From nyt@speedway.net Mon Jun 14 18:06:43 1993 Received: from access1.speedway.net (NS.SPEEDWAY.NET) by sun.Panix.Com with SMTP id AA21816 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 14 Jun 1993 18:06:05 -0400 Received: by access1.speedway.net with UUCP (Smail3.1.28.1 #4) id m0o5MfG-000T9FC; Mon, 14 Jun 93 15:06 PDT Received: by blythe.org (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:51:02 EDT for nyxfer@panix.com From: nyt@blythe.org Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:51:02 EDT Message-Id: Subject: Love&Rage_6/93-1 To: nyxfer@Panix.Com Status: RO Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit LOVE AND RAGE Revolutionary Anarachist Newspaper Electronic Edition Volume 4, Number 3 June/July, 1993 Part 1 of 3 This Issue's Highlights: TOP STORIES: RAF Strikes: German Prison Bombed Inside the Ohio Prison Revolt Anarchists Join Queer March on Washing Western Shoshone Resist A History of Squatting in Kenya UPS: Taking Down Big Brown Interview with The Goats Tap Into Electronic Media Wage Slave Rage Killing the Planet SCENE REPORTS NOTES OF REVOLT ABC PAGE Spanish Political Prisoners Tortured; other political prisoner news INTERNATIONAL: Fire Thieves: New Anarchist Magazine in Turkey East Timor: The Resistance Continues Update: Awareness League in Nigeria Anarchy in Japan A Good Year for the Kurdish Resistance SPECIAL SECTION: Strategy: Moving Towards Revolution The Love and Rage Annual Conference, San Diego, July 7-11 Calendar: Upcoming Events .................................................................. Love and Rage Network Love and Rage is created by the Love and Rage Network, a group of people from across North America who find themselves in general political agreement. Love and Rage is one of the many projects of the Network to which supporters contribute time, money and energy. Major decisions and overall policies are set by the Network. Individuals and supporting groups who participate in the Network gather in an annual conference, at which most major decisions are made. The Network Council, comprised of up to two delegates from each supporting group, meet at least once between conferences to make interim decisions. A popularly elected Coordinating Group makes urgent decisions. Ongoing debates take place in our Discussion Bulletin (Disco Bull), out every six to eight weeks. More timely information goes out bi-weekly in the Network Bulletin. Day to day editorial decisions about the paper are made by the volunteer Production Group (PG). A group of elected Coordinators shares responsibility for the general work of the Network. Two of these Coordinators, the Co-Facilitators, work with the PG on production of the paper and help coordinate the projects of the Network. In an effort to further democratize and strengthen the Network, temporary Regional Organizing Contacts volunteer to be a contact for their local areas. The Love and Rage Network is not a closed circle of friends. You can become part of the Network and participate fully in the decisionmaking process. Ask the person who sold or gave you this paper, or write to one of the many Love and Rage contacts listed in this paper. Coordinating Group: Erric, Atlanta, GA Liz, Boston, MA Paul, Berkeley, CA Ana, Mexico City Terry, New York, NY Crystal, Chicago, IL Jodi, Columbus, OH Jean-Marc, Minneapolis, MN Fur, Atlanta GA Gene, Newark, NJ Ojore Lutalo, Trenton, NJ Coordinators List Regions Coordinator: Britt, 702 S. Illinois Ave. Apt. 115 Carbondale, IL 62901 Network Coordinator: Shannon, c/o Love and Rage Interorganizational Coordinator: Phillip, 27 School Street, Sommerville, MA 02143 International Coordinator: Todd, c/o Love and Rage Finance Coordinator: Matt, c/o Love and Rage Fundraising Coordinator: Rick, c/o Love and Rage Info-Share Coordinator: Jodi, c/o AA, PO Box 10007 Columbus OH 43201 Discussion Bulletin Coordinators: Jean-Marc and Nikolas, PO Box 581354, Minneapolis, MN 55458-1354 Co-Facilitators: Dema Crassy and Ms. Tommy Lawless, c/o Love and Rage We need more PG volunteers and translators. If you plan to be in New York and would like to work on the paper, of if you d like to translate material from the comfort of your home, please call. Production Group: Gene, Bob*, Matt L, Rick, Sara, Matt B*, Shannon*, Auntie Todd, Tommy, Dema, Greg, Beth, Bruce [PG Members who didn t work on this issue are marked with an *] Translators: Eugenio, Ti'a Todd, Ana*, Gustavo*, Pablo Love and Rage is printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks. Love and Rage is printed by a union printer. ISSN # 1065-2000. When we don t have the money to produce our regular twenty page full-size edition, we produce an eight page "Broadsheet" edition. If you re having trouble getting the paper, please call. [The electronic version is not printed on recylced ink using union printers. sorry. It is printed on 100% recycled electrons, however.] Boring Disclaimer Hey gnarly people. All the groovy and not so groovy stuff printed in Love and Rage does not necessarily represent the opinions or views of the Love and Rage Network or of any person involved therein. We print a dazzling array of articles for a plethora of reasons. Sometimes we print articles we don t agree with, because we believe that they are interesting or provocative. Just in case you were wondering. Editorial Policy We encourage you to submit material for publication. Shorter articles are more likely to be printed; 1750 words, a full newspaper page, is a long article. Submissions may be edited. Please include a phone number and address so the PG can consult you on edits. Articles not printed may be sent to our internal bulletins. All letters will be considered for publication unless requested otherwise. Letters will not be edited. Submission deadline for the next issue: July 15. Love And Rage PO Box 3 Prince Street Station New York, NY 10012 (212) 460-8390 E-mail: loveandrage@igc.org YO: New Phone Number (that works): 212 460 8390 Fax, data, too if you call voice first. .................................................................. About Our Politics Love and Rage is a bi-monthly anarchist newspaper intended to foster revolutionary anti-authoritarian activism in North America and build a more effective anarchist movement. We will provide coverage of social struggles, world events, anarchist actions and cultures of resistance. We will support the struggles of oppressed peoples around the world for control over their own lives. Anarchy offers the broadest possible critique of domination, making possible a framework for unity in all struggles for liberation. We seek to understand the systems we live under for ourselves and reject any prepackaged ideology. Anarchism is a living body of theory and practice connected directly to the lived experiences of oppressed people fighting for their own liberation. We anticipate the radical and ongoing revision of our ideas as a necessary part of any revolutionary process. A hefty set of working papers, encompassing the current debate about our Political Statement, is available for $5 from the Info- Share project. [See Coordinators List on this page.] For more information about these and other internal debates, subscribe to our Discussion Bulletin and Network Bulletin. Need Help? If you'd like someone from the Network to come speak or help organize in your area, just let us know and we ll try to send someone! There are plenty of experienced people in Love and Rage who want to help out. If you are one of those people who d like to travel and speak and organize, please call us right away. Groups Near You The Love and Rage Network is made up of autonomous groups and individuals from around North America. Supporting Groups make a commitment as a group to support the network financially, and by writing for and distributing Love and Rage in their area. If you would like to join, please write us. ARM THE SPIRIT PO BOX 57584 JACKSON STATION HAMILTON, ONT L8P 4X3 AUTONOMOUS GREEN ACTION PO BOX 4721 STATION E OTTAWA, ONT K1S 5H9 TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE PO BOX 122, 1895 COMMERCIAL DRIVE VANCOUVER, BC V5N 4A6 VALID/EARTH LIBERATION FRONT A-5 1720 DOUGLAS STREET VICTORIA, BC V8W 2G7 ANARCHIST ACTION NETWORK SUITE 147, 3325 LORNA RD #2 PO BOX 360999 BIRMINGHAM, AL 35236 THE GERMINAL UCSD STUDENT CO- OP CENTER B-0323-Z LA JOLLA, CA 92093 SAN DIEGO ANARCHIST FEDERATION PO BOX 0907 SAN DIEGO, CA 92112-0907 UNITED ANARCHIST FRONT PO BOX 1115 WHITTIER,CA 90609 ERISIAN LIBERATION FRONT C/O PO BOX 263 COLORADO SPRINGS, CO 80901 LOVE AND RAGE SUPPORTERS PO BOX 5236 ATLANTA,GA 30307-9998 REVOLUTIONARY GROUP X PO BOX 6022 CHICAGO, IL 60680 EARTH CORE PO BOX 18956 BALTIMORE, MD 21206 AWOL PO BOX 7293 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55407 LOVE AND RAGE SUPPORTERS PO BOX 581354 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55458-1354 PROFANE EXISTENCE PO BOX 8722 MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55408 PATERSON ANARCHIST COLLECTIVE PO BOX 8532 HALEDON, NJ 07508-8532 AUTONOMOUS ANARCHIST ACTION PO BOX 3 PRINCE ST STATION NEW YORK, NY 10012 ANARCHIST YOUTH FEDERATION/NYC PO BOX 365 NEW YORK, NY 10013-0365 BLACK STAR COLLECTIVE PO BOX 3 PRINCE ST STATION NEW YORK, NY 10012 AUTONOMOUS @ COLLECTIVE PO BOX 10007 COLUMBUS, OH 43201 LIBERATE THE OBSESSED PO BOX 1916 RAPID CITY, SD 57709-1916 AMOR Y RABIA APDO 11-351, CP 06101 MEXICO, DF EDICIONES ANTORCHA APDO 12-818, CP 03020 MEXICO, DF INTERNATIONAL AFFILIATES GRUPO IMPULSO AUTOGESTIONARIO C.SOLERO CC 984, 2000 ROSARIO, ARGENTINA GRUPO ACCION LIBERTARIA C/O EDUARDO TORRESLOS SAUCES 426, LOMAS COLORADAS CONCEPCION,CHILE RED @ DE ESTUDIANTES C/O JOSE EGO, PIRAMIDE 337 SAN JOAQUIN, SANTIAGO, CHILE More Contacts: All of the addresses on this page are contacts for the Love and Rage Network. Here are some more. Let us know if you want to be a contact. New England: Liz 520 Beacon #1B Boston, MA 02215 South: John c/o Justice Alliance PO Box 281 Chattanooga, TN 37401 Midwest: Crystal c/o WCF PO Box 81961 Chicago, IL 60681 West Coast: Paul D. 2339 Durrant Ave Berkeley, CA 94704 Pacific Northwest: Rosebud Commons, 1951 W. Burnside PO Box 1928 Portland, OR 9720 -30- Where s AYF? If you've read Love and Rage before, you might notice that this issue has no Anarchist Youth Federation page. AYF is currently trying to develop a more-collective way to produce the page. As soon as they come up with a process they re happy with, we ll start running the page again. For more info write to:AYF Discussion Bulletin, PO Box 365, New York, NY 10013 Corrections In Vol 4, No 1, we ran a story on Gerrado C. Ferre, "Jailed for Burning a Flag." Ferre is no longer in jail, and apparently had been out for some time before we ran the story. In Vol 4, No 2: The group Neither East Nor West was credited for organizing a pro- choice picket. The credit should have gone to the Network of East- West Women. The San Diego @ Community Center s address was listed with the wrong zip. The correct address is 915 E Street, San Diego, CA 92101. @ Zines, Distros & Community Centers This is a short list of some other anarchist resources. There are so many fabulous resources to cover, we rotate the list each issue. Please send us new contacts. zines ALPHABET THREAT, 3018 J Street #140, Sacramento, CA 95816. a (roughly) bi-monthly, wimmin-centered newspaper, articles on youth lib, sexuality, vegan lifestyle, revolt, and other fun stuff (free-$1/issue) ANTI COPYRIGHT ANARCHY ART, PO Box 666, Oxford, OH 45056. This photocopied kickin collection is available for only $1.50 BLACK FIST, 15110 Bellaire, Box 317, Houston, TX 77083. This bi-monthly @ zine serves up a hefty helping of material by and about people of color; interviews, opinion pieces, info, poetry, hot photos and illustrations; pro-feminist ($6/year) FREE SOCIETY, PO Box 7293, Minneapolis, MN 55407. A quarterly eco-anarchist newsprint zine filled with thoughful analysis and lots of letters, put out by a crew of former Youth Greens ($2/issue) H.A.G., c/o 1720 Douglas St., Victoria, BC V8W 2G7. A powerful, fun anarcha-feminist zine about revolt and healing, with polemics, personal accounts, recipies, poetry, comics, eco-vegan-animal lib focus ($2/issue) MEDIA BLITZ, PO Box 20420, New York, NY 10011. An anti-pop culture @ magazine, "class war for the information age" ($2/issue) PLAIN WORDS, PO Box 8532, Haledon, NJ 07508. New Jersy focused anarchist news with class war flavor, also covers youth revolt, COPWATCH, ABC, Black liberation, and global news, published irregularly. (50 cents and a stamp/issue) RED BALLOON, c/o 2653 Cropsy Ave #7H, Brooklyn, NY 11214. A more or less yearly zine featuring broad analyses of world situations, strategy for the left, personal accounts, and poetry, with a zen-marxist slant ($4/issue) distros COLLECTIVE CHAOS, PO Box 81961, Chicago, IL 60681. RIGHT TO EXISTANCE, 285 Preakness Ave, Paterson, NJ 07502. community centers THE EPICENTER ZONE, 475 Valencia, San Francisco, CA 94103. (415) 431-2725 SAN DIEGO s, 915 E StreetSan Diego, CA 92101. (619) 239-8722 THE TOOLS COLLECTIVE, 107 Brighton Ave, Boston, MA 02134. DETROIT s, 404 Willis Detroit, MI 48201. THE EMMA COMMUNITY CENTER, 3451 Bloomington Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55407. (612) 729-5498 ABC NO RIO, 156 Rivington St., New York, NY (212) 254-3697. ROSEBUD COMMONS RESOURCE COLLECTIVE, 1951 W Burnside, Box 1928, Portland,OR 97209. (503) 796-8100 THE @ SPACE, 4722 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19143. (215) 724-1469 CATAL HUYUK, 2524 McKinney, Houston, TX 77003. hotlines CHICAGO: (312) 455-0707 MINNEAPOLIS: (612) 729-5498 .................................................................. BE A PART OF THE LOVE AND RAGE NETWORK Don t Miss The Groovy Vibes of ... The Love and Rage Annual Conference San Diego, California July 7 - July 11 (Wed. - Sun.) Possible Workshops On: Anarchism in Peru and Mexico, Anti-Racist/Anti-Fascist Organizing, ABC Prisoner Support Network, Computers and Electronic Media, Squatting, Anarcha-Feminism, Regional and Community Organizing, Queer Issues, Black Nationalism and Black Liberation, Non-monogamy, Free Trade Agreement & MORE! Host a workshop yourself. Take part in discussions and decisions that will shape the future of The Love and Rage Network. Partake of Live Bands, (possibly) An Action, Fun and Strategy in the Sun! Register Ahead of Time! Name/Group________________________________________________ Address_________________________________ City ____________________________ State/Prov_____________________ Zip/PostCd________ Phone________________________ How many will attend___________We need housing for_______ We will arrive on________________depart on_________ We need childcare for Ages_____________ Special needs__________________________________________ We will host workshops on______________________________________ Please send $5 per person with your registration to:San Diego @ Federation, c/o 915 E Street, San Diego, CA 92101 To get involved, call Darren or John at (619) 239-8722 Subscribe to and Distribute Love and Rage Name _____________________________ Address___________________________ City______________________________ State/Province____________________ Zip/Postal Code___________________ Phone ( )_______________ One Year Subscription (6 issues): $13 Fast Mail & International Mail; $9 Slow Mail Free to GIs, PWAs, and Prisoners One Year Subscription to Love and Rage Network Internal Publications (bimonthly Discussion Bulletin and biweekly Network Bulletin): $20 - $50 (sliding scale) I would like to distribute ________ copies of each issue of Love and Rage. Please send a sample bundle. I would like to make a donation of $________ I would like to support the Love and Rage Network with a monthly pledge of $________. I would like information on how to become a Supporting Group of the Love and Rage Network. Name of group: Send check or money order to: Love and Rage, PO Box 3, Prince St Station New York, NY 10012 Write for Love and Rage We want you ... to send us your insiders views, news blurbs, articles, photos and illustrations for us to print. We want your top secret cultural information - book, film, music reviews and more - as well as more reports on positive community projects. Wimmin, people of color, young people and people in regions we don t hear from much are especially wanted to contribute. We are gathering reports and information for an issue focusing on anarcha-feminism: actions, wimmin s health issues, eco-feminism, critiques of feminist theory, personal accounts, and more. Next deadline is July 15. Volunteers for the production group are also needed. Give us a call at (212) 460-8390. Subscribe to and Distribute Amor y Rabia/Mexico $18 Subscription _____ Send a sample bundle of__________(donation enclosed) Name ___________________________________ Address_________________________________ City____________________________________ State/Province _________________________ Zip/Postal Code__________ Phone ( )____________ Send check or money order to: Amor y Rabia/Mexico Apdo 11-351, CP 06101 Mexico DF, Mexico Disco! Discuss! If you want to to shake your booty to the daring debates of the Love and Rage Network and burn down the house with the hottest news, have we got two publications for you: the bimonthly Disco Bull and the bi-weekly Network Bull. People who pledge monthly automatically receive both Bulls and the paper. People who don t pledge, but want to receive the bulls, are asked to pay a yearly fee of $20$50. Simply check the desired box on the subscription form. Send disco debates and burning news of your own to: Disco Bull, PO Box 581354, Minneapolis, MN 55458-1354 Network Bull, PO Box 3, New York, NY 10012 Share the Wealth... of information! Send pamphlets, articles, and resource lists you d like to pass on to the Info-Share Project. Anarchafeminist reading material is especially wanted. Send your distribution/mailorder catalogs as well. A hefty set of working papers encompassing the current debate about our Political Statement is available for $5. Ask us about the literature and study materials we now have available. Write to:Info-Share, c/o PO Box 10007, Columbus, OH 43201 .................................................................. Top Stories: GERMAN PRISON BOMBED, RAF STRIKES By Sara Bell and Todd Prane WEITERSTADT, GERMANY -- On Sat, March 27, at approximately 5am, the Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) destroyed the high-tech prison in Weiterstadt, Germany with 200 kg of explosives. The bombing caused an estimated 100 million DM in damage (over $60 million) and is expected to set the prison opening, originally scheduled for early May, back by four years. The prison was to employ the latest technology and was called "an example of modern and humane imprisonment in Germany" by the Minister of Justice, Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt. The explosion destroyed the administration building and four "residential" buildings. The action was carefully planned and executed. The commando took great pains to insure that the prison personnel were not injured. At approximately 1:30am the commando captured the 11 guards and left them, bound and gagged, in a van in a nearby field. Before setting off the explosives, they searched the buildings and put up warning signs on the outside walls of the prison (a fact not mentioned by the BAW, the Federal Prosecutor's Office), which usually likes to parade out every piece of evidence they have). This prison was to be a model for new high-tech prisons. In these prisons, a few of which are already in existence, the prisoners are organized into so-called "living groups" of 10 to 20 prisoners. They live in solitary cells and share a common room and a small kitchen. These "living groups" are put together by social workers and psychotherapists according to the prisoners' relative levels of adaptation or resistance to the values of their captors. The groups are designed to build competition between the prisoners and undermine solidarity. Through "work therapy" (ie forced labor) and other psychological measures, the prisoners are forced to adapt to the social values that are set by the personnel. Their behavior continually determines their status within the prison hierarchy -- from most conforming to non-adapting. The prisoners' activities are constantly monitored. The cells and common rooms contain video monitors and in the common rooms there are two-way mirrors. Even when they are allowed to briefly leave these areas they are carefully watched -- they are transported through third floor passages which also contain cameras. The capacity of the prison was to be 500 prisoners. Included in this were to be a high security wing for women prisoners and a deportation prison. The Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt was named for a RAF supporter and close friend of Ulrike Meinhof. Hammerschmidt had served three years and died in prison in 1973. She had a breast tumor and died due to medical neglect. This action came as a surprise to many because the RAF had announced that they were going to halt the escalation of the war with the state from their side. In April of 1992 a RAF communique was released which discussed the need to rethink their goals and strategies and to concentrate on negotiating the release of their imprisoned comrades (see Love and Rage Vol 3 No 6). At that time, the then Minister of Justice, Kinkel, had indicated a willingness to release some of the more seriously ill prisoners. But since that time, only a few have been released, and others have faced further harassment. The RAF had come to see that they were disconnected from the people who they were supposed to be fighting for. In response to this and the very different political situation in which the RAF found themselves, they called for a broad discussion between various parts of the left about strategy and for the building of a counter-power from below--a mass movement out of which a revolution could arise. They questioned the role of armed struggle in the left and whether it accomplished anything when it did not come out of a broad base of support. "Either our side will develop a base-movement from below, which is directed by solidarity and justice, and by the struggle against this cold society and against poverty and a lack of perspective or the explosive contradictions will remain destructive and the violence will escalate, each person against the other." In the April 1992 communique and a discussion paper released in a Aug 1992, the RAF indicated that the cessation of attacks was conditional. If the state did not allow room for necessary discussion and release the RAF prisoners, the RAF would retaliate. With this action they have followed through with this threat and have shown that they will not allow the state to take advantage of their new position. In the latest communique, the RAF write very clearly that this action does not represent a new strategy (or a resumption of an old one), but rather an interim measure. The communique begins: "Nothing has changed since the step we took in our history, a step which we needed and wanted to take. We are busy with a new process in which a social counter-power from below can develop, and from which can come new proposals for revolutionary process and change [...] Only out of this process can the questions regarding what forms of struggle and concrete organizing are necessary be answered. For us, this process, now as before, has the highest priority." Further on in the communique, the RAF explain the context of the action in relation to the stated desire, in earlier communiques, to engage in broader participation, as well as the escalation against political prisoners: "We have often been criticized because in our communique last April we linked our decision to halt our actions to the situation of the prisoners, particularly to the state's destructive stance. We have always maintained that the step in our history which we took was grounded in the necessity of developing new foundations, and we stated that this necessity was independent of the state's conduct. But from the beginning it was unclear how the state would react to the decrease in pressure from our side, and that's why we left the option open of intervening, if necessary, in order to place limits on the state's conduct. In Aug '92 we wrote: 'We will then decide on armed intervention as a moment of pushing back and not as a further strategy. We won't simply be made to revert to our old ways. This escalation is not in our interest. But the state has to realize that when it leaves no other option, we have the means, the experience, and the determination to make them take responsibility.'" The RAF go on to write, "After we removed the pressure from our side, the state once again decided on an escalation against the prisoners -- the prosecution against Christian Klar and the new wave of trials will put people away for their entire lives; the decision not to release Bernd Roesser early; and the refusal of prisoners based on the offer of release after submission to psychiatric tests, whereby they would be forced to claim that their struggle, their initiatives, their entire opposition, was simple 'insanity'." The construction of the prison in Weiterstadt was to add to the capacity of the German penal system, allowing a larger portion of the population to be imprisoned. The new prison was also used as an excuse to indefinitely delay the repair or closing of prisons such as Frankfurt-Preungsheim, which have been the subject of human rights demands by prisoners on an ongoing basis. The RAF state that the Weiterstadt prison was targeted because they wanted to counter the offensive actions the state had taken against RAF prisoners. It was not meant as a renewal of their old tactics and methods. There are several questions raised by this action. Although the RAF state that this action is separate from the ongoing process of integration into broader political movements, this action did not take place in a vacuum, and it needs to be put into context. What is the effect of this action on the RAF's search for new direction and process? The RAF's decision to bomb a prison can be seen in several ways. In some ways it appears to be a change in tactics both because it is a different kind of action from the kidnappings and assassinations that the RAF are famous for, and because bombing a building is more acceptable to a larger portion of the left than assassinations. The RAF claim that this action stands separate from their search for a new strategy, but it occurs within the context of their history and of a larger movement that they are trying to relate to. This action is similar to past actions in that it doesn't seem to arise out of a broader discussion. It is also an action which is focused on political prisoners, many of the most famous of whom are members of the RAF. The RAF admit that this action does not directly affect the movements that they claim affinity with. As the first major RAF action in a long time, however, this draws attention to their discussions and highlights how their actions measure up to the standards they have set for themselves. In spite of the problems that these questions raise, it is certainly true that one less prison is always a step in the right direction. For the full text of the communique, the April '92 communique or the Aug '92 discussion paper write to us at Love and Rage or write to:Arm the Spiritc/o Wild Seed PressPO Box 57584, Jackson StationHamilton, ONT L8P 4X3 CANADA The ananlysis in this article is the authors' perspective and should not be attributed to ATS. -30- INSIDE THE OHIO PRISON REVOLT By A Comrade Inside Following is a first-hand account of the Lucasville Uprising, sent to Love and Rage as a letter for print. Lucasville, Ohio -- Revolutionary Greetings. On behalf of the 1855 prisoners, I am directing this letter to Love and Rage concerning the Lucasville Uprising on Easter Sunday at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF). In regards to the overthrow of SOCF on April 11 -- SOCF warden Arthur Tate planned to lock the prison down from April 12 through April 15 to administer, by force, shots to determine whether the 160 plus prisoners who refused such, have tuberculosis (TB). We refused the TB "skin test" based on various reasons, such as the nurses were not accompanied by physicians nor did they wear gloves; the TB skin test was another operation to reduce the prison population; and because reasonable minds dictate that if the guy you are celling with for four years took the test and came up negative, then it's only logical that you wouldn't have TB since he doesn't have it. Yet, before SOCF could implement this plan [lockdown], a riot broke out on Easter Sunday, resulting in hostages being taken. (One guard locked himself in a passageway of which prisoners tore the wall down to get him.) One guard was hung by his ankles, tortured, then hung by his neck until dead. At least nine prisoners died. The eight cellblocks in the L-Wing of SOCF, which was under full prisoner control, were destroyed. Toilets, sinks, doors, windows, electrical wiring and control consoles were smashed, ripped apart and gutted. Prisoncrat files on prisoners were burned while their offices were destroyed. Prisoners in segregation firebombed their cell blocks, destroyed cell light fixtures, while others assaulted guards when they entered the ranges to put the fires out. Five hundred Ohio National Guard, SWAT teams, state and local police were on the scene -- desperately wanting to rush the prisoners, but didn't know what to expect once inside. A state police helicopter crashed during the forth day of the riot. Eventually, 21 demands were sent to the prisoncrat negotiators who granted 15 of them, which resulted in prisoners surrendering on April 23. Only one population wing, K-Side, is functional. L-Side is to be rebuilt and consist of total lockdown like K-Side presently is. SOCF is to be an entire lockdown prison, with the exception of one cellblock of prisoners who will prepare food, etc, for 1855 prisoners. The Lucasville Uprising was a success, but to continue to keep the ball in our court we need pressure put on SOCF. It's time that the prison revolution strikes quickly and with triumph, because we inside the walls know that America is experimenting on prisons in order to subject you in society to the same conditions. On behalf of all Lucasville prisoners, I urgently ask you to demand federal investigations to be conducted by Senator John Glenn. We need immediate action and hope that the people at Love and Rage will be forthcoming in support and get this important message out to other anarchists in society. I hope that fellow anarchists will write to Senator John Glenn, United States Senate, Washington, DC 20510-3501, and demand that he seek to have the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice conduct a federal investigation concerning racism, guard-on-prisoner brutality, death of prisoners at the hands of guards, and inadequate medical treatment. Also, anarchists in California could help expose the barbaric treatment of prisoners at SOCF if they would contact the Oprah and/or Geraldo talk shows and inform them that prisoners at SOCF are asking for them. (Both of these shows have called SOCF attempting to have guards appear on their shows -- no guard as of yet has responded yet. I'm sure I can adequately explain 20 plus years of inhumane treatment.) In Solidarity. [Some of the prisoner demands are known. These include: the ousting of Warden Tate; more Black guards; better duties for Black inmates; better food and medical care; the right to refuse TB testing by injection; increased pay compensation; the freedom to practice Islam; more recreational time; the right to receive outside guests and make phone calls; and no retaliation against the prisoners who rebelled. To our knowledge, the exact list of demands had not been released to the media as of our press date. We do not know which demands the prison officials agreed to meet. A white prisoner, identified as "George," spoke on the radio during the rebellion. He emphasized that Black and white prisoners were united and "prepared to die" together. Outrageously racist guard behavior is commonplace at SOCF, where almost 60 percent of the prisoners are Black and over 90 percent of the guards are caucasian. For months a sign was posted that read, "Run, nigger, run. If you can't read, run anyway." On one occasion, a guard ran through a cell block wearing a white sheet. Four Black inmates were stabbed, in 1990, by members of the Aryan Brotherhood. Another spokesprisoner, Abdul Samad Mulin, appeared on television during the revolt. He said the prison had a reputation of "killing innocent people, hang[ing] them in J-Block, saying that they committed suicide." The prison is located in a racist stronghold in the rural southern part of the state. A recent update to this report claims that 40 prisoners are now "missing," unaccounted for.] -30- ANARCHISTS JOIN QUEER MARCH By Liz Highleyman WASHINGTON, DC -- Anarchists made a loud and visible showing at the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation on April 25. The anarchist contingent -- which had been publicized beforehand in Love and Rage, several other anarchist papers, and by electronic mail -- drew over 150 people. At a meeting two days before the march, representatives from several radical queer groups decided they wanted to break into the march behind the military and veterans contingent. Our aim was to demonstrate our opposition to militarism and the march's emphasis on the issue of gay inclusion in the military. Anarchists gathered Sunday morning at Lafayette Park and, wisely as it turned out, decided to wait there to enter the march, rather than attempt to join the mob at the official kick-off point on the Ellipse. With banners such as "Queer Without Fear," the anarchists lined the roadside across from the White House as the beginning of the march came by. When the military contingent appeared, there were chants of "Make love, not war! Be all you can be! Mutiny! Mutiny!" There onlookers and marchers were quite supportive, with even some of the military marchers giving us the thumbs-up. Soon the coalition of radical Queers appeared, including such groups as Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention (LAGAI) -- with their "We Prefer Our Queers Out of Uniform" banner, Queers in Support of Political Prisoners (QUISP), and Revolting Lesbians. The waiting anarchists joined the march along with this unauthorized contingent. A small group of men with radical faerie camouflage skirts and a "Veterans for Peace" banner dropped back from the military contingent to march with us. The black-clad anarchists presented a striking contrast to the rainbow-clad crowd. At several points along the route, the anarchist group pogo'd in the street, demanding Queer liberation, and ran full speed ahead, much to the surprise and delight of the spectators. (Finally something different!) Chants included, "We're fucking anarchists, we'll fuck whoever we want!," and "We're here, we're Queer, and we hate the government!" The FBI, filming from their windows, and small clutches of fundamentalists along the route received the finger and were treated to same-sex displays of affection. One participant ripped pages from a bible as he marched along. A particularly popular contingent was the Red & Anarchist Skinheads with their banner reading, "Anti-Racist Skinheads and Punx Against Homophobia," and their chant of "Oi! Oi! Oi! We fuck boys!" The contingent arrived at the Mall early in the day, with plenty of time to stake out a good spot in the shade. Unfortunately, but quite expectedly, the rally was boring and mainstream, featuring mostly assimilationist speakers. A welcome surprise was Romanofsky and Phillips, a well-known Gay singing duo, who did an anti-militarist takeoff on the army recruiting song. The rest of the march seemed to continue on endlessly, with much confusion about the route. The final contingents were still straggling in as the rally drew to a close at about 6:00pm. The anarchist contingent went very well, a tribute to flexible planning. We had originally talked of marching with the street activists contingent (number 59 in the lineup), which might not have marched after all ... none of the people who looked for them were able to locate them. Marching behind the military contingent gave us a focus for our alternative anti-authoritarian message. We would probably have been swallowed up had we marched with the huge and highly disorganized ACT UP contingent. (No one we asked knew where they were gathering or marching, even on the morning of the march itself.) It was great to see such a sizeable anarchist/ anti-authoritarian presence at the march, and our contingent was probably the most mixed in terms of variety of sexual orientations. Gay, Lesbian, Bi, hetero or undefined, all the anarchists were queer in their own way. It felt good to emphasize oppositional politics as well as sexuality. While there were several people clad in black-bloc attire and masks, there was no havoc or destruction along the route. Our mere presence as anarchists was enough to shock the mainstream Gay and Lesbian viewers. Hopefully we made some people think! -30- WESTERN SHOSHONE RESIST Compiled By Ms. Tommy Lawless Western Shoshone Nation--The Western Shoshone are actively patrolling a valley region in north central Nevada, the location of the Dann Ranch, to protect their territory from ongoing raids by the US Bureau of Land Management. Elder Clifford Dann is held captive for his resistance. The Western Shoshone Defense Project is seeking activists to join a non-violent defense force, to do supply runs, to hold fund-raisers, and to engage in a media blitz. The Spring Gathering at the Dann ranch, March 19-22, drew over 150 people. Many stayed on to defend the ranch. Last Nov 19, federal agents blocked roads around Crescent Valley, Nevada and sent in armed agents to round up horses belonging to the Western Shoshone nation. Members of American Peace Test, who were driving to the Dann ranch, had a helicopter land on the road in front of their car. With their weapons ready, armed agents exited the helicopter and ordered everyone out of the car. The media was prevented from approaching the round-up site. Armed agents blocked the roads and flew over the range in helicopters. There were not enough people on the range supporting the Western Shoshone and the Danns to perform any kind of non-violent resistance. According to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials, the raid captured 269 horses, including 229 wild animals and 40 horses that had been nationalized by the Western Shoshone National Council. In court, BLM agent Joe Morris admitted that the round up violated BLM's own regulations governing the Wild Horse and Burro program. Elder Clifford Dann was injured and arrested when he attempted to stop BLM agents from removing the captured horses. Blocking the road with his truck, Dann stood in the bed, doused himself with gasoline, and announced that he would set himself on fire if BLM agents did not release the horses. Dann declared, "By taking away our livelihood and our lands you are taking away our lives." Officers assaulted him with fire extinguishers and wrestled him to the ground. A sheriff was recorded on tape saying during the struggle, "Break his fucking arm if you have to!" On March 3, the jury convicted Dann on one count of assaulting a federal officer. Throughout his trial Clifford Dann held his ground, insisting that the US Federal Court has no jurisdiction over him or any other Indigenous person or nation. He faces a 35-month minimum sentence on the charge. Dann will be held at the Washoe County Detention Facility until his scheduled sentencing on May 17. Appeals are expected to be filed immediately. No raids have occurred since November, due to successful defense organizing. The Defense Project stresses the need for ongoing support and patrols.The BLM alleges that the Dann family has failed to obtain grazing permits and that the Dann-owned cattle and horses have overgrazed the range. The Western Shoshone maintain that they do not need permits since the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley gives them jurisdiction over their land. Starting in 1973, US agencies began to confront sisters Mary and Carrie Dann, who graze cattle and horses on unused lands that the US Government considers "public." After over six years of court battles, of gains and losses, a federal court ruled that the Western Shoshone did have title to the land until 1979. In that year, the US Bureau of Indian Affairs accepted a financial reward from the US Indian Claims Commission on behalf of the Western Shoshone. This was against the wishes of the Western Shoshone, and they refused the money. The judge ruled that the compensation award had erased the native title to the land. In effect, the US government paid itself for land that had not been sold, stealing the homeland of the Western Shoshone. The Danns appealed the case to the Supreme Court which upheld, in 1985, the lower court rulings against the Western Shoshone. The Danns continue their struggle to prove that their land was never sold or given to the US. Among the Shoshone, Clifford Dann's conviction is viewed as an ironic victory, in that it will force the US courts to deal with indigenous sovereignty issues during the appeals process. According to Chief Raymond Yowell, Chief of the Western Shoshone National Council, "Western Shoshone law is the first law for us; international law is second in our view; US Law is third and least significant to us. For a solution to the Western Shoshone land rights issue to occur, the above must be followed. We do not accept US law, and they [the US] do not accept Shoshone law. The forum for a solution to the problems has to be done in an international setting." The Western Shoshone National Council is the traditional leadership of the Western Shoshone Nation. Presently, of the more than 120 military conflicts in the world, three-fourths involve native nations seeking to hold off or free themselves from larger, occupying nation-states. Some 3000 native nations are presently contained within the borders of fewer than 200 states, which assert control over them. The United States lays claim to some 200 native nations alone. The Western Shoshone are one such nation under attack. The Dann ranch has been fending off raids for almost twenty years. In addition, the Western Shoshone people have survived over 800 nuclear detonations on their homeland, with more scheduled for this year. The Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDF) invites you to join the defense force now or to add your name to the stand-by list. They stress that the defense is non-violent, and they are requesting committed activists willing to respect their wishes. Supply runs and donations of non-perishable food, field supplies, office supplies and money are needed. WSDF encourages groups to hold benefits and fundraisers on their behalf. Petitions and media blitz information is available. To find out more, contact: WESTERN SHOSHONE DEFENSE PROJECT General Delivery, Crescent Valley, Nevada 89821 Tel (702) 468-0230, Fax (702) 468-0237 Large portions of this article were taken from Coyote Gulch Productions. -30- SQUATTERS AND THE ROOTS OF MAU MAU: A History of Squatting in Kenya Edited By Richard Van Savage In the context of Kenya and the Mau Mau movement, particularly amongst the Kikuyu people, squatting played a pivotal role. The term Mau Mau was used primarily by Europeans to describe what many Africans referred to as "the movement." The label has since stuck. Focusing on land and freedom brought out the hypocrisy and true contradictions within British colonial society. The racism, economic exploitation and the use of laws to further such crimes came to be more and more apparent as the squatters fought for their rights. The parallels to Europeans settling in America, not as respectful neighbors to the native peoples of the land, but as greedy, selfish, bigoted thieves, is truly illuminating. The term "squatter" originated in South Africa. It referred to an African permitted to live on a European farmers land, usually on condition that they worked for the farmer for a specific period of time. In return for labour, the African was allowed to grow food and to graze animals. It's crucial to look at the origins of squatting to understand it properly today. The African that cultivated the land and raised livestock was transformed overnight with the arrival of Europeans from a landowner to a squatter. The European simply staked out land creating plantations, regardless of who was using it beforehand. Then under threat of force, he gave the African the choice of being evicted from their land, squatting it with a form of indentured servitude bordering on slavery, or face the wrath of the British military. Tax Resistance One example of how the legal system was used to economically undermine and enslave a people is the Hut and Poll Taxes of 1901 and 1910. By placing a tax on every home and head of the family, the colonialists caused many previously self sufficient African families fell into debt. They would then start squatting. The father would often work for the European in order to pay off the taxes, while the mother would tend to the farming and the children would tend to the livestock. Further laws were enacted to change the status of squatters from that of tenants to that of a labour contract. The squatters continued to resist each new law, often in very creative ways. One way used to subvert the law was to invite friends and relatives to come for a "visit" to lend a hand. The relatives stayed on and in time there would be more and more squatters taking back the land. In the 1920's settlers began to diversify from simply farming to also raising stock and dairy cows. They were now in direct competition with the squatters. Furthermore, raising livestock was less labour intensive, and they no longer needed the squatters to help to run their farms. With this new competition came a new ruthlessness on the part of the settlers. They began to confiscate and kill squatter stock. The squatters called this kifagio, a swahili word literally meaning "the broom," referring to the sweeping away of squatter stock and their primary livelihood. The colonial judicial system was hopelessly biased, so the squatters continued to use the traditional ciama, or elders councils to arbitrate disputes amongst squatters. Each farm would have its own kiama (single council). For larger disputes the individual kiama would combine to form a special kiama to deal with problems extending beyond a single farm. In 1924 the government outlawed the ciama and, in 1931 instituted a native tribal court, often selected by Europeans. While Africans were being taxed, only European, Asian and Arab children received an education from government schools. The squatters set up their own self-help network of free schools to educate and to counter the culturally destructive mission schools that would try to indoctrinate African children. The Loyalty Oath In 1940 the Kikuyu Central Association (KSA) was banned by the government. The KSA was the main vehicle through which displaced Africans lobbied to get back their land. The government purchased Olenguruone district to provide land for displaced squatters. This reservation, or reserve as they were called in Kenya, was unsuitable for economically supporting the number of people concentrated in this reserve. Olenguruone became a dumping ground for those committing sabotage, organizing or acts otherwise deemed undesirable by the settlers. Not surprisingly it became the center and beginning of the organized resistance. By 1944 the underground KSA and squatters in Olenguruone were using a "loyalty oath." At first they used the bible and the soil as their symbols. This was quickly changed to the soil and goat meat. Considering the kifagio, which was killing their stock, and the continuous displacement from the land, it seemed an apt symbol of their aspirations. By 1950 younger members were becoming disillusioned with the slow pace being taken by the older leaders of the movement. The aim of the first oath was "secretly to unite, discipline and foster political consciousness" among the Kikuyu with the ultimate aim of obtaining land and freedom. In fact most intellectuals or those a little better off, such as farm foreman, were often distrusted and were often the last to take the oath. If repercussions followed, these people were often murdered. If they remained loyal, they were then expected to use their position to influence others or to supply information about the Europeans, as the Europeans often trusted them more. In 1952 there was a massive mobilization to recruit people to take the oath. This resulted in a wave of violence as the state imprisoned several hundred people. And a backlash erupted as informers were killed, often causing others to inform as they objected to the violence. The state attempted to brand the Mau Mau as "criminals." On Oct 20, 1952, following the assassination of Chief Waruhiu, a high ranking puppet, a state of emergency was declared. This resulted in a wave of settlers killing squatters, confiscating stock and crops. Struggling With Sexism At this point many squatters fled to the forest areas where they began training as guerrillas. In February of 1951 Kenyatta, a future leader of the country, publicly denounced the movement. One of the key soldiers in the resistance was a womyn by the name of Wanjiru Nyamarutu. At first the Mau Mau movement was terribly sexist, as wimmin were thought of as not being able to keep secrets. As wimmin began to not only take the oath but to kill and fight along side their husbands, these prejudices began to be dispelled. Nyamarutu became a General in charge of food. This became a crucial position because it also meant being in charge of intelligence gathering. Food had to be gathered from the farms by squatters, collected, transported to the forest, and then distributed among the many guerrilla cells. Nyamarutu was soon running a whole spy network, often of wimmin and children who could go to areas without raising as much suspicion. Children would often appear to be playing when in fact they were gathering information on troop movements, possible informers, etc. Before a womyn could be elected as a leader and co-opted into the Inner Secret Council, she had to have taken the third oath, at which point it was held that she could not possibly turn against the movement. As far as positions of leadership went, people had to prove themselves through acts of bravery, secrecy and trustworthiness. At this point gender was irrelevant; merit was more important. Nyamarutu later became a Mau Mau judge. Another womyn that rendered sexist myths meaningless was Wambui X. She was known as "the killer." After her husband, also a freedom fighter, was killed in the forest, she refused to remarry and dedicated herself to Mau Mau work. She could not revert back to domestic subjection because "she could not be ruled, she knew everything, her hands had become light, she could easily kill a useless husband." By 1956 the Mau Mau movement had been militarily defeated. The hardcore Mau Mau created the Kenya Land Freedom Army (KFLA) oath. They fought on to protect squatter rights as the British began to decolonize. The British did a number of things to maintain some form of economic control over Kenya. They cultivated an elite African leadership, often the same ones not trusted by the poorer, undereducated squatters. They created loan schemes "out of fairness to the settlers" in which squatters were allowed to borrow money to purchase land. This was often done with the goal of concentrating land ownership in the hands of a few Africans, "the new African middle class," who would then hire squatters and prevent a massive redistribution of free land. During this time the KFLA continued its resistance. They were better organized, commanded stronger allegiance, and had greater clarity of purpose than Mau Mau. They clearly expected to use violence when necessary. Conclusion In conclusion, the parallels to Britain in Africa and the U.S. in the Americas in regard to "reservations", "reconstruction" after the civil war, and the creation of puppet regimes, are instructive in understanding the roots of many contemporary problems. We as a squatter community have not yet fully realized not only the revolutionary potential of a strong squatting movement, but also that this movement cannot be separate from fighting against racism, sexism and economic exploitation. Whether it be rural farm squatting as Thoreau advocated, or urban apartment squatting, we can look to the Mau Mau movement as an inspiration in overthrowing the current property laws that are based on racism and exploitation. Likewise we can study the work of Frank Kitson, a British intelligence officer who pioneered many counter insurgency techniques in Kenya that are still used by the FBI in their COINTELPRO activities against dissidents in the U.S. Information was taken from the book, Squatters and the Roots of Mau Mau by Tabitha Kanogo, Ohio University Press, Athens Ohio, 45701. -30- TAKING DOWN BIG BROWN By K. Frazier You load 16 tons and whaddya get? Another day older and deeper in debt. ---Tennessee Ernie Ford United Parcel Service Inc (UPS), the package delivery company famous for its brown delivery vans and uniforms, has begun contract negotiations with the International Brotherhood [sic] of Teamsters, which represents the more than 160,000 workers at UPS. In the past these negotiations have been something of a cake walk for UPS. It's multi-million dollar propaganda blitzes aimed at selling its proposals to the workforce were countered with absolutely nothing by the pro-Republican, mafia-influenced leadership of the Teamsters. Contract after contract like this has cost workers dearly, 10 years ago starting wages for part-timers were slashed from $11 an hour to $8 and $9 an hour, creating a two-tier wage track between full-timers and part-timers. (The $8/hour rate has remained unchanged since the early eighties, which, when considering inflation, amounts to a wage cut every year.) The company's ability to win the upper hand on the work floor -- where near-brutal productivity standards are enforced -- has been just as significant as UPS victories at the bargaining table. LIFE AT BIG BROWN "Management by stress." That's the name workers have given to the methods used by United Parcel Service management. But even that doesn't adequately describe the rigors of life at "Big Brown." Package unloaders are expected to pound out 1300 packages an hour, many as heavy as 70 lbs each. Package sorters are expected to keep that pace with 99 percent accuracy. Delivery drivers are expected to make a delivery every four minutes, regardless of traffic or weather. UPS warehouse-workers (mainly loaders, unloaders, and sorters) are subject to a very high manager to worker ratio, which means almost constant harassment. Drivers who don't make time face threats of "ride-a-longs" from supervisors. Minor injuries are a daily occurrence among warehouse-workers, and nearly everyone complains of back problems. New employees very quickly find that this "prestigious" working-class job isn't all it's cracked up to be. A union survey found that 77 percent of UPSers believe that "unjust pressure was applied in the company's quest for productivity." Seventy percent said that the company wanted more than "a fair day's work for the wages paid." Even a survey of workers conducted by UPS management on work premises found that 40 percent felt they were not treated with respect by their overseer. TEAMSTER CHANGES Since the last UPS contract the Teamsters have undergone some major changes. In the Dec '91 Teamster elections, Ron Carey , a union reformer, swept the old guard from the top positions in the US's largest union. Carey has been a long-time president of the large UPS local in Queens, New York. Banking on his reputation as an honest militant, Carey has promised to bring democracy and a fighting spirit to the Teamsters. The UPS contract is seen as his big test. Besides politics, Carey has another reason for fighting for a better contract: The outgoing leaders left the union in financial dire straits. If an increase in UPS workers' wages is won, Carey might be able to ease a dues increase out of this largest single group of Teamsters, bailing out the bureaucracy. STIMULATING THE RANK AND FILE The election of Carey and his slate of reformers was more than just a changing of the guard. It was an insurgency of pissed-off workers against corruption and sell-outs. Leading the charge was the 10,000 member-strong Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). TDU had been organizing for change for the past 20 years, often under threats of violence from the old guard. Their widely-circulated newspaper, CONVOY-DISPATCH, helped to build an impressive organization of local groups across North America. Ten to 15 vice-presidents on Carey's slate (but not Carey himself) are TDU. Since the election, TDU has remained active. At their convention last October, TDU reiterated its friendly, but still independent, relationship with the new International leadership. TDU is distributing UPS Contract Bulletins aimed at educating and stimulating the rank and file to actively participate in the contract fight. In Baltimore and other places, TDU has organized rallies at UPS employee parking lots. TASKS FOR TROUBLEMAKERS For those of us who long for more than just "a decent contract" (like maybe international capital in flames), the UPS contract fight still provides an excellent opportunity for struggle, a chance to gain some experience, and maybe, just maybe ... Revolutionary anarchist UPS workers should work hard to bring as many workers into this struggle as possible, not just in support of the union heavies (or TDU, or anarchists). We should strive to forge an autonomous force --a force capable of backing the union when appropriate, or of asserting our own demands on the company (independent of and possibly against the union when that makes sense) -- a force with the savvy to know the difference. No contract can guarantee who will have power on the shop floor: who will call the shots, who will be afraid. Right now, Big Brown has power. By a long shot. When he says, "jump!," we jump. I just found out that a manager beat up an unloader for being too slow. But this contract fight can be a real step toward building worker solidarity and worker power -- a step toward a time when we can (among other tactics) slow the belt to a human speed, take "unauthorized" breaks, and punish supervisors who violate workers. For now TDU seems like the most realistic vehicle for activism at UPS. TDU is an impressive organization that includes many older militants we can learn much from. We should seek to build TDU, especially among women workers, workers of color and young workers, who do not have large memberships in TDU. It is these workers who will probably be most interested in pushing things further. Ultimately though, TDU is too tied to the union-concept of organizing. They want to make the Teamsters a "good union." Unions, in my estimation, have ceased to be anything approaching fighting organizations. In the best cases, like the Teamsters under Carey, unions are lobbying organizations for workers who try to win decent contacts (read: better rates of exploitation). In the worst cases, like the United Food and Commercial Workers, unions seek to stomp out working-class militancy with a passion unmatched by the capitalists. Workers at UPS and everywhere need new forms of organization based on the floor not on hierarchy, organization with the ability to see past the company gates politically. We need organization not tied to legalism as its sole strategy, organization willing and able to inflict costs on the company and to win strike "by any means necessary." We need organization that makes a priority of fighting for the most dispossessed workers, not for the most privileged. We need an organization that demands full equality for women, African Amerikans and other oppressed nationalities, Queers and youth. We will advance as a class or not at all. If you work at UPS, are interested in working at UPS, are a Teamster, or are just interested in workplace organizing, contact: KF, c/o PO Box 581354, Minneapolis, MN 55458-1354 -30- continued in Part 2... + Join Us! Support The NY Transfer News Collective + + We deliver uncensored information to your mailbox! + + Modem:718-448-2358 FAX:718-448-3423 e-mail:nyt@blythe.org+ From nyt@speedway.net Mon Jun 14 20:31:21 1993 Received: from access1.speedway.net (NS.SPEEDWAY.NET) by sun.Panix.Com with SMTP id AA24533 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 14 Jun 1993 18:37:09 -0400 Received: by access1.speedway.net with UUCP (Smail3.1.28.1 #4) id m0o5N8E-000SxeC; Mon, 14 Jun 93 15:36 PDT Received: by blythe.org (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:52:16 EDT for nyxfer@panix.com From: nyt@blythe.org Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:52:16 EDT Message-Id: Subject: Love&Rage_6/93-2 To: nyxfer@Panix.Com Status: RO Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit LOVE AND RAGE Revolutionary Anarachist Newspaper Electronic Edition Volume 4, Number 3 June/July, 1993 Part 2 of 3 INTERVIEW WITH THE GOATS By Bilal Nine On Feb 19, The Goats dropped their fat lyrics of dissension on Houston. After rippin' it up on stage, I got a chance to kick it with them. The Goats' debut album, Tricks of Shade, is fat with a unique flavor that blends streetwise political perspective, humor and a wild in-your-face style. Add to that -- a 12-part story on the album about Chicken Little, an Afrikan youth's saga through Uncle Scam's House O' Freaks looking for his mother who was captured by anti-choicers -- and you get hip-hop like it's never been done before. Bilal Nine: One thing I've noticed about The Goats is that your political perspective seems a little more radical in respect to a wider, all-embracing approach politically. Other hip-hop crews may come from a nationalist point of view, or some might be from that moderate liberal tip. Madd: There's more to just bein' a Black male, because there's more going on than just the crimes against my people. Looking at the problems of my people has helped me to see the problems that the Native Americans and Latino Americans face. We all got to pull together. But I'm down with Public Enemy, who's pretty much Black nationalist, and Professor X from X-Clan. Bilal Nine: KRS One [of the band Boogie Down Productions] was out here last week to give a lecture and I was able to kick it with him on a couple of questions -- one being his appearance on a PBS set on election night. The host of PBS' election coverage asked KRS what he thought about the youth involvement in the election. KRS, to me, looked like he wanted to say, "fuck an election." But instead he just said that the youth should look back at history and they could see for themselves where voting can get them. My question to y'all is how'd you see the Rock The Vote campaign? Madd: You're lucky OaTie ain't here right now, cuz he'd be yelling at the top of his lungs right now. Fuck Rock The Vote, man. When was the last time a vote has done anything for anybody? The Civil Right's Movement, the Women's Suffrage Movement, the ERA, the Labor Movement. You gotta revolt. Ain't nothing gonna change through voting. My grandparents died for the right that I have to vote. I used it, and I think you should vote, but that's not all you should do. Mark Boyce: LA Riots is the perfect example of what you gotta do. Madd: So we voted for Clinton, and nothing's gonna happen, which is what they want you to do. Lower you into complacency. Boyce: He [Clinton] is going to give us the same shit that's been around for 15 years. Question from the room: What do you think about Tipper Gore now that she's in the White House? Boyce: She can only help us. Madd: I don't think things are gonna get worse or better. Things are gonna stay where they're at right now. Do we trust Clinton? Not as far as we can throw him, and believe me, our next record will be totally devoted to dissin' Clinton. Bilal Nine: I saw at the bottom of y'all's lyric sheet labeled "Moral" and it says don't vote for fascists. He [Clinton] is in the list along with Reagan and Bush. Madd: If I think my next door neighbor could do a better job, then it's a democracy, but when I gotta pick between two middle- aged, white male descendants of slave owners, I'm pissed. OaTie: [Just entering the room] You must be talking about presidents of the United States cuz that's the only group around that fits that description. Bilal Nine: What inspired you brothers to do the "Leonard Peltier in a Cage" skit on the album? OaTie: Well, there's all kinds of oppression -- racism, sexism, gay bashing -- but what's the worst oppression of all time? Columbus didn't take Native Americans to be slaves. We didn't move them around. We killed them off the land they were living on. So the greatest crime against a people was not done by Hitler or anyone else, but by the US in the name of Manifest Destiny. And it went on until 100 years after Wounded Knee. A coalition was formed of Native Americans to retake Wounded Knee; Leonard Peltier was with them. Couple of years later, America deployed FBI invasions of people's homes. Two FBI agents were shot. No one knows who shot them, but they took the most active person around, and it was Leonard Peltier. Bilal Nine: When you guys were about to drop "?Do the Digs Dug?" and you were talkin' about Leonard, the audience seemed a little lost. OaTie: When I first heard about him, I was in Europe. The people out there know what time it is, but here, 40 people know what's up, or do they just read fuckin' daily news and the other schlock out there? We try to center on one thing when we're doing a show. I hate it when people get up there and hit you with everything at once and you still leave thinking nothin'. Tonight we talked about military defense spending because he [Clinton] just put out his budget on Oct 12, which was the 500th anniversary of Columbus. We were talkin' Columbus and Leonard Peltier every show. People just need to ask questions and dig. Bilal Nine: I noticed in the "Props" section [on the album's liner notes] that Emma Goldman is listed. I'll play this Emma Goldman sound bite on my show [Street Vibe Network] every now and then. I'm playing this to a hip-hop crowd and people call in asking "Who is Emma Goldman?" OaTie: Emma Goldman has always been a hero of mine; she lived around the turn of the century. She spoke out, against getting married, a woman's right to abortion, for total independence for the female, but also a labor leader. She led people to revolt against bad labor conditions. She died in the Soviet Union. She was a communist. I'm not -- that's the only difference between us. Bilal Nine: Well, not to be a smart-ass, but at that period in her life she went over to anarchism.* OaTie: Well, if you look at the government that existed there, I can see why. Actually, I'd like to see an anarchist party, as obnoxious as that sounds. There are two types of women you can talk about in rap songs: Ho's and B's or women like Emma Goldman ... and we don't diss women. --From Black Fist Vol 1 No 2 * [Not to be even smarter-asses, but Emma Goldman was always an anarchist -- The Production Group] -30- TAP INTO ELECTRONIC MEDIA By Kathleen Kelly (with Liz Highleyman and Todd Prane) Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one. If you have access to a computer and modem, you already have at your fingertips the power of your own international press. You can tap into a worldwide electronic network that links people across the globe. This network, loosely called the Internet, is nothing more than a voluntary web of people who have computers and telephone lines. It includes more than 9,000 interlocking computer systems, many based in universities and accessible through free student accounts. Internet can be accessed in more than a hundred countries and reaches an estimated 10-15 million people of all sorts (activists, researchers, educators, policy makers, scientists, students, etc). Network traffic is currently growing at a phenomenal 10 percent each month. Through Internet you can: send and receive electronic mail (e-mail), transfer large files, distribute and receive news and information, and access other computer databanks and resources from your computer. Electronic communications systems are a very valuable political and strategic tool for activists. In a crisis, press releases and appeals for political action can be flashed to hundreds of systems rapidly. News travels very fast indeed on the Internet. This widely dispersed, decentralized, difficult-to-control medium would be extremely hard for the government to shut down completely, without turning off every phone in the country. One or two systems can be watched and controlled, and some alternative news systems can be turned off completely, but anyone with a laptop computer, a modem and a pay phone can still make one phone call, send a message, and within half a day it will be distributed worldwide on the Internet. For high-security messages, good encoding programs are available. Best of all, its cheap and it promotes free information exchange. You can easily reach a hundred thousand people for a fraction of what it would cost to print 10,000 copies of the same information. You can also target your message to a specific readership. Messages have a ripple effect, because every person who reads an article online might redistribute it to dozens of others who don't have Internet access. Electronic news is routinely reprinted in community newspapers, activist newsletters and local electronic bulletin board systems. E-mail provides an excellent opportunity for collectively making decisions among geographically dispersed groups, such as the Love and Rage Network. It is an effective way to get the word out about continental gatherings and actions, such as the recent Queer march in DC. For publications, articles can be submitted quickly and typeset easily. Authors can review suggested edits. Efforts have been ongoing to get as many Love and Rage participants online as possible. Television and radio are largely monopolized by the corporate media. Few independent newspapers exist, and printed activist newsletters reach only a small number of people. But the electronic networks still belong to the people, and activists can harness this power to reach large audiences for about $10 a month in most places. A wide array of low-cost electronic networks, news distribution services, and databanks are easily accessible. The Whole Internet Users Guide & Catalog, by Ed Krol is a valuable resource book (available for $24.95 from O'Reilly & Associates: reachable on the Internet as nuts@ora.com). Krol clearly explains the net's main functions, offers details on timesaving programs for finding Internet resources, and gives complete telephone numbers, addresses, and e-mail access information. Another excellent book is EcoLinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information, by Don Ritter (available for $24.95 from PeachPit Press, 2414 Sixth St, Berkeley, CA 94710, Fax (510) 548-4393). It combines technical guidance with annotated listings of useful information sources. This book also covers public PC bulletin boards, including those on the public FidoNet network, an international network of more than 10,000 hobbyist computer systems, many of which are free. For more information, contact New York Transfer News Collective, a non-profit news distribution service that's been helping activists get online for eight years. Contact Kathleen Kelly at: NY Transfer News Collective Modem (718) 448-2358 Fax (718) 448-3423 Email: nyt@blythe.org ELECTRONIC RESOURCES Here is a quick, descriptive list of some names and numbers of where and how to get online. The first thing you need is a computer with a modem. A used IBM PC compatable (from the early 1980s) with a cheap modem will do. Cost: about $300 or so for the computer, $60 or so for the modem. Next, nationally: Most cities have public access bulletin boards run by enterprising individuals, many of whom offer either Internet or FidoNet access, and USENET newsgroups (conferences or forums on specific subjects). Contact members of local users-groups or visit computer stores to find out more. Access, price and services depend entirely on the city, the computer and so on. Any college or university should have accounts (often free) available to students (and their friends). All systems listed here have e-mail. Most have USENET and are listed by city: system name, phone number -- most accesed via a modem set at 2400 no parity 8 data bits 1 stop bit -- price, and e-mail address for info). Canada, US and Mexico: IGC (Peacenet, among others): support@igc.apc.org or call (voice) (415) 442-0220. Accounts are $10/month plus usage. National access through Sprintnet for $5/hr off peak, $10/hr peak. Costs add up quickly and most of the users are intolerably Liberal, but it is cheaper and less evil than Compuserve et al. Some good info in the conferences. San Francisco: The Well (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link): support@well.sf.ca.us (no number avail right now, sorry). Low cost e-mail system. A similar system has been started recently in the New York Area including a wimmin-only conference. New York: Panix. Dial in at (212) 787- 2100 or (212)787-3100 and log-in as newuser. $10/mo e-mail and unlimited access and storage time. Alexis@panix.com or jsb@panix.com. Voice: Jim Baumbach at (212) 603-3572 Boston: The World. Call (voice) (617) 739-0202 or dial up (617) 739-9753 and log-in as new. $20/month for 20 hours access time and 2MB of online storage. Extra usage at $2/hr. support@world.std.com. Chicago: --DDSWL (312) 248-0900. $75/yr or $10 month. karl@ddsw1.mcs.com --Gagme (312) 282- 8606. $50/yr (student $35). Info@gagme.chi.il.us. --Chinet (312) 283-0559. BBS free, USENET $50/yr (free to guests on weekends). Ann Arbor: Grex (313) 761-3000. $6/month or $60/year.Info@cyberspace.org. Madison: Madnix (608) 273-2657. Free. Ray@madnix.uucp. Orlando: JWT (407) 438-7138. Free. Initial login "bbs". john@jwt.uucp. Columbia, MO: COIN (314) 884-7000 or telnet to 128.206.1.3. Free (limit one hour per visit). Voice: Help desk at Daniel Boone Regional Library (314) 443-3161, ext. 302. Sorry this list is so short and mostly East coast/Midwest. Cheap/free stuff is available all over the US and in Canada (IGC is available from Mixico-write for info). For a complete listing of public access e-mail, or for e-mail in your city, call or write to Todd at Love and Rage (info page 2). Once you are online, please write to us to find out more about alternative news, information, and so on available over the net. Addresses of other activists online are also available. Contact: loveandrage@igc.apc.org, lnr@blythe.org, or nyt@blythe.org for more info. -30- WAGE SLAVE RAGE By Matt Teeter Wendy's Old Fashioned slave trade is where I work. Like all fast-food-workers, I have many masters. Like any assembly line-worker, beepers, buzzers and timers rule my existence. The fries are done; the potatoes are baked; the orders are on the screen. Someone flips the burgers, passes the meat on to the sandwich- maker, who passes the product on to the server, who passes it on to the customer, who pays an exorbitant amount for grease to clog up her arteries. There are no speed-ups only slow-downs; fast- food is never fast enough. We had soda machines that filled a 32 ounce cup in eight seconds; they were upscaled with super-nozzles. Now we can fill 32 ounces in four seconds. Now that's progress! As might be imagined, between living on low-wages, customers yelling, managers yelling, beepers buzzing, buzzers beeping -- the pressure can be immense. Of course all fast food-workers know who to blame ... each other of course. That's not to say Wendy's workers don't know fat pig Dave Thomas is getting rich off their labor, but they simply know that the fat pig isn't around to be hurt directly. You have to make due with who's around. I've mentioned union to a few people here. The first thing they say is, "But then you have to pay union dues." I tell them there are unions that have low dues, such as $3 a month. They usually just shrug; nobody intends on staying here. I've never met anyone who likes working fast-food. If being regulated by machines is hell, then managers are the devil. Like the cops, there is the bad manager and the good manager: the one will berate you, then the other will sweet talk you into working on your day off. However, never, never is there a shred of over-time pay for people who'd be glad to work on their day off. The Wendy's I work at makes approximately $25,000 a week. Perhaps labor costs are $5,000 a week, including the managers' salaries. There's no question that the purpose of the business is to earn money; it's just a matter of for whom. Against this sort of background, fast-food-workers all have one thing in common: they steal ... everything from grill knobs to french fries to one guy who backs his car up to the freezer to take boxes of breaded chicken. I steal everything from individual mustard packets to five-pound bags of cheese; anything just to steal a little, just a little back. Some days it's easy to just go into work and -- despite the grease film on my skin, the smell of my clothes, the blood on my hands from raw meat -- I can just dream work away, think of quitting day. However, I have to live with myself and ask myself why I am a "Wobbly" (an [Industrial] Workers of the World member). Action talks; bullshit walks. I don't have anyone to worry about but myself. However, there are people who are trying to feed families; people who work two jobs just to pay some pigdog of a landlord. As corporations flee to non-union lands, people are forced into the non-union service industry, but fast-food is just another factory. Wobblies have always organized factories that other unions wouldn't touch. Big unions can't organize fast-food-workers, but we can. Dave Thomas, Ray Kroc -- these motherfuckers are gonna burn! --From Lehigh Valley IWW Branch Bulletin April 1993 -30- KILLING THE PLANET ECUADOR--Oil companies vs Natives. The big push is now under way to extract the $30 billion worth of crude oil which lies two miles beneath the Ecuadorian Orient -- the Amazon region of Ecuador, that is one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet. Within the next year or two, a network of 250 miles of roads will be plowed through the rainforest, pipelines will be put into place, and the crude oil will begin to flow. An area of more than 7 million acres of rainforest will be subjected to oil and chemical spills. Among the companies involved are American multinationals Maxus, Oryx, ARCO, and Occidental; the French company Elf Aquitaine; Braspetro of Brazil and others. SIBERIA--Russian officials have confirmed that plutonium salts were among the radioactive materials blasted into the atmosphere when a nuclear fuel reprocessing installation in Western Siberia exploded on April 6. An area of at least 35 square kilometers of forest has been rendered uninhabitable -- effectively forever. The explosion occurred 28 km north-west of the large industrial city of Tomsk in an outlying plant of the Siberian Chemical Combine. The combine is centered in the town known as Tomsk-7. Founded in the late 1940s as one of three major centers of the Soviet nuclear weapons manufacturing program, Tomsk-7 remains closed to foreigners, and during the Soviet era was so secret that despite having a population of more than 100,000, it was not marked on maps. According to the Russian Greenpeace organization, the plant at which the explosion occurred uses nitric acid to dissolve spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors, in order to extract Uranium-238 and Plutonium-239 for recycling. A preliminary report issued on April 9 by the State Nuclear Supervisory Committee attributed the cause of the accident to negligence by plant personnel. Even tiny particles of plutonium dust, if they lodge in the lungs, create a high risk of cancer. Unlike many of the radioactive products of nuclear reactions, plutonium does not decay into harmlessness within a few weeks or months; its half-life is 24,000 years. --From Mikhail Tsovma 109462 CIS, Russia, Moscow Volzhsky Blvd 21-62 Tel (095) 921-06-55 email krazchenko@glas.apc.org -30- SCENE REPORTS Chicago: da windy city The Baklava Autonomist Collective has an organized itself around several projects over the last year. We are focusing on building a strong, attractive and viable local community and continuing our role as troublemakers. The focus on community-building is expressed through our local projects: 1 COLLECTIVE CHAOS: record label for DIY politically charged music, twice (or more) monthly benefit hardcore/punk shows, and distribution of literature, music, and info; 2 ABC: We've adopted of anti-authoritarian political prisoner Larry Giddings, and decided to also support several local political prisoners. Also, several actions around various prisoners have taken place and were well received; 3 WIND CHILL FACTOR -- Soon to be a bi-monthly newsprinted magazine. Yeah, we're punk. A thirty two page, 8 1/2 x 11 format, hopefully out in May. Print run 5,000. Watch out L&R! Also, the drive to squat is pushing us toward acquiring some property. If people are coming through Chicago, call the CHICAGO AUTONOMIST HOTLINE at (312) 455-0707 to network with us. Hello from Baltimore Anarchist activity in Baltimore has been increasing of late. Earth Core distribution has just become a Love and Rage supporting group. Earth Core is a small anarchist collective that circulates literature, music and publications with an anti-authoritarian focus. There has been a recent increase in racist activity in Baltimore, and we would like to form a Baltimore ARA and could use help. The BAC (Baltimore Anarchist Collective) is a local youth-oriented group which holds meetings every other week. Activities include distributing and publishing a zine and booking shows. Send us submissions for our zine. We are also interested in forming a womyn-only anarchist group. Other groups, including ARM (Anarchist Revival Movement) and AYC (Angry Youth Collective) would like to become more active and expand. For more information about any of this please contact BAC at: PO Box 18956. Baltimore MD 21206 Paterson, NJ The Paterson Anarchist Collective, one of the nine groups that makes up the North Jersey Anarchist Federation, continues the struggle to organize in the streets of Paterson. We have opened the Right to Existence, anarchist bookstore/community space/hangout. We hold forums and political video nights there. We have also printed and distributed the first issue of Plain Words which contains the second issue of Copwatch. Plain Words features local news from an anarchist viewpoint and national and international anarchist news. Copwatch covers the local police terror. To find out more about these papers, Anarchist Black Cross or other NJAF groups contact us at:PAC POB 8532 Haledon, NJ 07508-8532 -30- NOTES OF REVOLT KEEPING THE PEACE Ottawa--On March 16 and 17 around 300 protesters turned out to protest Canada's largest weapons trade show, ARMX, being held at the Ottawa Congress Center. The show, entitled "Peacekeeping '93" in an attempt to defuse resistance, featured such equipment as armor-piercing grenade-launchers, aircraft-mounted cannons, and tanks. Several anarchists formed a loose alliance at the actions. The actions included successful blockage of the streets and doors to the trade show, occupation of the Westin Hotel where many of the patrons of the event were staying, and the spreading of fake blood on the walls of the convention center. In addition at least two anarchist got inside the show and collected brochures, took photos, appropriated supplies, and reworked the plumbing using toilet tissue, menstrual pads, and tampons. YOUTH UNDER ATTACK Pequanock, NJ--In early march, the administration of Pequanock High School in New Jersey imposed a number of repressive and ridiculous rules in response to student vandalism. A NJAYF (New Jersey Anarchist Youth Federation) member made and distributed a flyer to protest this which denounced the actions of the administration and reprinted "School Stoppers Guide" and "What Education?" from Love and Rage, Vol 3 No 7. In response, the school staff began to round up students demanding to know the connection between the vandalism,the flier, and the "anarchist terrorist organization" that was responsible for the two. --from Jersey Anarchist No 8 POLICE VAN A SIZZLER Victoria, BC--The grill of the Fairfield community police station's mini-van went up in flames Friday, Mar 5, after vandals lit the contents of an aerosol can. About $2,000 in damage was done to the van which had been parked in front of the police station on Fairfield Road.This comes with a recent surge of activity in Victoria. In mid- December several new cars at a GM dealership were attacked (claimed by an anarchist group). On Dec 25 a McDonalds was attacked by the ALF. Then on Jan 1, a butchers shop was also attacked by the ALF. Although no known communiques have been received about the police van action, this seems to be the first use of fire. Complacent Victoria is heating up! --from Autonomedia COP KILLERS California--Cops in California are complaining of "people taking shots at you just because you're wearing a blue uniform." In Salinas, in response to a police murder in January, groups confronted police with rocks, bottles and random shots. Also, in response to the Rodney King verdict, graffiti began appearing throughout South LA, saying things like "Kill Cops." DAY OF ACTION FOR HAITIANS On Monday, April 19, people around the US participated in a day of action protesting US policy toward Haitian refugees. In New York City, protesters occupied the Statue of Liberty, ACT UP invaded a local congressperson's office, and others marched outside the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) offices. In Miami, demonstrators rallied at the INS offices. In Boston, protesters leafletted the Boston Marathon and rallied at the finish line. In Philadelphia, ACT UP organized an encampment outside the INS offices which lasted through the night Demonstrations were also held in Seattle, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and at UC Berkeley. -30- LIBERATION RADIO Springfield, Ill--Mbanna Kantako is blind, Black, broke and on the verge of creating a Media revolution in America. Black Liberation Radio operates on a one-watt transmitter the size of a toaster, with a broadcast range of only one mile. The six-year-old station has been in flagrant violation of a federal court order to cease broadcasting for the past two and a half years. The "Micro-Radio" model is cheap (about $800), easily replicated and was designed to be used to empower low-income people in neighborhoods across the country. TAMAYO, DOMINICAN REP -- Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic, Radio Enriquillo was ordered to cease broadcasting uncensored Haitian news in Creole. They evaded the orders by singing the news, accompanied by a guitar and bongos. They have since completely ceased the Haitian news program due to threats and intimidation against workers at the station. You can contact the stations: Black Liberation Radio, c/o 333 N 12 st Springfield, IL 62702 Radio Enriquillo, Apartado 99 Tamayo, Dominican Republic --from New Liberation News Service and Interadio -30- NYC SQUATTERS New York -- Six demonstrators protesting the destruction of a shantytown in w York's Lower East Side were arrested on Feb 20 following an hour-long metal jam at the site. Some 50 squatters and anarchists met at the vacant city-owned lot on 9th Street and Avenue C where they pounded drums and scrap metal and built a bonfire of wooden police barricades. Earlier in the week police and bulldozers had moved in to demolish the shantytown that had been home for 21 people. The demonstrators were particularly upset over the report that two of the shantytown residents had been committed to Bellevue Hospital. (They were later released.) The City plans to build a new station for the PSA-9 Housing Police and 56 units of so-called low-income housing. -- From Black and Red, May/June 93 BILL NEEDS YOUR HELP DETROIT -- Bill, a Detroit community member and activist of several years, needs medical treatment as the result of fighting back against Queer-bashers. In mid-April outside the 404 Willis anarchist community center, group of wimmim were being verbally harasses by a gang of well-known misogynists and Queer-bashers. When these wimmin confronted their aggressors, several of the wimmin were physically attacked. People on the scene joined forces and successfully chased the gang away. But in the process, Bill was cornered and bashed in the head with a baseball bat. Bill has already lost eight teeth, has a broken jaw and may loose his lower lip to infection. He cannot cover the costs for even minimal medical care. He has been unable to work due to his injuries. He has no medical insurance. To fully restore his mouth and jaw he will need surgery which will cost $12,000. Please help raise the money needed. Bill supports Queer-rights with more than just words. We should support him. Please give generously. Send donations to: Care For Bill c/o SRN Wayne State University 5221 Gullen Mall, Box 99 Student Center Building Detroit, MI 48202 Make Checks Payable to: Student Resistance Network -30- @ ARCHIVES The Anarchist Archives Project has been collecting materials on the history of Anarchism since 1982 and has gathered over 7,000 items. The project provides research assistance and low cost photocopying of most material in the collection. To find out more write: PO Box 1323, Cambridge MA 02238 -30- CALENDAR June 27 -- July 4 EF! Rendezvous Mt. Graham, AZ Contact: AZ EF!, PO Box 3412 Tucson, AZ 85722 July 7--11 Love and Rage Annual Conference San Diego, CA Contact: SD @ Federation c/o 915 E St, San Diego, CA 92101 Darren (619) 9-8722 July 16--19 Holiday in Beirut, USA @ Gathering, Portland, OR Contact: Rosebud Commons, 1951 W. Burnside, Box 1928, Portland, OR 97209 July 29 -- August 1 The Frenzy @ Conference, Vancouver, BC Contact: Box122, 1895 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC V5N 4A6 July -- Aug 2 Mid-Atlantic @ Gathering Contact: Wooden Shoe Books 215-569-2477 August 8 Under the Volcano Political Arts Festival (Bands & Artists) Vancouver, BC Contact: Box 21552, 1850 Commercial DrVancouver, BC V5N 4A0 Tel/Fax (604) 255-2787 Sometime Soon: Midwest @ Gathering Contact: Practical Anarchy, PO Box 173, Madison, WI 53701 National Organizing Summit Against Police Brutality Contact: Dave (313) 865-2748 -30- ABC SECTION SPANISH POLITICAL PRISONERS TORTURED By Paul Wright [Edited by the Love and Rage Production Group] Spain has a large and active communist and anarchist left and labor movement. It also has several nationalities struggling for independence from the central government. The result of these struggles is that Spain has over 700 political prisoners (pp's). The majority, over 600, are affiliated with the Basque independence struggle. The next largest group, about 55 pp's, are members of the PCE(r) (Communist Party of Spain, reconstituted) and GRAPO (Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups, First of October). The remainder are anarchists, labor activists and nationalists from the other liberation struggles being waged against the Spanish central government. Like all capitalist countries, the treatment of pp's in Spain ranges from bad to barbaric. The last several months have seen a general crackdown on leftist and nationalist activists and groups. This includes the arrest of three members of AFAPP, an organization that supports the human rights of political prisoners in Spain. The family members arrested were accused of being members of the PCE(r). The "evidence" against them consists of address books and copies of the PCE(r)'s clandestine magazine. After a shootout between Spanish police and a GRAPO commando, in which some members of the commando escaped, Spanish police arrested Elvira Dieguez and Laureano Ortega. They were accused of "membership in an armed band." Dieguez had been released from prison in 1989 after serving 12 years for GRAPO activities. At her court appearance Dieguez showed obvious signs of torture and described the torture she had undergone at the hands of the Spanish police. She states she was hooded with a plastic bag and blindfolded for much of her ordeal. Her clothes were forcibly ripped off her body and she was beaten. Her ordeal lasted for roughly five days and she was tortured in the cities of Santander and Madrid. In Madrid, naked and in cold cells, she was beaten some more. Her body was wetted down and she was shocked with cattleprods, and the soles of her feet were beaten, and she was raped with a broomstick. Throughout the experience she was being insulted and screamed at by Spanish police officials. At his court appearance, Ortega described a similar experience, except he was not raped. Their lawyer, Francisca Villalba, vigorously denounced the torture and called a police doctor as a witness. The doctor testified that the prisoners injuries were consistent with their testimony of being tortured. Despite the torture, neither Dieguez nor Ortega made any incriminating statements and both were freed by the Spanish court that handles political cases for a lack of evidence. The judge said he would give further consideration as to what he would do about the prisoners being tortured. If past experience is any guide, nothing will be done. Torture of political dissidents in Spain, England, France, Turkey and other NATO countries is well documented. Some countries, including Spain and England, operate military and paramilitary death squads that routinely kill political dissidents. Again, nothing is done. The most startling thing about these events is the deafening silence from the so-called human rights community. Where are the denunciations of the Spanish government for their arrest and torture of political dissidents? Some groups like Amnesty International claim to oppose the torture of all prisoners, regardless of political views. Yet when communists are being raped and tortured in "democracies" nothing is said and less is done.--From Prison Legal News, May 1993 -30- NORMA JEAN CROY Norma Jean Croy is a Native American woman from the Shasta Nation, in Northern California, who has spent the last 14 years in prison for a murder she did not commit. In Yreka county, July of 1978, Norma Jean Croy, her brother Patrick Hooty Croy and three other relatives stopped at a convenience store before going hunting outside of town. The store clerk accused them of theft. Soon after, Yreka police chased their car as they headed out of town. When the car stopped, Norma and her companions ran away. Police fired, hitting Norma in the back. Norma's cousin Darrell was also shot as he stood up to surrender. Hooty was shot in the back twice before he turned around and fired one shot from the .22 hunting rifle, which fatally struck the officer. Norma and her four companions were charged with first degree murder of the police officer and related offenses. Norma and Hooty were convicted on all counts, even though there was no evidence that Norma fired any weapon. Hooty was sentenced to death; Norma life in prison. The California Supreme Court reversed Hooty's conviction in 1985. Norma's appeal was denied by a lower appellate court. Hooty was retried in San Francisco in 1990, and was acquitted of all charges on the grounds of self defense. As of 1992, Norma was denied parole for the fifth time. The parole board refuses to hear evidence of her innocence that had been presented at Hooty's retrial. To get involved contact: Norma Jean Croy Defense Committee 473 Jackson Street 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94111 Norma Jean Croy CCWF #14293 PO Box 1508 Chowchilla, CA 93610 -30- JONATHAN PAUL FREE! On the morning of April 9, after 158 days of captivity, environmental and animal liberation activist Jonathan Paul was freed! In Nov of 1992 he was arrested for refusing to testify at a Federal Grand Jury hearing in Spokane Washington. The feds were (and are) investigating the activities of the Animal Liberation Front. While Jonathan is free, another person involved in the case was arrested. In April, journalist Rik Scarce was held in contempt of court. He was immediately released on his own recognizance, pending appeal. In March he refused to answer 32 questions in front of a Grand Jury who was investigating the Aug 1991 ALF break- in at Washington State University. In April, he refused to answer three more questions. On each question, Scarce refused to answer on First Amendment "free press grounds", because answering would violate the American Sociological Association Code of Ethics. He was arrested on May 14. You can show your support by writing to Acting US Attorney to demand his release. East District of Washington POB 1494 Spokane WA 99210 Write directly to Rik at W 1100 Mallon Spokane WA. 99260 -30- ANARCHIST INSTITUTIONALIZED James Peper, anarchist protester, has been sent to Atascadero State Hospital for the Insane for "evaluation" after being held in jail for five months awaiting trial. He could be held at the hospital for up to three years before seeing a judge again for sentencing! Peper was arrested during the anti-Columbus Day Black Bloc in San Francisco last October. He is charged with numerous felonies relating to firebombs. Show your support by writing and calling him, and sending donations for his legal defense. Write to: James Peper, PO Box 7001, Alascader CA 99429-7001 (805)461-2000 James Peper Legal Defense Fund C/O Slingshot UCB 200 Eshelman Hall Berkeley CA 94702 -30- PORTLAND KNOWS THEIR ABCs Prison support became our first project at Rosebud Commons; a major unifying factor for us so early in our development. As a Resource collective, we try to solve every problem presented to us in the best way we know; by collective effort. The need for prisoner support came in January when three of our collaborators were guests of the "Nine Bar Hotel." One womyn was serving a ten day sentence for polishing a cop's badge with spittle. The other two were nailed for old warrants. One got time served for the heinous crime of stealing a pair of socks. Our other comrade, a womyn in her early 20s facing extradition and a possible four year sentence (even though she had no priors), not that that makes a difference to the "Blue Meanies." Hey, equal justice for all. This was when we really pulled together and our methods varied with time. The jail where our comrade was being detained had an internal mailing system consisting of horrible, phosphorescent, pink slips. We created a constant flood of Inmate Memo Forms. Most escaped the mark of the censor. Our compadre was able to pin-point a visual rendezvous sight for us. It was a clear shot of vision for both parties. From a parking lot roof, we were able to see our friend in her cell and try to comfort her with visual aids. Some asshole spray-painted FUCK THE POLICE and one of those @ things. Some people.. Our comrade was later to tell us that much to her delight, she watched the maintenance people try to remove it from the wall, with no luck. Her response to them failing was, "you can't get rid of us that easily." The spray paint was later sandblasted off. Others tried various forms of entertainment. Most consisted of Autonomous Acrobats & The Flying Sam Beanies. Street theater-style pantomime consisted of acrobatic formations of the circle A. An inconspicuous black flag was also tied to the parking structure. The peak of the theatrical season happened when, one night, a US battle flag got the roast. Just as it settled to the ground in a flaming, plastic glory, the rent-a-pigs took chase. The jail went wild. Prisoners who were also enjoying the show started yelling and shouting at the security guards. Things like, "You ain't never gonna catch them!" Needless to say, most people chose to close the Season early. We focused in on the more traditional ways of prisoner support. There is the ever present need of money when dealing with the prison system. Prisoners need money on the inside for basic materials, ie stamps and envelopes. Money is needed for lawyers and media exposure. In most cases, the family can use the support, financially as well as emotionally. Also, keep a constant check on how the prisoner is doing. And what the "system thugs" are doing. Make sure the meal requirements, ie. vegi meals, are dealt with as soon as possible (even in the case of a hunger strike). This can take time, seeing as how they want proof that you don't eat flesh. Interestingly enough, this time we had to go through the prison chaplin for his dietary blessings. Court support is more a form of solidarity than anything else. Just to physically be in the court for all cases is great. The court room will sometimes be the only place you'll get to see the prisoner. This will also give you the captive opportunity to speak with the lawyers on the case. Make sure the defendants lawyer is in contact with the client on a regular basis. It is common practice for lawyers to take advantage of prisoners' isolation. Make them do what they are paid for. Some lawyers even get off on the whole "political game" of it. My favorite part of it is being the dark cloud over the shitty public defender's golf game. Putting the whole affair in the eyes of the public is the best tactic. Handing out flyers outside the prison or court is a must. Alerting the media, whether sympathetic or not, is par for the course. Just remember, the thing that can hurt "the bastards" the most is turning on the lights. Rosebud Commons, 1951 W. Burnside Box 1928 PDX, OR 97209 -30- INTERNATIONAL SECTION FIRE THIEVES: NEW ANARCHIST MAGAZINE IN TURKEY Istanbul--This is a greeting from Ates Hirsizi (Fire Thief), a recently- begun anarchist monthly published in Turkish and Kurdish in Istanbul. The back page will be published in English and other languages, to acquaint the rest of the world with their activities.Turkey, Middle East and as a whole our region with its various social problems and deep contradictions, comes at the very beginning of the fight fields of the world geography. We are right in the middle of such a pleasant instability, in which all these complex relations contradict and meet each other. Unlike any other region in the world, this is a place where a palace pomp and street poverty live face to face and which is why this is the place where a social hate and anger can upsurge more easily against such open, obvious and bold mastery. This Middle East and Front Asia Geography, where traditional life can still blossom despite the industrial pliers, is a permanent and important area for the anarchist social movement. So this is the place where we were born. From here we salute the revolutionaries, anarchists of the whole world, with all our warmest and heartfelt feelings. We as the ones who aimed to carry the 200-year-old anarchist struggle tradition to the Middle East, are aiming a multi-dimensional world. Of course, that insists a high level of cultural richness as well as a hard ideological, philosophical moral and political fight. For sure, the mission is to be equipped enough at all these levels. Because we are not after temporary zeals and short-lived hobbies. We want a permanent, free life now. Therefore we need a wide range of material and cultural sources, any kind of equipment and so many volunteers of freedom fighters from every part of the world. States, borders, and languages cannot barricade the road to meet on a joint struggle and to construct a communal life. Let us refuse our consciousness which has been "trained" for centuries. Belonging to no nation, we a handful of revolutionaries have given our hearts to be the fire thieves of the freedom struggle, against the authorities that have deep roots in such a hard region where blood and death prevails. Fire thieves need various publications and other communication materials for finding out their demands, aims and their sense of life freely and to pose their voice sufficiently and in every language. Ates Hirsizi was born as a result of this concrete need but is also a notice board where all freedom fighters can leave their messages. Ates Hirsizi Aylik Politik Dergi Klodfarer Cad. Dr. Sevki Bey Sk.No. 4/2 Sultanamhet ISTANBUL TURKEY -30- EAST TIMOR: THE RESISTANCE CONTINUES [Presented by Constancio Pinto Executive Secretary for the Clandestine Front National Council of Maubere Resistance (CNRM) Tour of North America, April, 1993.] I was twelve years old when the Indonesian military invaded my country. I fled to the mountains with my family and, for three years, hid in the jungle. We had little food, no medicine, and no weapons to defend ourselves, with but we were not alone. Thousands of East Timorese families had fled into the mountains like us to escape the terror of the invasion; others fled to Australia or Portugal as refugees. During those years in the mountains, people were dying all around me. Many were killed by the Indonesian military; others died more slowly through starvation or disease. It is hard for me to describe those years, but I can still see the Skyhawks and Bronco AV10 aircraft that the Indonesians used in their attempts to eliminate us. As you probably know, those aircraft are manufactured in the United States. When I was fifteen years old I went to the front line as a guerrilla fighter. At that time, the Indonesians controlled all the food producing areas and people were starving in the mountains. We were fighting to protect and feed them -- as well as for our right to self determination. [...] I finished school in 1988 and became a teacher of religion. This was my cover for my work in the resistance. I sent food and medicine to the fighters still in the mountains and kept them informed about what was happening in Dili and the other towns and villages occupied by the Indonesian army. I also monitored what was happening abroad. One of my main tasks however was to develop the civilian resistance by uniting all the independent groups resisting the Indonesian occupation. I began this work in 1986 with a small cell of seven people. Our code was 007! The umbrella organization at the time was known as the Revolutionary Council of National Resistance (CRRN). In 1989, CRRN was transformed into CNRM -- the National Council of Maubere Resistance. In effect, CNRM is a non-partisan clandestine coalition of all East Timorese nationalist groups including student organizations, our army Falantil plus the two major political parties Fretilin and UDT.[...] At this time, the leader of the resistance was Xanana Gusmao, a hero to a whole generation of young East Timorese both inside East Timor and in the diaspora. He was captured by the Indonesian military on Nov 20, 1992 and is still on trial in Dili. The Indonesians caught and arrested me on the morning of Jan 25, 1991, my birthday. I told them I would never forget the birthday present they gave me -- for, after the police had finished with me at the station, I had blood coming out of my nose, my ears, my eyes and my mouth. My body was swollen all over. The beating continued from 9 o'clock on the morning I was arrested until 10 o'clock at night. They stripped me, and after every question they kicked and punched me all over and jabbed me with their outstretched hands in the abdomen to purposely cause damage to my internal organs. They beat me even while I was bleeding. They repeatedly threatened to kill me, to throw me into the sea. They threatened my family too. They said that if I didn't tell them what I was doing and where Xanana was, they would harm my parents and my wife. They told me I would be responsible for whatever happened to them. After the beating at the police station, I was transferred to Senopato II prison where I was interrogated by Captain Edy Suprianto and Lieutenant Colonel Gatot, the head of intelligence in East Timor. That interrogation continued for four days non-stop. When they finished with me, they threw me in a cell alone. There were thirteen other East Timorese political prisoners in that prison while I was there. [...] On 29 Oct, the Indonesian army ambushed Motael church in Dili and killed Sebastiao Gomes, a 22 year old student who had sought sanctuary there. Soldiers surrounded the church, broke into it and shot Sebastiao in the stomach. He bled to death on the steps of the church. I was to be next. The military knew of my role in the resistance because they had forced some of the detainees to admit, under torture, that I was still their leader. I could not even say goodbye to my wife nor my parents and I have not seen them since that day. [...] We held the demonstration on Nov 12, 1991, a week after Sebastiao's funeral. It is our custom to remember our dead seven days after the funeral by placing flowers on the grave. In Tetun we call it ai funan midar which means "sweet flowers." The mourners not only brought flowers but banners too which they hid underneath their jackets then unfurled as they marched to the cemetery. Many believed the presence of foreign journalists would protect them from the direct vengeance of the Indonesian military. Our plan was to demonstrate peacefully. None of the marchers did anything to provoke the Indonesian troops. But, as they passed one of the government buildings, the police agents provocateurs began throwing rocks, breaking windows and beating the demonstrators with sticks. When they arrived at the cemetery, it seemed like the Indonesian military had prepared an ambush. One, two, maybe five minutes after the marchers had entered the cemetery gates, the military opened fire. I was hiding in a house 500 meters away and could not see what was happening. But I heard the gun shots and screaming. I also saw the Indonesians throw the dead and wounded onto trucks for the drive to the military hospital. There were seven trucks.[...] Between December and February I collected the names of people who had been killed at the cemetery or had died from injuries received that day. Our official death toll was 271. Many more are still unaccounted for. If you have seen the television coverage from that massacre, you will know that the demonstrators were mostly young people, East Timor's future. Their murder is further evidence of the genocide the Indonesian military is committing against our people. After the Santa Cruz massacre, my photograph was circulated throughout East Timor and Indonesia on state-run television and in the press. I was a hunted man.[...] I eventually escaped by car to Kupang in West Timor, and from there travelled to Jakarta where I remained in hiding for a further five months. I arrived in Lisbon in early Nov 1992 to continue my work for the East Timorese resistance in exile. I am now CNRM's representative in Portugal. Not long after I arrived in Lisbon, Xanana Gusmao was captured in Dili. (Nov 20, 1992.) At that moment many people thought his capture marked the end of the resistance in East Timor. But I would like to tell you that the struggle does not depend on just one person: it depends on the determination of the East Timorese people. Xanana's successor Mau Huno has now also been arrested -- but again he is just one man.[...] Like all East Timorese, I've suffered many difficulties since Indonesia invaded my country in 1975. I don't want my son, whom I have never seen, to have to go through what my generation and my parents' generation have been through. Unless the international community acts decisively to facilitate an internationally supervised act of self-determination in East Timor, I'm afraid the pattern of the past seventeen years will be repeated over and over again: resistance to Indonesian occupation, intimidation by the Indonesian military, atrocities against the Timorese people. More resistance, more intimidation, more atrocities. I don't want my child to have to go through that, nor anyone else's child. And I want to be able to see my wife and my son some day. Constancio Pinto is one of five East Timorese who came to North America in April 1993 to talk about the future of their occupied country. For info contact: Charles Scheiner, Coordinator East Timor Action Network/US P.O. Box 1182 White Plains, New York 10602 Tel (914) 428-7299 fax (914) 428-7383 email: cscheiner@igc.apc.org Compuserve:74670,3530 -30- UPDATE: AWARENESS LEAGUE IN NIGERIA According to a recent letter from the Awareness League, an anarcho-syndicalist group in Nigeria, the political situation in that country continues to worsen. Workers began striking nationwide during the last week of January against a background of worsening economic conditions. With each passing day there is growing apprehension that General Babngida will proclaim himself President-for-Life. Recently a tribunal sentenced six opposition elements on trumped up charges. The men were sentenced for immediate execution. The Awareness League members who were imprisoned (and who were released on bail awaiting further proceedings in the midst of an international campaign coordinated by Neither East Nor West and Workers Solidarity Alliance from NY) are still required to report daily to the Nigerian Secret Police, State Security Service (SSS). Efforts to reintegrate the comrades into society after their seven-month imprisonment continue, but they are still very ill. Financial support for the Awareness League is still needed, as the legal persecution by the Nigerian authorities continues. Over $1800 has been raised so far, but their lawyer still needs to be paid. This money can literally save their lives. For more information or contributions contact: WSA, 339 Lafayette St., Rm 202, NYC 10012 tel (212) 979-8353 or: Awareness League c/o Samuel Mbah PO Box 28 Agbani, Enugu State, Nigeria -30- ANARCHY IN JAPAN: 1992 - MARCH 1993 Excerpted from W@rrior, Newsletter from Revolutionary Anarchists in Kyoto, Japan 14 Jun / Kyoto Meeting and rally against dispatch of SDF (Self Defense Force) overseas under the name of UN Peace Keeping Operations. Militant anarchists clashed with police forces on the street. 2 Oct / Osaka Riot in the workers' town of Kumagasaki. Workers' anger exploded against the local city council and police. Cars were burned. Fire bombs were thrown. An anarchist was arrested. 30 Oct/ Tokyo Protest action against Peruvian embassy appealing the release for Andres Villaverde was made by the group GICRAV (formed by ARP).Before dawn, embassy has been attacked with a fire bomb. 11 Feb / Kyoto A meeting and rally impeaching "National Foundation Day."Anti-militarist/-racist/ -monarchist, and anarchist and radical activists joined. Kyoto local government authorities and financiers are going to celebrate 1094 as "1200th anniversary of the historical foundation of Kyoto." The previous capital of Japan was founded under bloody conquest and invasion of several regional nations including the people of Yezo, Hayato, and Ainu, among others. ARP is calling for an action against this stupid "celebration." Smash the 1200 years of massacre!! 11 Feb / Kyoto The statement to the Nigerian government was announced in the names of ARP RRU/IWA KANSAI, ABC(Kyoto) and Takeru Kurori (member of the Anarchist Federation) which demanded the release of four members of the Awareness League who were arrested last year. 11-16 Mar / Kyoto Series of actions were made against the Kyoto Local Prefectual Government who placed a bill of municipal ordinance intending to regulate the use of microphones at public places and even on the streets. Thursday, the 11th, at the hall of the Pref Assembly, anarchists chanted and unfolded a banner reading "Death to the Law!!" and "Smash the Suppression!!!" Five of the anarchist and radicals were violently evicted from the gallery by the heavily mobilized guards. It was the first time in 40 years that anyone was excluded from the hall. Anarchists and radicals engaged in protest actions when the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly enacted the same ordinance last November). -30- Continued in Part 3... + Join Us! Support The NY Transfer News Collective + + We deliver uncensored information to your mailbox! + + Modem:718-448-2358 FAX:718-448-3423 e-mail:nyt@blythe.org+ From nyt@speedway.net Mon Jun 14 19:42:06 1993 Received: from access1.speedway.net (NS.SPEEDWAY.NET) by sun.Panix.Com with SMTP id AA29497 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for ); Mon, 14 Jun 1993 19:41:22 -0400 Received: by access1.speedway.net with UUCP (Smail3.1.28.1 #4) id m0o5O9Q-000Sv7C; Mon, 14 Jun 93 16:41 PDT Received: by blythe.org (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:53:25 EDT for nyxfer@panix.com From: nyt@blythe.org Date: Mon, 14 Jun 93 14:53:25 EDT Message-Id: Subject: Love&Rage_6/93-3 To: nyxfer@Panix.Com Status: RO Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit LOVE AND RAGE Revolutionary Anarachist Newspaper Electronic Edition Volume 4, Number 3 June/July, 1993 Part 3 of 3 A GOOD YEAR FOR THE KURDISH RESISTANCE Nineteen ninety two was a decisive year for the Kurdish liberation struggle, particularly in Northwest Kurdistan. The Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK) and the National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK) have been instrumental in developing this struggle, and their strength and ability to achieve this is a measure of support they have from the Kurdish people. One of the clearest examples of this occurs during the celebrations of the Kurdish New year -- Newroz -- every March. This year, like many before it, saw Newroz celebrations in many Kurdish cities and towns turn into militant demonstrations in support of the PKK and the struggle to free and reunite all parts of occupied Kurdistan. The Turkish state responded with brutal attacks on the Kurdish people -- dozens were killed and thousands were detained under martial law for many days.[...] The Special War Means a "Scorched Earth" Policy The attack on Sirnak was a turning point in the war for national liberation, as repression by the Turkish state has clearly shifted from its "Special War" counter-insurgency operations to all-out war. This escalation has manifested itself in a 'scorched earth' policy which has seen the razing of towns and cities such as Kulp, Varto, Hani, and Cizre and others. The second and even more brutal attack on Sirnak in August has been by far the clearest example of Turkish atrocities against the Kurdish people. Starting Aug 18, 1992, Turkish forces blocked all roads in and out of Sirnak and went on a three-day rampage, claiming that the town was controlled by 1500 ARGK guerrillas (the People's Liberation Army, the military wing of the PKK). [...] Seventy percent of the city was destroyed and many people were left homeless and destitute. There were no guerrilla units in the city. At present the city is devastated and many of its inhabitants have become refugees. Rebuilding efforts are under way but due to the continued Turkish presence and repression those efforts are proceeding slowly. While the army has been carrying out a full-scale warfare, it has also continued to carry out a variety of counter-insurgency operations. Contraguerrillas have been organized to assassinate sympathetic journalists and politicians, PKK militants and the supporters of the Kurdish liberation struggle. This has included the assassination of writer/journalist Huseyin Deniz and of Musa Anter, who was a journalist with the progressive newspaper Ozgur Gundem and a noted writer considered by many to be the "grand old man of Kurdish culture." He was the fifth journalist from this newspaper to be assassinated in 1992. In an obvious show of contempt for their deaths, Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel stated that "these are not the journalists you think they are. They are all militants." In other words, in the view of the Turkish government, their deaths were justified. On June 11, contraguerrillas took 15 Kurdish patriots off a bus which was returning from Hizan and executed them. [...] Arbitrary detentions and mass arrests of Kurdish militants and activists continue to be used to quell dissent and support for an independent Kurdistan. On Sept 25, 11 members of the People's Labour Party (HEP) were arrested on the orders of the National Security Council -- which includes the Prime Minister, Army chiefs and certain cabinet members. The HEP is a progressive political party which supports Kurdish rights; in the 1991 elections, it elected 22 Kurdish MPs to parliament. The arrest of the HEP members was based on the view of the National Security Council that it would take "legal measures against those democratic institutions and media which support separatism and work against the unity state structure and thus have no constitutional or legal basis."[...] Kurdish Collaborators with Turkish Colonialism In Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan the two leading political forces in the region, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party-Iraq (KDP), have consistently shown themselves to the be the enemies of an independent Kurdistan. They have arrested, tortured and killed PKK supporters and members, turned them over to the Turkish military, and passed on information about PKK activities to Turkish and imperialist agents who they allow to operate in south Kurdistan. In response to this, the ARGK imposed an embargo on the border trade at the Turkish-Iraqi frontier on July 29. This was not aimed at the Kurdish people in the south but against the joint trade carried out between the Turkish state and the KDP. Instead the PKK wishes to forge better economic, social and political ties between the people of north and south Kurdistan without the interference of the Turkish state and its KDP-PUK collaborators. The KDP-PUK retaliated by coordinating with the Turkish military, an offensive against PKK/ARGK bases in south Kurdistan in October. Heavy clashes occurred between ARGK guerrillas and KDP-PUK peshmergas (Kurdish name for "guerrilla") in Lolan, Sheranis, Batufa, Zakho, Haftanin and other areas. When the fighting began many peshmergas refused to fight against their own people and a number went over to the ARGK side. Also, splits began to occur within the KDP-PUK forces with the resignation of ministers from both parades who stated that the "clashes only helped the Turkish state." On Oct 22, the PKK was able to prove conclusively that the collaboration was taking place between KDP-PUK forces and the Turkish military. In an ARGK raid on a meeting of KDP-PUK commanders, seized documents confirmed that a trilateral committee existed which directed the operations of the peshmergas. This committee was composed of one PUK commander, a KDP commander and a senior Turkish military major who had direct access to the Turkish High Command who were directing military operations. During the initial offensive, ARGK forces were on the defensive, facing heavy attacks in many areas. Despite rumours by the media of a withdrawal and surrender, the ARGK/PKK did not lose any ground, and, towards the end of October, were able to mount an offensive. In early November the PKK announced the lifting of the embargo on border trade after a political settlement with the forces of the KDP-PUK. Terms of the settlement allowed the ARGK/PKK to continue to operated freely in south Kurdistan -- clearly showing the inability of the KDP-PUK/Turkish military forces to achieve their desired goal. The Struggle Moves Forward Despite massive repression by the Turkish state of the Kurdish people, the liberation struggle continues to grow. On a military level, the ARGK continues to carry out many effective and sometimes spectacular actions against the Turkish military and police forces. For example, on Sept 29, 1250 ARGK guerrillas simultaneously attacked three Turkish military garrisons in the Semdinli region. The attack, which lasted for over seven hours, completely destroyed the garrisons as well as killing close to 500 Turkish soldiers. They also shot down a helicopter and captured numerous weapons while suffering minimal losses. On Nov 10, they attacked the main military garrison in the town of Hani. The 200 ARGK guerrillas who used rockets and mortars during the attack, completely destroyed the garrison when they hit the ammunition dump. When military reinforcements entered the town, they were attacked by the guerrillas who destroyed four tanks and two armoured personnel carriers. Once again the ARGK suffered minimal losses while over 100 soldiers and police were killed during the attack. Their most recent action, on Dec 14, saw a raid on the Special Forces headquarters in Diyarbakir which resulted in the death of 27 police officers. At the same time an ARGK unit ambushed a military convoy on the road from Hani to Diyarbakir. [...] Future? As the situation intensifies in Northwest Kurdistan, support for the PKK and Kurdish liberation struggle increases correspondingly to growing Turkish state repression.[...] After the Gulf War and the break-up of the Soviet Union, Turkey has set its sights on becoming the major power in the Middle East as well as extending its influence throughout the region. While denying that it plans to annex the Turkish-speaking republics of the former Soviet Union, Turkey is making economic and political overtures to, among others, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. [...] As the world situation increasingly shifts to a "North/South" confrontation, Turkey assumes the role of a frontline in imperialist domination. Clearly then, the Kurdish liberation struggle poses a serious obstacle to the implementation of imperialism's "New World Order." The formation of an independent Kurdistan would not only seriously disrupt -- and perhaps even destroy -- the Turkish state but it would also destabilize the entire region as uprisings by Kurdish people in Iran, Iraq and Syria would most likely be occurring at the same time. Further, the liberation of the Kurdish nation would be a powerful example and signal for the other colonized people in the region, particularly the Palestinians. Of course, Turkey and its imperialist allies cannot allow this to happen and will use any force necessary to crush the Kurdish liberation struggle. For us, concrete solidarity with the Kurdish struggle means building resistance here in the imperialist centers and opposing its aggression by any means necessary. Excerpted from Arm The Spirit No. 14/15 Aug-December 1992 -30- KILLER COPS Late this spring over the space of a week, three people in France were shot in the head by the Police. In the early hours of March 31, A 17 year-old Zairian was detained in Paris after allegedly stealing two packs of cigarettes from a bar. During questioning, an inspector took out his gun (supposedly to "frighten" the teen) put it to the suspect's head, and shot him. Authorities assured that the inspector would be "sanctioned". The following sunday an 18-year-old French youth died in the town of Chambiry (Saboya) after being shot in the head by the cop who was handcuffing him. On Wednesday, the 7th of April, another 17 year-old was shot and seriously wounded in the head by the cops who were pursuing him in Wattrelos. -30- THEY GOT IT GOING ON IN CZECH REPUBLIC The Black Hand Foundation is a non-profit, independent organization established to promote alternative culture and responsible social values. They suport non-profit social organizations, provide an opportunity for alternative cultural activities, provide drug abuse prevention and education focusing on helping and rehabilitating; suport anti-racist, anti-classist and anti-discrimination organizations, vegan lifestyles and anti-vivisection groups; support family planning, sex education, children's rights, and the fight against sexism. The Prague-Dejvice Center is the first social center established by the Black Hand in the former Czechoslovakia. It was established in a former school located in Prague. Other cultural ceters in other parts of the country are planned. A repressive, Communist-era riot law is currently being used against Czech animal liberation activists. The law states that if you hurt or injure anyone while disrupting a public meeting or ceremony, you're engaging in riot, and can be sentenced to up to two years. On Oct 11, 1992 there was a big protest against horse racing in the town of Pardubice, where horse racing is a tradition going back 100 years, in which many horses have died. Last year was the biggest demonstration against racing ever, with over 700 people taking part. The protestors were pushed out of the stadium and hunted in the forest on horses with dogs. Seven high police officials were fired, but almost all of the witnesses are now charged with riot. This is just one example of the use of riot charges against activists. If you can offer support contact: Petr Bergmann c/o Black Hand, Kafkova 9, Praha 6-16000 / Czech Republic -30- STRATEGY: MOVING TOWARDS REVOLUTION strat `e gy -- n. 1. the skillful employment and coordination of tactics; 2. artful planning and management-- Webster Dictionary We put out a general call for articles relating to "strategy." We were interested in hearing about why people do the work they're doing and how it fits into their conception of strategy for bringing about revolution. What are people's goals? Long term, short term? What is strategy? Where do we get one? The following articles are a sampling of written works by individuals and collectives in the anarchist movement. Two of the articles were reprinted from Free Society's Special Strategy Issue, which contains many other contributions to the discussion as well. We hope to run more articles in the future on this subject. But in the mean time here's a few to chew on. Hope you like em! -- Towards Revolution, Dema and Gene of the Production Group PITCHFORK: PLANS WITH PRONGS AWOL is an anarchist activist collective working in Mnpls. Many of us were members (as well as initiators) of the Youth Greens, (YGs) which is now defunct. The YGs, the majority of whom identified as eco-anarchists and/or Social Ecologists, were organized around democratically written principles such as anti-capitalism, Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual liberation, anti-racism and ethnic identity, (social) eco-feminism and others. Being a local of the YGs allowed us to have a certain amount of political coherence from the beginning. The following is a strategy we've developed over the two-and-some years we've been working together. There are four key elements: Direct Action, Study, Internal Democracy/Identity Politics and Counter Institutions. These are four prongs of the PITCHFORK we've used to jab the booty of power. While we don't consider this to be a coherent, mapped out program, we do see it as an active, democratic process by which we can contribute to the development of a long term, viable revolutionary strategy. DIRECT ACTION At every stage of social struggle, direct action plays a crucial role. Even reform within the system has always come from below. All the gains of the labor movement in the 1930s were made possible by a movement of militants who carried out strikes, walk-outs and occupations. The struggle for freedom of African-Americans, women and queer people were ignited in the streets by courageous people who were going to make the system deal with them on their terms. In movements of total social upheaval,such as the Spanish Revolution, people have taken not only the streets, but the factories, armories, communication centers and other critical sites to keep power out of the hands of the state and private capitalists. Direct action has and always will be an essential part of all social movements. However, this idea of demonstrating in the streets can, like anything else, turned into safe, liberal and ineffective expressions of "first amendment rights." We've probably all been to boring demos, in which we were herded around by a bunch of liberals and/or commies, forced to listen to some really uninspiring people, and then sent home when our "resisting" was done. This can be one of the more disempowering experiences anyone can have. But direct action can be an extremely imaginative process or event and doesn't have to be like the model above. Any action -- be it street theater, a puke-in, a big demo, or anything else -- can be organized around non-hierarchical and democratic principles. In this way it gives us the chance to practice and experiment with ideas we have about what a free society looks like, and at the same informing and transforming those ideas. Action also shows that there is resistance. This is important not only because it tells the powers that be that we are here, but it tells the average citizen that there are alternatives. A small street theater piece can convey ideas (not only about life but art) to a lot of people. Autonomous action should be encouraged by groups and individuals within demonstrations so that a more spontaneous situation will be created by participants. While planning actions, discussions should take place about what affinity groups are (small autonomous groups that take action and watch out for each other) and how not to alienate people who are new to this kind of demonstration. In actions or marches called by other groups, anarchists should participate in planning or participating as anarchists, using our creativity, making a new world on the streets. STUDY Revolutionary social movements must be informed by understandings of history, of present conditions and ideas about, what we want for the future. An anarchist movement especially needs to inform itself of how power operates; how it shapes society; and how it has affected our own understanding of the world. In this way, theory is the process of self-education. For radicals, this education is not for the production of knowledge for its own sake, but knowledge in the service of changing the world. As it is, the prevailing ideas in this society are the ones that justify capitalism, patriarchy, the nation-state, racism and in fact the whole structure of a brutally hierarchical and anti-ecological society. These ideas are so deeply entrenched in our own psyches that they are not always obvious, even to those of us who claim to be for revolutionary change. Part of our role is to do the often difficult intellectual labor necessary to expose ways of thinking, while providing new ideas that we attempt to work out in practice. In this process of education we must be self-critical and willing to let our understanding evolve. Precisely the moment we think we have it all figured out is the point at which our ideas become rigid dogma and our strategies a stale blueprint. Forms of oppression and new identities will always emerge that will challenge our basic assumptions, the way social movements such as Black liberation, second wave of feminism, Lesbian/Gay liberation, ecology and others challenged traditional ways of leftist ideas between the late 1950s and early 70s. Just as important, the nature of domination itself is always shifting and changing forms, leaving us with no easy explanations of how, for instance, capitalism in the late 20th century works and what is the best way to intervene. AWOL's approach to all of this is to do collective study, both as an educational component of our meetings and in independent study groups. Sometimes we have chosen ideas to peruse, other times circumstances have forced them on us. Often it is really hard to figure out how to approach a subject, find the time to study in a committed way, and to deal with different levels of theoretical knowledge, gender and class issues and other problems. What we are up against is a society that attempts to keep everyone uncritical and save theory for a privileged group of white males. However, by trying to work out those things, we have demystified theory ourselves and achieved a much greater democracy as well as intimacy in the group. We think it is equally important to get ideas out into the world, so we write propaganda as a group, or in twos and threes, which gets read and critiqued by the group before going out (like for instance, this article). In this way, no one person or small cadre controls knowledge production or AWOL strategy. INTERNAL DEMOCRACY & IDENTITY POLITICS Any time radicals work in any kind of diverse groups, subtle and overt forms of domination are going to play themselves out. This is the inevitable outcome of living in a hierarchical society. But that doesn't make it acceptable or insurmountable. Fortunately, for those of us on the short end of the oppression stick, our privileged comrades are supposed to have a commitment to ending all forms of hierarchy and domination, including their own behavior. This is one of the real beauties of anarchism. Unlike the traditional authoritarian left, oppressed people can't be asked to subsume their needs and issues to the "greater good." Take, for example, sexism. In AWOL, for a while men were doing most of the mental labor. Once this is noticed as a problem it seems like the solution is for women to just participate more. That is where the whole thing can become completely destructive and threaten the stability of the group. First of all it assumes that women want and are able to participate "just like men." Secondly, it assumes that complex and dynamic conflicts can have bureaucratic solutions, ie every flyer must be produced by a man and a women. (This kind of solution doesn't deal with the particular dynamic between these two people and the way they have been socialized to interact.) What it boils down to are questions of power. Who has the power, why and how they got it and how those without it can get some. Women aren't going to participate if they haven't empowered themselves to do so. They will not want to be a part of something that doesn't incorporate their experiences and ideas. At the same time, men must be willing to relinquish the roles they are used to playing. We've been working on these problems in AWOL from the very beginning, it is an on going project and a satisfying process. Beyond our individual groups, we should also support other social movements that are identity-based and help them in their struggles. Instead of asking others to join us, we should show our support as anarchists in their struggles. We have to address the needs of people who are marginalized if we want a movement that substantially includes them. Anarchists (purists by definition) don't have the easiest time working in coalitions or building long-term, principled alliances, but that is what we have to do. In that process, our ideas will inevitably change, as we further confront our own racism, homophobia and sexism. And at the same time we learn about struggle from people who have different experiences with power, and different ideas with what they want to do about it. COUNTER-INSTITUTIONS If we are going to take on this project of reshaping society, we are also going to have to reshape ourselves, our social relationships and our communities. Expecting to smash all forms of hierarchy and domination and then have egalitarian social structures magically pop up in their place (because humans at heart are just darn good people) is not a strategy that is going to work. By creating and sustaining radical collectives and institutions such as food co-ops, bookstores, day care, community gardens, theaters, cafes or anything else, we create institutional space that is much more on our own terms. These places become public space where we can begin to practice democracy. Often these institutions require us to deal with the marketplace or some state regulation. But we can use them to advance other kinds of oppositional practices, such as worker self-management, community control, direct democracy and commitment to serve social movements and help enfranchise oppressed communities and individuals. It is crucial that such places don't become counter-culture hangouts in the marketplace that cater to eco-consumers, yuppies who like organic food. The idea is that counter-institutions counter the onslaught of a market economy and an increasingly authoritarian society. This means both an attempt to relate to the communities around us, and to confederate with other counter-institutions to take part in building a popular counter power. There may have been many revolutionary moments in history where people have taken direct, democratic control over their lives from which we can learn and get inspiration. From the Paris Commune, to the communal peasant forms of organization in the Russian Revolution, to the industrial and agrarian collectives during the Spanish Revolution. There are also more recent examples to draw from as well. The co-opt movement of the early 1970s in Mpls and St Paul, built the largest number of worker-controlled cooperative ventures in the US. This movement did not live up to its ideals because of internal factionalism, pressures from the marketplace and the turn away from politics to lifestylism by many people. That doesn't negate the importance of that movement. What it does do is give a realistic picture of the inherent limitations and pitfalls of this kind of strategy. People in AWOL have been involved in a couple of different counter-institutions, the Powderhorn Co-op, a worker-managed, community owned grocery, and the Emma Center, an anarchist community space, both in South Mpls. Each of these spaces has its own unique problems and take an enormous amount of energy to keep going, but both give anarchism a public face in Mpls and allow us to work out new relationships with each other while we also counter the outside world. CONCLUSION For the sake of explanation we have broken these things down into their little packages. But in actuality it's a much more dynamic process. For instance, we are never just studying. We see a study group as a counter-institution to the formal education system. We may be studying the strategy and tactics of the Black liberation movement of the early 1960s and 70s, and how they may be of use to us today. While we are doing this we will be watching out for and trying to overcome inequalities due to gender or class. All of this helps to inform our decisions on where to take action and when. Through trial and error, it is what we have collectively arrived at. In this way the pitchfork has had a certain amount of organic development. -- edited From Free Society, Winter 1993 -30- ANARCHY, PUNK AND UTOPIA To many readers of Profane Existence it must seem like the only strategy the PE collective has is to sell our records and to glorify violence against the state, and hell, it's partly true. These activities are important parts of our diabolical attempt to overthrow all systems of oppression and replace them with a world of free punk gigs, unlimited supplies of home-brew and, er, oh yeah, nonhierarchical and voluntary forms of political and economic organization. However, there's also a bit more to the reams of newsprint with the smudgy ink, the thousands of records bought and sold, and the endless trips to the post office. The output of Profane Existence (the magazine, the records, the shirts, the distirbution, etc) and the way PE itself is organized (as an anarchist collective) reflect two key parts of an anarchist strategy we feel is necessary in the struggle to create a free, equal and just world. I. Collectives Most people have a somewhat legitimate gripe when they say, "Anarchy's a great idea but it will never work." Anarchy won't work now because people still need to build the political and historical conditions that make an anarchist society possible. Despite our dreams, we don't believe that revolution will happen overnight. Call us cynical. The Spanish Revolution didn't just pop out of the sky into Spanish workers' and peasants' hands; they built the revolution for over sixty years. Key to their struggle was the formation of collectives. We see the formation of revolutionary collectives as one of the best ways to create the necessary bridges between the totalitarian society we live in today and the free society we are working to build tomorrow. There are two reasons why collectives can help build the necessary historical and poliitcal conditions that make anarchist revolution possible. First, collectives are small, efficient means of organizing that provide practical examples of counter-instituitions that are egalitarian, voluntary and anti-authoritarian. Collectives work and they prove that anarchy works, and that's one of the best weapons we have against both captalism and the Marxist-Leninoid version of revolution. Collectives demonstrate that people can organize their lives together in democratic ways that do not oppress or exploit anyone and that encourgage the full and free participation of people in things that affect their everyday lives. To smash capitalism and turn a rebellion (like LA's) into a revolutionary struggle you have to show people an alternative to the life they live now, an alternative that makes people willing to give up what little they have for the possibility of a new life. You also have show people an alternative that encourages them to organize their lives themselves instead of by some party or cult figure. The way we see it, any anarchist struggle will be a three cornered fight among those who support the status quo, authoritarian revolutionary types (socialist, Leninists, and other stateist stooges), and anti-authoritarian revolutionaries who don't want to liberate the masses but want the masses to liberate themselves. PE places itself firmly in the third camp, but for this type of strategy to succeed you have to present working alternatives to capitalist and authoritarian Marxist forms of organization, alternatives that people can build themselves instead of join or follow. We think collectives are one of the most important alternatives anti-authoritarian revolutionaries should present. However, we don't want to advocate just any kind of collective. China and the Soviet Union had collectives, but they were either created or taken over by the state. In the Soviet Union, people were forced to collectivise, and if they didn't, Stalin starved them. That's not the kind of collectivization we're about. We're about anarchist collectives -- collectives that are voluntary, non-hierarchical, egalitarian, directly democratic, encourage the full participation of all collective members, and engage in acts of mutual aid with other revolutionary collectives. We're not vanguardist. We fully believe the punk ethic of Do-It Yourself (DIY) is a revolutionary ethic. If you want a free society, you have to DIY. You have to form your own collective; don't join ours. You have to work with other collectives while maintaining your autonomy instead of being recruited into a party. Mass struggle must be built from the ground up in a non-hierarchical, democratic manner. Collectives are an excellent way to build this kind of revolutionary anarchist struggle. This brings us to our second point. As important as collectives are, it's not enough just to build a collective and work within it. To be a revolutionary collective you have to work with other people, other networks and other collectives. In any anarchist strategy, working with other collectives has to be seen as just as important as work within the collective itself. If we all just work alone, we are isolated and weak . If we all just join together under the banners of "unity" and "mass struggle," we lose our individuality and become just another head to count. However, if we work together as tight-knit autonomous collectives that form networks, federations and coalitions with other collectives, communities, individuals, networks and federations, we are powerful on a mass level while still retaining our identity. Working with other collectives is important not only for building connections that strengthen the anarchist movement, it's also important because it helps break down the internal patterns of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and other hidden hierarchies that can develop within a collective without members even realizing it. Working with other collectives and/or people of different backgrounds challenges us and the way we live and organize within our collective as well as outside of it. When you get together and work with other collectives, federations, etc. all parties involved walk away changed. Coalitions aren't just the sum of the number of groups involved, they alter the interests of the groups themselves. Because the communication involved forces people out of the protective shell a collective can develop if it doesn't talk with other collectives. When something is so subtle within your collective that no one recognizes it, getting a perspective from the outside helps a lot. II. Propaganda Obviously, another key to anarchist strategy for Profane Existence is propaganda. Propaganda helps spread our ideas to people who might not have ever even considered them before. For example, one important part of the magazine is to challenge dogmatic beliefs that serve to strengthen the present power structure, beliefs such as "fascists deserve free speech and freedom to assemble too," and "some cops are good, some cops are bad," and other such liberal nonsense. We don't expect our articles, essays and rants to change anyone's mind overnight, but we do want people to know that these ideas aren't god-given or "natural," and that there is a struggle going on about beliefs like these that most people take for granted. "Not everyone buys into the ruling class ideology; we just thought you should know," we say. Further, propaganda also helps the collective because the criticisms we receive from stuff that we publish or distribute challenges us to defend our views and change them where necessary. PE has become a lot stronger due to the feminist and anti-racist critiques that revealed the straight white male attitude that often prevailed (and still creeps in, despite our best efforts) in the magazine. Propaganda inevitably breeds criticism; the collective uses that criticism to grow and change. A lot of people criticize the magazine because they say we romanticize violence and that we exaggerate the struggles we cover. They are right; we do romaniticize violence against the state and the ruling class, and we do sometimes exaggerate peoples' struggles against injustice. However, we also have a reason, for romaniticizing this sort of stuff shows people -- especially people who live in places that are generally isolated from revolutionary activity -- that people are struggling against unjust forms of power all over the world, and that sometimes these people win. An anarchist movement needs that. We need to know that victories against hierarchy are possible and that they do happen, even if they don't lead us straight into a revolutioary situation. Romanticization also challenges the media's claim to "objective truth" in reporting. We believe that the idea of objective truth is bullshit. History happens, but the belief that you can describe or interpret history exactly as it happened is a lie. Those who are in power are also those who usually get to define what is "true." By romanticizing events we not only offer an alternative interpretation to the "truth," we also challenge the ruling class and the mass-media's claim to a monopoly on truth. We say our interpretation of politics and history is as good as theirs and that if you're going to believe one pack of lies you might as well believe ours! Lastly, like collectives, propaganda shows that anarchy can be a part of everyday life. It's not just a theory, it is a multifaceted, thriving, practical and just way of living your life. Propaganda documents our culture of resistance and legitimates it. Counter-institutions like collectives exist within counter cultures like punk, anarchist, feminist, Queer, etc. We can't expect the mainstream media to cover these counter cultures, nor do we want them to. Again, we gotta do-it-ourselves. By documenting our culture of resistance and adding a bit of spice to it here and there, our propaganda hopefully inspires people within and without the revolutionary anarchist movement to get active and take control of their own lives and to realize that we can fight the status quo and win. III. Anarchy as Struggle At PE we have high hopes for people and this world, but we also try to be realistic. We don't expect everyone in the world to join a collective. Some people just have to work by themselves, and that's fine. More important in terms of anarchist strategy, though, some people will actively oppose the formation of collectives and our attempts to build a free society. This is why we see the revolutionary anarchist process as a process of struggle. For us, an anarchist society will develope out of a long and perhaps bitter struggle betweeen those who would maintain the status quo (the ruling class, the state, cops, racists, upper and some middle class people, etc) and those who want to overthrow it. It will also be a struggle within the revolutionary movement between those who want to lead the revolution (ie socialists, Leninists, Maoists and other power mongers) and those who want the revolution and the post-revolutionary society to be anti-authoritarian. (We could call it the struggle between the DIYers and the "We'll-Do-It-For-You-Or-Else"ers.) This is why anarchy is about revolution to us, not about "evoluton." "Evolution toward anarchy" is a crock of liberal shit. If anything, humanity has devolved from a prehistorical state of relative freedom and autonomy to one of serfdom and slavery. Making the world anarchist by evolution is about as likely as humans developing a tail, and it would probably take about as much time to "evolve" even if it was. To change the world you have to act on it; You have to DIY, and that means revolution. Viewing anarchy as a struggle involves keeping collectives alive and thriving, keeping revolutioanary ideas alive and thriving, and not loving everyone; some people are responsible for the way this world is run today and they must then be held accountable as much as any abstact "(Fuck the) System" should. At PE, our anarchist atrategy is to organize and propagandize against the powerful and for the creation of a new world built from the bottom up by the powerless. This requires collective forms of organization, intense propaganda campaigns, a comittment to direct democracy and against hierarchy, and a revolutionary demand to strip the power from the ruling class, by force, if necessary. It also requires that we have a lot of fun and laughs (and beers). We wouldn't have it any other way. --edited from Free Society, Winter 1993 -30- CONSCIOUSNESS AND COUNTERCULTURE By Scott McRott I am a 17 year old atheist student who sings and plays guitar in a New York City anarchist, Punk/Ska band called No Commercial Value. The two major events that led to my current free-thought are two things that many kids encounter, one way or another. One was my realization when I was 13 (right after my Bar Mitzfah) that I did not believe in or care for one word I spoke during my Bar Mitzfah ceremony. In fact I was saying and learning what everybody else wanted me to say and learn. The religious "turning point" was during my freshman year at the Bronx High School of Science, where Biology was more than stressed. Although I failed my Bio class, I learned a lot about evolution and scientific theory. That made me realize that things actually could be proven to be true and not just be written and strung together in a "testament" that made it automatically true. This realization about religion just led to more questioning of things taught to me and of the people teaching them. The second important thing that happened was at the new high school I flunked to, a kid traded me a tape for my Ramones tape (which I was becoming quite sick of). His tape was the Dead Kennedy's Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Death, which made me question authority and society in general. This is why in NO Commercial Value we play songs about police, religion, the government and abortion, anarchist style. I just hope some kid hears it and likes it and actually listens to what's going on in his or her world. HOW THE BAND FITS IN [Ms. Tommy Lawless interviews Scott McRott.] T: How do you see the work you do with your band fitting into a strategy for revolution? S: Besides the obvious, preachy lyrics in our songs (anti-fascist, anti-cop, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic, anti-capitalist, anti-racist), we also try to convey our messages by using stickers, "doctored" advertisements, and stencils. And when all is said and someone will see or hear our work and think more criticall about our society and the people running it. T: You mentioned the anti-capitalist side to your music. How do you see the DIY music scene as a whole fitting into strategy? S: Well put it this way, if every band in the whole world all of a sudden agreed to boycott the music industry and form DIY collectives, the music industry would topple, along with their greedy business practices and their censorship. Let's say a type of music that is quickly becoming this countries most popular music; Punk, and see how many of these bands are saying "Fuck you" to the music industry, and staying DIY. Of course this could easily result in the destruction of the music industry. This would never happen because there are too many naive bands out there that are ripe for exploiting and there are always going to be a few bands who betray their scene and sell-out (Green-Day, Nirvana, Flipper, etc.). But these bands can easily serve as channels to turn people on to cooler, lesser known DIY bands. And, if instead of going to the local mall, every kid has an Alternative Tentacles Catalog, (alternative record labor put out by the DKs), or a Lookout catalog, then they can experience good music first-hand without being poisoned by the music industries corporate Amerikkkan censorship. T: I know you do benefits. What types of causes does your band support? S: So far we have yet to get payed for playing. Our first show was at ABC No Rio (a collectively run communty center in NYC) with Bushman, Opposition and Black Medicine, and that was a benifit for the Native American Community house here in NYC. We recently played a benifit at ABC No Rio with Huasipungo and Summer's Eve for the Black Hand Collective, and another one for NYC Riot Grrrl. We just played at a benifit for C-Squat and Glass House squat (which is currently in danger of being evicted by the city, which would leave about 45 people homeless). No Commercial Value is Olivia-vocals, Scott-guitar, vocals Alec-Bass, Mike-drums And remember: who needs friends when you have No Commercial Value? -30- ZEN AND THE ART OF REVOLUTION by Richard Van Savage and Dema Crassy There is a Tupamaros saying "Theory = sectarianism, statement of principles and drafting of programs = inactivity and inability to get anything done." In many ways our movement has accomplished a lot, and yet for all of it's ambition, one is sorely tempted to ask why so many people have been alienated from it. Part of the answer would seem to lie in overcoming sectarianism: not through compromise of our revolutionary ideals, but rather through direct action, and respect for different approaches for creating a new society. We as anarchists all share a common politic; we want to create a society that is free from all types of oppression. Since we have different visions about how to get there, it doesn't make sense for us to sit around and argue about which is the "right" way we all have to go. Different tendencies should work in ways they see fit, according to their community, and their experience. Clearly, we should talk about our ideas, and learn from one another's mistakes. But that doesn't have to be in the framework of all encompassing "political unity." In fact, to be effective, we have to be doing all types of work, and trying all kinds of methods of doing it. Respecting diversity and learning to work together within that framework is crucial. In terms of a large scale revolutionary situation, none of us are expecting that 2 million people are going to have political unity. So why do we focus so much on unity as we struggle to build our movement? Obviously, at some point lines about where we respectively stand on various issues will need to be drawn. That's healthy. But the definition of politics must arise out of a need to define them. The CNT (the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union) had to"define" where they stood in terms of armed struggle when some groups began participating in it, and some groups opposed it. They needed to define their position when determining what concrete action they would take, noy in a void. On another level, it is through our actions that we can unite. For example, when there isn't much going on, we have time to squabble. But in times of crisis we tend to focus more on what we have in common, rather than how we're different. So direct action, to us, means going directly to what it is we want. That doesn't mean acting without thinking about it, but rather, to figure out what works by actually getting our hands dirty and doing it. Political consciousness comes out of doing work collectively, thinking critically about it, and being challenged. It is through the success of our actions that we lend credibility to, and develop, our politics. To a certain extent the means becomes the end toward which we strive. To quote Regis Debray on the Uruguayan Tupamaros: "By establishing a series of intermediate forms of membership and areas of collaboration, a network of linked and interlinked activities on all fronts of popular interest (political, electoral, trade union, university, cultural, newspaper and so on), the Tupas have brought to an end the fatal tradition of underestimating and under-utilizing the classes, sectors and individuals outside the armed organization, the mistake by which so many revolutionary movements have contributed to their own isolation. They absolutely reject the dichotomy between combatants and non-combatants, those who are active and those who are passive, the subjects or objects of the historical process, the vanguard at the top and the undifferentiated masses below." As a strategy, we're advocating the creation of an infrastructure, based on collectives, that would be the foundation of an anarchist society. This infrastructure would be the means for providing the basic needs of self-determination in any community. Things like food, shelter, clothing, meaningful work, health care, security and info shops for networking are just a few of the things that come to mind. We need to be able to point to concrete examples in order to answer the "what if" questions that non-anarchists always seem to ask. The process of building an infrastructure would eliminate such dichotomys as armed struggle vs non-violence, as the same infrastructure would assist either, depending on the necessities of whatever crisis we're facing. For example, solving the homeless crisis is a form of sanctuary for the poor and in wartime could also be a safehouse sanctuary for combatants. The same would go for food distribution, health care and everything else. Idealistically, there would be no need to fight, as we could simply transform the communities in which we live. Realistically, however those with power will fight to hold on to it, when they realize that it's being challenged. It's naive to think we can be successful without suffering the need for self- defense against the state. Security is a crucial element, not just to protect individuals in our communities from other individuals, but to protect our communities from the organized terror agencies of the state and other institutions. The skills and discipline required to fight misogynists, racists and homophobes in our communities are merely the first steps to defending our communities from organized hate groups. The zen aspect is that in order to overthrow the state, we must feed the homeless. We cannot successfully feed the homeless unless we are prepared to defend ourselves. The more successful we are, the more prone we are to repressive measures from capitalist food-distributors and growers and the state that protects them -- likewise for all struggles. If the state and capitalists aren't taking repressive measures, it's probably because we aren't effective enough yet at what it is we're doing. The creation of any infrastructure must focus locally in small collectives and affinity groups, yet continuously network with other locales around general themes in order to stand any chance of survival. To use the Paulo Fierre method, we must first see what problems we are faced with. Next, we must analyze both immediate causes and root causes, and finally we must act. We mustn't allow ourselves to get bogged down in any one part of the process. Any movement for self determination must be able to handle the tension of respect for diversity while maintaining political solidarity in an anti-authoritarian, undogmatic way. -30- ORGANIZE! by Jacinto Revolution, to me, is more about the development of my awareness and potentials than the donning of a balaklava and rampaging in the streets. The freedom I desire is the freedom to create and exist without having to constantly fight. I've found that my own evolution exploded as I became involved into the Baklava Collective, and then with the Chaos Collective loft, which together brought about an increasing commitment to developing the skills I feel are necessary to create change. My experience working for a not-for-profit community organizing training center gives me a certain clarity of sight in the discussion of revolutionary organizing strategies. Community organizing, in its evolution over the past thirty years especially, has become both an art and a science. The ability to develop leadership in people through concentrated organizing has proven to be one of the most effective methods of creating positive change. Community organizing has a lot to offer the discussion of revolutionary organizing. Leadership development, the training of organizers, the ability to move an organizing campaign through an issue to victory and then on to the next campaign -- these are all taking place rather haphazardly now in the anarchist scene. A lot of it is the lack of resources (another discussion altogether), but also time and energy constraints limit our ability to create a viable framework within which we can learn to be effective organizers and leaders. The most basic element of community organizing is the development of leaders. In a very real sense this is our semantical equivalent of personal liberation. The potential within people, and the expression, through experience, of these potentials is the fundamental tenet upon which community organizers thrive. Revolution, to me, is just another way of saying that we want a society wherein our potentials do not lie dormant, that our expression is limited only by our imaginations. What do we want after all but a COMMUNITY in which we feel accepted and free? That's what community organizing is all about -- emphasis on local decision-making, community control over community resources, and the health and well-being of all community residents. The development of collectives, like the Baklava Collective that brought me into the whole anarchist scene, is a wonderful method for building the structures that will hopefully bring about positive change. But we need to be able to assist the formation of these collectives across the country that in itself will prompt the growth of networks like Love and Rage. Collectives organized around projects, politics, living spaces -- all of these contribute immensely to the sense of community so important in our lives. I think that the integration of community organizing and revolutionary strategies is necessary. We can learn how to organize and develop leaders within the anarchist scene, but in order to get ourselves to this point we must begin the educational process which like all others must be connected to direct experience. For myself, working with low-income community residents in their struggle to create viable healthy communities, is one of the greatest educational tools available to anarchists. By volunteering or working for community organizations, we can be training to organize and therefore gain those organizing skills so indispensable to social change on the level only seen in our visions. The opportunity to struggle alongside low-income community residents, and feel the urgency of their fight, has changed me in so many ways. My vision of revolution encompasses the necessity of experiencing and communicating with people, real everyday people, who will be an integral part of any positive social change. As anarchists, especially those of us who feel that organizing autonomous communities is going to play a significant role in this revolution of, yes, everyday life, we must be connected to the neighborhoods in which we live and the people with whom we will need to struggle. Building collectives, learning to organize and lead, and connecting ourselves to our neighborhoods and communities -- these are the strategies for revolution that I see as essential if we are to realize our visions. -30- + Join Us! Support The NY Transfer News Collective + + We deliver uncensored information to your mailbox! + + Modem:718-448-2358 FAX:718-448-3423 e-mail:nyt@blythe.org+