#title Green Anarchy #10 #author Green Anarchy Collective #date Halloween 2002 #source [[https://archive.org/details/GreenAnarchy10?view=theater][archive.org]] #lang en #pubdate 2022-10-30T02:15:08 #topics Green Anarchism, Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, Political Violence Related to Ted K, Leftist Campaigns in Comparison #sku SE08 ** Front Cover Green Anarchy #10 FALL ‘02 Issue A Quarterly Journal of Anti-Civilization Thought and Strategy $2 U$A, $3 CAN, $4 WORLD Free to Prisoners! The price of Progress. A planet plundered, It’s forests obscenely slashed, clear-cut, Manicured and managed. It’s soil exhausted, Disappeared, paved over, chemo-therapeutized. It’s water polluted, it’s air turned into a sulfurous Poison gas, a charred planet exposed to deadly Radiation. A garden turned into a toxic cesspool. A phoney civilized veneer doesn’t impress or Deter me. When it falls, I will spit on the very memory Of it and rejoice. In this issue: *Repression of N17 movement, by Jim Awol *Interview with Ann Hansen of Direct Action *myriad info-bombs! ** Page 1 GREEN ANARCHY P.O. Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440 [[mailto:greenanarchy@tao.ca][greenanarchy@tao.ca]] ISSUE 10 Halloween 2002 $3 U$A, $4 CAN, $5 World Always Free to Prisoners! ** NO MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED organization: act of organizing; the manner in which the branches of a service, etc. are arranged; individuals systematically united for some work; a society. Peering out a jetliner window over the coast of Los Angeles, California, my thoughts drift into disgust by what disgraces my vision. Sustaining this burgeoning parking lot with all of its sewage, industrial waste and State-dependent citizenry is that which cannot be reconciled by even the most far-reaching pipe-dreams of liberal reform. Orchestrated squares glow sad and gray in artificial light. Black veins of asphalt flow with the diseased blood of civilization. It is Earth’s very plasma that brings alive this lack-of-concentration camp, if decaying cement and blank stares can be called life. Myriad boxes of all sizes upon the squares completes the picture as we descend. Massive amounts of razor wire contain and maintain this giant factory of which prison is a microcosm. L.A. is the future of everywhere slated for development. Cities and prisons are the logical endpoint of progress. Civilization’s integral deception, Progress, the ultimate excuse for covering over wildness with order—organization. Just when hip-hop has transcended the false dichotomy of east coast vs. west, a new and equally false one has arisen. This time it’s not Tupac and Biggie; instead-much too publicly known anarchists are fabricating the illusion of polarized scenes. These scenes are the same as other subcultures, except that police surveillance and repression create added pressures on our ability to relate well with one another and everyone else. Seasoned civil disobedience activists tell newcomers repeatedly that they must learn to work with people they do not agree with politically and sometimes do not like at all. “After all,” they say, “we all have the same goals.” This lie is the same one perpetuated in offices, factories and schools. Involuntary cooperation between people in order to serve some righteous cause cannot be considered liberating. In my own process of discovery, I fell into what I call Organized Revolt. Any liberating idea for action must first be run through a consensus process. Ideally, this is a wonderful and non-hierarchical form of decision making. In the hands of fundamental pacifists or any reformist group claiming to have the one-path-toliberation, it becomes a counter-revolutionary tool used to crush dissenting opinion. This leads to severe burnout, and in my case, getting extremely fed up. Fed up with meetings where militants are seen as obstructions to consensus. Fed up with feeling obliged to work with uninspiring and draining cling-ons to the movement who have nothing to offer but argument and strife where strategy and action are required. Fed up with feeling too tired and overwhelmed by moderation and violence vs. nonviolence arguments to even express my “extremist” views. Fed up with sacrificing my passion for the destruction of this civilization just to not offend people or violate demonstration permits that were forced down my throat to begin with. I spent hours trying to relate to people I would never voluntarily hang out or live with. This got me nowhere but pissed off and unmotivated to do anything. In response to this despair, I found a way out. This involved considering everyone else’s opinions and ideas of liberation and, after careful deliberation, working and playing with only those people whom I feel solidarity with in any given situation. I create my utopia every day, because every day is all I’ve got to work with. Be open to other’s subjective utopias; discover whose dreams you would like to find yourself in, and in doing so, find out who the players will be in your own. It is a voluntary collective effort at imagination and creation of our daily lives and interactions that will deliver us away from sub-cultural scenes and ever closer to our visions of liberation. *** JUST A DREAM? Every individual is capable of contributing to the great anthology of freedom. Each of our essays can flow together into volumes of liberating experience until a mutually agreeable collective existence emerges. To rescue these concepts from abstract oblivion, I will illustrate them with an example. A group of people from all different backgrounds came together for a weekend to prepare an action against a large biotechnology corporation. People were invited only by word of mouth and no flyers or press advisories were sent out ahead of time. This gave us the jump on the company and the cops. The preparation weekend was one of exquisite cooperation. Meetings were kept to a minimum and work was done by almost everyone. Political affiliations of the crowd ranged from solid pacifism to militant insurrection and everything inbetween. The connecting factors were a mutual disgust for the company in question and an understanding that asking them to change their ways would get us nowhere. It was decided early on that everyone attending the action/ demonstration would wear identical clothing and masks to provide solidarity among the group and cause confusion for the police. The idea was raised that some members of the group may choose to engage in property destruction. A well known pacifist among the group made the comment that while s/he chooses not to take such action, s/he does not have a problem with others choosing to do so. Other pacifists and activists echoed this sentiment and the underlying feeling was one of camaraderie and goodwill. It was understood and accepted that we had diverse plans for the day, and in order to enact them, we all had to have each other’s backs. On the morning of deployment, a group of over 50 people split into affinity groups and the action was on. Some folks ran straight for the buildings and began spray-painting slogans and symbols everywhere. One group was on the roof dropping a banner. Others hung banners from highway overpasses, causing rush hour traffic to halt to a standstill as commuters pondered the demonstration. Still another group held up large signs while more people dug up the lawn to plant organic seeds in the middle of a mock biohazard zone that had been set up by yet another affinity group. The police did not arrive until everyone had completed their part of the action and everyone was together underneath the giant signs. Three people were arrested, and as the pigs grabbed each person, unarrest attempts were made. A few folks were pepper sprayed and roughed up a bit, but the cops knew that there would be no easy mass-arrest and they let the rest of us go. No one was ever charged with the damage that occurred. Local newspapers and citizens were sympathetic toward the activists and there was very little anger over the destruction of property. From beginning to end, every participant knew what they wanted to do and they did it. Since there was no hostility over different choices for action, a true autonomous zone was created where all forms of expression became possible. This action, however small, was the epitome of functional anarchy. Individuals made individual choices and acted collectively to make each other’s visions come to life. The method of planning outlined above involved no creation of institutions or dependence on anything but each other and ourselves. All involved chose voluntarily to participate and since it was word of mouth, we for once had the jump on the pigs. Once activists and anarchists become tired of constantly defending their positions and arguing over tactical disagreements, the real struggle can begin. *** Organic Revolt or Public Dissent? Revolts have nothing to do with the creation of alternative institutions or making civilization more friendly through reform. We can still directly aid those who suffer worse than ourselves. Instead of just serving food to the homeless, teach ways of sustaining oneself. Instead of just petitioning the fascist government for welfare reform, teach your neighbors to grow their own food, forage for food and medicine, hunt for non-endangered animals, collect and process roadkill and countless other skills that help extinguish our dependence on the state and our need for jobs and money. All illusions of benevolence within the corporate/state power structure must be negated. The psyche is the final frontier of neo-colonization. We must stop believing in the necessity of electricity, petroleum products, money, work and industry. When any of these phenomena attempt to infringe upon or dominate our lives, we must force back their influence, for it is a colonizing one. Create and demonstrate methods for people to remove themselves from the system. The creation of our lives outside of the strict boundaries set for us is consistently usurped by the emergence of dogmatic ideological scenes. We must stop being activists and start acting on our ambitions for new ways of life. Those readers who have the luxury of not ever being involved with a public scene or getting arrested are in an especially good position to create anarchy and spread the fires of dissent. Don’t bother getting bogged down into trying to work with people who don’t respect your views of liberation. Talk to your friends and families. Start living your life in the ways you feel are freeing and desirable. The obstacles that prevent you from living freely are the challenges to be overcome; TVs to be smashed, computers to be hacked, roads to be ripped up, powerlines and billboards to be knocked down, clearcuts reseeded with native seeds, farms let go fallow on their path back to wildness, schools to be eliminated, factories and mines to be closed forever, technology to be exposed and destroyed for the monster it is...start making your own list, but make it with care and with love for every child and every living being. Whether you want to dig up some concrete and plant food or destroy the institutions that prevent us from living, do so in a way that releases you and everyone around you from the ties that bind us to any institutions and ideas that are not of our own creation. *** ENTHUSIASM: PASSIONATE ZEAL FOR A PURSUIT Organic revolt arises out of enthusiasm. Most organizations I have experienced left me feeling anything but excited towards their various structures. Once a certain level of bureaucracy is reached, (i.e. membership applications, party platforms, rules of order, long and tedious hand-raising meetings, etc. ad infinitum) rigid ideology and subsequent boredom drive out any creative newcomers who don’t toe the party line. Serious study and skill-building do not require organization, only time and patience. Detailed plans for revolt can be worked out -perhaps more easilywithout any overarching administrative trappings. In fact, organization is what usually leaves paper trails (electron trails vis-à-vis computers) that get direct action practitioners caught. Phone lists and address books have brought pigs many more leads than they would have if persons-in-revolt shunned formal organization in favor of voluntary associations. These associations must be based on a collective passionate zeal for the project at hand (which in our case means both mentally and physically unmaking civilization). It has been said that action is the antidote for despair. Extrapolating beyond this dictum, it makes sense that the action referred to would be full of passion, bringing deliverance as far from despair and as near to true subjective freedom (outside the bounds of oppression) as possible. Earnestly discussing our versions of freedom with close comrades, new friends or friendly strangers (not pigs!) is a liberating experience unto itself. Sharing methods of day to day survival, trading ideas for scamming capitalism and strategizing and preparing for insurrection all build the affinity we must have when the walls of civilization begin to crumble. It is out of necessity that we learn the guttural truths of mutual aid. ** Repression of the November 17th Movement Begins An Update From Greece by JimmyAwol
*** Athens July 8, 02 Following 27 years of existence, countless actions and no arrests (nor any serious leads), 17 of November (N17) made their first serious mistake, leading to the unmasking of the elusive organization! At 10:25 Saturday night on July 29 a loud explosion disrupts the Port of Pireaus! It is to become the triggering of the N17 unveiling. An explosive mechanism went off in the hands of Savas Xiros as he was planting it at the Flying Dolphin agency (possibly an act of solidarity with the striking naval workers). His fellow cell members abandoned him and escaped, leaving behind crucial evidence. Among this evidence, and besides Savas Xiros himself, was found a duffle bag containing: A 38 pistol, 2 hand grenades and a bunch of keys. Xiros was seriously injured with chest and abdomen burns, eye damage and injury to his lower right arm. He was soon arrested and taken to the hospital. Two hours later things really heat up when the .38’s identity is discovered. It is the weapon of murdered cop Christos Mattis, who was shot by N17 during a bank robbery (group funding) on Christmas Eve ‘84 in Petralona, Athens. This weapon was later used in a shoot out with police in ‘85, a robbery in July ‘88, an attack against District Attorney’s Androulak and Tarsoulea in January ‘89, a shoot out with police in Sepolia November ‘91 and in the murder of millionaire Peratikou in May ‘97! For the first time, police have in their hands a N17 member. [image of Richard Welch with a snipers bullseye overlayed] CIA pig Richard Welch, assassinated by N17 in March 1975. On Monday afternoon Xiros’ picture and name were given to the press. His home in Palini was raided along with his workshop and apartment in the same area. Fingerprints, tools, explosives, wires and weapons were found. On Wednesday afternoon, police got a lead about an apartment in the Pattisea central area of Athens that Xiros was maintaining.What police found during the raid exceeded their wildest expectations. The apartment turned out to be the groups “giafka”. Weapons, seals, the infamous typewriter, a computer, explosives, wigs, files and records of the groups actions as well as their flag and N17 logos were found. The group gathered their arsenal periodically. The main sources being the expropriations from the military base of Larrissa, the military museum (taken from the guards), a Coast Guard office in Rafina, a police station in Virona (which was raided with the officers tied up and their weapons removed) and hand grenades which the group stated they had since the founding of the group in 1975. The majority of these weapons were found in the Patmou “giafka” (safehouse). 35 of the 65 rockets N17 possesses have already been used. A few hand grenades have been used as well in the Sepolia shoot out and against a riot police vehicle in Excharia. Now the police have hundreds of leads when they were once hoping for even a single one. Before the Xiros accident, the only leads the State had were a few strands of hair found in a helmet after the ‘83 George Tsantes assassination, and DNA from blood found in a stolen get away car during the rocket launching at the German Diplomat’s home in ‘99. *** Who Is Saras Xiros? Xiros is 40 years old and the son of an orthodox priest. He himself is said to have spent time living in the Agios Oros monastery and works as a Christian iconist. It is said that his first contact with anti-authoritarian groups was in Thesaloniki during his college years. In ‘83 he met his now ex-wife and had a son. In ‘84 he became involved with N17 and took part in his first action, the bank robbery where police officer Mattis is killed, and his infamous 38 removed. He is also believed to have taken part in the Sepolia ‘91 shoot-out as well as the assassination of Petraikou in ‘97. On Christmas Eve ‘84 at 8:05 am four men entered a bank with the intention of robbing it. One of them wore a police officers uniform and he approached bank cop Mattis holding a box of pastries which he offered to him saying, “Chrystos, these are for your birthday”. Officer Mattis realized something was wrong, since he didn’t recognize the men, and stepped back and attempted to pull out his automatic. At that moment the N17 member kneed him in the stomach and took his weapon. As the cop then tried to pull out his .38 a second N17 activist walked up and shot him in the head. The group then took 7.5 million drachmas and escaped. The .38 pistol of the murdered cop was found 18 years later, next to an injured Saras Xiros. On November 20, 1991, four men were stealingl a white van (to be used in future actions) when a squad car pulled up to the scene. The police officers attempted to apprehend the men when one of them opened fire. A second police vehicle pulled up and a wild shoot-out ensued. The N17 activists threw a hand grenade between the two vehicles and attempted to escape on foot. A chase followed between them and the few non-injured cops. The activists stopped a passing cab, pulled out the driver and passenger and took the vehicle. A new chase ensued, a few more hand grenades were thrown at the police and the cell escaped. Xiros is being linked to this shoot-out as well as to the murder of millionaire Kosta Peratikou in May of ‘97. He is believed to be one of the three men who walked up to Peratikou, him, calmly exchanged fire with police officers, stopped an oncoming car and drove off (as they had done in Sepolia)! *** Who Is 17 Of November? Their name comes from the date the Hounda (a U.S.-backed right wing dictatorship) stormed the Polytechnic University and trampled over the gate and an estimated 23 demonstrators. The group took their name in revenge of the murdered activists, and as a response against U.S. imperialism. N17 has its roots in a 1968 Trotskyist group and also in the later-formed ELA (Revolutionary Solidarity Front), which gave birth to N17. The first revolutionary act of violence was taken by the ELA in March of ‘75, followed by the December 23 murder of Athens CIA chief (and U.S. government employee) Richard Welch. A year later the group assassinated police officer Malio. Three years went by before they were heard of again with the January 1980 murders of police officers Petrou and Stamilou! Three more years of nonaction followed until they struck again in November, blowing up a police riot bus and killing a cop named Georgiakopoulos. Between 1980-1983 it is said that the group underwent structural changes. New blood was recruited. It is significant to note that after ‘83 the targets began to include wealthy businessmen. This caused a lot of questions in the movement. At this point that the attacks increased and there is one every year up to ‘87 when three actions took place. In ‘88 the attacks reach five, just as in ‘89, with the last and most significant being the assassination of New Democracy congressman Bakogianni. In 1989 there were major changes in the foundation of the group. It is said that of the 3-4 founders, 3 pulled out due to ideological differences and only one "organizer" remains who is believed to be a man in his sixties who studied in Paris in 1968. The Xiros generation seems to have taken control after the Bakogianni assassination. This is evident in the attacks that took place in the '90's. During 1991, fifteen actions occurred, all with economic objectives, and a callous face with no moral or ideological restraints emerged. All of this led up to the assassination of British military leader, Brigadier Stephen Sanders, which played a major role in the capture of the group. After the Sanders murder the investigation took on an international character. In my opinion, this fact along with the group's ongoing internal dispute and friction led to their capture. The founders "grandfathers" believe that what started out as ideological, political resistance was drifting towards nothing more than a bank-robbing group of murderers. [image not archived] A sample of the captured N17 arsenal found at the Patmou "giafka", specifically: Brauning pistols, m11 rifles, anti-tank launchers and mk2 USA hand grenades. *** Solidarity Actions Follow: On Saturday July 6 (a week after the Xiros capture), an Aspis bank in Athens was firebombed in retaliation for the increased state oppression following the Xiros incident. At this time police are looking for a second man involved with N17, the one who was renting the second “giafka” in Pagrati. They believe him to be in his 40’s and married to Angelici Sotiropoulo, Xiros’s ex-wife. At present no further arrests have been made or warrants issued. The police want to finish the gathering of fingerprints, then start the ballistic investigation of the weapons found in the two "giafkas" to determine which ones were used in what actions. They want to determine if the three .45 's found were part of the 32 stolen from the Kavala army base. Five of those guns were found in 1986 in a Sepolia "giafka" that was discovered by chance when the "giafka" flooded shortly after the Chrystos Tsoutsouvis murder. Tsoutsouvis was killed during a shoot-out with police, after wasting three pigs himself. He is now considered a hero in anti-state circles. Sotiropoulo is now suspected of being the woman who emerged in some of the groups actions: She was being questioned a second time as this article was being written. The "antiterrorist" police are now pursuing their investigation on three fronts. The first has to do with the capture of the second member and the one who rented the second "giafka" in Pagrati. He is the present husband of Sotiropoulo who is now in hiding. He is believed to have been a member of the group since 1987. He has been on the police most-wanted list for years now but cannot be found because he is underground with changing I.D.'s and residences. The second facet of the investigation has to do with the surveillance of unsuspecting N17 members. Past members, withdrawn or burntout members, or unsuspecting but still-active members, all of whom the police hope will make a mistake. The third main thrust of the investigation focuses on the ballistic evidence and gathering of prints. In the next 10-20 days the police have stated that there will be numerous arrests. But militant solidarity actions continue in spite of the intense repression in Greece. The new group N.E.L.A. ( the New Revolutionary Social Struggle) has formed and has hit two targets in the last five days. The first action was on July 7 with the bombing of the Military and Police Veterans Cemetery. The second action was at midnight on July 9 with the bombing of the Flying Dolphin office, the same office Xiro attempted ftrtombf^There he was caught injured. The explosive device usBat thisai was 3 sticks oWynamite and a lusefche ac 1 was done in or™r to finish utf XiiB" unfinished business and to send aHessagflo the State that revolution cami : '■ MpntairMl. Oppression will only lead to more Bons. Bie fact that the new group has*pul!^J off H successful actions during the present "diffic times and has stated more will^^pw o makes the point clearer that as long aWthe on' true terrorist, the State, exists — RE ACTION to it is imminent! — Jimmy Awol, Jul 2002 ** Green Anarchy editorial note There have been many more developments n, the ongoing saga of N 17 since this articl^mom Greece was submitted. On July 22, Hmiicles Kostaris and Constaninc KarntsoliMwerc arrested by police in Athens and chargAd with involvement in a string of attacks sinU 1975, including the assassinations of US0irman Ronald Stewart and Britain's military envoy Brigadier Stephen Saunders. On July 25, Greek investigators announced the arrest of two more suspected members of the small but persistent N17 group, who have killed at least 23 people in Athens in a sporadic anti-American, antiimperialist campaign waged over three decades. One of the suspects, Pavlos Serifis, is a hospital telephone operator believed to be the organization's second-in-command. The other suspect, Constanine Tellios, has reportedly confessed to involvement in two assassinations and an equal number of armed robberies carried out between 1989 and 1992. Presently, at least 15 suspects are under arrest, including the individual the Greek State is portraying as the group's ideological leader, Alexandros Yiotopoulos, 58, a French-born mathematician and philosopher who is believed to have led a group of Greek dissidents to Cuba in 1971 to get arms and explosives training. Mr. Yiotopoulos's father, Dimitris, was a close associate of Leon Trotsky until they clashed in 1934, and Dimitris later fought in the Spanish Civil War before taking refuge in France. It was Alexandros Yiotopoulos who reportedly pulled the trigger on December 23, 1975, killing the Athens CIA station chief, Richard Welch, in the action that first brought N17 to the public's attention. Yiotopoulos w£ terrorist" helicopt Aegean island ofLipsL to leave by hydrofoil for a neighbouring island. Greek investigars are now saying that material seized fron the N17 safe-houses shows that the anti-capitalist guerrillas were plotting a series of high-prof ile strikes against international targets in northern Greece before their activities came to an abrupt halt with the capture of Saras Xiros. The Athens newspaper “Kathimerini”, which published extracts from the computer records found at one of the N17 hideouts, says that the American, British and Turkish consulates in Thessaloniki were among the targets put under surveillance by the group. The computer records show that N17 had been keeping watch on buildings, vehicles and government employees in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city, including potential targets in its harbor, which has been used since the early 1990’s by the international military forces heading to and from the former Yugoslavia. The computer records supposedly show that N17 had been preparing to steal diving equipment from shops in the harbor area, suggesting that the group had been planning a spectacular strike against naval targets, possibly ships carrying troops and military hardware to the Balkans. This level of organization is typical of N17, who have carried out almost all their major actions with ruthless professionalism and precision ( On the night they killed CIA pig Richard Welch, all the street lights near his home were knocked out and a bogus emergency call lured the butler away from the house). A 20-year statute of limitations means suspected N17 prisoners cannot be charged with murdering Welch or anyone else who was assassinated before 1982. Maria Bossi, a former member of Greece’s anti-terrorist commission, is unconvinced that these busts will stop N17 and is puzzled by how quickly those arrested informed on each other. “Revolutionaries don’t confess and they don’t give up their colleagues,” she said. She speculates that N17 decided to give up a cell and try to convince the government that there was nothing more to find. Ms. Bossi sees the reality of those so far arrested as too far from the standard profile of an ideologically committed guerrilla group, like France’s Action Directe: she’s skeptical of the government spin that the group had long ago lost its ideological center and had become a gang of small-time criminals, acting on the orders of a single Mr. Big. Many Greeks say that what has been seen so far must be an incomplete picture of the group. "I don't believe that a case that has been in the shadows for 30 years can in 10 days be brought out in the open and solved," said Yannis Michaloudakis , a restaurant manager. Pressing questions about N17's political orientation and long-term goals have also remained unanswered by these recent arrests. Over the years, November 17 took pains to cultivate a kind of Robin Hood image, releasing stridently Marxist proclamations defending its deeds as revolutionary violence aimed at oppressors of the people. With an intense loathing for the West and capitalism, the group has, at various times, denounced the United States, NATO, the European Union, all major Greek political parties, the nation's business elite and a host of other oppressive political and economic forces. "Does it bother them so much to admit that we are simple fighters for the people, that our motives are political?" , N 17 asked in their most recent communique, which denied ties to Mideast movements . Greek terrorist "experts" have continued to promote their theory that N17 was trying to launch an anti-capitalist popular uprising against the Greek middle and upper classes and that their ambitions were to become a genuine communist revolutionary movement. But none of the group's actions give any indication that their goal was ever the seizure of State power; if anything, N17 seemed to be primarily concerned with carrying out wmtaliatory acts^ff revenge and retribution against the Greek and American States, which something that many of us on the Green ,rchy ^| ptf/ve can sympathize with. The secret to M17's long life seems to be the 1 ' thatmM" recently, vreck authorities felt domestic pressure to react. Unlike Italy's fBrigadis and the Red Army Faction in West ermany, Mtoember 17 has never engaged in broad attacks and its targets didn't leave the general public feeling threatened. In fact, the group's early strikes were widely seen as justified payback for the 1967-74 military dictatorship. Anti-U.S. sentiment is extremely high in Greece ( Greeks strongly oppose the American military campaign in Afghanistan and have organized by far the largest demonstrations against it of any country in the European Union or NATO) and a recent national poll showed that 31 percent of Greeks agreed with the political goals of November 17 , with 64 .5 percent willing to classify them as a "terrorist group " .N17 also appears to have some degree of support among anarchists in Greece, as evidenced by the two anarchist solidarity actions that have occurred since the beginning of the N17 crackdown. ** N17 And The Greek Anarchist Movement Last June, one explosion of a small bomb at the hands of a 17N member led to the arrest of about the whole group. 17N has never expressed anti-authoritarian ideas. Politically they belonged to the milieu of the left. Few Greek people paid attention to their ideological base. Even today 19% of the Greek people regard 17N as revolutionary and not as a terrorist group. It must be noted that many smaller groups made and continue to make similar actions. There was a group called ELA ( Revolutionary Popular Struggle) with many members, which was focused more on bombings than 17N and had more anti-authoritarian oriented ideas. ELA never killed anyone except a cop when they bombed a cops bus. It stopped its actions in 1995. Chrystos Kassimis was murdered in 1985 by cops ( before that he killed three of them). He was a member of the group "Anti-Statist Struggle", which had executed a prosecutor. Many comrades have been accused, at different times, that were members of the above groups, and of other anarchist ones much smaller. No one has been accused of being a member of 17N. The arrestees of 17N are not anarchists. That's for sure. They are leftists. Most of them now disapprove of armed struggle and say that they were wrong. Things are very fluid and we don't know what we have to expect. The cops try to connect all the above groups to prove that they have a common origin. If this is done we're afraid that they will try to mass up many anarchists too. Even though 17N was a closed, leftist group and their communiques were reformist, we regard them as strugglers. Nobody supports them from the leftists. Anarchists are the only ones who have not dissaproved of their actions and don't see them as terrorists. For us the state is the only terrorist. The normal people who tend to like 17N are not heard. The police try to produce a climate of panic and fear. The mass media try to make 17N members seem ridiculous and like common criminals by saying a lot of lies. They spread terror and fear and try to connect many other people with 17N. For this reason leftists don't dare to talk even about the violation of the human rights of the arrested 17N members because of the control that the CIA, FBI and Scotland Yard have over the Greek police. I forgot to say that some soccer fans of an Athens team shouted a slogan at a game asking 17N members who are not arrested to burn Athens! ! Some young men have made henna tattoos of the 17N symbol. There are also people wearing t-shirts with the ironic message, "I'm NOT a member of 17N." Until now, there hasn't been much activism in support of arrested 17N members. Various small anarchist and leftist groups have done actions like burning banks but they haven't stated solidarity with the arrestees. These actions are against the State and the police. But those actions are nothing more than the normal case for the Greek anarchist scene. It's difficult to say that we are in solidarity with the arrestees. Most of them co-operate with the police to insure a light penalty. No one has expressed ideological thinking. No one talks in favor of their own actions. There are some people who haven't said anything. Their trials will begin at the end of 2003. Furthermore, it's difficult for the time being to say what is true and what is a lie. 17N can be described by words like: far-left, workerist, left urban guerrillas. They are not Stalinists. They disliked the Russian "Communist" State. They hoped for a true communist society. They also favored self-management. They are not anarchists. Their actions were anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist. They seem to have operated in a hierarchical way. It seems that lately there hasn't been good communication between them. When cops killed a young anarchist at the Polytechnic riots in 1985, 17N rocketed a police bus in solidarity with the anarchists. A cop was killed. The above text contains our assessments. Panos and Thanos Athens, Greece ** A Sleeper Awakens And The Great Buildings Tremble... Dear GA, Thank you for not being a clone. Thank you for maintaining integrity. The books you sent me have helped clear many things that were blurred, helping to define terms that were very confusing in my ignorance of the genre/ culture/ nonmovement regarding the big A. You see, I have just recently begun asking WHY. I have never read any literature like this before because I am young, nihilistic, stupid, uncaring. But this has now matured or at least changes. And guess what? Suddenly I am asking why. And how. And I am starving for answers, desperately trying to figure it out for myself. As I mentioned, I am unread, unlearned, untainted. All of my newfound "politics " (I hate that word) are purely organic, rather than taught, and these cravings to question everything are coming from somewhere beyond thought, beyond senses or feelings or observations. I do not know where this change in me has come from or why it has come. I only know that it has begun and the more I feed it with thoughts or writings or discussions, the more it grows, the more I want to feed it and see it grow!!! Does this make sense to you? Am I making any sense? It's hard to explain. Anarchy is not my religion, not my classification, not my designated sub-culture in society. It is not how I meet chicks or piss off my parents. It is not a sign I hold up for the world topercieve me with. It is not a "stage " of rebellion that I will grow out of. (No longer a tourist!) It is something that has occured naturally. It is, simply put, the deepest yearning I've known. John, I have wanted to write to you for a couple of years now, I have wanted to ask you an unreasonable ammount of questions, but I am glad that I waited, that I tried to figure it out for myself, that I then read two of your books before I wrote this letter, because now my ignorance is more defined. And, of course, sitting on my bunk, in my cell, listening to Pantera at maximum volume, my mind is a blank. Or rather, it is a swirling mass of confusion, a thousand unanswered questions written over one another as to be indiscernable. Let me think... Let me think... I guess the most important question that I have trouble figuring out for myself is: How? I mean, how do you change the world, stop the machine, return to an integral existance of first-hand experience and non-knowledge? !?! I read about everyone "hoping" this thing breaks down, but hope equals bullshit; and besides, waiting to be saved is really no different from the christians! If I were in a twelve step recovery program for western civilization, which step would be action and what action could possibly bring about the most incredible change ever? And even more important to me personally, is how you think it might change if electricity were not allowed to exist, if it were to be made globally extinct upon waking one morning? I'm sorry I waited so long to communicate. Ihopeyou might be too. I don 't know how to thank you for what you have already given me. Part of my smile is your doing. I'd like to pickyour mind. I wish we could sit together and talk all night. I'm hoping you will help me. I'm twenty-nine years old. My name is Casey. PS. Murder. Life without parole. PPS. Ask any questions you want. Answers are free. Casey Maddox J.59489 (A80-217) PO Box 7500 Crescent City, CA 95531 ** What Ails Us By John Zerzan On the level of personal affliction or dis-ease, matters are steadily worsening. This situation corresponds to the deepening crisis at every level. At the same time, according to Michelle Mary Helvica, "we live in a society that seems increasingly numb to the causes and effects of human suffering." In this sphere as with every other, the promises/ protections of technological civilization are failing on a grand scale. Tuberculosis and malaria have grown resistant to modern antibiotics and other standard medicines. E-coli and West Nile virus outbreaks are now common in the U.S. Infectious diseases of all kinds, once declared conquered, are on the rise. They accompany the major degenerative illnesses that are a staple of civilized life. Rift Valley fever, mad cow disease, hanta virus, Ebola, cholera, etc. "At least 20 major maladies have reemerged in novel, more deadly, or drug-resistant forms in the past 25 years," pronounced the February 2002 National Geographies "War on Disease" survey. It is hardly surprising that industrialized medicine is unable to remedy the toll that is inherent in industrialized, standardized, estranged daily life. In fact, updating a point made by Ivan Illich decades ago, Michael J. B e r e n s ' investigations have revealed the extremely high levels of life-threatening infections produced by hospital environments and other aspects of the health care industry (3-part Chicago Tribune series, July 2002). Recent studies have shown that artificial light causes breast cancer, by superseding the natural light cycle. Food now contains only a small fraction of its former nutritional content, as packaging and appearance considerations dictate that nutrients be bred out of fruits and vegetables. Nonetheless, health-threatening obesity, epidemic in the U.S., has become a global problem because of the increase in junk food and processed food. More than 20 million Americans - mostly women - suffer from often devastating auto-immune disorders, such as lupus, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Many afflictions attack women almost exclusively, notably anorexia and bulimia. Hilde Bruch finds that anorexia is typically about a young woman's "struggle for control, for a sense of identity, competence and J effectiveness." A struggle within a patriarchal, | male-defined culture that actively excludes her from all of those fundamental human dimensions. Michelle Mary Hebiica's Starving for Salvation (1999) focuses on eating disorders as a yearning for meaning and wholeness in the context of how very much is missing, especially for women. J.A. Sours' Starving to Death in a Sea of Objects testifies, from its title onward, to the underlying deprivation or emptiness at the base of these life-threatening conditions. Margaret Talbot observed that physical incapacitation has been one of the few ways in which women could effectively absent themselves from their assigned duties and roles. Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome are among the illnesses, suffered by millions, that must be seen in light of women's basically unimproved condition in society. Countless forms of suffering, from AIDS to cancer to depression, are experienced within the increasingly unhealthy regime of technology and capital. There can be no "cure" so long as we all must strive to endure the bludgeoning conditions of daily life. Rural America now resembles a constellation of meth labs and Oxycontin supply networks, while epidemic drug use varies only in terms of which narcotic is most popular in a given season. What kind of society is it in which the teen suicide rate has been climbing for decades and self -mutilation is commonplace? Male sexual function will become dependent on pharmaceuticals like Viagra, a development far less grotesque than the growing number of toddlers on antidepressants. The techno-world serves up increasingly bizarre "solutions" to the problems it continues to create, not forgetting the rising levels of both climatic temperatures and environmental toxins. Pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer proclaims, "Life is our life's work," as if anyone needed a reminder of the genetic engineering and human cloning in our future to which cyber-leftists like Donna Haraway have no objections. An increasingly overworked populace labors in a more and more anxiety-prone, destabilized consumer void. The need to be diverted from a glaringly impoverished present and future is addressed in books like Neal Gabler's Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquers Reality (1998), a point explored in greater depth by writers such as Adorno and Debord, but accurate and timely all the same. And in just four years (New York Times, 8/4/02), Gabler says, this situation has become qualitatively much worse. We now get only short-hand, truncated versions of escape that he terms the illusion of entertainment. Ersatz or otherwise, entertainment is now quite possibly the primary value of modern life, precisely because reality has become unbearable. But of course it is only "chemical imbalances" that are said to account for this massive immiseration. This reactionary and desperate claim responds to phenomena such as the fact I that 2.8 million kids had what is euphemistically called a "runaway experience" in 1999, by diagnosing most of them with a pseudo -medical condition called "conduct disorder." A mid-2002 survey conducted by the National Sleep Foundation showed that 69% of Americans experienced some insomnia after September 11. (Glaxco Wellcome, by the way, spent $16.5 million promoting Paxil in October 2001.) Even more noteworthy is their finding that 51% of the population were already insomniac during the previous year! What will new polls on sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, etc. reveal in light of more systemic bad news: revelations that corporations, science, the Red Cross, et al. are routinely fraudulent, that 90% of students cheat, that male athletes begin steroid use in adolescence, and so on and on. David Barlow's Anxiety and its Disorders (2002) discusses the high prevalence and chronicity of a range of such conditions, like panic attacks, obsessivecompulsive disorders, and various phobias. He concludes that the aggregate toll on social life "dwarfs even the most pessimistic estimates." Many have charted a steady rise of more serious mental illnesses that began with and correspond to the industrialization of society, as documented for example in The Invisible Plague: the Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present, byTorrey and Miller (2001). The answer to this scourge is obviously deindustrialization, the undoing of the root cause of all this and other crises in physical and mental health. Society is a racket, and its everyday practices are no longer hidden from us. Nonetheless, as everyday life becomes steadily more impoverished, cheapened, surveilled, standardized, and otherwise debased, the official version (in many more aspects than mentioned in this article) prevails, with its stark omissions and lies. As Derrick Jensen has it, it is truly a "culture of make believe." Marx inaccurately predicted that growing material poverty would bring revolution. A more plausible forecast today is that growing psychic or emotional suffering may inform a widespread refusal of this no-future reality. ** A Short Letter from Ted Kaczynski Dear Editors: In GA No. 8 you published as an article something I had written to John Zerzan. In a note immediately following it you accused me of " fairly overt homophobia," citing my use of what you called " the queer-identified term 'pink'." If the term "pink" is identified with homosexuality, I didn't know it. Maybe I have failed to keep up with the twists and turns of political correctness. I was using the term in a much older and well-established sense derived from the fact that pink is a watered-down form of red: "Pink" people are those who dabble in leftism but don't have the guts to be real revolutionaries. You claim you've seen homophobia in previous articles of mine, but you mention only one, namely, "Ship of Fools." Of all the people who have commented on "Ship of Fools," you are the only ones, that I know of, who have seen homophobia in it. As a matter of fact, "Ship of Fools" was reprinted in the San Francisco gay periodical Magnus. In the interest of complete honesty and disclosure I will state two facts: (1) During my early teens I had a few homosexual experiences with another kid my age. (2) I mildly dislike homosexuality. This is a matter of personal taste. My emotional involvement in it is slight, and it has no effect on my "political" viewpoint. In other words, I basically just don't care. What people do in the bed is their own business and not mine. My contempt (as expressed, e.g., in "Ship of Fools") is not for gay people, women, ethnic minorities, or sweatshop workers, but for activists who think that the special problems of these groups are more important than the disaster with which the technoindustrial system threatens the world. -Ted Kaczynski ** Untitled Textbox Going from city to woods to camp on weekends as a child, I always suspected something was wrong. My parents returned to work on Mondays and I wondered, "why aren't we in the woods all the time?" In this light, Ted Kaczynski occupies a special place in the wildness of my being. Years of living among and being manipulated by technology in its endlessly prolific forms crushed my will to survive. There were no words to describe the endless anxiety of city existence. Into the deep well of my despair, Industrial Society and its Future fell like a lifeline. The much-needed critique of technology as a mangling force on physical and mental planes displayed the origins of my severe mental anguish. A primitivist critique was lodged in the collective consciousness. No longer could technology be shrouded in neutrality, much to the disdain of its leftist defenders. I don't always agree with Ted on personal levels, but I don't always agree with anyone, even close friends. What is important is a disdain for civilization, a love of wildness and chaos, and a respect for everyone's personal autonomy. To me, Ted upholds these ideals. ** International Intifada & Urgent Call to Participate in the Colonizer’s Execution *** PART ONE: THE ZIONIST PROJECT In 1948 a collaboration among a group of Jewish imperialists (Zionists), Britain and America created the State of Israel. Not surprisingly, the Zionist State is very similar to Britain and America's other imperialist missions throughout the world. Israel's creation expelled over three million Palestinians from their homeland. Those who have remained live under a brutal apartheid state, as non-Jews within a system created entirely for Jews. It is not uncommon to hear the Zionists describe the Palestinians as "cockroaches" and "filthy dogs." Accordingly, Palestinians are treated like the American Negro after the civil war, shoved around, spat on, ghettoized, ruthlessly exploited, and frequently brutally assaulted. Meanwhile, any Jew from ' anywhere in the world is vigorously encouraged to settle in Palestine, and crowd the people out even further. Understandably, when Israel declared itself a nation in 1948, every surrounding Arab nation declared war against them. The Arabs lost the war and even more included boycotts of Israeli goods, mass demonstrations, tax strikes, workers' strikes, rock throwing, agricultural, medical, educational, housing and consumer cooperatives to cripple the Israeli occupation and to create a new and independent Palestinian nation. Though united under the central leadership of the Marxist-Leaning Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), the intifada was carried out by an intricate system of dozens of local "uprising committees" that could remain functioning even when many of their leaders were jailed. Some of the most highly respected freedom fighters are the shebab (literally "the boys"): the masked Palestinian youth (some as young as seven or eight) that produce intifada graffiti, throw rocks to defend communities, and kill Palestinians who collaborate with Israel. Women also played a critical role in the intifada, « participating on every level of the resistance, while still carrying out their full load of tasks required by the sexist conditions of their society. To some extent, the need for unity in the fight against Israel allowed for a good deal with Indigenous leaders for "as long as the grass grows and the sun shines. .." (cloaking the extermination of more than 95% of the Native population - over ten million people) the Oslo Accords were simply another one of the colonizer's weapons. Essentially, the Palestinian Authority was given the power to police some small portions of still-occupied Palestine, as long as they remained loyal to the Zionist's goals. The settlements would continue, construction of bypass roads would continue, the USA would continue to arm Israel, and a handful of elite Palestinians would get to police their own population. *** THE AI-AQSA INTIFADA The gross failure of the "peace process" to bring any genuine improvement to the lives of everyday Palestinians, combined with the rampant corruption of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the rise to power of the fascist butcher Ariel Sharon in Israel, sparked the second intifada. It is known as the "AlAqsa" intifada, because on September 28, 2000, as an intentional provocation, Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, unleashing the wave of anger that is the rebirth of the Palestinian intifada. This time around, the Palestinian uprising is fiercely and vehemently resisting the imperialist bastards. Suicide bombings within Israeli cities and Zionist settlements increase of Palestine. Again, in 1 967, the Arab Nations fought a war against the Zionists, and again they lost. At the end of the war, Israel had stationed its military on the west bank of the Jordan River, and in the Gaza strip on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The military occupation continues, and increases its vicious domination of the Palestinians. Hundreds of new, all-Israeli suburban developments are steadily being built, and thousands of Jewish settlers (who choose to be Israelis) are arriving to steal larger and larger chunks of Palestine. The settlers view their presence in the west bank and Gaza as a missionary project to support the "holy" land of Israel. They are frequently armed, and often show their "support" in Klan-style terror campaigns against Palestinians. The settlements are connected by militarily patrolled "bypass" roads for Israelis only, so that the Israelis can totally "bypass" the people whose land they are stealing. Palestinian land is rapidly being seized through imperial laws which condone theft. The Israeli military uproots thousands of olive trees to cripple the Palestinian economy. Palestinian homes are frequently bulldozed as punishment for resisting the occupation. The occupied territories are riddled with military checkpoints, where millions of Palestinians are subjected daily to degrading scrutiny by the Israeli military. The Palestinian population is forced to pay a whole series of taxes to fund their own subjugation. All of this fits within the British model in Ireland, the Dutch model in South Africa, the American model in Turtle Island, the Spanish model on Aztec land, and so forth. And America explicitly and rigorously supports Israeli policies with guns, money, helicopters, propaganda, tanks, and political manipulation to the tune of several billion dollars per year. *** THE INTIFADA The Arabic word "intifada" is roughly translated as "uprising" or "shaking off." It is the word that the Palestinians have chosen to name their popular struggle against Israel. The original intifada was a massive campaign of noncompliance with the Zionist State spanning from 1987 until 1992. The intifada had the support of almost one hundred percent of the Palestinian population and of "shaking off" of patriarchal standards and expectations of women. The intifada was carried out while Israel imposed harsh (and sometimes 24-hour "shoot on sight") curfews in dozens of Palestinian towns and villages, sometimes for weeks on end. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) arrested thousands of Palestinians at every level of society for resisting occupation. The IDF also frequently murdered Palestinians they "suspected" of being "terrorists" (the shebab mostly). The Israelis blew up Palestinians using small explosives disguised to look like chocolate bars so that young children would explode upon impact with the "candy." But the spirit of the intifada was such that when homes were demolished or olive crops destroyed by the Israelis, villages came together to plant and build again. And, when workers were trapped in their homes by Israeli curfews, the uprising committees would ensure workers full wages for their time out of work. Demonstrations popped up as if out of nowhere and faded away within fifteen minutes; the shebab disappeared into the rest of the Palestinian population. The intifada was everywhere, and it was nowhere. *** THE "PEACE" PROCESS In 1992, the PLO signed a "peace treaty," known as the Oslo Accords. The USA and Israel carefully manufactured the accords to ensure Palestinians would have enough of an illusion of autonomy to stop fighting, but nothing substantial enough to threaten ZionistAmerican imperialism or gain any true freedom. Similar to the agreement reached in 1947 to partition India (which resulted in over two million slaughtered) and US Army treaties in frequency and strength. Many mass demonstrations include folks with guns who will shoot back at the Israeli military and a number of large-scale riots have erupted in the occupied territories. This new intifada is a raging tumult against both the US-Zionist occupiers and the traditional Palestinian leadership. The PLO and PA-having accepted rampant wealth and the role of suppressing popular uprisings-are now being exposed for what they are: enemies of Palestinian freedom. Militant Islamic organizations, notably Hamas, are now playing social service roles in the Palestinian community and are at the forefront of the attack against Israel. Israel responds in true colonizer fashion: never flinching to increase its systematic decimation of Palestinian people, homes, and dignity. Currently, Israel is the most overtly brutal colonial system in the world. Militarily backed by the American empire to an unfathomable degree, Israel continues to carry out one of the most lethal programs of imperialist aggression the world has ever seen. Since the beginning of the intifada, nearly 200 Palestinians have been murdered and over 5,000 wounded by the Israelis. Recently, in response to a Palestinian attempt to blockade a tank attempting to invade their community, Israel murdered seventeen people, and jailed approximately 2,000 men between the age of 18 and 45. The men were rounded up wholesale, many of them given an ID# in ink on their forearms, and imprisoned simply for being Palestinian men. It must have reminded Palestinians of the Sabra and Chatilya massacres of 1982. Then, in southern Lebanon, Christian fundamentalists, backed by and in collaboration with the Israelis, murdered 600 Palestinian refugees in one giant, rotting pile. And, 1,800 more were reported as "missing." These men were herded into a giant stadium and never returned to see their mothers, daughters and sisters. It must have reminded at least a few semiconscious folks of National Socialism in Germany, 1933. That was when, well, you know... ** PART TWO: THE NEW OFFER The colonizer must be executed. It has been the colonizer against us all, and he has turned us against ourselves so that even when you can't see him, he is with you, killing you slowly. We must kill him quickly, before we have been ruined entirely. The day that the colonizer is sent to his grave will be the birthday of a free humanity. You're invited to participate in his assassination. In fact, your participation is his assassination. Ever since you were born, you have been dying - so that the colonizer might live. It is time to start living -so that the colonizer might die. From now on, you can discard your desire to make peace with, or reform, the colonizer. There is nothing more to ask of him. We asked him kindly not to take our land, and, after seizing it, he raped the women among us, poisoned our water, destroyed our crops, and built churches, temples, mosques, memorials and museums on our bloodied soil. We demanded to be included in his government, ballot boxes, schools, and armies; he has let us in, exactly to the extent to which we agree to remain degraded, docile, invisible, and inferior in his presence. We have written a million letters, cast a million votes, signed a million petitions, and marched a million times with a million signs - all asking him to please, please, please not start another vicious, greedy war. And billions of us have - on dozens of occasions - been sent all across the globe to butcher each other ruthlessly and to stuff his filthy pockets and fatten his gluttonous stomach. We have pleaded with him to simply go away, to be done, to leave us alone. Sometimes he leaves, but only after ensuring that we are too poor, too tired, too conditioned, too addicted, or too busy killing each other to actually live free on our own. And, you can be sure, less than a day after he has left my house, he has shown up at yours - telling you, "You're in the way." It is best just to shoot the fucker. *** THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR MASS SLAUGHTER No amount of killing of Americans, Brits and Israelis will free us from colonial domination. This is not to say that these folks won't be (or "shouldn't be") killed in the process of de-colonization. What is being said is that there is nothing inherent, or genetically significant, about settler populations (whites, Spaniards, Frenchman, Israelis, etc.) that could be done away with through simple slaughter. The American as the American must die. The human being raised to believe in, defend and perpetuate American imperialism, may live free exactly when they are no longer willing to defend Americanism. All of us in America have been forced to understand ourselves on the colonizer's terms. We were offered only demeaning definitions of Durselves. Both subtly and brutally, the messaging was Dlaced inside us that we are American. In a nation Duilt on stolen land, slave labor and genocide, we are a people with an untold and untenable history. The American is a great, and deadly, lie. We Duy fantasy images of ourselves as free people, and we simultaneously continue to create a way Df life where people are forced to sell themselves nto a life of endless misery and boredom, simply to survive. Those of us raised to think of ourselves as "white" lave been particularly bludgeoned since birth to Dassively accept and reinforce colonization. We lave been bought off with petty privileges, and a slightly less harsh (but never far away) whip. The missions of the colonizer have been so deeply mbedded inside us that we find ourselves struggling against an alien oppressive force inside our learts and minds whenever we try and have peer relationships with non-white people. No, it is worse. The colonizer has invaded so thoroughly we have such difficulty distinguishing Durselves from him, that we can no longer truly lave peer relationships with anyone. In all-too-subtle ways we have come to embody the aggression, arrogance, thievery and jismissive-ness of the colonial project. The colonizer dominates even our most intimate spaces, so that notions of submission and domination viciously taint our attempts at love. Our attempts to be helpful all too often replicate the Did values of the Christian crusades. By shaping a white identity for certain human Deings of European descent, the colonizer has started a war within millions of human beingsThe 'white" person's heart and mind are occupied :erritories. The settler within us seeks to stay alive at all ;ost. And, even if we are fighting him at every turn, Dur humanity shows itself only in the briefest glimmers. The settler and the human cannot occupy the same space. One of them must die. This is what is meant by saying that thecolonizer must be executed. *** DEATH TO THE SYSTEM The most essential murder is the murder of the system of colonization, so that the system can no longer execute its murderous schemes. Settler-colonialism is a created system. It goes back at least one thousand years and pretty consistently looks something like the 17th century British system of the Ulster plantation in Northern Ireland. The British government gave away Irish land to British and Scottish settlers, and made them sign an agreement that they would build an armed fortress on "their" land, and that they would remain forever loyal to the English crown. The settlers were to take the best land, and then collect taxes from the natives for the 'right' to remain on the settler's property. Laws were written by the British to ensure that, no matter howsimilar the settlers might be with the native, they could never know one another as peers. A ferocious sense of superiority is encouraged in the settler: their religion, language, culture, and physical features must all be established as undeniably superior to the natives. The native must either be brutally excluded from these activities, or brutally forced into accepting them as their own. If both settlers and natives must go to schools, the native schools must be inferior, and encourage stupidity and docility. If the natives are to be allowed jobs, it is only to 'break them' of their uncivilized ways, and only under the worst conditions, for the worst pay. If anything in the native culture is allowed to survive, it is only because it can turn a profit for, and sufficiently entertain the settler. If the native is to live amongst the settler, it is only because she is his servant -and still, in her own community, there will never be enough to truly live. And, of course, if the natives ever step out line, it is the settler's responsibility to shove them back down again. All of this is a creation. It exists to serve the interests of the imperial mother country, and it remains because of the guns, courts, jails, asylums, theologies and schools of the colonial government. The whole system is founded on slaughter of all kinds, at all levels, and to all living things. No one has anything like real autonomy or dignity. The native is forced to submit to the settler, the settler is a mere thug for the elite, and the elite have all sense of humanity leached from them in the interests of profiting the system. It is the system that lives, and we a//die for its survival. *** THE INTERNATIONAL INTIFADA It is time for the international intifada. It is time to globalize the "shaking off" of colonization. After 2,000 years of suffering the civilizing mission of imperialism, we can unleash a full-on program of de-colonization and de-civilization. Our goal will be both simple and profound and everyone is invited to participate. Our goal is nothing more than the total and uncompromising destruction of the colonial system. We will ally with each and every struggle against colonial rule. We will reject no tactic that legitimately seeks to do away with colonialism, and we will rigorously challenge every attempt by the colonized to placate, make peace with, or seek a moderate reform with the colonizer. We will unconditionally reject every viewpoint that argues that there can be any conditions put on self-determination for colonized peoples. We will systematically learn and teach history which radically undermines the system. Because the colonizer has robbed us all of our past, and dominates our present, simply demanding to know history will be a weapon against the system. We will build our own future by studying where our previous attempts to destroy colonialism have fallen short, and refusing to fall for the same murderous tricks. We will begin to de-civilize society. The civilizing motion of colonial society leads us ever deeper into the pit of stronger, more vicious, more centralized and more multi-faceted systems of colonial domination. And all along, the mission of civilization has been a brutal extermination of indigenous, pagan and animist spiritual cultures, shrouded in the guise of "well-intended" efforts towards progress. This slaughter brought about by the monotheists is not a side issue. Colonialism would be nowhere without the forceful subjugation of simple, self-sufficient, earth-loving folk. So, instead of seeking to out-modernize the imperial powers, and instead of iconisizing African kingdoms and such, we will struggle in defense of the indigenous and uncivilized anti-colonial warriors. We will actively and completely strive to become neither colonizers nor colonized peoples. We will consistently and constantly commit treason against colonial values and mentalities. We will shake off all of the conditioning that was forced on us by the colonial society, all the way down to the most subtle and hidden colonial attributes. We will fight to win. We will expose colonialism as an inhuman system of oppression, and we will wholly and unceasingly struggle for the recreation of our own humanity and the assassination of colonization. The rebellion against colonization has been never-ending and spanned the entire globe. Numerous colonial governments have beep ousted from native land, and so-called revolutionary governments have been set up in the new nationstate. But nowhere, at any time, has colonization been eradicated. And, everywhere the colonizer has fought against us, he has been full of an overflowing arrogance that he will surely win. He has created entire industries, running full-time, that are focused on studying new and more effective ways of maintaining the system at all cost. We will fight, not with a defeatist sense that we are "doing the best we can," but with a dignified sense that we are doing everything possible, and we should surely win. That's it. That's our final offer. Everyone is invited to participate. ...and no one who wants to remain passive is invited... ** Paradigm Shattering Perspectives: MUSIC/FILM Just a few selections from the worlds of movies and music to keep our minds more blown than simple escapist entertainment is capable of. *** Harold and Maude An elderly anarchist woman shows a suicidal young man a way out of his tiresome daily existence. Very uplifting and amazing. *** The Neverending Story A roadmap out of the unimaginative and boring school/work/death existence. Disguised as a kids' movie, this one should be in schools and in homes with children, but anarchists can benefit from every scene. Our hero is a young hunter-gatherer who can save Fantasia only by fighting against the nothing and encouraging everyone to embrace dreams and imagination. The effects are DIY and pretty cool. There's even a giant nihilist turtle. Hard to beat this one for pulling ourselves out of the swamps of sadness and back into action against the death march we call civilization. Desaparecidos-Read J\Ai\s\c, Speak Spanish Desaparecidos refers to the "disappeared" Argentinian Rebels from days past sets the tone for this amazing anti-civ album. Topics covered in good underground emo-rock include: the neuroses of domesticated relationships, urban sprawl, gated communities, war and American "freedom," capitalism, art and selling-out. Get a copy at: http://www.saddle-creek.com ** The GREEN ANARCHY DISTRIBUTION CENTER (This is only a Partial List of the Literature we carry: For A Complete catalog, Send $1.00 To Our P.O. Box) *** How to order: -Please send well concealed cash, checks or postal money orders ONLY! -Checks can be made out to "Green Anarchy" and mailed to POB 11331, Eugene, OR 97440. -We try to fill orders quickly, but we're very busy and delays often do occur. Please be patient. Email us at greenanarchy@tao.ca if it's is taking a long time or if you have any questions about availability. -Put "Attn: Mail Order" on the envelope to help us fill the order faster. -International orders can take longer because we prefer not to ship air mail as it is quite expensive. Thanks, GA *** Pamphlets: Anti-Mass: Methods Of Organization For Collectives $1 Arguments against mass organization and in favor of more autonomous activism. Colonization Is Always War Zig Zag $ 1 Modern resistance to the oppressive forces of colonialism. Control Unit Prisons Frank J. Atwood and some ABC groups $3 Essays about torture, isolation, and slavery in modern prisons. Disgust Of Daily Life Kevin Tucker $2 A creative piece furthering the critique of civilization and its totality.. Industrial Domestication: Industry As The Origins Of Modern Domination Leopold Roc $1 Since the beginning of industrialism, it has only been able to thrive by breaking the spirits of the proletariat for the sake of productive efficiency. This essay shows why the struggle for workers' autonomy must be a struggle to destroy industrialism. Industrial Society & It's Future: The Unabomber's Manifesto Unambomber $1.50 A manifesto of against industrialism. NonViolence & Its Violent Consequences William Meyers $2 Pacifist absurdity debunked. On The Road Again: Direct Action Underground $1 All you need to know about the nature of underground and clandestine resistance. Our Enemy, Civilization $1 Essays against civilization, industrialism, and modernity. A must read. Revolutionary Solidarity Pierre Porlecu $1 A phenomenal essay about the concept of revolutionary solidarity by an Italian insurrectionary anarchist. Back by popular demand! Some Notes On Insurrectionary Anarchism Killing King Abacus $1 An introduction to insurrectionary anarchist thought. *** Zines: Black Clad Messenger. Current and back issues available (#130). $3 each. $35 for complete set of back issues. Now defunct journal of anti-industrial anarchism. Disorderly Conduct Issues #1 and #2 are $2 each, #3-5 are $3 each, and $13 for the complete set. DC is an insurrectionary green-anarchist publication, brought to you by the "Bring On The Ruckus" Society. Sorry, it almost never makes it into prisons. *** Books: Against Civilization Edited by John Zerzan $15 A substantial collection of essays and articles against civilization. With writings by Kirkpatrick Sale, Chellis Glendinning, Barbara Mor, Marshall Sahlins, and many others. Running On Emptiness John Zerzan $15 John's new book is finally here. Essays include "Time & Its Discontents," "Whose Unabomber ?," "Abstract Expressionism," John's memoir "So, How Did You Become An Anarchist" and many other great essays. ** ANTI-CAPITALIST/ ANTI-GLOBALIZATION/ ANTI-IMPERIALIST RESISTANCE *** May 9, Lebanon: Bomb Blasts Rattles US Fast-Food Franchises Tripoli: A bomb exploded outside two American-based fastfood restaurants, leaving extensive damage but injuring no one. The authorities claim that 3.3 pounds of TNT were used in the blast which occurred at 4 am outside the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardees restaurants on the southside of this Lebanese port city. In a phone call to a Tripoli newspaper, an anonymous group took responsibility for the action, saying that it was carried out "in protest of American cultural imperialism and against the US-led war in Afghanistan." May 1 3, Pennsylvania: US Foreign Policy Reaps Explosive Consequences Philadelphia: A suspicious package found inside a US Postal Service mail drop exploded as it was being diffused by a police bomb squad. The blast sprayed shrapnel for 100 feet, but no one was injured. A mail carrier discovered the package inside the mail box and became alarmed by a note on its exterior which said "Free Palestine". *** May 17-19, Spain: Over 100,000 Protest Globalization Madrid: Some 100,000 anti-globalization demonstrators marched through the city center, chanting against capitalism and war and dancing to the beating of drums. Organizers said nearly 200,000 protesters marched behind banners that read "Against the exploitation of Latin America" and "Against war and capitalism." It was the last and the biggest of three demonstrations that were held over the weekend in the Spanish capital to protest the European-Latin American summit, which gathered some 50 government leaders from the European Union, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Recent massive peaceful protests against imperialism/capitalism/ globalization have received little press coverage (if any at all) - which is further indication that only by destroying property and using militant methods can your voice be heard on a national or international level. May 21-23, Chile: Hundreds Detained After Mass Protests Valparaiso: Agents of Chile's militarized Carabineros police used tear gas, water cannons and nightsticks to disperse between 5,000 and 10,000 demonstrators who marched to the national legislature in the city as part of a day of broad protest against government policies. The march was called by the Confederation of Students of Chile and the Unitary Workers Federation (CUT); participants included unemployed people, indigenous Mapuches protesting for land rights, and activists fighting corporate globalization. The protests were timed to coincide with President Ricardo Lagos' annual "state of the union" address to Congress. Lagos, a member of Chile's Socialist Party, expressed satisfaction with the May 17 signing of a free trade accord with the European Union, announced a plan to ease poverty and unemployment, and urged the protesters to be peaceful and not to cover their faces. However, many protesters were hooded, including one group who trashed a McDonald's. The next day, some 50 Mapuche activists protested at the gates of the Congress; four of them chained themselves to the bars and submerged their hands in cans of cement to prevent them from being easily removed from the site. The protest was sparked by the government's recent naming of a commission to appraise lands claimed by the multinational corporation Endesa, paving the way for completion of the Ralco dam, which will flood Mapuche communities. *** May 28, Russia: Anti-America Activists Clash With Authorities Moscow: Police wielding batons clashed with dozens of protesters in the capital at a demonstration against the Kremlin's rapprochement with the West on the eve of a Russia-European Union summit. Officers dragged away protesters and wrestled others to the ground, hitting them with batons. The protest against Russia's warming ties with the West came as Russian President Vladimir Putin was in Italy taking his place as a junior partner in NATO, the military alliance created more than a half century ago to contain Moscow. The NATO-Russia Council formalized a new partnership between Russia and the West that has been quickly developing since Putin reached out to the USA after the Sept. 1 1 attacks. "We have to protest because authorities who live at our expense want to decide everything for us," said one protestor. The protesters represented a wide variety of organizations, including environmentalists, anarchists, and anti-globalization activists. Anti-American and anti-West views are widespread in Russia, but the country rarely sees the large-scale protests common in western Europe. Protest organizers attribute the small turnouts to a lack of tradition of free speech. *** May 29, Argentina: Duhalde Faced With Massive Protests Over Economic Policies Buenos Aires: The economic policies of President Eduardo Duhalde and his government came under fire again (as they do regularly) in a day of strikes within the public and schools sector, as protesters blocked more than a thousand roads. The nation's largest labor union, the Argentine Workers' Congress (CTA), called the strike. Several hundred people including jobless and protesting workers took control of major access roads to the Argentine capital, blocking bridges and key boulevards with barricades, severely disrupting traffic. Top officials spent the day in intense negotiations to encourage Senators to move forward in abolishing the economic subversion law, a key demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to renew credit to the crisis-stricken nation. Argentina has been in recession for just short of four years, with unemployment at a record 25 percent and 50 percent of the population now living in poverty. Three groups of pickets in the working class town of La Matanza west of the capital interrupted traffic on the major Route Three, which joins the federal capital with southern Argentina. Highway blockades around La Plata, the provincial capital, virtually paralyzed traffic. Other strikers set up barricades in the "Once" commercial district, where numerous important roads meet, and also blocked off traffic to Buenos Aires city hall, situated some 100 meters from government headquarters. In the central provinces of Cordoba and Entre Rios and in Neuquen in the south, protesters attacked a bank, and government and local party offices. Some context: Last December, the people of Argentina rose up in fury against the economic disaster wrought on them by "their" government, hand in hand with big business. The world watched transfixed as pictures on TV of supermarkets and food shops being looted showed a "modernized" country at a breaking point. Since then, Argentina has been through an astonishing time. TV news has become a surreal portrait of a country turned upside down — On an almost daily basis banks and ATM machines are being attacked ( on January 15th alone, in three cities in Argentina's interior, hundreds of anti-government protesters stormed banks, ripping out computers and smashing window fronts, while also setting fire to ATM machines belonging to Citibank and BankBoston outlets: damage was in the millions), politicians are spit on when they appear in the streets and the electoral system of "choosing your masters" has collapsed due to widespread non-participation ( In the recent general elections, more than 40% of the (compulsory) votes were blank or cast to a cartoon character, Clemente the cat politician, who has no hands so that he cannot steal!). From the first night of the uprising last December, the Argentinean people have shown utter contempt for politicians, summed up in the popular slogan "Que se vayan todos"They ALL Have To Go\ Others around the world have taken up the slogan "Todos Somos Argentina" — because people know that what is happening now in Argentina will be happening in a country near you soon if the IMF and their ruling class business partners continue destroying the planet in their never ending search for profit. *** June 14, Canada: Liberal Politician & Cops Are Humiliated By Raging Demonstrators Vancouver: Gordon Campbell - the Canadian Premeir - was set to speak at the opening of "Carr, O'Keefe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own" at the Vancouver Art Gallery, but didn't dare show his face. A crowd of about 400 people gathered there to demonstrate against Campbell's Liberal government, to disrupt his speech, and to bring attention to the rise of corporate fascism in BO His choice of venue, an opening of feminist and revolutionary women artists, was an obvious insult to everyone living under his policies. Campbell has recently cut all funding to women's centers; another attack in a long line of cuts to social programs in BO Police had erected a fence on the south side of the art gallery, where Campbell was to make his public speech outside. As guests arrived they had to walk through two rows of armed police guards lining the pathway to the door. As more guests arrived police showed a more aggressive presence and shoved, grabbed, and threatened to arrest people standing around in the entranceway. Many protesters decided to enter the showing and disrupt Campbell from inside. The Anti-Poverty Committee made a few speeches while the crowd continued screaming and chanting antiLiberal and anti-capitalist sentiments. "Campbell's Cuts Are Class War" and "Off With His Head" were popular. People banged fists on the fence and then started to shake it. Some tried to dismantle it. The crowd grew more agitated and the police got more aggressive. The crowd started to spit on the police and jeer at them, eventually forcing them to leave the area drenched and humiliated. The person the police attempted to arrest got away. Pepper sprayed people then returned to the fence to demonstrate their defiance and contempt of the police and the police state. A statement released by the Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories read: In our analysis, the militants who attacked the fence in open rebellion, and regardless of official activists plans and speeches, were the ones who contributed the most to the disruption of the event, the canceling of Campbell's speech, and to strengthening the social movement of the exploited in BC as a whole. The fence was a physical barrier between classes, rich and poor, that needed to be torn down. The rich cannot be allowed to mingle and sip wine while the poor are starved and beaten. The fence was attacked by a diverse group of people, including, men and women young and old, parents, Euro-Canadians, native people all people who are deeply, and adversely, affected by the cuts Campbell's government is making, here and now, and also by the policies of capitalist globalization. We are tired of this false democracy. When the police try to move us back by telling we are endangering Campbell, or that we' re only going to get hurt (by the police attacking us) we know that what the Liberals are doing here, and what capitalists are doing around the world, hurts more. Pepper spray is agony for half an hour, state terrorism and murder last forever. Against capital and the state Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver and Victoria). *** June 15, Peru: Privatization Smashed By Insurrection Lima: Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo declared a state of emergency for the southern province of Arequipa, authorizing the country's military to use force to maintain civil order following three days of anti-government rioting. Toledo decided to issue the decree, which suspends constitutional guarantees for 30 days throughout the department, after a lengthy meeting with his cabinet. Vice President Diez Canseco said the rioting, which has resulted in nearly 100 wounded, threatens to "destabilize the democratic order." Area residents are angry over the government's auction of two state-owned utility companies, arguing instead for regional ownership. The capital of Arequipa, which carries the same name, is Peru's second most important city. Diez Canseco said protest organizers - including Arequipa Mayor Juan Manuel Guillen, a former top Toledo supporter - had lost control of their followers, and groups which he declined to identify were causing serious damage to private property. The protesters pulled up paving stones to block streets leading to the city center and burned tires around the Plaza de Armas. Others blocked an airport runway until removed by riot police. Several government buildings, companies linked to multinational capital and the airport were practically destroyed when the population broke into the streets in protest against the privatization of state companies and against the whole neoliberal model: At the airport landing lights were smashed and equipment was stolen. The protests stem from the planned sale on June 14 of Egasa and Egesur, two public utilities based in Arequipa which is just south of Lima. The Belgian firm Tractebel, the only firm bidding in the sale, offered 167 million dollars for the two utilities. The rioting continued on up until the 20th, when the Tractebel company announced that they would not be buying the public utilities. *** June 19-21, Spain: General Strike Halts Country, European Union Met With Opposition Spain was paralyzed by a three-day general strike beginning on June 19. Pickets clashed with police, many shops closed and hundreds of flights were canceled as workers staged Spain's first general strike in eight years. The country's main union federations reported that more than 80% of the work force walked out. Hundreds of thousands of workers demonstrated across the country. More than 100,000 people marched in Seville - where a European Union summit meeting was due to take place on June 21 - while 50,000 protested in Granada and 30,000 in Malaga. Both the general strike and the antiglobalization protests had significant participation from anarchists. The general strike and the anti-EU protests were mostly peaceful, though the Basque national liberation army ETA set off three car bombs outside two Mediterranean resorts on June 21st: one of the bombs detonated in the center of Marbella, a playground for the rich and famous, burning nearby cars but causing no injuries. The following day - amid extremely tight security - the ETA jolted Spain as two more explosions targeted government offices throughout the country, significantly contributing to the chaos that swept the nation. Spanish kops said that they received advance warnings that ETA planned to attack tourist targets during the EU summit in Seville, which was surrounded by police roadblocks and army and air force units on high alert. The struggle of the Basque people has intensified in recent months as the Spanish government has put a ban on Basque political groups that support clandestine resistance. *** June 26, Argentina: Two Shot Dead in AntiGovernment Riots Buenos Aires: Two Argentines were shot dead as hundreds of anti-government demonstrators fought pitched battles with police in the largest riots since an elected government was toppled in December. Argentina's President Eduardo Duhalde, at the bottom in the polls and fighting for his political future, had vowed a get-tough approach on protests as he struggled to convince a skeptical International Monetary Fund to grant an aid pact vital to stem a spiraling social crisis and four-year recession. The riots came just as Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna journeyed to the United States to meet senior IMF officials in a bid to get negotiations on the pact rolling. Riot police fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse unemployed protesters, some wearing ski masks and holding sling-shots, who tried to block highways into the city. The violence erupted just before midday as police confronted the demonstrators near the Pueyrredon bridge, a key highway artery connecting the capital's north and south districts. Masked demonstrators responded to the volleys of police tear gas and rubber bullets with a hail of rocks. The protesters also used homemade clubs to shatter shop windows and smash cars; one bus was also set on fire. The riots were the latest chapter of violence and protests this year against Latin American governments as they grapple with mounting economic problems in a region affected by capitalism's' virtual collapse in Argentina and financial jitters in Brazil. Peru has also been hit by major riots this summer against privatization plans, Venezuela was rocked by a failed coup and neighboring Uruguayans have gone on strike against IMF austerity policies. In these recent Argentina riots, tear gas mingled with smoke from burning tires laid on the road by demonstrators, providing cover to hundreds of protesters scattered through the streets, falling over each other as they ran through a gritty industrial suburb after the clashes. Some demonstrators threw Molotov cocktails; others shattered car windows. Television showed one protester beating a policeman over the head outside a hospital where injured had been taken. Some Context: Argentina's popular social rebellion began in earnest on December 19 of last year when years of recession, unemployment and austerity brought the "social explosion" that critics of neoliberal policies had long predicted. Organized looting of supermarkets and other stores intensified in the Buenos Aires suburbs the following morning ( in Mendoza a group of 40 women and men overpowered guards at a Atomo Avellaneda chain store and carried away cartloads of rice, flour, pasta and mate). Twenty-seven people died in December amid these food riots and looting festivals that forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rua, ushering in the political upheaval that finally saw Duhalde named as interim leader after four other presidents were dethroned in just two weeks! *** July 3, Guyana: Police Kill Two Demonstrators In Anti-Government Demonstrations Georgetown: Guyanese police agents fired into a group of anti-government demonstrators in the presidential compound, killing two people and wounding six. The violence came while thousands of people marched in a protest called by leftist groups to coincide with the start of the annual three-day summit of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders. Police officials said the agents shot at a small group of protesters who broke away from the march and forced open a metal gate to enter the yard of the presidential compound. Other demonstrators reacted to the police shooting by overturning and torching at least three cars and setting two commercial buildings ablaze. *** July 4, Afghanistan: Anti-US Protest In Kabul Kabul: Up to 200 Afghans demonstrated against a US bombing raid that is believed to have killed more than 40 civilians. It's the first time people in Afghanistan have protested against the Amerikan military presence in their homeland since the fall of the Taliban last year. The demonstration came as US and Afghan military overseers claim to be investigating the bombing that occurred in Uruzgan Province. US forces in Afghanistan say their planes had come under anti-aircraft attack before the bombing - but representatives of the current Afghan puppet government have suggested that this may have been celebratory gunfire at a wedding ceremony. In Kabul, the demonstrators - half of them wimmin -gathered outside the United Nations office to voice their anger. "The Afghans, who have had enough of war and bloodshed in the past 23 years, will react seriously if this is repeated," said one demonstrator. "We consider the Americans our liberators, but after this, they may soon become occupiers," said a Kabul grocer who took part in the protests. *** July 30-August 2, Uruguay: Looting Hits Supermarkets Montevideo: Chanting, "There is hunger," hundreds of Uruguayans looted or attempted to loot nearly 30 supermarkets on August 1, mostly in poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital. Crowds that included youths with their faces covered and women with children succeeded in looting at least 13 supermarkets. Police agents used tear gas and rubber bullets to keep the crowds out of the other supermarkets. Some 300 people participated in an attack on a supermarket at Ricardo Mackinnon and Isidro de Ayala, while about 200 all but destroyed a supermarket at Veracierto and Spencer. In some cases, looters and neighborhood residents threw stones at Police agents and at reporters covering the incidents. A heavy police presence prevented most attempts at looting on August 2. Interior Minister Guillermo Stirling insisted that the looting, unprecedented in Uruguay, was organized and coordinated by groups from the "extreme left" and anarchists. The August 1 looting came the same day as a general strike called by Uruguay's only labor federation, the Inter-Union Workers Plenary-National Workers Convention (PIT-CNT), to protest government economic policies. Only health and education workers and some bank employees failed to observe the morning strike. Uruguay is now in its fourth year of recession, in large part because of the ongoing recession in neighboring Argentina. Both Argentines and Uruguayans note that in Argentina a wave of supermarket lootings followed the government's decision to freeze bank accounts there last November. Ironically, experts from the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) insisted last December that their policies had "contained" the economic crisis in Argentina and had kept "contagion" from spreading to neighboring countries. *** July 31 , Greece: November 1 7th Movement Releases Statement Athens: Crippled but defiant after a police onslaught, Greece's most-wanted and slippery urban guerrilla group mocked reports of its demise and warned it could open a new front: grabbing hostages to exchange for captured suspects. "We are still alive," said a declaration attributed to the November 17 cell that has waged a 27-year anti-American/antiimperialist campaign against capitalism, NATO and the Greek state. The blunt proclamation, published in the newspaper Eleftherotypia, reopened questions about the size and resilience of the group after an unprecedented police counter-strike. *** August 2, Greece: Arms Heist Baffles Army And Police Dozens of pistols, machine guns and rifles from an army camp on the island of Kos were stolen recently in another suspected N17 action. Intruders entered the armory by tunneling through the wall of an adjacent building where tents and uniforms were stored, having broken the lock of that building, which, unlike the armory, was not fitted with a burglar alarm. The thieves cut the perimeter fence of the camp in the northern half of the Dodecanesian island, at a point where there were no sentries. Three light machine guns, three standard army rifles and 17 .45 caliber handguns - all weapons traditionally favored by the coldly efficient N17 movement - were taken, and in a call made to State -run NET television from a mobile phone, an anonymous male caller claimed that N17 had organized the heist. Greek authorities are loathe to admit that the beleaguered N17 group would have dared carry out such a heist at this point, particularly on an island which would be difficult to leave undetected and as police continue a major sweep against the group amid fears of retaliatory action from members still at large (Greek police have seized large weapons consignments allegedly belonging to N17 and have uncovered attack plans, including a strike against a convoy of NATO "peacekeepers" traveling through northern Greece en route to Balkan missions. The assault was never carried out but it suggested that the group had the resources and depth to contemplate major operations and conduct detailed reconnaissance. The group reportedly used an array of code-words to refer to targets, such as "uglies" for police and "no misters" for american soldiers). *** August 4, Greece: Explosives Found Near Historic Olympic Stadium, November 17th Movement Suspected Athens: Greek police found a cache of explosives buried near the site of the first modern Olympics. The 19th century stadium is scheduled to be used for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Media reports coming out of Athens say that based on evidence recovered in recent raids, police now believe that November 17 had compiled a list of potential future targets, including NATO "peacekeepers" and the U.S. consulate in Thessaloniki: This has led them to speculate that the explosives found at the Olympic stadium may have been planted by N17 in preparation for a future action, though they haven't ruled out the possible involvement of other urban guerrilla units active in Greece, like the Revolutionary Cells and the ELA. *** August 22, Oregon: Bush Gets Greeted "Beiruit"-Style During A Fund-Raising Visit To Portland The following news item was compiled from uncensored video footage taken by anarchists who were in Portland for the Bush protests, and also from direct interviews: The Pacific Northwest once again sent a clear message to our would-be masters that the peasantry are polishing their guillotines and mobilizing for the Final Confrontation, as thousands took to the streets of Portland calling for the resignation — and in some cases, the death — of George W. Bush, who was in town trying to raise funds for the re-election campaign of Timber Industry lapdog Gordon Smith. The corporate media is attempting to downplay the size of this demonstration ( and hatred of Bush in general) by claiming that only 500 people were in attendance, but eyewitness reports put the numbers closer to 1,500-2,500 and the video footage we've seen confirms this. At one point in the afternoon, on the corner of 5th and Taylor, 3 pigmobiles tried to disperse a crowd but were auickly surrounded by 4-500 people who spat on their cars and attacked them with placards and other random objects like water bottles. The pigs responded in typical pig fashion by unleashing their usual arsenal of rubber bullets, bean bag bullets, teargas and pepper spray. Another melee erupted after the Portland pigs ordered about 500 protesters to move from a barricaded area. Protesters then pushed down a barricade along with the kop standing behind it, breaking her wrist. The Portland police are admitting that at least two patrol cars were damaged by protesters, and anarchists on the scene report that numerous un-arrests were performed throughout the day. Evidently, there wasn't too much damage done to corporate property, but a significant amount of tagging took place around the city ( "Kill Bush", "Kill Republicans") and many protesters came fully prepared for battle with padded armor and homemade shields. Bush doesn't seem to be a very popular guy anywhere these days: On May 21 in Germany, over 10,000 anti-Bush protesters took to the streets to express their disgust with the war in Afghanistan and on May 27, several thousand people marched through central Paris to protest Bush's two-day visit to France. Reprinted below is a flyer that was distributed in Portland during Bush's visit that captures pretty accurately the mood of the day: Against The Peace Movement (only class war will bring us peace) Communique No. 1. : Of course the end of war, oppression and imperialist conquest is a goal of all truly liberatory popular movements. Peace is something we need to fight for! Having said that, we must point out the obvious fact that WE ARE AT WAR, or more specifically, that the empire is at war with us and has been as long as it has existed. Our hopes for liberation are hinged upon our ability to effectively fight back in such a way that results in the working class winning the class war and destroying the apparatus of colonization. We must not beg or petition: 100,000 marched in D.C.; bombs fell on Afghanistan the next day! Government uses the force of arms to prop up its existence against the will of the oppressed. Government will continue to exist so long as we let it. Perhaps if they had left D.C. with the White House in flames, the ruling class would be having second thoughts about the "war on terrorism" . There is no authority other than yourself! While in Seattle on April 20th, a few things were noticed that we feel should be addressed on how the complacent Utne Reader activists are keeping us from making any real change. As in letting the kkkops unhindered cut through our ranks in a power trip play to protect windows. If we were in Palestine would we let the enemy do this? To do so would mean death. Another instance of complacency getting in the way of real change came during Reclaim The Streets. We marched until we got to a tripod that had been erected. The scouts told us where the kkkops were massing and that if they were to attack they would do so from this one side. As an affinity group, who for all we know had been planning for weeks, tried to move dumpsters into the streets to hinder the kkkop advance, they were threatened with lead pipes if the dumpster hit the street Wouldn't you know it, when the kkkops came with a snatch squad, they came, again unhindered, to the spot where minutes before activists wanted to place dumpsters. The lives of millions upon millions of people are run by a tiny handful of ruling elites who possess most of the wealth almost all the land, and all of the power. We are expected to be grateful to them for the privilege of having them rule our lives We are expected to be grateful to them for the privilege of paying for the roof over our heads. We are expected to be grateful to them for the privilege of being their slaves in their factories and offices, and for the privilege of accepting the miserable wages that they pay. They grow richer at our expense, but we are expected to be grateful for the privilege of paying them huge taxes so that they can finance their oppression of us, the people. Finally, we are expected to be grateful for the privilege of fighting for them in their wars and killing other people like ourselves, or to be killed by other people like ourselves. We are expected to love, honor and obey these international wife-beaters 'till death, quite probably premature and certainly ours, do us part. Written by: REVOLUTIONS ACHIEVE FREEDOM ( RAF) Dead Pennies from Heaven. Deceased Materialist ** Untitled Burn money.. .and it becomes ash. ..burn clocks and time disappears... burn civilization and life emerges... ** Garden of Peculiarities, Part 5: Colonization by Jesus Sepulveda A few things are certain, or at least, nearly irrefutable. One of these is that life flowers around trees. Another, that trees cannot live without water. On the contrary, they dry up. Clearcutting and the damming of rivers do not only imply the human and corporate human dominion over nature, but also the destruction of every fountain from which life emanates. The defense of the planet, by every possible means, is not only a question of self-defense, but also of survival. The instinct of self-preservation of the human species has brought about dominion over nature. But this very dominion threatens our selfpreservation. It is a vicious circle that sooner or later will break down. And any breakdown will be a total breakdown, a rupture both mental and material because it necessarily involves our ways of perceiving and interacting with nature. The dominion over the environment and creatures that inhabit it does not bring about preservation but colonization. Its effect is concrete: the conquest of the planet, of animals, of plants, of insects and, of course, humans. Real people, those who still have not been alienated from their own natures— by luck or resistance— still feel a strong connection with the earth and maintain a strong connection with their ancestors. Native peoples have a sense of wellbeing not seen in civilized cultures. Primitive populations still preserve an atavistic wisdom. In their eyes, the understanding that we are nothing but nature is an act of simple lucidity. This radical revelation deconstructs all taxonomies— and epistemological classifications-that tend to justify the objectification of people in reifying categories: kingdoms, classes, races or orders of any type. Human beings are nothing but nature. Every creature is singular and unrepeatable. Colonizing cloning and the notion of a monolithic identity - -as a subjective identity identical to every other identity, and thereby petrified-negates the peculiarity of every being. Civilization-and by extension its sublime expression, the city—embodies 1 this negation. Its tendency is toward expansion, and it ^carries along with it • colonialism and the holy war. Christian, Muslim, Inca, Aztec, Japanese, Ottoman, Greco-Latin and hinese civiliations, mong others, have hown their proclivity oward invasion and onquest. Civilization, een as second nature, as legimitated the destruction ot anything other than its own civilized order. The negation of the truly natural is the base of the civilized order, which expands like a conqueror and manifests its bloodthirsty ways in the extermination of indigenous communities and aboriginal cultures. For civilization, every act of destruction of its icons is an iconoclastic or terroristic act. When civilization destroys a way of life or culture different from its civilized order, this becomes civilizing action. This is the logic of colonialization. The extermination of colonized communities is not just brought about by the cracking of the whip or the shot of the cannon, but also by the clearcutting of forests and the construction of dams. Note: This is part five, out of forty-seven sections, from the book "The Garden Of Peculiarities" , recently published in one of the planets most explosive hot-spots, Buenos Aires, Argentina. The bookis being translated by Daniel Montero and is edited by Janine and Jesus Sepulveda. We're reprinting these segments in no particular order and will probably continue to serialize it in future issues of "Green Anarchy" in a non-regimented, organic fashion . ** A Call To Action!! For A Convergence Of Total Liberation Against Colonialism; Against The Celebration Of Genocide; Against Columbus Day in Denver, Colorado 2002 COMRADES, the world is inflames! And there is an entity — with many names, responsible. Some call it a machine with no engines. Some call it a demon — infecting the weak. Some call it leviathan — devouring worlds. Some call it a god — at war with the goddess. It's names are endless, but there is one thing for sure. It will stop at nothing in the annihilation of all things of truth. The current manifestation of global capitalism is just one of it's many faces. A new battle — in an old war. But it grows weak, and as any empire expands, it reaches it's limit — the industrious rebels find its cracks, and exploit them for all they are worth. — One thing is certain — the empire is on the brink of collapse. Where We Go From Here Lies Within Our Hands Through Seattle, to Prague, to Quebec, to Genoa — We have resisted this menace. And now for one last stretch of glory — to go down in a blaze, the emperor declares war on "terrorism" — a war on all of us; and begins the death of all kind. Comrades, time is running out, and the powers that be know it. Now is the time to become subjects and not merely objects of history! Christopher Columbus has again come back to haunt us; as the emperor speaks in twisted logic of the war of "western civilization with the savages". The cowboys indeed plan to ride again. And their targets of conquest are endless. It all looks so bleak. History again, repeating itself, a new name for the old war. Genocide and Ecocide, a hatred of wimmin, the enslavement of people with darker skin, the exploitation of class, power-over, indeed the "wrath of god" and his civilization. We Plead With You Comrades, now is the time — not to beg but demand and create a new world! Please make plans to join us in Denver, Colorado for a convergence unlike any "anticapitalist" convergence before. The birth place of this celebration of genocide and the systematic annihilation of all things wild will now host its death. WE ARE STANDING, and we've been on our knees for far too long. We demand more! We will initiate a weeklong convergence that will attack and confront colonialism and our internalized supremacy and patriarchy. We hope for this convergence to initiate a new direction within the anarchist movement, to create a movement for TOTAL LIBERATION— for anarchy! We will stand as participants and allies with comrades in struggle against not only Columbus Day, but the very System that perpetuates colonialism and domination. We will humble ourselves if asked by our allies, and we will strike with fury and passion when needed. We will make our lives truly reflect our visions for a society without domination! FOR TRUE AND TOTAL FREEDOM, FOR A RECONNECTION TO LIFE, FOR TOTAL LIBERATION— FOR ANARCHY — The Beltane Collective To endorse this action or to participate, email: anticolonist@hushmail.com ** Back Issues of Green Anarchy Available! Back issues of Green Anarchy are still available for $3.00 each, or $20.00 for the complete set. We are rapidly running out of copies of issues # 1, 2, and 3, so if you'd like to have a complete set for your archives, we suggest you order soon. Green Anarchy is also looking for submissions from other like-minded anarchists around the world, as we would like to see this publication utilized as a movementbuilding tool. Send action reports, articles, graphics, drawings, poems, fiction, essays, rants and ideas for distribution. The submission deadline for our next issue is November 17th. Thanks! — Green Anarchy PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440 ** INDIGENOUS Resistance *** May 9/ Columbia: Victory On Campaign Against Oil Company Auraca: A spokesperson for Occidental Petroleum announced that their evil company would halt all exploration in the Sirri region of Colombia's Arauca department. The region is home to the U'wa indigenous people and an internationally organized campaign had joined with the tribe to protest the oil company's plans. It is also believed that the growing strength of rebel groups in the region influenced Occidental's decision to halt the project that would have destroyed the local environment and devastated the tribe. According to Ebaristo Tegria, a spokesman for the U'wa people, "We have been waiting for this news for a long time. It is the result of the hard work that the U'wa and our friends all over the world have put into the campaign." A major campaign had been formed to work with the tribe and this network had organized many protests against Occidental in Europe, the US and, in r. particular, Los Angeles - home to the company, i Army repression against those involved in the campaign in Colombia was severe and the struggle was not without its distressing moments. According to Patrick Reinsborough of the San Francisco-based U'wa Defence Group, "The resistance of the U'wa against the project suffered various types of violent repression over the years, including the dreadful time in 2000 when the army attacked a protest leaving three indigenous children dead". Despite the victory the danger to the U'wa has not entirely disappeared as another multinational oil corporation has recently expressed an interest in prospecting for oil in the Capachos region - another part of the U'wa reserve. *** June 8, Pakistan: PeasantWomen Lead Land Struggle Punjab: In the latest attack on a growing struggle by peasants for land rights, police raided seven villages in the Khanewal district. Eight people were arrested. Many more would have been detained had it not been for the militant defense offered by hundreds of peasant women, who held a senior police officer captive for hours. The authorities' attacks increased after a June 2 gathering of 6000 peasants defied a government crackdown that has resulted in three deaths and hundreds of arrests. A similar gathering in November attracted 10,000 participants with an impressive representation of more than 1000 women. Women are playing a leading role in the struggle, aggressively repelling police with wooden sticks traditionally used by women to clean clothes at river or canal banks. At issue is the government's move to replace peasants' tenancy rights with an inferior "modern" contract. These contracts pay little regard to the peasants' families' long cultivation of the land, which began under British rule when the land involved was part of "military farms". Around 500,000 peasants are being organized by the Punjab Tenants Association. They are demanding ownership of 27,500 hectares. Some of the members of this organization seek political power, while others simply want land to live on. *** June 25-27/ Columbia: Indigenous Block Roads, FARC TK^eaten Politicians Cauca: Early on June 25 some 3,000 Paez indigenous people - residents of the Caldono Municipality in the southwestern Colombian province of Cauca - set up a blockade on the PanAmerican highway in the area of the La Maria indigenous reservation in Piendamu, shutting down transit between the cities of Popayan and Cali. The protesters are demanding the resignation of Caldono mayor Gerardo Ivan Sandoval, accusing him of corruption and of instigating conflicts among indigenous communities. They also want Caldono designated as an autonomous reservation, since 80 percent of its 32,500 residents are indigenous (Sandoval says the municipality is 60 percent indigenous). The conflict first heated up on May 23 when residents of the six Paez communities of Caldono seized the mayoral offices to demand Sandoval's resignation. As of June 25 they were still occupying the offices. The highway blockade was suspended 14 hours after it began; an agreement was reached under which the indigenous community set a deadline of three days for the issue to be resolved by the Constitutional Court. On June 27 the Jacobo Arenas Front of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) issued a communique demanding the resignation of eleven mayors in Cauca Province, including Sandoval, as well as the provincial assembly deputies. The FARC's Camilo Arturo Medina Front had previously ordered the resignation of five other Cauca municipalities. Similar FARC threats were repeated around the country. In a communique read by commander "Byron" of the FARC's Eastern Bloc and reported in the press on June 26, the FARC ordered all mayors and local officials around the country to step down or risk kidnapping or execution. At least 73 mayors had resigned as of June 28. President Andreas Pastrana responded on June 27 by promising better security for threatened officials and offering a reward for the capture of FARC leaders. *** July 3, Columbia:Thousands Of CTndigenous People J\Aarc\\ AgainstTeiTonsm Vromthe "Right &Tlte Left Cali: Some 5,000 indigenous Colombians marched from their reservations in Valle del Cauca Province to the provincial capital, Cali, to protest continuing murders of their community members by rightwing paramilitaries and leftist rebels. "We demand respect for our indigenous territories," shouted the demonstrators. Indigenous leader Luis Angel Perdomo told the press that the armed groups constantly violate the human rights of indigenous people "in a war that isn't ours." "The guerrillas and the paramilitary groups have intruded in our territory and have killed our companions, that's why we want to reject that situation with this | march," explained I indigenous leader I Anibal Bustos. At least seven indigenous people and five campesinos were murdered a month ago by right-wing paramilitaries in four municipalities of southern and western Colombia, according to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC). *** July 25August 3, Pent: Rice Producers Win Demands San Martin Province: On July 25, Peruvian campesino rice producers went on strike in the Huallaga valley area to press 13 demands toward resolving a farm crisis caused by overproduction of rice and lack of available markets. The campesinos were demanding that the National Program of Food Assistance (PRONAA) and other government agencies buy some 20,000 tons of excess rice; protesting a 10 percent tax on production that the government requires them to pay in advance; and demanding relief for campesinos who have agricultural debts with private banks. The campesinos began by blocking roads in the province of Bellavista on July 25; police responded by arresting a protest leader. Thousands of campesinos then burned down the provincial prosecutor's office and freed the prisoner. On July 27, the campesinos began arriving in the regional hub city of Tarapoto in order to step up their protests. The campesinos tried to shut down the airport and burn down the prosecutor's office, and then clashed with police; 15 campesinos were arrested. By July 29, some 3,000 campesinos from the provinces of Altomayo, Rioja, Moyobamba and Bellavista had taken over the city, blocking all its access roads and bridges with pickets. By July 30, the striking rice producers in Tarapoto had been joined by delegations of campesinos from the coffee, corn and cacao sectors, as well as from indigenous communities, seeking solutions to their respective demands. On July 3 1, women from Tarapoto 's grassroots organizations led a peaceful cacerolazo, a march in which they banged on pots and pans, in solidarity with the campesinos. The same day a group of 200 people seized the local airport in Tarapoto. Police responded by dropping tear gas on the crowd from helicopters, a tactic they used repeatedly against protesters throughout the day. The gases hit near several maternity hospitals, affecting newborn patients and their mothers. A plainclothes police officer who had infiltrated the protests was discovered and beaten by the campesinos. Some 3,000 campesinos then seized the airport in the city of Juanju. Provincial mayors and other officials from San marten Province signed a letter expressing solidarity with the rice growers and threatening to start a hunger strike on August 3 if the protest demands were not met. More clashes between protesters and police took place in Tarapoto on August 1, with police continuing to drop tear gas from helicopters. Campesino leaders insisted that all 92 arrested protesters be released before negotiations could with the government could begin. After the two sides agreed to form a commission to seek the detainees' release, the talks began. The government agreed to have PRONAA buy 5,000 tons of rice in August and September, in addition to the 6,500 tons that the agency had previously pledged to buy, and promised to help the campesinos export an additional 15,000 tons of rice to Venezuela and 30,000 tons to the Dominican Republic. *** July-August 2002: M^cKetes Undeccwt Plans T-ot" /Mexico's international A'Vpoet The grassroots movement to block the new international airport in the Valley of Mexico has been building a head of steam since it began last Oct. 22, when Mexican President Vincente Fox declared the expropriation of 15,000 acres for the $2.5 billion project. Infuriated by the threat of the government stealing their ancestral land, a few hundred Nahua Indian farmers picked up their machetes and called for the formation of a peoples front to defend the land, instigating a struggle that eventually achieved the astonishing and unexpected result of the Mexican State canceling their airport plans this August. Leading the dissidence was the People's Front for the Defense of the Land, based in the community of San Salvador Anteco, which is located on the mostly dried-up lake beds east of the nation's capital. The residents of Atenco stood to lose 80% of their corn-growing and saltharvesting properties if the airport expansion went through and began their resistance by (simply enough) digging huge trenches in the new runways. In the months to follow, the campesinos of Atenco, who insist that their machetes are work tools and not weapons, have become the shock troops of protest marches from Mexico City to Monterey, earning the distinction of the broad knives together like swords or scraping them along sidewalks to create the most exasperating sound in town, the macheteros became the focal point of countless demonstrations. In April, the struggle entered a deadly serious phase when campesinos took six local police hostage, stripping them of their revolvers and R-15 automatic weapons (see Green Anarchy #9 for more details). In June, a team of topographers mapping ejido lands was captured and paraded at machete-point to the Supreme Court of Mexico, which had barred all preparatory work on the airport until it could determine the legality of Fox's expropriation order. At another demonstration in early July in front of the U.S. Embassy, the furious farmers chopped up the Stars and Stripes with their famous machetes, accusing U.S. dictator George W. Bush of encouraging the expropriation. On July 2, they burst into Mexico City's stilloperating airport, waving their broad blades and frightening passengers already intimidated by the prospect of flying while Amerikkka's "War On Terrorism" rages on. Then on July 11, the macheteros of San Salvador Atenco held yet another demonstration to impress their resolute opposition upon Mexico state Governor Arturo Montiel, an airport champion. This time, a police riot squad waded into the crowd, swinging truncheons and firing off tear gas canisters. Thirty-three people were sent to the hospital, three of whom hovered between life and death for days. Word of the clash spread through the ejido like wildfire, and the farmers, their community network honed by months of struggle, quickly responded. Thirteen liostages, including half a dozen cops, were locked up in the municipal auditorium. Taking advantage of Atenco's strategic location at the side of an industrial highway, the ejidatarios set up roadblocks that stalled interstate traffic for days, seizing trailer trucks and converting them into barricades. Two Coca-Cola transports were relieved of their cargo, and the pop bottles were emptied out and refilled with gasoline to stockpile hundreds af molotov cocktails. A pair of police cars were set on fire and the angry campesinos threatened to roast their hostages alive if the ejido was attacked. For Mexico's twolieaded TV monopoly, the specter of violence filled a news hole between such "important" events like the World Cup and the imminent arrival of Pope John Paul II. BothTVAzteca and Televisa rushed in crews for extended prime-time coverage, helping transform a local flare-up into national and international [leadlines. Front-page photos of the machetewielding farmers circled the globe. Against sensational images of flaming police cars and angry peasants, theTVgiants sounded a shrill sail to Fox to intervene and restore "law and srder". But listeners polls during the two nights of rioting showed that the general public favored the farmers and their cause. As an offshoot, farming and fishing communities in the far-flung states of Yucatan, Hidalgo, and Chihuahua took up the machete as the symbol of their ire, waving them around at solidarity demonstrations. By luly 13, tensions over Atenco were taut as piano wire. Helicopters chop-chopped through the sky above the ejido, and the farmers responded by firing off ornamental cannons utilized in annual Cinco de Mayo celebrations. Boys on bicycles circled the Atenco perimeter to ward off infiltrators, and two State officials masquerading as reporters were captured. A spokesperson for the Peoples Front For Defense of the Land pulled out a knife and threatened to cut off reporters ears. Finally, in the wee hours of July 14 — with confrontation looming — Fox decided that going down the road of repression would put a curse on his airport that would be hard to shake, and he called off his troops. "We're prepared to fight to the death to keep our homes. This has been our land for 500 years. It's how we earn our living. It's not a question of money anymore," said spokesperson David Pajaro, making it clear that no negotiations with the Mexican government were possible until 15 fellow protesters arrested during a previous confrontation were released. Tensions eventually eased enough to result in the release of the State-held ejidatarios , as the uprising began to attract some formidable ultra-left sympathizers, like the Popular Revolutionary Army-Democratic Tendency, who pledged that their armed militants would defend the ejido against government attack. Finally, on August 16, Fox backed down and canceled entirely his plans for the airport! The clash between earth-based communities and Industrial "Progress" is one of the most explosive social issues facing Mexico and other resource-rich countries today. China, for example, faces similar protests from poor farmers forced to move by the Three Gorges Dam project. "We cannot do business this way. A handful of subversives cannot be allowed to stand in the way of progress," bemoaned Jorge Espina, president of COPARMEX, Mexico's most elite business confederation. But a handful of "subversives" did stand in the way of Progress, and in this instance, won, demonstrating to the entire world the power that we all have when we begin to take back our lives. Congratulations on your victory, Comrades! ** Direct Action Against Capitalism In Uruguay The following is a communique from anarchist comrades in Uruguay that has been edited down for size: The so-called neo-liberal model has unfolded without limits in these last two decades. It has globalized its content throughout most of the world. It has carried on producing more and more grief for the peoples. A penetrating and merciless grief and poverty. Its transnational companies have brazenly sown death with a cold scythe that destroys bodies and dreams. They are financial capital, medical industries, patent holders and weapons manufacturers among others. A coherent articulation operating with a single intention: accumulating more wealth and power in the hands of a few, sowing everywhere a sullen and gloomy distress perhaps never seen before . Our people are sinking into misery. There are no jobs, there is no food. Hunger pangs in our guts and stings our sensibility. Our children ask for bread that does not exist. Leftovers from the rubbish are beginning to be a resource against the imperiously painful grumble of our bodies. And the speeches come and go, each with a different theory, all speaking of difficulties, of saving the financial system, that it is necessary to design a policy that attends the problems of the country. All of this done under the timespan of wealthy people who eat well every day. And suddenly reality arrives shouting. The people break into the supermarkets. They take the merchandise from sixteen of them and try to without being able to in fourteen others. An explosion of hunger that will not wait. The official answer is that of always: repression. A major deployment of police, shooting bullets, brandishing clubs against young kids and women who run off with a package of flour, noodles or rice. There are prisoners, wounded and a fifteen-year old in a serious medical state due to the blows inflicted by police. A new world is emerging outside of classical structures. It knows what does not work and seeks what does work. It will collide against certain imaginary socio-political structures of those who consider themselves to be its representatives or vanguard. Political, theoretical and classical blows and sticks will appear, leaving bruised and battered heads. It is a reality, this misery is destroying the bodies and hopes of entire generations, already at this time murdering our children. And this is not rhetoric but cruel, inhuman, palpable daily events. CARAJO! ( in this context, a "violent rejection of something" ) THEY ARE MURDERING OUR CHILDREN. We will say it again, that lacerating cloak of misery is murdering our children , and the poor in general. Hungry children in rags are found throughout the country. Begging for a coin, cleaning windscreens, stealing someone's wallet, fainting from hunger, eating rubbish, forming bands to steal from other poor, pushing carts full of nothing, with their blood contaminated by lead, looking for edible scraps in rubbish piles. Looking at the world with hatred and despair, without child's play or happiness, seeing the aggressive and hostile opulence of a few. Thus are living a great part of our children. And in a similar way, a great part of our people . As always, the people seek ways out and fighting is their tool. They will thus go on processing a true strategy for urgent immediate achievements and future dreams. ** Mujeres Creando Activists Arrested in Bolivia! On August 15, 2002, a video crew working on a television series on sexuality was assaulted by cops in La Paz, Bolivia. Actresses, actors and activists involved in the project were beaten and kicked. The police used tear gas against passerby who had assembled to watch the series being shot. Twelve crew members were arrested and were subjected to further (unsurprisingly) cruel treatment while they were in detention. The television series in question — created by the Bolivian anarchafeminist and lesbian organization, Mujeres Creando — deals with issues of sexuality and violence, in a framework of women's liberation and with an educational purpose. All detainees are now facing charges of "obscene acts" and "obscene performances." For more information on Mujeres Creando, see Green Anarchy it's 6 and 9. ** Untitled "The turning of the world upside down is effected by the shortest distance between one delight and another." ** We Never Sleep Is Back! After several months hiatus, We Never Sleep is being published again. We Never Sleep is the newsletter of the Anarchist Prisoners' Legal Aid Network (APLAN), featuring prisonerwritten updates, resources for prisoners, and news on anti-state repression efforts by anarchists. A new issue of the newsletter if available upon request for prisoners, and for a donation from those on the outside. You can contact APLAN at: 818 SW 3rd Ave., PMB 354, Portland, Oregon 97204. APLAN is also collaborating with Break The Chains on a new prisoner pen-pal program. Write for details! ** Disorderly Conduct #6 Out Soon! Due to over-commitment with other important insurrectionary green-anarchist and anti-authoritarian projects (as well as near exhaustion), the “Bring On the Ruckus” Society has had to delay the release of Disorderly Conduct, issue #6. Don’t worry! It is still in the works, and will contain many interesting re-prints from unusual and hard-to find sources, many incendiary graphics and slogans, and original writings like “Burning the Bridges to the Next Millennium”, “The Rise and Fall of the Eugene Anarchists”, “Not My Idea of Liberation: Thoughts on Organization, Federations, Platformism, and Anarcho-Communism”, and much more! The dark, wet, and cold seasonal issue should be out in late November or early December. You can still get all back issues for $3 each, or all five for $13 from the Green Anarchy Distribution Center! ** PANEROTICISM: THEDANCEOFLIFE Chaos is a dance, a flowing dance of life, and this dance is erotic. Civilization hates chaos and, therefore, also hates Eros. Even in supposedly sexually free times, civilization represses the erotic. It teaches that orgasms are events that happen only in a few small parts of our bodies and only through the correct manipulation of those parts. It squeezes Eros into the armor of Mars, making sex into a competitive, achievement-centered job rather than joyful, innocent play. \fet even in the midst of such repression, Eros refuses to accept this mold. His joyful, dancing form breaks through Mars' armor here and there. As blinded as we are by our civilized existence, the dance of life keeps seeping into our awareness in little ways. We look at a sunset, stand in the midst of the forest, climb on a mountain, hear a bird song, walk barefoot on a beach, and we start to feel a certain elation, a sense of awe and joy. It is the beginning of an orgasm of the entire body, one not limited to civilization's so-called "erogenous zones", but civilization never lets the feeling fulfill itself. Otherwise, we'd realize that everything that is not a product of civilization is alive and joyfully erotic. But a few of us are slowly awakening from the anesthesia of civilization. We are becoming aware that every stone, every tree, every river, every animal, every being in the universe is not only just as alive, but at present is more alive than we who are civilized beings. This awareness is not just intellectual. It can't be or civilization will just turn into another academic theory. We are feeling it. We have heard the lovesongs of rivers and mountains and have seen the dances of trees. We no longer want to use them as dead things, since they are very much alive. We want to be their lovers, to join in their beautiful, erotic dance. It scares us. The deathdance of civilization freezes every cell, every muscle within us. We know we will be clumsy dancers and clumsy lovers. We will be fools. But our freedom lies in our foolishness. If we can be fools, we have begun to break civilizations chains, we have begun to lose our need to achieve. With no need to achieve, we have time to learn the dance of life; we have time to become lovers of trees and rocks and rivers. Or, more accurately, time cease to exist for us; the dance becomes our lives as we learn to love all that lives. And unless we learn to dance the dance of life, all our resistance to civilization will be useless. Since it will still govern within us, we will just re-create it. So let's dance the dance of life. Let's dance clumsily without shame, for which of us civilized people isn't clumsy? Let's make love to rivers, to trees, to mountains with our eyes, our toes, our hands, our ears. Let every part of our bodies awaken to the erotic ecstasy of life's dance. We'll fly. We'll dance. We'll heal. We'll find that our imaginations are strong , that they are part of the erotic dance that can create the world we desire. The essay you just read was reprinted from the pamphlet, "Rants, Essays and Polemics of Feral Faun," available for two dollars through the Green Anarchy Distro PO Box 11331 , Eugene, OR 97440 ** Armed Resistance to Industrial Civilization; An Interview with Ann Hansen of Direct Action In 1982, five Canadian anti-authoritarian activists, variously known as Direct Action, the Wimmin's Fire Brigade, and the Vancouver Five, conducted a highly visible series of guerrilla actions against patriarchal, industrial civilization. When the five anarchists— two wimmin and three men-who comprised these cells were finally captured by the Canadian state in 1983, they were charged with a host of clandestine attacks on industries that represented some of the most notorious war criminals, environmental despoilers, and exploiters of wimmin and children. The most serious charges that these anarchists faced when they were captured related to three bombing operations, all conducted in support of massive public campaigns of protest: one against the Litton Systems plant near Toronto, where parts for Cruise missies were made; another against the environmentally destructive CheekeyeDunsmuir power project of British Columbia on Vancouver Island; and also a smattering against retail stores of the Red Hot Video chain in Vancouver, where videotapes glorifying rape and other forms of savagery toward wimmin and children were sold. Ann Hansen was a member of both those groups and has recently published a book titled, "Direct Action : Memoirs Of An Urban Guerrilla". This exclusive interview was conducted in the summer of 2002, and we are honored to make it available to our readers. GA: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this interview. We've been very excited about the new interest in Direct Action and your writings, they've been incredibly inspiring to many of us in the green anarchist I anarcho-primitivist movement. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your political evolution? AH: It will be difficult to keep these answers brief but I will try. When I look back I can see the seeds of my present day political views taking shape in my dreams and games as a young child. I was always pretending to be an Indian, Eskimo or wild horse because I loved the wilderness and the natural way of life of tribal people. At the same time I became increasingly disturbed at the industrial development going on around my home on the outskirts of Toronto. By the time I was a teenager, my first overtly political essay supported the FLQ, a French Canadian urban guerrilla group, active in the late 60's. Since I had no developed political ideology at that young age, I believe that I had a natural empathy for both the oppressed and those who were willing to fight for justice. My first encounter with a radical political ideology was Marxism which I studied for several years in university. However, after working with some Marxist-Leninists on the university paper and reading about the implementation of Marxism in the USSR, I became disillusioned with the authoritarian nature of Marxist parties. At the same time, I traveled to Europe during the late 70's and became active in a support network for the Marxist urban guerrillas, the Red Army Faction and Red Brigades. Exposure to these groups refined my critique of Marxism. I realized that there was so much more wrong with western civilization than an unequal distribution of wealth and power as epitomized in the concept of class struggle. In fact I felt that Marxism was outdated and lacked the depth of critique needed to address modern society's alienation from nature and lack of respect for other cultures and life forms. When I returned to Canada, my involvement in the prison abolition, anarchist, environmental, native and feminist movements, rounded out my political experience. Through working in these different movements, I came to realize that what was needed was a unique revolutionary movement that could launch a more offensive campaign against the root causes of these "issues." Unique; because it would not be based on a static political ideology, but would evolve and describe our modern day experience. I also felt that we needed to reject pacifism as an ideology because historically it has only contributed to our pacification. In other words we needed a militant revolutionary movement that would also embrace the diversity of tactics. GA: One thing we are curious about, and something we think all those who want to challenge the system on any significant level can learn from, are the events in your life and the political context which led to your transformation from a political activist to an urban guerrilla? AH: I grew up during the 60' s when the FLQ, one of the first North American urban guerrilla groups, was active in Quebec, Canada. I read Pierre Valliere's book, White Niggers of America, and agreed that the English corporate elite would never let Quebec secede peacefully from Canada. I also was of age in 1973 when the CIA backed Pinochet's military coup of the democratically elected government of Salvadore Allende in Chile. And of course, my childhood and teenage years were filled with the news of the US governments campaign to crush the Viet Cong in Viet Nam. I was not politically sophisticated during those years, but I did understand that the US military continued to wage war against the Viet Cong despite the peaceful protests by t h e American students at home. Even then it dawned on me that the only reason the American government eventually pulled out of Viet Nam was because they simply could not win against the Viet Cong guerrilla tactics and the support of the Vietnamese people. I didn't have to go to university to study politics to come to the conclusion that corporations and governments were using the military to protect their interests against the people. I simply had to read the daily newspaper and watch the evening news. News report after news report during the late 70's continued to reinforce this fact. The Sandinista guerrillas in Nicaragua enjoyed the popular support of the people, yet the American CIA continually schemed through the contras to defeat them. In El Salvador, the CIA backed death squads who massacred villagers, religious leaders, women and children. I was not the only political activist in Canada who supported the FLQ, the Viet Cong, Sandinistas and the FSLN. However I was one of the few who did not leave my support for armed struggle south of the Rio Grande. Most activists at the time, and unfortunately still today, support guerrilla groups in so-called third world countries, but conveniently analyze that the same tactics are not effective here in North America or Europe. To put it simply, this privileged exemption of white European and American radicals from the perils of death and prison smacks of imperialism and racism. Seeing this hypocrisy for what it was, we reasoned that militant actions are most important in the heart of imperialism. We believed that militant actions could play a role in the development of a revolutionary movement and had to start somewhere someday, why not now? GA-What mistakes did you make when taking actions that we can learn from today? AH: I think the most obvious mistake was depending on the security guards and police to clear the Litton plant before the bomb was set to go off. It is a real mistake to depend on the guardians of the state to act flawlessly, particularly if the safety of your action depends on it. This mistake led to a number of injuries. Militant actions should avoid injuries to both human and animal life if at all possible for both moral as well as reasons of effectiveness. Once we embark on a path of targeting individuals, where do we draw the line? In today's global economy, we are all both responsible yet innocent. We can not control whether we are born on a gray blanket in an Afghan refugee camp or a mansion with a silver spoon in our mouths. Of course as we grow older, we become more and more responsible for both our individual social responsibilities as well as those of the society into which we were born. As a result, those born into wealth and power are more responsible for the oppression of their society, but even the poor have a responsibility to right the injustices of their society. Besides being immoral, militant actions that target individuals, are generally ineffective because even the most responsible and reprehensible individuals are replaceable in this global economy driven by multinational corporations. For example, if a CEO of a large oil company were to advocate signing the Kyoto Accords and using primarily renewable energy, the shareholders and other executives would soon have him fired or demoted. Unless a CEO can keep the price of stocks and shares high, he will soon be replaced by someone who can. But more importantly than the fact that individuals are replaceable in today's economy, is the fact that corporations just don't give a damn about life unless it costs them money. Think about all the controversial corporate policies we hear about today. The Glaxco drug company challenging the legality of the South African government distributing affordable generic drugs to AIDS victims in Africa. Shell Oils legacy of allowing high levels of sour gas emissions, polluting and killing whole villages in Nigeria. The NAFTA tribunal's decision to allow the company Metalclad to dump toxic wastes in a Mexican village, polluting their drinking water, over-ruling municipal bylaws outlawing this practice. Let's face it, corporations may put on a sad face when human lives are lost at either their hands or someone else's, but the real pain they feel, is when their profit margins narrow, their stocks fall, when capital is affected adversely. This is the area where the corporate state is vulnerable and sensitive. This is the area that activists should be targeting. Besides relying on security guards and police to prevent major injuries during the Litton bombing, I would also question our entire model of a small high tech underground guerrilla cell. I wouldn't go so far as to say that in all situations both now and in the future, that underground guerrilla cells are wrong, but I think there are other models that are more effective for today's conditions. We modeled our group after the urban guerrillas in West Germany, Italy and the United States in the 70's. These groups, in turn, were modeled after Palestinian and South American guerrilla groups which operated under very repressive conditions in countries where they enjoyed popular support. The social conditions of the Palestinians and South Americans are very different than those of the western industrial nations. They operate in countries where there is no legal opportunity to organize or resist. And they could count on significant numbers of people to either join or support the guerrilla forces. These guerrillas lived completely underground to avoid capture from the police. This entailed acquiring false identification, using weapons and carrying out robberies or kidnappings for money. Most of their political actions involved bombings, highjacking and assassinations. This high tech, socially isolated lifestyle is the model we chose to follow although we did not believe in killing or injuring people. In a short time the stress and social isolation of living in such a small cell began to take it's toll. We were personally unhappy and were becoming alienated from our community. I would be naive to think that conditions in North America have improved since the early 80's. There is still a small proportion of the population who identify as revolutionaries and who would support "armed struggle." As a result a group similar to ours would more than likely become alienated from the community, begin to show poor judgment and eventually be arrested with no continuity. During the early 80's, the Wimmin's Fire Brigade(WFB) enjoyed the widest popular support and was the most successful in achieving it's goals of stopping the spread of a particularly violent pornography chain, Red Hot Video. The WFB was made up of wimmin in the community who carried out the firebombings and then immediately melded back into the community. They did not have to go underground, get false identification, guns, dynamite or carry out robberies. I think this model is still the most effective for today's conditions. Probably the closest thing to the Wimmin's Fire Brigade is the ELF and ALF. GAWe often get frustrated with the lack of support (both vocally for their actions and ideas, and physically for political prisoners) for underground groups who have similar ideas and orientation as aboveground groups or individuals. It seems that for any meaningful resistance there needs to be a connection on some level between underground cells and larger social movements. What are your feelings on this? AH-Of course it is very important that there is support between the "aboveground" and "underground." The usual divisions arise over the questions of "violence" versus "non-violence", and over identifying as revolutionaries or reformists. I think it is important that those of us who identify as revolutionaries and who understand that direct actions aimed at economic sabotage are not "violence" should speak out. There are lots of people who have chosen not to join the "underground" but they can be just as important by refusing to be silent or marginalized. The more vocal and in your face we are, the more likely it is that people will hear our ideas and understand them. There are many people out there who silently support the "underground" but are afraid to vocalize their support because they feel isolated and alone. Maybe the anarchists who are not "underground" should start our own environmental, prison abolition, animal liberation, feminist groups that are based on anti-authoritarian, militant politics. So many radicals join groups such as the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, Greenpeace, Humane Societies because they want to be "legitimate" and accepted by society. Unfortunately in their desperation, they end up being co-opted and reformist. The more of us who stand up and say who and what we are, without compromise or begging for acceptance, the more likely it is that the silent majority will hear and join us. GA-We feel it is important for groups to maintain autonomy within the larger context of political struggle, and to promote an anti-mass method of organizing. Do you feel that the cell or affinity group structure is an effective method of organization, and how can this fit into a larger struggle? AH-I think the cell or affinity group structure is effective as long as there are basic principles that they follow. This is the model that the Black Bloc and ELF and ALF follow. The reason for a basic set of principles is to avoid cases of either naive rebels or police infiltrators carrying o u t h o r r i f i c actions in the name of the group and thus discrediting it. Although discrediting the grou recognized as somethi try to do, a lot of peopL that many well-intentio have the political sophi: their actions against Without basic political p] actions, it is possible fo: react spontaneously shopkeepers, individuals, old cars, etc etc. Some basic principles that can guide the actions of autonomous affinity groups are: 1) actions should avoid injuries to people and animals as much as humanly possible 2) that actions target major corporate and government structures 3) that actions be accompanied with communiques that reflect the politics of the group. The strength of the cell or affinity group structure is that individuals can work closely together, getting to know each other which also prevents police infiltration. Yet they can also be part of a larger movement without sacrificing the personal element that an affinity group provides. GA-Often, as people working towards social transformation, we get trapped by political ideology. Some of us are trying to transcend politics and connect with people on more basic levels, like the alienation in our lives, how we are going to feed ourselves, the unhealthy and toxified world we live in, and our spiritual emptiness. Do you see this as a positive approach to connecting with people in a non-authoritarian and nonideological way? AH-I think that the way a person relates to other people on a basic day-to-day level does not transcend politics because it is politics. Politics is a word to describe the social relations that a society has developed in order for it to function as a whole. Those relations can be determined by a strict ideology dictated by the state or, in a healthy society, by free thinking individuals who act according to their own ethical standards. The great danger of placing a political ideology on a pedestal is that it becomes like a religion — a belief system with which one develops an identity. People begin to define themselves by their ideology rather than by their actions; the “do as I say, not as I do” syndrome. Politics is not what we preach, but how we live and relate to others in our community. GA-Direct Action was one of the only armed struggle or underground anarchist groups (that we are aware of) who were explicitly addressing industrial civilization and patriarchy, and who were targeting institutions integral to the reproduction and perpetuation of the patriarchal system. What are your current views on industrial civilization and patriarchy? What do you feel radicals today can be doing to help dismantle these systems of domination? AH-My current views on industrial civilization and patriarchy are not much different than they were 25 years ago. I still believe that industrial civilization and patriarchy are founded on a materialistic value system that worships greed and power. Our entire capitalist economic system is founded on this value system and reinforces it to the degree that at this point it is difficult to say which determines whichdoes the economic system determine the value system of society or visa versa? It hardly matters. Economists, in general, overemphasize the importance of economic relations in people's lives. Although humans are much more complex than simply materialistic beings with materialistic needs, I would agree that the way a person makes a living and therefore spends a large portion of their lives, is going to be a prime determinant of their values and how they live. This being the case, those of us living in capitalist societies are constantly being conditioned to value everything for it's economic value; trees as lumber, mountains as mineral resources, people as consumers, animals as meat and pets. Not all societies have placed such a high priority on economics or materialism. In particular, there were many tribal societies which placed a much greater value on "the spirit world" and nature. Unfortunately, I suspect that some tribal societies have also been plagued by patriarchy. I don't think that industrial civilization is it's only domain. Humans are imperfect creatures and no matter what kind of societies we live in, there will never come a day when we won't have to be alert and prepared to struggle against patriarchy, greed and power. If we are to create better societies, we have to work on many different levels. Our personal lives should reflect our political ideology. As such we should consider what we eat, where we shop, how we relate to others and where we work. At the same time, I think we do have to develop an offensive movement against the corporate state because if we wait for it to sink on it’s own, we may find ourselves, and every other living thing on this planet, going down with the ship. So I don’t think there is a contradiction between living one’s politics and working together as a movement to replace the existing society with a new one. GA-Where do you see things heading, politically and environmentally, in the next ten years? Do you feel optimistic or discouraged about our ability to build a movement that really challenges the patriarchal-industrial system in its totality, or do you feel that we have already run out of time? AH-Over the next ten years, if the western corporate elite remain in control I believe that the multinational corporations will continue to consolidate their power over all governments. This will not be a pretty picture for those living in the southern hemisphere nor will it be pleasant for those in the east. Governments will continue to loose any kind of legislative control over corporations, and corporations will continue the current trend of consolidating their power through nondemocratic bodies such as the WTO, WB, FTAA, etc. As these corporations grow, they will continue to intrude more and more into every aspect of our lives, until very soon, there will be little space that corporate culture has not possessed. A huge western corporate monoculture will exist, spectacular in it's superficiality, yet destructive beyond reason. People on this planet will become so domesticated and institutionalized that they will soon become as free-thinking and independent as a factory farm chicken. I think the biggest threat to people in the western industrialized world building a movement isn't the police or state but rather our own wealth, privilege and social conditioning. More and more like the modern day chicken, we become increasingly unable to survive outside of the artificial environment that we have created for ourselves; brainwashed to believe that the way we are living now is the only way to live. Sometimes I fear that we may have run out of time, but those of us who have not lost our spirit to the corporate world have no choice but "to rage against the dying of the light", as Dylan Thomas so aptly put it. We have no choice but to be free, passionate, wild, and creative and would rather go down fighting than go down dead before we even get there. I don't think any of us are revolutionaries because we believe that we will "win" or "succeed" in our ultimate goal. I don't think we have a choice to be anything other than what we are : to compromise is to die a spiritual, emotional and intellectual death. We are living alternatively because we believe it is right, not because we will "win." GA-What is your current legal status? AH-I am on parole for the rest of my natural life which means that I have to report my whereabouts to a parole officer as well as follow whatever conditions the parole board stipulates or I can be put back in prison. At this point it's kind of like being on a long leash. GA-What projects are you currently working on? AH-I am currently working around prison abolition. We are concentrating on prison "issues" within a revolutionary context. I think the key when working around prison "issues" is to work within a coalition that has a revolutionary analysis to avoid becoming reformist and shortsighted. I am also doing some individual animal rescue work and beginning work on another book which will loosely revolve around what life in prison does to a person, and the role prison plays in society. In the long-term I would like to see a coalition of different groups working loosely together based on common rinciples; sharing a non-authoritarian revolutionary analysis; supporting the iversity of tactics including direct action; referring all life and the different cultures thatelB^ on this planet. Recommended Reading: Writings Of The Vancouver Five Available from the Green Anarchy Distro for $2 at PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440 Disorderly Conduct #5/ Spring 2002 Contains an excellent article on Direct Action and the Wimmins Fire Brigade ■Available for $3 from Green Anarchy PO 3ox 11331, Eugene OR 97440 \narchy: A Journal Of Desire Armed, #53/ tSpringSummer 2002 A third of this issue lof Anarchy is devoted to honoring and ldiscussing Direct Action. Contains Legend Of The Squamish Five” by Jonathan Slyk, and “Epilogue To Memoirs Of An Urban Guerrilla.” by Ann Hansen Reprints the communique’s that Direct Action released after the Cheekeye-Dunsmuir and Litton bombings. ** TO DO WHA T IS POSSIBLE, RA THER THAN WHAT IS PERMITTED/ EARTH AND ANIMAL LIBERATION ACTIONS FROM GROUND OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET Liberation begins at home. In our personal lives, we find disdain for the rampant and absurd destruction of all life and all manifestations of wildness. What is not destroyed is assimilated, imprisoned or otherwise mutilated. There are no solutions to be found pandering to officials and their goons, this point is obvious. The prolific increase of actions in defense of life after September 1 1 , in this time of a heightened security and police state, demonstrate the frustration and dispossession that accompany the way of life we have been dealt. Be careful, study hard, learn to be secure, don't get caught, and most of all, carry on comrades. *** May 20-23, Australia: Protests Against Development Intensify Wollongong: Around 150 people broke through the fence at the Sandon Point development site. The contractors and their equipment withdrew to a fenced inner compound. Some people then marched up to the inner compound and proceeded to pull down the fence around it. When it was completely demolished attention turned to the perimeter fence around the whole site. Groups of people pulled down the entire fence and destroyed as many of the posts as possible. Eventually about 40-50 police arrived. Protesters fled the area. Seven people were arrested. Two days later the developers attempted to begin their work, but the fence was again breached by protesters. One picketer chained herself to a digger and others joined her in support. About 30-40 police were on hand to arrest people. Altogether 16 people were arrested. The arrestees were charged with a range of offenses including "assaulting police". A woman was also arrested for throwing a rock at a contractor. Most protesters refused to accept their bail conditions of "staying further than 200 meters from the Stocklans site." So, they were transferred to the Wollongong court cells and put before a magistrate. The campaign to stop the development is being fought on many fronts and it's intensifying rapidly. Background on the situation: Sandon Point has long been an open community area and part of it is also sacred ground of the traditional indigenous owners of the land. The protests against construction have received popular support from the local communities, and the protests have been organized in a non-hierarchical way. For more info, email: anarcho_sando@hotmail.com [image not archived] "Save the Earth or Await Destruction" *** June 12-13, Holland: ELF Attacks Genetic Engineering Research Laboratory As Part Of A Month Of Ecological Insurrection Utrecht: The Earth Liberation Front (ELF) disinfected a genetically altered field trial with "elvenwine". The trial, situated in the Botanical Gardens of the Utrecht University, has supposedly been destroyed. "The genetically modified bacteria have deceased because of us spilling our distilled elvenwine," says the ELF in a statement delivered to the Dutch environmentalist magazine Ravage. The ELF also states: "We had a bit of a party a week or so before midsummer, and those gardens are the only thing that's a bit nice in the concrete apocalypse of De Uithof [the main campus of the Utrecht University] . It went down all right and it turned out to work. Maybe we'll try it a again for midsummer! So girls and boys, have a new moon party on those weird mutant fields, oh and there was the eco insurgence month that we agree upon." The group apparently refers to the "month of ecological insurrection" called for by GroenFront! (the Dutch version of Earth First!). The group ends their statement with words that characterize the ELF: 'Wo Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!" The Earth Liberation Front is an international radical environmental movement with the purpose of committing ecologically inspired sabotage, to economically damage polluters and earth-rapers. *** July 8, Kentucky: ELF Action Against Wal-Mart [image of a wal-mart burning with the words: STEAL WHAT YOU NEED AND BURN THE REST] Louisville: From the communique: In the darkness of night July 8th, the Earth Liberation Front traveled through the dense forest behind the recently built Fern Creek Wal-Mart Supercenter in Louisville, Kentucky. Liberators climbed up a hillside and proceeded to slash the tires of a construction equipment trailer. Messages such as "Stop Sprawl" and "Respect" were painted on the wall of the Wal-Mart and a construction trailer in the parking lot. The locks on the main construction trailer were glued and four windows were smashed out. This action is a protest against the sprawl which seeks to expand its treacherous grip beyond the Gene Snyder Freeway and into the outer limits of Louisville - seeking a never-ending expansion of strip shopping centers. In the process, beautiful areas of forest and streams are paved over to make way for another multinational chain that profits from the destruction of the earth, animals, and workers. The ELF is only beginning in the Kentuckiana region. As more wilderness and farmland areas are paved under and precious pieces of earth sold for the profit of a few, more actions are being planned. We will not stop until the developers and oligarchs do. With love and hope, ELF. *** July 10, Washington: Animal Rights Activists SmokeBomb Downtown Buildings Seattle: Smoke grenades were set off in two downtown Seattle buildings. One smoke device went off on the 23rd floor of the 28 floor Financial Center at 1215 Fourth Ave. A few minutes earlier, a similar smoke device was set off on the 20th floor of the One Convention Place building at Seventh Avenue and Pike Street. Marsh Inc., an insurance underwriter for HLS (Huntingdon Life Sciences) has offices in both buildings. One anonymous poster to the news wire stated: "Marsh and Guy Carpenter got 'smoked out of their holes'." The poster added "As George W Bush stated, we need to smoke these terrorists out of their holes! Insuring the murder of 500 animals every day is not acceptable." Quoted from the SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) Website: "As reported by some media outlets, SHAC is not affiliated with the attack. Although we do support direct action, as long as it does not hurt any animal, human or non human, we do not engage in, organize or fund such activities. However we do applaud those brave enough to do so." SHAC and many animal rights advocates have an ongoing campaign to close down HLS Labs. HLS Labs tortures and kills 180,000 animals a year. That is 500 animals a day! *** July 19: Arizona Construction Site Attacked Tuscon: An arson at an unidentified construction site causes $1,500 in damage. Sewer pipes are found arranged into the letters "ELF." We have no further information on this action at this time. *** August 9, Oregon: Pryor Timber Sale Spiked From the communique: In order to defend the delicate ecosystems of the Salmon Creek and Salt Creek watersheds, a small autonomous group of individuals took action at the Pryor timber sale. Dozens of trees in each of the sale units were spiked with both 50-penny and 60-penny nails. In several instances, scattered throughout the units, non-metallic spikes were used in order to elude metal detectors. All spikes were placed at a variety of heights on the tree, high and low. This action took place several months ago, after the contract for Pryor was officially awarded to Roseburg Forest Products/ Scott Timber. We choose to delay the announcement of this action until logging was imminent. The safety of all workers now rests in the hands of Roseburg Forest Products and their partner in crime, the U.S. forest service. This 250 acre timber sale is located along the Eugene to Pacific Crest Trail, Aubrey Mountain, and a roadless area near Heckletooth Mountain, in what is known as the Willamette National Forest. Pryor is also adjacent to the Bunchgrass Ridge roadless area and the infamous Warner Burn. Much of the Pryor area has been naturally regenerated by fire in the past 200 years. Some trees survived the fires and are now 400+ years old. All but one of the sale units is previously unharvested native forest. We will make sure it remains that way. Wildlife that would be effected by logging activity here include the northern spotted owl, peregrine falcon, red legged frog, and the elusive wolverine. Species including bull trout and Chinook salmon historically existed here and one day we hope that they will thrive again. Companies such as Roseburg Forest Products are destroying our planet for prof it . We will no longer be passive observers. We will stand in the way of greed at every step. We will not rest until the greedy machines of destruction cease to exist. We are everywhere. *** August 11 , Pennsylvania: ELF Torches United States Forest Service Northeast Research Station Irvine: The ELF Press Office received the following communique on September 1, 2002: The Earth Liberation Front is claiming responsibility for the 8111102 arson attack on the United States Forest Service Northeast Research Station in Irvine, Pennsylvania. The laboratory was set ablaze during the early morning hours, causing over $700,000 damage, and destroying part of 70 years worth of research. This lesson in "prescribed fire" was a natural, necessary response to the threats posed to life in the Allegheny Forest by proposed timber sales, oil drilling, and greed driven manipulation of Nature. This facility was strategically targeted, and if rebuilt, will be targeted again for complete destruction. Furthermore, all other U.S. Forest Service administration and research facilities, as well as all DCNR buildings nationwide should now be considered likely targets. These agencies continue to ignore and mislead the public, at the bidding of their corporate masters, leaving us with no alternative to underground direct action. Their blatant disregard for the sanctity of life and its perfect Natural balance, indifference to strong public opposition, and the irrevocable acts of extreme violence they perpetrate against the Earth daily are all inexcusable, and will not be tolerated. If they persist in their crimes against life, they will be met with maximum retaliation. In pursuance of justice, freedom, and equal consideration for all innocent life across the board, segments of this global "non-violent" ideology. While innocent life will never be harmed in any action we undertake, where it is necessary, we will no longer hesitate to pick up the gun to implement justice , and provide the needed protectionfor our planet that decades of legal battles, pleading, protest, and economic' sabotage have failed 'so drastically to achieve. The diverse efforts of this revolutionary force cannot be contained, and will only continue to intensify as we are brought face to face with the oppressor in inevitable, violent confrontation. We will stand up and fight for our lives against this iniquitous civilization until its reign of terror is forced to an end-by any means necessary. In defense of all life, -Pacific E.L.F. *** August 18, Iowa: Group Breaks Into Farm To Release 1,200 Mink; Half Recaptured Waverly : Members of an animal-rights group cut fences and broke open pens at a mink farm, releasing hundreds of the cat-sized animals prized for their fur. Becky Demuth, who owns the farm with her husband, said about 1,200 mink escaped and half were recovered the following day. She said others had been run over by vehicles or killed by dogs. "Those that are recovered are in high stress. They're not used to running free," Demuth said. "We're talking thousands of dollars in damage. Our family farm has truly been hit in its heart." The mink were scheduled to be killed in October, Demuth said. Animal Liberation Front spokesman David Barbarash said he received an anonymous email in which members of the group claimed responsibility for the attack at the Misty Moonlight Mink Ranch. He said members target mink farms to give the animals "a chance of freedom." "A percentage will die, there's no doubt about that," said Barbarash. "But all of them would die at the hands of the mink farmer if they weren't released. Outside their cages, they do have a fighting chance of survival." This farm is 20 miles south of another farm where the group claimed responsibility for releasing over 14,000 mink in 2000. ** LOOK FORWARD IN ANGER! ANARCHISTRESISTANCE AROUND THE WORLD *** June 1, Greece: Arson Attack On The Headquarters OfTheRulingSocialist Party Athens: A gasoline bomb started a small fire outside the headquarters of the governing Socialist Party in central Athens. No one was injured and the fire caused minor damage. Police have a long-standing rivalry with anarchists in the area, and the street where the attack took place is guarded around the clock. Anarchist arsonists carry out dozens of attacks in the capital each year, typically targeting the vehicles and property of large companies, government departments and embassies. *** June 8, Australia: Italian Football Fans and Anarchists Battle Police Sydney: In the community of Leichardt (a suburb with a large Italian population), people gathered on Norton St. to watch the Italy vs Croatia World Cup match. Shortly after the game began, police were forced to close Norton St. because they couldn't control the thousands of people who came out to enjoy this event. Italy lost 1-2 but the mood was still festive. There was a beautiful pyrotechnics display sponsored by the youth of Leichardt. When police tried to stop this and move people along in an aggressive manner the crowd responded by shouting insults, chanting anticop slogans, and spitting at the cops. The situation quickly escalated. Football fans and anarchists ran onto the streets blocking traffic and reclaiming several roads. Police moved in shortly after and dispersed the crowd. Cops were attacked with bottles, fireworks and eggs. Several of the pigs were injured, unfortunately no fatalities. The cops had fear in their eyes and obviously could not deal with the situation. This is because people were highly organized, using mobile phones to communicate police movements, and were structured into affinity groups. This display of working class resistance demonstrates that some will not accept pigs meddling in community affairs. *** July 2-3, Italy: Anarchists Attack Antenna And Transmitter Installation Bergamo: During the night on the peak of a mountain where antenna and transmitter installations important to the entire Lombard region are located, an incendiary attack took place, slightly damaging some transmitters. At the site of the fire a circled A was found. Cellphone and television transmission towerswhich are known to produce electro -magnetic pollution that leads to high cancer and leukemia rates in the areas they are located, and which have also become one of the main linchpins of the technological system - have been targeted with relentless regularity in recent years by anarchists in Italy (see this issues State Repression News section for more details). *** July 6-8: Anarchist Solidarity Actions With The November 17 Movement In Greece On July 6, Greek police, assisted by American and British agents, raided an apartment and found dozens of antitank rockets they believe ere the same stolen from he army in the late 1980s by the elusive November 17 group. Police now believe that they have sized most, if not all, of the group's known arsenal, owever, November 17's hadowy members, sought or nearly three decades, ontinue to elude arrest, olice estimate that the group has less than a few dozen members. Anarchist groups reacted to the raids with two firebomb attacks in Athens. One slightly damaged a building at a cemetery where Commonwealth soldiers who died during World War II are buried. The other slightly damaged an Athens bank. ed. note: direct action taken by individuals in order to breakdown domination and control is utterly important. Times are grave but we at GA feel that by creating anarchy there is a chance to re balance this abused planet. With severe risk to themselves people continue to strike out at authority hoping to one day break the stranglehold it has over our whole planet. We at GA salute all who do such. We will publicize every action we can. ** Green Apathy Tour 2002: A Critique Of Slactivism by Chuck A. Rock [GA collective note; Green Anarchy would like to set the record straight. We had nothing to do with the "Green Anarchy Tour of 2002" , other than advertising for it in issue #9. This article does not represent the views of the collective, it is a submission by an individual regarding their experience with the tour. Addtionally, not every member of the editorial collective favored publishing this article as we consider other situations in the world to be of more pressing importance. ] I joined forces with the GA tour of 2002 in Long Beach, Calif., on the 24th of July. I had just got back into the country from Europe and was really excited that the tour was going to be in the belly of the beast (L.A.) at the same time as me. I had first heard about it via word of mouth, and later checked out the web page. The web page looked really good and hyped the tour as a filmfest, with speakers, action workshops, spoken word, and music. It professed that it was "destroying civilization on this stolen land." Aside from the large number of dates in the short time span it seemed like my kind of gig. I thought I could add something to the tour. When I met up with the tour in Long Beach California I was Xtremely disappointed. In fact there are few words I can use to describe how let-down I was. I had expected things that did not even exist. The tour was HYPE! There were no speeches, no workshops, no poetry, and the filmfest was videos on a little-assTV. And as far as music there wasn't much.Worse yet, there were 14 folks touring and I could hardly figure out why. Half of them had no obvious role. But for some reason (maybe masochism) I still decided to contribute my efforts to the tour. The dynamics of the tour were like this: the band is the #1 focus. There was an invisible centralized decision-making body, that disguised itself with a consensus process. Finances for the tour were a mess and alcohol was abundant. From Long Beach there was an LA show that had no film, no workshops and the only speaker was myself. The next day there was supposed to be a San Diego show that never happened. After that the Hype traveled to Las Vegas where an excited group of six watched the videos. The music venue canceled so the show was in the desert for about eight drunk people. After a long beautiful drive through the Arizona desert we arrived late to the Phoenix show. The community in Phoenix was beautiful and passionately serious. I felt embarrassed to show up with the eleven other folks who were still on the tour. We had nothing really to offer them. After the videos were shown I got together a GA discussion, since there were no workshops. The people were intelligent and an energetic discussion occurred with more than twenty folks. I felt a highlight of the tour was seeing communities like Phoenix who had their shit together. After crashing the Tribe Infoshop in a drunken stupor, we left for Texas through more desert. A group of us watched the Sun rise over the New Mexico desert, hanging out with Raven, desert flowers in bloom and amazing sky. It was green anarchy in the physical. My tears absorbed into the desert sand, as the world got more polluted. Sad enough the best thing we could offer to stop this shit and turn it around was a pathetic tour guzzling gas across the country. We arrived at the El Paso gig early (for a change), but the whole crew was burnt out. We set up a table with merchandise, literature and videos, but nobody was competent enough to stay with it all day. Although we arrived early, we still slacked and let El Paso down. No workshops, only another discussion. We left El Paso before the last band played, but it was still physically impossible to arrive on time to the next venue. I drove 85mph for five hundred miles and was still three and a half hours late to Austin. Here is where I give props to the super competent organizer of this tour who forgot to factor in such real things as sleep and time zone changes. We showed up in Austin to a group of disappointed anarchists. "There were a bunch of people here earlier, but they all left. Maybe they'll be back later?" An Austin kid said. The folks in Austin were very conscious, and it seemed like we didn't really need to be there 'cause we had nothing new to offer them. We were even more burnt out than the last show. The finances were in shambles, and we barely had enough cash to make it on to Houston. All of the drivers were heavily taxed, myself especially included. Next was Houston, where we arrived 8 or 9 hours late. No filmfest, no workshops, only a disappointing music group playing to disappointed kids. By this time I was sick and tired of this tour. Sick and tired of the let-down looks on the faces of the folks we met. I can only commend the organizers' good intentions, because the logistics of the tour were so poorly organized that I could puke. [Image of a crashed car with the caption Friends don't let friends do Green Anarchy Tours] ** ANARCHY IS NOT A LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY! If we are to ever again live as earth-based humans in face-to-face communities, then we would have to take responsibility for our every action. If the highest form of government was the self, then eating, shitting, sleeping and especially face-to-face interactions would be solely our own responsibility. In western civilization we form only a tiny part of a big industrial machine that we can take no responsibility for. We are taught this, to be a tiny cog, easily replaceable, the machine will function with or without you. No responsibility, not for food, shelter, personal accountability, etc... We sell our responses to the government machine. I feel many anarchists misunderstand anarchy to mean total lack of responsibility. I argue that anarchy is the natural ability to respond to the motion of the world. Apathy about the state of the world is understandable, but it is not anarchy. Anarchy is a place. It is every place wild, where the universe is not confined by human dominance. As far as the tour is concerned there was nothing that resembled anarchy, or resembled a shade of green. Good ideas don't mean shit. We all know the Machine is threatening the biosphere's capacity to sustain humanity. What will-if anything-threaten its course of action? Certainly not Apathy, even if it is 'green'. I feel our chance to alter its toxic course lies in creating the places of Anarchy. So be apathetic if you will, but please don't call it anarchy. I left the tour two days after one of the gasguzzling vans broke down in the bayous of Louisiana. I felt that I did a lot to change the attitude of the tour, but not enough. The decision-making body seemed not to listen to my critique or suggestions. I don't know if the tour ever crawled out of the swamps. I hope it did and hopefully it left indifference behind. To all the folks who were hoping to experience this tour I apologize for any letdown, though maybe you are better off. And to all the folks who showed up in the places it did go through, I apologize for the HYPE and let-down. To all involved with the tour, lets get moving onto real revolutionary projects, those that will help break shackles of government and techno-dominion. We don't need better luck Excessive alcohol consumption has been a nex t time we need feature of western civilization for centuries better planning and execution. Let's respond the best our warped minds will let us to the current ecological Armageddon. "a dead pig is a dead pig, even if they're killed by a leftist, a leftist is a leftist, even if they kill a pig..." ** September 4: Statement From The Earth Liberation Front Press Office Over the past several months, it has come to our attention that people are unclear about whether the Earth Liberation Front Press Office (ELFPO) is still being attended to, and what support the ELFPO is continuing to give in the absence of an identifiable spokesperson. Although there is no single person who communicates for the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), there are still people distributing press releases, communiques, and other information to further the goals of ELF activists. We remain steadfastly committed to disseminating information as it becomes avaiable, and updating the ELFPO website. We recognize that over the past few months communications and website updates have been inconsistent and this will be corrected in the upcoming weeks. We will only conduct interviews via email at the current time as those who are working on the ELFPO wish to remain anonymous to the media and the general public. Please forward requests for media interviews to The ELFPO is a legal, above-ground news service dedicated to exposing the political and social motives behind the covert direct actions of the underground ELF. The ELFPO receives anonymous communiques from the underground ELF and distributes the message to the media and public nation-wide. For more info, visit the ELFPO website: www.earthliberationfront.com ** Towards A Paleolithic Existence by Mountain Goat the plow has probably done more harm - in the long run - than the sword... As with some of your readers, I too have become seduced with the hope of civilization's collapse. John Zerzan and others have clearly provided a powerful critique of our present situation. Of the many paths toward our hopes of a better world, this article speaks of a revolution in our everyday lives. After working in agriculture for a good portion of my life, I agree with Zerzan's critique of it (at least I get to be outside!). It is inherently unsustainable. Don't believe the hype, sustainable agriculture rarely ever exists. It is practically impossible to remove a large amount of biomass (food) from a space year after year without replenishing the soil. Conventional forms don't worry about soil health and feed the plants chemically. This destroys the soil and fosters further chemical dependence. Organic farms replenish the soil and feed their plants by applying organic material. Their products are usually superior in quality. But the question remains as to where the organic material used to replenish comes from. More often than not, factory farm or trawler left-overs are used on certified organic farms (sorry vegans). Factory farm animals are usually fed chemically grown grain because there just isn't enough animal products to go around. Most organic farms are unsustainable in the long term because they import their nutrients/biomass from elsewhere. They are just one link in the funneling of our soil resources down the toilet. Not to mention all the fuel spent doing it. Although it is hard to grow demanding crops without chemical or heavy animal fertilizers, there are sustainable examples to be had. Gardening or small scale farming can use home made composts and composted humanure. The Chinese developed a sustainable civilization by integrating human waste back into the system. Masanobu Fukuoka claims to achieve higher than average yields without outside inputs. But even if all the world was growing food in this idyllic manner, it would totally fail to meet my criteria of being ecologically sound, among other things. How many salmon can swim though an exposed stream next to a carrot patch? How many eagles live in a strawberry field? Seen any bobcats in the collards recently (besides eating chickens)? You cannot purchase a solution to this. Basically, if you're buying conventional food (organic or not), you are directly supporting the eradication and suppression of the wild. I should remind the reader that if he or she must consume domesticated food, a vegetable based diet is less destructive than a meat based one and a dumpster based diet beats all. A hunter-gatherer food system, on the other hand, is completely compatible with the environment and can, in some areas, provide an abundance of food. For this to be an option in a native ecosystem, property lines cannot exist, as travel between vastly different regions is necessary. Another drawback is the amount of people it could support. I highly doubt that the current population (built on future resources) could return to this existence. I've wondered if there was a way to produce as much food per square foot as conventional I agriculture and yet meet the ecological criteria of a huntergatherer food system. I looked for nexus points between the two worlds. For the purposes of this article, I will call it the modified gatherer food system. Aspects of it are found in agroforestry and permaculture. Agroforestry, while solving many of the ecological problems of agriculture, still exists in a surplus/capitalist world. Permaculture integrates the system theories into its larger all-encompassing lifestylism. One principle of it is its reliance on wild plants. I believe that humanity has failed in its attempts to improve on nature through breeding. Breeding has usually been for increased size (water content), transportation issues (shelf life), and better taste (sugar content). What we have lost in exchange for these things is nutrition. Recent studies have shown anti-oxidant activity to be far higher in wild fruits and a couple of dandelion leaves can beat a head of lettuce nutritionally. So it is important to also realize that producing more calories out of a given space is not the only criteria for a food system's superiority. Feral plants and reseeding annuals can reproduce by themselves, completely eliminating the labor of saving seeds. They can hold their own alongside natives (not always a good thing). Once established, perennial trees and shrubs require little care. Once gathered or purchased, they intersect very little with capital. The knowledge of edible weeds and native plants allow the landless a free food source. A knowledge of edible landscape plants can turn even an urban area into a forager's delight. Wild plants require less specialization to grow and can be a challenge to a highly cultured pallet. They therefore are highly resistant to commodification (i.e., it is hard to make a living growing them). Another principle of the modified gatherer food system is multi-story production. This involves mimicking a forest by using plants of all different sizes (trees, shrubs, perennials, and bulbs). Since private property limits movement, one should draw from the wide variety of edible/useful plants available for their zone. There are literally thousands of edible species of plants in the world. One potential of having so many bred cultivars available (in civilization) is the ability to obtain genetic diversity and then learn which plants work best with your site, helping you to exit civilization. All this diversity in size and type of plants should produce what will appear to the layman as a chaotic jumble. Organized instructions and calendars will be of little use now. Some books will reveal detailed processing info, but most of what you now learn pertains specifically to your space and therefore remains uncharted. With the sophisticated knowledge needed to fully utilize everything and the lack of straight lines, this system is also highly resistant to slave labor and mechanization. These are very shortened principles of a system designed to be resistant to the worst ravages of capitalism (although some aspects of it can be recuperated). This system is also compatible with the environment and virtually everyone can participate in it to some degree. A main barrier to its implementation is its incompatibility with industrial capitalism, but the habits of our everyday lives and our cultural programming reproduce the present. Food produced in it is unlike the domesticated fare we're used to. Plus, let's face it, hunter/gatherers were opportunists and our culture of excess produces many opportunities to be a bottom feeder with little effort. For those interested in pursuing these ideas and more, books or classes on wild edibles, native plants, permaculture, and edible landscaping can provide much. Recognizing the many useful plants can seem , overwhelming at first, but our minds are i designed for it. Brand recognition in the grocery and drug store is this ability, but mutated. Lastly, this article is not meant to discourage anyone involved in the plant community. Annual gardening on a small scale is more efficient than centralized production. Organic farming is superior to chemical agriculture in many ways. Farming is a thankless job that pays little but allows for mental freedom and a daily relationship with the earth. Please send critiques and correspondence to Feral Farm, P.O. Box 92, Rockport.WA 98283. As a plant person, I'd like to express solidarity with those involved in direct action, including but not limited to property destruction, and thank them for providing me with entertainment as well as my day to day inspiration. ** ANTI-GENETIX ACTION AROUND THE WORLD When "farmers" look like astronauts whose feet have never touched the Earth, when pesticide pushers and hydroponic lab technicians attempt to manipulate and reconstruct our food into their dysfunctional techno-model, when genetically-modified food organisms biologically pollute the natural world — introducing a tremendous new hazard on scale with nuclear power — it's time to start fighting for our lives! Here are just a few of the actions people all over the world are taking to challenge the Agribusiness Juggernaut, as it seeks to control, simplify and homogenize everything in its path. *** March 28, India: Genetically Modified BT Cotton Seeds Burnt On Holika Eve By Farmers Sadalpur: On the eve of the ancient Holika festival several tons of hazardous BT cotton seeds were burnt by village farmers of the Hisar Harayna district. Children, aged villagers and farmers were present during this ritual. One of the farmers tied traditional cotton thread on the wrists of farmers present at the occasion, who in turn promised that they would protect farms, villages and the natural world from anti-nature seeds like that of BT cotton. They also swore to boycott BT cotton and any person buying, selling, and growing BT coton. {Editors note: This action is fairly old at this point, but it was only recently sent to us by anti-genetix campaigners in India, and since we haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else in the North American underground press, we've decided to include it in this issue of GA.) *** April 25, England: Notorious Anti-Roads Activist Resurfaces To Fight GM Crops Weymouth: In the early morning hours of April 25, a diverse group of determined individuals erected and moved into a giant pink castle located at the entrance to one of the fields in which the British government hopes to plant genetically modified (GM) maize this year. Equipped with an arsenal of "lock-down" gadgetry - and with the full support of local residents - the GE protesters plan to maintain their occupation long enough to prevent the planting. The pink castle is located next to the Littlemoor Estate near Weymouth, has won mass support from residents of a nearby estate in Dorset. “They use this area to walk their dogs and for r e c r e a t i o n and they don’t want GM crops planted h e r e , ” said Liz S n a k e , one of the occupiers. “There were attempts to grow GM maize here last year and the locals destroyed around 70% of the maize here last year and the locals destroyed around 70% of the crop." "Swampy", the eco-warrior who rose briefly to fame in a series of anti-roads protests six years ago, emerged from obscurity in early May to assist the Pink Castle occupiers in their battle against GM crops. Shortly after "Swampy" joined the campaign, protestors fought with police and farmworkers as the latter used seven tractors to plant the field with GM maize. The crop is designed to resist Glufosinate - a broad spectrum herbicide - and would allow farmers to apply the chemical in greater quantities than before. The 25 protestors were supported by more than a dozen families from the adjacent Littlemoor estate who joined in as the protestors chained themselves to the tractors and battled with police. "Swampy" became a media celebrity for his protests against the Newbury bypass and a new runway at Manchester airport six years ago. The Newbury bypass cut a nine-mile swathe through pristine countryside and was opposed by hundreds of local residents. The protests cost the government 26 million pounds and forced them to rethink their road-building policy. *** April 27-28, Scotland: Multiple Attacks On GM Crop Site Black Isle: Five people were arrested after a field of genetically modified oilseed rape was damaged for the second time in a week at Roskill Farm. The same field of GM oilseed rape was also attacked the previous weekend (see GA #9 for more details). About five acres of the crop were damaged on that occasion and police investigations are still continuing. At this time, the total amount of damage to the crop trial site is still being assessed. Less than twenty four hours later, that same field of GM crops was damaged by protestors for the third time in a week. Campaigners say that more than half of the GM oilseed rape crop at Roskill Farm has now been destroyed. *** May 18, Canada: Organic Farmer Unveils Location Of Secret Genetically Modified Wheat Plots Regina: A Sasketchewan farmer has gone public with the location of two secret sites where researchers are growing and testing GM wheat for the bio tech company Monsanto. Marc Loiselle says there are test plots of GM wheat at Agriculture Canada's Scott Research Farm, located in west-central Sasketchewan, and at AgQuest, a private company located just outside of Saskatoon. Loiselle, an organic farmer from Vonda, learned the locations from an agronomic :ommittee that he sits on. He believes the aublic has the right to know where the test ites are and has presented the information in peeches, in a newsletter regarding organic sroduction and to the media. Monsanto confirmed that Agriculture Canada and AgQuest are conducting research trials on its GM wheat. Before Loiselle's revelation, the exact location of Monsanto 's many GM wheat plots was a closely guarded secret in Canada. Even the Sasketchewan government didn't know sxactly where the plots were located in the Drovince. Officials with the Scott Research Firm have expressed concern about the ecurity of the research trails, referring to the destruction of GM research plots that Is so rampant in Europe these days. There ire 33 Western Canadian sites where Monsanto is testing GM wheat this year. *** June 7, Thailand: Nestle Office Raided By Greenpeace Activists Bangkok: Activists of the Greenpeace Southeast Asia raided a Nestle's office, iumping products containing genetically nodified ingredients on the floor. According to the report, ten activists stormed the Mestle's office and dumped boxes of Nestle 3M products including Cerelac, a baby food, and the Starfish brand of snacks. They tied themselves to a counter at the Consumer Information Center while a 3reenpeace activist presented a protest letter to Nestle executive Nophadol Siwabutr, in which they criticized the Nestle company for preparing to supply GM food sroducts to Thai consumers while the 1 sroducts sold in Europe were GM-free. A similar protest also took place simultaneously in Manila, Hong Kong and Switzerland. The iction was to kick off a campaign urging :onsumers to return products containing GMO ^genetically modified organisms). *** June 8, Scotland: Demonstrators Trample Genetically Modified Crops Fife: An estimated 250 people from across Scotland met at Wester Friarton Farm in Newport for a "Tea in the Field" protest. 70 anti-GM crop demonstrators trampled crops in the field in full view of the cops. Four people were arrested during the trashing. *** June 8, Italy: 40,000 March Against Genetically Modified Food Rome: Under tight security, an estimated 4-0,000 people marched through the streets of Rome to air grievances over genetically nodified food and other agricultural issues wo days before the start of a U.N, summit in the Italian capital. With memories of the anticapitalist/ anti-globalization riots that tore up the city of Genoa last summer ( and left 23year old anarchist Carlo Giulliani dead), the Italian State spared no expense and arranged heavy security for the march. But the sheer number of people who showed up anyway — rivaling the ammount of people in Seattle on N30 — is a clear indication that the international ruling class is going to have an increasingly hard time shoving GM food down the throats of their subjects, who are resisting everywhere it's being introduced. *** June 18, England: The Pink Castle Is Gone - Long Live The Pink Castle! Weymouth: After seven weeks of occupying a GM field in Dorset, the perky pink symbol of defiance is gone - as has the entire GM maize crop! From the 25th of April the pink fortification stood guard over a field where the mutant remains of the previous years GM maize crop could still be found. The castle residents hoped to obstruct the farmer from planting again and prevent further GM contamination. In May, three weeks into the field occupation, the multinationalcollaborating farmer Charles Foot, with seven tractors and massive police backing, entered the field and succeeded in planting the Aventis GM maize. Only two thirds of the field was planted so the pink castle camp remained to defend the rest. Naturally, there was plenty to do after the maize went in and loads of people visited the encampment to insure that the job was done. By early June, the entire crop of GM maize had been pulled up by visitors to the pink castle and the farmer and his corporate sponsers' Aventis wrote off the trial, acknowledging that they had been defeated by a grassroots, local movement they couldn't infiltrate or control. On June 15th, following the victory, a celebration was held that included a large communal feast of organically-grown, non-GM vegetables. Last year, Littlemoor residents decontaminated a massive 70% of the GM maize planted in the same feild and all five Dorset GM trials were destroyed or damaged. Within hours of the seeds being sown, at least twenty locals were seen digging them from the ground. *** July 8, Belgium: "Red Devils" Destroy Genetically Modified Crops Flanders: A group called "Red Devils" destroyed a field of GM sugar beets thai belonged to the company Advanta. Despite the fact that the British/Dutch company had earlier announced to have quit producing GM crops, a field of GM sugar beets was discovered by activists in the area of Verrebroek. The "Red Devils" claim this action is part of the world wide campaign of resistance to genetic engineering. *** July 15, India: Bt Cotton Seeds Set Aflame By Farmers And Environmentalists Farmers and environmentalists attacked a shop selling Bt cotton seeds and set fire to the seeds stored inside. The activists said they had already warned the government that if Bt cotton seeds were sold, they would be immediately destroyed. Opposition to genetic engineering is widespread in India, and the opposition is becoming increasingly militant. *** August 1, England: Anti-GM Protestors Damage Crops Essex: Protesters against genetically modified crops damaged part of a field of maize. Members of the Colchester GM Campaign arrived at the field in Wivenhoe in the early hours and trampled the crop. A campaign spokesperson said 12 protesters had taken part, some remaining at the scene for six hours. The campaign spokesperson also said that a third of the crop had been damaged. *** August 6, India: Environmentalists Destroy Bt Cotton Davangere: Environmentalists destroyed Bt cotton cultivated in an area of two acres at Rudranakatte. The activists convinced the farmers that it would be a good idea before destroying the crops. Security was tightened in the village to prevent any untoward incident However, the police could not take any steps against the activists as they destroyed the crops after convincing the farmers. Two farmers of the village had cultivated Bt cotton. The environmentalists told them that the crop would have to be destroyed since it affected the environment. Earlier, while addressing the villagers, an environmentalist professor stated that the crop, though disease-resistant, would destroy farmer-friendly insects and affect the environment ...FUCK BIOTECH! ** THE EARTH STRIKES BACK AGAINST BIOTECHNOLOGY! Celebrating The One-Year Anniverssary Of A Tornado Attack On An Agricultural Research Site In Washington, D.C. On September 23, 2001, a tornado struck suburban Washington, D.C, causing as much as $41 million dollars in damage to the government's largest agricultural research facility, and disrupting studies on everything from soybean genetics to exotic citrus diseases. The research centers' greenhouses, which covered 100,000 square feet, recieved varying degrees of damage, and a third of them were destroyed. Fifteen buildings that housed laboratories and offices were also damaged. In one of the labs that was damaged, USDA scientists had been mapping the genetic code of soybean plants, so hopefully, their research was knocked back considerably. Damage to the greenhouses and buildings was estimated at $38 million. There was another $3 million in damages to vehicles, equipment and supplies. "Science" has been unable to determine what made this tornado suddenly change course and unleash it's full fury on this benign, humanitarian, State-funded research facility. Maybe there's something to the Gaia hypothesis after all... ** Untitled "Anarchy describes a particular type of situation, one in which authority does not exist or its power to control is negated. Such a situation guarantees nothing - not even the continued existence of that situation, but it does open up the possibility for each of us to start creating our lives for ourselves in terms of our own desires and passions rather than in terms of social roles and the demands of social order. Anarchy is not the goal of revolution.itis the situation which makes the only type of revolution that interests me possible - an uprising of individuals to create their lives for themselves and destroy what stands in their way. It is a situation free of any moral implications.presenting to each of us the amoral challenge to live our dues without constraints." -Feral Faun ** Untitled King Steam He kas an arm, an iron arm And though he has but one— There’s a magic in that single arm That crushes millions down. Destroy King Steam, the Moloch wild, You toiling thousands all! Bind him his hand, or else our land Will over night down fall. —anonymous Luddite ** Kaczynski's Analogy Still "Hits Where It Hurts" I very much appreciate Green Anarchy running the article by Ted Kackzynski. As long as the Green Anarchy collective continues to publish information of this caliber they will continue to have my support. I think the GA collective's response to Ted's article missed his essential message on a core point. Ted was speaking to STRATEGY, not CRITIQUE, and was attempting to search out strategic points of vulnerability — this is very different from dismissing valid points of critique. "Civilization" is the word used to identify the totality of the enemy we are faced with and is an important concept to use when speaking to the essential inter-relatedness of all the evils we face. Along the same lines, if I were in a fight with another person I might say I was fighting " John doe". This identifies the collectivity of the enemy and includes his whole body and spirit — fists, face, mind, head and feet. However, to say that my STRATEGY for defeating "John doe" should be to attack all aspects of him is not very helpful — just as saying that our strategy for defeating civilization should be to attack all aspects of civilization is also a waste of essential energy. I agree with the GA collective's position on civilization and patriarchy, however, I also agree with Ted that the STRATEGIC VALUE of attacking issues like racism, homophobia, sexism, etc., is marginal due to the adaptability of the system and its ability to co-opt such struggles for its own purposes. To continue the metaphor of two people engaged in a fight — if you tell John Doe he can't use his left foot to kick you, he might agree while he proceeds to hit you in the face with his right fist. This has been a theme repeated down through the history of radical struggle with empire — radicals say "stop hitting us with (fill in the blank)" and empire turns around and hits them with something else that is just as bad or worse. This is an essentially reactive posture on our part and has gotten us nowhere so far. Perhaps we need to stop complaining so much about what IT should or shouldn't hit us with and start concentrating on what WE are going to hit it with — and where and how WE should strike? One bit of my own perspective that I would like to add to Ted's article is that bio-tech is nothing new. Bio-tech is as old as civilization itself and the common word for it is simply "agriculture". Think about it. — Godless Savage LIVE WILD! FREE YOURSELF! FREE TED KACZYNSKI! DESTROY THE TECHNO INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM! ** ANIMAL UPRISINGS: THE WILD ONES FIGHT BACK *** January 22, India: Buffalo Pays Visit To EC Office Alor Star: Crowds at the Federal Building in Alor Star, where the Election Commissions office is located, were shocked to see a water buffalo storm the buildings compound. The buffalo sent workers, mainly from the EC office and the "Anti-Corruption Agency", helterskelter when it chased them in front of their offices. Veterinary Department officers fired four shots of tranquilizer at the 175kg buffalo, but to no avail. The buffaloe's rampage against "representative democracy" continued until the Chief gardener of Sekolah Menengah Stadium — Omar Mahmud — succeeded in calming the buffalo by reciting a prayer. January 23, India: Rubber Tapper Gored By Wild Water Buffalo Dungun: A rubber tapper was seriously injured when he was gored by a wild water buffalo while on his way to extract rubber in water buffalo habitat. Local cops said that Rosmadi Semur, 20, had ventured near a river when he suddenly encountered a herd of water buffaloes. "One of the buffaloes charged Rosmadi and gored him causing serious injuries to his stomach and body", the cops said. Rosmadi was taken to an intensive care unit with tears to his liver and excessive internal bleeding. He's expected to recover but hopefully he's learned that he shares this planet with other species. February 11, India: Wild Elephants Kill Three, Injure Ten Cox Bazar: Rampaging elephants trampled to death three Bangladeshis and injured 10 in theifi country's southeastern forest^' region, according to local human "officials". "Two of the victims died on the day of the attack and| the other the following day when herds of elephants stormed two farming villages near a forest at Ukhia, 450 km ( 281 miles) from Dhaka," said the deputy commissioner of the Cox Bazar district. The elephants destroyed nearly 15 straw and bamboo-made houses, leaving some 100 people homeless. Elephants, a protected wildlife species in Bangladesh, often make forays into villages, mostly at night, to look for food. They also damage crops, police said, indicating a hostility to the displacement caused by agriculture and the permanent settlements of domesticated humans. Forest "officials" said they believed the elephants strayed out of the forest when disturbed by illegal loggers. March 6, Austria: Caged Jaguars Stage Uprising Vienna: While visitors watched, three jaguars at the Schoenbrunn Zoo attacked and killed an employee as she was preparing their food and injured the zoo's director when he tried to rescue the zookeeper. March 6, India: Scared Residents Let Monkeys Run Riot Hungry monkeys have gone on the rampage in an Indian temple town and no-one will complain because of myths surrounding the animals. The town of Noida in Uttar Pradesh is under siege from monkeys who raid fridges, uproot gardens and attack hospitals, pets and people. The monkeys have also been plundering shops selling fruit and vegetables in Ayodhya. The newspaper Aaj Kal reports that a policeman who tried to drive away the marauding monkeys had one of his ears bitten off. In another incident, the monkeys pulled a heavy lid off a water tank and dropped it on a car below, severely damaging the vehicle. Some people are said to feed the monkeys just to help keep them at bay, reports the Times of India. Local "officials" claim the monkeys even send out scouts to check out possible raids and once they locate one, they return with several other monkeys. The religious and anthropomorphic projections of the human race seem to be protecting the riotous monkeys, who are associated with the Hindu monkey god Hanuman, and who are being granted a type of "diplomatic immunity" as they seek to reclaim stolen territory. March 12, England: Captive Elephant Sets Out To Kill Jailkeeper London: A four-ton Burmese elephant held down a zookeeper at London Zoo and deliberately crushed his skull with her foot, according to an official zoo inquest. In front of dozens of shocked visitors, the 20-year-old female elephant pushed over zookeeper James Robson, then wrapped her trunk around his legs to hold him down before stamping him on his head. March 26, India: Liquor-Loving Elephants Wean Villagers Off The Hard Stuff Bengal: Illicit liquor manufacturers (bootleggers) in eastern India complain that they are being put out of business by rogue elephants with a fondness for booze. Elephants in West Bengal's Midnapore district have gone on the rampage destroying thousands of barrels of alcohol. The bootleggers say the animals are attracted by the smell of liquor being produced at the distilleries and have now appealed to the police for protection against wild elephants, though it's unlikely that more bribes will solve their financial problems. Biman Mahato, a businessman whose liquor outlet was damaged, said: "The fact that the elephants love the liquor produced by us could have been a great advertisement for our business if only there was something left for us to sell." April 5, Florida: Motorist Escapes After Alligator Bites Through Car Bumper A Florida motorist escaped from an alligator after it bit through her car bumper and lifted her car off the ground. Stephanie Feola pulled over after hitting what she thought was a small animal on her way home. Feola, 43, said: "The car started shaking and it was lifting the front end up. I thought it (the alligator) was going to come up through the floor." Feola managed to put the car in reverse and escape before calling police on her mobile phone. Wildlife cops in Port Charlotte later caught and killed the rebellious 7ft alligator. Considering the significant impact that roads and motorized vehicles have on sensitive terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and wildlife in Florida (since 1981, 65% of documented Florida Panther deaths have been roadkills, reducing the total known wild population to 20), it's no wonder that this alligator didn't want to become the next "roadkill victim" of car culture. April 10, India: Wild Elephants Foil Police Chasing "Terrorists" A herd of rampaging elephants forced police to abandon a mission against so-called "terrorists" in an Indian jungle. The elephants charged at police commandos chasing guerrillas of the United Liberation Force of Assam, a rebel group based in the state of Assam. Police and commandos raided th forest following ; heavy gunfire] exchange with thel rebels near Jaldapara. Regional police chief Shiv Kumar said the operation had to be called off after they were chased away by a \ group of wild elephants. Kumar, who was among the police and commandos, said: "It's impossible to carry on the operation." April 1 7, New York: Turkey Breaks Into Store, Trashes Hunting Videos Batavia: A turkey recently decided to take a turn as social critic, attacking movies in a video store and taking particular aim at hunting videos. Nancy Arena arrived at her video store 30 miles east of Buffalo to find the front window smashed and feathers and movie cases scattered everywhere. She called police, and when the cops finally arrived, they flushed a young torn turkey out of the science-fiction section. Arena says the episode was "kind of I weird" because the turkey bashed into the hunting videos first and :, left some droppings on them. May 12, Florida: Feline Zoo Prisoner Bites The Hand That Tortures It Bush Gardens: A 1 2 year old 350 pound lion bit off the lower-half of a zookeepers right arm at Bush Gardens — the Anheiser-Bush owned "theme park" — in Tampa Bay, Florida, during what amusement park managers called a "routine training exercise." Lions have a long tradition of challenging human tyranny: In 1898, two male Tsavo lions made meals of a reputed 135 laborers, stopping construction of what is now Kenya Railways in its tracks. Why the taste for humans? Perhaps because rinderpest, a disease brought by the European colonizers' cattle, had killed off most of the lions natural prey. Late May: By Leaps And Bounds, Marauding Monkeys Overrun Japan Violent, rebellious monkeys — hostile to human laws and customs — are spreading across Japan, a tidy, cement-trimmed nation more commonly associated with electronics and international commerce than wildlife. From a scraggly postwar population of 15,ooo, the number of monkeys has increased tenfold in half a century, reaching 150,000 today. The generation of monkeys produced by this population explosion seems to be an anti-social and defiant one, and have been accused of everything from burglarizing supermarkets to mugging humans for food to carjacking! "It just gets worse and worse," complained Toki Kaneda, a resident of the Chuzenji Lake district who closed her souvenir store because of monkey theft. "We haven't been able to leave the windows of our second-floor rooms open for years." Increasingly, Japanese officials demonize monkeys as "pests" that "infest" farmland, causing at least $7 million dollars crop damage a year. Like coyotes in the United States, monkey numbers in Japan keep increasing. With monkey bands moving from mountain areas to farm areas, their diet has improved, allowing most adult females to have one baby a year. Japanese monkeys are also becoming bigger and more aggressive because of their Western diets: By rooting through garbage bags or extorting food from tourists, they've gotten much stronger and larger from 20-30 years of eating greasy, fatty McDonalds food. Farmers are wondering if they're growing vegetables only to provide monkeys with buffet salad bars. A new book, Protecting Mountain Fields From Monkeys, contains the latest in anti-monkey technology, including electric fences and 12-foot-high nets. Rural villages have been posting bounties of up to $1,000 for the leader of a particularly destructive monkey troop. And in cities, sensational news reports about monkeys "molesting women and children" have stirred police to start patrolling streets with nets and bananas tied to poles. June 2, Malaysia: Rampaging Elephant Herd Kills Plantation Worker Kuala Lumpar: Sharifuddin Ghani, 23, a worker at a Malaysian palm oil plantation, was dragged from his home by an elephant who used its trunk to carry him back to the remote plantation where he worked in Temerloh — once there, a total of five elephants trampled Ghani to death. The elephants then returned to Ghani 's village and tried to attack his neighbors, but they all escaped. Rubber and palm oil plantations have replaced large tracts of forests over the past century in Malaysia, forcing animals such as elephants and tigers out of their natural home. To animals, the entire world is like Gestapo Germany, humans being the Nazis and animals being the Jews. These elephants seemed to think that they were at war with humans, humans having been the first aggressors by destroying the animals homes in the interest of capitalism and modern agribusiness. The reason animals don't strike back more often is their fear of humans, but we may be seeing more animal rebellion as we humans destroy more and more irreplaceable wildlife habitat. The elephants who killed Ghani were acting more like soldiers on a commando raid against the enemy than crazed animals committing a random, senseless act of murder. Humans Aren't The Only Species Oppressed By The System, Nor Are They The Only Species Fighting Back! ** Untitled Once far enough from the house from the confines of civilized language, I forget who I'm supposed to be, And become who I am. Words flow like food, like water, like blood. The plants speak to me. I become an animal Blackberries in my maw. All of a sudden My fears Of breaking human law To defend this sacred land Dissolve, Playing no part in this flow. The bees, the birds, the bears know no human laws, Nor do trees, nor berry bushes, Nor, when one with bee, bird, berry bush, and tree Do I. -Winston the Pooh— On Eating Blackberries ** Recommended Reading *Revolt of the Bats by Alon K. Raab (reprinted in John Zerzan's seminal anthology, Against Civilization, available for $15 from GA distro. (see distro list) *Beasts of Burden: Capitalism, Animals and Communism (published by Antagonism Press, c/o BM Makhno, London, WC1 N 3XX, United Kingdom ) "Let us hope that acts of self-defense and resistance by animals, fish, birds and their human brothers and sisters increases. Let these actions multiply and intensify until human tyranny is thrown off and replaced by a community of free living beings, assissting each other in this magical journey, and reforging the ancient bonds of beauty and comraderie."— Alon K. Raab ** THE ANTEATER'S UMBRELLA A Contribution to the Critique of the Ideology of Zoos [Several years before animal liberation became a national and global issue, the following tract by the Chicago Surrealist Group not only raised the question in the strongest terms, but also related it to the revolutionary struggle against capitalism. Initially distributed at Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo in August of 1971 , this obscure leaflet tackles the issue of animal liberation from a revolutionary perspective, not a moralistic one, and is much more reflective of how many of us involved with "Green Anarchy" feel about that particular struggle, than the purely ethical arguments put forth by the mainstream animal rights movement.] The ostrich, the deer, the jerboa, etc., will come and join forces with man as soon as his company becomes attractive to them, which it can never be in the civilized order! — Charles Fourier It is not without significance that animals in the zoo are captured and brought against their wills to this, the penitentiary of the instincts. The contemptible slavery that man too readily tolerates and allows to dominate human existence provokes an immediate revulsion, a profound disdain, a cataclysmic resistance among these animals of grace and savagery. It is only through the technological brutality of science in the service of oppression that the living are forced into a suspended death, in which dreams are deprived of the future they call forth, and sleep itself crumbles against the bars of destruction. Here, in the zoo, in this place of hypnotic fascination, human beings come to see their own instincts caged and sterilized. Everything that is intrinsic to humankind, but smothered by capitalist society, reappears safely in the zoo. Aggression, sexuality, motion, desire, play, the very impulses to freedom are trapped and displayed for the alienated enjoyment and manipulation of men, women, and children. Here is the harmless spectacle in which everything desired by human beings exists only to the degree that it is separated from the reality of human existence. The cages are merely the extensions of the cages that omnipresently infest the lives of all living beings. Here the animals are placed in the unnatural habitat of a society unnatural to itself. The incandescent speed of cheetahs, the desperate prowling of leopards, the celestial fever of black swans, the immaculate laughter of seals, the absent-minded tumbling of marmosets, the cabalistic brooding of owls: These veritable emblems of grandeur are imprisoned, severed from the past and the future and turned into empty shells of a previous joy. All that has been natural and a source of pleasure, for animals, has been converted into the performative slavery of a zoological bastille. Ability has been made the toil of suffering. The condition of slavery automatically poses the question: What are the prospects for liberation? It hardly needs to be stressed that the very notion of the revolutionary transformation of the relationship between humankind and beasts is all but unthinkable today . And yet, in the great myths of the American Indians and ancient African cultures, in the writings of certain thinkers of rare genius (Charles Fourier, Alphonse Toussenel, John Ruskin), in the tradition of socalled "accursed" poetry and in a remarkable popular tradition that extends at least from Mother Goose to animated cartoons, from The Musicians of Bremen to The Call of the Wild, it is possible to perceive at least some faint glimmers of the immense possibilities in this domain. One must heed, too, the invulnerable signals through the flames by the animals themselves: A few years ago, for example, the polar bears at Brookfield Zoo, after heavy rains flooded their lair, swam across the moat, broke into a concession stand and frolicked about as they consumed thousands of marshmallows. If enslavement begins with humankind, it must end with the simultaneous liberation of humans and animals from the yoke of commodity fetishism and narcissistic effusions. The brutal confinement of animals ultimately serves only to separate men and women from their own potentialities, and to make them victims of their own insidious barbarity. It is the reality of dreams that necessitates the reintegration of humans and animals in everyday life. In the realization of its deepest desires, humanity will achieve what it has always sought:, a ittp|4rse of the incredible. -The Surrealist Group of Chicago ** WILD G E E SE -by Mary Oliver You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the praries and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ** The Anarchist Black Cross Network Conference Is History! The first Anarchist Black Cross conference in North America since 1994 was held on the weekend of July 26-28, 2002, in Austin, Texas. The event, hosted by the Austin ABC and former political prisoner and Texas anarchist Christopher Plummer, comes on the heels of the release of A New Draft Proposal For An Anarchist Black Cross Network which advocates the creation of a new network of anarchist anti-prison collectives. The ABCNetwork is now in existence and is a promising development in the generally weak and dismal North American activist milieu. Reports on the conference have been written by longtime anarchist activists Lorenzo Kom'Boa Ervin and Ernesto Aguilar and others. These reports, and other info regarding the ABC Network and prisoner-support activism, can be found at the impressive Anarchist Black Cross Network website at: www.anarchistblackcross.org ** PRISONER RESISTANCE *** May 2-7, England: Prison Riots Spread Throughout Country The prison population in England and Wales is at a record level of 71,000. The Prison Service is considering using another ship to house prisoners because the jails are full to overflowing. In this situation it is hardly surprising that three separate disturbances broke out in British prisons in the first week of May. At Guys Marsh, Dorset, on the 2nd of May 30 prisoners barricaded themselves in and damaged fixtures. At Lindholme jail on the 6th, 25 prisoners on a wing refused to return to their cells. At Ranby in Nottinghamshire, on evening of the 7th, 48 prisoners took over their residential unit. The authorities attempted to keep quiet about these disturbances and then when word got out, strenuously denied that they had done so. There was no mention of the prisoners making any demands, but the condition of being imprisoned is sufficient to explain the rage felt by those inside. *** May 17-18, France: Riots Break Out At Detention Center Calais: Police used tear gas to disperse illegal immigrants after rioting broke out at the Sangatte refugee center close to a crossChannel freight depot near Calais. At least four of the rioters were seriously wounded in fighting, which began shortly after the French railway authorities announced measures to tighten security at the depot. Britain has complained repeatedly about illegal immigrants using the depot as a means to enter Britain through the Channel Tunnel. The stateowned French railway company, SNCF, said it would install infra-red cameras and erect a double layer of fencing and barbed wire around the existing fence of the depot, to deter immigrants from Sangatte. Some of the rioters threw stones and smashed up a fence and used fence posts as weapons in the clashes. The violence broke out after a football match in the camp, but tensions were already high due to the increased security. Police managed to quell the rebellion, but more than 100 Kurds were stopped from re-entering the camp to prevent further trouble. This was the latest of several violent incidents at this center, which shelters about 1,200 refugees. The British Government has accused France of lax policing around Sangatte, allowing many immigrants to board trains to Britain illegally. May 26-30, Ecuador: Prisoners & Families Protest Quito: Some 700 prisoners at the Garcia Moreno prison seized control of the facility during visiting hours on May 26 to protest the elimination of sentence reduction provisions. Some 300 family members who were at the prison when the protest began - including nearly 100 children - remained there in support of the protest. The prisoners were angered by the elimination of the "two for one" provision, which rewarded good behavior by eliminating one year of a sentence for every year served, effectively cutting sentences in half. As part of a set of reforms to the sentencing code passed last September, Congress changed the measure to reduce sentences by 180 days for every five years of a sentence - a "10 for one" benefit the prisoners say will increase violence by providing no incentive for good behavior to those with shorter sentences. On May 28, police tried to enter the prison, claiming the prisoners were holding relatives hostage and refusing to let any of them leave. The prisoners responded by threatening to blow up tanks of butane gas if police got in. Police then fired tear gas; pandemonium ensued, and paramedics had to evacuate a mother, her onemonth-old baby, a pregnant woman and a sixmonth-old child who were badly affected by the gas. Tensions subsided after police and prisoners agreed to avoid violence. The next day negotiators failed to win an agreement, and the prison warden threatened to cut off food supplies. On May 30 the prisoners announced they were ending the protest after the PGE withdrew its interpretation of the law's retroactivity. The PGE has asked Congress to issue regulations clarifying the law's application. By the time the resolution was reached, more than 30 prisons around the country had joined the protest. *** June 27-28, Australia: Mass Breakout From Asylum Camp Canberra: Radical asylum seeker supporters used a car to drag down fences at Australia's most notorious detention center, allowing 34 people to escape. Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said 15 asylum seekers were involved in a carefully planned mass breakout just before midnight on the 27th from the Woomera detention center, a former missile testing base in central Australia. The other 19 took advantage of the confusion and fled into the desert. "This is a deliberate, organized breakout by people who have been in contact with detainees," Ruddock told Melbourne radio station 3AW. Ruddock said members of an asylum seeker support group drove a car up to one of the razor-wire topped fences of the camp where they pulled down part of the fence and ferried the asylum seekers away. Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio said it had received an e-mail from a group calling itself Our Sacred Country, which claimed responsibility for the breakout. They say they decided to "liberate" the asylum seekers only after seeing the pain and suffering on their faces. Ruddock said five of the detainees were recaptured by police, and another 10 had been spotted and were expected to be recaptured by police scouring the surrounding area. About 160 of the 200 Woomera detainees there had been on a four-day hunger strike. Police have established roadblocks around the area and are using helicopters to search for those still on the run. The Immigration Department says most of those involved in the break-out have had their applications for asylum rejected. For up to date info on the struggle of refugees in Australia, see the Melbourne Independent Media Center website at: www.melbourne.indymedia.org ** Taking Children Seriously (TCS) and Anarchy -By (I)An-ok What is TCS? One of the greatest breakthroughs in anarchist theory and practice first appeared six years ago, and hardly any anarchists even know of its existence. Not only that, but most of the anarchists who do know of its existence either disregard it or dismiss it with comments containing hierarchical and authoritarian language. I am referring to the philosophy and practice known as Taking Children Seriously or TCS. Taking Children Seriously is an educational and parenting philosophy which uses Karl Popper's views on epistemology, critical rationalism and a belief in fallibilism to reach a conclusion that coercion of any form is bad for the growth of knowledge and psychologically damaging to people, especially children. From this conclusion, Taking Children Seriously creates the framework for a methodology through which parents can cooperate with their children to find mutually preferable solutions to problems and disagreements that arise between them. The TCS movement has over a thousand participants all over the world, has produced two books and main journal and a number of active e-mail discussion lists *** The advantages of TCS TCS takes parenting, a subject which is hardly ever discussed or thought about in anarchist circles. and provides an approach to it which is consistent with anarchist principles that oppose hierarchy and domination. TCS also lends a sharply critical eye towards contemporary authoritarian parenting philosophies and practices. The lack of such a critical approach to parenting, as well as the lack of an alternative parenting methodology consistent with anarchist principles, cr^Bts one of the most discouragin, situations within the anarchist movement. Namely, anarchist: end up inexplicably conveyinjsHiessaiies to their childrefloi acceptance of the "necessity" of relationships of domination. TCS combines educational philosophy, epistemology and parenting and transforms them into a unified and interdependent system. This is of great value to anarchists, since most anarchists strive for a holistic outlook and approach towards people and society, and tend to shun laundry lists o forms of oppression and anarchist principles Along with providing a holistic approach to child-raising TCS provides a rational approach, as well as an emphasis on peoples innate fallibility. Given the fact that many defenders of authority often use the inequality of knowledge as a justification for those with the greater knowledge to assume positions of authority, TCS sees the explicit recognition of ones own fallibility as being essential for preventing one from becoming an authority over children. TCS also sees this as vital for the growth of knowledge, since if one realizes that one may be making a mistake, one is left more open to new and better ideas which can be of more use for both parent and child alike. *** The TCS approach to learning and parental discipline Most people, anarchists included, unconsciously view children as being products in the process of being assembled. Schooling, parental advice, life experience and sometimes religious indoctrination are supposed to supply the product with the appropriate software necessary for functioning, while parental control and "discipline" are supposed to ensure that the product does not damage itself or leave the factory during the assembly process. This view of children comes about from a lack of faith in the abilities of children to use reason or make their own decisions. Instead of this, the TCS approach contends that every action that one does comes from an individual choice, either explicitly or implicitly. The choice one chooses may or may not be the right one, but it is through the use of one's abilities to reason that one is able to eventually find the choice that works best for them at the moment, and as a result create or grow their own knowledge. TCS says that children can and should live outside the factory /product paradigm of childhood. TCS sees authority of any kind as being detrimental to the growth of knowledge by discouraging one to think for themselves, since such activity is futile under authority. With no certain or secure environment through which one could put ones thoughts into practice and test out the validity of one's ideas, one has no safe grounds on which to grow one's knowledge. Furthermore, any "education" or "advice" given by an authority figure to a child has no deep value for the child, other than that of being a tool through which the child can appease the authority or use to score points to gain some reward (psychological or tangible) which is offered as an "incentive" by the authority. Outside of the social construct of the parent/ child or school relationships, the "knowledge" or behaviors one is supposed to carry out no longer has any apparent use-value to the child, and therefore can be forgotten without any negative consequences. These behaviors or "knowledge" were never something which the child used to satisfy their own curiosities or interests, and therefore have no personal significance to them. *** TCS' role of the parent TCS' conception of the ideal role that a parent should play is in many ways similar to that of many anarchists conceptions of the role that anarchists should play in society. TCS believes that parental advice can still be very useful to children and that parents should offer their advice and useful information to the child whenever the child is willing to receive it. TCS sees the role of parents as being that of a "helper" for the child. The parent is not supposed to be a "guide" or set an example, but instead should be a supplier of good ideas, useful information, resources, and materials. Parents should also actively work to make sure that their child does not become trapped in a coercive situation that they do not want to be in and to make sure that their children are well-informed of any potentially coercive situation that they could become involved with, so that the child does not stumble onto a coercive situation without warning. Parents are not necessarily "protectors" of their children, but rather people who use their special advantages of being a parent to help their hildren live in as open and free an environment as possible. This will probably mean that the parent may end up playing the role of the "protector", but it would only be done so at the expressed (verbally or otherwise) desire of the child for protection. Now, some people may look at this and think that TCS asks for the parent to be an amazing, alwayswo rking , self-sacrificing aint. TCS is actually very much against that idea. TCS is opposed to parents sacrificing themselves for their children, nd sees the desires and preferences of both the parent and the ild as being of equal importance. E^ ^k TCS instead posits that great effort should be made to find mutually preferred solutions to problems and disagreements. With authority damaging a lot of our current abilities for dependent and creative thought, the potential for common eference finding may seem small to none. However TCS ntends that with lots of practice and discovering what actical and self-imposed barriers exist within ourselves, we n eventually discover how to be creative and be more effective finding common preferences. The trick is to always honestly trive to find common preferences between parents and children, and not give into the authority-based myths that it is "impossible". *** The failings of TCS One of the major failings of anarchism is that it has so far overwhelmingly examined and analyzed big picture things like institutions, class, civilization, and society, and has paid next to no attention to smaller scale things, like psychology, epistemology, inter-personal relations and face-to-face interactions. One of the major failings of TCS is that it has had the exact opposite problem. An example of this problem is the fact that TCS considers parental authority to be something which could be eliminated by the parent simply thinking and behaving differently. This outlook pays no attention to the fact that parental authority is also an institutional creation. With the State using laws that force every child to live under the dictates of a legal guardian, a police force that will find and bring back every "runaway" child, and an economic system that forces every child to be materially dependent upon a parent, a parent will have authority over their child regardless of what parenting style they practice. With this being the case, a child can not genuinely trust a parent to be non-authoritarian with them, for at any time and for any reason the parent could impose rules upon them and have the full force of the State to back them up. To truly abolish authority, it needs to be simultaneously eliminated at an institutional and social level as well as at an inter-personal and psychological level. Another example of TCS' lack of social consciousness, is that it pays no attention to how race, class, patriarchy and other forms of social oppression coerce and dominate children. If one truly wants to eliminate coercion from children's lives, and from the practice of parenting, one needs to have a clear analysis of how all the various spheres of life effect and relate to the lives of children and parents. Taking this into account, it could be said that race, class and patriarchy coerc e children just as much as the State and schools do, and that parents actions are just as guided by considerations of race, class and patriarchy as they are by the dictates of the State. *** Towards an Anarchist Parenting philosophy and practice It is with the goal of integrating the philosophy and practice of TCS into anarchism and anarchism's various analyses of the State, capitalism, racism, patriarchy and other forms of social oppression that I created the anarchist Parenting e-mail list and web-site. I believe that children are a uniquely oppressed and dominated class of people, and that this is largely either ignored or over-looked by anarchists. And when anarchists do pay attention to this, focus is generally just given to the educational system and State laws. The institution and practice of parenting is left largely unexamined and untouched by anarchists. I hope to do my part to help change this. *** Contact Info TCS Web-site: http://www.tcs.ac TCS Journal and e-mail contact: sl@tcs.ac Anarchist Parenting web-site: http://www.anarchistparenting.com *** Editorial note ¥or most modern humans the domesticating process begins early in childhood, if not before birth (as it does for all the mutant by-products of civilization; cows, massproduced battery hens, etc.). Authoritarian culture reproduces itself in the childhood years, generation after generation, as damaged, psychologicallyscarred slaves unwittingly do their masters' dirty work and cut down on capitalism's operating expenses by programming the next generation themselves . Most children entering the world now are born in bondage, just as their ancestors were, from whatever point in time their cultures were hunted down and violently assimilated/ swallowed up by civilization — and we've been slaves for so long that very few recognize to what extent we've internalized the Systems values or how thorough our own brainwashing has been. It's time to try to heal from the wounds the System has been inflicting on us for ten thousand years or at least make sure that the psychosis of civilization isn't passed on to another generation. Green Anarchy would like to include more articles on anarchist parenting in future issues, as it seems obvious to us that the roots of authoritarian culture (and the perpetuation of patriarchy) lie in sadistic cycles of abuse and domination that have been going on for far too long. John Taylor Gatto has written some thought-provoking books on the compulsory public school system in the United States, such as Dumbing Us Down and The Empty Child, in which he discusses how one of the State's main priorities is to control "education" so that all the rest of the aspects of the social engine won't be destabilized. By getting hold of the children the State secures its territory and insures that its factories are well-stocked with docile, house-broken worker drones. Gatto discusses in painstaking detail how the Amerikan public school system is based on an 18th-century Prussian indoctrination model, a system scientically developed to guarantee certain results, like obedience and the willingness and actual need to follow orders. This is done by destroying our ability to think for ourselves by narrowing our perceptual field and dividing life into subjects which had hardly existed before, and then dividing the subjects ( botany, math, language, politics) further into units. According to the theory, with enough variations in the course of a day, no one would know what was going on, and would gladly turn to the Bible or the State (or in our modern context, television) for guidance and direction. Judging from what we see around us every day, it would appear this theory works and has been yeilding profitable results for the ruling class for quite some time. Once an individual is addicted to fragmented ** School I grew up in the woods outside my folks' back door with the raccoons skunks and squirrels when I was not in school or wrapped around some book I was climbing trees or stalking bugs until the bulldozers came to eat the forest and section by section turn it into shopping plazas and apartment complexes the woods became my school of warfare sabotage became my game moving surveyors stakes sugaring gas tanks breaking windows even making home made bombs in my war to stop destruction of my playground it was a losing fight for the trees but they never caught the Little Warrior and when school was out a Big Warrior went on to fight the Spirit War. studies and mental confusion, it's the rare person who can ever get control of their own mind and their own will again. They may get angry and refuse to do something but they don't know how to write the script of their own lives, the System has destroyed that in them. Of course, authority has utilized many different techniques of domestication over the centuries and Gatto's books only discuss some of the more contemporary forms of mass-hypnosis. If we're serious at all about creating and living Anarchy, then we need to start taking a close look at social conditioning and where it begins, and we need to start treating childrens liberation as the core issue that it is. In addition to John Taylor Gatto's books, we can suggest some other useful books on anti-authoritarian parenting to our readers: Summerhill by A.S. Neill Growing Up Absurd by Paul Goodman Libertarian Education by J.M. Raynaud and C. Ambauves *** June 12, Missouri: Schools Are Prisons And Prisons Burn! Arnold: Someone apparently set fire to the Sherwood Elementary School in the early morning hours. The blaze gutted two classrooms, melted structural supports in the roof and caused heat and smoke damage ammounting to more than $1 million dollars. The local police have arrested two boys aged 13 and 15 in connection with the fire. The school superintendent, whose position indicates how thoroughly he has forgotten his own childhood educational experiences, expressed shock at the attack. We're sure most of the children who have been forced to attend the school recently including the two boys currently being held by the cops could refresh his memory with a thousand reasons for burning a school. ** HATE SCHOOL? SOMETHING ABOUT UNLEARN School teaches us a lot of crap. Not just in boring textbook lessons, but in its day to day activities. It teaches obedience and submission to authority. It teaches that academic intelligence is more important than our passion in life, that getting a job and having an income is more important than building and nurturing a healthy community. Difference in economic class is also a large factor in the quality of a learning environment. But regardless of wealth or poverty, mass education based on compulsion and competition will never result in selfempowered, and cooperative people. We need to get the schoolin’ mentality outta our heads! *** R E S I S T Challenging authority can be very empowering. In a society where alienation and frustration often lead people to find release in drug abuse or misdirected aggression, we need to seek ways to channel our rage and attack the root causes of our problems. Rebellion is healthy, now let's make it strategic, too. Get with a group of trusted friends or work alone. Make an underground newsletter. Write inspiring graffiti. Play pranks. Hand out flyers. Make posters. Plan walkouts or skip days. Do phone/fax jams to the administration office. Just be aware of who you are affecting and play safe! *** ESCAPE What are our options? What would we do without schools?!? Look around, kids everywhere are leaving the school institution and taking education back into their own hands. There are tons of home school groups around. Many are conservative, but often they have tools and resources that may help you start a more radical unschooling support group. If it is the question of pleasing the parents, check out the GED option, or a structured mail-in homeschool course. If they won't be satisfied with your decision then maybe you should look into legal emancipation. Parents abuse their authority, it is what they've learned to do all their lives. They need some unlearning of their own, but in the meantime don't endure any sort of abuse. We have to find ways out of these self-perpetuating cycles. *** IMAGINE Imagine what the world would be like if kids were free to pursue their own interests, instead of being locked up in a school all day, for 12 years, and force fed 'knowledge.' School doesn't only affect youth, it affects anyone who has hope for the future. School is the breeding ground for the domination, competition, and violence in society. Getting out of school and fighting it is a big step in the direction of freedom and equality. We need to challenge authority and social privilege wherever it is found. Youth have a strong tradition of igniting movements. The potential for a new world lives inside you... Be sure to check out the "Anarchy Youth" Page on Infoshop.org at: www.infoshop.org/ kidz and the "Anarchist Youth Forum" at: httpl ' I flag, blackend.net/wwwthreads/postlist ** Untitled Modern childhood was invented by the industrial revolution, science, and publiceducation (mass-media) in the last 200 years. Now it's being destroyed. Many millions of kids are breaking the old-taboo lines seperating or preventing them from wildness. It's widely known that shame and guilt, threats and fears are commonly used to civilize and control children made to grow-up too fast, to fit into our high-speed, hi-tech law and order society. Giving and allowing children social equality is almost unknown in this sick culture where domination by elders is very expected and assumed. Here are a few more books that might be useful to anarchist parents and kids: Liberated Parents, Liberated Children by Paber and Mazlish Escape From Childhood by John Holt The Politics of the Family by R.D. Laing Dreaming In Someone Else's Mind (an anthology of poetry and art by third, fourth and fifth graders) ** COMMUNIQUE’ FROM THE HEART OF THE BEAST It all starts with the Engineers and Inventors. Weaseley little math — and — science geeks obsessed with creating the perfect circle, the perfect square, the perfect system, the perfect mass-manufacturing process for a mass-manufactured society. The perfect Machine. Ideas are spawned in the grid-haunted depths of Euclidean brains, plans are drawn up and copied and revised and reworked by little front-line armies of C AD-artists and R&D-specialists, part molds are designed and ordered from machine shops, and labor-contracts are devised over boardroom coffee and donuts by underworked / overpaid fat-cats in suits whose only real job is making six figures a year deciding the fate of thousands of manual-labor shitworkers. Ladies and gentlemen, the new Chevy SUV is a go-ahead, lets order ten million of them! A toast to the auto industry! It's only 10 a.m., the day is over.. .anyone for 18 holes on the green? "The green", the golf course, the countryclub. ..even more so than the factory farm, the symptom par excellence of corrupt capitalism and industry run amuck. The futures of millions of wage-slaves are decided by a small handful of filthy-rich old men whacking little white balls around meticulously manicured lawns. It would almost be funny, if it weren't such a disgusting travesty. My workday begins at 3 p.m., and lasts for 8 long hours in 105-degree heat. While the random ad-execs in some random skyscraper in some random city are just finishing their grueling day in central air-conditioning, alternating between flirting with secretaries and surfing the web for e-porn and sitting around in padded conference room chairs brainstorming about why the all-consuming american public needs one more SUV to choose from and how to convince them of this (though considering the mentality of the average consumer, this task is never too difficult). I meanwhile am at my assigned press, getting my paperwork in order and preparing to start my first "heat," or machinecycle. I currently work in a rubber parts factory. We manufacture parts almost exclusively for the american auto industry. When you see cars on the road at any given time, chances are pretty high that a few of its countless little rubber whatnots came from this factory in northern Indiana or form one just like it in some other anonymous little factory-town somewhere. Detroit is hard-pressed to meet production deadlines to satiate the ravenous auto-driving public. Consequently, all its umpteen-kazillion parts suppliers, like this place, are under even more pressure. Quantity must be high or else we don't make crucial quotas, causing us to lose contracts. Quality must be high or else the parent companies get fed up with the numbers of bad parts we're sending out and cancel our contracts. But as hard as these idiots making the big decisions in modern industry try to convince themselves otherwise, they can never get past one small and simple fact: QUALITY AND QUANTITY ARE COUNTERPOISED, MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE AND ULTIMATELY IRRECONCILABLE. You can have small quantities of high-quality craftsmanship, handmade with loving care and pride, or you can have mass-quantities of shit. One or the other. Our society naturally opts for quantity, so quality necessarily becomes a mere facade, a crass and hypocritical illusion deftly concealing the tenuous house of cards beneath... But anyway, back to my mindless job. The rubber is milled and prepped (i.e. mixed together with various chemicals, then cut to size) in the millroom. The people working in the millroom push a cart load of rubber "preps"-some round, some square, some sticky, some grainy, etc. depending on the part that's being made-over to the press operators like myself. On go the gloves, push goes the button, down go the hydraulics, and in go my gloved hands to pull out the hundred pound, 350-degree steel mold. I brush it clean, blow it off with pressurized air, slap on a piece of rubber, push it back in, and press the start button. The press closes at between 1000 and 1500 psi, and the timer sets itself for a 6minute cycle. Then I repeat the same process on 2 or 3 other presses, and wait for the cycle to end. After 6 minutes elapse on the timer, the presses open. I put on my gloves and pull the hot molds out, punch all the parts out onto a cooling screen, and repeat the entire process the entire shift. Like clockwork, a well-oiled wage-slave performing the welloiled machinations of factory life. Every odd hour I write down a cycle-count on the Production Control paper, every even hour I take the molds' temperatures (or, more often, fabricate temperatures within the allowable range) and write them down on a quality-control graph. I slack off as much as possible, as do most of the other press operators and workers in other departments. We drink lots of water and soda, take lots of restroom breaks (the restroom is a good 15 degrees cooler than the factory floor), have play-wars with all the little pieces of scrap rubber our machines produce, leave early and return late from lunch and sneak outside for illicit smoke-breaks whenever possible. Trust me, inhaling cigarette smoke is quite healthy compared to the various silicon-polymer and hydrocarbonpolymer vapors workers are forced to inhale for 8 hours per day at this factory and many, many others like it. As evil and insidious as the tobacco companies might be, they do provide a valuable service to hundreds of millions of wage workers worldwide: stress relief and a tangible social bond to combat the massively alienating and reifying effects of the artificial division of labor necessary to support the vicious circle of massproduction and mass-consumption. Besides, most low-end factory workers smoke generics anyway, simply because they're too poor to afford the name brands; with recent tax and price increases, Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man are fast becoming the SUV's of the cigarette world: only the middle and upper classes can afford them. And when you're sucking on a cancer stick, you know that to a certain degree, at least your death is still in your own hands. They might own my life, by God, but I'll die on MY terms... The systemic powerlessness that industrial capitalism forces onto countless millions of people, all in the name of more and better and cheaper products of consumption and convenience, is far beyond pathological. The machine chokes the bodies and souls of living, breathing human beings in perpetual slavery so it can in turn choke the planet with more automobiles and more concrete and more nonbiodegradable waste and more noxious pollution. The average city's daily routine fresh out of high school, intelligent and creative kids who come from poor families and are too poor to afford college, selling their bodies and souls to these industrial sweatshops just to help pay their family's bills and put food on the table. I see people working two full-time jobs trying their hardest to take care of babies they never get to see anyway. I see apathetic souls and ruined minds, wreckage from the human sacrifices made to the great Machine-Gods. I see kids younger than me whose arms are covered in permanent burn-scars, kids younger than me forced by their mere birth into an industrial-capitalist technocracy to spend the beautiful sunny afternoons inside a fume-filled concrete building operating dangerous machinery, just so they can eat. Kids younger than me handling liquid nitrogen and caustic acids and bases and carcinogenic superheated silicone and working next to wide-open vats of boiling oil. On and on the list of atrocities goes. ..and I go home at night, and think about it all, about what we've done to ourselves and our Mother Earth, and tears come to my eyes, and I weep... Every bad part I "miss" during inspection is a tiny but conscious prayer of hope that we might see a new and better world come into being. Every intentional act of sabotage is my heartfelt cry of passion against the inhumanity of a machine that I know, one way or another, can be stopped... So the next time you hear of a car accident involving malfunctioning or poorly-crafted internal parts, you can thank me and people like me. We do not care. We're only here for the paycheck, because we have to be, because we have babies to feed and bills to pay. We do not care about this system, we'd much rather see it crumble and give way to a more humane way of life on Earth. We don't give a shit whether or not the 2003 Cadillac Escalade is a "topquality" piece of gas-guzzling, air-polluting, earth-raping machinery. Some of us will not rest until the scrapyards of the world are piled high with wrecked, destroyed and abandoned automobiles waiting to be converted into iron skillets, bicycle parts and alternative energy sources. One Wrench will break the Machine, and its a wrench we all have a handle on, but we must wield it in one final and deadly blow, a collective effort of will and passion and desperation that will sever every single head of the techno-industrial hydra in a single deathknell. Until we reach that penultimate point of despair for our lives and the life of our planet and environment, despair for LIFE ITSELF, we will remain doomed to the silenced powerlessness of slavery and the hopeless futility of isolated individual action. But let us act together, as one, and... NO machine will stop us. For the immanent industrial apocalypse, David ** A STUMPT SAVAGE "Your 'right to work'?" the savage said Your 'right to earn' your daily bread? Why, man alive, what do you mean? Have you got bugs, friend, in your bean? Your 'right to work'! Ain't there the Earth She feeds us all from our day of birth You 'don't own it'? Well, you don't say! And how did you get that away? Your 'constitution' and your 'law'? Well I'll be jiggered! Haw! Haw Haw! 'Civilization'? — excuse my smirk — It steals your bread? your 'right to work'? And turns you loose upon the Earth More helpless than you were at birth? And you stand for it? Well, I'll say! What is 'Civilization,' anyway? — Covington Hall ** 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance Ten years after it was originally published in the first issue of the revolutionary Indigenous newspaper OH-TOH-KIN, 500 Years of Indigenous Resistance remains an important and relevant history of the colonization of the Americas and the resistance to it. It begins with the arrival of Columbus and finishes with the resistance struggles that defined the early nineties. Includes artwork by former OH-TOH-KIN member Gord Hill. This awesome pamphlet is co-published by Arm The Spirit and Solidarity, and can be ordered from Kersplebedeb, DP 63560, CCCP Van Horne, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ** "...Let's Get Free!" Check-out the new 28-page zine about Jeff "Free" Luers, earth defender, anarchist, and political prisoner currently serving almost 23 years for politically-motivated arson charges, and other charges which were added with no evidence. This zine contains writings, poetry, and artwork by Free, as well as other writings about this eco-warrior. This zine is available for $5 (with half of the money going directly to Free) from the Green Anarchy Distro or Free’s Defense Network. Please contact either group if you would like to distribute this zine in your area. To contact Free: Jeffrey Luers #13797671 OSP 2605 State St Salem, OR 97310 Free's Defense Network: POB 50263 Eugene, OR 97405 e-mail: howl_for_freedom@yahoo.com Free's new website is www.freefreenow.org ** Reviews Fifth Estate Fifth Estate is easily the longestrunning "underground" publication in the U.S., founded in the '60's. By the mid-'70's it had degenerated into a sensationalist, sex-ads tabloid rather like the other old standby, the Berkeley Barb. In 1975, however, it was taken over by a very radically exploring bunch that came to call itself the "Eat the Rich" gang. From this point on through the '80's, they discovered new sources of critique, including Camatte, Ellul and Sahlins, and published the likes of Fredy Perlman, David Watson and John Zerzan who questioned and indicted technology and civilization. But over the past decade or so, Fifth Estate has come to avoid new critiques or visions and no longer merits Anarchy magazine's perennial description of it as "consistently anticivilization." In fact, it hasn't questioned civilization, technology or hardly anything else fundamental in some time. And now, sadly, it seems to have hit a new level of decline under the editorship of hippie-pacifist Sunfrog. No more edge at all and an obvious aversion to the real resistance developing around the world. When opposition to the mounting, all-inclusive crisis is most needed, Fifth Estate has reached its weakest ebb. It's voice is now so removed from an attack on the world system — any world system — as to celebrate ( Summer 2002) those in Porto Allegre last winter who seek a " a process for globalization 'from the bottom up'." We'd love to see a rebound from this kind of bankrupt reformism but the trajectory of Fifth Estate seems to be well-established, especially now that the project is in the hands of liberal, lifestylist Sunfrog. It's acutely painful to see an anarchist paper that once set such a high publishing standard — and which spent 15-20 years examining the foundations of civilization to describe how thoroughly its subjects have been conquered (with just a handful of ecoanarchist allies supporting their inquiries) — break down into such a worthless, irrelevant waste of tree flesh. How about a decent burial for a publication that was once a beacon of originality, life, and fighting spirit? *** The Northeastern Anarchist: Magazine of the Northeastern Federation ofAnarcho-Communists As I trudge through the monotonous, unoriginal and long-winded essays in The Northeastern Anarchist (NA), what immediately comes to mind is Crimethlnc.'s article "Face it, your politics are boring as fuck" from Days of War, Nights of Love (of which NA provides a condescending "Your politics are incomplete until you read a sufficient number of dead European intellectuals"-style critique). The anti-FTAA resistance in Quebec City in one of their issues — the last one I bothered to read — has four separate articles, occupying a total of twelve pages, devoted to it alone. While this was an inspiring insurrectionary event, it is a toilsome chore to read four separate articles about it in one publication. Equally tedious is the burdensome task of reading the three essays on antiquated methods of organization contained in this publication, along with the numerous news pieces that report on assorted mass demos, riots and events (of which only some are interesting). Only those with sufficient endurance, patience or interest to make it through an entire issue of NA will be prepared to participate in NEFAC's politics, along with the bureaucracy and hierarchy it undoubtedly entails. It should be recognized by now that federations only serve to reproduce the power relations that currently exist. If small collectives are to make joint decisions with each other, each collective must send delegates to act and speak on behalf of its members. It is often argued that instant recall procedures and "strict mandates" will hold delegates accountable. However, this assumes that the group can be sufficiently informed about their delegation's actions when the membership as a whole is not present to monitor them constantly. Additionally, a limited number of mandates (which are themselves open to interpretation) cannot serve as a guide for an unlimited number of possible decisions that a delegate may be required to make. As federations between groups increase in size, delegate assemblies must elect delegates of their own to coordinate regional, continental or even global scale projects, thus creating a relationship between communities and political institutions that is just as distant and mediated as that of today. Also, specialists and experts will be assigned to inform political and economic decisions, but those affected by their advice that don 't specialize in the same areas will not be able to adequately evaluate the accuracy or wisdom of their opinions. If this is the alternative, why bother? - we might as well save our time and energy, and just stick with capitalism. Although the members of NEFAC may have anarchist intentions, they need to re-examine their methods, for they will soon find that their organization has a bureaucratic and authoritarian life of its own, whether intended or not. The fact that the inside front flap of their publication reveals that they have a "General Secretariat Collective" and an "International Secretariat" should be sufficient to make any anarchist cringe. If personal autonomy is desired, collectives should be small enough to allow for group-wide decisions to be made by all members without delegation. Groups can share and communicate with each other without joining, and hence controlling, each other. For a copy of NA, send a check or money order for $4 US ($5 Canadian) to The Northeastern Anarchist PO Box 230685, Boston, MA 02123. *** Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla by Ann Hansen (Between the Lines/ AK Press, Toronto and Edinburgh, 2002) 493 pp, $19.95 In the early 1980's Ann Hansen and others calling themselves Direct Action (AKA the Vancouver Five or the Squamish Five) blew up a hydro-electric substation in British Colombia, burned some especially misogynist Vancouver porn shops, and bombed a Toronto factory that made Cruise Missile components. "I would prefer to live in peace but, when I looked around me, I couldn't find it anywhere. Everywhere I looked, the land was being destroyed, the Indians were victims of genocide, Third World peoples were oppressed and massacred, people lived in industrial wastelands and womyn were being raped and children molested. I could never live in peace, only quiet: the kind you find in cemeteries." Ann spoke to her decision to engage in active, illegal resistance in these terms in court in 1984, before receiving a life sentence. She served seven years and now lives in Ontario, Canada. She was and is an anarchist whose acts were informed by a deep understanding of the malignant nature of industrial civilization. In fact, Direct Action was virtually unique for its time in having arrived at a critique and a vision that were much more radical than the prevailing North American activism. In both theory and practice the Five embodied an exemplary level of revolutionary commitment. Much of the Direct Action approach finds its echo in debates that are ongoing. For example, we at GA see property destruction as a necessary tactic (among many). Ann addressed those who see the sabotage of destructive property by protesters as being on the same level as the violence of the state and corporations. She pointed out that this equation is no more accurate than saying that the peace of the concentration camp is the same kind of peace that one finds in a healthy society. Ann Hansen's voice and resolve, (see the interview elsewhere in this issue) are urgently needed in the movement today. Direct Action is a candid and extremely well written account of a project that has instructive relevance almost twenty years later. Strongly recommended. *** Veiled Courage: Inside The Afghan Women's Resistance by Cheryl Benard (Reviewed by anarchist p.o.w. Rob "Los Ricos" Thaxton) Afghanistan has been ravaged by warfare for over 25 years now. Used as a pawn by the U.S. in order to draw the Soviet Union into a Vietnamese quagmire along its own border, the country was left to fend for itself when the Red Army withdrew, leaving behind — in the words of the Soviet commander-in chief — "Dust, lice and blood." Since the Soviet withdrawal, Afghanistan has suffered constant civil warfare as rival warlords and Islamic fundamentalist jihadis contend for power. Constantly shifting alliances have not helped calm the situation. The U.S. in particular has exacerbated the violence by backing different factions of jihadis — first the alliance known as the mujahideen, later the Taliban occupation forces and currently the so-called Northern Alliance. The latter is an insane patchwork of armed groups as diverse as former communist loyalists, opium producers and jihadis ( Islamic holy warriors) — including former mujahideen and Taliban factions. When the Taliban and Al-Quada were forced to flee, men throughout Afghanistan celebrated by shaving or trimming their beards, which were mandatory under the Taliban's reign, with a prescribed minimum length. The women of Afghanistan have declined to shed their veils and burquas, however. All they see is more of the same shit coming their way. Hamid Karzai proved them right by refusing to rescind Islamicbased law after the loya jurga (grand council) appointed him as interim president. It's difficult to find any good guys in the hatefilled factionalism that still plagues Afghanistan. I can't think of a single one. That doesn't mean there aren't brave, compassionate, militant dissidents there. Cheryl Benard's book, Veiled Courage, tells of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan ( RAWA), documenting RAWA to inform the world that there are alternatives to the raping, murdering thieves and thugs being propped up as the leaders of the Afghan people. Benard presents a history of RAWA, from its beginning as a student-based group in opposition to the Soviet occupation in the 1970's, through its evolution into a clandestine women's rights organization and on to its current status as the only Afghani political group that lives up to its promises. The contrast between the Taliban and RAWA couldn't be more divergent. Under the Taliban and other fundamentalists rulers, women were prohibited from showing any part of their body from beneath their burquas, could not travel outside their homes without male escorts — even for medical emergencies (this was true for widows and orphaned girls, too), and were prohibited from either education or work outside the home. RAWA, on the other hand, ran clandestine schools for girls, established health clinics for women who could not legally obtain health care, and have done much of the relief work necessary to provide for the 5 million-plus refugees forced from their homes by factional warfare among the warlords. The most amazing thing about RAWA is that they have been doing all this clandestinely in Afghanistan and warily in Iran and Pakistan. RAWA was forced underground by the Sovietbacked government in power in the '70s. When RAWA organized school girls and women college students to "speak poetry" against the occupation, the terrified police forces fired upon the chanting girls, killing two children. This murderous incident cost the Soviet puppet regime any credibility with the Afghan people. The government responded — as any communist regime would — by suppressing all opposition. The women activists of RAWA have put their lives on the line in order to provide everyday, vital services to Afghan people, particularly for women and girls. The jihadis only provide for boys in internment camps where they are kept in isolation from their families and indoctrinated in religious fanaticism. Reverence for RAWA's founder, Meena, is a large part of RAWA and this book. Again, her life provides a vivid contrast to that of her contemporaries, like Gulbuddin Hekmatyr, who first came to prominence as a college student by throwing acid into the faces of women who dared to show them in public. Until recently, the cowardly scumbag Hekmatyr was one of the key players in Washington's schemes to establish a new government in Afghanistan. Whereas Hekmatyr 's authority was enforced through strength of arms, Meena's influence was forthcoming due to her compassion, bravery and love. In 1986, Hekmatyr captured Meena's husband, himself a dissident in Pakistan, and personally tortured Faiz Ahmed to death. The next year, with the aid of the CIA-backed Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI, Hekmatyr did the same with Meena. Many RAWA activists hold Meena's memory close to their hearts to this day. Not because of her authority, but because they knew and loved her as much as she knew and loved them. Benard's book works best when she allows the Afghan people to share their stories in their own voices. Her analytical weaknesses are apparent when she throws in her own perspectives. Thankfully, this is mostly in the second-to-last chapter. Benard has fallen under the spell of some very strange individuals in regards to her political take on the state of world affairs. She also appears to be painfully naive about American foreign policy. This is as confusing as it is questionable. Her husband, Zalmay Khalizad, works for the National Security Council (of the U.S.). Since Benard mostly sticks to recounting the history of RAWA — up through 9/ 1 1 — the book is both informative and valuable for anyone who wants to learn about RAWA. www.rawa.org *** Break The Chains #12 Is Out Now! The new issue of Break The Chains, the newsletter of the Northwest Political Prisoner Support Network, is out. This issue includes, amongst other things, a report on former political prisoner Chris Plummer and Bo Brown's recent visit to the Northwest, an overview of anti-prison organizing in Eugene, legal updates regarding political prisoners in Oregon and California, updates on state repression in the Northwest, and articles by Oregon political prisoners Jeffrey "Free" Luers, Rob "Los Ricos"Thaxton,ThomasTripp, and Tewahnee Sahme. Order Break The Chains for $2 from: PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440. Email: breakthechains02@yahoo.com Visit the Break The Chains website at: www.breakthechains.net Subscriptions to this newsletter are $5 for one year for individuals and collectives, $10 for institutions. This newsletter is free to women prisoners and all prisoners in Oregon, California, Washington and Idaho. *** Cascadia Media Collective Releases Guerrilla Video Primer Cascadia Media Collective will release its long-anticipated Guerrilla Video Primer on October 1, 2002, teaching viewers everything they need to know to videotape a riot, spot news event or community issue. Featuring lessons culled from CMC's experiences in the field, the lively 90-minute tutorial teaches aspiring videographers and guerrilla journalists: * Camera Basics: how to get a good, steady shot of an action in progress; * Copwatch: how to catchthe pigs on tape for community defense; * Editing: how to put together a tight, smooth piece; * Tips for filming local, national, and internatioanl events; * Cable access and distribution issues. The Guerrilla Video Primer is accompanied by a Guerrilla Video Handbook which goes into greater detail on all aspects presented in the video. Guerrilla Video Primer (video only): $15 Guerrilla Video Handbook (book only): $10 Book/video set: $20. Order from: Cascadia Media Collective P.O. Box 703, Eugene, OR 97440 www.cascadiamedia.org thecmc@ efn.org ** Further Symptoms of State Meltdown *** May 31-June 1, Oregon: Police Get Pelted With Rocks And Bottles In Off-Campus Riot Eugene: Police used tear gas to quell a campus area riot that ended with eleven people arrested after partiers pelted officers with rocks and bottles, lit fires and ripped down street signs. The melee began about 11:30 p.m. on May 31st and continued for hours as up to 500 people, most of them apparently in their late teens and early 20s, gathered in streets just west of the University of Oregon campus. "There was a lot of alcohol consumed, a lot of people out because of the warm weather, and they were just cruising out and about wherever the action was," Eugene pig Jan Power told the press. Power said a sergeant first responded to reports of loud and disorderly people and quickly realized that more officers were needed. An area resident said partiers became more aggressive when they saw the first police car retreat from the area. Officers wearing helmets and face shields ordered the partiers to disperse, but people responded by throwing rocks and bottles. At least eight pigs suffered minor injuries and windows in three patrol cars were smashed out. Additional pigs were requested as the crowd continued to grow. At the height of the riot, 21 Eugene police were helped by 20 officers from the neighboring Springfield and Coburg police departments, Lane County sheriff's office and Oregon State Police. Police fired three to five canisters of tear gas, but Power said it didn't bother some of the revelers. "It didn't seem to affect some of them," she said. Eventually, most people either left the area or returned to parties inside area houses and apartments. But even hours later, as city crews worked to replace signs and fix other damaged property, some people yelled taunts from inside homes and atop a garage. In addition to the damaged police cars and uprooted signs, partiers started fires in garbage bins, broke a water main and removed a manhole cover. Because so many officers were focused on one small area, most of the city was left without police "protection". "It really leaves the community pretty vulnerable," Power said. "It really does strap our resources. *** June 8, Greece: Man Arrested After Shooting Outside Greek Prime Ministers' Residence Athens: A man described by police as a "drug addict" was arrested after firing a stolen police pistol into the air outside the Athens residence of Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis. Simitis was in the building at the time, but unfortunately, was not injured or killed during the incident. The man, 38, had been armed with both a hunting rifle and a pistol he had taken from a policeman, which was the weapon used in the shooting. Following an exchange of gunfire with Greek cops, the man was "lightly" injured before being finally captured after a short car chase in the capital. A government spokesperson described the shooting as "a particularly serious event" though Greek pigs said the attack was not connected with any known political groups. It is not clear to us how this guy managed to steal a cops pistol, nor what "drugs" he was on, though whatever it was, it did seem to impair his aim. *** June 14, Greece: Firebomb Blast Damage Public Works Ministry, Bank Athens: Firebomb blasts damaged three vehicles belonging to the Greek public works ministry and a bank branch in two separate attacks. No injuries were reported. Three bombs made with propane gas canisters exploded under the cars, which were parked outside a public works ministry building south of the city center, about 5:00 a.m. Half an hour later, a firebomb was thrown at the entrance of an Alpha Bank branch in the eastern suburb of Kessariani, causing minor damage to the entrance. *** June 17, Indonesia: Police Kill Separatist Rebels Of The Free Aceh Movement Indonesian police claim to have shot dead four separatists rebels connected with the Free Aceh Movement and say that they are holding another in connection with the killing of two politicians the previous week in the war zone in the northern province of Aceh. This recent police action came as the number of deaths of civilians in the war between the government and the Aceh Merdeka continue to rise. The secrecy of Aceh 's hidden war is startling. Few in the West know that the Aceh Merdeka rebels in Indonesia's northernmost province have been fighting the military for as long as Fretilin in East Timor. Aceh, dense with palm oil and towering stands of coconut and rubber, has always been the most Islamic and independent area of Indonesia: most people in Aceh describe themselves as fervent adherents of Islam, but say they are not fundamentalists. Religion, in any case, the people say, has little to do with the conflict which is more directly related to the people not wanting to share their rich energy, mineral and food resources with what they consider to be a corrupt and economically-exploitative central government in Jakarta. During a 25-year civil conflict - between the Indonesian military, who are notorious for their repression, and Aceh Merdeka, a well-armed rebel group demanding independence - a once proud and vibrant people have seen massacres, "disappearances", schools destroyed and more than 100,000 traumatized refugees living in makeshift camps. In 1989, the scale of rebel activity and government attacks increased and during a military operation which lasted until 1992, 2,000 people were killed. Care Human Rights Forum lists around 1,300 civilian deaths, about 2,000 missing and 16,000 orphans; around 3,500 cases of torture, 130 rapes and 600 house burnings, all blamed on the Indonesian military, who have now given in to international pressure and are willing to accept human rights monitors to enhance their tattered reputation. It's only been in the last two years that information about the rampant raping and human rights abuses of the Indonesian military has been collected and presented to the public. Through our own research we have confirmed that the unanimous opinion of Java-based and international organizations and "experts" on Aceh is that the Indonesian government is responsible for all these atrocities and that Aceh Merdeka has no record of attacking civilian populations. At the same time, Aceh Merdeka has itself prompted refugee flows: these typically begin when Aceh Merdeka tells villagers that a military raid is imminent and organizes transport to the camps. The rebel group has taken over the refugee camps and "pooled" the refugees' resources so they are left with no means to go back to the villages. It has then attempted to indoctrinate the refugees and now seeks to use them to present to the world Aceh Merdeka's view of the truth - that the military has created a refugee crisis, should withdraw from Aceh and allow it to be independent. In Aceh Merdeka's mind the UN and the Western nations cannot ignore 100,000 refugees dying and sweltering in camps. So the refugees are being controlled, even created, and their image manipulated into a humanitarian plea for independence. This type of leftist authoritarianism makes it impossible for the Green Anarchy Collective to endorse the Free Aceh movement, though to their credit it must be admitted that they have a strong environmental agenda and have shown undeniable solidarity with the womans liberation struggle (something rare in Islamic culture). Adding to our suspicions and doubts about Aceh Merdeka is Libya's financial support of their struggle (in January, the army killed the rebels' long-time military leader, the Libyan-trained Tengu Abdullah Syafei. Another Libyan-trained fighter, Muzakkir Abdul Manaf, who claims to have been a bodyguard for Col. Muammar elQaddafi, quickly replaced him). At the same time, it needs to be acknowledged that Aceh Merdeka are part of an ongoing international anti-colonial movement, and that this movement often takes on bioregional forms that may appear authoritarian to us, but that are in many ways unique responses to unique bioregional and cultural conditions. Viewed collectively, these various bioregional struggles constitute a genuine international movement against capitalism and colonialism, and by staying informed and learning to read the "patterns within the chaos", we can have a better understanding of where we fit into the larger struggle. *** June 22: County Deputy Gets Wasted In Washington Seattle: Less than two weeks after being released from prison for an attack on "law officers", Ronald Keith Matthews was held without bail for investigation of aggravated firstdegree murder in the death of Deputy Richard Herzog, 46, in suburban Newcastle, WA. Sheriff's officers said Herzog responded to a report of a naked man running through traffic in the Eastside suburb. Witnesses said the deputy cop was trying to subdue the naked man with pepper spray when the man grabbed a 40 -caliber semi-automatic Glock handgun from the pigs holster and opened fire. An autopsy performed showed that Herzog, who wore a bulletproof vest, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Noone will ever have proof of the precious deeds that I achieve Noone can logically argue with the things that I believe Just a trifle of positive thinking, a healthy dose of LSD The following day T 11 be watching the news and giggle while others grieve It's not the first time and it sure won't be the last Psychic prayer is functional and the piggies are dying fast This isn't the first time and it sure won't be the last... *** June 30, Poland: International Hunt Seeks NASA Hacker Poznan: Polish prosecutors said they were searching for a computer hacker believed by the United States to have penetrated the NASA computer system. The damage caused by this well-chosen act of computer sabotage was estimated at $1 million. The search is being focused around Poznan, an area in Poland that has a tradition of code-breaking dating back to Polish citezans helping to crack Nazi Germany's Enigma encryption machine during World War Two. Green Anarchy is definately interested in hearing more about acts of politicized hacking in the future, as we consider computers to be the systems' Achilles heel: the increasing reliance on computers for the normal operation of modern society has resulted in the creation of critical nodes whose destruction would be comparable to brain death. Thus, the ruling class have greatly increased the potential for major disruption and economic loss stemming from the sabotage of computer facilities or interference with computer operations. The science of electronic warfare is new and for the most part untested, but the few incidents that we have seen of politicized hacking show amazing promise and potential. Basic guerrilla concepts like invisibility and mobility take on a whole new meaning in cyberspace, and this is important when we consider the present size of the anarchist movement. This type of guerrilla activity wasn't possible twenty years ago, which means that the State - while concerned about it - is still not fully prepared for it. As much as the government would like to limit the use of the worldwide web to commerce and entertainment (the internet is starting to replace TV as America's favorite "plug-in drug"), it's clear that the electronic matrix known as the web is full of opportunities for subversion that don't exist in the physical world. *** July 3, England: Margaret Thatcher Statue Decapitated London: A vandal decapitated an eight-foottall marble statue of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by smashing a metal pole against the sculpture of the Iron Lady. The attacker grabbed one of the poles that supports the ropes keeping people back from exhibits at the Guildhall Art Gallery and used it to knock the head off the statue. Paul Kelleher, 37, of London was charged with criminal damage and blamed Thatcher for "promoting capitalism and endangering the world". Thatcher is hated by many British people for her right-wing, antilabor, pro-capitalist policies. She's hated by people the world over because of her collaboration with Ronald Reagan in global imperialism. *** July 5-6, France: Youth Riot Against Racist Pigs Lille: Roving bands of young people set fire to cars and trash cans in the second straight night of rioting in this northern French city over a court's refusal to imprison a police officer who killed an Algerian man. One rioter threw a gasoline bomb at a government building, causing a small fire. Eight people were arrested. Most of the rioters were of North African descent. A night earlier, six people were detained in similar rioting. All had been released by the 6th, but three of them were to face charges for setting fire to property. The violence came after a regional court threw out charges of homicide against a police officer who shot and killed a 24-year-old Algerian in Lille in April 2000. *** July 6, Oregon: Explosive Device Blows Up In Front Of Starbucks Coffee Shop Eugene: A loud explosion shook windows and set off business alarms near the University of Oregon campus at approximately 3:30 a.m. The explosion was centered in front of the Starbucks coffee shop at 801 E. 13th Ave. Eugene police searched the area and found an improvised explosive device that had been detonated. The front doors at the shop were slightly damaged. The Eugene police claim that several people heard the explosion, but that no one saw what happened. A newspaper in Seattle referred to this incident as "anarchist related", though thus far we have no reason to believe this "action" was politically motivated. *** July 8, China: Falun Gong Movement Accused Of Disrupting Broadcasts Beijing: Chinese officials accused the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual movement of "launching a challenge against civilization" by disrupting satellite television transmissions in parts of the country for more than 12 hours last month. In a news conference followed by a prime-time news special, broadcasting officials heaped new condemnations on the banned movement. Falun Gong has largely been crushed inside China over the last two years but still has closeted participants in China and a large, vocal constituancy abroad. Communist officials said the operations of the sinosat satellite, which broadcasts national and numerous provincial television channels to remote corners of the country, had been repeatedly "hijacked" during the week beginning June 23, endangering public "security" and violating international law. Communist officials said that the disruptions were the work of "the Falun Gong cult stationed abroad, manipulated and directed by Li Hongzhi," the group's exiled founder. But they declined to provide backup evidence or to say where they believed the intruding signals originated. For long periods that week, viewers "dependent" on the satellite saw black screens and for more than 20 seconds on June 23 they saw scenes of a Falun Gong rally and hundreds of meditating people. "Officials" wouldn't estimate how many TV viewers might have been affected but said signals had been disrupted to 13,000 receiving stations, which distribute signals locally, located mainly in remote mountain areas. The Chinese State's recent statements were the first indications that Falun Gong members might have taken the more advanced step of jamming satellite beacons and trying to substitute their own broadcasts. Falun Gong is a movement that claims to harness "supernatural" forces for improved physical health and a healthier society which attracted millions of adherents in the late 1990's. By outlawing it as an "evil cult" the Chinese state has only helped turn Falun Gong into an internal and international resistance movement. The Chinese authorities took extreme measures to prevent the movement from growing, and sent thousands of die-hard members to labor camps: at least 438 members have died in communist custody so far. But remnants in China and members abroad have resisted with demonstrations and other tactics, such as the pirate television broadcasts. Actions such as these elevate guerrilla or unauthorized media to the level of revolutionary culture jamming and suggest forms of resistance that could be amazingly powerful and effective if they were employed constantly and all over the map. Given the fact that the State creates and reinforces the dominant paradigm through it's monopolization of the means of communication and its possession of technology designed and perfected for the specific purpose of molding the group mind, disrupting their hypnotic propaganda signals is indeed a revolutionary act. The communist States paranoid reaction to any slight display of free thought or deviation from the worldview provided by "the Party" shows how threatening our very ideas are to authority. It's interesting that the Falun Gong movement was originally just promoting a meditation technique but, like the Branch Davidians in the United States, any break with nationalistic social conformity is enough to trigger off State-sponsored "search and destroy" operations. It's also interesting that since September 1 1th, governments the world over are describing any and all forms of non-cooperation or social rebellion as a "war with civilization", which is hopefully what the global resistance is becoming. *** July 13, Italy: Decomposing Water System Prompts Large Protests Rome: The Italian government is making feeble, unconvincing promises to do something about a severe water shortage after weeks of public protests by southern Italian farmers with shriveled crops. While weeks of dry, rainless skies haven't helped the situation, authorities say the shortage is largely caused by an aged, leaky water distribution system. Coming in a country where the influence of ancient Roman engineers can still be seen in the ruins of aqueducts, the unsustainable, fragile nature of the modern day water network is a clear sign that this civilization, like the Roman Empire, is starting to come apart at the seams. Nearly every day for two months, Sicilian farmers have blocked roads or town squares on the island with tractors and cows. Palermo residents have held protests, sometimes clashing with police, after their faucets ran dry for days. Many of Italy's water pipelines date from the 1920's and they "are leaking all over the place", a top i Civil Defense official said. He estimated that about 40 percent of the water destined for farm lands and cities is lost to leaks. Nature has also been stingy with rainfall, perhaps due to the hammering the biosphere has taken at the hands of industrialism. In the last 10 years, precipitation in Italy has decreased by an average of 25 percent nationwide. With temperatures in southern Italy in the mid-90s nearly every day for weeks, tempers have flared on farms, ranches and in homes dependent on these modern systems for survival. The Interior Ministry, which controls state police services, said that police chiefs have been ordered to keep on guard for disorders or "illegal acts" linked to the water shortage. Hopefully, this situation is prompting people to take a deeper look at the unsustainable nature of mass society and most forms of agriculture. *** July 24, Papua New Guinea: Power Pylons Destroyed, Mining Operations Disrupted Ten power pylons have been blown up on separate occasions between the Hides Gas project and the Porgera mine area. A police official said he believed the attack on the pylons to be election related. He said the pylons were not destroyed at the same time. The Porgera Gold Mine relies on power supply from Hides Gas and may have been severely affected by this act of sabotage. Recently a mine manager from Hides Gas expressed concerns about the operations of the mine being affected by shortage of fuel due to election-related violence. But he said since his office received information of the attack, he had dispatched a part of a platoon stationed in Tari with police into the affected areas. Damage estimates have not yet been made. In February this year, when some people cut a 22.1kw power pylon, the mine suffered serious damage. It is unclear who is responsible for this action or what was the motivation behind it, though one can guess that it was an action against corporate exploitation and for self-determination for Papuan people against colonial rule. Papua New Guinea, West Papua in particular, is a country suffering from internal strife, as well as foreign imperialism. Violent conflicts between various rebel factions, Natives, foreign companies, and the government are a regular occurrence. Some groups within Papua wish to keep the country a neo-liberal colony, others want an independent state, and others, namely certain indigenous communities, do not want any government, or any other aspect of modern life. They simply want to be left alone. But the government and the corporations are not likely to respect their wishes, and they will have no choice but to engage in armed conflict for their sovereignty. *** August 1, Chile: Students Protest Bus Fares With Force Santiago: Some 5,000 Chilean high school students marched to the Education Ministry to demand that the government of President Ricardo Lagos freeze student bus fares at the current rate of 100 pesos until 2005. Some of the protesters blocked traffic, threw rocks at police and journalists, vandalized public and private property and looted businesses. Rocks injured two TV camera operators. Police agents from the Carabineros Special Forces arrested 378 people and used tear gas and water cannons to break up the crowds. The police tried to disperse the crowds, but the students regrouped and the protests continued in several locations of the capital over the course of the day. *** August 2-3, Haiti: Police Flee City After Jailbreak And Attacks By The "Cannibal Army" Gonaives: On August 3, Police searched cars and buses leaving this northwestern city for 159 prisoners who escaped after gunmen drove a tractor through the wall of a prison to free a jailed political activist. Police fled Gonaives on August 2 after the jailbreak, and residents locked themselves in their homes as automatic gunfire rang in the streets. People burned down city hall and the courthouse, and authorities acknowledged they had lost control of the town. On August 3, police returned with reinforcements and restored calm. Officers were patrolling the streets and searching vehicles for escaped prisoners on the southbound highway from Gonaives to the city of Port-au-Prince. Gonaives has about 200,000 people. Government officials said the purpose of the prison assault was to free Amiot Metayer, a former ally of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who turned against the president after he was jailed July 2 on charges of burning down the houses of a rival gang. He blamed Aristide for his arrest. Metayer was seen on August 2 parading through Gonaives with his supporters, an armed group calling themselves the Cannibal Army. *** August 11, Oregon: FBI Investigates Multiple Attacks On Bonneville Power Lines Lane County: The FBI and Oregon State Police have joined an investigation to find out who is shooting out insulators on key Bonneville Power Administration transmission lines. Investigators now suspect that recent incidents of vandalism against Bonneville - that seem to have begun in May - are related. "This is an inordinate amount of vandalism for this area," said a BPA security officer. "We've noticed a distinct pattern. Whoever 's doing this knows exactly how many insulators to shoot out so the line will not go out immediately. They also leave the area clean, with no shell casings or other evidence left behind." A power line insulator works like the surgeprotector feature on a computer plug. The glass bell-shaped hoods help regulate the flow of electricity through high-voltage power lines as they approach a tower. They prevent the tower and the ground below it from becoming electrified. When an insulator is damaged, water or moisture can cause the power lines to go dead, interrupting the flow of electricity. Investigators say that usually this type of vandalism is done by bored people who mix guns and alcohol, but that these recent shootings in the Oakridge area are carefully calculated to cause an outage after the shooter has time to escape. The suspect would have to be a pretty good shot to hit the eightinch-wide insulators, which are usually about 70 feet from the ground. The first set of damaged insulators was discovered May 24 near Cougar Dam, about 25 miles east of Eugene. In that case, vandals shot about 80 insulators on the Cougar - Thurston line, causing it to go out of service. Repairs cost about $6,000. The insulators cost Bonneville anywhere from $90 to $300 to replace. On June 3, a helicopter surveillance team discovered additional broken insulators on the same CougarThurston line. A few days later, another helicopter patrol spotted more damaged insulators on the Hills Creek-Lookout Point line, eight miles west of Oakridge: repairs were estimated at $6,500. On July 30, vandals damaged insulators 15 miles east of Lookout Point, causing a two-hour outage in Oakridge. At that point, the Lane County sheriff's office joined the investigation. When a U.S. Forest Service helicopter crew discovered 16 more broken insulators on the same power line on August 3, the BPA notified the FBI. Similar acts of vandalism have been discovered in Montana and Idaho, where damaged insulators shut down a dam for nine hours in June. Repairs and power outages have cost the BPA and smaller power suppliers close to $40,000 since late May. *** August 19, Greece: Government Office Attacked With Bomb! The local office of the PASOK ruling party in the Thessaloniki district of Kyveleia was damaged in the early morning by a gas-canister bomb. Nobody was injured, and no group claimed responsibility. The Global Police State Is Coming Down Fast!!! We're standing right now on the brink of a planetary police state, a technological and military net of social control being woven by the combined nation states of the world, that has the potential to crush all effective resistance to it unless we react quickly and become educated about the new threats facing us all. Ultimately, any movement that seeks fundamental and transformative changes in society will be confronted with state repression. If the legal apparatus limits or restricts this repression, State security forces will ignore such laws, or the State itself will enact new laws legitimizing repressive actions: this has been true throughout the history of Empire and should come as no shock to anyone engaged in revolutionary struggle with the State. What is unique about the current consolidation of ruling class power that we're seeing now is the unprecedented level of cooperation that's taking place between the governments of the world as they attempt to neutralize all resistance to their rule both locally and globally. The essential characteristics of the new National Security state are not the results of 9-11, but rather of a historical process, today referred to as Globalization. As such, the effects of 9-11 signify a new stage in the development of total social control, which is based on technology, increasing social conflict, and the need to ensure the continued exploitation and expansion of transnational capital. This inevitable progression has led to the establishment of a global corporate fascism, where technology has vastly expanded the capabilities for the surveillance and monitoring of political dissidents, nonconformists and "undesirables". Just as technology has been a driving force behind globalization, it is also used as a means of repressing those sectors which resist and/ or have no place in the new economic order (particularly indigenous peoples). The only logical response to the National Security state and its repressive function is the continued application of resistance, based on present-day analysis and the lessons of history. The uncertainty and conflicts of the future will create conditions in which resistance will be fertile, providing that revolutionary movements are prepared to exploit such oppurtunities, overcoming their present marginalization, while at the same time being able to survive increasingly violent and lethal forms of repression. It's vitally important for revolutionaries and dissidents to begin communicating with each other regularly, sharing important information with each other about our various struggles, and engaging in the critical self-analysis that is necessary to keep our tactics and strategies effective. "If there were any serioius concern about liberation we would see thousands of people simply walk away from the vast economic, political, and intellectual machine we call Western Civilization and refuse to be enticed to participate in it any longer. ... Liberation is not a difficult task when one no longer finds value in a set of institutions or beliefs. ... Liberation, in its most fundamental sense, requires a rejection of everything we have been taught and its replacement by only those things we have experienced as having value." -Vine Deloria Jr., from For This Land "If a plant is threatened with overwhelming danger or damage, Backster observed that it reacts self-defensively in a way similar to an opossum -or, indeed, to a human beingby "passing out," or going into a deep faint. The phenomenon was dramatically demonstrated one day when a psychologist from Canada came to Backster's lab to witness the reaction of his plants. The first plant gave no response whatsoever. Nor did the second; nor the third. Backster checked his polygraph instruments, and tried a fourth and a fifth plant; still no success. Finally, on the sixth, there was enough reaction to demonstrate the phenomenon. Curious to discover what could have influenced the other plants, Backster asked: "Does any part of your work involve harming plants?" "Yes," the physiologist replied. "I terminate the plants I work with. I put them in an oven and roast them to obtain their dry weight for my analysis." Forty-five minutes after the physiologist was safely on the way to the airport, each of Backster's plants once more responded fluidly on the graph. This experience helped to bring Backster to the realization that plants could intentionally be put into a faint, or mesmerized, by humans, that something similar could be involved in the ritual of the slaughterer before an animal is killed in the Kosher manner. Communicating with the vicitm, the killer may tranquilize it into a quiet death, also preventing its flesh from having a residue of "chemical fear," disagreeable to the palate and perhaps noxious to the consumer. This brought up the possibility that plants and succulent fruits might wish to be eaten, but only in a sort of loving ritual, with a real communication between the eater and the eaten. ..instead of the usual heartless carnage. "...Entertaining a group of skeptical psychologists, medical doctors, and computer programmers at his house, Vogel let them look over his equipment for hidden devices and gimmicks which they insisted must exist, then asked them to sit in a circle and talk so as to see what reactions the plant might pick up. For an hour the group conversed on several topics with hardly a response form the plant. Just as they had all concluded that the whole thing was a fake, one of them said, "How about sex?" To their mutual surprise, the plant came to life, the pen recorder oscillating wildly on the chart. This led to speculations that talking of sex could stir up in the atmosphere some sort of sexual energy such as the "orgone" discovered by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, and that the ancient fertility rites in which humans had sexual intersourse in freshly seeded fields might indeed have stimulated plants to grow...." —Taken from The Secret Life Of Plants by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird ** State Repression and Political Prisoner News *** Italy: Anarchists Arrested For Acts Of Ecotage Last winter, Green Anarchy recieved an envelope of news clippings pertaining to the reppression of Italian anarchists from comrades of ours in Italy, but unfortunately for us and our readers, all of these articles were written in Italian and it took us several months to have them translated. At this point, some of the information is a little dated but we've chosen to include it to give our readers an idea of what the eco-anarchist movement is up to in Italy and also to try to generate support for anarchists who have been arrested there in the past two years for impressive actions carried out in defence of the Earth. If anyone reading this has more up-to-date information on either of the two situations we're about to discuss, then please contact us at PO Box 11331 Eugene, Oregon 97440 USA On March 13, 2000, some unknown people knocked down an ENEL (an Italian electric utility company) electrical transmission tower in Sedonira, Italy causing a power blackout in the rural areas of Sedrina, Ubia Le Cloorezzo, Almerro San Salvatore and Villa da Aline. Shortly after this action, Italian cops arrested "G.B.", a 24-year old man with no fixed address who was involved in anarchist circles. On October 17th, 2001, the Italian courts sentanced "G.B." to 2 years of imprisonment at a preliminary hearing. Evidence against him included tools, topographic maps, a copy of "Terra Selvaggio" (an italian anti-civilization anarchist paper) and a small notebook with drawings including one of an individual sawing the legs off a transmission tower. "G.B." continues to deny any connection to this action. In a related story, on July 4, 2001, in Porteranica on the Maresara River in Italy, a television, radio and cellphone transmission tower was attacked with simple incendiary devices -10 fruit juice bottles full of gasoline. Those involved climbed the gate, and systematically attatched the bottles to the base of the tower where the cables that transmit data are located. Flames caught the cables on fire and burned the tower up to about 50 ft. There was graffiti left behind which read " Struggle Against All That Is Noxious And Against Telecom" (probably referring to the Italian phone company); the Graffiti was accompanied by a circle A. Other anarchist graffiti was found sprinkled around the town: "Against Every Drug, Against Human And Animal Abuse" and "Consumerist Murderer" being two examples. Damages were estimated at $1 million dollars. On July 17th, cops searched the home of 19year old anarchist student Silvia Guerimi. The pigs found spray paint that matched the same color and brand as that used at the transmission tower site, as well as four bolts that looked similar to those from the sabotaged tower. This was all their evidence but on October 22, Silvia was placed under house arrest with charges of participating in the attack. She denies any connection to the action. Anarchists and classmates demonstrated in front of the courthouse during the preliminary inquiry. There were other demonstrations in solidarity with her in November and December, but the flyers handed out at these demos weren't too impressive — one of the flyers even went so far as to claim (without any evidence) that the action might have been the work of government agents and fascists — the worst sort of dissociation! All of the support offered in the flyers depends on the presumed innocence of Silvia, and so one is left to wonder if these people would stand by her if she decided to claim the action. We've recently learned that Silvia was sentanced on June 3 of this year to three years imprisonment, but is currently free from the restrictions of house arrest until her appeal trial occurs. If the sentance is upheld, she won't go to prison, but will be placed under the supervision of a "social assistant" for the two years and four months remaining of her sentance ( the eight months of house arrest counting as time served). *** Russia: A Call For Solidarity With Natalia Natalia Kexiopoulou is a 19-year-old student who came with her step-family from Abhazia, a region of the former Soviet Union. From the time she was 14 years old, her father had been raping her regularly, threatening to send her back to Abhazia - a place that she remembers mainly for the horrors of the conflict there - if she said anything. On March 11, he tried to rape her again in her office. She pulled out a knife to defend herself and stabbed her father to death. It should be noted that her father was a man of some power, being a member of the security service of Vladimir Putin, Russian head of state. In addition, he may have been involved in "people trafficking", that is to say, pimping. Rapist, security agent, pimp - in other words a pig through and through. Acting in her own self-defense, Natalya did us all a favor, ridding the world of another petty authoritarian piece of shit. She was supposed to go to court on March 15. We have not heard what the outcome of that hearing was. We agree with the Greek anarchist group "Back to the Streets" in their call for solidarity with Natalia Kexiopoulou and all who take direct action against those who exploit and victimize them. Email "Back to the streets" for more information: [[mailto:dromous@yahoo.com][dromous@yahoo.com]] *** Holland: Volkert van der Graaf Accused Of Wasting Fascist Scumbag On 5-6-02, the Dutch fascist politician, Pirn Fortuyn, was shot dead. A 32-year old man, Volkert van der Graaf, has been arrested and accused of Fortuyn's murder. International media reports around the world have described Volkert as an animal & earth liberation activist. However, as yet, no official reason has been given for why Fortuyn was murdered. Tennessee: Anarchist Political Prisoner/ POW Needs Support! Long-term US anarchist prisoner Harold H. Thompson is challenging a decision that will determine whether inmates across the US are able to receive mail containing "political content". Currently between 22,000 and 25,000 prisoners receive anarchist, environmental or animal rights literature. Thompson has been pursuing this case for over two years to ensure this legal right is maintained. A recent District Court setback (these invariably produce biased verdicts) means that at least a further years intensified struggle will be necessary to ensure prisoners access to what state governors refer to as "Security Threat Group Material". This is a serious heavyweight legal contest with farreaching implications for every prisoner held in US jails, particularly those prepared to stand up and fight the system from behind cell bars. There is increasing likelihood it will finish in the US Supreme Court for final resolution. Harold needs funds urgently to carry on this fight. He remains convinced that this struggle can, and indeed, must be won, and an awful lot of hope is riding on his endeavors. If the case folds through lack of resources then prisoners across the USA will be the losers. Please help if you can with donations to: Friends of Harold H. Thompson PO Box 375, Knaphill, Woking, Surrey, GU21 2XL, England. For more info on Harlold H. Thompson, see our Political Prisoners Directory. *** July 25, Sweden: Man Sent To Prison For Anti-EU Actions A 22 year old man from Stockholm received a five-year prison sentence for his involvement in the protests at EU-summit in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2001 . Letters of support can be sent to him by addressing your letters to: "Man jailed for 5 years" c/o Solidarity Group GBG c/o Syndikalistiskt Forum Box 7267 SE-402 35 Gothenburg, Sweden. You can also email solidaritetsgruppen@hotmail.com for more info. *** August 13, Oregon: Activists Detained For Arson Portland: Two eco-activists, Jacob Sherman and Jeremy Rosenbloom, were arrested on suspicion of arson against logging trucks at Eagle Creek last year. The police also announced they were seeking two other activists, Angela Marie Cesario and Michael Scarpitti, on the same charges. Following the initial arrests, news of Angela's arrest soon followed. Jacob, Jeremy and Angela have now all been charged with four counts relating to arson and bailed pending trial. However, Michael, who is known as Tre Arrow, has not been located by the police and he is considered "on the run". For more info, contact: Break The Chains PO Box 11331, Eugene, OR 97440. *** August 24, Chris Plummer Arrested On Bunk Charges Huntsville: The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) held what was supposed to be a public forum for families of Texas prisoners to address concerns with TDCJ policy. A reporter for Indymedia, longtime activist, and former political prisoner, Chris Plummer was arrested outside the campus building for asking a simple question regarding TDCJ policy. Many activists in Texas feel this is not only a violation of his free speech rights, but also an example of the repression and intimidation that TDCJ officials use to eliminate any real concerns that families and supporters of prisoners have. Chris Plummer is on parole and this bunk arrest could land him back in prison if the movement does not give Chris the support he deserves. For more info on how you can help, call: Chris Plummer at #5 1 2-497-5975 or 5 1 2-476-3446 or email him at: txuaf@yahoo.com Solidarity is needed immediately! August 24, Maryland: Revolutionary AntiFascists Arrested! Baltimore: About 200 white supremacists on their way to a Washington DC racist gathering were attacked with gas grenades, tire irons, baseball bats, and hockey sticks at a Southeast Baltimore hotel. Twenty eight people were arrested on assault and weapons charges in the melee, which erupted at about 7:30 am in the parking lot, lobby and hotel rooms of the Best Western Hotel and Conference. Officials said about 30 to 40 people participated in the attack on the white supremacists. Three of the white supremacists suffered minor injuries, one of whom was hospitalized. Some of the nazis attacked are members of the racist group National Alliance. They were travelling to a Washington DC anti-Jew demonstration. Of those arrested for allegedly attacking the nazis are members of the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist Communists (NEFAC), AntiRacist Action, and the Anarchist Black Cross. They are facing very serious charges and they desperately need your support. For more info, contact: Black Planet Books 1621 Fleet Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21231-2931. Email: antifalegal@hotmail.com August 26, California: Feds To Indict Raise The Fist Webmaster Los Angeles: Federal prosecutors are indicting Sherman Austin, founder/webmaster of Raise The Fist - an anarchist/independent media/direct action network. Sherman is being charged with two felony violations, including "Distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction with the intent that such information be used in furtherance of a federal crime of violence." Sherman rejected a guilt plea in court offering him one month in jail, five months in a half-way house, and three years supervised release. If founf guilty in trial, Sherman could serve a maximum of four years in prison. For background info on the case of Sherman Austin, and updates on his situation, please visit the Stop Long Beach Repression website at: www.stoplbrepression.org Biometry: A State Developed HumanTracking System Goes Global Biometric identification using such technologies as fingerprint and retinal scanning is well underway worldwide, a development that should be of concern to anarchists and outlaws everywhere. After debuting in Australia in 1987, national computerized fingerprint systems now exist in several countries. The Japanese telco giant NTT is developing a fingerprint-recognition method, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories is assessing equipement from several vendors in the retinal scanning industry, including EyeDentify (Baton Rouge, LA) and Recognition Systems Inc. (Campbell, CA). Transpoder technology is now routinely implanted in animals: the pet market most predominately, at 3 million ID chips and counting. LifeChip, produced by the Destron Fearing Corp. (St. Paul, Minn.) and the Trovan electronic identification tag, from Electronic Identification Devices Ltd. (Santa Barbara, CA), offer a chip etched with a 10-or 64-bit ID code. Available for $10 at local animal shelters, the chips are small eneough to inject with a syringe, and the ID number is read by a handheld scanner. These implantable transpoders were originally developed in the 1970's by the livestock industry as a form of high-tech "cattle branding", and tags are now routinely implanted in pigs, sheep, cows and horses. Texas Instruments Inc. is also manufacturing a device called Tiris, a radio frequency identification technology for vehicle identification and livestock monitoring. Though the Trovan dealer's agreement prohibits placing a chip under human skin, there's currently no law preventing them from being worn on a bracelet, and indeed, such devices are already being utilized by nursinghome and prison administrators to track people. Even ski resorts are putting the chips inside lift tickets. Not satisfied with this level of social control, the U.S. Department of "Justice" and the FBI are now pushing for transpoder chips to be implanted into the bodies of ex-cons and parolees to "cut back on recindivism and keep tabs on the criminal class." As further indication of where all this is heading, a Florida family recently became the first humans to be implanted with computer chips containing "only" telephone numbers and medical information. Jeff and Leslie Jacobs, along with their 14-year old son, Derek, voluntarilly had chips about the size of a grain of rice implanted into their arms in a simple procedure that takes about a minute under local anesthesia: the family wanted the implants ( called the VeriChip and designed by Palm Beach-based Applied Digital Solutions Inc.) in case of "future medical emergencies", reinforcing the State's sales pitch that these technologies are here to keep us safe. Biometrics takes the domestication of life to intolerable levels, and in our opinion, the development of these technologies needs to be opposed as forcibly and aggresively as anti-GE activists are opposing the development of genetic engineering. Once these systems are in place, they may be next to impossible to dismantle. ( A more detailed pamphlet on the "Veri-Chip" or "Digital Angel" can be downloaded from the Cascadia Media Collective at: www.cascadiamedia.org). ** KIDNAPPED *** Anarchist Prisoners: Frank J. Atwood #62887, Arizona State Prison - Eyman, Box 3400 - SMU 2, Florence, AZ 85232. Radical involved in anti-establishment actions since the '60's. He was framed for murder in 1984 and sent to death row. Jerome White-Bey #37479, Jefferson City Correctional Center, PO Box 900 (5C-146), Jefferson City, MO 65102. Social prisoner turned anarchist activist. Founder of the "Missouri Prison Labor Union." Ojure Lutalo #59860, POB 861, Trenton, NJ 08625. Black liberation activist and anarchist serving a lengthy sentence for clandestine actions. Robert Middaugh T41 137 Bldg 410 23up, PO Box 8, Avenal, C A 93204. Serving three years for an assault on a pig during the 2001 Long Beach May Day action. Mike Rusniak DOC K88887, Dixon CC, 2600 Brinton, PO Box 1200, Dixon, IL 61021. Serving time for stealing a police car, and other anti-government acts. Robert Thaxton (Rob Los Ricos) #121 12716, OSP, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310. Long-time anarchist activist convicted of Assault and Riot for throwing a rock at a cop at the 1999 Eugene J18 Reclaim The Streets. He received a seven year sentence. He's currently assigned "Anarchist Security Group Status." Do not send anything containing any circle-A's. Harold Thompson #93992, Northwest Correctional Complex, Route 1, Box 660, Tiptonville, TN 38079. Sentenced to life plus 50 years for a 1979 robbery of a jewelers, killing a police informer who had murdered his partner in a shooting incident in Ohio. He was later given an extra 32 years for a failed escape attempt. Thomas Tripp #12032560, 777 Stanton Blvd., Ontario, OR 97914. Social prisoner turned anarchist activist. He's facing up to three years in prison for his participation in a prison insurgency aimed at winning religious rights for Native prisoners, better educational programs for everyone, and other concessions. Shaka N' Zinga (Arthur Wiggins) #196612, POB 534 (MHC-X), Jessup, MD 20794. New Afrikan anarchist being framed for a crime he did not commit. *** Ecological Resistance Prisoners: Charles Hoke #861206, ACH, Indiana Department of Correction, Indiana State Prison, PO Box 41, Michigan City, Indiana 46361004 1 . Radical farmer serving time for robbing banks in order to support himself, and other farmers, who were being forced from their homes by developers. Ted Kaczynski #04475-046, US Pen-Admin Max Facility, PO Box 8500, Florence Colorado 81226. Sentenced to multiple lifetimes in prison for the "Unabomber" bombing attacks against industrial society. Jeffrey Luers (Free) #13797671, OSP, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310. Long-time environmentalist serving 22 years for politically-motivated arson attacks. He needs your support! Craig Marshall (Critter) #13797662, SRCI, 777 Stanton Blvd., Ontario, OR 979 14. Serving five years for a politically-motivated arson attack against a Romania Chevrolet car dealership in Eugene. Peter Schnell #99476-111, FCI Otisville, PO Box 1000, Otisville, NY 10963. Antiauthoritarian earth/animal liberation activist serving two years for being in possession of incendiary devices. Fran Thompson #93341, 1107 Recharge Rd., York, NE 68467. Eco-activist serving a Life sentence for shooting dead, in self-defense, a stalker who had broken into her home. Matt Whyte #99477-111, Taft Correctional Institution, PO Box 7001, Taft, CA 93268. Anti-authoritarian earth/animal liberationist serving two years for being in possession of incendiary devices. Helen Woodson #03231-045 FMC Carswell, POB 27137, Admin. Max Unit, Fort Worth, TX 76127. Serving 27 years for robbing a bank and then setting the money on fire while reading out a statement denouncing greed, capitalism and the destruction of the environment. *** Assisted Suicide: Dr. Jack Kevorkian #284797, Southern Michigan Correctional Facility JMF, 4010 Cooper St., Jackson, MI 49201 . Imprisoned for helping suffering people die through assistedsuicide. *** Indigenous Prisoners: William Firewalker Burchett #03655032, West 5852, Federal Prison, PO Box 7000, Fort Dix, NJ 08640. Native American religious rights activist being held in prison under questionable circumstances. Eric Wildcat Hall BL-5355, Unit I/A 10745 Route 18, Albion, PA 16475-0002. Serving 35 75 years for helping ship arms to Central American indigenous resisters. Eddie Hatcher Marion Correctional Institution, PO Box 2405, Marion, NC 28752. Long-time Amerindian activist being framed for crimes he did not commit. Leonard Peltier #89637-132, PO Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048. American Indian Movement (AIM) activist, serving two life sentences, having been framed for the murder of two FBI agents. Andy J. Riendeau (John Two Names) #193786, B-Dorm, Staton Correctional Facility, PO Box 56, Elmore AL 36025-0056. Native activist being framed for setting schools on fire. Tewahnee Sahme #11186353, Oregon State Prison, 2605 State St., Salem, OR 97310. Native rights advocate facing time for participation in a prison rebellion. David Scalera (Looks Away) #13405480 OSP 2605 State St. Salem, OR 97310. Dedicated Native rights advocate serving time for a prison insurgency. *** Anti Imperialist & Anti-Capitalist Prisoners: Kathy Boudin #894171, PO Box 1000, Bedford Hills, NY 10507. Former Weather Underground activist serving time for being a passenger in a get-away van during the 1981 Brink's expropriation attempt in New York. Despite her work with incarcerated mothers and AIDS victims, she is still being denied early release by the authorities. Marilyn Buck #00482-285, Unit B, 5701 8th Street, Camp Parks, Dublin, CA 94568. Serving 50 years to life for actions taken after she escaped prison herself including an armed robbery of a Brink's armored truck and the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison. She is the only white member of the BLA. Judy Clark #83-G-313, PO Box 1000, Bedford Hills, NY 10507. Former Weather Underground member. Bill Dunne #10916-086, Box 1000, Marion, IL. 62959. Anti-authoritarian sentenced to 90 years for the attempted liberation of a prisoner in 1979. Larry Giddings #10917-086, PO Box 1000, Lewisburg, PA 17837. Anti-authoritarian activist imprisoned in 1973 for attempted expropriation, paroled in 1978 then re-arrested in 1979 while attempting to liberate a comrade from prison. He's serving 75+ years with no known parole opportunities. David Gilbert #83A6158, Attica C.F, POB 149, Attica, NY 14011. Serving time for clandestine actions against imperialism and capitalism. William Gilday P.O. Box 1218, MCI Shirley, Shirley, MA 01464-1218. Jailed for the shooting of a cop during a 1970 bank expropriation intended to fund the movement against the Vietnam War. Alvaro Luna Hernandez #255735, Hughes Unit, Rt. 2, Box 4400, Gatesville, TX 76597. Chicano-Mexican freedom-fighter serving time for a police-orchestrated frame-up to stop his effective community organizing. Yu Kikumura #090008-050, PO Box 8500 ADX, Florence, CO 81226. Alleged member of the Japanese Red Army. *** United Freedom Front (UFF) Prisoners: The following three individuals are serving huge sentences for their role in actions carried out by the (UFF) in the 1980's. The UFF carried out solidarity bombings against the US government on a variety of issues. All of these individuals are excellent people to write to and will answer letters. Jaan Karl Laaman W41514, Box 100, South Walpole, MA0207. Ray Luc Levasseur #10376-016, Box PMB, Atlanta, GA 30315. Thomas Manning #10372-016, Box 4000, Springfield, MO 65801. Richard Williams #10377-016, 3901 Klein Blvd., Lompoc, CA 93436. *** Black Liberation Prisoners: The following prisoners are all serving time for activism for black liberation. Many of them are former members of either the Black Liberation Army (BLA), or the Black Panther Party (BPP), or both. They are either in prison for their clandestine actions against the state and the racist pigs, or because they have been framed by the authorities who work to crush dissent. Sundiata Acoli #39794-066, Box 3000, White Deer, PA 17887, USP Allenwood. BLA POW. Zolo Agona Azania #4969, Indiana State Prison, PO Box 41, Michigan City, IN 463610041. Community activist being framed for murdering a cop. Hanif Shabazz Bey (Beaumont Gereau) #295933, Wallens Ridge State Prison, PO Box 759, Big Stone Gap, VA 24219. Imprisoned for actions carried out against US colonialism in the Virgin Islands. Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom) #77A4283, Box 338, Napanoch, NY, 12458. Former Black-Panther who's accused of participating underground activities. He's been in jail for 22 years, which makes him one of the oldest political prisoners in the U.S. He may be up for parole soon and he needs support! Joseph Bowen AM-4272, 1 Kelley Drive, Coal Township, PA 17866-1021. BLA POW. Marshall Edward Conway #116469, Box 534, Jessup, MD 20794. Veteran BPP leader who continues to maintain his innocence of a police murder in 1970. He asserts that he's one of many political prisoners as a result of FBI's war against the BPP. Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald B-27527, Box 290066, CSP-SAC FC 1208, Repressa, CA 95671-0066. Former BPP member serving time for the death of a cop. Bashir Hameed (J. York) #82A6313, Box 149, Attica, NY, 1401 1-0149. BLA POW. Robert Seth Hayes #74A2280, Box 500, Elmira, NY, 14902. He was captured and convicted in 1973 under a host of charges, attributed to membership in the BLA. Mumia Abu-Jamal AM8335, SCI Greene, 1040 East R. Furman Highway, Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090. Former BPP. In 1981 he was framed for the murder of a cop. He was recently taken off death row and was re-sentenced to Life in prison. Khalfani X. Khaldun (Leonard McQuay) St. Joe County Jail, 129 S. Main St., South Bend, IN 46601. New Afrikan activist serving time for allegedly killing a prison guard. Richard MaFundi Lake #079972, 100 Warrior Lane, #6-39, Bessemer, AL 350237299. Black community activist being framed for a crime he did not commit. Robert Mitchell In transition. Social justice activist serving time for a frame-up. Email JoNina Abron at for more info. Mondo We Langa (David Rice) #27768, Box 2500, Lincoln, NE, 68542-2500. Former BPP member accused of killing a cop. Abdul Majid (Anthony Laborde) #83-A 0483, Upstate Correctional Facility, Box 2001 Malone, NY 12953. Former BPP serving time for a crime he did not commit. Another victim of the COINTELPRO wars against the BPP. Ruchell Cinque McGee A-92051, PO Box 7500, SHU-2-C-233, Crescent City, C A 95531 . Serving time for a court-house action to free incarcerated black liberationists. Sekou Odinga #05228-054, 3901 Klein Blvd., Lompoc, CA 93436. Former BLA sentenced to 25-to-Life for shooting a cop in self-defense, and an additional 20 years for the liberation of comrade Assata Shakur and the expropriation of an armored truck. Ed Poindexter #110403, 7525 4th Avenue, Lino Lake, MN 55014-1099, Minn. Correctional Facility. Former BPP member falsely accused of killing a police officer. Mutulu Shakur #83205-012, Box PMB, Atlanta, GA 30315. He was sentenced to 60 years imprisonment for an alleged conspiracy by the Black Liberation Army/New Afrikan Freedom Fighters against the U.S. government. Russell Maroon Shoats AF-3855, SCI Green, 1040 E. Roy Furman Highway Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090. BLA POW. Herman Wallace #76759, CCR Upper C Cell 1, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA 70712. Former BPP member and one of the infamous "Angola Three". Gary Watson #098990, Unit SHU 18, Delaware Correctional Center, 1181 Paddock Rd., Smyrna, Delaware 19977. Social prisoner turned black liberationist. One of the "Smyrna Five" (S-5), a group of radicals that attacked prison authorities after the death of George Jackson. Albert Woodfox #72148, CCR Upper B Cell 13, Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA 70712. Former BPP member and one of the infamous "Angola Three". *** Prisoner Support Groups: Anarchist Black Cross Network See the website to get the addresses of the various chapters: www.anarchistblackcross.org If you don't have internet access, then write to the Austin ABC to get filled in on ABC Network activities. Write to: Austin ABC POB 19733, Austin, TX 78760-9733. Anarchists Prisoner Legal Aid Network (APLAN) 818 SW 3rd Avenue, Portland, OR 97204. Email: aplan@tao.ca An essential prisoner-support group. Break The Chains: Northwest Political Prisoner Support Network POB 11331, Eugene, OR 97401. Email: gumbycascadia@yahoo.com and visit the website: www.breakthechains.net Chicago Anarchist Black Cross POB 721, Homewood, IL 60430. A very solid prisonersupport group. Free's Defense Network POB 50263, Eugene, OR 97405. This is the newly formed support group for Oregon eco-defense/anarchist political prisoner Jeffrey "Free" Luers. Be sure to check out their excellent website: www.freefreenow.org Friends of MOVE POB 9709, Philadelphia, PA 19143. Friends and supporters of the MOVE organization and their prisoners. Rob Los Ricos Enterprises POB 50634, Eugene, OR 97405. Friends of anarchist prisoner Rob "Los Ricos" Thaxton. ** Back Cover Oregon, April 16: Political Prisoner Thomas Tripp’s Statement to the Court: Today you think you have won, today you find me guilty of turning your methods against you and today you steal away more of my life. Today the state, rapist of the Earth, thief of years, murderer of innocents, has passed judgment on me - not for being criminally mischievous, nor for engaging in riotous behavior - but for battling against the tyranny of the state, in its most tyrannical setting: its prison system. Today the state fancies itself as above the people because it is grown fat on the bloodstained dollars of capitalism. Because the state owns the prisons, the guns, the fences and walls. Because it has raped the meadows and murdered the forests and stolen the lands of the Native peoples. And you, the representatives of the state - the judges, prosecutors, politicians, and cops - also are grown fat on the bloodstained dollars and have built the electric chair and bought the guards to silence the dissidents and secure your positions as the representatives of a false power. But do you know that a tide is rising - a tide of liberation, of which the actions of my comrades and I are only the merest hint - and that no guns, no prisons, no fences or walls can stem that tide? Do you know that the days of your illusory power are drawing to an end? Your two million prisoners know. The homeless, wandering the streets with only hunger in their bellies, know. The families and minds torn apart by your bombs and prisons and guns know also. I know. And soon you judges, prosecutors, politicians and cops will know too. So, for today, you may think you have won. But a tide is rising, and someday we will all be free - maybe even you. Until that day, I remain openly defiant to this court and everything it represents, with a proud heart and a clenched fist. Thomas Tripp Write to: Thomas Tripp: #12032560, 777 Stanton Blvd., Ontario, OR 97914. Green Anarchy PO Box 11331 Eugene, OR 97440 [[mailto:greenanarchy@tao.ca][greenanarch]][[mailto:y@tao.ca][y@tao.ca]]