likely \emph{unconsciously} appealing to society’s instinctual revulsion against pollution, given Dubya’s proverbial lack of erudition — and it is no surprise that references to terrorists acquiring germ weapons and ‘dirty bombs’, all previously the exclusive property of governments, are now the typically baseless stock in trade of anti-terrorist propaganda.
From this, it should be obvious what the State gets out of terrorism — to the point of promoting and controlling terrorist groups, as the Italian government did during the ‘years of lead’ in the 1970s, on an ‘eternal threat, eternal loyalty’ principle\footnote{Gianfranco Sanguinetti’s \emph{On Terrorism and the State} (Chronos, 1982), which focuses particularly on the ‘hoax’ of the Moro kidnapping, though this aspect of Italian politics has always been a ‘hall of mirrors’ strangely reminscent of Orwell’s highly realistic but satirical portrayal of inter-war Trotskyism (‘Emmanuel Goldsteinism’) in 1984.} — but how do the terrorists benefit? Of course, being portrayed as monsters totally beyond social norms enhances the appeal and power of some, those that believe their revolution really will smash social norms, appealing to others thinking likewise and enhancing the symbolic intimidation of those that do not (the ‘multiplier effect’ discussed above).
However, there is more to it than this. As Douglas argues at great length, what is taboo is sacred as well as polluting. Those challenging the order of the universe define themselves not just as dirt, but also as godlike. Guerillas are often criticised for élitism precisely because their actions are seen as requiring a revolutionary courage, clear-sightedness and dedication that is beyond the majority to emulate, that is effectively superhuman.
Similarly, in death — and such activity surely invites death and torture, which is an attempt to kill the revolutionary’s spirit, what “a positive effort to organise the environment” means in this context — martyrs are revered in a quasi-religious manner, piously put ‘above criticism’ and iconised as propaganda tools much as were the saints of Medieval Christianity, as intercessors with the Divine (or the historic \Slash{} material forces as the Left would have it\dots{}). To their great discredit, some guerillas actively promote such personality cults precisely because they are élitist, promoting their own power at the expense of others’ liberty.
\subsection{Wild Origins}
Because definitions of terrorism are so contested, so too is any prospect of identifying the first terrorists. Some say the ‘White’ royalists of Brittany opposing the French revolution, though this looks like a conventional national liberation struggle to me. Some would say the Assassins that wrecked dynastic havoc during the Middle Ages, but the Zealots preceded them by a millennia and were the same, only less ambitious. No doubt some would say the first ape to ambush another along the trail was a ‘terrorist’. Again, this pedantry does not interest me. What does is the origin of the chaotic, violent stereotype of terrorism, with all its symbolic force.
Who, then, was ‘outside society’ as the stereotypical taboo-busting terrorists now are? The answer, given in Aristotle’s \emph{Politics}, was “the Barbarians” or to contextualise it with the full quote:\footnote{Hugh Thomas’s \emph{The Slave Trade: The History of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1440–1870} (Picador, 1997), p.26.}
\begin{quote}
Humanity is divided unto two: the masters and the slaves; or, if one prefers it, the Greeks and the Barbarians, those who have the right to command; and those who were born to obey.
\end{quote}
Yes, the question of who was outside social norms was an important one in ancient Greek society because it determined who could make slaves and who could be made slaves. Implicitly also, it defined who could make laws, or else slaves would just make laws freeing themselves. Despite abundant evidence of other civilisations abounding in the ancient world — not least Egypt or the rival Persian empire — the great Philosopher so revered by Mediaeval scholarship preferred logic to common sense and went on to argue that non-Greek societies had no laws (rather than that Greek law somehow overrode theirs) and that non-Greeks therefore lived in a state of Nature like animals, and that enslaving them was therefore probably even sort of doing them a favour introducing them to Greek civilisation\dots{} This patently absurd, self-serving argument would be vastly elaborated as ‘White man’s burden’ in centuries to come.
Inspired by Aristotle and no doubt bored by their own, overcontrolled society, the Mediaevals fantasised about the pagan state of Nature, imagining wild, bearded Green men in the woods bedecked with leaves and antlers, living life without restraint much like the Greek Dionysus or Roman Pan. Whether this was a folk remembrance of the Neolithic (itself not wholly an oasis of human freedom thanks to religious and work impositions) or idealisation of the lives of greenwood outlaws, such ideas pervaded Medieval society to such an extent that representations of Green men survive as ironic \Slash{} talismanic church gargoyles, rural pub signs, springtime village Springtime customs and even in literature, as in \emph{Gawain and the Green Knight}.
The late-Mediaeval Sir John Mandeville — who is neck and neck with Heroditus as ‘father of lies’, history-wise — portrayed these wild men as “eat[ing] both flesh and fish all raw”, alongside all those on nonexistent, distant islands with faces in their chests and feet big enough to function as sunshades.
Amusing fantasy perhaps, even a sign of yearned-for natural freedom, but in practice such stereotypes were applied exactly as the Greeks did. On arrival on the Carib island he named Hispaniola in 1492, Columbus was quick to insist Mandeville’s fantasies were reality, reporting back to distant Spain:\footnote{Zulaika and Douglas, \emph{op cit.}, p.154.}
\begin{quote}
Men with one eye, and others with dog’s noses, who ate men, and that when they took a man, they cut off his head and drank his blood and castrated him.
\end{quote}
Clearly, these Caribs were beyond the law and hardly human. In the enslavement of the Gaunches on the Canary Islands that had been going on simultaneous to Columbus’s colonisation of the New World, Isabella of Castille had already had Aristotle’s apologia for slavery rewritten, substituting the word ‘Spanish’ for ‘Greek’ in de Coroba’s infamous 1460 primer, \emph{Garden of Noble Maidens}.\footnote{John Connor’s ‘Precedent for the New World’ in \emph{The Rise of the West: A Brief Outline of the Last Thousand Years} (Green Anarchist Books, 2001), p.68.} Because of the vagaries of Christian — as opposed to Greek — religiosity, Isabella went one step further than Aristotle in arguing not that “A slave is a property with a soul”, but that they were essentially soulless, like animals, and therefore their labour could not be lost to the Church through manumission by conversion. Consequently, millions of Caribs perished mining in Columbus’s silver mines in less than a decade, best illustrating who was ‘savage’ and who best benefited from “the law of nations”.
This is a key point; as US retaliation for ‘terrorism’ is orders of magnitude greater than the initial terrorist act or even what they’re capable of, so the ‘wild’ or ‘savage’ is recast as a projection of the Civiliser’s own unrestrained violence, their true savagery alibied. In his mythopaeic \emph{Against History, Against Leviathan}, Fredy Perlman points to the transformation of wilderness from being simply a place of Nature outside human control to a place of subjective terror, of potential ambush, due to the introduction of Civilised warfare and its unreasoning fears to it:\footnote{Fredy Perlman’s \emph{Against His-story, Against Leviathan: An Essay} (Black \& Red, 1983), p.24.}
\begin{quote}
The world outside Ur is not the wilderness our word will designate. Their wilderness clearly is not the forest or desert, the plants or animals, since the nature-loving temple residents have all these brought into the city.
Could it be that their wilderness is the wilderness created by the Lugal [war leader] and his men; the battlefields surrounding all of Sumer’s towns, the settings of raids and counter-raids, the scenes of torture, slaughter and capture.
\end{quote}
If the wild was not itself ‘savage’, it might be a desirable alternative to Civilisation — indeed, to the survivalist Right, its supposed Darwinian savagery is precisely why it is desirable — and in any case, this paranoid perception where the Civilisers’ violence is attributed to what they designate non-Civilised as it is beyond their control rationalises its destruction in the name of ‘self defence’.
Forgive the stridency of the example — though it is easier to see what is typical when an example is falsely presented as exceptional — but Nazi imperialism and its inevitably atrocious consequences were characterised by exactly such paranoid projection, which presented the German people as surrounded by overwhelming numbers of communists and other supposed \emph{untermenschen} as well as a nonexistent ‘world conspiracy’ of Jews, with real genocide ‘justified’ as a response to this projected, imaginary threat.
To make this threat ‘real’, the Nazis even faked incidents, burning the \emph{Reichstag} (the German parliament) in 1936 and then blaming their own handiwork on ‘red savagery’, the better to reinforce their own tyranny. Though such reasoning verged on the clinically insane, it perfectly suited the aggressive ideolgy and expansionist aims of a clinically insane state, not that the Nazis have been the only such state evident in modern times\dots{}
\subsection{Unveiling the Myth}
The language used to describe modern terrorists exactly matches that used to describe the Medieval wild men. John Pilger evokes the familiar Washington media’s stereotype of “Flag-burning, embassy-storming, bearded, \emph{wild men} of Islam”\footnote{John Pilger’s ‘The World’s worst Terrorists are based in Washington’, www.users.bigpond.com\Slash{}nlevine\Slash{}worstterrorists, p.3.} [my emphasis] whilst Likud zealot Benjamin Netanyahu referred to hijackers as “wild beasts that prowl our airways and waterways”\footnote{Zulaika and William, \emph{op cit.}, p. 157.} and as GAL carried out their merciless campaign of cross-border assassination of Basque activists, the Madrid press wrote most tellingly of:\footnote{\emph{ibid.}, p.157.}
\begin{quote}
The activists of ETA, who are not men, who are beasts\dots{} No human rights come into play when a tiger must be hunted. The tiger is searched after, is hounded, is captured, and if necessary is killed.
\end{quote}
The ETA fighters assassinated were, of course, human beings and not tigers — the point is they were equated with these animals symbolically, as peculiarly savage creatures of the wilderness, even though tigers, too, rarely pose a real threat to humans not encroaching on their own territory and are really the ones disproportionately threatened by such encroachment.
Uncivilised humans, animals and Nature itself are equated, united in being seen as soulless and chaotic, fit only to be ordered and controlled by law-making humans for their own benefit. This is the lesson of that other great Christian garden myth, that of God giving Adam mastery over Nature in Eden. How much this stereotype has been employed to characterise terrorists as chaotic forces of Nature in need of human mastery is illustrated by Malcolm Timbers’ Jungian analysis of terrorism as infantile and unconscious:\footnote{Malcolm Timbers’ ‘On the Apollo vs Dionysian Conflict’ in ‘The Psychology of Terrorism’ series, \emph{Mysterium Journal of Suffering and Death}, www.geocities.com\Slash{} aquapontica\Slash{}terrorism. I hasten to add that this is quoted not because I in any way endorse Jungianism — unlike Freud, Jung felt no good reason to flee the Nazis, to put it mildly — but rather because Timbers himself unconsciously discloses Civilisation’s own assumprions about terrorism.}
\begin{quote}
By drawing on the works of Jung and Nietzsche, I am attempting to show that the terrorist is influenced by an archetypal element in Nature that is historically represented by the god Dionysus in an extreme, distorted sense, while, in this game, the West represents an extreme and distorted Apollonian element as a civilization bent on dominating and exploiting Nature\dots{} I personally knew a FLQ terrorist\footnote{The FLQ were the Quebec Liberation Front, an early-1970s clandestine Leftnationalist group seeking seperation of French speakers from Canada. Not given to indiscriminate violence, they could hardly be called ‘terrorist’ in terms of strict definitions.} who also talked a lot about ecology and spoke of the Earth unconsciously, in an infantile manner, as a metaphor for the mother’s body. That is, mentally he was in the Oedipal role of the hero-son saving the Earth \Slash{} Mother from being ravished by the evil Father \Slash{} Capitalism.
\end{quote}
It is a natural conclusion that if Man (and they mean ‘Man’) can regulate ‘soulless’ Nature better than it can itself after billions of years evolving its own self-regulation, and if simple societies stable for millennia are better run by Civilisers than by their own people (who, though mature adults with social skills far in advance of the Civilisers, are conveniently “like children” in need of a patriarch), so terrorists are prey to unconscious destructive urges and too need to be ruled or crushed.
There is no question of intrinsic value here, that in all humility the Civilisers might possibly be the ones that are in the wrong. Like Freud, Jung believed we had to suppress what is natural and spontaneous, instinctual, in us in order to cooperate and create ‘shining cities’, higher consciousness and higher Civilisation. In fact fantasies of omnipotence and of being at the centre of a universe made solely for oneself is more typically associated with infantile consciousness and more exactly typifies the mentality of the Civiliser, the conquerer, the engineer, bending the whole world to their own control.
If these arguments are starting to ring bells with some readers, it’s because they are very familiar. Dan Quinn concludes \emph{Ishmael} by mythologically noting:\footnote{Daniel Quinn’s \emph{Ishmael} (Bantam, 1992), p.241.}
\begin{quote}
The Takers’ [Civilisers] story is, ‘The gods made the world for man, but they botched the job, so we had to take matters into own own, more competent hands.’ The Leavers’ story is, ‘The gods made man for the world, the same way they made salmon and sparrows and rabbits for the world; this seems to have worked pretty well so far, so we can take it easy and leave the running of the world to the gods.
\end{quote}
This, then, is the unveiling: the ‘war on terror’ is a misnomer. The Civilisers’ true motive is to exert absolute control over the entire world, over what is wild in human nature and beyond it — even at the expense of their own laws. Terrorism is selected only because it is a particularly distasteful manifestation of natural resistance to their encroachments, an obstacle to the further accumulation of the monopoly of violence on behalf of the State. The ‘war on terror’ is then actually a war on freedom and a war on Nature (including even human nature), an attempt to eliminate everything not under the control of a select few from the world. Terrorists are not the infantile, chaotic forces of Nature anti-terrorists pretend — in fact, typically they are tainted by the same authoritarian drives as those they seek to ‘liberate’ the rest of us from third-hand — but in the realm of the symbolic, what is truly real has long been eclipsed by its representation. For the world-eating Civilisers, their projections of free humanity are monstrous, cannibalistic — but even these are preferable to those, like Terminators, that “can’t be bought off, can’t be stopped, that just keep coming”.
In his \emph{Technological Society}, ex-French Resistance fighter Jacques Ellul pointed out that for a security state to work effectively, everyone must be treated as a potential threat, the better to identify and neutralise actual threats. Unfortunately, the machine logic of Efficiency means any resistance to this, stemming from a desire for autonomy, even privacy, moves citizens into the ‘threat’ category and tightens the security state’s intolerant definitions of ‘terrorism’ still further.
As the supposed bearers of social disorder, today’s terrorists are called monsters. Tomorrow, inevitably, we will all be called terrorists. To truly live as free human beings, we are given no option but to challenge this man-made prison of a society and to fight. In fighting, however, we must never forget how to live, never allow them to reduce us to the level of symbolic cyphers.
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http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.eartfrfirstg.irheting.org][\textbf{www.eartfrfirstg.irheting.org}\textbf{, uk \emph{J}}
The anti-Bayer campaign was sprung from the ecological direct action movement but this didn't mean a smoother ride. People fell out massively over tactics: in particular the issue of home visits, and the promises of regular actions fell to the wayside with a shockingly tepid commitment to activism. (The vast majority who swore they would do regular actions just didn't.) There was an injunction against several individuals and several groups which seemed to floor the campaign's ability to do anything which wasn't strictly legal in the first place. There were, of course, some tasty bonuses; such as the sacking of Paul Rylott as head of Bioscience, and when Michael O'Brien (company director) resigned, the injuncted groups got a letter from his solicitors telling us, effectively, to now leave him alone please. But by the time Bayer announced it was packing up and going home it felt as much like relief as victory.
The direct action campaign against Bayer was succesful because there was such a hefty anti-GM lobby and because of the dislike of the British public against anything new. A hatred of immigrants and a hatred of GM seem to stem from the same vile conservatism and commitment to western civilisation AS IT IS. making uneasy bedfellows with the eco- direct action movement. The ecological direct action movement so happened to be on the same side for once. The disappointing truth is the ecological direct action movement is not strong enough or commited enough to have beaten Bayer out of this tiny island otherwise. The campaign was marred by broken words and general softness and we are lucky that the feisty few who stuck their necks out didn't in more trouble. But hey, we didn't co-opt our politics and we didn't go to prison and it was certainly the best thing going on over the last year. and we still haven't given up.
"We do expect GM oilseed rape to be harvested in the fields of Cambridgeshire before the end of the decade" Julian Little, spokesperson for Bayer Cropscience.
We too expect GM to be planted before the end of the decade. Biotechnology is essential for the growth and expansion of the totality and that's the mammoth battle we've taken on. The Boycott Bayer part of the campaign is still going, and there isn't a reason in hell to NOT continue to target Bayer as major players in biotech. Bayer will be back here but we're waiting for them. And hopefully the ecological direct action network will be mad enough and bad enough to walk the walk not just talk the talk. See you on the frontline.
http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.stopbayergm.org][www.stopbayergm.org
\subsection{Bayer Actions}
29 April 04 - Bayer Cropscience sub- sidary, HC Starck, was visited at night. A message: Bayer -STAY out of GM, was spraypainted on the front wall. This was one of a few gentle warnings to Bayer that if they do carry on trying to bring GM Crops in, we will target them again.
22 April 04 - Newbury town centre surrounding Bayer Plc’s UK headquarters was flyposted and stickered with ‘Don’t Buy Bayer’ stickers to let them know that although the campaign is ending, they are being watched and any further attempts to grow GM in the UK will be met with direct action.
22 March 04 - This day saw a phone and email blockade aimed at disrupting communications and creating extra hasssle.
11 March 04 - Anti GM messages were sprayed on a wall and sign at the Bayer Crop Science works in Widnes, near Liverpool.
30 January 04 - The Bayer Crop Science building in North Newbalds, North Yorkshire, had its locks jammed with paperclips and superglue.
27 January 04 - Windows were bricked at HC Starck in Sheffield and also an Anti-GM slogan (the specifics of which, this reporter can’t remember) was painted on the wall near the main entrance. This action took place as part of the ‘Bail out of GM’ week of actions.
27 January 04 - W H Hawley targetted during the 10 days of Anti-Bayer action. As one of several actions against Bayer during the 10 days of action the following was reported: W H Hawley (part of the Bayer group)in Burton- On-Trent was visited. A tanker had 5 of its 6 tyres slashed; the 6th had a dodgy valve so the tyre could not be deflated as it is dangerous to puncture lorry tyres under full pressure. Also cables ripped out. the side of the tanker spraypainted with “STOP GM CROPS” also the pipe used to empty the tanker was punctured.
21 January 04 - Paul Rylott, top GM scientist at Bayer Cropscience delivered a stirring speech on how to manage consumer response to biotechnology, at a conference on Managing and Predicting Crisis in the Food Industry. As he took his place in the queue for his buffet dinner a polite call of “Mr Rylott?” brought him face to face with a chocolate fudge cake (skipped and stale) covered with the sweaty rotting whipped cream and the shout “That’s for GM!” Before the assualting party fled, some leaflets were given out to the surprised and immobilised crowd and all those protesting left before the cops arrived. The biotech baking brigade stated: “GM Technology is the latest onslaught of a bland and tedious industrial technological society against the planet. We are against monoculture and for biodiversity, against the domestication of people and land, and for the wild. There is no neutral ground: everyone is called upon to choice their side. Whenever They strike—be they government, corporations or greenwash quangos—we will strike back. They have declared war on us and our planet: we will answer it.
28 December 03 - Activists sabotaged Bourne golf course near Cambridge as a protest against Bayer Cropscience, having received information that there would be a Bayer golf tournament there the next day. Turf was removed and slogans expressing anti-GM\Slash{}anti-Bayer sentiments were both spray painted and etched into the grass of the greens to convey the message that, until they cease their UK GM programme, Bayer representatives will be persued wherever they go.
19 December 03 - Activists visited the offices of PBI Home \& Garden, a Bayer owned company in Hertfordshire, stuck up anti-GM posters, glued the locks to the front door and intercom and spray painted “NO GMO”.
Neither does she3
Hunt saboteurs Assodahon -
You have a choice. To vote or to act. To save a life or lock the other way. Which will it tie?
Direct Action Against All Blofldsuoits - saving lives for 4A years http:\Slash{}\Slash{}www.hunisabs.Drg.uk][www.hunisabs.Drg.uk PO Box 5254, Mhampten NN1 3ZA
12 December 03 - Cheshire Against Bayer paid a visit to Bayer’s pesticide manufacturing site in Widnes to protest against Bayer’s involvement in GM crops.
12 December 03 - Locks were jammed at Dystar, a Bayer subsidary, in Huddersfield.
5 December 03 - Michael O’Brien recieved another visit from concerned individuals on the evening of Monday 1st December. At around 10pm, 18 people arrived at Michael’s suburban Essex estate to let him know that it really would be a good idea for Bayer to get out of GM. While we made our presense known to Michael (who observed us from his bedroom window) with air horns and shouting, a more permanent reminder of our message was left . ‘NO GM’ was sprayed with weed killer on his front lawn. Our time with Michael was brief and after not more than five minutes we vanished into the night as sirens made the sound track for our exit. (ie. the police response time was about 5 minutes and two squad cars were sent—short and sweet visits seem the way forward!) Until next time Michael.
28 November 03 - Martyn
Hargreaves, company secretary of Bayer Cropscience was visited tonight. A tin of paintstripper was poured over his 2 cars in the drive and “No GM” was sprayed on the drive and the walls of his garage.
28 November 03 - A visit was made to the flat of Joachin Schneider. These flats have communal entrances with CCTV cameras, so activists sprayed “Stop Bayer’s GM Crops” on the brick walls outside the entrance.
27 November 03 - An electricity supplying station in Bergamo, Italy, was subject to a pipe-bomb blast. Also some unexploded incendiary devices
have been found on site. On the wall a spraypainted message: “Bayer leave the GMOs market—No to Biotechnology” Near this electricity supplying station is a Bayer industrial site, including the Bayer Crop Science department, which is heavily involved with the development and use of GMOs in agriculture.
The communique left on site and published by local newspapers stated that the action was done to stop the works inside the factory and as a direct attack against the genetic engineering projects of multinationals, addressing to Bayer Crop Science a responsability in all of this.
The explosion led to a black out for 3 small towns in the area for a couple minutes, until an emergency generator switched on. As a response to the action Bayer said they have no links with GMOs!
In the last 5 years in Italy many multinational companies dealing with GMOs had to face not only protests but also direct action, that resulted in millions of euros of damages allto- gether, with crops destroyed, seeds stores torched, machinery sabbed, labs raided and trucks torched. Nestle, Monsanto, Aventis, Syngenta, Nunhems, Piooner Hi-Breed, Bayer and various universities have all been subject to extensive direct action against genetic engineering.
23 November 03 - 15 people paid a visit to Michael Gerad O’Brian (Director of Bayer CropScience) at his suburban Essex home.
25 November 03 - Bayer Cropscience HQ in Hauxton, near Cambridge, was invaded on Thursday 20th November by over 40 people opposed to genetic engineering.
20 November 03 - Around 100 antibayer campaigners gathered outside Bayer HQ in Newbury and made a horrible racket.
17 November 03 - Fence damaged at bayer cropscience factory in Norwich.
13 November 03 - 15 people paid a visit to Martin Newson, Company Secretary of Bayer PLC. They confirmed with a neighbiour that he was definitely resident at the property and then proceeded to hold their own noisy demo outside his house.
11 November 03 - The british crop protection council iwere having its conference from the 10th until the 12th of november in Glasgow, followed by a corporate game of golf at turnberry, one of the “best golf courses in the world”. Bayer were one of the main contributors to this international conference. Anti-Bayer activists visited the course. They damaged four areas where the holes are and two teeing off areas by digging up the turf, spraying weed killer and spraypainting messages on the turf proclaiming: bayer - no gm, and “BCPC - no gm”. Nobody was arrested. we hope actions like this will help make it difficult for bayer to appear at corporate events as well as ruining the good time of the wealthy.
5 November 03 - Activists entered the Bayer Crop Science chemicals facility in Widnes, Cheshire with the minimum of hassle by merely scrambling under a gate. As soon as they had entered, the alarm was raised. “Intruders have entered the facility - secure all doors and windows - do not make contact with the intruders” blasted out of the tannoys. They wandered around, with security in pursuit, and were given a guided tour of sorts by a security officer called Homer - apparently, Bayer are a company who conform to all the government standards, and in fact care about the environment more than activists realise. As proof of this assertion, the intruders were shown the gold fish pond in the facility.
31 October 03 - Fence damaged at bayer cropscience factory in Norwich.
30 October 03 - Offices of Symrise in Marlow, Buckinghamshire were visited by around 6 people.
28 October 03 - Martyn Hargraves has been consistantly targetted over the past few weeks, with junk mail blockades by post and by email. His details have also mysteriously been appearing on internet sex chat and dating sites\dots{}
15 October 03 - The Bayer Cropscience site at North Newbalds in North Yorkshire was targetted. Locks had had liquid metal squirted into them, graffiti was sprayed and fencing was damaged.
14 October 03 - 15 activists occupied the foyer of Allianz-Cornhill, London, who are one of the main shareholders of Bayer.
13 October 03 - Activists went to Aizlewoods Mill, Nursery Road, Sheffield. This is the building in which HM Starck, a company wholy owned by Bayer, have their offices.With sedcurity guards oblivious inside the building people spray- painted walls and doors with anti-gm crops slogans, and with this web address.
13 October 03 - A second ‘e-block- ade’ was held. People were encouraged to phone, fax and email Bayer Crop Science letting them know what people thought of their plans to grow gm crops in Britain.
10 October 03 - Bayer Plc’s headquarters in Newbury was visited in the night and had flyposters pasted up on walls, doors, sign posts and bins all around the site.
6 October 03 - Since the beginning of September, various key individuals within Bayer had recieved an ever increasing number of unwanted comemerative plates, holiday brochures, book club subscriptions and so on through the post. Many of these are recieved on a ‘buy now, pay later’ basis, meaning they have to cancel the order or pay, tying up yet more office time that could have been spent on increasing Bayer’s productivity! Bayer office phone numbers have also found their way into free ad papers, attached to ‘company going bust - bargain rates on office furniture and supplies’ type notices.
2 October 03 - A demonstration was held at the Leamington Spa branch of Sainsbury’s in which customers were informed over a megaphone that Sainsbury’s milk is contaminated with GMOs. Hundreds of leaflets were given to interested customers and scattered all over the store. These leaflets explained the issues and also named BayerCropScience as the company most likely to be growing GM animal feed in this country, giving their number for customers to ring up and tell them what they can do with their GM crops.
2 October 03 - 13 anti-GM activists occupied the offices and warehouses of W Hawley \& Son, Burton upon Trent, a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer AG - the UK’s GM number one!
1 October 03 - Was National Forage Maize Day: exhibitions in conjunction with Shepton Mallets Dairy Show. (One of the biggest in the country, over 8000 farmers). Three people went, intent on embarassing Bayer, only to find that they already seemed to be running scared—and had decided not to come. The website had advertised a seminar by a pro GM acedemic on the ‘GM Debate’. We arrived to find that even this had been cancelled a month before, because (according to both rumours in the press room and from some of the organisers) the issue was regarded as ‘too controversial’.
30 September 03 - In the last couple of weeks the bayer cropscience factory in Norwich was graffittied and had one of its fences trashed.
25 September 03 - A group raised their own anti-GM flag at the Bayer CropScience factory in Widnes, to hammer home the message given by the British public in the government’s recent consultation: NO to GM crops in the UK!
25 September 03 - We originally panned to occupy the head office of Bayer Cropscience, but after an insider informed us there would be a large police presence we went to our plan B: The house of Martyn Hargreaves, company secretary at 15 Coppice Ave, Great Sheldon, Cambridge.
17 September 2003 - Bayer were targeted as they held a stall at the dairy industry’s national ‘Dairy Event’ near Coventry. Two protesters held a banner, and gave out leaflets, telling the farming community about Bayer’s poor record as a responsible pharmaceutical company, and warning of dangers of them leading the way in the commercialisation of GM crops.
17 Sept 2003 - Dystar in Huddersfield, partially owned by Bayer, was visited again. Walls windows and frames were liberally spray painted, including with the address of this website, while the only door had its lock sealed up with super glue.
4 September 2003 - A daylight raid resulted in £5000 of criminal damage at York university. The action was aimed at a Bayer presentation at a Genomes conference which the company was also sponsoring.
3 September 2003 - Anti-GM Protestors Wreck The Bayer Stand At British Potato 2003 Event
29 August 2003 - Dystar is a textiles company partialy owned by Bayer. On the evening of the 29th of August their offices in Huddersfield were visited. “Bayer - Stop GM” was spray painted on two walls, and “no gm” on several windows. The only door hads its lock sealed up with liquid metal.
\subsection{Towards the End of the Week: The Tyranny of Time}
Some of the units we use to measure time just can’t be argued with. The spinning of the earth or its orbit around the sun are clear reasons for the existence of a ‘day’ or a ‘year’ — and even a month is more or less in tune with lunar reality.
But the same just can’t be said for a ‘week’, an oddity of which the origins and purpose are obscure. The biblical reference to the ‘seventh day’ of rest does not mean that the sevenday week has been anything like universal over the centuries.
The ancient Egyptians used a ten-day week and the Mayan calendar used a 13 and a 20-day period. Lithuanians used weeks of nine days before adopting Christianity. In other words, there’s nothing natural about the week. It’s an enclosure of time, an artificial construct imposed on the world by a succession of centralising, controlling forces from the Roman Empire, through the Christian Church and the British Empire to the global techno-business hegemony of today.
We have now reached the point where the seven-day week has completely enchained us to its rigid cycle of routine and the limited horizon with which it has been stifling humanity for far too long. When we wake up each morning, what we are really experiencing is a new day, a day we have never experienced before. But the first thought that enters our heads on regaining consciousness is whether this day is a ‘Monday’, a ‘Saturday’ or a ‘Thursday’.
It seems that each of these days already has its own character before it has even unfolded. And what lies ahead of us in the future is in reality a series of unlived days which are but blank canvases on which we can paint our dreams and our lives.
Instead of that, we see nothing but short, brutal closed loops of ‘days of the week’, tired and familiar cliches through which we have trudged time and time again in our sadly confined lives.
This is of course ideal for those who would keep us as their slaves on a perpetual treadmill of production, for those who fear the moment we raise our gaze from the factory formula of routine and catch a glimpse of the free-time world which should have been our lifelong playground. From early in life, children are taught to mould themselves into the authoratitive contours of the official week. “Tuesday is painting day. Friday is dressing up day.”
When they start school, they are also forced to swallow the biggest lie of all — the weekend. The weekend is good, we are told. It is special. It is something to be celebrated. It is our freedom. And yet its true role is to confirm that the other five days of the week are set aside for slavery. By the time children come out of the education treadmill, they no longer question this, no longer dare suggest that the finite days of their unique, precious, existence on this earth belong to them and to nobody else.
As would-be liberators of the human race, we must look beyond superficial changes in social organisation. We must dig deep to uproot the imagination of our species from the dank heavy sterility into which it has grown embedded.
We must not waste a single minute calling for shorter working hours or fewer working days. We must aim higher in our attack on temporal tyranny. It is time we looked as far ahead as the end of the week!
\subsection{Two Decades of Disobedience: A retrospective on Green Anarchist’s first twenty years}
Few anarchist publications survive to their 20\textsuperscript{th} year, and then typically spoil it by resounding triumphant about their minuscule ‘great achievements’. At risk of sounding pious, it is not our role as revolutionaries to holiday from criticism — especially essential selfcriticism — or to publish propaganda, which implies an unequal, manipulative relationship between writer and reader. Like the Trotskyites of yore, there are ‘Walter Mittys’ in the movement that go over the in-house press with a fine-toothed comb for any portent — however tiny or obscure — of their imminent ‘achievement of historical destiny’, a tendency that actually only emphasises their risible, self-deluded megalomania and pathetic insignificance. For all the postSeattle myth-making, Leviathan’s enemies have achieved little on global terms, so it is more appropriate to present ourselves with modest humility, as learners rather than teachers.
\subsection{Our Origins}
London Greenpeace presented the Easter 1984 Stop the City (STC) as a forerunner to such anti-globalisation spectacles as J18. With hindsight, this is nothing to boast about and GA’s role in it less so. As others were penned outside the Bank of England trading smoke flares with the Met, veteran Freedom columnist and owner of the Keverall Farm organic commune Alan Albon and a young Green CND herbalist Marcus Christo met in a nearby pub, quietly agreeing to found a “green” anarchist publication to join the Green wave of the time. Donations from one Poison Girls benefit later, they did so. The first issue featured articles by Colin Ward, London Greenpeace’s Dave Morris and a cringe-inducing cover portraying the wished-for coming together of two dissident youth counter-cultures — hippies and punks — but was a pretty mixed bag.
The first cover was by one Richard Hunt, bought in as GA’s artist and record-keeper. An odd customer even by movement terms, Hunt had been variously a SIGINT operative during his national service in Hong Kong and a torture victim of the psychiatric establishment (‘aversion therapy’), but most relevantly here had quit both the Green Party and John Carpenter’s dissident splinter, Green Line, for failure to adopt what he portentiously described as “my economic analysis”.\footnote{Hunt’s full biographical details can wait for his obituary, surely not far off following a mentally debilitating stroke two years ago.} He was one of the first to latch onto Richard Lee \Slash{} Marshall Sahlin’s ‘primitive affluence’ thesis, that whilst band-societies are typically commodity-poor, they are time-rich and use their leisure to live full, harmonious, egalitarian lives. Despite Sahlins also noting agriculturalists were worse off in all respects than forager bands, Hunt’s mid-1970s pamphlet The Natural Society argued in terms typical of that decade’s utopianism for the decentralisation of society to the level of small, selfsufficient communities (tweely rendered as “villages”), with any losses in technology and high culture written off as inevitable, if not desirable.
\subsection{The Hunt Years}
Hunt’s extreme dogmatism led him to demand the informal GA adopt his analysis as “policy” and then, come 1986, to use his control of the zine’s records to force the other editors out when they would not. He later claimed the sticking point for his blatant take-over was “violence”, the peace movement dominating the protest milieu and the minds of the other two editors at the time. In this, Hunt — fresh from crawling through a hedge to escape a battering at the battle of the Beanfield, where Thatcher’s rompersuited storm troopers trapped and physically smashed the Peace Convoy — was probably more in touch with social reality. Lacking coworkers, in 1987 he formed an editorial collective from prominent Stonehenge Campaign veterans, Oxford students and the odd local pagan, but this fell apart after one issue, largely as they were unwilling to subordinate themselves to Hunt as his ‘mere mouthpieces’.
Ploughing on regardless, Hunt halved GA’s already feeble circulation gratuitously attacking pacifists, theists and workerists — though the latter with considerable provocation. With the Rekjavik accords and the end of Soviet power in sight, the peace movement was failing and a Leftism that shared his dogmatism — if not his non-analysis of class conflict — was filling the vacuum. At this time, many of the workerist high-ups were unashamedly sectarian Leftists and Platformists, fetishising (their) organisation and ideology. Many of their followers were ex-vegan\Slash{}peace police asserting their new proletarian Cause with convert zeal, despite their professional parents and public school educations (i.e. they themselves were the “middle class wankers”).
Despite this, Hunt formed a second ‘collective’ the next year, consisting of Chris Laughton, a libertarian who made a living as the test subject of medical experiments rather than draw the dole, and Paul Rogers, an expeace camper and Peace Studies student disillusioned with all that following Peace News’ denunciation of direct action by Autonomous Peace Action. Laughton left for Keverall Farm following his failure to establish Earth First! in the UK, being replaced by our resident doctor of programmes geekery, ANSLIM’s Kevin Lano (Anarchist Sexual Liberation Movement), someone Hunt evidently found inappropriately disturbing.
Hunt wanted to leave GA to them so he’d have more time to expand The Natural Society to book length, finally published as a result of an inheritance from his unbeloved mother in 1998 as To End Poverty. He left sooner than intended in 1991 when his confused support for the first Gulf War saw him criticised in print by the other editors, who had been repeatedly arrested for actively opposing the war. To this day, Hunt takes massive umbrage at this ‘peasants’ revolt’, being treated as he treated the original editors. He went on to edit what he hoped would be a rival publication, Alternative Green, on which sadly more below.
\subsection{The 4\textsuperscript{th} Collective}
As Lano left for computer business in Australia, Rogers had to get out GA29 on his own before being joined by fourth editorial collective. This included a young Camberley punk whose brother was involved in animal rights, Saxon Wood, who did the distribution; obsessive ALF \Slash{} ELF list-keeper and editor of Rabbixian Anarchist Times (RAT, later Ecovegan) in the West Country, Noel Molland, who did the direct action listings; and ex-RAF helicopter maintenance man Steve Booth, a former anti-poll tax bailiff buster who also edited the Lancaster Anarchist Bomber. All were to become the ‘GA’ portion of the GAndALF defendants, but this was only the culmination of a Stateorchestrated campaign of spookery directed against GA from 1992 or so.
With Booth came his fellow NW bailiff busters Ray Hill and Tim Hepple, both fascists-turnedSearchlight assets. Because Hunt was even then making disturbing noises about “not Left or Right, but centralist or decentralist” — he invariably spoke axiomatically, further illustrating his ideological rigidity — we were more open to the ‘gruesome twosome’s blandishments than was wise, even publicising Hill’s ‘Creating a Community’ scam about readers sending money to buy a Scottish island (we were later told he was a notorious fraudster, something he grudgingly admitted himself in his autobiography). With Hunt’s resignation, Searchlight had no need to infiltrate GA to spy on the far-Right (quite the opposite in fact), so we can only assume it was to fulfil some State agenda.
With huge Green Party gains in the Euro elections and GA principally reporting EF!UK,\footnote{In fact, GA was first to interview Jake Burbridge and Jason Torrance, Earth First!s founders in UK, when they were still out painting dumpsters around Hastings at night. At this time, they hadn’t met exRainforest Action’s George Marshall, who had peacenik contacts that gave them numbers enough for inter\Slash{}national headlinegrabbing spectaculars.} we were a natural target for infiltration and manipulation. When the BNP finally cottoned on to Tim Hepple’s infiltration of their infamous Welling bookshop by early-1993,\footnote{Apparently as a result of a fascist customers officer, Jim White, that Hepple had sacked for involvement in CS gas smuggling insisting on his accuser being named at his industrial tribunal.} he insisted GA publish a hit list of fascists he claimed were involved in Combat 18, a neo-Nazi street gang given endless sensationalist and lucrative publicity in Searchlight for publishing their own hit lists in Target magazine, something Hepple also knew suspiciously too much about. Needless to say, this would have been legally and physically dangerous, but what really set alarm bells ringing was Hepple’s claim that details of antifascists had been supplied to C18 not by him but by an ex-NF figure then prominent in Class War, Tim Scargill. As we’d been building bridges since the Hunt years,\footnote{We found Class War had more principle and humour than most workerist groups — not entirely devoting their whole programme to chasing anarcho-monopolist AK Presses favour and thus Chumba’s money — though they were (are!) still publicity hounds full of hot air.} we knew Scargill personally and meeting him through the auspices of Searchlight’s most single-minded foe, the spook-obsessed anti-fascist researcher Larry O’Hara, it was obvious to us he was being framed to create a three-way street war between GA, CW and C18 and — not incidentally — slap Class War for their reversing their Searchlight-sponsored expulsion from Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) on absurd smear grounds in 1985.
With input from the others being set up, O’Hara published the first of a series of pamphlets exposing Hepple’s provocateur tactics, A Lie Too Far, which provoked a campaign of intimidation, smears and threats of violence from those reliant on Searchlight’s dubious intelligence to maintain their position in AFA.\footnote{A Lie Too Far got an absurdly hostile review in Class War as their Leeds group was dominated by Searchlight’s Paul Bowman, who Red Action backed to the hilt in one bogus ‘inquiry’ after another as they were then equally complicit. As GA wouldn’t ‘toe the line’ RA had set on this, their ensuing fatwa meant hassle from their decidedly slow ‘street meat’ for years even after RA themselves broke with Searchlight. Now, of course, Bowman is a thoroughly nice chap and an environmentalist following a mental breakdown as a result of this affaire, though he split Class War and then bizarrely tried to dissolve his own faction before it was resolved. Red Action, of course, have an Irish line of their own to follow. Having tried to dominate AFA for so long through a combination of public rhetoric lauding ‘unity’ and behind-thescenes manipulation and thuggery, they’ve now thrown in with hopeless Socialist Alliance electoralism and Sinn Fein-style community-building through their front, the International Working Class Association (IWCA). I think, to date, they have one local councillor to show for their typically principled volte face.} Aside from transparent Stalinist garbage like Terry Liddle, whose exwife is a Searchlight photographer, this realignment was done by early1995 or so, though the State were hardly done with GA.
\subsection{The Gandalf Trial}
Although the smear campaign by Stewart Home, Fabian Tompsett and their fans began as early as 1994, I’m leaving that for later. It’s noteworthy here that they didn’t hesitate to use the same language (“terrorists”, etc) as journalists fed anti-GA smears directly by the State — Home even claiming to know one of them personally, Jason Benetto — and when marginalised or desperate enough, used facts (e.g. numbers, personal details) that could only have been available from police surveillance sources.
Having exposed Hepple (and a portion of the State’s strategy to demonise the militant Green movement as “ecoterrorists”) and refused the arms and communications equipment we would probably have needed to survive the street war he was manoeuvring GA into as a small group, his MI5 masters started planting incredible stories on an “ecoterrorist” theme about GA and EF! in the mainstream media from mid1993. John Harlow of the Times (and Construction News\dots{}), for example, was claiming protesters “threw babies under bulldozers” in his coverage of the Solsbury Hill and M11 protests. It was pretty obvious the journalists were getting a common briefing as all consistently rendered ‘ELF’ as ‘Environmental Liberation Front’ rather than the wittier, less wordy accepted movement form, ‘Earth Liberation Front’.
With the start of the Newbury bypass campaign in early-1995,\footnote{I was actually first to pitch a tent at Tothill, later an important protest camp. Unfortunately, due to bail conditions set after the Operation Washington arrests, subsequent involvement was limited to advising 3\textsuperscript{rd} Battle of Newbury on blockading contractor depots, etc.} the State turned bluster into action with raids on PO boxes and then homes under Operation Washington. Eventually over fifty homes, bookshops and printworks were to be raided, some repeatedly and some for such trivial reasons as having written goodwill cards to defendants, and some 10,000 pages of ‘evidence’ seized. As GA’s editors, we were surprised to discover we had ‘conspired to incite criminal damage by fire’ with ALF press officer Robin Webb and his younger, semi-retired sidekick Simon Russell. Evidence of ‘association’ included such nonsense as Sax Wood selling GA at a meeting Robin Webb spoke at half a decade before. At no time was there any suggestion contact between any GA and ALF-supporting ‘conspirators’ went beyond normal exchange of journalistic information — in the direction of a book of matches, for example\dots{}
What was Operation Washington about? It’s important in understanding it to know that it had been running a couple of years before anyone from GA was even arrested. Operation Washington Mk. I (for want of a better designation) featured an attempt to frame Webb for possession of a wrapped shotgun passed him as a ‘tool’ by a Sussex animal sanctuary owner Dave Hammond, who later mainstream media ‘exposés’ of the ALF implied had turned State asset. Webb’s trial at Lewes collapsed when police refused to name their sources.\footnote{Hepple never offered to wrap our guns for us, but its difficult not to see the same sort of offer and the same consequences as both these parallel State ‘games’ targeting the direct action movement were played out.}
Operation Washington Mk.II started out as an attempt to pin Barry Horne’s arson wave on the Isle of Wight — a resounding success inasmuch as it forced Boots to close their Thurgatton vivisection lab and made their ‘cruelty-free’ labels authentically cruelty-free — by reasoning that anyone knowing about it must have directly or indirectly been informed by the fire-starter, supposedly a ‘conspiratorial association’. Unfortunately, Horne was arrested placing devices in Bristol before we were first dragged into court, so evidence about him was removed from the bundles and the brief expanded to suggest that any reporting of direct action implied prosecutable ‘conspiratorial association’ with its unknown perpetrators. As Robin Webb and GA (though its Direct Action Diary) were then just about the only publications carrying such reports in UK without added ‘police spin’, how much this all suited the State as a weapon in the propaganda war was pretty obvious.
This is not the place to give a blowbyblow account of a prosecution process (including Operation Washington I) that ran from 1993- 1999, included three major trials and ended up costing the State nearly £10m.\footnote{We later worked out that it’d have been cheaper for the cops to have bought up every copy of the zine we produced at £5,000 each than bring their prosecution, and ran a “£5,000 to cops” line on GA’s mast head to taunt them about it!} However, this new weapon of political repression’s first outing was ill-served by its advocates, ailing CPS prosecutor Alan Ventnor insisting at our first hearing at Portsmouth in early 1997 that his definition of conspiracy had been ignored and that Hampshire Constabulary’s ‘broad definition’ threatened free speech — until he was literally dragged out of the court between two cops and ‘spoken to’. Then the acting prosecutor, the portly, florid Dick Onslow whose family may have been associated with the 1977 Persons Unknown conspiracy trial, got so badly muddled by his legal definitions that the State’s prime target, Robin Webb, had to be acquitted — and the chronically scared Simon Russell should have been then too, as any supposed ‘association’ with GA defendants was through Webb. Of course, not to let the law interfere with a good show trial, Robin was thrown back into the legal process for the unsuccessful 2\textsuperscript{nd} and 3\textsuperscript{rd} trials of 1998 anyway.
Rogers felt most strongly that a political prosecution needed to be fought politically (even pragmatically speaking, ‘conspiracy’ was such a catch-all it could hardly be fought legally!), and was backed in this most strongly by Booth. The GAndALF (GA-and-ALF) Defendants Campaign was formed over Simon Russell’s typically unsussed objection that his poor, sick mother might find out about the case in consequence, and was backed administratively by the Stevenage-based National Anti-Hunt Campaign. Much of the GDC’s limited (giro-level!) resources went into trying to publicise the case including two (chaotic and ill-attended) national speaking tours, but the mainstream media consistently pleaded sub judice rather than admit their own tacit complicity with police censorship by acknowledging others uncowed by it. It took the start of the 1\textsuperscript{st} GAndALF trial in Portsmouth, August 1997, for the liberal NCCL to send even a token observer and for Stephen Hancock, a principled NVDAer once jailed for UK’s first Ploughshares action and who knew Rogers personally, to kickstart movement media coverage at an alternative media gathering in Oxford — not least as they realised they were next. Only after the end of the first trial did we see a second support group formed by London Greenpeace and solidarity actions ‘to make prosecuting more trouble than not prosecuting’ such as the bricking of butchers’ shops in Portsmouth and Dr. Margaret Jones’ disruption of Bristol’s intercollegiate boat race.
Another important element in fighting a political prosecution is to have lawyers prepared to argue a case politically in court, for all the restrictions imposed by the Law Society. The firm most commonly used by activists then, Bindmans, were rejected out of hand as Jeffrey Bindman is lawyer to Gerry Gable, Searchlight’s editor, but the alternative Birnbergs proved almost as bad. They agreed to argue direct action — and incidentally reporting on it — was necessary selfdefence against State threats to established liberties, which would give us scope to drag spooks, their assets and compromised journalists into court, ask Hepple about his home-made sabotage manual, the Ecodefenders Handbook, dig up highly embarrassing dirt about 1970s coup plots like Wilsongate, etc, at a time when a new Labour administration was thinking of butchering MI5’s budget. When the case came to court, all Birnbergs barristers did was get a few off-therecord admissions PIIs (public interest immunity certificates) were being used to cover up MI5’s role in the case and then did their best to play one defendant off against the others and get them to denounce their own politics in best US ‘client management’ manner, in the hope the jury would find them too disunited, pathetic and stupid to ever conspire together. Naive defendants — and none of GA’s editors other than Rogers had ever even been arrested before Operation Washington — such as Noel Molland identified so strongly with the lawyers that he allowed himself to be destroyed by prosecutor Onslow on the stand for days on his lawyer’s advice, ran to them at first hint of counter-demos against the trial (in the hope organisers would be arrested — as documented in Grassy Noel, a post-GAndALF pamphlet endorsed by Robin Webb) and continued to defend their conduct even from jail! In the long term, the lawyers did more damage to GA than the police, their only apology coming through word of mouth and a third party at the 2000 Mayday events in London.
Because Rogers only insisted the lawyers do what they were hired to do, he was presented as a paranoid endangering other defendants liberty, with his lawyer Ken McDonald QC\footnote{Having begun his career defending such early-1970s ‘Robin Hoods’ as antiapartheid campaigners caught sabotaging the All Blacks rugby tour and pornographers, McDonald is ending it as the first Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to be cautioned for cannabis possession.} quitting mid-trial rather than represent him, insisting “I’d be struck off” for running the agreed defence. When military judge David Selwood refused to allow him new representation, Rogers made it quite clear he would call every spook he could lay a writ on, deliberately picked out all proof of complicity (e.g. Hepple and police references to “PO Box 100”, MI5’s drop) in reviewing the evidence under their noses\footnote{Hepple wasn’t the only one in Lancaster at the time that the police unreasonably failed to question on visiting there. This erstwhile Ecodefence editor of GA — though endorsed by perpetual naif ‘Grassy’ Noel Molland in characteristic stereotypical terms as a “good activist” — used to churn out sabotage manuals like billy-oh and was delighted every time one got national publicity — at the start of the Newbury campaign, for example, when he was good enough to attend a GA editorial meeting at the local university and give each of us something compromising on his usual theme the day before the cops simultaneously raided every known GA editor — except him, that is\dots{}} and tried to contact David Shayler, the dissident MI5 officer then hiding out in Paris, via the Daily Mail’s Mark Hollingsworth. Returning to court the following Tuesday, Rogers was immediately severed from the case by Selwood, as originally requested.
Other than Simon Russell — who really had nothing to do with it and damn all to actually worry about — the other, more naive defendants were all convicted after a three month-long trial. Selwood deliberately span out his blatantly hostile summing-up three days to ensure Barry Horne was sentenced the day before the jury began their deliberations. Sax Wood’s parents saw them reading about it in the paper on the train to court. They each got 3 1\Slash{}2 years, lucky as Barry Horne got 18 and the laws of conspiracy make them as culpable as he supposedly was. In fact, arson can carry a life term, even if all you did was write up a report on it gleaned from the Net. Consistent with MI5’s “ecoterrorist” smear strategy, what national press deigned to report the story at all (no longer sub judice now it suited them) ran ‘Anarchists Jailed for Bomb Plot’ headlines conveniently omitting any reference to their true ‘crime’, writing, and pretending it was them there with the candles and pop bottles full of petrol the whole time.
Determined GA should continue, Steve Booth continued to contribute articles and Community Resistance Diary listings from Lancaster Castle, hidden in the body of his prison letters. Rogers was arrested four times and had phones, papers and computer seized twice in the next three months, all supposedly ‘unrelated’ hunt sab stuff. A back-up editorial collective was briefed, but as it was, the paper continued. Plans were made with new lawyers to ambush then-MI5 director Stella Rimington at a meeting in Brighton to serve a writ on her and Rogers and O’Hara tracked Tim Hepple — then living under the pseudonym Tim Matthews — to a UFO meeting in Southport where he was preparing grounds to launch his book on the subject. They exposed his past to ufologists, who were shocked by the ex-fascist’s immediate resort to strong arm tactics.\footnote{Hepple \Slash{} Matthews claims he only got into all this because of his wife’s interest in ufology rather than serving some State agenda, though full documentation questioning his version can be found in O’Hara’s extended and rather odd pamphlet, At War With the Universe. Nowadays, Hepple \Slash{} Matthews has nothing to do with UFOs either, promoting wrestling in the Midlands under yet another pseudonym ‘Matt Violent’. (See, Tim, you did have to get yourself another name, just like we said you would that night in Southport..!} Attempts to force through a 2\textsuperscript{nd} trial of Webb and Rogers, who escaped the first, before the jailed editors could appeal foundered when Rogers’ lawyer, Tim Murphy, turned out not to be a lawyer after all. An active hunt sab and no friend of the police, Murphy had been disbarred by the Law Society but had taken the case regardless by way of revenging himself on the Establishment.
In the three months granted to instruct a new lawyer, the furore was getting unmanageable for the authorities with even two Nobel Prize winners signing up to the Alternative Media Gathering’s anticensorship declaration,\footnote{The linguist Noam Chomsky and playwright Harold Pinter — the ‘usual suspects’, in fact.} and the jailed editors were released on a technicality to do with ambiguity of the wording of the indictment after less than four months inside. Thanks to a stream of supportive letters, the defendants had done better than might be expected in jail — except Molland whose shrill, ‘holierthan-thou’ attitude antagonised otherwise sympathetic prisoners and who had his cell trashed by fascists on arrival at HMP Totnes.
Just how thin the technicality was as an excuse to release the editors was shown up by the 3\textsuperscript{rd} trial, where it proved impossible for the prosecution to find any indictment wording that wasn’t deemed “ambiguous”, meaning both Webb and Rogers also finally got to walk free. There followed a standoff into early-1999 where police threatened an appeal and we threatened to sue. They blinked first — and the paper, of course, kept on coming out.
\subsection{The Home Clones}
Steward Home flooded London with his ‘Green and Brown Anarchist’ leaflet in mid-1994, arguing GA’s supposed support for “Green death camps” because of Hunt’s former involvement.\footnote{To give him his due, whatever else Hunt has said, even he has never said anything this offensive or stupid.} He continued churning this crap out at least until 1998, deliberately trying to blur the distinction between ‘ecofascists’ (a Lyndon Larouche-coined term for those favouring authoritarian environmental measures, particularly re. population control) and ‘common or garden’ fascists (those committed to a fuhrerprinzip and so related supremacisms), as if we at GA — as anarchists, consistently antistatist and anti-fascist — were either. We were naively inclined to dismiss the first one or two leaflets as the sort of scandalous publicity-seeking initiated by the Surrealists and decidedly tired by the Situationists, who Home affected to ape in the hope his association with their techniques would discredit them, not him. After all, Home — a deliberately execrable writer, as if he could be any other kind — was seeking an ‘in’ to the early-1990s notoriety of Brit lit that followed Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting.
After that, we responded with a ‘pot calls kettle black’ editorial paragraph noting Home’s association with National Front member Tony Wakeford and to date have so far had three different claims from Home as to when he disassociated himself from him as well as insubstantial, self-serving claims that Wakeford has left off fascism, each disproved by a subsequently discovered document. This sounded like someone with something to hide to us\dots{} When we collared Home’s space cadet sidekick Fabian ‘Fuckwit’ Tompsett at one of their artsy do’s at the Oval two years into this crap, he couldn’t even define ‘fascism’, insisting it was “a matter for sociologists”. This didn’t stop them throwing similarly incoherent mud for another half-decade.
By 1997, the ‘who said what’ of this manufactured scandal was so bewilderingly convoluted that people thought it all poor entertainment at best — with a few opportunistic lice like AK Press also seeing it as a bulwark against anarcho-primitivist supersession of their antique ideologies. Then Home and his clones — I won’t call them Neoists as he did, following Neoist founder tentatively a convenience’s denunciation of their attempt to discredit Neoism by appropriation — started to broaden their aim. Fuckwit issued a pamphlet denouncing ‘anarchist saint’ Stuart Christie, a veteran Black Flag editor who tried to assassinate Spain’s generalissimo Franco, as a “fascist” for advocating anarchist militias. As typical with this crowd, Christie’s distinction between classic anarchist militias in Spain and racist, Christian fundamentalist ones in the US was deliberately blurred. At the 1997 Anarchist Bookfair, when they prematurely hoped GA’s editors would already be safely jailed and not there to answer back, Home and his clones issued \emph{Anarchist Integralism}, a pamphlet claiming all anarchists as tainted by anti-Semitic “Bakuninism”, although neither this nor ‘integralism’ were ever defined. Of course, the anarcho-Establishment sat there and meekly took it, not knowing the ‘joke’ (such as it was) was on them.
Surrounded by a fan base of exceptional sycophancy and stupidity — typically college kids dressed up as skinheads, as if they think this fools anyone — Home is used to passing outrageous remarks that go over their heads and, I suspect, enjoys trying to worm his way round criticism if confronted over any of them. He’s happy to use the Evolian slogan “Long live Death!” in one of his AK-published booklets, claiming it to be an anarchist Civil War slogan when challenged. It may well have been. Incidentally. Which I doubt is the reason Home used it. Similarly, we knew what integralism was, an irrational ultra-nationalist belief promulgated by the darling of the ‘political soldier’ far-Right as ‘more extreme than the Nazis’, Cornlieu Codreanu, fuhrer of the Romanian Iron Guard during World War 2. We knew what “Bakuninism” was too, an alternate term for so-called nationalanarchism, a far-Right attempt wellestablished in Germany and Russia to appropriate anarchism, much as national Bolshevism was a fascist attempt to appropriate Stalinism in the run-up to World War 2.
How did we know all this stuff, other than Home’s suspicious interest in the obscure byways of the farRight and as a consequence of our ongoing association with the train\Slash{} fascistspotterish Larry O’Hara since the Hepple affair? Because we had to. Flattered by political attention from anyone at all, Richard Hunt (remember him?) had let his Alternative Green (and his mind) grow rank with fascist weeds, opening its columns to ‘political soldiers’ like Patrick Harrington (a big chum of Wakeford’s), Richard Lawson and Troy Southgate. Pretty soon, Hunt himself was arguing the same sort of meaningless distinctions as them between ‘racial nationalists’ and Nazis and claiming the Strasser brothers “weren’t Nazis” despite years of being card-carrying NSDAP members, albeit a tad more proletarian than usually accepted into its upper ranks. Southgate is happy to call himself a ‘national-anarchist’ and ‘Bakuninist’ and is welcome to provided he doesn’t attempt — as Home and his clones have not coincidentally consistently tried to do — to confuse this with any authentic, nonbogus, anti-statist form of anarchism. Lawson edited a publication called Perspectives, using the old Mosley study group trick of suckering in the middle class by never overtly using the ‘F’ word. Long-since exposed — not least by GA — Lawson then moved in on Alternative Green as founded by someone authentically Green and guaranteed to cry long and hard if his appropriation of it was ever challenged. The fascist tactic of convergence is to lay claim to juicy terms (“freedom”, “ecology”, “anarchism”) and hope that those already using them will drop them like poison rather than be poisoned by association with those misappropriating them. This cultural ‘war of position’ has been meat and drink to the ‘political soldiers’ for at least a quarter century now.
We’d been actively discouraging sales of Alternative Green since it started to go rotten at its 2\textsuperscript{nd} issue. But Hunt’s new chums were ambitious, having him front a series of ‘Anarchist Heretic Fairs’ in contrast to the annual Anarchist Bookfair in London, as showcases for one species of convergence after another. Trouble — for them — was this didn’t get very far, with venues consistently crying off when told what sort was really planning to show up and eventually even the mainstream anti-fascist movement — which typically can only spot the sort of fascist that wears jackboots and says “sieg heil” — woke up to what was going on and shooed a frustrated Hunt and his stall off the front of the 2000 Bookfair, sans stock. They showed less enthusiasm for moving on those promoting a convergence agenda within the Bookfair, organisers Martin Peacock and Carol Saunders being longstanding chums of the ‘avant garde’ Home and Fuckwit. In fact, Peacock showed more enthusiasm for beating up a GA leafleteer alerting Fair-goers to convergence than barring those promoting it from his event. Equally tellingly, other attendees have shown typical movement principle in preferring a stall at the Bookfair to challenging its organisers over this blatant incident.
And what of Home now? Virtually silent, whether because Brit lit’s star has fallen and without himself even tagged to its tail (so no publishers, no moronic pseud fan base, etc — hard life, eh?) or because the final expose of the convergers at the 2000 Bookfair — there have been no more ‘Heretics Fairs’ attempted since — means he has lost his rationalle to continue smearing GA. And he knows we have the full gen on Wakeford and he now too, of course\dots{} Throughout this Homestyled “feud”, there has been an undercurrent of collaboration between him and the State as well as the fascists. Of course, both before and after World War 2, fascists were wellserved by their connections to intelligence as a deniable reservoir of anti-Communist brute force. It also suits both their agendas propagandawise to infiltrate militant Green circles and so have them portrayed as violent and fascistic.
\subsection{Splits and Schisms}
The end of the GandALF prosecutions also marked a slow, acrimonious end to GA’s fourth editorial collective.
As you’ve already read above, the obsessive Noel Molland — who had neither understanding of or sympathy with GA’s broader politics and used our pages simply to get his listings printed in the name of animal lib movement cred — moved out of our orbit even before the first trial was done and now plays on his short spell inside as an angle in publishing his Earth Liberation Prisoners newsletter. A rigid, mother-identified individual, Molland’s publication is more appreciated by the animal lib movement than he is. His compromising behaviour — including sneaking off to a hotel room to talk to a journalist that then ran one bogus anti-ALF programme after another — during the GAndALF trial is a matter of record, after all.
Sax Wood also legged it out of UK rather than get called to testify at the 3\textsuperscript{rd} GAndALF trial. This was the start of a strange odyssey indeed. EF!UK refuses all representative principles — including that there is an “EF!UK” as opposed to a scattering of distinct local groups — and yet Wood addressed his way across Canada to the Amerikan West Coast as its selfstyled “representative”. He landed a post at the Earth First! Journal then based at Eugene, Oregon, this way too. He first offered to get GA printed over there for global distribution — marginally cheaper than UK printing, much better security, and distribution inroads into the US too — and then decided to fuck us off after a couple of issues on realising he could make more money publishing his own paper from Eugene instead (that this doubled our print costs in UK meant nothing to him). Much as Molland claimed to be nonanarchist (despite years publishing something called the Rabbixian Anarchist Times) and nonviolent on lawyers’ advice during the Gandalf trial, so they had Wood dream up some ‘fundamental’ green anarchism out of the pre-Hunt primordial soup, an Albonesque mishmash of allotments and homespun pacifism. Calling it Green Anarchy, Wood touted his version from venue to venue around the States, claiming it to be “the American version of Green Anarchist” and himself to be me, John Connor. Needless to say, he prevaricated endlessly about allowing any criticism to be published in it by GA (UK) — a green anarchist publication open to all except other green anarchists, evidently! Well, it would have rather blown that little scam of his and there is no dole worth talking of Stateside\dots{} Ironically, the Eugene-based crew he eventually recruited as co-editors — his dyslexia made it impossible to edit the publication beyond reprints on his own — took him at his word and when they, too, insisted on anarchoprimitivist content like the UK version, Wood worked himself up into a huff and walked out, compiling his more honestly titled News from Nowhere from the East Coast thereafter. A further delicious irony was that this all happened only months short of the N30 antiglobalisation protests in Seattle, which (absurdly) hyped the Eugene anarchists and their GA (USA) to worldwide attention.
Whilst at the Journal, Wood met radical archaeologist and fellow editor, Theresa Kintz. Although she’d been involved in EF! over a decade, she had only become aware of the anarcho-primitivist perspective on meeting John Zerzan in Eugene. When the Journal received the offer of a first interview with Ted Kaczynski, convicted for a 17 year campaign of antitech Unabombings and at one time Amerika’s \#1 Most Wanted, Kintz took on an assignment the other largely upper-middle class, liberal editorial group wanted nothing to do with. The Journal wouldn’t publish this ‘dynamite’ material — not least on the insistence of Daryl Cherney, the big money Californian EF! supremo then suing the FBI for injuries caused by their bomb during the Redwoods Summer campaign — who subsequently had her purged from the editorial group. Kintz then left for the UK, both because GA had agreed to publish the interview without any of the official nastiness that might accompany Amerikan publication and because it was possible to write her thesis on radical archaeology and anarcho-primitivism in the British academic climate but not any Amerikan one (nice to live in a free country then\dots{}).
Unfortunately after little over a year in UK, Kintz and myself found Larry O’Hara our de facto landlord whilst doing (extended) summer work in London. O’Hara has serious, unresolved problems to do with women, particularly his deceased, adopted mother\footnote{GA has had so many problems with mother-fuckers, pro or anti, over the last twenty years that we now make a point of asking anyone wanting to get involved what their attitudes are on the subject. Those that just think it’s an odd question usually get in. Those that start raving insanely about childhood reminiscences involving having to wear the Little Lord Fauntleroy suit or how their mother was a saint or how she used to masturbate them, etc, don’t. Ever. No thanks — been there, done that.} and it didn’t take much prompting from a malicious neighbour (who also happened to be a copper’s wife) he’d adopted as a mothersubstitute for things to turn very nasty indeed. Things might have ended with our de facto eviction but O’Hara, never one to under-do vindictiveness, then encouraged Steve Booth to believe Kintz was (in his own words) “an agent for the American equivalent of Searchlight”. As the Irrationalist debacle during the GAndALF period demonstrated, Booth is given to inappropriate quasiautistic fixations and at this time, Larry O’Hara was one of them. He was happy to believe and \Slash{} or do anything O’Hara told him, whether it made sense or not. Despite repeated public and private challenges to provide any evidence of his agentbaiting BS, none has being forthcoming with Booth himself admitting in private correspondence that his risible amalgam of paranoid surmises are “not proof”. This didn’t stop him from a covert campaign of unsubstantiated, hostile whispers and mail interception (given our precipitate move, we had to route our mail via his home before we knew of his ‘aberration’ and until a more secure alternative was available), ultimately setting up his own spoiler publication, also called Green Anarchist, ‘to save it’. Needless to say, Booth could hardly publicly admit the true reason for his ‘split’ without deserved ridicule, so he first pretended it was to do with Kintz trying to sell a second Kaczynski interview to porno mag Penthouse (surely a matter principally between Ted and her) and then later, when that didn’t get sufficient reaction in these post-feminist times, claimed it was due to “differences of approach”.
\subsection{Current Issues}
As early as N30 (by which I mean my time in the Euston pig pen), we at GA have been warning that the antiglobalisation movement would revive massified Leftism and that would swallow the autonomous direct action initiatives where real hope for a similarly autonomous future lies. That prediction has sadly proved largely true, militancy (if we can call it that) being largely confined to ‘mile wide, inch deep’ ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ demos that satisfied the more complacent type of liberal in the 1980s — but even then were augmented by a hard edge of clandestine ALFers, base busters, saboteurs and street fighting anti-fascists which I’m relieved to say the complacent liberals didn’t approve of. Fredy Perlman said that anarcho zine publishing represented a “reappropriation of capital” inasmuch as you always have to put money into them to keep them alive, that they never pay for themselves. One odd consequence of the massification of the movement is that outlets for alternative publications have plummeted.
A key reason I had to work in London from summer 2000 — and continue to work now, nights and \Slash{} or in shit call centres — despite being opposed to work as a matter of temperament and general principle was that this was the only way remaining open to me to finance the paper. Booth — who at that time was living in a fantasy world of an ever-expanding movement and where nothing ever had to be paid for — simply couldn’t understand why he was being asked to do more of GA’s admin, only having 8+ hours a day more free time to do it than I then did. I had no objection in principle to him editing the paper fulltime, leaving me time to write and finance GA, but when I saw the first and only prebreak issue he produced, I knew there was just no way he should be allowed to ever produce another under the Green Anarchist mast head. Despite access to a perfectly good printer, he had halved its size and doubled its price, making it cheaper for readers to photocopy than buy, which I guess proofed them against further rip-offs. All mention of direct action and even prisoners listings had been dropped, replaced by diatribes in triplicate on the worth of unity with statist organisations like the Green Party, trivial reformist calls to lobby politicians for more easily recycled packaging and renationalisation of the railways, and off-the-wall conspiracy theory of the sort that so endeared O’Hara to Booth. Despite his level (indeed, strangely flat and humourless) tone, the weakening of emphasis was so pronounced that I concluded this new GA was either written by a different person from that who’d versified
\begin{quote}
Fluffy wankers make me chunder \Slash{} Soon you’ll all be six feet under
\end{quote}
(the original perhaps replaced by pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers\dots{}) or one in the grip of a profound mental illness (perhaps some sort of obsessive-compulsive reformism!).
In full auteur mode, Booth wouldn’t budge an inch, of course, so I had to deny him access to GA’s Monomarks box and activate the mag’s back-up editorial collective, those prepared to edit it had the entire 4\textsuperscript{th} collective gone down as a result of the GAndALF trial. Since the dark days of mid-2000, we have produced half a dozen new issues of the ‘original and best’ GA,\footnote{This joke appropriation of Irn Bru’s ad line — a traditional Glaswegian beverage I am partial to — met with an especially humourless, selfrighteous response from Booth, who wasted considerable bandwidth spouting Sax Wood-style about Alan Albon’s primordial soup on the Net. Particular satisfying, then, to see a later contributor to the list note that the ‘original and best’ GA at least pre-dated his and had the additional merit of not being pissboring. Not that this will make the slightest impression on Steve, of course, who assumes all adverse comment is the result of a global anarcho-primitivist conspiracy to prevent him achieving ‘deserved greatness’ rather than just being what it obviously is to the rest of us, fair comment.} addressed comrades as far afield as the US, Italy and Turkey, seen AP gatherings in UK, Spain and the States and outsold Booth’s pseudo-GA two to one with more frequent publication. It is a source of particular satisfaction to me that now Booth has to go to the bother of publishing and selling the mag himself, his “trees of Reason” have been dealing him some harsh blows as to economic and movement realities that he should have been alive to four years ago. We (i.e. the new editors, largely involved as Booth is not) were especially amusing to hear he was reduced to impersonating a vegetarian so Lancaster Animal Rights Group would take him to a SHAC demo to streetsell his wretched little reformist rag there.
Of course, whilst this publication is not produced solely to spite Steve Booth, satisfying though that might be (the opposite, when it comes to his pseudo-publication, might not be the case however), it’s worth paying some attention to his “difference of approach” just to illustrate where GA is going in future.
Like Sax Wood before, Booth felt that by weakening GA’s content and consciously adopting a ‘popularist’ (i.e. propagandistic) format, he’d win more readers and influence — conventional political prosletysing tactics, in fact. This approach is flawed because whilst there are 101 reformist publications out there, all more established and better resourced than Booth’s, there is only one GA, a unique voice (not counting Booth’s GA, of course, which is unique only in its residual demented conspiracy theorising!). Revolution is not made by halves — without challenging the totality, radically and totally, nothing will ultimately change, something we all know deep down. A ‘popularist’ approach can’t even touch on these fundamental areas in case (its advocates patronisingly assume) it ‘scares the horses — and the proles’. Rather than having deep appeal, such propaganda touches on deep insecurities. It is Booth and not us that is “elitist” inasmuch as we demand full, open dialogue whereas Booth feels only some ideas are fit to be fed to his ‘limited, weak-minded’ readers as The Answer from Upon High whilst others must be rigidly censored and excluded from his publication, despite references to “free speech” on its mast head. The result is an unattractive, uninteresting monologue, and all readers hear is the drone of a wannabe boss-in-waiting lording it over them intellectually — as in the rest of the Left and anarcho-Left press.
Booth stupidly argues that an absolute position achieves nothing, as if we were a political party recruiting members according to certain criteria, with only those ‘in’ allowed to do anything politically meaningful. Sadly, perhaps Booth does now see politics in such conventional terms — but I do not. Whoever acts in an unmediated way for their own liberation is ‘in’ as far as I’m concerned and my ‘party’ — if one can so name something that does not and should not exist — is the total liberation of all, human, animal, plant and rock by the tearing down of all separation and alienation. One moment of piercing, epiphanaic love or of well-directed anger outweighs any thousand petitions addressed to the waste paper baskets of the already powerful as far as I’m concerned.
Anarcho-primitivism occupies the same place of universal evil in Booth’s wonky worldview as perhaps Searchlight, Freedom Press or (in pre-movement Cold Warrior mode) Communism once did. For those who have seen only the ‘reasonable’ face Booth puts on for public consumption, it is instructive to read him rant and rave in his anti-AP pamphlet, literally contradicting himself page by page, never mind such errors of fact as accusing John Zerzan, author of The Catastrophe of Postmodernism, of being a postmodernist just because Booth doesn’t like post-modernism either! You won’t know it to read Primitivism: An Illusion with No Future (free off the Net) that Booth was around as early as Ian Bone’s 1993 Anarchy In The UK festival when John Moore and Leigh Starcross bought out the AP latent in Hunt’s adoption of Sahlin’s ‘primitive affluence’ thesis or had read and distributed over a dozen issues since with specific AP core themes and even (hard for a hermit like Booth) met a few of them over the years, all without a word of objection and then — bang! — as soon as he breaks with revolutionism, AP is the world’s greatest evil. Those given to psychological analysis would point out here that Booth has no issues with AP, just with whatever I happen to advocate but more substantially, from his current perspective Booth has every reason to take issue with this sort of analysis. From its inception, Camatte’s critiques of ideological ‘gangs’ and Perlman’s satirical Manual for Revolutionary Leaders unequivocally rejected the sort of conventional manipulative power politics Booth has now adopted, insisting we trust the people’s own instinct for selfliberation over any that choose to ‘represent’ (dominate) them. And, of course, AP criticises the totality, the fundamentals of Civilisation and Empire, of symbolisation and separation and this, too, is poison to the partial, mediated, reformist approach. But I think what really scares Booth in his current state of mind is AP’s critique of domestication. A jazz fan, there was a time when Booth could let himself go. All that is no mystery to him, for all his petit bourgeois background. But currently, any loss of control might force him to break out of a rigid circle of selfdelusion and selfpolicing that is keeping reality and any admission of error on his part at bay — meltdown time, baby!
In this, Booth is like the ossified anarcho-Left as a whole, which already knows all the arguments about ‘the iron law of oligarchy’ that will lead to its supersession because they are applied exclusively to criticise other, like organisations and never used to criticise their own. This state of affairs can only be maintained by the most rigid ideological double-think, Booth’s sectarian ‘ins’ and ‘outs’. They know they are an obstacle to revolution but can never, ever even whisper it. Because we consistently say the unthinkable and encourage others to — ’”more goad than guide” as one lot hilariously put it — GA has been anathematised by such groups year on year, and we’d be disappointed if we were not. We don’t matter, organisations don’t matter. All that matters is the love and rage of the people, a flame that with burn away all this old world.
My future vision, then, is of a universal, all-consuming, passionate, liberating inferno. As to myself, I wish I spent more time smashing and burning (as I once did), less on writing, but more even of that than nothing. Whatever — GA or something like it will continue if I write for it or not. However big a part it’s been in my life, it is a small thing indeed in the grand scheme of things. It is a great pleasure to me to see other pro-AP groups and tendencies springing up all over the world, as it makes my — and GA’s — role all the more dispensible.
Readers of this account may no doubt be offended by the way GA’s internal politics are conducted — as if some other, more bureaucratically ‘democratic’, ‘representative’ system might work ‘better’. Reputedly, when asked on his deathbed who should inherit his empire, Alexander the Great’s dying words were that it should go to “the strongest”. Beneath the transparent tissue of civilised lies, when has this ever not been so — and gladly, honestly so, at that?
\hairline
\bigskip
\chapter{Surveillance}
\subsection{New York Surveillance Camera Players — Live at Leeds}
Between 7 and 11 October 2003, Bill Brown of the New York Surveillance Camera Players stayed in Leeds, England, as the guest of the Evolution 2003 Arts Festival, an offshoot of the Leeds Film Festival.
On Tuesday 7 October, after arriving in Leeds and checking into his awful hotel (the newly built Park Plaza), Bill mapped out the locations of surveillance cameras installed in public places in the city centre. As the final version of his map indicates, this rather small, densely packed area is watched by a total of (at least) 153 cameras: 115 installed on the exteriors of privately owned buildings, and most likely operated by private security guards; 22 hidden within uncommonly large, black-tinted globes, and most likely operated by the police; and 16 installed atop poles, and definitely operated by the City Council.
In other words, the Leeds city centre is a \emph{super-surveilled} place, one in which it is impossible to walk around without being videotaped, no matter where you go. The city centre occupies 16 square blocks; and so there are, on average, almost 10 cameras per block. By contrast, there are only 7 cameras per city block in the most highly surveilled neighborhoods in New York City and Chicago, which are of course \emph{much} larger cities. With Leeds in mind, it’s easy to believe the accuracy of the estimate that England as a whole is watched by over 2 million surveillance cameras.
The situation fairly boggles the mind. The police cameras installed on top of poles aren’t enclosed within globes, as they are in New York City. As a result, all of their grotesque movements — sweeping back and forth, stopping to watch someone in particular, following someone around, etc. — are clearly visible to everyone. Though these cameras are almost always accompanied by signs, these signs contain a glaring mistake: they say “CCTV [Closed-Circuit TV] in Operation,” when the cameras these signs accompany are in fact wireless or OCTV [Open-Circuit TV]. The police cameras that are enclosed, are enclosed within globes larger than any Bill has ever seen. Furthermore, these huge black globes are never accompanied by signs, which makes their dark presence on poles and the exteriors of certain buildings even more menacing. As if all this wasn’t enough (!), the police also use highly visible Video Vans, which mostly cruise around at night and are probably equipped with infrared cameras.
It’s worth noting that, almost without exception, each privately operated surveillance camera in Leeds has a small sign on it that proclaims the name of the company that manufactured it. And so, every time one sees a camera, one also sees the name of a company (ADT, Secom, Philips, Symantec, Securicor, etc etc). It’s a form of advertising. This clearly suggests that, not only are surveillance cameras designed to create an environment in which it is safe to do business, surveillance cameras are themselves a (big) business.
On Thursday 9 October, Bill was quite busy. At 11:15 am, he gave an hour-long presentation about the SCP to an “Evolution” audience. More than 100 people were in attendance. There were a great many questions; but, this time, about half of them were “pragmatic” in nature (i.e., less questions than thinly disguised objections). One woman had the nerve to ask if Bill had ever been the victim of crime; another said she was “disturbed” by the fact he was wearing a suit and tie, and not dressed the way she imagined people like Bill should be dressed.
And yet, immediately after his presentation, when Bill offered a walking tour of surveillance cameras in the city centre, there were in attendance over 50 people, all of whom were clearly supportive of Bill’s unrelenting critique of surveillance, police departments and the State. The group didn’t have to walk far to see the three types of cameras Bill had mapped. Indeed, the group didn’t have to do any walking at all; all it had to do was stand still at the northeast corner of Albion and the Headrow, a spot from which the group could see — and be seen by — all three camera-types.
Bill had expected that there would be problems with the police. Before departing for Leeds, he’d been contacted by a reporter for The Guardian, who’d told him that the Leeds City Council — one of the sponsors of the event — had already expressed discomfort with the proposed walking tour. In particular, the Council was uncomfortable with the reference to “the conditions under which the cameras do not work” in Bill’s description of what the proposed walking tour would highlight. This clearly suggests that the Council is experiencing problems with its system, and doesn’t want this fact publicized, or that the Council is all-too-aware that its system can easily be interfered with. In any event, there were no problems at all. The police simply used the nearest pole-mounted OCTV camera (it was right across the street) to keep a careful “eye” on the walking tour the entire time it was taking place.
There was sufficient interest for a second walking tour, which took place at 5:30 pm. Meeting at the same spot as before, this tour was attended by about 10 people, all of whom had been at the first one. And so, rather than offer the same program a second time, Bill moved on to other, more advanced subjects (automated surveillance, targeted assassinations, and UAVs). As before, the group was obviously being watched by the OCTV camera across the street.
Once he’d concluded his remarks and answered people’s questions, Bill led the group around the corner and into heavily surveilled Dortmund Square. After explaining what he was about to do and inviting others to join him, Bill began performing God’s Eyes Here on Earth in front of one of the pole-mounted police cameras. He was joined by 6 other people, including a homeless man who “prayed” to the camera by making an internationally recognized gesture for fuckyou. When the watcher turned the camera away and pointed it in the opposite direction — as if refusing to give the performers the satisfaction of knowing that their gestures had been seen — the group picked up, moved to the spot in which the camera was looking, and started the performance again. Once again, the camera turned away and refused to look. Success was declared, and the group went off to find a pub.
www.notbored.org\Slash{}the-scp.html
\section{“I Can See the Future”: 10 predictions concerning cell-phones}
\begin{quote}
”My guess is that the real revolution in law enforcement capability will come from digital radios, rather than from video cameras.” — Arnold Kling, 21 October 2002.
\end{quote}
Unlike the grainy pictures taken by today’s picture phones, the Nokia Observation Camera snaps high-resolution images of 640 by 480 pixels. This means it rates as a surveillance system under British and European law, so people buying one will have to register with the data protection authorities as a CCTV user, says Britain’s Office of the Information Commissioner. “If this device captures an identifiable image, it will be classed as a CCTV device,” says the office’s compliance manager Fay Spencer. “Anyone who is not exempt will have to register as a CCTV user.” Under the act, anyone can ask a registered user to see what they have recorded. Watching your car in your drive or on the street outside your home would be exempt. But watching other people, their homes or cars would not. “The guiding principle is fairness, telling people how the camera is being used and why. That’s why shops have notices warning customers that they are on camera,” says Spencer.
\begin{enumerate}[1.]
\item\relax
In place of the video surveillance cameras currently installed on the exteriors of buildings, on city-owned poles and in other public places, the security industry will instead install cellular telephones (“digital radios”). Unlike video cameras, even those that are outfitted with transmitters, so-called “cell-phones” are fully integrated, multi-purpose devices. They can be outfitted with tiny digital cameras that can take high-quality stills or moving pictures, can be controlled by remote units, and can transmit images to far-away locations almost immediately after taking them.
\item\relax
All cell-phones will come with two types of built-in surveillance\Slash{}tracking devices: transponders that communicate with the US military’s semicommercialized system, and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. These devices will allow both the military government and the private sector to identify the precise location and track the exact movements of each and every cell-phone user, no matter where they go.
\item\relax
Cell-phone users will be actively encouraged use their cute little cellphones to surreptiously take pictures of people who look “suspicious” and then send these pictures to the local police and\Slash{}or the FBI, who will use computers to see if they match any of the pictures that are stored in their huge and always-growing databases. Winners in this game of snitch will be financially rewarded and turned into “heroes” by the media (see \#5 below).
\item\relax
Sexually repressed and ethically corrupt people — American males — will use their cell-phones to take “up the skirt” shots et al of girls and women who don’t know and in such a despicable fashion. This will quickly become a real problem, much worse than it is now: cell-phones already take better pictures than most video cameras; cell-phones get rid of the evidence (send it somewhere else), rather than storing it where it can easily be found; unlike video cameras, cell-phones don’t require disguises or excuses to be brought into such sensitive areas as schools, gyms, locker rooms, bathrooms, beaches, etc.
\item\relax
Reality TV shows a la Big Brother will accentuate the “novelty” of having a group of people cooped up together in a single place for a long time and watched by hidden cellphones, not hidden video cameras.
\item\relax
As cell-phones become increasingly relied upon to provide a wide range of services (telephone calls, text-messenging, pictures, video games, Internet connection, personal digital assistance, etc.), they will become increasingly attractive to thieves, who will see the value of both the device itself and the information (the “identity”) contained within. To guard against both kinds of theft, all cell-phone users will have to prove that they are indeed who they say they are (the rightful owners) before they can use their own phones.
\item\relax
The most popular method of authentication (“logging on”) won’t be typing in a 7-digit password (hard to remember) or placing a digit on a device that can read and remember fingerprints (too reminiscent of what the police do to bad people when they arrest them); no, it will be letting the cute little cell-phone take a picture. This picture (of the user’s face or eyeballs) will be analyzed by the cellphone, which either won’t find a match (“Please try again”) or will find a match and only then allow access (“You’ve got mail!”).
\item\relax
It’s possible that a user who fails to log on after 3 tries may find that his or her service has been temporarily suspended while the service provider tries to “determine the nature of the problem.” Is it incompetence on the part of an legitimate user, or the result of deliberate actions by an illegitimate user? Because “an illegitimate user” might be a criminal (thief) or a terrorist (Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein or someone else on the Bush Administration’s “missing persons” list), every single attempt to log-on to a cell-phone will — using the very same system described in \#3 (above) — be “monitored” by Verizon\Slash{}AOL-Time Warner\Slash{}the FBI\Slash{}theCIA.
\item\relax
The Israeli Defense Forces have already shown that alleged terrorists — whether they are legitimately using their own cell-phones or are using others’ phones illegitimately — can be assassinated from a safe, faraway distance by systems which place calls to the alleged terrorists’ private telephone numbers and then fire air-to-ground missiles at the locations provided by the alleged terrorists’ very own cell-phones, that is, if they are unlucky enough to answer or “pick up.” It’s only a matter of time before the same system is used by the United States government, which has already used it to summarily execute suspected “terrorists” in Yemen from a safe, far-away distance.
\item\relax
Ownership of a cell-phone will be mandatory. A free cell-phone will be given to each and every person, starting at birth.
\end{enumerate}
— Surveillance Camera Players, 21 June 2003.
\subsection{How Can You Think Freely in the Shadow of a Church? \emph{by Grimalkin}}
Dominant discourses lead us to believe that we are living the best life that there has ever been; at all other times in all other places things were nasty, brutish and short. You may be bored shitless — but then there must be something wrong with you — work harder, drink, take Prozac, take up a cause\dots{} But this luxurious life is fragile, and others are jealous, they are not prepared to work for it like you do, they just want to take it, and send you to the place they are now.
You must be on your guard at all times. Have a ‘cop in your head’, invite the Internet spy into your home, nowhere is safe, carry your mobile phone, do not rely on yourself, the benevolent god of technology is there to help. You are domesticated, you are dependant — you don’t want to go taking action yourself now do you — report it to the experts\dots{} they are to be trusted.
In a ‘democratic’ society where authority is legitimated in an inverse relation to its exercise, domestication must be enforced through ‘voluntary’ compliance, through self-discipline. Domestication is achieved by allowing ‘difference’ but annihilating any autonomy through a divide and rule system. Related to this is Gramsci’s concept of hegemony — the idea that no state or social structure can exist for anything but a brief time by coercion alone.
Surveillance exists to enforce ideas of normality and deviance — of morality; this universalising morality produces docility. Surveillance acts to exacerbate fear of the other, leading us to accept our further domestication in return for ‘protection’. In Perlman’s words ‘The task of capitalist ideology is to maintain the veil which keeps people from seeing that their own activities reproduce the form of their daily life; the task of critical theory is to unveil the activities of daily life, to render them transparent, to make the reproduction of the social form of capitalist activity visible within the people’s daily activities’.
Obviously an important technique of control is that of the media, not only that advertisers attempt to repackage our desires within the symbolism of consumer goods, so that through their purchase we can construct a physical, visual narrative of our lives. More fundamentally the media offers a closed discourse with the central issues never up for discussion.
The loss of two-way communication at community and societal levels is indicative of the destruction of spatially conscious communities. Individuals are linked into something much less tangible, thus we can feel a sense of intimacy with public figures whom we have never seen, let alone met. Trust experts and opinion polls, yet we are subject to whipped up fears about our neighbours. This process, particularly the induced fear, facilitates the technological panopticon. Allowing tightening of its ability to regulate movement and control our actions — to prevent us from acting on our desires, or at least perverting our desires, trapping us into the reproduction of capital.
Additionally, when all others in a space are behaving ‘appropriately’, the undomesticated body becomes marked and available to the attention of surveillance systems. Residents of cities are treated like tourists, welcome to spectate and consume, but not to act on their own. Local residents cannot appropriate a domesticated space; it has already been reduced to a single meaning. Unmediated conversation with those around you might just break the fear, you might discover that you have been lied to, you might just begin to live.
\begin{quote}
‘If the discourse is one-way, no communication is possible. If someone has the power to impose the questions, the content of the latter will be directly functional to this (and the answers will contain subjection). Subjects can only be asked questions whose answers confirm their roles as such, and from which the bosses will draw the questions of the future. The slavery lies in continuing to reply’ (At Daggers Drawn).
\end{quote}
This is relevant in all areas of life, for example the post WW2 welfare programmes are generally accepted as at least benevolent, yet they have only served to increase the intensity of our control.
Slum clearance led to a loss of communal space and activity, an increased reliance on the nuclear family, the isolation of women within the home, a loss of the living kitchen and its replacement with the mediated environment of the ‘living room’. We accept losing autonomy in order to receive wealth or health benefits, we have become desensitized to being numbered and tracked. Given the loss of public \Slash{} collective space, where are the places to fight from the outside, ‘how can you think freely in the shadow of a church?’
The domination of socialisation is hard to resist, it is something we are immersed in and absorb continuously, we do not feel coerced, it is everywhere and nowhere. Thus is not just relevant to us at adults. Many people seem to have the idea that it is wrong to educate kids outside of mainstream education; considering this bourgeois and somehow reducing their future choice!
We have chosen not to participate, and it is felt unfair not to give them the option to opt in — this shows a massive lack of understanding of basic socialisation, and of the methodology of control. Self-surveillance is learned from childhood. Children no longer have the freedom even to play unobserved, to explore their sexuality, to create their own spaces. Instead they grow up expecting to be watched, to be protected, to be dependant, to be fearful. ‘You need to experience freedom in order to be free. You need to free yourself in order to experience freedom. Within the present social order, time and space prevent experimentation of freedom because they suffocate the freedom to experiment’ (At Daggers Drawn).
Within the anarchist milieu there is the general acceptance that we are aware of surveillance, we know about Echelon, and CCTV — we take care where we talk about what, we fight Big Brother where we can etc. But this is only the outward form of surveillance; rarely do we seem to look at the way the self-discipline of surveillance morality has crept into our own sub-cultures. Which rules are questioned, and how are ideas about morality and deviance defined and enforced within our groups?
We also seem to have accepted the comfort zone of sub-cultural permanence — housing coops, social centres, activist groups — these are hung onto no matter how destructive, no matter how domesticated because of not wanting to waste the work put in — thus we perceive work as a means to an end, rather than an enjoyable, satisfying activity in itself. Yet surely it is the working together on a project that is most important — and learning, and communicating — not whether the outcome of the project is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. We hang onto groups because they have worked in the past, allowing roles to become cemented, knowledge to become protected — a creeping specialisation, which negates the possibility of spontaneity. We create spaces that are different in that wider morality becomes skewed, but remain tainted by civilisation.
How much are we creating spaces for ourselves that allow us to ‘survive’, but prevent us from truly living. Surviving on the detritus of capitalism is still dependency on it. Have we become civilisations scavengers rather than its parasites? Surely we are just as dependent as if we were actually participating. The opposition that legitimises the status quo.
How are we developing a revolutionary praxis? Are we even pushing ourselves to question what we have been taught. Over the last ten years there has been much activity, but has anything we have done challenged or slowed the tightening of the noose in any way? Surely we have just become more and more subsumed into the system on all levels — do we even understand any more what we are fighting. Are we through our acceptance of our socialisation, our morality, our self-surveillance, active accomplices in our imprisonment, destined never to create the space to become ourselves? There is a long anti-civilisation insurrectionary history — pirates, slave revolts, luddites\dots{} People could remember that there used to be other ways of being, and knew almost instinctively what the enemy was. Yet we appear to have lost meaningful class analysis — allowing it to be subsumed even in the ‘anarchist’ world into unions, federations, and working class fetishism. Accepting post-enlightenment ideas of progress, with the dualistic morality that this entails, thus attempting to fight the system from within the confines of its thought control. This is not embracing freedom and can only be disastrous, it is superficial as opposed to fundamental change — the illusion of freedom whilst subject to the bureaucratic morality of the mass.
\begin{quote}
‘It is to the way in which we can come together to transcend the environment of the technology of isolation that we must apply our efforts and attention. How we organise to this end is organic; it will be neither formal nor permanent, and it cannot be programmed or platformed. We start by communicating on equal terms — without the mediation of technology, specialism and representation — with those who suffer the same alienated existence. We grow stronger as likeminded people work together seriously (and playfully) in common projects of self-determination that shatter established social relations. ‘The heart of the State’ is found and demolished in our own relations. Let your desire be armed’. (Test Card F).
\end{quote}
Where do we draw the line, is any compromise possible? There is no such thing as partial freedom only ‘bigger prisons, longer chains’. To submit to self-discipline, to repress desire, to allow morality and mediation, is to embrace android culture. Self-surveillance and control is to submit to the logic of the technological panopticon and accept our ultimate domestication.
\section{SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS ON STRIKE}
In the course of the night of October 22-23, 101 surveillance cameras were attacked and put out of commission throughout the city of Milan, Italy. Along with the action, a humorous statement was released in the supposed voice of the cameras, claiming that they were ‘on strike’ and ‘no longer want to serve this mania for security’.
The statement ends: “We will show you through our absence how much our presences weighs in order to invite you to reflect on how much space we steal from you. Last night we turned ourselves off, we broke our wires, we stained our screens with paint, broke the lenses; we have self-destructed, and self-darkened. or we have simply gone away. If we have not explained ourselves ---> WE ARE ON STRIKE!!!”
Perhaps surveillance cameras in other cities—maybe where we love—would appreciate some assistance in organizing a similar wildcat strike.
From \emph{Willful Disobedience}
\subsection{SURVEILLANCE AND DOMESTICATION}
\emph{John Connor on the rise of surveillance and our acquiescence in it}
Surveillance is sold to us on the grounds that 'the innocent have nothing to hide', but the reluctance of the watchers to also become the watched--the police will plead 'operational security' to excuse themselves from disclosing even the most trivial points of detail about themselves, such as canteen menus, etc--shows this as both a transparent excuse to extend surveillance way beyond the point where it should be socially acceptable and a disguising of what is in the interests of the powerful with reference to what is supposedly 'in the interest of all'.
\subsection{THE WORM IN ADAM'S APPLE}
By way of excusing current levels of surveillance, where there is now one camera \Slash{} four people in UK alone, it is possible to present the first band societies 'where everyone knew everyone else's business' as the most surveilled societies of all. This totally misses the point, however, as people then felt they were 'everyone else's business'. Although individual's 'right' to 'do their own thing' in negotiation with the band regardless of traditional custom was highly respected,\footnote{In his Human Cycle (Touchstone, 1983), Colin Turnbull cites a Mbutu (Pygmy) lad taking a nanny goat as his 'wife', something his band members discourage not with the horror of taboos against inter-species sex being violated you might expect in this society (they have none, though the situation was unusual) but because, as a domesticated village animal, the she-goat could not be expected to cope adequately in their beloved forest. The Mbutu typically extend refusal of the distinction between self and other to that between human and other.} there were not the firm boundaries of selfhood that characterise capitalism's atomised individualism, not least because personal and societal survival were so intimately interrelated. Part of your identity was your relationship to the rest of the band and you would not be complete without this, nor think of withholding something from them as you would from yourself. These were free, equal societies where an unevenness of knowledge, where it was hoarded to advantage one over another, was an entirely alien, civilised concept except possibly between genders and then not always. In fact, continuous sharing of news and skills were as much part of the fabric of daily life in hunter-gatherer societies as the sharing of tools (usufruct) and resources.
With the rise of class society, where it became in the interests of the labouring majority to conceal resources and information about them, work rates etc ,from the non-labouring minority overseeing them, it equally became in the interests of the latter to try to find out what was being concealed from them. This, in truth, was the birth of the surveillance society, it's limited effectiveness still pretty much restricted to what could be seen directly by overseers and residual 'group think' that led people to disclosure information they really wouldn't in modern, individualistic societies.
Alvarez's Centuries of Childhood is very good in pointing this up in the Medieval era, when any idea of an 'internal dialogue' was the privilege of a literate monastic minority. Others would say what they thought, their expression being limited to the presence of others with whom it could be shared - possibly getting back to the ears of feudal law enforcers and tax collectors. The most radical significance of the book in terms of shaping the human psyche was that it allowed private thoughts and expression in 'dialogue' (for surely the relationship is not mutual in the way conversation is) with the page. The first diaries--typically records of spiritual exercises by cloistered divines--are thus Medieval.
The self-enclosure facilitated by writing led, of ruling class necessity, to the elaboration of more sophisticated techniques of surveillance - the spy networks engendered by Elizabeth I's courtier Sir Francis Walsingham, for example, still celebrated as original in Establishment spook circles today. They would solicit disloyal comment through infiltration techniques, pretending to be who they were not to suspects, as well as incidentally engaging pretty comprehensively in mail interception and attempting to crack counter-measures such as concealment and cipher. They were still largely dependant on the word, however, often words procured by duress (torture) and misrepresentation (forgery or 'over-reading' of intercepted correspondence). Of course, this was also the era of the witch hunts with their 'spectral evidence' (the testimony of 'victims of witchcraft'), but this dependence reached its apex in the reign of Charles II and the baseless conspiricising of the Protestant fanatic Titus Oates and his 'Popish Plot'. Simply on the basis of tortured 'confession' and guilt by association, an anti-Catholic pogrom was whipped up, though its only true substance was Oate's own paranoid fantasy.
\subsection{THE ALL-SEEING EYE}
This sort of thing may have been adequate as an instrument of terror befitting the majesty of absolute kings, but increased rationalism and individualism associated with the ascendance of Protestantism, with its claims of the believer's unmediated relationship with the Divine, meant consequent increased demands for physical evidence as a break on the arbitrary power of courts (both kingly and judicial), especially in matters concerning the 'sanctity' of private property.
Paradoxically, as well as demanding more explicit legislative regulation, the bourgeoisie's pet religion also demanded greater self-regulation, the self now being bounded by contract- and financial relationships rather than intimate, social relationships. Thus we have the commonplace appearence\footnote{It had its origins in the early individualism of monasticism, of course. We have not missed the irony that though denouncing 'monkery', Protestants bought monastic practice outside its traditional confines, universalising its body-loathing codes of behaviour.} of the divine 'all-seeing eye', as seen miserably decorating Protestant homes and chapels to this day, as well as topping the Masonic pyramid Washington and Jefferson incorporated into the design of every dollar bill. This idea of 'the Lord sees all' meant that even the individualistic Protestant clung on to the vestige of community, of public being,, in the sense of being in a community of two, s\Slash{}he and the ever-watchful God, even if real community--typically more reciprocal, less judgmental of 'sin' and 'slackness'--was sacrificed to such an unremitting moralistic code in consequence.. As well as insisting that the worshipper be hard-working and thrifty, the Protestant faith self-imposed harsh standards of personal behaviour when it came to the body and bodily interaction with others. As Norbert Elias classic study of the rise of 'good manners', The Civilising Process, graphically documents, food became problematic, no longer to be indulged in gluttonously or passed from mouth to mouth but rather, like sexual or excretory functions, to be seen as a shameful concession to physicality to be controlled and bounded by taboos, best a private thing the better to avoid public shame. Such etiquette was literally domesticating, confined to the home, and homes too became more elaborate, with particular concessions to the body confined to particular rooms - a dining room for eating, a toilet for excretion (the corners of rooms having previously been preferred, even at Louis XIV's Versailles!), and the bedroom for sex behind curtained, canopied beds. The point of all this specialised architecture--of privacy--was that as few people saw it as possible. And so lose respect for someone shamefully indulging their body, as if we all don't It was mainly something between a wo\Slash{}man and the all-seeing Lord.
\subsection{SEEING BY NUMBERS}
A combination of capital accumulation secured by resultant fixed, abstract laws and 18th century innovations in food production and transportation made the mega-cities that characterised the Industrial Revolution possible. This, then, was when surveillance came of age. On one level, faced with cities inhabited by millions, many born and raised undocumented or newly immigrated from the countryside and forming tight village \Slash{} ghetto communities closed to casual investigation by outsiders, it was impossible to surveil them using the old techniques of gossip gathering On the other hand, this redoubled the need for self-surveillance as a curb on the spontaneous, riotous street mob behaviour of previous centuries as the only practical guarantor of social order.
On a general level, the inculcation of a self-denying moral code into the poor was the responsibility of charismatic Methodism--as in the ruling class dilemma of the early-1800s, 'Wesleyism or revolution?'--and later 'do-gooders' dispensing unwanted advice about thrift, temperance and other supposedly good domestic practice. For those who wouldn't accept social inequality as a problem to be resolved by behaviour adjustment on their part, there was the hero of bourgeois rational social calculation, Jeremy Bentham, and his panoptican, a prisonhouse designed to do this architecurally.\footnote{The first such panoptican was HMP Pentonville, London, where I was myself confined in 1988.} It's two key features were (1) individual cells, a rule of silence and the hooding of inmates outside their cells to enforce complete isolation from their community and force them to fall back on the Protestant 'God and I' 'community' instead and (2) a central tower from which guards could watch each cell unobserved, much like the Protestant God. Whether actually watched or not, the prisoner had to assume the worst for fear of harsher punishment, also inculcating a feeling of permanent surveillance and thus self-regulation. Needless to say, in practice this brutal, unnatural treatment amounted to sensory deprivation and whilst it made some suggestible enough to be effectively brainwashed, it broke others entirely, yielding horrifying hallucinations and self-harm. As recidivists could expect many more years in such a system than first offenders, there was naturally an attempt to evade such treatment by increased anonymity and impersonation of identities amongst the urban poor.
Of course, Michel Foucalt dealt with this extensively in his Discipline and Punish, but it is often forgotten that the first concern of the new generation of surveillants was not to control crime but rather to contain disease, a much more widespread and deadly threat to the rich living in close geographic proximity to the poor. High walls, sturdy footmen in livery and a mastiff would no way keep cholera from their doors, so we find as early as the 1830s the first epidemiologists descending into the unplumbed depths of 'darkest London' o identify sources of disease and its carriers. This was rightly seen as social control being imposed on areas that typically rioted before admitting even one of Robert Peel's newly-minted 'blue devils' (police). The proletariat typically refused to acknowledge the reality of epidemic crowd diseases such as cholera (uniquely deadly in the early megalopolises and once a key check on their development) and to destroy cholera carts intruding into their space as a conspiracy to confine the poor to 'houses of death' (as they reckoned hospitals, not without justification) for the sadistic amusement of surgeons, during and after life.\footnote{Ruth Richardson's Death, Dissection and the Destitute (Routledge \& Kegan Paul, 1987) is excellent on this. See also my forthcoming essay, 'When Doctors Were Hated'.} And, of course, the poor only had to look to the panoptican to see with what degree of humanity they would be treated by the new impersonal total institutions we seem so disturbingly accepting of today.
A combination of a bureaucracy not sophisticated enough for individual documentation of entire populations before that developed out of regimented military practice during the American Civil War, and widespread illiteracy and resistance by its intended target population meant that the issuing of identification documents to the poor for voluntary presentation was not practical. In fact, it was so impractical that the threat of epidemic disease wasn't resolved by way of identifying and confining individual carriers (typically bourgeois moralistic 'blaming the victim') but rather by anonymous sanitation measures such as the building of London's sewers in reaction to the 'Great Stink' of the 1850s, even though the idea of the state assuming responsibility for such massive, tax-eating public works would have previously been anathema to bourgeois sensibilities.
The breakthrough came in Paris as late as 1870 when a Surete clerk Alphonse Bertillon developed biometrics from a 14th century Chinese model. Bertillonage considered of individually identifying anonymous individuals by a 20 minute examination when many key features of their body--their height, the length of their limbs, the spacing of their facial features--were systematically measured and then recorded to card indexes. Potential recidivists were typically uncooperative during these examinations, later (1903) augmented by 'mug shots', so called by the subject 'mugging' (pulling faces) at the camera in an (often amusingly successful) effort to make themselves less identifiable in future. It should be noted that Bertillon was heavily influenced by the imperial anthropology of its day, with its emphasis on the physical classification of 'types'. Like the absurd Italian criminologist Lombroso, he attributed mental and moral characteristics to these physical signs, typically in a classist and racist manner than only served to reinforce such ideologies in future.
Bertillonage finally failed and fell out of police use not because it was racist or unwieldy or even because it was felt to be an excessive intrusion on individual privacy ('sir, my statistics are my own') but rather because it couldn't do it's job. In 1903, a man called Will West was confined to Leavenworth jail for murder on the basis of biometric measurements actually appropriate to another man, coincidentally also called William West, despite a supposed 243m-to-one chance against this happening (not counting any slips of the police tape measure!). Besides, by then they had something quicker to collect and easier to file, which didn't require the perp's physical presence to identify him. It is probably no surprise that fingerprinting arose from a colonial context, that other great 'submerged mass' that caused the Victorian elite such worry. A chief magistrate in Jigupoot, Sir William Herschel first noticed in 1856 that Indians either illiterate or otherwise unfamiliar with English script signed themselves with thumb prints instead of writing, an administrative procedure for unique identification he adopted himself. From there, it was a short step to Darwin's pal Sir Francis Galton writing this up in the scientific journal Nature and a former supremo of Bombay's colonial police, Richard Henry introducing fingerprinting to Scotland Yard's repertoire of crime detection procedures in 1896.
\textbf{LEARNING TO LOVE BIG BROTHER}
Although the state had a technique for distinguishing one anonymous individual from another with unerring accuracy,\footnote{In fact they did not. As with Bertillonage, there is an outside statistical chance of accidental correlation of fingerprints from otherwise dissimilar individuals--and there have been documented miscarriages of 'justice' arising from this--and twins always have identical fingerprints. As de facto clones, even DNA doesn't distinguish twins, only retinal scans as the pattern of blood vessels at the back of the eye develops post-natum.} this was fairly useless if that individual could disappear into the anonymous urban mass. As former Resistance fighter Jacques Ellul noted in his Technological Society, an immediate consequence of seeking to surveil particular individuals is that the whole society in which they might conceal themselves has to be surveilled also, the 'innocent' majority as intensively as the 'guilty' few.
Perhaps more surprisingly, by the time fingerprinting was initiated, the resolute resistance to classification of the early-19th century was crumbling. There were a number for factors accounting for this, but key was the inducements offered the majority not to remain anonymous. Mass education on a monitor system--much like that adopted by Napoleon's Grand Armee, the basis of Bentham's panoptican--not only provided a more literate, technically sophisticated workshop with a greater chance of individual socio-economic betterment, it also meant the young came to accept such treatment as normal--both classification by name and number and harsh restrictions on personal behaviour in class ('no talking, no fidgeting')--and could be systematically documented, generation by generation. This was augmented by the centralisation of registers of births, deaths and marriages in places like Somerset House instead of scattered through disparate parishes, the taking of censuses to facilitate national planning,, and the creation of employment-based taxation which meant both bosses and workers (unless inclined to fraud) had to declare their identities along with their earnings if they were to make a living at all. Even systematic mapping, such as carried out initially for military reasons by the Ordnance Survey, meant that space in which people could exist anonymously evaporated ('everyone in their place'). This process was only accelerated by the Liberal welfare reforms of the early-1910s and the post-World War 2 creation of the welfare state, both of which had disclosure of identity as prerequisite requirements of receiving their services. It was a citizen's 'right' (the 'carrot') and 'duty (the legislatively-enforced 'stick') to enter into all this, without realising that my surrendering their anonymity to the state, they were also surrounding a key check on its otherwise unlimited power.
I could rehearse at great length the elaboration of technological means that now exist to strip us of any possibility of anonymity, but this is done elsewhere this issue and besides, there is always Privacy International to consult. I will note that when a text like The Technology of Political Control was written in the supposedly paranoid 1970s, the suggestion that a comprehensive database could be linked with face recognition programmes and cameras blanketing every public space in the country was regarded as pure science fiction, something out of George Orwell's dystopian 1984. But today this is, of course, a reality and augmented by overgrown police and internal security agencies, parallel services like social workers and market researchers that want to know everything from the value of your home through to your children's eating and TV watching habits the better to predict and manipulate you, easily surveilled e-communications (ECHELON) and card transactions, 'predictive' databases and profiling,, and any other amount of technical intelligence. No - the point of this section is to explore why people have come to accept that quarter of a century ago would've been thought totalitarian ('like Russia') and nightmarish.
We've already had the homo Economicus version above - that people gained in terms of access to education, employment and healthcare by bringing themselves to the attention of the state and lost in terms of prosecution if they failed to do so. However, I think there is more to it than this. A phenomenon like mass observation in the inter-War years was popularly and eagerly supported in its detailed documentation of everyday life - and what do you make of the dating rituals in Chile where, after years of state-orchestrated surveillance to the nastiest of ends, courting couples now trail each other round with video cameras, 'romantically' building files on each other?
The point is that with all the mass institutions that came out of Bentham's panoptican, the traditional role of the community in providing education, employment and neighbourly care has been replaced by these. Community has been replaced by institutionalised specialisation and so people feel it only natural that such specialists look out for them now there is no meaningful community to. They have been given no reason to get to know other people and so have no reason to trust them. Far from it - as society atomised, anyone can be a criminal under the rubric of surveillance and lacking any social feeling except fear of punishment under the eye of the camera only encourages selfish behaviour. Of course, the cameras are sold on the grounds not that we are the criminals, but that they are there to protect us from everyone else who potentially is. The old Wesleyans were right that give someone a penny in their pocket and the slightest whiff of a chance of advancement and they'll see everyone else around them as a threat to that, either as potential thieves or as temptations to be repudiated with the zeal of the tempted. 'Terrorists' are currently flavour of the month threat. Before that it was 'paedophiles', meaning kids had to be microchipped and cameras installed in every family home while a generation of kids turned into scared, whiny couch potatoes alongside their parents. Not many years ago it was witches, for fucksakes, absurd social workers seeing cracking the local coven of 'satanic abusers' as their next step up the career ladder. If this doesn't convince you what nonsense it all is, it's agreed that now surveillance is so ubiquitous it can't displace crime anywhere else (itself surely an exercise in imposed policing), it's not actually reducing crime rates. Offences of violence people fear most--irrationally, as they're still rare--are committed spontaneously by people too drunk or angry to be deterred by a camera or too cunning to get filmed by one.
Why do people still welcome surveillance despite this? Well, the reliance on experts and definition of ourselves that comes through identification with their institutions and their representations of us--qualifications, income, birth and marriage certificates, conformity to consumer trends, and all the rest of that inane kit and caboodle--continually serves to emphasise our insignificance, an eight digit number in their overwhelming megamachine. It is this that leads people to love Big Brother, essentially a show where we pass tabloid-like judgement on intensively surveilled wannabe nonentities undergoing months of sexual frustration in the hope of getting to be childrens' TV presenters at the end, Endemol's even more sinister Shattered where people were subjected to voluntary sleep deprivation in the manner of victims of Stalin's Cheka, and even lower on the totem pole, searching for themselves in crowd shots (be it big sporting events, pseudo-archaic spectacles typically orchestrated by the royals, or futile 'crawl round London' marches) or 5 second slots on clip shows using RL footage the police or whoever have cobbled together as an extra earner.
\textbf{ONE IN THE ELECTRONIC EYE!}
How do we put an end to the reign of surveillance - assuming you don't want to lead over-controlled lives like shadows until you die of boredom and insignificance, that is?
Well, firstly don't take advice from me and start thinking for yourself, but a few suggestions include:
\begin{itemize}
\item\relax
First realising that there is not a quip pro quo between you and those surveilling you, that they are not accountable to you, that they have no right to do to you what they would not tolerate done to themselves, and potentially these voyeuristic parasites have the power to make quite a mess of your life from as little motivation as boredom-induced whim. They are the enemies of a free society, not its guarantors, a further concentration of state power that prevents any injustice being righted.
\item\relax
Unplugging yourself from all the BS images surrounding you--the clowns in the Big Brother house, the endlessly banal biogs of the lives of the rich and famous, the five day fashions, all that irrelevant crap--and learning to laugh at them and (with consequent increased self-confidence) yourself and your past folly
\item\relax
Unplugging others through irreverent satire and sheer indifference to the manufactured dreams they undoubtedly hold so dear. You'll probably start with the people you know best (typically a tiny number now people have careers, not friends) but best try to broaden it out a bit more than that, as a key factor for sustaining a surveillance society is intolerance and fear of anyone at all different. The new \Slash{} old you will have better things to do and talk about, maybe even the recreation of authentic, trusting human connections without constant manufactured electronic babble and distraction, of baseless paranoia.
\item\relax
Disconnection and direct action of a more 'hands on' kind, a refusal to fill in tax returns and other official or quasi-official requests for information--the census, market research, card applications--.or responding to them in absurd, misleading ways to gradually fill their databases with (even more) useless shit. Believe me - when up against it, you'll find it's really possible to live without that credit card and all the form-filling bureaucratic BS, especially with a few mates on board with you too. Reformists please note: denying paperwotk and opportunities to surveil the public cuts the lifeblood of the dozens of agencies that exist principly for that purpose, so they can start being laid off as irrelevant too. And the campaign against speed cameras is way to go for all intrusive surveillance and related records, the creation of genuine unmonitored space (at risk of sounding bogus: 'liberated zones') and the return of the lawless, deprogrammed 18th century King Mob!
\end{itemize}
In conclusion, I'd like to say that I am not arguing for 'privacy', a thoroughly bourgeois concept based on self-disgust and shame. No, let yourself go and do what comes naturally - fuck in the streets, I say! I am arguing for the revolutionary re-creation of original, genuine community where there are no secrets, no shame and no surveillance of the powerful as a tool to rule over the powerless.