Rolling Thunder #1 - CrimethInc

Reader SurveySo we might learn how better to serve andprotect you, our precious readership, our sacredcash cows ripe for the slaughter, we present thisreader survey. Please immediately drop everything,violently rip this page out of the magazine, scrawlyour answers across it, and mail it back to anyof the various CrimethInc. addresses out there.You’ll be paid in kind for your trouble.1. Today’s radical publicationstoday don’t featureenough:a. Vicious infighting and invectiveb. Academic one-upsmanshipc. Tedious, irrelevant historyd. Inflated crowd estimates andself-congratulatory rhetorice. Promotion of pseudo-subversivecultural commoditiessuch as alternative internetpornography and organic blahblah blah2. The most promising featureof today’s radical milieu is:a. The phasing out of printmedia in favor of internetbased(“virtual”) outreach andcommunicationb. Puppetsc. A powerful solidaritybetween rank-and-file workersand revolutionary anarchists,facilitated by cooperationbetween national union bureaucratsand self-appointed representativesof The Movementd. An irrepressible optimismthat enables us to act decisivelyin the face of all odds3. The number one obstacleto be overcome for full-scalesocial revolution to be possiblein this society is:a. The dearth of educationabout the Platform of theAnarchist Communists as itwas proposed seven and a halfdecades agob. The absence of membershiporganizations complete withdues, transparent processes, recruitingdrives, and protractedmeetingsc. Insufficient guilt and recriminationamong activistsd. The widespread misconceptionthat most people getinvolved with radical politicsbecause it is exciting and fune. The CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’Collective, obviously4. You have been involved inradical activities and/or communitiessince:a. Most of the members ofthe I.W.W. were trainhoppingtraveler kidsb. You quit your job and discoveredthe only ones who stillcared whether or not you gotanything to eat were Food NotBombs volunteersc. Rumors of people actuallycontesting authority (!!) inSeattle, Prague, Quebec, andGenoa peaked your interestd. You figured out that liberalanti-war activism is ineffectiveat stopping wars, but suspiciouslyeffective at providinga justification for feelings ofsmug self-righteousnesse. About a minute ago whenyou opened the cover of thismagazine (there’s still time toput it down—but hurry!)5. Your income this year willadd up to approximately:a. Enough money that yourtaxes will finance a couplecruise missiles for the U.S.militaryb. Enough money to keep youon the highway, supportingthe oil industry whose interestsare secured by those cruisemissilesc. Enough money to get youthrough the turnstile at thesubway, if only you could findanother nickel in the couchd. You’re the infamous anarchistkid with the trust fundwhose existence is alwaysalleged in hostile reviews andrumorse. “Uh, I read that bookEvasion a couple years back,and…”If you answered a. or b., pleaseproceed to questions #s 6 through10. If you answered c., you’re offthe hook, free to go back to figuringout how to get the alarm tagsoff the shaving razors at K-mart.If you answered d., it’s abouttime you sent us a cut—seriously,should we suffer on your accountwithout enjoying the benefits ofbourgeois pigdom, too? If youanswered e., please go online orfind a copy of the reunion issueof Inside Front and read theemergency dispatch “All TravelerKids Purged From CrimethInc.Membership.”6. How do you sleep?a. Like a baby—a Beverly Hillsbaby, not a Palestinian or Iraqibabyb. In the employee bathroomwhenever the boss is distractedc. Better now that you’ve beenprescribed antidepressantsd. Can’t sleep a wink, not evenwith sedatives and all-nighttelevision7. The majority of yourfinancial holdings are:a. In a bank, so they can beloaned out to earth-destroyingcorporations without you havingto think about itb. In stocks and bonds—youdon’t mind loaning out yourmoney to earth-destroyersyourselfc. In an envelope under themattress (if your place ofdwelling has more than onebed, please specify which)d. Do college loans, utilitybills, alimony payments, andcredit card debt count as financialholdings?8. Your place of residence issecured by means of:a. A good relationship with theneighborsb. So many residents with sofew jobs between them thatsomeone with nothing to loseis always bound to be at homeand awakec. Deadboltsd. Alarm systems (specifybrand)e. Security guards (specifyweight, height, and fitness)9. The police in your area:a. Respond promptly to all911 callsb. Respond promptly to 911calls made from predominantlywhite and/or middle classneighborhoodsc. Respond eventually to 911calls made from predominantlywhite and/or middle classneighborhoodsd. Report immediately to thedonut shop upon notificationof a 911 call10. You are likely to be goneat work:a. Whenever the temp officecalls you inb. Every day from nine to fivec. Every day from nine tofive, and business trips on theweekendd. Every day from nine to five,and fancy vacations on theweekende. Every day from six in themorning until midnight at oneof your three jobsYour address (street addressesonly, no post office boxes):_______________________________________________________________Thanks very much! Your cooperationis deeply appreciated.Expect to hear from us soon!Bonus questionfor ten extra pointsFill in the blanks: Humanitywon’t be free until the last ____is strangled with the guts of thelast ____!GlossaryOf TermsThe Bourgeoisie—People who get upearly in the morning cause war, famine,pollution, and genocideCivilization—A crime against natureConvert—As a verb, it is used by basketballcoaches discussing how to turn agame situation around for the better,and thus also by activists plotting totransform social conditions context bycontext (see also subvert); as a noun,it describes something unspeakablyobsceneDelayed Gratification—Tomorrow willuse you the way you use today (seealso “after the revolution”)Dream—A crime against realityEducation—(also, reeducation) seefigure i.Economics—Communism didn’t work,capitalism doesn’t work—you work(so stop already!)Family Values—All I learned to do athome was lie, all I learned to do atschool was cheat, all I learned to do atwork was stealHierarchical Power—see figure ii.Hope—Not all the dinosaurs becameextinct—some of them evolved intobirdsIdeology—see figure iii.Indoctrination—Without verbs, slogansare beyond contradiction: “waron terror,” “military intelligence,”“information superhighway”Intransigence—I’ll make any compromise,except the ones I’m supposed toInvention—Mother of necessityLeft Wing—According to the historicalIt sure can be hard to make sense of the talk of activists these days, with allthe insider terminology they bandy about! We’re pleased to do our part toremedy this problem by providing you, the unwashed initiate, with this handypocket guide to the latest in hip vocabulary. We’ll add additional installmentsin future issues as necessary.revisionists of representative democracy,the political spectrum has only onedimension, running from those on theRight who wish for state power to beused to defend the economic and moralinterests of property holders to those onthe Left—who desire the same thing,only in the name of “the people.” Butthere are many other criteria that can beused to chart political differences—seefigure iv., for example, in which variouspolitical tendencies are plotted on atwo-dimensional plane that accountsfor both the degree to which poweris shared and the processes by whichdecisions are made. For additional nuances,one could add a third axis to thisdisplay—“good cheer,” for example,an important quality often overlookedin political thinking and activity of allstripes. (see figure iv.)Love—If you mean it, say it with barricades!Mass Movement—There is safety in numbers—ifyou are a numberMental Illness—see figure v.Moderation—The one cause for whichthe bourgeois man is prepared to killand dieMolotov Cocktail—A martini madewith too much vermouth and notenough olivesMotherfucker—An epithet that goesback to slave days. Back then, theman in power, the slave owner, was,as likely as not, a rapist who tookadvantage of his position to sexuallyassault slaves. If you were a slave, itwas probable that he was raping yourmother on a regular basis—hencethe term. To call someone in powera motherfucker is to cast light on thegenealogical ties that connect theircurrent abuse of power with the historyof power imbalance and abusein this nation. This use of the term is“If you don’t tell us that you like us hittingyou, we’ll have to go on hitting you—understand?”“OK, OK, I’ve had enough! I like you hittingme—alright?”“Well then, if you like it so much, we’ll goon hitting you…”s“Hurry up with those meatballs! Who’s theboss around here, anyway?”“What do you mean, dear? I thought Mr.Gates was the boss.”“No, I’m the boss, too. Just the other day,at the checkout counter at the grocerystore, I said ‘give me those cigarettes,’and the clerk did, just like that.”“Did you have to pay for them?”“Well, yeah—but you have to make somecompromises if you want to be the boss.”Page 4 Opening Salvo Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Opening Salvo Page 5fig.ifig.ii

fig.iiinot to be confused with the Motherfuckers,short for the Up Againstthe Wall Motherfuckers, the self-professed“street gang with an analysis”that fought for revolutionary liberationin New York City at the end ofthe 1960’s. Pressed to come up with asuitable moniker for their gang, theypresumably named themselves afterthe order police would shout at themwhen a street battle or heist wentawry: “Up against the wall, motherfuckers!Nihilism—To be a nihilist is to renounce,willfully, freedom, happiness,tranquility and transgression alike;to abandon, above all, the romanticpossibilities of an unknown future—infact, to do deliberately whatso many others do by rote. This seemsunthinkable; but for most moderncitizens, living lives without any greatstakes of suffering or success, nihilismwould be something to aspire to.That is to say—in the suburbs, hell isoverhead.Pacifism—“…peace? Peace is what’swritten on the diploma you get whenyou arrive at the cemetery!” -PeterTosh, introducing the song thathelped give rise to the saying “No Justice,No Peace!” popularized duringthe L.A. riots in 1992 and recentlyemployed by Iraqis in anti-occupationdemonstrationsPatriot—An individual willing to giveup freedom without a fight (see“Patriot Act”)Power—We love power and hateauthorityPraxis—“Practice,” as often misspelledby intellectuals unfamiliar with itProgress—The forest before us, thedesert behindProperty Destruction—A kind oftherapy to loosen the unnatural holdcertain inanimate objects have on thepopular imaginationboard and sitcom bustles with idealizedportrayals of middle class characters,many accept the insane idea that middleclass norms are “normal” and all othersare sub-normal. In fact, every sub-sectionof a given culture is a subculture, just asevery variant of English is a dialect, justas Puerto Rican immigrants don’t haveany more of an accent than the whitenewscasters on prime time television do.Seeing any one cultural group as beingthe “mainstream,” or for that matterrejecting some other cultural group asfanatical or inconsequentially peripheral,is chauvinistic and superstitious at best.Symptomatic Treatment—The perpetuationof injustice and misery by the adjustmentof their superficial aspects; e.g.,therapy, antidepressants, dieting, charity,career counseling, getting more education,going “back to the land,” electoralpolitics (see also “blame the victim”)Trotskyist—Being the most Trotsky, e.g.“Ralph is Trotsky, Noam is Trotskier, butHoward is the Trotskyist of us all.”fig.vEqualityfig.ivCentralizationCommunismSocialismSyndicalismAnarchyIndividualismDecentralizationNatural Capitalism—If capitalism werenatural, nature would issue its ownbanknotesOrder—Government justifies itself onthe premise that order is a prerequisitefor liberty, but in fact it’s theother way aroundFascismCapitalismLibertarianismHierarchyProsperity—You can’t fool my grandfather—hejust counts the bumsRed Herring—An inconsequentialsubject that distracts from the root ofmatters; e.g., George W. Bush, anti-pornographylegislation, the Green Party(see also Symptomatic Treatment)Reform—Oh yeah, reform—I rememberthat from reform school!Regime Change—The details are negotiable,so long as power stays in thehands of a regime (see also Reform, RedHerring, Symptomatic Treatment)Revolution—War without enemiesS.U.V.—(“Suburban Utility Vehicle”) agated community on wheels (see alsoProperty Destruction)Subculture—A slur intended to causethose who hear or read it to conflatelack of access to media representationwith marginality, extremism, andinsignificance. Middle class customs,for example, are the idiosyncraticprovince of a select minority, noless so than punk, hobo, or truckercustoms are; but because every bill-Utopia—A tool for the education of desire.Advertisements present a pristine utopia,in which grinning idiots find theirhearts’ deepest yearnings entirely fulfilledby household appliances and acne medication,in order to promote gratuitousconsumption; therefore it is disingenuous,to say the least, for critics to accuseanarchists of being utopian—when wespeak of a world based on individualliberty and mutual aid, we’re simplyfostering other desires, so as to enableother activities… perhaps more sensibleactivities, in fact.Veganism—Take a bite out of crime!Writing on the Wall—In this day and age,a certain kind of illiteracy is a prerequisitefor business as usualWord of the issue:Autogestion“You’re antagonistic to the idea of being robbed,exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Miserydepresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecutiondepresses you. Violence depresses you. Slumsdepress you. Greed depresses you. Crime depressesyou. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn’tsurprise me if you’re manic-depressive!”This Spanish and Italian word has equivalentsin many other languages, with the unfortunateexception of English. It basically means“giving birth to one’s own activities,” as in selfdetermination,but with emphasis on individualinitiative, voluntary cooperation, anddoing-it-yourself in a cultural sense. Socialcenters in squatted buildings, folk traditionslike anarcho-punk that are developed and preservedwithout any institutional involvement,so-called “uncontrollable” or “extra-parliamentaryresistance” groups outside party organizationwho plan and carry out direct actionto address social problems—these are examplesof autogestion. The closest English term Icould find is “autogenous,” one of the possibledefinitions of which reads “used to describeinsects that do not require a meal of blood inorder to produce viable eggs”—which is notentirely unrelated, if you think about the doit-yourselfunderground as one of the few culturalmilieus in the West that can reproduceitself without exploiting others.Page 6 Opening Salvo Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Opening Salvo Page 7

Thursday, June 17, 20049:03 pmDearest CrimethInc.,When my comrades and I departedfrom our warm state onJune fifth, I never thought that Iwould be wasting away in a jailcell for this long. We came tothis little town to protest the fascistpolicies of the G8 throughdirect action, and received twomisdemeanor charges for nonviolentlymarching to the fencesof Sea Island, sitting in front ofover three hundred riot police,and asking to speak with thosewho are making the decisionsthat control over sixty millionpeople—people who are oppressedand impoverished, whonever get the chance to live theirlives. Now, we go unnamed aspolitical prisoners who refuseto plead guilty to a charge thatseems so unfounded. We havebeen denied visitation rightsfrom friends, family, media, andgroup visits with the legal team,not to mention medical specialists.Everything we do here requiresa request form, and wehave been told that to get anywherewith our trial we mustgive names.A lot of us have made previousplans to go to the CrimethInc.LETTERSconvergence and then the RNC.In the beginning we were theBrunswick 15, but by tomorrowwe will be six. We are constantlystruggling to get the media to focusattention on this case; four ofthe six of us are on hunger strikeuntil we attend the preliminaryhearing on June 24 th . I am writingthis letter to you because Ihave been drawing inspirationfrom the CrimethInc. press sinceI began to take interest in anarchism.For instance, in order toget here, my friends and I gaveout copies of Harbinger as well asother materials and records thatwe distribute at our infoshop inexchange for donations. The libraryhere is very, very limited, soI am reading Huckleberry Finn,as of now. One of the rules ofGlynn County Detention Centeris that we may only get literaturefrom publishers, so I am askingyou to send whatever you can,because we are in dire need. Wecan all share whatever, and pass iton to other inmates. I would loveto help with the convergence, ifI am free by then, so I could returnthe favor then. Let me knowof anything I can do or of otherplaces I could write for literature.We all sit around every nightdreaming of when we will be freeand heading to the convergence,but most of all of when we willbe able to see sunlight again.Just please keep writingbeautiful ‘zines and doing greatthings. Please spread the word ofthe injustice that is escalating inBrunswick, Georgia as a resultof the militarized occupation atthe orders of the G8. I hope weare released soon so we can keepbuilding and exploring. If youwould like to read statementsor see visuals of our last march,you can check out Indymedia’spage. We are writing journals,poems, and letters and drawingpictures for the ‘zine that we willbe compiling after our release.Thank you for reading this, andmay you keep your heart first.Friends forever,The Brunswick Six (Skunk,Whiskers, King Will, Baldy,Last Jane Standing, and Dirt)We have no names, just numbers—norights, just demands—butthe world is stillin our handsJohn Doe G-0177SO# 974360Cell E1041812 Newcastle StreetBrunswick, GA 31520This letter arrived shortly afterthe G8 summit at Sea Island inGeorgia, June of 2004. It washeartening, to say the least, tohear from people involved in suchan idealistic confrontation withthe powers that be. We wrote backswiftly, but of course the authoritiesat the jail returned our letteras undeliverable.John Doe and friends, if you’reout there somewhere and this humblepublication somehow crossesyour path—thank you. Thankyou for going to Savannah withstars in your eyes, and for writingus this sweet letter that broughtus a little light in dark times ofour own. Are you still involved inthe struggle? Did you ever compilethe ‘zine about your incarcerationthat you were planning to? Writeus again now, with a more reliablereturn address than a jail ifyou are able, and we’ll send you aletter and some new reading material—thoughif you ask me, youcan’t go wrong with Mark Twain.All the best, dear friends.Dear CrimethInc.,My name is Neal. Whoeveris reading this probably knowsme, and vice versa. I’ve beenan organizer and activist inNorth Carolina now for manyyears. I do guerilla gardening,labor work, Earth First!-typeshit, anti-war organizing, workagainst police brutality, andtransgender/queer activism.I’ve never been a huge fan ofCrimethInc. I know and lovemost of the people who workwith y’all—but the romanticlifestyle politics hop a train“drop out of” capitalist societystyle just ain’t my thing. EmmaGoldman once said, “it’s not myrevolution if I can’t dance to it.”Well, another anarchist I knowalso said, “it ain’t my revolutionif all we’re gonna do is dance.”Whatever. I find most of the sloganizingoverly romantic (perhapsits purpose), often naïve,rooted in a middle-class perspectiveon the appeal of poverty andconsumer asceticism. I supposetaking a shot at that obnoxiousand fucked up evasion book isprobably cliché at this point.Anyway, I’m not writing torant to y’all or discuss anarchisttheory. I merely wanted to relaymy rage and anger at your latestpropaganda. Now I like alot of y’all’s art and posters—Ithink the one on [not] votingis well done and poignant. Butthis latest bullshit on plastic surgery(“Plastic surgery is self-imposeddomestic violence,” with agraphic picture of a person witha bandaged face, super-imposedupon an application for suchsurgery) needs to be nipped inthe bud. I’m bothering to writey’all because I don’t think it wasintentionally insulting or dismissiveof trans people (and others),but rather a naïve product of ignoranceand an extremely poorlythought-out analogy. The reasonfor my previous rant was to giveyou a context for my position,so to speak. This bullshit flyeraffects me and the trans folksI do activism with personally,and you need to know and understandwhy that is before youprint more and seriously piss offour tranny comrades.I work with a transgenderactivist/direct action groupin Asheville, NC called transmission.We do a lot of goodstuff—education, free literature,queering public spaces,fundraising with punk/dragshows, demonstrations. A lotof our group is trans, and someisn’t. Some have had surgery,some are on hormones, somechoose not to go that route atall. One of the most importantguidelines we have for allieswho want to be supportive isnot to challenge a trans person’sdecision to get treatment,surgery, whatever—it can bean extremely confusing, difficult,scary place to be in—weneed love, support, friends,allies, people who understandwhat it’s like to be forced intoa gender box we don’t belongto. We don’t need presumptuousactivists (who are mostlikely not trans) comparingus to perpetrators of domesticviolence.Do y’all understand that hormonesand surgery can be aliberating experience for manypeople? And get this, for all myfellow anti-capitalists out there,it is sometimes a decision madewithin the context of an oppressiveworkplace where someoneHAS TO PASS in order to keeptheir job, feed their family, oreven avoid rape, assault, or murder.Do you fucking get it?Your bullshit poster here trivializesthe experiences of my goodfriends in struggle Zac, who spentthe little money he had to getupper chest surgery, and Victoria,who is going under the knifenext week out west. She mightbe scared shitless, but in need ofthe work-oriented and psychologicaland social liberation thesurgery can offer her. I find yournaïve poster analogous to assholeChristians screaming at womenentering an abortion clinic,who are trying to make a vitaland extremely delicate decision.Tranzmission would just like tosay—please keep your moralisticpropaganda off our fucking bodies.Do you get it yet?Not everyone going to getsurgery is a fur-coat wearing,vain, insecure, beauty-obsessedrich lady. We are real, oppressedpeople, with dreams and hopesof our own, and your moralismis not one bit helpful. Youmay anticipate many others oflike mind and experience to bewriting you in anger and frustrationif you continue distributingthis flyer.Solidarity ForeverNealTranzmissionP.O. Box 1874Asheville, NC 28802Tone aside, Neal is right tochide those who conceived theposter for not even consideringthe way it would be perceivedoutside homogeneous middleclass circles. It has since beenremoved from circulation on thegrounds that, even if it was intendedonly as a critique of thesexist, abusive “beauty” industry,people who already have todeal with the bigotry and violenceof our gender-normativesociety shouldn’t have to dealwith the stress of feeling disregardedor attacked by radicals aswell. Distributing provocativepropaganda is always going tomean stepping on toes, but it’simportant to be thoughtful inconsidering which toes to avoidand which to stomp on.Page 8 Letters Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Letters Page 9

an analysis of the successes and failures ofrecent militant demonstrationsTalking Tactics: TheMass Action Modelversus the AutonomousAction ModelIn the past six years, the North Americananarchist movement has gone through allthe stages of a turbulent love affair withmass actions, including messy breakups andattempted reconciliations. In the process,some anarchists have taken up with otherapproaches to demonstration activism—including,most notably, an emphasis on moreautonomous, decentralized actions. In thisreview of the past year’s demonstrations,we’ll discuss the strengths and weaknessesof both approaches, and analyze how thesehave played out in the streets.In considering how to evaluate both massand autonomous actions, we should beginby establishing what it is fair to expect ofthem. Most anarchists thoughtlessly describethem as direct action, but, technically speaking,demonstrations—even confrontational,militant ones, in which police are forcedout of neighborhoods, corporate property isset afire, and bureaucratic summits are shutdown—are not direct action. Making love,growing or stealing food, providing freechild care—these are concrete actions thatdirectly accomplish their goals. Militantdemonstration tactics, on the other hand,may qualify as direct action to the extent towhich they circumvent liberal or police controlto make a point or create an atmosphereoutside the dictates of the powers that be,but most anarchists who participate in themwould argue that their primary purpose isto bring closer the abolition of the hierarchiesand institutions against which they arestaged, and viewed in this light they are generallymore symbolic than direct 1 .This is not to say that they are never worthwhile.Even if a demonstration doesn’t serveto solve immediately the problem it is stagedto address, it can contribute to this processby spreading awareness, raising morale, exertingpressure on those opposed, and providinguseful experience for participants.Not even a whole city of smashed windowscould suffice to stop any one multinationalcorporation from wrecking the ecosystemand exploiting workers; but if a broken windowserves to focus attention on an issueand inspire others to mobilize themselves, itat least qualifies as highly effective indirectaction.The protests against the meeting of theWorld Trade Organization in Seattle in November1999 remain the most popular exampleof effective mass action in our time.Though countless pundits have typed themselvesblue in the face on the subject, it ispossible that anarchists have not yet finishedrefining the lessons of Seattle regarding theadvantages of the mass action model and theelements that must be in place for it to work.The very fact that no mass action since Seattlehas been as successful should make iteasier for us to evaluate what made it a success,now that we have plenty of experiencewith actions that lacked those qualities.What worked in Seattle and the mass demonstrationsthat followed it? When they wereeffective, what exactly did they accomplish,and how?First, it’s important to understand that, unlikeevery mass action that followed it, theprotests in Seattle benefited from the elementof surprise. The powers that be hadno idea what they were in for, the police1Setting out to shut down a capitalist summit and succeedingin doing so may qualify as direct action in themost immediate sense, but an anti-capitalist movementthat succeeded in shutting down summit after summitwithout bringing any closer the abolition of capitalistsocial relations would be a failure, not a success. Hence,such feats ultimately have their greatest value as demonstrationsof what is possible.were correspondingly unprepared, and, justas significantly, the corporate media didn’tknow better than to broadcast the news ofthe victory far and wide. When subsequentprotests failed to succeed in actually haltingsummit meetings, decimating shopping districts,or receiving international news coverage,this should not have come as a shock:the forces of repression were thoroughly preparedfor them, and capitalist media mogulshad learned it was not in their best interestto advertise anti-capitalist resistance as effectiveand exciting.All the same, even without the element ofsurprise, subsequent mass actions were effectivein some ways. They brought attentionto anarchist ideas and resistance, enabledradicals to gain experience in militant tacticsthat were impossible in other contexts, andcontinued to build momentum and connectionsin insurgent communities.The chief strengths of mass actions are dueto the opportunities accorded by the concentrationof many radicals and activists in onespace. When a broad range of groups whoregularly employ different tactics to addressdifferent issues come together, all can benefitfrom the ways their different approachescomplement one another; not only this, butwhat they accomplish can easily be recognizedas a part of a broad-ranging program,rather than a single-issue campaign. For radicalswho are used to feeling like a powerlessminority lost in a sea of apathy, the presenceof many others of like minds can be intenselyempowering. In large groups, peoplecan inspire one another to find the courageand sense of entitlement necessary to act inways they otherwise would not, and thereis no shortage of potential comrades withwhom to collaborate. When great numbersare present, radicals can plot large-scalestrategies and achieve ambitious goals, andthe achievement of these goals serves to attractfuture participants. So many beautifulpeople concentrated in one space can createa temporary real-life example of an anarchistsociety, something practically unimaginablefor those who grew up in the sterile, colonized,hopeless environments of modernday capitalism.The other really advantageous aspect ofmass actions is that they are accessible andparticipatory. Because they can incorporatea wide range of tactics, they offer space forparticipants of a wide range of capabilitiesand comfort levels; and as they are announcedopenly and take place in publicsettings, people canjoin in without needof special social connections.Thus, theyserve to create newconnections betweenpeople and communities,and to provide points ofentry for atomized individualsinto a massmovement. Additionally,because so many people,both intentional participants and chancewitnesses, experience them firsthand, newsabout mass actions spreads easily throughword of mouth and other non-corporatechannels. This makes it difficult for the corporatemedia to ignore them entirely withoutrisking a loss of popular credibility.The limitations of the mass action modelalso became clearer and clearer as the yearspassed after Seattle. Organizing events onsuch a large scale, not to mention travelingto them from a great distance, demands alot of energy and resources, which must bedrawn from the same pool of energy andresources upon which ongoing and locallybasedprojects depend. If a demonstrationresults in mass arrests, as the less militantcivil-disobedience-oriented mass actionmodels are wont to, this can consume time,money, and attention that might be moreprofitably applied to some constructive end;the same goes for the felony charges and arduouscourt cases that can result from individualarrests at more militant actions. Theconnections made at mass actions are moreoften between spatially distant, culturallyhomogenous communities than betweenlocal, culturally dissimilar ones that couldbenefit from continuing to work togetheroutside the mass action format. It has beencharged that, though they demand a lot oforganizing from those in the host city, massactions often drain more from local communitiesthan they give to them. More insidiously,because the mass action model focuseson exceptional events that largely take placein well-known cities, it can foster the unhealthyimpression that history is determinedat special occasions in Washington,DC rather than in the decisions people everywheremake in theirdaily lives.Because each mass actiondemands so muchfrom so many, organizerswho seek to put on major demonstrationsmust compete with one another for theprivilege of getting to stage one of the fewthat can happen in any given period; underthese conditions, it is easy for authoritariansto seize the reigns, or sabotage the laborsof many with a few bad decisions. Becausetraveling great distances to events and riskingarrest is not feasible for people of manywalks of life, the mass action model has beencriticized as the domain of privileged activists;this does not necessarily undercut thepossibility that it can achieve worthwhilegoals, but it does indicate certain limits toits effectiveness as outreach and as a participatoryform of resistance.Finally, and most significantly in the post-9/11 era, the mass action model enables authoritiesto prepare extensively, making everydemonstration into a spectacle of their intimidatingmight. This gives the misleadingimpression that people are powerless in thegrip of an all-powerful government, whenin fact the state must draw troops from farand wide to stage these shows of force. It isespecially convenient for intelligence-gatheringdepartments to have so many radicalsconcentrated in one place, working on onePage 10 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 11

project. Working publicly, in great numbersand under constant surveillance, it is verydifficult for radicals to disseminate new tacticalideas without infiltrators and police apprehendingthem.Knowing these limitations all too well, butnot wishing to retire into inactivity, someactivists argue in favor of more decentralized,autonomous actions. Generally speaking,an autonomous action is an action on asmall enough scale that it can be organizedwithout coordination from a central body,below the radar of the authorities. A classicmodern day example of autonomous actionis an attack on an army recruiting station, inwhich its windows are broken and slogansare spraypainted across its walls. Throughoutthis discussion, we will be addressing threebasic kinds of autonomous action: actionscarried out by individuals or individual affinitygroups that take place entirely apartfrom mass actions; actions carried out byindividuals or affinity groups that coincidewith mass actions; and larger mobilizations,such as impromptu street marches, that areorganized and initiated autonomously bysmall groups.The autonomous action model has manyadvantages that mass actions lack: such actionsalmost always benefit from the elementof surprise, they require significantly lessinfrastructure and preparation, and thosewho organize them can choose the time andterrain of engagement, rather than simplyreacting to the decisions of the authorities.Autonomous actions are perfect for thosewith limited resources who do not desire toact in a high profile manner. They are practicaland efficient for striking small blowsand maintaining pressure on a broad rangeof fronts, and provide an excellent learningopportunity for small groups who wish tobuild up experience together.2This is not to say that widely publicized but purelysymbolic actions are sufficient to build a movementthat can pose a threat to capitalism! To inspire othersand attract future participants, militant actions mustactually strike blows and accomplish immediate goals.In choosing to focus on this model, however,activists should also take into accountthe ways in which its advantages are alsolimitations. It is easy to maintain secrecy inpreparing for an autonomous action, but itis often correspondingly difficult to spreadword of it afterwards—let alone carry it outin a manner that offers those outside the immediatecircle of organizers the chance tojoin in. While the autonomous action modelis useful for those already involved in thedirect action movement, it is rarely usefulfor helping others get involved or developmore experience. Without participatory,accessible forms of resistance, a movementcannot be expected to grow.The essential idea of autonomous action—thatindividuals can organize theirown activity, without need of direction orsuperstructure—is also the essence of anarchism.The problem here is that the essentialchallenge of spreading the autonomousaction model is also the essential challengeof the anarchist revolution: most people arenot used to acting on their own—withoutdirection, organization, and the energy andsense of urgency that special events andlarge numbers of comrades provide, manyfind it difficult to cross over from hesitationinto action. Even for those who hopeto act autonomously, mass actions providemomentum, morale, crowd cover, legal support,numbers, media attention, and manyother important elements. Outside the massaction model, we have to figure out how todo without these, or provide for them someother way.Focusing on autonomous actions is a strategicretreat for radicals if it means droppingout of the public eye. Merely material blows,such as financial losses to corporations, willnot suffice to topple the powers that be, atleast at this juncture in the struggle; the hurricanesthat struck the southeastern USAin the summer of 2004 did literally tens ofthousands of times the financial damage ofall the direct actions carried out that yearcombined, without posing any threat to thestability of the capitalist order. What is trulydangerous about anticapitalist resistance isnot the actual effects of any given action,but the danger that it might become contagiousand spread 2 ; and for this to be possible,people have to hear about resistance,and know how to join in. Too often, autonomousactions that are prepared and carriedout in secret depend entirely on the mediato publicize them. With the corporate mediadetermined to limit coverage of direct actionand independent media struggling to reachany audience beyond a few subcultural ghettos,this can be a serious flaw.Even when they do attract attention, autonomousactions do not necessarily mobilizeothers. In the worst case, a direct actionmovement oriented around the autonomousactions of a dynamic few can degenerateinto a sort of spectator sport. This is oneof the many reasons most anarchists rejectterrorism and other approaches that dependon the actions of a vanguard: for an actionmodel to stand a chance of being useful inthe project of revolutionary struggle, it mustbe possible for others to adopt and apply itthemselves—indeed, it must promote andencourage this, it must seduce people intousing it who might otherwise remain inactive.Finally, while mass actions by their verynature involve and benefit fromlarge-scale coordination, itis more difficult to coordinateeffective decentralizedactions. Clearly, as the past fewyears have shown, it’s not sufficientfor some lone maniac to issue a “callfor autonomous actions” for them to takeplace everywhere—or, and this might beeven worse news, if they have been takingplace everywhere, it doesn’t seem to havemade any discernable difference. We needa model for autonomous actions that actuallyenables them to take place, and to be effectivewhen they do. In the discussion thatfollows, we’ll analyze the lessons of the pastyear’s attempts to develop such a model.In considering these issues, it’s important toemphasize that neither mass actions nor autonomousactions represent the only possibleform of radical activity—they don’t, andshouldn’t, represent even the primary one.If a total moratorium on both could enablean accordingly greater focus on other activitiessuch as the development of communityinfrastructure and alliances, it might be forthe best for the anarchist movement; somehave argued in favor of just that. If we continueto invest energy in demonstrations ofany kind, it should be because they can, aspart of a broader strategy, enable us to makegains on other fronts as well; this author, forone, feels strongly that this can be the case.Background:Direct Action atDemonstrations from the1990’s to 2004Watershed events like the aforementionedprotests in Seattledon’t just come out ofnowhere. Throughout theapparently quiet 1990’s,direct action groups likeEarth First! andAnti-Racist Action were actingon a smaller scale, buildingup experience and momentum,while previously apathetic milieus like thepunk rock scene and college activism werepoliticized by lifestyle politics and the antisweatshopcampaign, respectively. OnceBritain’s successes with the Reclaim theStreets model demonstrated that mass anticapitalistaction was still possible in thepost-modern era, it was only a few monthsbefore activists tried to do something similarin the USA at the meeting of the WorldTrade Organization.3This was probably more of an irrational emotional reactionthan a miscalculation. To the extent that it wasa judgment call, it indicates that activists overestimatedeither the ability of the government to identify andrepress them or the threat the government perceivedthem to pose.The results surprised everybody. Suddenly,everyone had a working example of antiauthoritarian,anti-capitalist resistance as areference point. Anarchists, among otherradicals, came out of the woodwork, andeveryone was itching to have a go at repeatingthat success. Because the Seattle protestshad not been a mere fluke but rather theculmination of a long period of growth anddevelopment, there was a root structure inplace to sustain further such actions—themost notable being the protests against theWorld Bank and International MonetaryFund in Washington, D.C. the followingApril, against the Democratic and RepublicanNational Conventions that summer,and against the Free Trade Area of theAmericas summit in Quebec in April 2001.And because each demonstration attractednew attention and additional participants tothe anarchist movement, the root structurequickly deepened and spread. The movement,focusing much of its energy on theseconvergences and mass actions, rode a wavethat sometimes made it appear to be an unstoppablehistorical force.By summer of 2001, when great numbers ofpeople participated in streetfighting at theG8 summit in Italy and planning was underwayfor more protests against the IMF inWashington, DC, some felt that the movementhad reached the crest of that wave.Many were exhausted from the demands ofconstant organizing, long-distance traveling,and court cases; at least as many felt that theanarchist movement was on the verge of abreakthrough that would change the natureof resistance in North America. We’ll neverknow whether or not the effectiveness ofmass mobilizations had already reached itspeak, for before the planned protests in DCcould take place, hijackers flew airplanesinto the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,and the entire context changed. Theanarchist response to the new situation was,for the most part, embarrassing: rather thanseizing the opportunity to emphasize thatnow even U.S. citizens were dying as a resultof their rulers’ foreign policies, many hesitatedto speak out in fear that they wouldbe attacked or seen as insensitive, and thusceded all the gains made by anarchists overthe preceding years. Fears ran rampant thatnew anti-terror legislation and enforcementwould be used to imprison and suppressthe anarchist movement, a concern that hassince been shown to be unfounded 3 . Nowthat most activists did not believe that positiverevolutionary change could be aroundthe corner, all the internal conflicts andburnout that had been building up over thepreceding years of constant action came tothe fore, and over the following months anarchistcommunities saw the worst infightingin recent history.In retrospect, it is possible to argue thatmainstream media attention was responsiblefor a significant part of the high morale andsense of entitlement that enabled anarchiststo act so effectively in the period betweenthe Seattle demonstrations and the 9/11 attacks.Few if any in the anarchist milieu haveaddressed this irony. In Western society, everyoneis raised to desire, however secretly,to be famous—to be on television – becausewhat is on television is “real,” is important.Although at the time many anarchists insistedthey didn’t care whether or not theyreceived coverage in the corporate media,it could be said that the simple knowledgethat they were “famous” as a movement ifnot as individuals sustained their spirits andsense of urgency. When this attention waswithdrawn, morale plummeted immediately.The corporate media is unlikely to returnthe spotlight to anarchist activity in the foreseeablefuture, and the motivation of anarchistsshould not be dependent upon other’srepresentations of them in the first place.Anarchists now must find ways to maintainmomentum and energy even through a totalmedia blackout.As the anarchist movement struggled toregain its footing throughout the year followingthe 9/11 attacks, some tentative attemptswere made to apply the mass actionmodel again, notably at the protests against4Another notable exception to this generalization occurredduring an otherwise placid liberal march inWashington, DC when a small group of anarchistsbroke away, marched to the World Bank, charged intothe building, and trashed it from the inside.Page 12 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 13

the World Economic Forum in New YorkCity and then at the “People’s Strike” protestsagainst the IMF in DC a year afterthe terrorist attacks. These were admirableefforts, and if nothing else they served togive those seriously committed to demonstrationactivism a way to stay involved, butthey showed that for the most part the largenumbers and high morale previously associatedwith large mobilizations were no longeravailable. Older activists were demoralized,younger ones were unsure how to proceed,and people on the fringes of activism andradical politics were too distracted by thespectator sport of the so-called War on Terrorto refocus on the struggle against capitalistglobalization on other fronts.When the Terror War shifted into a newgear, demonstrations became popular again,but anarchists were no longer in the forefrontof the organizing. Liberal and authoritariangroups attempted to appropriate allthe mystique radicals had recently givenmass action, while only taking on the superficialaspects of the organizing modelsthat had made protests before 9/11 exciting,participatory, and thus dangerous tothe established order. The first two majordemonstrations to protest the impendingwar in Iraq, in DC on January 20 and thenworldwide on February 15, were dominatedby liberal single-issue politics and models.The protests in New York City on February15 became a little more raucous when thepolice attempted to block the march andrank-and-file protesters fought back, but forthe most part consciously radical militanttactics seemed a thing of the past at massactions 4 . This was all the more disappointingin that the February 15 protests wereperhaps the most heavily attended protestsin history; because militant activists had surrenderedthe mass action context, millionsof people marching in the streets neitherhelped to sway the opinions of the mastersof war nor to obstruct their preparations forit—nor, for that matter, to build a movementcapable of disarming them.5Protestors had applied this tactic at the previous FTAAministerial in Quebec City, and met with some success,as it was fairly new at the time. By the time of the ministerialin Miami, however, fences had been attackedfrom Genoa to Cancun, and it was exactly what theauthorities were expecting. As a general rule of thumb,it’s a bad idea to try an approach that worked or almostworked in a similar previous confrontation, assumingyour opponents are in as much of a position to learnfrom the past as you are.Things changed when the United Statesattacked Iraq on March 20, 2003. On thisday, and over the months that followed it,countless cities were struck by demonstrationsthat went beyond the limits liberalorganizers try to impose. San Francisco wasentirely paralyzed; more importantly, radicalcommunities appeared in more surprisinglocations such as Saint Louis, Missouri,conceiving and carrying out their own disruptiveactions as the militant core of theanti-war movement. A new generation ofactivists, many of whom had not participatedin the post-Seattle phase of demonstrationactivism, gained experience duringthis time.As that phase of the war in Iraq died down,activists also slowed the pace of their activity,taking time to recover from such a demandingperiod of organizing. Anarchistsnationwide began to focus their attentionon the Free Trade Area of the Americas ministerialthat was to take place in Miami thefollowing November. Many believed that,thanks to the new momentum generatedin the anti-war movement, this could bethe first really effective, exciting demonstrationagainst capitalist globalization sinceSeptember 11; some hoped this would bethe triumphant return of Seattle-style protestactivism. Consultas were held aroundthe country at which plans were hashedout, posters were designed and distributed,groups disseminated calls for various formsof action.Unfortunately, Miami was a poorly chosenplaying field for this grudge match. Itwas the most militarized police state NorthAmerica had ever seen: there were so manypolice, equipped with so much destructiveweaponry, that any kind of militant confrontationwould have been doomed to failure.The protestor turnout was bound to be limited:the majority of potential participantswere still distracted by the Iraq war, notthinking about corporate globalization, andMiami was a great distance from most activecommunities. Consequently, there wasn’t awide range of diversity among the protestors,which can otherwise temper police repression:this made it easy for the police topigeonhole protesters as either law-abidingunion members or unruly anarchists, so asto ignore the former and attack the latter.These factors alone might not have spelleddoom for the protests, but there were alsoseveral strategic errors in the organizing.The plan organizers put forth, to attack thefence surrounding the meetings, was exactlywhat the authorities expected 5 —and whilethe latter were thoroughly prepared for thisscenario, few activists arrived mentally orphysically equipped to undertake this. Evenworse, certain organizers cut an unbelievablyfoolish deal with the labor unions—which,it must be noted, were closely collaboratingwith the police—to the effect that no directaction would take place during the permittedunion march on the afternoon of theprimary day of demonstrations. Thanks tothis agreement, the police were free simplyto maintain order during the union march,with little fear of having to divide their attention;then, as soon as the march was over,they steamrolled across the entire city, beating,gassing, shooting, and arresting everyonewho remained, confident that everyonethey attacked was acting outside the law andtherefore a safe target. The only way anarchistscould have turned the tables wouldhave been by acting unexpectedly and enmasse outside the occupied district of Miami,but the initiative necessary for thatkind of autonomous, covert organizing waspainfully lacking. The consulta model, whileit indicated an admirable commitment todecentralized organizing, failed to provideintelligent strategic decisions, adequate securityfor planning, or commitments onwhich participating groups actually followedthrough. These may all have been incidentalfailures, but each one cost dearly.This is not to say nothing of value was accomplishedin Miami. People still came togetherand acted courageously, with all thebenefits that entails, and the police state wasrevealed for what it was, at least to eyewitnessesand through the few venues that rancoverage of the events. But coming awayfrom a protest with a martyr’s tale of policeviolence and abuse, or, at best, a storyof heroic narrow escapes, is a poor secondto actually feeling like one has struck blowsand made gains.In the wake of what many felt to be a debacle,some anarchists began to emphasize theimportance of acting outside mass modelsin smaller, more autonomous groups withthe element of surprise. Some had been promotingthis idea for a long time; it had evenbeen tested to some extent in mass actions,such as at the People’s Strike in Washington,DC, September 2002, when the organizersdistributed a list of targets and intersectionsand announced that actions would takeplace throughout the city. Others, notablyenvironmental and animal liberation activists,had been acting in clandestine cells fordecades. So it happened that, as the electionyear approached, the war in Iraq wore on,and political matters came back to the foreof public attention, anarchists were preoccupiedwith the question of whether mass actionscould ever be effective again, and whatforms of decentralized action might be ableto replace them.Direct Action in theElection YearThe year 2004 was ushered in by a midnightmarch in downtown Washington, DC,commemorating the ten year anniversary ofthe Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico.More than one hundred masked anarchistsbearing banners, torches, and percussioninstruments took over a major thoroughfarefor a full hour, leaving spraypaint and stencildesigns in their wake. This march appearedas if out of nowhere in a crowded businessdistrict, on a night when the police departmentwas so overextended that it took overa half hour for even one patrol car to showup. There were no arrests. Clearly, some anarchistshad learned the lessons of Miami,without withdrawing from public actionsaltogether.All the same, the first months of 2004 werequiet ones for direct action. March 20 th , theanniversary of the declaration of war on Iraq,saw largely peaceful mass demonstrations6One person or group calling for others to act is littlebetter than a vanguard, and can be expected to meetwith as much success as the various communist splintergroups currently do. Calls for decentralized actionswork best when activists who are already organizingthemselves call upon others in their networks to joinin, offering the opportunity to be part of an effort thatalready has participation and momentum in its favor.along the lines of those before the war, lackingthe urgency and militancy of the actionscarried out during it. In April, there was anotherprotest in Washington, DC against theIMF and World Bank; the extent to whichit was a ritualized, placid affair revealed justhow far anarchist attention had drifted fromthe formerly prioritized terrain of mass actionsopposing corporate globalization. Itwas followed immediately by the March forWomen’s Lives, a rally in support of abortionrights that drew over a million people.Although there were hundreds of anarchistspresent, if not more, the possibility that militantaction of any kind might take place wasnever broached. People of militant perspectiveswere still coming together when liberalorganizers solicited their participation, butwithout a sense that it was feasible to organizeevents on their own terms.This impression was sealed by the G8 summitin Georgia that June. The protests at theG8 summit in Genoa, Italy in the summerof 2001 had been the high water mark ofthe anti-globalization movement: hundredsof thousands of protesters had converged onthe city, engaging in tactics of all kinds thathad left entire financial districts in wreckage.Eager to avoid another such catastrophe, thepowers that be picked a secluded island offthe coast of Georgia to host the G8 meetingin June of 2004, and set aside tens ofmillions of dollars for security. Not onlythe island itself but much of the coastlinearound it was thoroughly militarized; as hasbecome customary, the media ran a series ofarticles demonizing predicted anarchist protestorswhile emphasizing the invincibilityof the police and military forces that wouldbe waiting for them.Demoralized by the Miami experience,most advocates of direct action assumedfrom the outset that nothing would be possiblein Georgia. In retrospect, it was wise tolet the G8 summit pass rather than squanderingthe last optimism of the movementon a doomed venture, though at the time thisresignation seemed to be a troubling symptomof general cynicism. Many brushed offmass actions as obsolete; in the end, therewas only one protestor for every sixty-sevensecurity officers at the G8 summit. Muchof the energy of those few who did take thetrouble to go to Georgia was invested in the“Fix Shit Up” campaign, in which anarchistsprovided volunteer labor supporting disadvantagedfamilies in the areas of police occupation.The name of this venture, whichcould neither successfully solicit media coveragenor appeal to liberal sympathies norinspire the punk rockers whose slogan it referenced,speaks volumes as to its long-termeffectiveness as an insurrectionary strategy.When no actual blows can be struck againstthe system that creates and enforces poverty,anarchists should at least do what they canto alleviate its effects—but many anarchistsare already doing this where they live, andtraveling long distances to do so has allthe disadvantages of traveling to carry outmore militant actions without most of theadvantages. In every aspect, the G8 summitwas the nadir of the general slump throughwhich mass action activism passed following9/11, notwithstanding the renaissance duringthe Iraq war.Some had called for widespread autonomousactions around the country to coincide withthe G8 summit. A little-known example ofone such call was the “Insurrection Night”proposal, which was circulated via emaillistservs. In incendiary language, it calledfor people everywhere to carry out militant,confrontational direct actions the Saturdaynight preceding the week of the G8 summit.The advantages of this approach over going toGeorgia to get tear-gassed and arrested in themiddle of nowhere were obvious: it allowedradicals to plan their actions in familiar, unguardedterrain and with the benefit of surprise.On the night so designated, however,nothing happened—or if anything did, newsof it was never circulated. If all it took to getpeople to rise up and strike blows against theapparatus of control was to issue a call to action,this revolution would have been over along time ago; and even if such calls were towork, it seems clear that the system can survivea burning dumpster here and there—theproblem is how to concentrate such blows,and strike them in such a way that they giverise to wider uprisings. From this example,one can surmise that both calls for autonomousaction and autonomous actions themselvesmust proceed from an already thrivingculture of resistance if they are to offer anyresults 6 —and neither, alone, are sufficient togive rise to such a culture. If the G8 summitin Georgia was the nadir for mass action, the“Insurrection Night” prototype representsthe weakest version of the autonomous actionmodel.Page 14 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 15

A few days after the proposed night of insurrection,on the final day of the G8 summit,activists in North Carolina shut down anentire corporate business district with steelcables, smoke bombs, and banners decryingthe G8 and corporate power in general,causing a massive traffic jam in the center ofthe state. Local newspapers and televisiongave this more coverage than they gave theprotests in Georgia against the G8 summit,and local residents experienced it far moreimmediately. This took place only two daystegration of autonomous action into a widerstrategy for building radical communitiesand gaining widespread attention.Another example of effective autonomousaction occurred a month later in Maine, followingan Earth First! gathering, when approximately150 people converged on theGovernor’s Mansion to protest a proposedliquid natural gas pipeline. First, a few activistserected a thirty-foot tripod with a protesterlocked atop it, blocking the driveway.keep opposition to the pipeline visible, gavethose opposing it more bargaining power,and demonstrated an alternate model forautonomous actions.The Maine action was organized in secrecyby a small circle of people who nonethelessmanaged to open it up to great numbers ofparticipants; in this regard, it possessed manythe general nature of the target and affinitygroups formed to focus on different aspectsof the action. The morning of the action, acaravan left the gathering; the bulk of theparticipants did not know where they weregoing until they were led onto the site. Thisnegated the risk of informers being present.This kind of organizing demands a careful balanceof security and communication, for thoseinvited must learn enough about the action tobe excited about participating and equippedNational Convention. Regardless of theoreticalmatters such as whether anti-authoritariansshould focus on contesting the mostpowerful political party or all political parties,activists laying plans for mass actionsmust take into account practical questionssuch as how many people will actually showup. Perhaps if thousands of anarchists hadconverged on Boston to show their oppositionto the false alternative represented bythe Democratic Party, it would have madean important point, but this was not to be.cally militant tone of their rhetoric was oneof the most salient features of that mobilization.Although it turned out that notenough militants, and not militant enoughones at that, turned out to follow throughon this threat, the media and police accomplishedit themselves by spreading hysteriain advance and clogging up the city in theirattempts to defend it. After most of the actionsplanned had been accomplished, thepolice, still unnerved and always most likelyto go after defenseless sitting targets, massarrestedeveryone present at a non-confron-before a public outreach event, the “ReallyReally Free Market,” in the state capital, atwhich people gathered to share resources andentertainment freely. As a result of the directaction that preceded it, the police and mediaboth paid a great deal of attention to thisevent: the nightly news showed hundreds ofpeople happily dancing, eating, and exchanginggifts, while police helicopters circledoverhead and a hundred riot police waitednearby. Thus, this combination of tactics resultedin free publicity for the effectiveness ofcovert action, the munificence of communityactivism, and the heavy-handedness of thestate. In contrast to the “Insurrection Night”prototype, this can be seen as an effective in-Snapshot from the Final Days of aCivilizationIn April, 2004, during his reelection campaign, George W. Bush presidedover a $2000-a-plate luncheon in Charlotte, North Carolinathat raised $1.5 million. Guests were served such culinary delightsas beef tenderloin with golden tomatoes on herb-encrusted baguette,but no eating utensils were provided; each menu read, “At the requestof the White House, silverware will not accompany the table settings.”The conservative Charlotte Observer speculated that this wasso “the tinkle of silver would not disrupt the President’s speech,” butit’s also possible that even the richest of the rich are not allowed accessOnce this was accomplished and all but thepolice liaison and the woman on the tripodhad escaped unseen, a small masked grouparrived and took advantage of the distractionoccasioned by the tripod to dump hundredsof pounds of foul lobster guts across thelawn. They disappeared as other protestersshowed up with food, games, and other festiveforms of entertainment, further confusingthe slowly responding authorities. Twocommuniqués were delivered: one a seriousone for the mainstream media, the other ahilarious statement on behalf of the “lobsterliberation front” for activists and otherswith a sense of humor. The event helpedof the advantages of both the mass and autonomousaction models. As the target wasthree hours’ drive distant from the gatheringat which participants were recruited,and its identity was never openly revealed,the action retained the element of surprise.At the gathering, two preparatory meetingswere held at which organizers described7Seriously, where do they get this stuff? No anarchistshave sprayed urine or acid on police officers in theentire recorded history of the current anarchist movement,and yet every corporate newspaper has dutifullyrepeated these lies as gospel.to potential projectiles within flinging distance of the President. The’Observer went on to report that, not surprisingly, most of the foodwent untouched.This is what it was like to live in the last days of the Roman Empire:the sycophants and psychotics are gathered at the feast, havingpaid more for this meal than most can afford to spend on food in ayear, only to be forced to sit absurdly before it as it goes cold. Theirstomachs growl, but each is restrained by a lifetime of bourgeois conditioning,not to mention disapproving scowls from the secret serviceagents that line the walls. The hereditary ruler presides over the event,a boy idiot yammering on endlessly and saying precisely the oppositeof what he means, while outside the gates—the storm gathers.to do so effectively. This model requires a largenumber of people to place a high level of trustin a few individuals; thus, it often works bestin tight-knit or culturally homogeneous communities.While it is not as accessible to broadranges of people as the mass action model, itis more participatory than other forms of autonomousaction, offering introductory rolesfor less experienced activists.The events in North Carolina and Mainewere only two of several local actions inmid-2004; but for radical activists and wellbehavedcitizens alike, the central politicalevents of the summer were the Democraticand Republican National Conventions. Atthese, the possibilities and limitations of theanarchist movement’s preoccupation withautonomous actions were tested.The Democratic National Convention tookplace in Boston at the end of July. It was notheavily attended by radicals; many were savingtheir time and energy for the RepublicanAs many learned in Miami, anarchists mustalways devise strategies that take into accountthe number of participants an eventwill draw and how much militancy can realisticallybe expected of them.To get perspective on the protests at theDemocratic National Convention, we cancompare and contrast them with the People’sStrike protests against the InternationalMonetary Fund in DC September 2002,with which they shared many features. Bothprotests were less attended than organizershoped; both included calls for autonomousaction, as well as organizing for more centralized,accessible events; both took placein cities that are known for having policethat show restraint during protests. At eachevent, the main day of action featured acritical mass bicycle parade, a march, anddecentralized actions around the periphery.Both protests were organized by explicitlyanti-authoritarian groups that made mediacoverage an integral part of their strategy.The organizers of the People’s Strike hademphasized the confrontational characterof their action, declaring explicitly that thecity would be shut down; the unapologeti-tational action in Pershing Park. This massarrest, though somewhat inconvenient atthe time, proved to be the most importantlegacy of the action: it ensured internationalmedia coverage for the protest, made thepolice look absurd, and ensnared the cityin lawsuits that kept the demonstration inthe news for years afterwards and forced thepolice to be more hesitant to make arrestsduring future protests.By contrast, in Boston, the organizers—the“Bl(A)ck Tea Society”—were careful to distancethemselves from violence, striving tooffset the media campaign of extreme misinformationabout anarchists that had becometypical by that time 7 . Presumably, they hopedthat by doing so they could attract moreparticipants; unfortunately, as the prevailingsentiment in liberal circles was that getting“anybody but Bush” elected president wasthe first priority, participation in protestsagainst the Democratic Party was bound tobe limited to radicals. The Boston organizerswere also kept on edge by a campaign ofPage 16 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 17

police and FBI intimidation, but this neverpanned out into the raids and arrests theyfeared. The fact that there were so few arrestsin Boston indicates that, however intimidatingthe police made certain to be before andduring the event, they themselves hoped toavoid illegal raids and mass arrests that woulddraw more attention to the protests. Had theorganizers figured this out in advance, theycould have strategized accordingly.Following the People’s Strike model, theorganizers in Boston distributed a list oftargets throughout the city suitable for autonomousaction. However, in preparing thePeople’s Strike, the organizers had also covertlycoordinated many actions, so as to besure that something would happen—consequently,there were freeways shut down byburning tires, bank windows smashed, locksglued, and a major avenue barricaded by agiant inflatable, though many of these actionswent unnoticed by the media or otheractivists because they took place over such abroad area. In Boston, the organizers don’tseem to have been as proactive, and neither,apparently, were many of the other activistswho came to the protest—the most militantaction of the event seems to have been anincident in which a dozen people turnedover shelves in a Gap clothing store, leavingspraypaint in their wake.Just as the “Insurrection Night” modelfailed to yield results, simply distributing alist of targets is hardly sufficient to enablemilitant action to occur. If they hope to seemilitant autonomous actions carried out tothe extent that mass actions have been inthe past, organizers must provide some ofthe prerequisites that enable people to applymilitant tactics in the latter context. Theseinclude crowd cover, communications andscouting, media attention, and, above all,8In another hilarious and ironic development, it turnedout that there was a theater group in New York for theprotests under the moniker Greene Dragon Society.Scrambling to give the impression that they were in controlof the situation, the FBI announced that it had infiltratedthe “Green Dragon Group” over a year earlier andwere abreast of all its nefarious plans; this could onlybe to the misfortune of both the aforementioned liberalgroup and the FBI, however, as the Greene DragonSociety doesn’t appear to have been anywhere near thepuppet that went up in flames, nor to have had anythingto do with its construction. A more likely story was circulatedby Starhawk of the pagan cluster, who was engagedin a spiral dance a block away when the dragoncaught fire; she speculates that it was the energy releasedfrom their ritual that triggered the conflagration.9Some few anarchists, mostly of the persuasion givento hyper-radical rhetoric and little action to back it up,the reassurance that somebody somewherehas actually invested energy in making suresomething will happen. The Bl(A)ck Tea Societyattracted the necessary media attention;they provided a text messaging communicationssystem, though it proved vulnerable topolice surveillance, resulting in a few arrestsafter a botched attempt to assemble followingthe “Really Really Democratic Bazaar”;they seemed to have done little else to facilitateautonomous actions. This is not todisparage their organizing efforts—in additionto media and outreach work, they alsoorganized a convergence center, preparedlegal infrastructure, and staged a variant onthe Really Really Free Market model thatattracted thousands of participants. But ifautonomous action is to rival mass action asa model for militant activity, anarchists haveto learn that the “clap your hands if youbelieve in Tinkerbelle” approach, in whichorganizers call for decentralized actions andthen cross their fingers and hope an army ofmaniacs will show up to plan and executethem, does not produce results.The Democratic National Convention wasnot an opportune setting for a doomsdayshowdown with the forces of law and order,and it’s important that a movement limitedin numbers and experience not overextenditself. Perhaps anarchists should have concentratedall their energy on accessible, nonconfrontationalapproaches in Boston; itcertainly doesn’t pay to make empty threatstoo many times. If effective militant actionof any kind was to happen there, given themassive police presence and small numbersof protesters, it would have had to havebeen decentralized and autonomous: twentysuch actions as happened at the Gap, for example,could have caught the police by surprise,generated media attention, and raisedmorale in anticipation of the Republicanwere critical of this campaign on the grounds that itwas too soft on voting. Indeed, insofar as people conflateit with actual political participation, voting isextremely pernicious—as every text circulated by the“Don’t (Just) Vote” campaign emphasized. That beingthe case, these critics seem to have been raising a newand daring question: entirely apart from the dangeroussuperstitions associated with it, can voting itself, takenin a vacuum, be harmful?Your humble editor, anxiously concerned about suchsafety issues, has done quite a bit of research on thissubject and has finally turned up some evidence thatthis may be the case, if only in extreme situations. Adissident account of the untimely death of Edgar AllenPoe, advanced most recently in the amusing miscellanyWhy Americans Zigzag When They Eat, suggeststhat the renowned author was killed by being voted todeath. In those days, political gangs would rig electionsNational Convention. Failing that, it wouldhave been more sensible to focus on moreoutreach and community-building, in whichthe Boston protests were already superior tothe People’s Strike. In trying to have it bothways by calling for militant action while neitherpreparing it nor tricking the police intomaking it unnecessary, the organizers playedinto the hands of the authorities, who hopedto show that they could easily thwart anarchistattempts at disruption. This had negativeconsequences for Boston locals as wellas the anarchist movement. While the longtermeffects of the “People’s Strike” were thatlocal police became more hesitant in dealingwith crowds, the millions of dollars of fundingthat the Boston police received to preparefor the convention paid for an arsenalof semi-lethal weapons—one of which wasused to kill a woman during a post-gamesports riot a few months later.A month after the protests in Boston, theRepublican National Convention was heldin New York City. Unlike every other demonstrationsince the invasion of Iraq, thiswas a historic opportunity for anarchists toapply the mass action model effectively. Allthe necessary pieces were in place: the localpopulace was furious with the Republicansfor invading their city, and enthusiasticallysupportive of the protesters; radicals werecoming by the thousands from all aroundthe country, hoping this would be the eventof a lifetime; and there was to be a widerange of people involved in the protests anda great deal of media attention focused onthem, both of which would help deter theby shanghaiing vulnerable gentlemen and liquoring ordoping them up to make them agreeable. On electionday, these unfortunates would be frog-marched aroundto all the polling stations as fast as possible; once onecircuit was completed, their handlers would changetheir clothes, trim their mustaches, and run themaround again. The faster the pace they kept, the morevotes they were worth, so it must have been a gruelingprocess. (Nowadays, political gangs bypass such clumsymethods and accomplish the same thing with advertisingand voting machine fraud.) Poe was known forhis stylish dressing, but when he was found—drunk,delirious, and in the process of dying of exhaustion, at aBaltimore bar that doubled as a polling station—he waswearing a very cheap suit that didn’t seem to belong tohim. It was an election day. So there you have it: voting,horror of capitalist horrors, killed the greatest horrorwriter of all time—and might kill you, too, if you puttoo much stock in it.police from a violent crackdown such as theone in Miami the preceding year. The attentionof the whole world was concentratedon New York City, and while many liberalsfeared that a serious confrontation therewould undermine the chances of the DemocraticParty’s presidential hopeful, countlessothers longed for one.If all that wasn’t enough, there was a strugglegoing on between the liberal organizers andthe city police department as to whether thegiant permitted march would be allowed togo to Central Park. This was the same situationthat had precipitated the street confrontationsduring the anti-war protests inNew York a year and a half earlier; if the citywas unable to reach an agreement with theorganizers in time, everyone knew that themarch could turn violent. The leaders of theliberal organizing coalition backed down ontheir demands on one occasion, only to beforced by their grassroots membership to reinstatethem. This conflict provided a perfectopportunity for anarchist organizing. A nationwidecall for a black bloc on the day ofthe main permitted march would have takenperfect advantage of this conflict, givingthose frustrated with the city governmentand its liberal accomplices a rallying point.Had the first major day of protests endedin streetfighting, it would have changed theentire character of the protests and perhapsof opposition to the Bush regime in general.The very last thing the police departmentof New York City wanted was to haveto use tear gas in the crowded streets of themost populated city in North America; thisThe riot police were already pouring out of their vehicles and suitingup when we arrived at the reconvergence point. The anarchistmarch had been broken up before reaching any of the checkpointssurrounding the inaugural parade route, and we’d spent the followinghour lost in the multitudes outside those checkpoints, tryingto figure out where our friends were and how to reach a criticalmass again. We passed the police and crossed the street into theassembling throng.There were more militants concentrated here, but no clearer indicationof what to do next. As far as any of us knew, now that theinitial march was over, no one had a backup plan. At a discussionthe night before, when I’d broached the question of what we woulddo if the march failed to break through the checkpoint, one maniachad coldly responded, “What’s with all this talk about backup plansand exit strategies? People are fucking dying in Iraq.”would have been a public relations debaclefor both the city government and the RepublicanParty, and it would have shownthat anarchists could pose a real threat to theimposed domestic peace that enables warsoverseas. Even if this had resulted in massivenumbers of arrests, it could have been worthit—hundreds, if not more, of the anarchistswho went to New York ended up getting arrested,anyway.Alas, anarchists were so caught up in solvingstrategic problems from past actionsthat they failed to apprehend these possibilities.While a heavier focus on autonomousactions would have been the only hope ofenabling effective militant tactics at thedemonstrations in Miami and Boston, NewYork was a perfect setting for a large-scale,centrally organized strategy, and anarchistspassed this chance up in favor of a focus ondecentralized, autonomous actions. Perhapsolder activists were still shell-shocked fromthe protests at the Republican NationalConvention in 2000, at which a poorlyplanned mass action had ended in a lot ofpointless, demoralizing arrests; perhaps itwas just too difficult to coordinate actionscentrally between groups from around theworld in such an enormous and complicatedcity; perhaps it really was the legacyof Miami frightening anarchists out of usingtheir heads. Regardless, as the communiquédelivered weeks before the demonstrationsby the NYC Anarchist Grapevine admitted,there was no “Big Plan” for militant actionin New York.Unfortunately, what anarchists fail tocoordinate themselves will be coordinatedby authoritarians, and so, while anarchistlabor was central to the infrastructure thatenabled them, the character of most of theactions planned for New York was non-confrontational,even liberal. At the last minute,the organizers of the main march finallyaccepted the conditions of the city, agreeingto march in circles rather than followthrough on the desires of the rank-and-filewho wanted to go to Central Park with orwithout a permit; likewise, though anarchistsand militants swelled the numbers ofmany other actions, these were largely orchestratedto avoid actually challenging theactivities of the Republicans or the occupationof the city.To be fair, some anarchists, notably includingmany who had traveled from San Franciscoand other parts of the West Coast, organizeda day of direct action late in the protests, butthey focused only on enabling symbolic tacticsof civil disobedience. Worse, they madeexactly the same mistake that had been madein Miami and at the Republican NationalConvention four years earlier: they arrangedfor their action not to coincide with any othersand to take place after most of the less radicalprotesters had left the city, so the policehad free hands to focus on repressing everyoneon the streets that night. This resulted inover one thousand arrests, without any con-Late Afternoon, January 20 th , 2005, Washington, DC“So what are you saying, that we should just go until we all getarrested?”“Well, yeah.”Things hadn’t played out that way in the streets. Now we neededto come up with a new strategy—and quick, before the spectaclewas over and it was too late to refuse our part in it.Prospects for this weren’t looking good. People were milling aroundindecisively, conferring in small groups; there was a feeling of dejectionin the air. To one side, some activists were bickering about thedecisions made during the earlier march. Others—from the looksof it, not the most experienced protesters present—had actually satdown in a circle to hold a formal collective discussion, which didn’tseem to be turning up any answers either. This, while riot policewere amassing across the street! Perhaps they wouldn’t arrest us all pPage 18 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 19

crete objective being accomplished besidesthe news coverage these attracted and the harassmentof some Republican delegates.One of the most important lessons that canbe drawn from the aforementioned actionis the importance of different kinds of actionstaking place simultaneously. In Seattle,Quebec, and Genoa, legal marches, civildisobedience, and confrontational militantaction all took place at once, and the divisionof the city into zones according tolevel of risk made it possible for protestersto pick the form of engagement with whichthey were most comfortable. In the RepublicanNational Conventions of both 2000and 2004, as well as the FTAA protests inMiami, organizers did exactly the opposite,senselessly endangering those committed tomilitant action and undercutting the effectivenessof the protests as a whole. The costsof this could have been offset had militantsorganized a major mass action themselves,but none dared do so.In the absence of a unified approach, thehundreds of different actions that took placein New York never quite added up to theinsurrection they could have. As a demonstrationof the possibilities of localizedautonomous action, New York was unparalleled,but it was also a missed opportunityin an era that provides few good chances toapply the mass action model.Two groups did attempt to organize actionson the day of the main march; ironically,one applied the mass action model as if carryingout an autonomousaction, while the other didexactly the opposite. Theformer of these groups wasa militant contingent, apparentlyorganized by wordof mouth, that took part inthe main permitted march; this mightbe the first case on record of a blackbloc going undercover by mixing withcivilian protesters and leaving their faces uncovereduntil the moment before the action.When this group approached the point atwhich the march turned around to marchaway from Central Park, right in front of thebuilding hosting the convention center, anenormous green dragon puppet was set afire,and streetfighting broke out; however, therewere not enough numbers or preparationto maintain this. Within an hour, the policehad reestablished control and the marchproceeded as before; only a few impressivephotographs of the fire remained, one ofwhich ran in one especially poorly informedtabloid with a caption describing it as thework of “the anarchist group ‘Black Box’.” 8The other notable militant effort that day wasa call for anarchists to intercept Republicandelegates on their way to their evening’s entertainmentat several Broadway shows. However,because this call was promoted in suchvenues as the New York Times, these actionslacked the element of surprise, the most importantaspect of the autonomous action model.Many anarchists showed up, but as there wasno strategy for mass action and few participantsbrought individualplans of their own,there were many arrestsand little more was accomplishedthan a few delegatesbeing shouted at.Whatever strategic miscalculations anarchistsmay have made, it was still thrilling tobe in New York with so many others determinedto change the course of history. TheCritical Mass bicycle parade, which tookplace before most of the other events, offereda moving illustration of just how manypeople and how much energy were gatheredtogether that week; to stand at a corner andwatch groups of thirty and forty surge constantlypast for a full half hour was simplybreathtaking. Most who went to New Yorkleft with new energy and inspiration, whichhelped to catalyze further action as the electionsdrew near.The election provided amatchless opportunity fornationwide autonomous actions. Unlikeany summit or local issue, it happenedeverywhere at once, focusing public attentionon a wide range of issues that couldbe addressed on a variety of fronts. Amongothers, a nationwide campaign on the theme“Don’t (Just) Vote, Get Active” urged peopleto take action on election day to demonstrateall the possibilities for political engagementbeyond the voting booth 9 .The diversity and scope of the actions anarchistscarried out around the election makeit worth recounting some of them here. InWashington, DC, fifteen polling stationswere decorated the night before election daywith a stencil design fifteen feet long and fourfeet high reading “Our dreams will never fitin their ballot boxes.” In Baltimore, the followingafternoon, a Reclaim the Streets actionon the same themeattracted sixty people.In Portland, Oregon,one thousand peoplestruggled with policeto march through thestreets. A “Don’t Just Vote, TakeAction” march of two hundredpeople in Tucson, Arizona wasattacked by police employingpepper bullets. A spontaneous march ofalmost two hundred people in downtownPhiladelphia blocked a major bridge to NewJersey; everyone escaped arrest except a reporterfrom a local television news stationwho was inexplicably attacked by policewhile marchers chanted “We don’t need nowater, let the motherfucker burn!” In NewOrleans, a radical Day of the Dead marchfeaturing a marching band, seventy-five skeletons,and an alter screamed and moaned itsway through the French Quarter to the riverfront,at which the alter was filled with remembrancesof deceased loved ones and thenset afire as a naked attendant swam it out tosea; on the return route, participants draggednewspaper boxes and garbage cans into thestreets and smashed the window of a stretch-SUV deemed too revolting to ignore.During Chicago’s “Don’t Just Vote Week ofResistance,” which included several demonstrationsand other events, police tried andfailed to prevent over one thousand peoplefrom taking the streets in a massive unpermittedmarch. At another incident in Chicago,a rock was thrown through the windowof a GOP office in which Republicans weregathered to watch election results, sendingglass flying all over the room. Large rockswere also thrown through the windows ofthe Republican headquarters in downtownBuffalo, New York and a nearby army recruitingcenter, and the local news stationreceived a letter claiming responsibility.In Red Hook, New York, 250 Bard collegestudents shut down an intersection inthe center of town for almost an hour untilpolice forcibly dispersed them. In northernLos Angeles county, a group carried outwhat they suggested might be the first bannerdrop in their area, with a banner on the“Don’t (Just) Vote” theme reading “Workers:Which Millionaire Will You Vote For?”In Vermillion, South Dakota, a town of only10,000 residents, fifty people maintained apresence outside a voting booth, stretching avolleyball net to bear a variety of signs, sharingfood, and inviting all with grudges oftheir own against the system to join them.The same town was to host another suchdemonstration two and a half months lateron the day of the Inauguration, attractingmedia coverage from as far away as San Diego,CA.right here, but the longer we dallied, the less likely it would be thatwe could get past them to do anything.I went from cluster to cluster of my friends—in each one, ideaswere being tossed around, but none seemed to be sticking. In mypessimistic frame of mind, it struck me as a microcosm of the anarchistmilieu in general: every clique has a pet plan they’d like to seeput into action, but none is willing to do more than talk about howgreat their plan is.There was no sense in joining the marketplace of ideas. I returnedto the friend I trusted most, the one with whom I’d shared so muchexperience at other demonstrations. “Listen, nothing’s going to happenunless somebody decides something and goes for it. I trust you tomake the call for both of us. Just pick a plan, and count me in.”One of his friends had an idea—apparently, she’d seen a flatbedtruck parked near the checkpoints, loaded with wooden pallets wemight be able to seize for our own uses. This seemed hard to believe,but stranger things have happened.So we had an idea, but how were we going to get people toparticipate? My friends went around to a few other knots of people,making the proposal. Everything just seemed to turn to mush:“Yeah, we could do that, or…”Regrouping quickly, we decided—insanely, impetuously—that we would just go, the ten of us, and try it, since we had to dosomething. Ten people was a quixotic number with which to stormflatbed trucks and charge police checkpoints, but at this point itseemed like a quixotic attempt could only be an improvement onwhat would happen otherwise.We stepped out onto the street opposite the now thoroughlyprepared riot police and set off in the direction of the trucks. To oursurprise, a dozen more people trailed after us—curious what washappening, perhaps, or just responding, sheeplike, to movement.Another of my friends seized the chance. “Come on! This way!Join us!” he shouted, waving his arms. I put my riot whistle between myteeth and blew series of blasts in a marching rhythm.In a matter of seconds, the whole crowd poured off the cornerand into the street behind us.Now something was happening, and the initiative was oursagain! Behind, the riot police reoriented themselves, as if submergedin molasses, and prepared to follow. We were already well down thestreet, moving swiftly, once again appreciative of each other’s presenceand sure of our collective strength.It struck me that there was a lesson of sorts in what had justtranspired, but before I could explore this thought further, we wereswarming over the trucks, unloading the pallets.Could we really do this? In the full light of day, here we were,commandeering a full truckload of defensive materials in the mostoccupied zone of the capital city of the most powerful nation onearth. Why hadn’t we done this during the larger march earlier inthe day? If we had been equipped then, we certainly could havegotten to the checkpoints, and history might have played out differently.We had passed construction sites, garbage heaps, and plenty ofother opportunities to gather what we needed. Did we really want arevolution, or just a protest march?It remained to be seen if we would be able to get to a checkpointthis time, either. There were police behind us, presumably on the streetsto either side of us, and in much greater numbers ahead. I kept close tomy companions in the mass. We were moving swiftly, almost running.No squad cars or baton-wielding officers blocked our path. Perhapsas we had reentered the area they had not at first identified usas the anarchist menace against which they had mobilized policefrom the eastern half of the country. We arrived at the street runningparallel to the parade route, a scant block from the checkpoints. Wecould see one ahead of us, a fence of towering black metal grate withlines of bulky police behind it.Now the police behind us were catching up, and we sighted alarger force in armored vehicles approaching up the street on our left.If we went straight for the checkpoint ahead, we would be surrounded.Instinctively, the crowd veered to the right, increasing speed; somethrew down their pallets in the intersection as a makeshift barricadeto slow our enemies’ pursuit.A couple blocks more, and we arrived at another checkpoint,having somehow left our escort behind. Here, before the fence, wesuddenly slowed to a stop, as the gravity of what we were doinghit us. We looked around at one other: there weren’t more than afew dozen of us, really, and we were scarcely equipped with hoodedsweatshirts and bandannas, let alone the tools it would take to getPage 20 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 21

The day after the election, a march in downtownWashington, DC on the theme “NoMatter, Who Won, The System Is Rotten”attracted one hundred people. Equippedwith a powerful sound system, it snakedthrough the streets, disruptive and rowdy,evading police repression. In San Francisco,five thousand people marched against Bush;afterwards, a breakaway group built a bonfireout of US flags and an effigy of Bush, thenmarched through the city pulling urban debrisand newspaper boxes into the street andsmashing the windows of two banks. In SanDiego, fliers posted the preceding night onUCSD campus reading “Where’s the Riot?”attracted one hundred people to an impromptuforum as to what forms resistancecould take next. When the question “Who’swilling to get arrested today?” was broached,many raised their hands.Two days later, in perhaps the most militantparticipatory action of the week, a surprisemarch of over one hundred people bearingtorches, drums, anarchist banners, and a twoheadedeffigy of Bush and Kerry took overdowntown Raleigh, North Carolina, decoratingthe streets with graffiti and destroyingbank machines until it reached the state headquartersof the Republican Party. The windowsof the building were smashed, its walls werecovered in spraypaint, fireworks were set offinside, and the effigy was set afire in the frontyard. The following day, over fifty-eight majormedia outlets ran a story covering the event, inwhich the state GOP chief of staff was quotedas saying that campaign offices and partyheadquarters were being vandalized throughoutthe nation. “They have a right to disagree,”he pleaded, “but to do it agreeably.”The following night, yet another spontaneousmarch occurred in Washington, DC,leaving spraypaint in its wake and meetingwith enthusiasm from locals. From one sideof the country to the other, by day and bynight, militants were carrying out actionsthat demonstrated the seriousness of theirdiscontent and invited others to expresstheir own. This was the autonomous actionmodel, which had evolved over the precedingyear, finally being used to effect in circumstancesfor which it was appropriate.Ironically, as the Inauguration approachedin January of 2005, it was activists from NewYork City that insisted protests be organizedon the mass action model and called for amassive anti-authoritarian march, whileothers called for autonomous actions. Thistime, both were right, and it was only tacticalerrors, not errors in strategy, that preventedthe protests from shutting down thespectacle. Presidential inaugurations providea rare opportunity for centrally-organizedanarchist mass actions: they can attract largenumbers of anti-authoritarians, they offeran obvious target, and the risk of arrests andpolice brutality are forestalled by the presenceof diverse crowds and media and thedesire of the authorities to maintain the illusionthat everyone is pleased with the rulerbeing sworn in. At this particular inauguration,the ongoing legacy of the mass arrestsof the People’s Strike a full two and a halfyears earlier also served to tie the hands ofthe police. At the same time, Washington,DC, being the nation’s capital, providesan excellent field for autonomous actions,which could only serve to heighten tensions,distract and confuse the police, and emphasizepopular discontent.The massive anarchist march was wiselyplanned to coincide with the other protests ofthe day, so as to benefit from the crowd coverthey provided and the divided attention of thepolice. Hundreds of people participated inthe march, even though, as a result of somestrange misunderstanding or internal conflict,it left the convergence point early, before manywould-be participants had even arrived. At theprevious inauguration, a black bloc had successfullybroken through one of the checkpointssurrounding the parade route, and theorganizers planned to repeat this feat and goon to block the route. This was the major tacticalerror that prevented the march from beingreally effective: a basic rule of thumb in planningfor an action is not to count on being ableto repeat the past. Had the organizers prepareda back-up plan, such as a way to maintain thecoherence of the bloc if it could not penetratepolice lines and a secondary target outside theimmediate zone of police control, it wouldnot have been such a misfortune that the policeblocked the path of the march before itarrived at a checkpoint. As it was, having nobackup plan, the march bogged down at thispoint, and broke up; a smaller company ofanarchists regrouped and succeeded in reachingand charging a checkpoint, but lacked thenumbers and equipment to break through.Other problems afflicting the marchincluded an apparent loss of contactwith the scouting team and poor internalcommunication dynamics that led many toaccuse one participating group of hijackingthe march. Aside from these, the fact thatthe march did not succeed in its professedobjective can be attributed to the hesitancewith which most participants approached it,as it was the first militant mass action of itssize since Miami. There were enough peoplethere to break through the police lines, hadmore of them been ready to put their all intoit; next time, assured by that experience thatmass actions are indeed still possible in thepost-9/11 world, perhaps activists will arrivebetter equipped and more psychologicallyprepared. Speaking of equipment, it’s worthpointing out that the black bloc that brokethrough the checkpoint in 2000 used anappropriated industrial wheelbarrow tospearhead their charge, while the march atthe 2004 inauguration had only a bannerreinforced with PVC pipe. PVC pipe isnotoriously fragile, and has failed militantmarches several times now; the beginningconvergence point was so free from policecontrol that participants could have broughtin massive wooden shields and otherfortifications, which would have servedmuch better in the ensuing mêlée. Likewise,the march passed several construction sitesthat less hesitant militants would haveraided for materials.Just when it seemed the day’s events wereover, the crowd leaving a packed show bypunk band Anti-Flag filled the street in asurprise march of hundreds. Bearing torches,drums, anarchist banners, spray-paint cans,and shopping carts full of useful materials,the throng marched through AdamsMorgan, an ethnic neighborhood sufferingrapid gentrification. The results surprisedeveryone, presumably including those whoinitiated the march. A vast banner reading“From DC to Iraq: With OccupationComes Resistance” was dropped from thetop of a Starbucks coffeeshop, along with agreat quantity of fireworks. Demonstratorssmashed the windows of several corporateoutlets, including Citibank, Riggs Bank,McDonald’s, and KFC, as well as those ofa police substation and the windshield ofa police car following the demonstration;police reports estimated the damage tocorporate and police property at $15,000.Anarchist graffiti covered walls, and manypulled newspaper boxes and dumpstersinto the streets. Locals who witnessed themarch were supportive and encouragingto an almost surprising degree, honkingcar horns and cheering; a worker at a localEthiopian restaurant raised his fist andshouted “Down with Bush! We have to shutthis city down!”Massive numbers of befuddled riot policearrived before the march could reach a hotelhosting an Inaugural Ball to which Bushhad just paid a visit. Most participants dispersedsafely; approximately seventy weretrapped in an alley and arrested, but almostall of them were released without chargesafter paying $50. Even factoring in the subsequentbacklash from those who alwaysoppose confrontational tactics, as militantactions go, this was a raging success. It receivedsupport from unusual quarters, too,including members of Anti-Flag, the representativeof Iraq Veterans Against the Warwho had spoken at the show, and parents ofminors arrested in the alley.So this is where we leave our heroes, escapingfrom downtown Washington, DC in themiddle of the night, helicopter spotlightsflashing overhead and sirens wailing nearby.Is this only a momentary anomaly in a worldof consolidated state control, or a precursorof things to come? Will they manage tofind common cause with dissidents of otherdemographics, so a real, broad-based insurrectionwill be possible? How can they honetheir tactics and strategies to fit the currentpolitical and social context?Conclusion: When toAct en Masse, How toAct IndependentlyFrom the events of the past few years, wecan derive some basic lessons about bothmass and autonomous actions. We had betterdo so—if we don’t, the anarchist movementmay have to go through this learningprocess all over again.this fence down while protecting ourselves from the troops behind it.We were a shoddy bunch in a time that called for far fiercer forces.At this moment, when, in our hesitation, it seemed like we all mightgo no further, I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Ten! Nine! Eight!”It was the maniac from the night before, wearing a motorcyclehelmet, shouting at the top of his lungs with a cool certainty.There, his impetuousness had been a liability—but here, he wasthe only one who could muster the morale to imagine we wouldactually do what we had come to do. “Seven! Six!”This was obviously insane behavior. A few unarmed, skinny lunaticscould no more break through this fortification than a bundleof flowers could flip a tank. “Five!”Our arms were linked tightly, binding us into lines. My friendsand I were in the third of perhaps seven of these. Over the heads ofthe taller people in front of me, I could just make out police, readyinglarge pepper spray dispensers. “Four!”There was nothing else for it. If we didn’t do something now,it would just be embarrassing. By the final numbers, we were allscreaming: “Three! Two! One!”I exchanged a glance with my bosom companion, at my side to theright. In an instant, it conveyed, “This is absurd. But fuck it, here we go.”“Yes. Here we go,” his eyes responded.An instant later, we were surging towards the checkpoint—andthen, before those of us behind the front line could see the objectof our charge, everything went black and our lungs seized up. Thecrowd heaved forward and broke against the line of police officersshowering us with pepper spray, then fell back in choking disarray.The fence shook, rattled, and was still.I staggered back about fifty feet with the friends on either sideof me, all of us blind and unable to breathe. There we paused andhelped each other to regain use of our eyes and throats. A cynicaltelevision cameraman hurried up to capture this poignant moment;I chased him off. We cleared out of the area before the police couldsecure it. Maybe they were under orders not to arrest us en masseunless we did something really dangerous.I later heard that after our charge, they shut down all the checkpointsaround the parade route. I’m not sure whether or not to believeit, or whether I dare believe it was because of our meager effort.I also heard that the truck we unloaded was stocked with grapplinghooks, too, with which we could more easily have assaulted thefence had we taken them as well as the palettes. I find that easierto believe.Why didn’t we arrive prepared for the work we came to do thatday? We could have given our opponents a run for their proverbialmoney, had we been ready—we simply would have needed protectivegear and the conviction that we were really going to go for it. Itcame out in conversation afterwards that some of my friends—someof the most militant and capable among them, in fact—who hadbeen at my side when we charged the checkpoint actually had gogglesand vinegar-soaked rags in their backpacks. Somehow they hadforgotten to put these on when it came time to charge the fence.Why do we sabotage ourselves like this? By and large, our ownhesitations seem to pose a much greater threat to our efforts than theassembled might of the police state. It’s as if, even when we join inthe real-life activity of hard-core resistance, we find ourselves unableto believe it is really happening. We know well enough in our headsthat if we are to contest injustice and give dignity to our lives wemust do so here and now—but it’s another thing entirely to behavewith our bodies as if this is the case. When we don our masks andraise our black flags, we seem to enter a tentative, imaginary worldin which we don’t take responsibility for believing the things we’redoing are actually possible.Clearly, as experience shows, it is possible for a few maniacs toseize defensive materials, charge police lines, and change the courseof history a little bit—all this, without even getting arrested! It onlyremains for us to do these things with the sense that they can be effective,that we can actually win—to take the goggles out of our bagsand put them on before the pepper spray comes out, for example.People have done this before—in Quebec City, in Genoa, even inWashington, DC. It’s not too much to ask of ourselves.Next time, we’ll show up with both backup plans and motorcyclehelmets, knowing just how real what we’re doing is and readyto leave the world we’re familiar with once and for all. We won’thesitate or falter. We’ll know just how lucky we are to get a chanceto live and act outside the cages prepared for us, and we won’t counton getting another one.Page 22 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 23

First of all, let’s address once and for all thequestion of whether mass actions are stilleffective in the post-9/11 era. The answer,in the opinion of everyone involved in thedevelopment of this analysis, is a resoundingyes. The examples of the RepublicanNational Convention and the recent PresidentialInauguration both indicate that it isstill possible to act en masse, according towidely disseminated, publicly coordinatedplans; we have only to be more judicious inchoosing when and how to do so.Without at least occasional mass actions,anarchist communities risk losing the abilityto combine forces, not to mention the visibilityand influence that are critical to their proliferation.At the same time, anarchists mustpick the mass actions in which they investthemselves carefully; every time anarchistscall for a mass action, it should be a resoundingsuccess, so people will feel safe investingthemselves in participating in the next one.What elements make for a perfect mass action?First, and most obviously, a mass actionmust be massively attended. The modelshould therefore only be employed whengreat numbers of people can realistically beexpected to show. Organizers should promotefar in advance, and seek to collaborateto this end with as wide a range of othergroups as possible; just as importantly, theyshould be skilled in reading the zeitgeist, sothey can pick the right occasions to call formass actions.Second, a mass action must be attended bya wide range of people, and receive a lot ofmedia attention. When diverse crowds arepresent and television cameras are running,police almost always hesitate to use extremeforce; when they choose to do so under thosecircumstances, it costs them a lot, and caneven end up being a tactical victory for protesters.Organizers must nurture their abilityto predict the factors that determine policestrategy: Will the police want to show theircontrol of the situation by making a lot of arrests,or will it be more important to them toavoid this and instead focus on bluffing andintimidation? What will police be expecting,and how will they respond to the unexpected?How quickly can they apprehend newinformation, and how concentrated will theirattention be?Third, a mass action should have an objectivethat is immediately comprehensible andattractive, and offer a strategy that peoplecan easily adopt for themselves. The demonstrationsagainst the Free Trade Area of theAmericas summit in Quebec City spreadfrom a few hundred militants to the populationof the entire city because the tacticsemployed—masking up, throwing back teargas canisters, blocking roads—were easy toapprehend and apply, and because localswere already angry about the police occupyingtheir city. This question determineswhether a militant engagement ends up asa vanguardist group slogging it out in a privatewar with the government or a generalizedpopular insurrection.Fourth, militants in a mass action shouldmake sure their plans are intelligently coordinatedwith those of others. As describedabove in the analysis of the protests at thelast two Republican National Conventions,it is almost always better for dissimilar actionsto take place simultaneously ratherthan consecutively. In a best case scenario,actions employing different tactics can be arrangedto complement one another. Healthyrelationships between activists partial to differenttactics facilitate this; these require alot of nurturing between actions, and a lotof patience when conflicts arise.Finally, organizers must take matters suchas morale, momentum, and crowd dynamicsseriously. Under some circumstances, allit takes to turn a passive mass into a militantforce is for a few maniacs to step forwardand show what is possible; in other cases, anentire militant bloc can be intimidated intoinactivity by police bluffing. In learning whatfactors enable people to take action, organizerscan formulate strategies based on realisticexpectations.In planning a mass action, organizers shouldlook back in recent history for similar precedentsfrom which they can determine whatto expect. At the same time, attempting torepeat the past—especially when one’s enemieshave learned from it—is almost alwaysa doomed venture. Organizers should consider,instead, the opportunities that havebeen missed before, and try to take advantageof these. When employing a strategy forthe first time, it is important to be preparedfor the possibility that it will succeed as wellas the possibility that it will fail. New strategiesgenerally work, and fail only becausepeople lack the assurance to follow themthrough completely; old strategies, on theother hand, usually fail because opponentsare all too ready for them, however readypeople are to apply them. Employing an oldstrategy in an entirely new context can betremendously effective; this is something atwhich the anarchist movement, being internationallyactive and interconnected, shouldexcel. Also, both organizers of massiveevents and individual participants in themshould formulate backup plans for differentscenarios, so they can turn any developmentto their advantage.The communities in which militant activistsdevelop must share basic skills such ashow to read a volatile situation, how to workin affinity groups, and how and when todisperse. Activists of all demographics andbackgrounds must be encouraged to feel entitledto participate in planning and carryingout militant actions. In addition, when conditionsare not opportune for confrontation,radicals must not pressure themselves to doanything rash, but rather save themselves forbetter opportunities.During the lulls between mass actions, decentralized,autonomous actions can serveto keep activists’ skills sharp and to continuethe struggle on other fronts. As they didduring the 1990’s, small-scale local actionscan give activists the practice they need to becomfortable acting in more challenging massaction scenarios; they also connect activiststo one other, building experienced, dangerousgroups linked to broader communities.To this purpose, the best forms of autonomousaction are the ones that, rather thanstriking the most grievous material blows,bring in new participants and build solidaritybetween different circles so that militantactivity may take place more widely.One of the most important challenges of thecoming years, during which we can be surepolice repression of all forms of resistancewill continue and perhaps increase, will beto develop ways to act socially and publiclyyet with the element of surprise. Withoutthis capability, participatory militant actionwill become impossible except once or twicea year at mass actions, and it will be impossibleto spread militant tactics in our localcommunities. To this end, we have to cultivatesites of social interaction and channelsof communication that are accessible to allbut the authorities: these can include localcommunities bonded by potlucks and otherface-to-face contact, cultural milieus such aspoliticized music scenes, and connectionsbetween committed activists and formerlyapolitical social circles. In these, we can getto know and trust one another, and stage assaultson the capitalist nightmare from unexpecteddirections.The preceding analysis offers three successfulprototypes for autonomous yet participatoryaction. The first is the model employed bythe activists who carried out the G8 solidarityaction before the Really Really Free Marketin Raleigh, North Carolina, in which asmall, clandestine group acts to augment theefforts of an open, accessible group; this isperfect for carrying out complicated, highriskplans, but offers little opportunity fornew people to be brought in and gain experience.The second is the model employedby the activists who conceived the protest atthe Governor’s Mansion in Maine, in whicha core group takes advantage of a social settingto invite a larger number of people tohelp plan and participate in an action withoutrevealing the most sensitive details of thetarget; this is a less secure, more participatorymodel, offering roles for those not yetsure enough of themselves to organize theirown major actions, but still limiting participationto an in-group. The third is themodel employed by the activists who instigatedthe march in Adams Morgan afterthe Presidential Inauguration in Washington,DC, in which a participatory action isinitiated by a small group within a largermass; this offers the greatest number theopportunity to witness or participate in anI was with my younger sister and her boyfriend at the Punk RockCounter-Inaugural Ball and we all went there with full intention toparticipate in any revolutionary action that might take place thatnight. Imagine our enthusiasm when we learned of the march theywere organizing after the show. It was amazing.Although the three of us got arrested and were (with many others)victims of police misconduct created by Bush’s fascist police state,we are grateful to have been a part of the movement that night andhave no regrets.Out of all the negative things that day, almost entirely due to thepower-crazed police, the most important positive aspect for us wasthe amazing feeling of unity amongst protestors… especially at theAdams Morgan march. I was deeply moved by the solidarity of thepeople and the courageous direct action taken by protestors thatnight. It was an experience that will change my outlook and approachwithin my own tactics of activism.action, even an extremely confrontationalone, but it also can endanger participants,especially as collective planning is impossible.Hopefully, over the years to come, manymore activists will make use of and expandon these prototypes, refining and combiningthem in the process.It may be some time before the next periodof intense struggle. While it sometimesseemed during the months immediatelypreceding and following the election thatthe country was slipping towards civil war,the atmosphere now is somewhat moresubdued, as liberals lick their wounds andradicals adjust to the post-war, post-electioncontext. This is not necessarily a bad thing;the anarchist community is not yet ready foran all-out war to the death with the rulersof the world. Let’s make use of this intervalto put down firmer foundations and developnew skills. When the next opportunities arriveto take on the powers that be, let’s beready, our communities strong and closelylinked, our courage and confidence in eachother tried and true.Were a reading list to accompany this analysis,it would include “Hot Town, Summerin the City: Anarchist Analysis of the 2004RNC Protests” by Alexander Trocchi, CrimethInc.International News Agent Provocateur,and “FROM DC TO IRAQ: WITH OCCUPA-TION COMES RESISTANCE—What happenedin Adams Morgan on January 20; areport, analysis, and response to criticism,”by the Circle A Brigade, both of which canbe located on the internet by means of www.google.com. Texts about the actions in Maineand Raleigh, North Carolina can be foundin issues of the Earth First! Journal and theAsheville Global Report.EVERYENGAGEMENTA VICTORY!from an internet post following the AdamsMorgan march on the day of the InaugurationIn response to all the criticism of the protest march that’s beenvoiced, I understand some critics’ concerns, but also disagree withthe negative views of this march. Defenses of the direct, militantaction that night have already been written, so I’ll leave my opinionin agreement with those. I do, however, want to say that I believewe need the activist youth to be more involved in many tactics ofresistance. Militant action is one tactic that must be respected andvalued as an important part of this movement just as much as controlledprotests. It’s been too easy for the oppressive powers thatbe to turn their heads and continue doing as they wish, destroyinganything in their path. Acts such as the Adams Morgan march,although criticized by some, can cause enough disruption to forceour cause to be heard. This is a time of urgency and not a time tofollow quietly.Blessed Be all the warriors on the streets that day with whom Imarched proudly.Page 24 Brand News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Brand News Page 25

“I revolt, therefore we are.”“But if we are, farewell revolt.”Politics is the art ofexclusionBecause politics must remain separate from actual humanlife, from everything that could give it teeth and a heartbeat,the role of professionals in politics is indisputable—the mostthat can be done, obviously, is to replace them from time totime. These professionals may be elected officials, or theymay be more carefully disguised as “local activists” and “communityorganizers.” Either way, the systems they administerare far too complicated for anyone outside the political classto comprehend; conversely, anyone who succeeds in learningthe inner workings of these systems inevitably winds up as amember of the political class himself.Politics is the art ofsegregationIt is the specialization that lies at the root of all specializationand division of labor in modern society: if decisionsregarding society as a whole can only be made by a smallelite, what use is it for anyone else to understand or undertakeanything beyond playing his specific role in this society?Once people accept their lot as peons in the belly of a greatleviathan in whose actions they can have no say, they havelittle incentive to seek to know or find common cause withthe others that make up that leviathan.Politics is the art ofrepresentationIt rests on the premise of the inactivity of all but the politicalclass. If everyone acted for herself, it would be pureanarchy—besides, people aren’t used to thinking or actingfor themselves nowadays, are they? Thus it happens thatpeople can only participate in the decisions that affect theirlives from the sidelines, as spectators, cheering for one championor another, and picking those champions as arbitrarilyas people make all inconsequential decisions. In delegatingPolitics is the art ofassimilationPolitics teaches you to think in terms of majorities, to judgeright and wrong according to public opinion rather than actheArtof PoliticsPolitics is the art of detachment. Purportedly, it is at once separate from every othersphere of activity and yet qualified to govern all of them. Politics begins where dailyexperience, individual interests, passion and poetry and camaraderie—in short, everythingthat makes human life meaningful, everything that can inform people as to how tomake decisions in their best interest—leave off. Nothing that truly matters—neither thewaitress’s ennui nor the bureaucrat’s insomnia—can be addressed in the political arena,though decisions made in that arena have repercussions in every other.their power to answer social problems, people give up theability to establish what the questions are in the first place:for one can only learn what one’s interests are in the courseof making decisions oneself. Some reformers hawk pipedreams of more participatory systems of representation, buta world in which people act for themselves and thus need norepresentatives—that is unthinkable.Politics is the art ofmediationJust as the Pope interprets the will of God, the scientist explainsthe edicts of Mother Nature, and the professor passeson the lessons of History, the political professional mediatesbetween people and their own power, which thus comesto appear disembodied and alien to them. Furthermore, inrepresenting people in the political arena, the politician becomesqualified to represent them to themselves: whatever hebelieves must be what they believe, whatever he does mustbe what they want—otherwise, how did he get into power?Similarly, the interactions between individuals outside thestrictly political realm come to be mediated: when peoplerelate to one another, it is not as unique beings, but as roleswithin an established order. As in organized religion, wherethere are no relationships between humans but only betweenbelievers, so in politics it is not individuals who come together,but citizens, party members, ideologues. Betweenevery person and every other, and between all persons andthe structure of the society they comprise, there are filtersthat thwart all but a few standard forms of communicationand interaction. Politics thrives wherever the program of anorganization supplants the needs and wants of individuals.cording to your own conscience. At best, the one thus educatedmust persuade himself and others that, although it maynot seem to be the case, the vast majority of people want—orwould want!—the same ends he does; at worst, and more often,this education leaves all dissidents feeling powerless in theface of the deluded mass. In losing election after election andcampaign after campaign, the one who seeks to sway the majoritylearns how small and ineffectual he is, how little he canaccomplish—without even having to hazard the experiment ofacting himself! If you can’t beat them, join them, he inevitablyconcludes, whether concession by concession or in one grandgesture of nihilistic capitulation. The most unlikely coalitionsform, and struggle to outmaneuver one another in the race togobble up enough constituents to form a majority. Those whocannot find a mass to join render themselves insignificant—forwhat can one human being do, in the face of so many?Politics is the art ofabstractionSo that power can most precisely be delegated to theprofessionals that represent constituencies, the individualcharacteristics and interests of broad swaths of people aresummarized in gross generalizations. People even rush tomake abstractions of themselves—for the simpler the label,the more brute force can presumably be mustered behind it.Widely divergent specific desires are lumped together andreduced to their lowest common denominators in generalplatforms, and thus individuals are reduced to masses. Politiciansrepresent people, and woe to those who refuse administration;abstractions represent demographics, and woe tothose who defy classification!Politics is the art ofdistractionIn a volatile society, it is a pressure valve, offering a constructiveactivity for those whose dissent might otherwisetake destructive forms, so that their efforts to contest the statusquo only serve to recreate it. For the dissident, it is a wildgoose chase that wastes all the energy and brilliant ideas hehas to offer, confining him to meaningless arguments withthose who should be his comrades-in-arms, to dialogue withthose with whom he cannot ever be dangerous, and to undertakingsthat are as trivial as they are quixotic.Politics is the art ofdefermentIts solutions are always around the corner, but never arrive.As everyone knows, not least the politician, the problemswe face can only be solved collectively—and we willdo so, all together, but tomorrow, when everyone is ready.In the meantime, each individual is asked to behave herselfand wait, “just like everyone else” is doing—in short, to giveup all her strengths and opportunities, to paralyze herselfvoluntarily so she can be represented, with all that entails. Inpolitics, the adventure of changing the world is transformedinto the tedium of waiting for it to change. Anyone whowants to act immediately, despite the shortcomings of thecurrent context and the limitations inherent in any specificaction, is always looked on with suspicion: if she is not anagent provocateur, the argument goes, her enemies can certainlyuse her as one.But only if she resolves “I myself, right here, rightnow” can she then make a common cause withothers that is not a space of mutual renunciation inwhich all are free to control one another but not toact for themselves. The dignity of acting for the sakeof abiding by one’s conscience, suspending all fearof consequences, the joy that is sufficient unto itself,without need of tomorrows to return interest on theinvestment: only these can carry us into a world inwhich our eyes will no longer be fixed constantly onthe hands of the clock.Majority-Building in a DemocracyPolitics is the art ofcalculationIn politics, one no longer has friends, but allies; one nolonger has relationships, but associations; one’s communitybecomes a pool from which to draw potential foot soldiers tobe deployed and manipulated like chess pieces. It is necessaryto know how things stand, to choose one’s investments carefully,to weigh and measure every possibility—to assess everyopportunity and categorize every individual and group, justas one’s enemies do. In strategically appraising what one has,one gains everything but the readiness to lay it on the lineand risk losing it.Page 26 Commentary Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 27

Politics is the art ofaccommodationHowever radical the change one awaits, one must still survivesomehow as one waits for the world to change, and insurviving—as we all know—one makes compromises. Sooneror later, the most intractable rebel must form some kindof alliance with the powers that be: I won’t bother you, ifyou don’t bother me. Common sense, a perennial partisan ofsurvival, can always come up with good reasons for makingoneself agreeable: there are some compromises that are notso bad, it turns out, and is not the first duty of the revolutionaryto live to fight another day? Always resigning oneselfto settling for the lesser evil, little by little one accepts evilitself as inescapable. Anyone who contrarily wants to havenothing to do with evils at all must be an adventurist—oran aristocrat.Politics isrepressionthe art ofRepression of anyone who does not accept the limitationsof her social role, who wants to change things on thebasis of her own desires. Repression of anyone who longs tobe done with passivity, deliberation, and delegation, and toset fire to those who insist upon them and nothing else. Repressionof anyone who does not want to let her preciousself be supplanted by any organization or immobilized byany program. Repression of anyone who wants to haveunmediated relationships with others and feels that this isonly possible through the tearing down of barriers, bothsocial and physical. Repression of anyone who does nothave a “we” on which to swear. Repression of anyone whodisrupts the precious compromises of those who wait patiently.Repression of anyone who gives of herself withouthope of compensation—of anyone who defends her companionswith love and resoluteness—of anyone who refusesto accommodate herself to the consolation prizes offeredthose who tried once and failed. Repression of anyone whoneither wants to govern nor to control—of anyone whowants to live and act immediately, not tomorrow or theday after tomorrow—of anyone who wants to transformlife into a fascinating adventure.Politicsan artisatnotallFORGETTERRORISMHere’s one of those rare stories that gets the samespin from both the corporate and the independentoverstatement—but let’s not deny that some ofmedia: there was a brief window of time betweenus who didn’t have such a relative felt a twingeNovember 1989 and September 2001 when theof secret, perhaps subconscious jealousy of thosemost fundamental conflict in the world was betweenpower and people. Up until the Berlin walland outrage about the one and only subject onwho did, who could speak with such anguishfell 1 , it had been between capitalismanyone’s mind.and communism; now, asIn the same way that serial killers and serialeveryone knows,dramas, disaster movies and real disasters commandattention, so did New York City: and everyoneoutside the city was paralyzed, lookingit’s between terrorismand so-called democracy.on from a distance, wondering whatPolitics is thecooptionart ofBut for that brief, exhilarating period, thewould happen next as one doesprimary dichotomy in more and more people’sin a movie theater. We wereOne of the most effective ways to divert desire for realminds was between hierarchy and dominationall powerless, our sense ofchange into more politics-as-usual is to portray a politicalon the one hand and autonomy, liberty, and cooperationon the other.urgent of times. Those of us who opposed corpo-agency gone at the mostprofessional as subversive, or—better yet—to transform asubversive into a political professional. Not all politiciansEverywhere across the planet, people were startingto organize themselves, testing their hands atin our own passivity still stared at the screen withrate media and otherwise refused to be complicitcampaign for office—some even campaign against it. Likewise,certain philosophers make quite a comfortable livingself-directed activities and pushing back wheneveryone else; those who did not have such andecrying the hands that feed them. Reality—they knowstate and corporate interests tried to interfere. Asanalysis watched and accepted the conclusions ofthis well, and this is all they know about it—is always more It is the opposite of art: it issummits of the economic elite were shut down,the talking heads as if they were their own. Later,complex than any single action could address. They strive tolocal collectives assembled, and global networksdoing as they were told, they raised a flag that wasdevelop a theory that accounts for the totality of social ills, the obliteration of creativity andof resistance linked up, it began to feel like thenot their own, either.so they will be totally absolved of the responsibility to dofuture was up for grabs. But no one on eitherSo-called “activists” were among the ones mostanything about them.spontaneity, the reduction ofside of the barricades had factored in the unsettledaccounts U.S. foreign policy had wrought inhad shared a sense that they could change theparalyzed, comparatively speaking. Those whohuman relations to a network of interlockingthe third world, and everything changed the dayworld now froze up as if hypnotized. This wasPolitics is thecontrolart ofterrorists, directed by a former employee of thecertainly convenient for the powers that be, whochains.Once compromises have been made, once the social contracthas been signed, tear gas and plastic bullets are noC.I.A., brought those chickens home to roost inscripted the coverage and spin of the tragedy—butNew York City.why did this happen?Likewise, any art which is to be worthyIf you want to disable people, make them feellonger necessary to keep people in line. People will keepEveryone knows the unutterable tragedy thatinsignificant. Feeling insignificant paralyzes; withoutmorale and momentum, all the power in thethemselves in line, waiting at the mall and movie theater, sittingin traffic on the way to work, paying their rent and taxesoccurred that morning, when thousands ofof the name—the art of living,human beings lost their lives in an act of coldbloodedviolence. But another tragedy, a stranger,world—remember, that power is made up of theand obeying every rule and regulation—and if some starryeyedrebels will not, then their own fellow radicals will see tofor example—must be the opposite ofassembled powers of all individuals, it is not somesubtler one, compounded the first: the tragedyscepter wielded from above—can only be appliedit that they do, for nothing is more precious than the goodthat occurs in this society when a large numberpolitics: it must draw peopleaccidentally, according to the dictates of the fewname of radicalism. If anyone does something rash, othersof people have the misfortune of losing their liveswhose sense of entitlement is reinforced by theirhurry to deny that anyone of their persuasion would actuallydo such a thing, and to reeducate those from their ownlive on international television.together, put them in touchtitles and television exposure. Feelings of insignificancerender insignificant; desperation to beAn interesting side effect of the events of September11 was that television news ratings shotranks who might furtively approve. Nothing is more terrifyingthan the specter of a single human being who will notwith their hidden strengths,“where the action is” replaces the ability to decidethrough the roof. Everyone was glued to the television:and all conversations, in every city, state,for oneself what the action should be.play along with the collective madness—for if such a thing enable them to do what they think isThe underlying message of the news, the implicationhammered deeper home with every replayis possible for one, what does that say about everyone else?and nation, were about New York City. Suddenly—becausewhat one thinks about is one’s real-Every unique, self-determined action is a spark that shootsright without fearingof the towers collapsing, was that whatever webeyond the confines of both the status quo and abstract critiquesthereof, threatening both, not to mention those whoity—New York City, and more specifically thelittle people did, world history, and therefore realattack and deaths, were the epicenter of reality,what the neighbors will think or calculatinglife, was out of our hands. The trivial little gamesuphold them.and the zones radiating outward from it were lessand less real. The most a man in Iowa could hopeactivists and communities had been playing werewhat’s in it for them.for was to have a family member in the towers,irrelevant; no one would pay attention any longer,so he could be connected by blood to the thingslet alone join in. This was not necessarily true, ofPage 28 Commentary Rolling Thunderthat mattered. That, of course, is an insensitiveCrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 29The Hijacking of Reality

course. But it was news because it was on the news, and becauseit was news it made itself true 2 .Ironically, this displacement of meaning—this centering ofattention upon New York City as the global nucleus of meaningitself—was exactly what had outraged and baited the terrorists.But striking back at the heart of the empire with the same violencethey had learned from it, they simply fed the beast—forwhether you suffer it or apply it, terrorism is the ultimate spectatorsport, and spectatorship can only consolidate power in thehands of the ones who direct the spotlight.Those towers were not just a locus of financial power, but evenmore so of iconographic power—the most valuable currency inthis information age. How is that kind of power gathered andreproduced? In the same way financial capital is gathered andreproduced: moguls centralize and monopolize it by impoverishingothers of the sense that their life has meaning, thus forcingthem to buy in to their mass-produced meanings. For example:people in small town America watch television instead of talkingwith each other, just as indigenous peoples outside the U.S. seeksweatshop employment, because it seems to be the only game“Frankly, I never dreamed the World Trade Centerwould get finished so quickly and without incident.”–comic from the June 3, 1972 issue of The New Yorker.Page 30 Commentary Rolling Thunderin town. This isn’t natural—for the mass-manufactured alternativesto appear desirable, those television watchers have to have lost theintimate connections and ongoing projects that would have broughtthem together off their couches, just as the natives have to have hadtheir traditional lifeways destroyed by conquistadors. Disneylandis as fun as Des Moines is dull,just as Michael Jordan is as richas a Nike sweatshop worker ispoor—these are not coincidences.Economic exploitation andmedia domination are essentiallythe same process, carried outon different levels.So in terms of the war forsense of self that has gone onbetween us and mass media forgenerations now, September11 th , 2001 saw an act of superlativeterrorism carried outagainst every one of us: not justin the hijacking and crashing ofthe planes, but in the way theevent was used to hijack andcrash the budding sense thatA person who has a sensethat her life is meaningfuland her destiny is in herhands is in fundamentalways more alive than aperson who does not. Inthat sense, on September11, terrorists used airplanesto kill thousandsof people, and politiciansand media used the eventto kill a little bit of everyonewho survived.we could determine reality for ourselves. This consolidated powerin the hands of the U.S. government, among others, who used it tofurther paralyze and distract people by starting a series of controversialwars 3 . In a time when the hierarchical elite was anxious tocome up with a new false dichotomy to distract everyone from thefundamental struggle between power and people, nothing couldhave been more opportune.The question, now—the ultimate question, on which all lifehinges—is how we can once more reframe the terms ofthis conflict. It is not a question merely of peace versuswar: the decade of “peace” that led up to the September11 attacks was sufficiently bloody to persuade a generationof suicide bombers that it was worth dying to get revenge onthe West, and a new peace under the current conditions wouldbe even more treacherous. Nor can we cast this as a conflictbetween ideologies: we cannot afford to be armchair quarterbacksany longer, backing our favored teams or themes against otherswhile bullets and bombs rain randomly into the stands. The questionis—always is, no matter who is dying or killing, no matterwhat is said on television—what we can do ourselves, whatwe make of our lives, how each of us interacts with globalevents in our daily decisions. Our opponents arethose who would hinder our efforts and obscurethis question for their own ends, who wouldrather rule over a world of passive spectatorswracked by terror and war than take a placeamong equals acting to correct the injusticesthat provide justifications for politicians andterrorists alike.Everyone knows, if it were up to us there wouldbe no more wars, no more exploitation, no more terrorism.It is up to us.1History is rife with ironic coincidences, not the least of whichbeing that the Berlin wall fell on 11/9.2This shows how much we’ll have to learn about being able to ignorethe media, if we are to build a sustainable liberation movement.3As Hitler said, if you want to keep soldiers from stopping tothink for themselves, keep your armies marching—that goes forliberal protesters as well as army recruits.CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 31

To speak of deschooling is to speakperformer andperformanceYour average student of music thinks ofmusic as a thing to learn, not a thing to do.But despite academies and conservatories,methodologies and method books, pedagogiesand pedagogues and millions of rappedknuckles, the active verb in relation to theword music is still “to play.” You play music.You can also make music. Playing andmaking are the essential elements of beinga musician. Yet instead of playing and making,the student practices or works on. If youpractice, you aren’t really doing it. You arealways in preparation for when you’re reallygoing to do it. Well, when are you really goingto do it? At a lesson for your teacher?For an adjudicator in an exam or a judge ina competition? For parents or friends? Onceyou’ve really done it and your parent, teacher,or judge lets you know whether you’vesucceeded in making music or not, are youever going to really do it again?In a product-oriented society, performance(recording) and performer (persona)become the most important features of music,crucial because they are so eminentlymarketable. The only real music is the stuffthat passes the ultimate test of commodification.When you “perform” at a lesson oron request for relations and you haven’t beenpracticing and doing the work you knowyou should have been doing and you fail toin favor of doing—self-directed, purposeful, meaningfulthings—and against education—learning cut off from activelife and carried on under pressure of bribe and threat, greedand fear. It is to speak about people doing things, and doingthem better, and the conditions under which this can be possible;about some of the ways in which, given those conditions,other people may be able to help us to do things better, andvice versa; and about the reasons why these conditions do notexist within compulsory, coercive, competitive schools or evenso-called alternative learning institutions.perform up to everyone’s expectations—realor imagined, including your own—you feelbad. You do not feel like a musician. Youmay feel like lying. You may dislike yourselfand feel guilty. You may resent your teacherand parents for putting you through all of it.You may feel all these things even more intenselyif you were the one who wanted thelessons in the first place! Whatever you feel,you certainly won’t feel very musical.Enforced regimens cannot protect youngpeople from the many failures and tragediesadults have lived through. Music can onlybe enjoyed on its own terms. Focus on performanceinitiates a complex of feelings:frustration at doing poorly, resentment thatit takes so much work to be “good,” confusionabout music not being any fun at all.Ultimately, the student may resist practicingaltogether. All this counters a more authenticpurpose of playing music: to be “a morewell-rounded person,” to acquire anotherform of expression, for fun. Outside pressureof this sort is antithetical to learningand living.What most people call “education” entailsthe assumption that learning is an activityseparate from the rest of life, that is donebest when one is not doing anything elseand best of all where nothing else is done—in learning places especially constructed forlearning alone. Most use the term “education”as if it referred to some kind of treatment.Even “self-education” can reflect this:it can be seen as a self-administered treatment.But it is utter nonsense to say thatpeople need to be taught how to learn orhow to think. We are born knowing how todo so. We are born with the inclination toplay, and in doing so do not live a momentwithout learning.the origins ofcompulsoryschoolingThe structure of 20 th century schoolingin the United States was conceived in 1806,when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers beat theprofessional soldiers of Prussia at the battleof Jena. When your business is selling soldiers,losing a battle like that is serious.Almost immediately afterwards, a Germanphilosopher named Fichte delivered hisfamous “Address to the German Nation,”which became one of the most influentialdocuments in modern history. In effect, hetold the Prussian people that the party wasover, that the nation would have to shape upthrough a new utopian institution of forcedschooling in which everyone would learn totake orders.Thus compulsory schooling arrived inthe world, at the end of a state bayonet.Modern forced schooling started in Prussiain 1819, with a clear vision of what centralizedschools could deliver: obedient soldiersto the army, obedient workers to themines, well subordinated civil servants tothe government, well subordinated clerksto industry, and citizens who thought alikeabout major issues. Thirty-three years afterthe fateful invention of the centralizedlearning institution, the US adopted thePrussian style of schooling as its own.education asindustryCompulsory education is still meetingour superpower society’s need to traincitizens for subservience. In addition, educationnow prepares people for careers invarious industries that Fichte or Manncouldn’t have imagined in their time. Thebiggest surprise of all is that education hasitself become an industry. In a progressivelymechanized world, in which self-checkoutat the grocery store and e-ticket computercheck-in at the airport are replacing thevery jobs that once kept citizens busily integratedinto society, what can be done withall the surplus workers except to postponeendlessly their entry into the workforce?It is said that today’s high school graduatescan be sure that, if they are to have jobsat all, they will perform tasks of which wecannot yet even conceive. In the limbo betweenthe known and the unknown, thereis education. Teachers and administratorscan always be employed when otherjobs are scarce, and those taught to believethey won’t be ready to live life until they’vebeen properly prepared form a ready massof consumers. Would-be employees spendprogressively more and more time competingwith one another for an upper hand, anextra point, a longer list of credentials. Thisis an effective way to divert attention fromthe impending doom of unemployment,and a ready explanation for why some neverget the dream jobs they thought awaitedthem—they just didn’t study enough.Once upon a time, only the rich and powerfulsent their children to school. In today’scredit-based economy, in which everyone isexpected to be middle class and most mustlive beyond their means to maintain this illusion,the education industry has made akilling with a new form of protection racket.In order to be equipped for employment ofall but the worst kinds, people must paythousands or tens of thousands to go toschools that teach few of the skills the jobmarket actually requires. This traps them indebt for decades, forcing them to go on tosell themselves wherever the economy willhave them—it’s a highly sophisticated formof indentured servitude! Is there really nomore “educational,” let alone worthwhile,way to spend that much money? And wouldso many students, fresh out of college anddesperate to live freely for once, immediatelyseek employment if they didn’t have suchcrippling debts to pay off?dropouts anddeschoolersMost people born with a parent or twofind themselves in the smallest and most immediatesocializing institution, a family. Butto the government, this most basic institutionis almost entirely undependable andunsurveillable. Schools and daycare systems,in complementary compulsory and voluntarymodels, ensure that children absorbmass values. Accordingly, a wide variety offamilies, interested in self-governance forany number of reasons, plan ahead to deschool.In pop culture, these homeschooling andnonschooling families are represented ashippies or extremist freaks. We are told thatmany of them are rich and white. Rarely dowe see information about homeschoolingfamilies from demographics that are marginalizedby society. This may be becausepoor people and people of color are almostentirely ignored by the media. On the flipside, it may also be because many of thesefamilies prefer to remain anonymous: manyBlack parents fear that if school authoritiesdiscover how readily and willingly they’ll removetheir children from school, they willdesign laws to force them to bring their kidsback. Any homeschooler may view institutionalizededucation as a form of slavery.Many Black homeschoolers have cause tofear the government will enact truancy laws,like the fugitive slave laws, that will have amore serious effect upon marginalized familiesthan upon more privileged ones. Andwhile it is impossible to gauge, it also maybe true that, because of greater access totools, time, and a feeling of being entitled tobend rules, wealthier and whiter families aremore prevalent in the formal homeschoolingworld.Of course, many of the unschoolersout there are isolated in their principlesnot only from the system they refuse butfrom their parents as well. For the sake ofdeschooling, we should work to rid ourminds of the prejudices that would haveus view those who drop out of educationaltreatment as “failures” or “delinquents,”strays who must be caught and broughtback into the fold. When we hear thesethings about dropouts, we hear themfrom the point of view of the dogcatchers.Let us view dropouts instead as wiserefuseniks, conscientious objectors to astifling and dehumanizing process. Manystudents whose caretakers defined them asdropouts have since redefined themselvesas successful escapees from a useless educationalcareer.In the USA, the vast majority of youngpeople who drop out before graduation areLatino and Black. By the time they leave theyhave been attacked in both soul and body.Understandably, they refuse further “care”after suffering through intensive remedialprograms that imply that they are unable tosucceed within the system or to make it intosociety at large by any route approved of bytheir teachers. In schools that teach themnothing about themselves, they have had tolearn to fake almost anything. Many havecome to see school as a world-wide soulshredderthat junks the majority and hardensan elite to govern the others. This is the selfconsciousnessof the truant to which we allmay aspire. Let us remove the stigma currentlyattached to educational underconsumers.themisadventures ofteachers in thetemple of doomMost teachers are generous, intelligent,creative people. Some are very talented orknowledgeable in their fields and wouldbe great mentors or friends outside theconstraints of school. Many have given upchances to make lots of money becausethey believe in teaching even though itpays poorly. Especially if they are men, theysometimes endure years of being hassled bytheir families—“why don’t you find a realcareer?” Many teachers are terrific people.But the role they are forced to play in schoolkeeps them from behaving as real peoplePage 32 Commentary Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 33

in interactions with certain other real people,that is to say, students. Their talent and energyis drained by the task of constantly tellingpeople what to do. As instructors, these goodpeople scrape their sides against concrete barriersas they take the bureaucratic twists andturns any school requires them to. This is thenature of the fundamental restraints of institutionalschooling.When you have a knowledgeable, funny, orwise teacher, listening to that person weavestories and lectures can be delightful—assuming,that is, that she feels “allowed” by theadministration to be herself and say what shetruly knows and thinks. Unfortunately, thisis seldom the case, since most education officialshave to worry about offending any ofthe parents who might not re-elect them, andtherefore strive to keep their teachers as muteand mousy as possible. Nearly all those employedin a school live in fear of their superiors,because their superiors live in fear of theirvoting constituency. Therefore, all the interestingideas get censored down to the very lowestcommon denominator. The teacher can’t say,“Wait a minute. What’s fueling this so-calledwar on drugs?” because Johnny’s father, outraged,might call the principal to protest that“a teacher, of all people!” is encouraging druguse. Johnny’s father may in fact have seriousdoubts of his own about the war on drugs, buthe isn’t likely to accuse the administration ofbrainwashing, either, lest others brand him anunfit parent—and a big ship like the EducationalCurriculum isn’t easy to bring around.Some of the brightest and most radicallyinclined people you could ever meet becomeeither teachers or professors within this bureaucraticmud. School is one of the few sociallyascribed places for “free thinkers” to dotheir thing. Now that the soil has been poisonedand cemented over and almost all peoplerandomly deposited into vehicles, offices,prisons, and hotels, to speak of friendship, godand godlessness, or joint suffering is to be anacademic dreamer.What would happen if, instead of becomingacademics who train other would-be academics,we thoughtful folks sought out ourtrue peers and enacted our natural influencein more immediate ways? While opposing allpleas for any new form of institutionalized haven,this writer for one dreams of niches, freespaces, and squatted social centers. She hopesfor plotting tents for those who gather to takeon a project or a specific thought together,those who have met through common desirefor self-governance and have renounced all integrationinto the “system.”rethinkingdiscipline, safety,certification,public spaces,child labor, andthinking itselfLet us rethink discipline. One of the worstthings about this sort of arbitrary authority isthe way it makes us lose our trust in the naturalauthority of people who know what they’redoing and could share their wisdom with us.When they make you obey the cruel and unreasonableteacher, they steal your desire tolearn from the kind and reasonable wise person.When they tell you to be sure to pick upafter yourselves in the cafeteria, they steal yourown natural sense of courtesy. Imagine a roomfull of screaming people: truly, it is much easierto allow them to quiet themselves than to forciblyquiet them. Today’s schools insist on thelatter and thus strip people of the ability to bequiet and attentive on their own.Let us reconsider safety. Safety is always adominating concern for everyone hanging outwith especially young people. But the way topromote safety is to help kids become stronger,not weaker. Whether you are a parent ornot, consider that responsibility encouragesstrength, while surveillance and control ensureweakness.Let us not discriminate against the uncertified.If we must assess competence for a giventask, let us assess it as directly as we can, andnot conflate competence with the length oftime spent sitting in educational institutions.Those of us who have spent a lot of time inthose institutions can do our part to deflatethe value of educational currency by refusingto boast of our own “official” educationalcredentials. Strike these from your résumé;demand that others judge you by your actualtalents and accomplishments, as you wouldjudge others.Let us frequent libraries, cooperatives, museums,theatres, and other voluntary, less coercivecommunity institutions. Where they areinaccessible, let us work to make them accessible.Let us create more spaces in our communitieswhere young, old, and those in betweencan get together to pursue un-programmedactivities of all sorts. Let us end the policy ofshunting young and old into separate institutions“for their own good.”Let us spit on exploitative labor of all kinds,not child labor, the prohibition of which currentlydenies many forms of meaningful participationto the young. This will help revealfor what it is age discrimination, whichmandates that young people be taught aboutthe world before they are allowed to learnfrom it by participating in it.Let us learn to think again, and makespaces that encourage it! Book culture dependsupon stable companions and spacesin which they can come together, such ascoffee shops and periodicals for writers andreaders. Today both books and dialogueitself are opposed by competing media.The screen dissolves the text. The pictureand its caption triumph. Silent and sustainedattention is constantly interruptedby programmed noises. Specialized schoolsubjects and the school bells dividing theminto regular fifty-minute intervals interruptthe thoughts of any individual attemptingto think critically inside the school. Ourability to carry a sustained thought is underattack from movies and TV, from thenoise, speed, and information density thatprevail. Institutions that cater to the lowestcommon denominator, that aim to preparestudents for the insane world that exists—these cannot do anything but smother theability to think and feel freely.trustingrelationships withone another andthe youngWe all have observed ongoing conservativeculture wars over “family values.”“Family values,” of course, are about kids:precious, obedient, little spittin’ images ofupstanding agreeable citizens. People waryof change often fear that the young, theheart of the nuclear family, are potentialdisruptions. This suspicion is well-founded.Young people, as anyone who takesthem seriously can attest, often demonstratean ability to draw attention to thepolitical dimensions underlying everydaylife—to the dubious pretences by whichauthorities, often including parental authorities,establish themselves. Withoutcensure, with the room to be confidentlyinquisitive and direct, young ones can discernthe fundamentals of social relations byunearthing the root—that is, radical—detailswhich betray the reality of those relations,reminding us of the hidden roots ofpower on which authority rests in the USA.Spying that loose edge, they may just pry itback to ask: Why? Why do my sneakers say“Made in Pakistan”? Why are the sidewalksin this part of town crumbling? Why are wesupposed to go to school?Check your motives as you interact withthose you assume yourself to know morethan. The educator sometimes undertakesthe education of the child with such zealbecause a jealousy of the child’s purity liesat the base of his drive to make this otherperson more like himself. Likewise, he maybe spurred on by a resentment of the x-rayglasses and bravery that aid children in callingout incongruence and injustice.Because children are all too often seennot as individuals but as objects, as tofufor soaking up whatever marinade they areplaced in, they have been used by peoplewith all sorts of motives as testing groundsfor a myriad of half-baked solutions to socialproblems. “Proper child rearing” techniqueshave been presented as the meansto end poverty, crime, urban violence, andgeneral disorder, among other scourges.The child is taught proper social values, attitudes,and work habits to this end; butif she forgets or refuses her teaching, sheis shown that as an individual, she is theproblem, not the social system responsiblefor both her lessons and the social problemsagainst which she is supposedly beinginoculated.If we agree that children are good atlearning, let our attitude and dealings withyoung people bear that out. Let us resistthe temptation to become educators, to rubthe noses of the young in our greater experienceby unthinkingly adopting the rolesof teacher, helper, instructor. Let us trustpeople to figure things out for themselvesunless they specifically ask for our help. Asit turns out, they ask frequently. Peoplewhose curiosity has not been deadened byeducation are bubbling with questions. Thenature of the toxicity inherent in educationis precisely that so much of the teachingthat goes on is unwelcome.Furthermore, in support of not onlyyoung people but all people, we would dowell to nurture more accessible everydayplaces where knowledge and tools are notlocked up in institutions or hoarded asclosely guarded secrets. It’s easy enough tooffer, without imposition, to share our skillswith others. Take on an apprentice. Hang ashingle outside your home describing whatyou do. Let your friends and neighborsknow that you are making such an offer toany serious and committed person.living cannot beinstitutionalizedWhen we enter an institution, whetherwe do so willingly or by force, we often believewe can extract the good things it has tooffer and leave the bad ones behind. “However,”as one Lakota man famously saidabout schooling, “at least when we went inwe knew we were Indians. We come out halfred and half white.” Compromise with institutionalinfluence is usually a fool’s bargain.If you are unwilling to institutionalizeyour mind and heart within the limitationsof school, consider also a rejection of hospitals,classic love relationships, transportationnorms, working jobs. Accompany yoursecond look at schools with a second lookat all things, all of the time. Let us not cedethe responsibilities we have to one anotherto institutions. More and more of us considerit reasonable and virtuous to evade beingdiagnosed, cured, educated, socialized,informed, entertained, housed, married,counseled, certified, promoted, or protectedaccording to the needs instilled in usby our professional guardians. In the USA,more and more people are finding that thefreedom to drop out of any of our modernsystems is sacred to them.for dropouts withfinancial access toso-called highereducationThough many of us who are hooked onpublic institutions find ourselves needingand attempting to escape entirely from theirgrasp, you might find you have the inspirationor delusion it takes to live creativelywithin the belly of the beast. Truly, we allfind ourselves living in some chamber ofthat belly some of the time, regardless ofour life decisions. If you are a young personwhose parents have enough, and they expectyou to go to college on their dollar andearn the credentials to open doors locked toless privileged people, think of clever waysto apply this privilege. Obtain the conventionaltraining to become an MD so as todo transitioning surgeries or electrolysis forlow income transgendered people. Go tolaw school so you can represent people incourt who have refused institutionalizationand been charged with crimes for it. Many amarginalized subculture would benefit fromPage 34 Commentary Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 35

free or inexpensive access to the institutionaleducational training of someone who cando some of the tricky things that are strictlyregulated in this society—helping fit someonefor a prosthetic limb, to name anotherexample.But should you be interested in receivingsuch an education, beware. Like Frodoand the ring, to put an institutional toolin your hand temporarily, even if with thegoal in mind of destroying its power, is torisk falling victim to its allure and misguidingprinciples.Also, consider other ways to use youraccess to higher education. Maybe youcould take your folks’ money for schooland channel it to another person forwhom college is otherwise utterly inaccessible,who does not wish to or cannotas easily interact with the world withoutproving credentials. Depending on therelationship you have with your parentsand what honesty means to you, considerforging your diploma or building adummy college website to show your highgrades to your folks using an official-lookinginternet password and fake student IDnumber. On the off chance that your parentssupport your analysis or respect yourdivergent viewpoints as something otherthan an assault on them, ask if their moneycould be used to fund a project you havein mind: for example, to cut a giant checkto CrimethInc. to pay for the printing ofa brilliant book you are writing 1 .learning notto learn, notlearning to learnIf we are to think seriously about deschoolingour entire lives, we would do wellto develop the habit of setting a questionmark beside all discourse on people’s “educationalneeds” and supposed need for a“preparation for life,” and reflect instead onthe historical context of these ideas. Let usdoubt not only the notion that schooling isa desirable means, but also that educationis a desirable end. The alternative to schoolingis not some other type of educationalagency, nor the integration of educationalopportunities into every aspect of life, butways of living that foster a different attitudetoward tools.Educational function is already emigratingfrom schools into other sites (on-thejobtraining, anyone?), and, increasingly,other forms of compulsory learning arebeing instituted in modernsociety. Of course,learning itself is not madecompulsory by law. Instead,as is typical in consumersociety, it is subtlyenforced by other trickssuch as making peoplebelieve that they arelearning something fromtelevision programs, orcompelling people to attendemployee trainings,or getting people to payhuge amounts of moneyin order to be taught howto have better sex, how tobe more sensitive, howto know more about thevitamins they need, howto play games, how tobreastfeed, and so on.What could be if wewere to act as fresh wakingpeople every day? Stepout of bed to live everymoment of our lives accordingto our own selfdetermination?Eating aswe’re hungry, knowinghow to track down answers, not fearingintimidation from superiors, holding nocontempt for the younger, experiencing noanxiety or feelings of inferiority around theolder, suffering rarely from boredom, rarelylooking to others for approval or critique,being better able to concentrate and carrya sustained thought? This talk of “lifelonglearning” and “learning needs” has thoroughlypolluted not only schools but ourwhole lives with the stench of education.Potent living consists, as it always did, of apatient and steadfast search for truth, and inthe unfolding of capacities that are good andbeautiful in themselves. It takes place in athoughtful shaping of our surroundings, inconversation, in hospitality. Whoever lovessuch living will not sacrifice the present toan endlessly postponed future.1This suggestion of the author’s seems as good anopportunity as any to put to rest one of the variouspernicious rumors about the publishing wing of theCrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective, namely that thecollective members who operate it are rich brats whodraw on their bourgeois parents’ coffers to fund projects.In fact, this is not so, though said brats have beenforced to borrow money from their relatives before tokeep books in circulation, and do encourage other bratsto send them large quantities of their parents’ wealth,should they be middle or upper class, along with—please, and soon!—brilliant manuscripts.Last summer was full of adventures: cooking in outdoor kitchens,building tripods, planning actions, sleeping in treehouses in themiddle of NYC. I traveled up the east coast, coming to a new cityevery week. In the process, I fell for my traveling partner’s partner. Asa local organizer who had participated in several collective projectsthat involved facilitated meetings and complex protocol, I’d thoughtI already knew all there was to know about process; but now, deeplyimmersed in the beginning of my first polyamory love triangle, I discoveredit could extend to a whole new level. There were long conversationsto work out simple questions like who would sleep with whomeach night, and ongoing efforts to keep each other aware of all ourfeelings about every issue. It was often an arduous process, but consequently,I developed a very open and expressive relationship with mynew partner, and that felt healthy and good.At the beginning of a tumultuous time for my new triangle, thethree of us and the others with whom we were traveling biked to aparty in the city we were temporarily calling home. By the end ofthe night, I couldn’t balance well enough to get back on my too-tallbike. I was drunk. Too drunk. Throughout the night, like manyothers at the party, I flirted with and kissed lots of people. My newpartner was watching me, a little put off by my behavior.At first, I had been hesitant and cautious about how our newrelationship would affect my relations with my traveling partner;but earlier that day, I had decided that if we were going to try thisrelationship, I should open up and be really vulnerable with mynew romantic partner. I had decided that I was ready to sleep withhim and had been excitedly awaiting the appropriate time to sharethis decision with him. Towards the end of the night at the party Ikept approaching my partner and asking him to sleep with me whenwe got back to the house that night. I was excited to tell him thatI was ready to do something that he had been wanting. I think hejust kept telling me that I was being a drunk, but as a drunk, I keptinsisting that I was sober enough to know what I wanted and that Iwanted to fuck him. I was being persistent. I felt like he wasn’t beingclear with me, but I think I was just too drunk to understand no.The next day, I wasn’t thinking about that interaction; I didn’t reallyremember it. I had come home and crashed out alone on my friend’sempty bed, and we all spent the morning getting ready for a busy dayahead. But that afternoon, his other partner, my traveling partner,accused me of sexually assaulting him the night before. She told methat I wouldn’t stop asking him to sleep with me even though he keptsaying no, that I kept hitting on him, and that I made him feel unsafe.Perhaps her account of the situation was colored by the jealousiesand insecurities that would later play out between us, but because I1In retrospect, the most problematic aspect of this interaction was that shedefined my partner’s experience for him. Regardless of a person’s motivations, itis never appropriate to call someone out as a sexual assaulter without the explicitconsent of the other person involved.couldn’t even remember the night before, I was in no position todispute it 1 . I spent the day terrified of myself, asking, “Could I be asexual assaulter? I’m a survivor of sexual assault. How could I assaultsomeone?” and, more importantly, agonizing: “I really care aboutthis person. I would never want to make him feel threatened.”Finally, after a very scary day inside my head, I got to talk withhim. He told me about what had happened the night before andsaid he did not consider it sexual assault. He said he had been annoyedwith me, but that was the extent of it, and everything wasokay between us. But everything was not okay. Even if what happenedwasn’t sexual assault, I had clearly made poor choices anddisregarded how he felt, mistakes I consider inexcusable. Perhaps Ididn’t make him feel unsafe, but I am 5’2” and he is 6’2” and muchstronger than me. What if he had been drunkenly, persistently hittingon me all night, despite my discouragement? Would I have feltunsafe? Should my disrespectful behavior be tolerated any morebecause I am small and arguably less intimidating?Defining sexual assault is difficult. As in all aspects of relationships,there are few absolutes. Every relationship can only be definedand mediated by the people that comprise it; what is comfortableand safe for people in one relationship may not work for peoplein another. Accordingly, it is up to the survivor alone to name anexperience as being sexual assault or not. However, some actionsare unacceptable, regardless of whether they are labeled sexual assault.As we struggle to develop relationships free of hierarchy andpower, we must also develop a language with which to discuss allof the spaces—complicated and unclear as they may be—inwhich we act without respect forothers.Most of us grew upfully immersed in this profit-driven culture,in which most public relationships—whether economic, political,or personal—follow a model of dominance and submissionin which one party leads and the other follows. Inundated withmedia representations of these relationships, we unconsciouslymimic those dynamics in our personal lives, developing “skills”for acquiring power and protecting ourselves in our own relationships.As radicals, we understand that the connections we havewith one another are fundamental to the revolutionary poten-Page 36 Commentary Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 37

tial of our actions. Consequently, we work to build self-reliantcommunities and develop emotionally sustaining relationships,by nurturing our ability to act and communicate honestly andunlearning our destructive behaviors. This is difficult, and we oftenrevert to old habits and make mistakes. As individuals and ascommunities, we must create supportive, forgiving environmentsin which we can embrace our own shortcomings and errors andthose of others in the spirit of a genuine desire to continue reconstructingourselves. We need to equip ourselves and our communitieswith the tools to deal with the personal conflicts andcomplicated situations that inevitably arise as an integral part ofthe process of developing radical relationships.To this end, we need a more extensive and sophisticated languagewith which to address violations of personal boundaries andwork out how these can be discouraged. The discussion about howto cope with sexual assault within radical communities is constantlyevolving, and fortunately, at least in some circles, it is finallybeginning to be carried on in the open. Much can be taken fromthis discussion and applied to the ways other types of conflicts areaddressed; but at the same time, there is much that needs to bereworked. We would do well to reconsider the current languageavailable for addressing these issues: what the terms mean, whatpurposes they serve effectively, what their shortcomings are.In our relationships,we often set boundaries and sometimes even ask each other forconsent. In most relationships, these boundaries are unspoken, assumed:I will not sit on my friend’s partner’s lap. I will only hug thisfriend for hello and goodbye. In romantic relationships, we tend todefine these boundaries more explicitly with our partners: I will nothave unprotected sex. It is not okay for my partner to kiss me in frontof my parents. In relationships of all kinds, from platonic to sexual,we can cross others’ boundaries and hurt them or make them uncomfortable.This happens frequently, especially in relationships inwhich boundaries are only implicit.Sexual assault is an intense manifestation of this violation ofboundaries. When a sexual assault occurs, the one who crosses theboundary is labeled the perpetrator and the one whose boundaryhas been crossed is called the survivor, a more empowering term forvictim. This is forceful terminology, and it can be really useful forassisting the survivor in naming and processing an experience. Simplyhaving language with which to break the silence imposed bysuch a difficult experience can be a powerful thing. This languageis also useful for dealing with those who are unwilling to be heldaccountable for their actions, who refuse to talk about and workthrough their issues. Being labeled a perpetrator of sexual assaultcarries a heavy weight; naming an act sexual assault means that the2…although it’s important to point out that these are interactions which many ofus are unfortunate enough to experience, and which often carry an impact on our livesdisproportionate to the frequency with which we experience them.matter will be taken seriously and, hopefully, addressed by all whohear about it. In this way, the labeling of the perpetrator can pick upwhere self-initiated dialogue leaves off.However, beyond these specific situations, the perpetrator/survivorlanguage has many limitations. There is a wide spectrum ofinteractions that are unhealthy and non-consensual, but the termsexual assault describes only a narrow range of that spectrum 2 .Imagine if we could plot our interactions on a line from the mostconsensual to the least. The ones that are completely consensual, inwhich no boundaries are crossed, would occupy a small space onone side, while those interactions labeled sexual assault would occupya small space on the other; somewhere in the middle, betweenthese extremes, there would still be a whole range of interactions inwhich boundaries are crossed to varying extents. As it stands, thelanguage used specifically to describe sexual assault is not sufficientfor describing those interactions that fall somewhere in the middle.The language of perpetrator and survivor can also promote a falsesense that sexual assault is the only form of boundary violation worthaddressing. Describing sexual assault and the survivors and perpetratorsthat experience sexual assault as distinct from other, presumably“normal,” experiences of sexuality misrepresents any experience notlabeled sexual assault as free of coercion. On the contrary, in our authoritariansociety, domination infects everything, resulting in evenour most intimate and cherished relationships being tainted withsubtle—or sometimes not so subtle—unequal power dynamics. Adivision between “sexual assault” and “everything else” lets everyoneoff the hook who has not been labeled a sexual assaulter; it thus focusesattention away from the ways we all can stand to improve ourrelationships and our sensitivity to one another.One of the most problematic consequences of our lack of appropriatelanguage is that people are often reluctant to address more subtleor complicated experiences of boundary violations at all. The perpetrator/survivorlanguage is so serious that in less dramatic cases—forexample, in situations that are not violent or physically forceful—thesurvivor may even wonder if what he or she is feeling legitimatelyconstitutes a serious problem worth exploring and addressing. If aperson chooses not to use the language of sexual assault to describe aviolation of his or her boundaries, does that mean it is not important?Many people are understandably hesitant to accuse loved ones of sexualassault or label them perpetrators because of the stigma attached tothese terms and the drama that often ensues when they are used. Thisshould not mean that non-consensual interactions go unaddressed.It also seems to be the case that, as much as the perpetrator/survivorlanguage is useful when dialogue is impossible, it can also haltdialogue where it might otherwise be possible. This language createscategorizations of people rather than descriptions of their behavior,reducing an individual to an action. As such, it tends to put peopleon the defensive, which often makes it harder for them to receivecriticism 3 . The definitive implications and accusatory tone of thislanguage can precipitate a situation in which, instead of focusing onreconciling differing experiences of reality, people on opposing sidesstruggle to prove that their interpretation of reality is the “true” one.Once this dynamic is in effect, the discussion is no longer about peopleworking through their problems and trying to understand andrespect each other’s unique experiences, but an investigation about“objective” reality in which all parties stand trial. No one should everbe forced to defend what he or she feels, least of all someone whohas survived a violation of his or her boundaries. Regardless of “whatreally happened,” a person’s experience is his or hers alone and deservesto be validated as such. To decide which reality is “the truth,”we must give value to one person and not the other: this is validationon the scarcity model. When conflicts arise surrounding a questionof sexual assault, communities are often forced to take sides, makingthe matter into a popularity contest; likewise, individuals can feelrequired to support one person at the other’s expense.If we coulddevelop a way of addressing these situations thatfocused on promoting communication and understanding ratherthan establishing who is in the wrong, it might make it easier forthose who commit boundary violations to hear and learn fromcriticism and less stressful for those whose boundaries are crossedto address these instances. Whenever a person feels that his or herdesires have not been respected, regardless of whether or not acourt of law would find there to be sufficient evidence to substantiatecharges of sexual assault, all those involved in the situationneed to hold themselves accountable for the ways they have notcommunicated with or respected each other and work out how tomake sure it never happens again.We also need a language that can account for situations in whichit is not clear who is the perpetrator and who is the survivor. Identifyingone person as a perpetrator may not make sense if both orall of the people involved in the interaction both crossed anotherperson’s boundaries and had their own boundaries crossed. The languagewe currently have available to describe these situations createsa false division of the world between perpetrators and survivors,when—just as with oppressors and those who are oppressed—most people experience both sides of the dichotomy at one timeor another. Such a binary sets up one class of people as entirely inthe right and one as entirely in the wrong, as if one always bearsall accountability and the other has no responsibility or no way tomake their relationships more consensual. In extreme cases, this isindeed the case, but we also need to be able to address all the othercases, in which both parties could stand to improve their communicationskills and sensitivity.We need a new way to conceptualize and communicate aboutour interactions, one that takes into account all of our differentboundaries—sexual, romantic, and platonic—and the ways theycan be crossed. Practicing consent and respecting others’ boundariesis important both in sexual relationships and in every otheraspect of our lives: in organizing together, in living collectively, inplanning direct actions securely. Non-hierarchical, consensual relationshipsare the substance of anarchy, and we need to prioritizeseeking and promoting consent in all our interactions.As every experience is unique, we should use language specificto each one, rather than attempting to force all our experiencesinto abstract categories; we can do so by describing each individually:as a deliberate boundary violation, for example, or asa decision in which consent was ambiguous. We can domuch to break down the stigma and shame surroundingthe issue of sexual assault by opening up dialogue aboutnon-consensual interactions of all kinds. In developingour communication skills about our abuse and abuser histories,our sexual histories, our desires, we can create thespaces to begin to talk about the grey areas of consent. Weneed to foster a culture that takes into account the factthat, despite how desperately we want to be good for thepeople we love, we sometimes make mistakes, fail to betruthful, and cross boundaries. We need to support bothsurvivors and perpetrators: not to condone non-consensualactions, but because we all need to rid ourselves ofthe ill effects of living in a hierarchical, capitalist society,and to do so, we must work together.To broach these questions is not to deny that there issuch a thing as sexual assault, nor to defend it as acceptablebehavior. On the contrary, it is to demand that weacknowledge that we live in a rape culture: a culture in which sexualassault is pervasive, as are the forces and dynamics that promote it.Sexual assault is a part of all of us who have grown up in this society;we cannot ignore it, or pretend that because we ourselves havebeen assaulted or because we work to live anarchy in all aspects ofour lives that we are not capable of sexual assault. The only way torid our lives of sexual assault is to open the issue up. This means wemust make it safe enough to come out as an assaulter, so that each ofus is able to address, openly, honestly, and without fear, everythingfrom the most minor acts of inconsideration to the most seriousboundary violations. We are all survivors; we are all perpetrators.3It is important for both the perpetrator and the survivor to deal with theiractions and experiences in supportive environments. If the survivor is unable orunwilling to work with the perpetrator, some manifestation of community stillshould. Sexual assault and other forms of unhealthy relationship dynamics are communityissues, and must be dealt with accordingly. Hopefully, all the individualsinvolved can receive support from a variety of sources.Page 38 Commentary Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Commentary Page 39

Before my summer travels, although I had spent a lot of timethinking about and working on making my relationships reflectmy anarchist ideals, I had only recently learned the uses of thesubcultural catchphrase “consent.” While becoming acquaintedwith this new term, I met a fabulous new friend. When we firstmet, we spent only a few intense days together, but the timeI shared with this new friend made that word, consent, moremeaningful to me than any workshop or article ever could. Theyconsider consent a fundamental part of all of their relationships,and with them, I saw how consent could be enacted daily withfriends and lovers.At first, it was strange that they checked in with me so frequentlyabout all the little ways we were physical with one another.Throughout both our casual and intimate conversations,they would ask for my permission before rubbing my shoulders,holding my hand, or resting their head on my lap. Other times,they would touch me lightly, then ask, “Is this okay?” before proceeding.I began to think that they had a difficulty being physicallyclose and consequently were especially conscientious aboutothers’ personal space, but they always seemed comfortable withthe closeness I initiated—even when I forgot to ask for explicitpermission before touching them. They also didn’t seem offendedor surprised that it was not easy for me to reciprocate the verbalconsent they offered me. I tried to be conscious of how we wereinteracting and to vocalize my desires before moving into theirspace or touching them, but I’ve always had a hard time beingverbal. As I had only heard the word consent used in referenceto sexual relationships, I began to ponder their intentions. I keptthinking to myself, “Does my new friend have a crush on me? Dothey want something more intimate than friendship?”However, as I got used to my friend’s style of establishing consent,I recognized that it was part of their personality and indicativeof the way they tried to interact with everyone. As I realizedthis, my feelings about their questions changed. I stopped tryingto read into their questions to see if they indicated unspoken interests,and started to appreciate that they were asking how I felt.I felt so respected. It made me feel how deeply my friend caredabout me that they wanted to know how I felt about everything,and it made me feel comfortable with them very quickly.Feedback and discussion are welcome: redefiningconsent@yahoo.comPage 40 Commentary Rolling ThunderSome questionsabout consent.Think about it!(from the awesome zine, see no speak no hear no)Have you ever talked about consent with your partners orfriends?Do you know people or have you been with people who defineconsent differently that you do?Have you ever been unsure about whether or not the personyou were being sexual with wanted to be doing what you weredoing? Did you talk about it? Did you ignore it in hopes that itwould change? Did you continue what you were doing because itwas pleasurable to you and you didn’t want to deal with what theother person was experiencing? Did you continue because youdidn’t want to second guess the other person? How do you feelabout the choices you made?Do you think it is the other person’s responsibility to say somethingif he or she isn’t into what you’re doing?Are you clear about your intentions?Have you ever tried to talk someone into doing somethingabout which he or she showed hesitancy?How might someone express that what is happening is not okay?Do you only respond to verbal signs, or are you sensitive toother signs?Do you think it is possible to misinterpret silence for consent?Have you ever asked someone what kinds of signs you shouldlook for if he or she has a hard time verbalizing when somethingfeels wrong?Do you think consent can be erotic?Do you check in as things progress, or do you assume the originalconsent means everything is okay?Do you think about people’s abuse histories?Do you ever get yourself into situations that give you an excusefor touching people you think would say no if you asked?Examples might include dancing, getting drunk around them,falling asleep next to them.Do you make people feel they are not “fun” or “liberated” ifthey don’t want to try certain sexual things?Do you ever try to make bargains? (i.e., “If you let me ___, I’ll___ for you.”)Have you ever used jealousy as a means of control?Do you think it’s okay to initiate something sexual with someonewho is asleep?How do you react if someone becomes uncomfortable withwhat you’re doing, or if he or she doesn’t want to do something?Do you get defensive? Do you feel guilty? Does the other personend up having to take care of you and reassure you, or are youable to step back and listen, to hear and support the other personand take responsibility for your actions?In telling your side of the story, do you attempt to change theway the other person views a situation?Do you ever talk about sex and consent and abuse when youare not in bed?BE CAREFULWITH EACH OTHERSO YOU CAN BEDANGEROUSTOGETHER

Report from the Field:where sugar comes fromThis is the first in a series of eyewitness accounts, one of which will run in each issue, in which oursubversive agents will infiltrate the internal workings of capitalist society (which, let’s face it, mostof us have to occupy and even operate all too often anyway) in order to report on them, á la UptonSinclair’s The Jungle, and offer insight into what might be done to destabilize them.So here’s the deal. Every fall I work inthis beet sugar factory in western Minnesota.A whole lot of the sugar that goesinto all kinds of processed food comesfrom sugar beets, and a whole lot of thosesugar beets come from western Minnesota.The county the factory is in is deadflat, except for the Minnesota River valley,and it contains exactly three things: corn,soybeans, and sugar beets as far as the eyecan see. It’s completelyrural,but it’s also every bit as unnatural as LosAngeles or Disneyland.Every year in September the beet farmersstart pulling their crops. They pull them outof the ground with a combine, load themonto a semi truck, and drive them downto the plant. It takes the plant until springto process the whole harvest, so they haveto store the beets outside in seven giganticpiles, and they have to hire seasonalworkers to run the machines thatunload the trucks. By theend of the harvestseason each one of the piles is biggerthan a football field, and up to thirty feettall. It’s one whole hell of a lot of beets.It’s good money. The farmers pull beetsall day and night, unless it’s too hot, or toocold, or too wet. Seasonal workers—beetpilers—work twelve hours a day, everyday, as long as the farmers are pulling. Thisamounts to eighty-four hoursa week if the weathercooperates, and theovertime adds upquick. Anythingovere i g h thours a day orforty a week is time anda half, and Sunday is doubletime. If I live extremelyfrugally, I can make enoughmoney there to fund my activitiesfor the better part ofthe rest of the year.The town is exactly like everyother agricultural town of its size.There is a bar, a diner, a hardwarestore, two gas stations, a post office,a library, and a police station. The facesbehind the counters almost never changefrom year to year. The tallest building is thegrain silo, and the town ends abruptly wherethe beet fields begin at the edge of the lastfamily’s yard. If you walk the railroad trackstwo miles east you’ll get to the factory. Thewhole place is ordinary in every way, exceptthat once a year it is crawling with beet pilers.There are three kinds of people that pilebeets: The Locals, the Latinos, and The Kids.Western Minnesota was stolen from its originalinhabitants in the nineteenth century,and has been populated almost exclusively bywhite people of Scandinavian heritage eversince. Recently, however, a lot of Hispanicfolks have moved up there looking for work.There is a sizable Latino minority in both thetown and the factory. And then there are thekids. It’s a strange phenomenon, but everyfall the town is overrun with wild lookingyoung people from Somewhere Else withdogs and facial tattoos who work beets becausethe money’s good and they don’t askmany questions. I am one of them.There really isn’t anywhere in town to accommodateall of us in any conventionalsense, so almost every year we end up stayingsomewhered i f f e r e n t .There used to be a fleabagmotel down the road that would rent tobeet pilers, but they got shut down for copiouscode violations. Last year about forty ofus occupied an abandoned farm just past theoutskirts of town. It was sort of like a bandof gypsies descending on a medieval village.I was a little worried that babies weregoing to start turning up missing, and thatthe townspeople were going to come after uswith pitchforks.One year the weather was terrible. Nobodywas working or getting paid, and nearly everyonewas camped out at the bar for dayson end, getting ferociously drunk and terrorizingthe town. Eventually the law gotinvolved. But the hell-raising proved to be asurprisingly effective strategy. The next yearthe company tried really hard to work us nomatter how bad the weather got, presumablyjust to keep us off the streets.Another time the bartender went down tothe farm to hang out with us after work. Sherolled up on a grim horde of beet pilers, solemnlyskinning and eating a puppy aroundthe camp fire. She was understandably horrifiedby this, even after someone explainedthat the puppy had not been murdered. Ithad been killed accidentally by one of thelarger dogs, and the person who was responsiblefor it had decided that this was the mostrespectful way to deal with its death. She alwaysseemed a little wary of us after that.Working beets really is a positive experiencein a lot of ways, though. There is a realcamaraderie and a kind of solidarity that candevelop out of living and working and eatingand sleeping collectively with a group of peopleunder trying conditions. There are peoplewho makea kind of circuittogether throughoutthe year, piling beets inMinnesota, raking blueberriesin Maine, canning fish in Alaska,and doing a variety of other things. It’sone way to make work, and life, a littleless alienating and isolating. It can alsosuck pretty badly. The extreme drunkennessand perpetual drug abuse can get to bea bit much, and sleeping on a pile of strawin a barn for six weeks without any runningwater or electricity while working eightyfourhours a week in the freezing cold willreally put you in the mood to not take anyshit from anyone.The work is really easy. A well-trainedorangutan could run a beet piler. You pressthe same buttons and pull the same leversover and over and over. It’s mostly just reallyloud and monotonous and cold. It’s alsofairly dangerous. You have to keep an eye onall the tweaked out truckers so they don’t runyou over, and make sure not to fall in themachine. Somebody gets killed on a beet pilesomewhere in Minnesota or North Dakotaalmost every year.The inside of the factory is even crazier.There are unfathomable mazes of incomprehensiblemachines, catwalks and conveyorbelts to nowhere, and ancient engines cakedwith a foot of beet pulp. There is the deafeningracket of a thousand endlessly grindinggears, an entire floor which is always abouta hundred and thirty degrees, and a placecalled The Pit where no supervisor will evergo. The whole place is completely inhuman,and there are no shortages of ways to hide,get maimed, or die.CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Testimonials Page 43

the Hunchback of Hardees. However, the light in themorning woke me up far too early for my liking, thetemperature during the morning was unbearable, andthe Hardees employees swiftly became suspicious ofmy constant clambering on their roof and use of theirbathroom facilities. What was I to do? I needed a roof,at the least, and possibly stable access to a bathroomand shower. But how? There were no abandoned buildingsto squat nearby, and I had no money with whichto rent a house. The local tolerance for couch-surfingwas reaching an all time low given the explosion of thewillfully unemployed in my hometown.Then the idea came upon me as a bolt out of the heavens.I would go boldly where no CrimethInc. agenthad gone before, at least not since we had all departed onour quixotic quests together: I would get a job. At firstglance, this would spell Selling Out, at least to the less creativesoul. Luckily, I had a twist: I would squat my office. Icould hear the angels singing in the background.Being none too creative at the job placement office,I decided to apply again for my former pre-homelessjob as staff computer programmer for a lab thathosted experiments—no, not animal experiments,but human experiments, such as torturing humans bymaking them listen to multiple tones, or read while beingassaulted by very bright colored lights. Go figure,it was for the good of science. For a less imaginativeperson, it would have been a horrible job, involvingsedentary computer programming for near minimumwage. However, it had a host of invaluable perks. First,there were no set working hours: I could work or notwork whenever I pleased, which left me free time toorganize demonstrations, go to punk shows, even disappearmysteriously for weeks. Second, the boss, ahighly-educated former Harvard professor, had little tono idea what computer programming actually consistedof, and thus no idea how little or how much work Iwas doing. Third, I would have my own computer andunlimited printing access. Fourth, I would have an entireroom mostly to myself, with nearby bathrooms, aroof, and even access to a gym that included showers.Problem solved. And think, with zero bills and anactual paycheck coming in, I could fund full-scaleanarchist resistance to the power of transnational capital,while simultaneously having a place to live! For aninstant, I nearly doubted the wisdom of CrimethInc.propaganda and even the almighty and all-seeing BobBlack. Perhaps they had it all wrong: perhaps it was notreally work and money that were wrong. Yes, it is laborand consumption that the capitalist machine going. Butbeing paid for doing minimal to no work while enjoyingthe luxuries of an air-conditioned office, that was beinga parasite, draining the system. In fact, in my laziness,I was probably causing more damage in terms of lostfunds, abused health care, and the like than most BlackBlocs managed to pull off! I could use the money tobuy guns with which to begin nutty anarcho-survivalisttrainings, or pay for high-priced Mediterranean food atmy favorite diner if I started to get soft.Thus began my one-man office takeover. First, Iwent to a friend’s house, shaved, showered, andeven briefly considered combing my hair. I sent a politee-mail to my boss telling him that I had spent an enjoyableyear with a completely fictional employer beforeleaving for a completely fictional backpacking tour ofEurope only to return to find my imaginary job gone.Given my hard times, would he remember my previoustime of gainful employment with him and let his waywardsheep back into the fold? My boss responded thathe would require a meeting the next day. I stepped backinto his office. After a brief chat about the wonders ofopera and the great things I could do for him once hehired me, I was back on payroll. Even more importantly,I had a copy of the office keys. The camel had its nose inthe tent, and the rest of the body was on the way.At the end of the first day, I scoured the office lookingfor places to sleep. There was a couch in the hallwaythat was comfortable, yet too out in the open for fulltimeeight hour sleeping. There were various open areasin the office big enough for my sleeping bag, and whilethe tile floor was forbiddingly cold at night, it couldbe managed. I tried it for a night. Late that night, thedoor creaked open. In horror, I jumped out of the sleepingbag—luckily, I’d been sleeping in my clothes—andpushed it beneath my desk. Thanks perhaps to divineprovidence, the cleaner seemed to ignore me completely.Perhaps she was a silent co-conspirator? Or was runningoff vagrants not part of the job description?In fact, the cleaning staff was quite cool. They wouldarrive at four or five in the morning and start working.Given the racist and sexist nature of white collarindustry, while all the employees and bosses wereuniformly Anglo-Saxon males, the cleaners were uniformlyforty-something-year-old black women. Whilemy boss, like the other upstanding citizens of the smallliberal town in which this story takes place, liked tocongratulate himself on his enlightened, vaguely leftpolitical views, he and those like him cast a blindeye towards the entirely African American near-slavelabor force that had to wake up at ungodly hours inthe morning to pick up their trash and wash theirfloors—in other words, to take care of things any selfrespectinghuman being should be able to manage forthemselves. The cleaning staff, for their part, rejoicedin not having any direct supervision, and would set upa sound system (okay, a jukebox, but they cranked it!)that blasted funky soul anthems throughout the staidoffice building in the wee hours of the dawn. In fact,though I have to admit to being about as white as awhite boy can get (despite my anarchist pretensions ofbeing “down with communities of color” and havingattended some anti-racist trainings), I began to enjoyfunky soul music in a serious way. The cleaning staffwould sing and shout along to it occasionally, and it reallywould make my evenings to hear people enjoyingthemselves in that soulless office. I never heard my bossshout or sing from his office during the day; doubtless,shouting and singing would have been noticed anddisapproved of by the powers that be.The Soul Cleaning Train Staff and I soon struck upan odd friendship of sorts. I would be in my computerlab at some ridiculous hour, pondering my sleepingoptions or writing some fiery anarchist manifesto,they would barge in to take out the trash, I wouldsmile and mutter “Another late night at work…,” andwe would give each other conspiratorial winks. MaybeI imagined the winks, but regardless, they never toldanyone on me. For my part, I kept my office space asclean as possible, and tried to take my own trash out.When we met in the halls, we talked about our loveof soul music and how the world was headed straighttowards apocalypse thanks to bastards like my boss andother older white men in suits.The sleeping situation seemed little better than therooftop, until I noticed two small doors on the farside of my office. In office spaces, small distances cansomehow seem quite vast, and the other side of the officeseemed to be a no man’s land of strange doors. Unfortunately,the first was locked. The second opened toreveal a utility closet full of weird, forsaken computersand their manuals, all made during the reign of Reagan.The last opened unto a closet that was virtuallyempty except for one weird table and a mostly emptybookshelf. My heart brimmed with joy, and tears filledmy eyes. I had found my home. Better yet, I couldlock the closet door from both the inside and outside,using the same key that opened the main computer labdoor—which my boss had so foolishly given me. Thatvery night, I loaded in the box of anarchist books I hadhidden at a friend’s house a year earlier and the backpackthat contained the rest of my possessions, androlled out my sleeping bag. Now I could sleep safelyand soundly for as long as I wanted. When I woke up,I merely had to listen carefully to the door to hear ifthere was movement from one of my rarely-seen fellowemployees, and, if so, not leave until they left. Otherwise,I would have appeared out of the closet like somekind of apparition and caused somebody to have aheart attack, or at least made myself seem suspicious.Food was easily taken care of, for the workplace convenientlyprovided us employees with a refrigeratorand microwave. I hid bagels and other dry foodstuffsin my closet, saving the refrigerator for more perishableitems. While other employees carefully labeledtheir foodstuffs with their names, given the preponderanceof food I had in the fridge and its rather startlingrate of consumption, I decided to risk my food in thename of keeping a low profile, leaving it all anonymous.Rehydrating bagels in the microwave, drinkingorange juice… I felt like the hero of some white-collarThoreau text on office self-sufficiency.As regards work, my boss thought I was the hardestworker he had ever seen, despite my actual lowproductivity. For even the most elementary of computerprogramming tasks, I would groan and moan:“Oh, how long this is going to take me!” I’d complain,strategically overestimating the time by at least a factorof ten. Then, I would surprise the boss with myamazing productivity by finishing the job “early.”Magically, one day of work could thus be transformedinto a week, and since I routinely overestimated myresponsibilities as two weeks of work, I would even finishahead of schedule! As he lacked other programminghelp (or at least competent programming help—a fewother part-time employees would occasionally showup, but I was the only proud full-time employee), Isoon had my boss on a leash. I was careful to leavethings undocumented, and so he soon was dependentPage 46 Testimonials Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Testimonials Page 47

upon my expertise, having to personally ask me how toget a certain doodad or thingy-bob to work.had transformed myself from the status of homelessI vagabondage to invaluable employee, and significantlybettered myself financially. All the same, I wasstill more than a little annoyed at being paid hourly,when it was clear that I deserved to be a salaried employee…or at least be paid twice as much per hour asI was. I began filling out my timesheet with a regularforty hours a week, then moved up to fifty. My bossnever really read the timesheet carefully—it turnedout he would sign for anything. After I passed a certainpoint in my burgeoning career, I even made himpre-sign the timesheets! I was no ordinary white-collarworker, I was a badass gangster. And how could myboss complain? I was the first person in at work whenI walked in, and the last person he saw as he left to gohome to his wife and kids.With things on the work front completely undermy control, I began inviting a few select friendsto use the resources of my workplace. One friend ofmine, a shaggily bearded man bearing no small resemblanceto Ted Kaczynski, was in dire need of a computeron which to type up his latest manifesto on themadness of industrial civilization. Being a vagabond,he had no such computer, and kept getting kicked outof the supposedly public libraries. As his co-author, Ifelt a responsibility to help, and began to let him intothe building as night fell, usually past nine when eventhe most hard-working of my fellow employees hadleft. Together with free reign over high-speed internet,word processing programs, and unlimited printing andoffice supplies, we spent night after night maniacallytyping, looking up synonyms and antonyms, findingthe perfect words to express our utter contempt anddisgust for the current geopolitical situation. As soonas dawn broke, like vampires, we disappeared back intomy secret closet, locking the door and cackling at thebizarre situation we were in.The manifesto was nearing completion one morningwhen I decided to retire a bit early to the closet,while my stalwart companion worked on crossingthe last Ts and dotting the last Is of our latest verbalrampage. In the heat of his writing frenzy, my companionwould become so engaged in his task that he wouldtake his shirt off and literally sweat out the various rhetoricalproblems he was valiantly confronting. One canonly imagine the effects on the average bourgeois officedespot of the surprise apparition of a bearded, shirtless,unwashed madman hunched over his computerkeyboard, surrounded by a plethora of thesauri anddictionaries. One can only imagine what went throughmy boss’s head when he opened the door of the officespace to see this completely deranged stranger typingaway on his computers. Stunned, my boss simply asked“Who are you?” Muttering something unintelligible,my companion conscientiously saved his work, gatheredhis books, waved at my boss, and fled down thehallways and out of the office. Strangely enough, whenI woke up and snuck out of my closet around lunch,my boss did not ask me a single question. When myco-conspirator informed me of the incident, I couldn’thelp but laugh. Still, I felt I was dangerously close tobeing caught.All the same, who was I to let this one incident ruinmy good nature? Indeed, just another few weekshad gone by when a friend of mine, the crust punkwho told me about the roof of Hardees, stopped backin town. Being a kind-hearted soul, I let him in onmy little scam at the office space. He was flabbergasted,and frankly, a bit jealous. After all, I had constantinternet radio, access to CD-burners, broadband internet,and air conditioned housing without supervision,not to mention free money in the bargain. In abizarre turn of events, he asked if I could get him ajob there. I dropped the question to my boss in oneof our semi-weekly meetings, and my boss told me ofsome webpages he needed made. I confided to my bossthat I was an old-fashioned computer programmer,not a web master, but luckily I had a friend who wasan expert webmaster who would do the job for him.Delighted, my boss arranged a meeting with my crustpunk friend. After a bit of cleaning up, my friend wasable to impress my boss as a competent web designer,and was hired on a part-time basis designing webpages.Now, not only did I live in the closet, I had a roommate.Later that very evening, he moved his backpackand sleeping bag into the closet, and we were set. Wehad great times programming away, listening to viciousmetal bands over Internet Radio, doing as little workfor maximum payment as we could get away with. Thewebpage never seemed to get done exactly right, thecomputer programs always had one or two bugs (“it’snot a bug, it’s a feature!”), and the money kept on flowingin. What could I say? We had found a comfortableniche within the capitalist system as parasites, modernday silicon ticks on the back of the beast.Not content to keep this privilege to ourselves, weset about sharing the wealth. The office spacetransformed itself into a bastion of anarchy as soon asthe rest of employees left. When 5 p.m. rolled around,dreadlocked and mohawked local punks would come a-knocking at the office, wanting to hang out and surf theinternet. Soon, as word spread about the autonomousoffice zone, I regularly had half a dozen visitors clamberingaround the office late at night, mostly just hangingout. Lost in my minimum-work euphoria and snug inmy hidden closet, I felt invincible. Still, even I begangetting a bit worried occasionally. Punks would showup too early, sometimes even before 5 pm, and I wouldhave to shoo them away until a more socially acceptabletime. Since the office was naturally locked at five,they would have to knock on doors, sometimes beingspotted by other employees who were leaving. However,once the crowd was in, there was no stopping them, andthe office would become one giant anarcho-punk partycomplete with metal blaring from tiny computer speakersand everyone lounging around on the stools thatspun them around in circles until they got sick.One thing your average anarcho-punk likes todo is eat. They especially like to eat when it issomeone else’s food. One tragic day, I was typing upone of my latest works of art, when a young friend ofmine sporting a lip ring and a Dystopia t-shirt rushedin and asked if there was any food. I told him I hadsome bread, and possibly something in the fridge. Hebounded off, followed by two other friends of mineand my crust punk co-employee. Then, I heard someyelling from down by the fridge. Irritated that mysolitude had been disturbed, I rose to get the door ofthe lab and poke my head out to see what was goingon down the hall. Before I could even reach the door,my large crusty friend bounded in, smirk on his face.“Man, I think we pissed him off.” I was flabbergasted.Who had they pissed off? What the hell happened! Myco-employee looked at me with a look of fear in hiseyes, but he tried to crack a humorous grin. “Dude, itwas just mustard.”slammed the door shut and got my young protégésI to sit still for a second and tell me what had justtranspired. Everyone seemed to dodge my questions.Finally, the large one admitted his crime, “Yeah, I waslike looking for a something to put on your bread,and I took this mustard. And the mustard had thisname on it. And this dude walked in real pissed offand told me it was his mustard and asked who thehell I was and how I got in the building… I was like,I’m a friend of (insert author’s real name here). Andthen… I don’t know, I just put the mustard back…”Damnation. I felt my house of cards collapsing, alldue to the unnecessary use of mustard without propersecurity culture.was simultaneously furious and despondent. TheI mustard owner, a middle-aged man in his thirtieswith no real prospects for upwards career mobility, wassure to be irrationally upset about the kidnapped mustard.Incidents like this destroy the fragile world of thewhite-collar worker. Now that he had my name, hewould probably find out who I was and report me tomy boss. After all, non-employees were not even supposedto be in the building. My boss might decide toinspect the lab… he might even discover my illegaloffice squat! My head was spinning with the disastrousimplications of this incident. What was I to do?I grabbed the anarcho-punks by the collar and gavethem the boot from my workplace. I tried to straightenup things in the lab and in my hiding closet, and thenfled to a nearby friendly couch to contemplate mydoom. We had gone too far.Sure enough, the next morning I received an emailfrom my boss demanding an appointment. Fearingfor my life, I replied that I was sick for the day andcould reschedule it the next day. I spent an entire dayevacuating my most important possessions from thepremises and attempting to figure out how the hell toexplain the incidents of the previous day. However, noquick and easy excuse would come to me, much less arational course of events that my boss would believe.In despair, I shuffled to meet with my boss the nextday. He looked at me with stern eyes worthy of thePharaoh of Egypt. “You know what happened yesterday?”I nodded, and quickly cut off any further reprimand.“It won’t happen again. I just let two youngerfriends in and they made some mistakes. Don’t worry,it won’t happen again.” I repeated that like a mantrato avoid the inevitable action. Surprisingly, Pharaoh’sheart began to soften. He looked at me and, with hisquiet, highly cultivated New England accent, asked,“Is everything okay? Are you going through personalPage 48 Testimonials Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Testimonials Page 49

even larger club-wielding anarchists in front of the police to serve as abarricade and obscure their vision. As we turned down the street, wesaw behind us a giant horde of hundreds of our black-clad comrades,who with proper anarchist lack of organization had apparently startedmarching later than we had. All ideological and tactical bickeringaside, both “cop-attacking organizational anarchists” and the “chaoticcity-destroying anarchists” joined forces into one raging Black Bloc.The cops chose not to confront us, and we soon marched into whatappeared to be a well-off corporate part of town. Within seconds, thesound of breaking windows filled the air. With glee, every corporatewindow was broken, and Molotov cocktails were thrown inside, makinga funeral pyre of every foul corporate establishment unfortunateenough to be in our path. An American fast food chain had foreseenthat they were going to suffer this fate, and had blocked their windowswith huge metallic wall. However, some well-prepared anarchists hadbrought hammers and picks, and within minutes a hole had beenmade in the wall, and then one came up and smashed a hole in thewindow that was visible through the hole. Another anarchist cameand threw a few Molotov cocktails inside, and my eyes were blessedwith the sight of cash registers in flames.Caught up in the moment, I attacked a corporate camping store,and, after taking out its windows with my flag-cum-cop-beatingclub, I left my affinity group to begin looting the store. Grabbinga black utility belt, I began going for the backpacks when I felt thedistinct sensation of heat about my legs. I looked down—my pantswere on fire! I was the victim of Molotov cocktail friendly fire!!“Damn it, I’m in here—just wait a second!” I yelled, and did theclassic stop, drop, and roll—and the fire was out, although my pantswere singed. I ran out of the store, and as soon as I was out it burstinto flames behind me. The Greek anarchists apologized, saying thatthey didn’t know I was in there. Apparently, the whole concept oflooting just hasn’t occurred to Greek anarchists, who prefer to burnstores to the ground—a possibly healthier sentiment. With smilesand handshakes, we proceeded to attack the next store.In our two or three blocks of rampage, the Bloc had become veryloose, and the cops decided to attempt to come through the sidestreets and attack us. Lines of cops appeared both in front and behindus and began pelting us with tear gas canisters. The whole placewas transformed into war zone, with canisters whizzing through theair and anarchists running to the front lines to toss Molotov cocktailsat the cops. While cops are usually good at maintaining a positiononce they obtain it, they tend to flee in the face of a steady onslaughtof Molotov cocktails. Feeling responsible on account of the equipmentthat had been so generously donated to me, I put myself in aline of anarchists who were standing between the Molotov cocktailtossers and the police. The police massed their forces and, shieldsraised, began to rush the lines. Luckily, we managed to swipe ourclubs down on them, and held our positions. Slowly but surely westarted making our way towards a city square, and it appeared that,although weakened by excessive tear-gassing and beatings, we weregoing to continue to the police station itself. In the constant barrageof tear gas I had basically been blinded, and another anarchistreplaced me in the line as I pulled out a bottle of tear gas ointment,removed my helmet, and yelled for help to flush my eyes. My Frenchfriend had been keeping an eye on me and helped me flush myeyes. Recovering, we began calling out our secret word for our affinitygroup to regroup. We materialized out of the teeming, fightinghordes, all beaten, bruised, and tear-gassed,but together. Out of nowhere, I felt the crackof a baton upon my shoulder blades.A line of cops had just swooped in, shootingpepper-spray everywhere. The front linecrumbled, and within an instant I yelledfor everyone to fall back. My Belgian friendgrabbed me and we moved backwards, andwhen we looked up we were behind a lineof cops. Taking stock of the situation, weguessed that the cops were too busy peppersprayingthe people in front of them to noticeus, so we ran as far from them as we could,only to run into a colorful communist march.Looking for cover from the cops, we divedinto their march, and the communists tookoffense: several burly Greek men pulled us out, so as not to let ourviolence disrupt their march. Cursing their treacherous nature, I decidedagainst walking around dressed like an anarcho-stormtrooper:I ducked behind a bush and took off my helmet and gas mask, tossedmy club, and took off my black overcoat to reveal my precious whitefrilly shirt. Satisfied, I left the shrubbery looking more or less like thecommunists, and jumped into their march.We noticed that in the madness of the last few minutes we hadlost our Irish comrade, probably when the cops attacked with pepper-spray.Was he arrested? Hurt? On the other side of the line ofcops? My personal take was that going after him was probably a lostcause, and that we should stay together as the situation was degeneratingrapidly and not in our favor. However, with true nobilitymy French comrade declared that she couldn’t live with herself ifshe left her Irish lover behind, and that she was going after him. Itold her she was crazy, which she was. All the same, we agreed tomeet back up at the University, and she left us—and with admirablecourage, still dressed in full Black Bloc regalia, walked right back upto the line of police… and right through them, back into the fray. Ihave noticed that occasionally during protests doing things that arecompletely and utterly insane results in the cops just ignoring yourillogical actions.We began attempting to maneuver around the police and sneakback to join the Bloc, figuring that the fight was still on. It soonbecame clear that the police clearly had the upper hand, as scatteredBloc affinity groups came running down alleys, screaming that thecops were closing in and they had barely escaped, that the Bloc wasscattered and that everyone should regroup at the University. Thisseemed to be a sensible idea, so we slowly made our way back. Butas we got closer, it became clear that the cops had surrounded theUniversity, not letting anyone in. We asked various Greek studentsto go talk to the cops for us, so we could keep a safe distance and stillfind out what was going on. The students reported back to us thatheads of the University were going to authorize the cops entry intothe University so they could begin busting heads. In this confusingsituation, we felt the best thing to do was to hide somewhere safeand check on the situation periodically. We were walking down thestreet when we saw a young black-clad man with classic metal hairdrinking a beer on a table outside a café—and with a twenty-fourpack near his feet! We asked if we could join him, and we all satdown at the small table to drink a beer and contemplate the eventsof the day.Which is when a line of cops suddenly marched around the corner.They marched right up to our table, and within a second wewere surrounded by cops. I cursed alcohol beneath my breath asthe cops began questioning our newfound friend in Greek. I slowlypushed my backpack that contained my incriminating gas mask andclub away from me, but the cops had noticed. They demanded tosearch all of our bags. Within minutes, they had found my gas mask.They removed it from the backpack and stomped on it with theirboots, smashing it into bits within minutes. To my shock, they tooktheir clubs out and began pounding my shins as my friends lookedon in horror. I was sure I was doomed. I began claiming that I wasjust a friendly peaceful media reporter from the “Social Forum,”and began waving my American passport at them. They kept beatingme, and I finally fell to my knees 4 . Then they regrouped intoa little line, yelled some obscenities at us inGreek, and marched onwards. I timidly lookedup, shocked that I wasn’t in a Greek jail, andunable to feel my legs.I managed to wobble to my feet and mybeer-drinking Greek friend explained that thecops had been very angry at me when theyhad discovered the gas mask, and as they hadnot arrested me we should move before theychanged their minds. Throwing the rest ofmy incriminating gear over at high wall intoa church and noting the location, we startingstrolling innocently down a street. When wesaw cops in front of us, we moved to the otherside of the street. Suspicious, the cops ran acrossthe street and forced us to the ground. Underintense questioning, we expressed nothingbut the greatest confusion about the violenceat the protests (“This is nothing like protestswhere I’m from!”) and the behavior of the cops(“We’re just here for the Social Forum, why areyou searching us?”). Apparently we managedto keep our stories relatively coherent, becausethe cops eventually let us go with apologies for their aggressive behavior.As soon as we turned the corner, the process repeated itself.Finally, we made it to an intersection near the entrance of the University,where a large group of bystanders and anarchists had gathered.We saw our Irish friend. We ran to him and quickly explainedthat it would be in his best interest to drop all of his Black Bloc gear;he immediately put his black bandanna in a bush. Within a seconds,a bald and skinny man with a tie-die shirt flew up on a motorcycle,and yelled at all of us to fall on the ground. My Irish comrade demandedto see his ID. Opening a ridiculous fanny-pack, the coppointed a handgun hidden inside his unfashionable accoutrement.“You want to see my ID?”, he raged, “this is my ID!”We were all on the ground and the undercover cop summonedseveral other cops to watch us. He had seen our Irish friend throwhis stuff into the bush, and he kept questioning us regarding whatwe threw in the bush. We were honest—just a bandanna. The copsmust have thought we had Molotov cocktails stashed in the bushes,and as they came out disappointed at only finding a bandanna, theywere determined to cart us all off to jail. Luckily, various Greek legalobservers surrounded the police and, now that the cops knew theywere being watched, they let us go. Enraged, our Belgian friend decided,slightly drunkenly, that it was time for a full frontal charge toget back into the University. We attempted to dissuade him, but hewas determined to go right through the front gate of the University,and if no one had the courage to follow him, he was going to gohimself. Always one to preserve my own skin against something Ijudged simply irrational, after long deliberation we split the affinitygroup up and promised to regroup inside the University—if wecould make it, and the cops didn’t seize it. The romantic Irishman,hearing that his lover had crossed police lines looking for him, decidedto go in search of her, while the Belgian madman set out tolaunch his one-man dash through the police line. My newfoundGreek beer buddy and I decided to play it safe and scout the perimeterin attempt to find a weak spot.After an hour of searching, we found a mysterious gravel road thatlooked like it might go into the University. As we started walkingdown it, we noticed several large Greek men, probably undercovercops, tailing us. Instead of running, we both agreed direct confrontationwould be best. Before they surrounded us and asked us forour identification, we ran up to them and asked for directions to theUniversity. Stunned, the men fumbled about at our brazen move andtold us we were going the wrong way. The men then turned around,convinced of our harmlessness. We waved good-bye and pretended towalk away, and waited as soon as they left the horizon, and ran downthe gravel path… where we heard the sound of amazing Greek folk4An Eastern European friend of mine has commented that often the police inEastern European countries aren’t interested in actually arresting you, just making youprostrate yourself before them, so I should have just fallen to my knees as soon as thebeating began.Page 54 Testimonials Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Testimonials Page 55

INTERNATIONAL REPORT:F R A N C EWhile the seeming ubiquity ofthe spectacle would persuade usthat history is over for good, thatthat our destinies are sealed and wewill live in this constant and staticpresent forever, the stories we sharein our underground networks of resistancesuggest something whollydifferent. This is not meant to be anexhaustive French radical scene report—whatwe’re interested in hereis to share tactics and skills. Everyonewants to change the world, butoften one doesn’t know where tostart; these are some points fromwhich we’ve tried to start…Adbusting 1 : Paris Subway…For some years now, small groups havebeen waging war against advertising all overthe country; but in November of 2003,things took a totally different turn here. Acall was made on the internet with a dateand time; 300 people scattered throughoutthe Paris subway in groups of ten to thirty.Each group would go into a train, snatchall advertising in it, then get out at everystation and détourne 2 every billboard. Thesemassive, decentralized, and unexpected actionsoffered a high level of security whileat the same time permitting high visibility.Communiqués were wheatpasted everywhereinviting people to join the war.Three weeks later, at the second call, 700people showed up and covered all the subwaynetwork with paint, marker scrawl, andposters. The police could not control thesituation—there were too many people, andeveryone was going on and off trains all overthe town. Third call: one thousand peopleshowed up, the police gave some fines (75euros), but were totally helpless. All the mediahad to talk about it, and everyone startedto do it on their own, call or not.Metrobus, the company that owns allthe billboards, estimated the damage atmillions of Euros. What they did to stopthe storm that seemed to get stronger andstronger every week was to sue the websiteon which the rendezvous was set. Yet evenafter the website was down, people wouldset rendezvouses on Indymedia or in theirown collectives. Just as many people wereinvolved, but now in smaller groups, evenmore invisible and unexpected.As we all know, the motherfuckers neverhesitate to hit under the belt when theyfeel they’re losing the match. In January,they called back sixty-two people they hadgiven fines the previous months and suedthem for one million euros. The trial isn’tover yet but it seems it should be more orless OK for them as public opinion ostensiblyfavors this spontaneous movement.Thanks to the incredible exposure, lots ofhuge benefit shows have already been organizedall over the country. Right now,everyone continues with their “work,” butin even more decentralized ways. You can’ttravel in trains without seeing altered billboards,and it feels good.…And All Over The CountrySimultaneously, adbusting happened in almostevery big town in the country, but witha slightly different tactic, due to the absenceof subways. In our town, we made flyers witha place, date, and time and distributed themin infoshops, universities, radical movies,punk shows, and even to the institutionalizedcapitalist-apologist leftist groups (thosewe mock and diss all the time, yes, eventhem). In our rather small town we managedto gather 60 people for one night. We hadstolen some bus maps, drew zones on themand distributed them to affinity groups. Wealso tried to mix more experienced and confidentpeople with neophytes, and sent theleast prepared groups to the safest areas. Inone month we fucked 1200 “lollipops 3 .”We attacked them with spray-cans first,and then we managed to build our owntools 4 to open them, snatch the posterand spraypaint inside of them so that everytime they would put a new poster wewould just have to open it, snatch the newposter and the graffiti would still be there.Other people would take posters at home,détourne them in really creative ways, andreplace them.After every action, we would leave communiquésfor every newspaper and localTV station. Soon they called us, and toour great surprise gave us some really goodexposure without altering the content ofour message. The “commando-terrorist”aspects of our operation were made less intimidatingby the fact we called ourselvesthe Moutons Moutardes (Mustard Sheep,it doesn’t make that much sense except wecould make a good play on word with themustard coming up our noses) and offeredsome really quixotic/stupid rhetoricmixed with serious politics. We even madeTV interviews in really stupid masks! Itwas pretty cool when the sound guy toldus he was really down with us and wantedto know more. The first TV report we gotended with a clip from an interview witha seventy year old woman: “They are right!In life you have to have a good moan!”Eventually seven of us got caught by thepolice and spent thirteen hours in a reallycold jail cell. But we managed to avoidhuge legal troubles, and not pay the 5500euros the lawyer demanded—as the judge,the coolest old man on earth, turned outto be down too! For punishment, we onlyhad to work one day with the workers ofthe company—just enough to befriendthem, learn that our tactics didn’t actuallygive them any more work (liberal critics ofdirect action take note!), and pick up a fewmore techniques. One of us actually gotaway with a full uniform from the Decaux,company responsible for the “lollipops.”About the TacticBeside the security that this tactic allowed,the greatest point in my opinion was thatthis decentralized approach pushed everyparticipant to be responsible for her actionsand above all to figure out by herself whatshe wanted to write, what she wanted to oppose.There was little room for ideology totake that back. Of course, all leftists groupstried to recuperate 5 the actions, blamingsexism in the ads or other details that wouldwater down this assault against commodityculture and “the spectacle” itself and make itanother limited criticism of the mere detailsof our total alienation. But on the contrary,all the questions that inspired opposition toadvertising in the first place point the wayto questions about the global workings ofcapitalist society itself 6 .The terrain we chose for engagement offeredgreat advantages, too. Although everyonehas internalized advertising as a part ofeveryday life, everyone is in some way or anotherbored with it, too, everyone knows advertisersare lying and only want to sell themthings. So attacking this aspect of capitalismdid not alienate the average person; on thecontrary, it drew a really sympathetic publicopinion. These actions were not made byblack-masked anarchists or boring leftists,but by average people who wanted somefun. And when public opinion is favorable,chances are (in France, at any rate) the mediawill give it good exposure too. The mediadid not censor our critique even when webroadened it to every aspect of everyday lifeand the world.Where do we go from here? The biggestaccomplishment, in our opinion, was to createan event to which every radical or likemindedperson could come and realize wecould turn the town upside down in a coupleof hours. In the process, we establishedlinks that enable us to spread the assault tomany other aspects of capitalism, way beyondthe critique of advertising. Since then,Olfactory Assaults (massive stink bombattacks), Free Public Transport actions 7 ,University Paralysis (matches and glue inlocks), Mass A.T.M. Sabotage (attacks onautomatic teller machines), debates, squattingand other direct actions have caughton, taken off, and transformed our environment.From a town where we always had thefeeling nothing would nor could happen,we’ve created a community where every actiongathers more people, more questions,more debates, more ideas, more opportunities—atown where history seems to startto move again, where consensual helplessnesshas been undermined, where life canbe touched and even grasped.I actually intended to write about manymore things happening in France: old Situationistswho became peasants in the 1970’sand came back in the forefront of radicalcritique in 2001 by destroying GMO fieldsand laboratories 8 , l’APPEL (“call”), an anonymousbook that has been widely spread inthe radical, autonomous, anarchist, andsquat scenes that starts to define the shapeof the invisible guerrilla to come 9 , LongoMaï, a 400 person fully-autonomous community,or how a handful of autonomouskids turned the European Social Forum intoa riot with the liberals 10 and succeeded inpresenting a fireworks display for the prisonersof Paris’s biggest jails, who showedsupport by burning their sheets out of theirwindows when the usual spoilsports came toarrest everyone… but to cover all that wouldprobably have taken a whole book.For more information about what’s goingon in France, visit www.crimepensee.com oremail crimepensee@hushmail.com.CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Overseas Correspondents Page 59

Appendix: Tearing Down theWalls at Nanterre UniversityFor more than a year now, numerousFrench universities have been the scenes ofassaults by anonymous groups. Cameras aresmashed by hooded gangs, graffiti covers thewalls, the debates of leftist would-be leadersare sabotaged, door locks are glued, and,most recently, a dean had his nose brokenduring a demonstration.Nanterre University, the cradle of theupheavals of May ’68, has a long traditionof uncontrollable students. In response tothis ongoing threat to the imperial peace,devices to enforce pacification and controlhave been applied over the past few years:now there are cameras and armed securityguards everywhere, not to mention pressureon individuals viewed as politicalthreats. Last year, theadministration decidedto build a wall tosplit the huge hall inwhich students usedto hang out, so theycould only circulate,not mingle. The wallimmediately becamea target for students’ anger. In April, ashundreds of them gathered around thewall to protest the policy of security andcontrol, a black-masked crew armedwith battering rams managed to destroyit completely.The wall was then rebuilt.This year, graffiti announced that the studentswere still a little angry: “Pacification ofbehaviors = massification of fears,” “citizen= cop,” and even, “No to the assassinationof Audeoud,” Audeoud being the presidentof the University. For one month, an illegalweekly banquet was held in front of the wall.Last Tuesday, a hooded gang managed todestroy the wall once again. Fifty hoodedstudents attacked it with two forty-kilohome-made battering rams and two sledgehammers.This time, the securityguards tried to intervene, butstudents foiled them by gatheringaround the deconstructionteam as a protective buffer, despitethe threats and violencefrom the guards. Push came toshove, chairsstarted to flyfrom the students’side ofthe lines, anda burly brawlbroke out thatleft five securityguards injured.As soon as the wall was destroyed, smokebombs filled the hall with smoke as thestudents fought their way out, leaving noprisoners. Outside of the building, fireworksexploded in the sky in celebrationof their escape.1The term adbusting is used here only because welack an appropriate translation for the French term “antipub.”The authors of this report would like us to notethat they hold the eponymous magazine in dismayeddisdain, on the grounds that the editors purport to sellrevolt in the form of shoes, to have invented an antilogologo, and to be attempting to destroy capitalismby becoming capitalists themselves.2Détourne: To “make the invisible visible” by appropriatingexisting media and adjusting them to makeclear their implications. Example: covering up the logoof a local Christian church on a billboard that reads “IsYour Life Working?” with paper that reads “Is WorkingYour Life? Break Free!”3Lollipops: Dear editors, here in France we call thosesmaller underglass billboards by this name. I don’t knowhow to call them in English, but these are the ones inthe pictures I sent along. Decaux, the company thatmakes them, is expanding all over the world, so youhave probably seen them in the USA too. If there’s aspecific word for them, please change it. [Editor’s response:My dear French friends, I have no idea what aLollipop is, and I doubt our domestic readers do, either,but that doesn’t make it easy to figure out how to adjustyour description, so it will have to rest as is.]4Decaux, the company that owns almost every “lollipop”in France, is spreading all over the world (youcan check if your town has been colonized yet at www.jcdecaux.com). During recent visits to Belgium, Spain,and Holland, I could witness that our tool worked everywherethere too. So to open those lollipops by yourselfyou have two options…Get a 30 cm long and 16 mm in diameter plastictube (you get that in any hardware shop). On the sideat the bottom of every lollipop, you’ll find a small hole.Put the tube in it, push and it should grip to a circularcogged piece. Turn counter clockwise. The lollipop isyours. If the tube doesn’t grip because it’s too tight, fileit a bit and try again. The problem with this techniqueis that after 10 or 20 openings, the plastic is too usedand doesn’t grip anymore. So this is where the secondoption comes into play. Open one lollipop with a plastictube, take away the piece you need to grip to openit and bring it back home. Then get the same size tube,but in metal this time. Put the tube on the piece andgive small hits with a hammer for like 10 minutes.Slowly the metal tube will take the exact shape of thepiece. Once you’re done you have the perfect tool thatwill open ALL lollipops really easily. This explanationmight sound a little bit complex, but once you understandhow the whole thing works you’ll realize it is extremelysimple. Most bigger billboards can be openedwith pliers.5Recuperate: Hijack a radical action that implies awide-ranging critique to make it serve the ends of single-issuereformist political party control.6On that issue, when the reformists and capitalism-conciliatingleftists tried to water down the actiona little bit too much, a really mysterious group burneddown some lollipops and declared: “We’re less affected bythe sexism and stupidity in advertising than by the worldand the ideology it comes from and upholds. We don’t believethat advertising could be acceptable if it wasn’t sexist.By only spraypainting and snatching posters, we condemnourselves to see them clean and effective again the next day.By burning them down, we send the direct and clear messagethat no conciliation can be made with such a society.”7Like in most towns, to validate your travel on publictransport you have to put a card into a machine thatswallows it and prints the hour and date of validation.In busses and subways there’s one of these machines atevery door. At a set time, small groups get in every busthey find, and discreetly put chewing gum or a bolt orpeg with glue in every machine, and add a sticker reading“Sabotage is fun and free. Just do it and public transportbecomes fun and free for everyone too.” Every group canalso wheatpaste posters with more explanations on everybus stop. We’ve stressed doing really funny artwork so itdoesn’t scare people too much. Within one hour, you canreally have a HUGE impact. If you’ve established goodrelationships with the local media like we did, you caneven call them beforehand to let them know somethingis gonna happen. Send them a communiqué when you’redone, and hopefully you’ll have a coverage that mightbring even more people to join you next time.8If you can read French, we really encourage youto read René Riesel books published by “Edition deL’Encylcopédie des Nuisances,” a group whose ideas couldbe defined as the perfect mix between those of the SituationistInternational and the Unabomber. Other greatauthors from l’Encyclopédie des Nuisances are Jaime Semprun(Apology of the Algerian Insurrection is translated intoEnglish) and Baudouin de Bodinat.9Copies of APPEL are available for free throughCrimepensée, of course.10Contrary to some in the US, we can easily see thatthroughout French revolutionary history the “left wing”has always fucked everything up by creating a conciliationwith capitalism that amounts to surrender. Everytime radical demands have risen, the Left has managedto recuperate them and re-present them as totally inoffensivedemands for more control over the details ofour alienation. They pretend to be radical only in orderto re-route radical desires to the ends of their reactionarycontrol. Recent events proved this axiom true onceagain, when the left wing party showed up at this EuropeanSocial Forum—although they were governing thecountry for 14 years, and fucked us up all that time!Fortunately, some people managed to get them out ofthe demonstration by means of homemade toxic smokegrenades and glass bottles picked from the trash.Page 60 Overseas Correspondents Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Overseas Correspondents Page 61

The Ghost ofPropagandaPast:The WomanRebelThe Woman Rebel, a publication analogousto anarcha-feminist papers of the pasttwenty years, ran for a short period ninetyyears ago, just long enough to make onelasting contribution to modern English—which we’ll get to in the next paragraph. Theeditor, Margaret Sanger, took responsibilityfor most of the work surrounding its productionand distribution, as many current’zine editors do, while soliciting “all rebelwomen to contribute to its columns” andinsisting that the paper would not “be thechampion of any ‘ism.’” In its pages, onecould find discussion of the plight of impoverishedworking women, biographies ofsuch pioneer feminists as Mary Woolstonescraft(sic), poetry in praise of direct action(including the use of explosives), news fromthe I.W.W., antiwar articles (one bearing thefamiliar title “Blood and Oil”), critiques ofmarriage and consumerism, and texts fromHelen Keller—who is still well known forbeing blind and deaf, but less so for beingan outspoken critic of capitalism. The paperran to seven issues before Sanger was forcedto leave the United States to escape prosecutionfor publishing material prohibited underthe Comstock laws.Incidentally, The Woman Rebel was thevenue in which the expression “birth control”was coined, and much of the repressionthe paper suffered was due to its frankdiscussion of contraception. Issue after issueemphasized the right of women to have controlover their own bodies, in a time whenmere discussion of this matter was forbidden.It’s interesting to note that while contraceptionis now widely accepted as a bourgeoishuman right, our society seems to have suffereda kind of amnesia as to who it was thatfought to earn this right. Just as George W.Bush can disingenuously pay homage to thememory of Malcolm X, knowing full wellthat had the two been active contemporaneouslyhe would have done everything in hispower to silence such a powerful black organizer,consumers of the most reactionarywalks of life can buy condoms or work eighthour days without troubling themselveswith the thought that these typical featuresof everyday life were won by the blood andsweat of maniacal radicals.Some of the stances taken in The WomanRebel have remained controversial. We canonly hope to live to see the day when dynamitingmunitions factories provokes nomore uproar than advising young women oftheir family planning options. So that nonecan write off our own politics as hystericalposturing without historical precedent, letus reprint here a text on direct action fromThe Woman Rebel’s first issue, composed byVoltairine de Cleyre. In this passage, sheoutlines the means by which striking workerscan ensure that they will be taken seriouslyby otherwise indifferent capitalists:“ If it’s a telegraph strike it means cutting wires and poles and getting fake scabs to spoil the instruments. If itis a steel rolling mill strike it means beating up the scabs, breaking the windows, setting the gauges wrongand ruining the expensive rollers together with tons and tons of material. If it’s a miners’ strike, it means destroyingtracks, bridges, and blowing up mills. If it is a garment workers’ strike it means having an unaccountable fire,getting a volley of stones through an apparently inaccessible window, or possibly a brickbat on the manufacturer’sown head. If it is a streetcar strike it means tracks torn up barricaded with the contents of ash carts and slopcarts with overturned wagons or stolen fences; it means smashed or incinerated cars and turned switches. If it isa system federation strike it means “dead” engines, wild engines, derailed freights and stalled trains. If it is thebuilding trades strike, it means dynamited structures. And always everywhere, all the time fights between strikebreakersand scabs against strikers and strike sympathizers, between People and Police.”Biography in Brief:George FrancisTrain,“The GreatAmericanCrank”Renowned while living as America’s greatesteccentric, George Francis Train (1829-1904), entrepreneur and inventor, alsosympathized with and supported some ofthe most radical elements of his time. Heled a life of extremism and adventure, nevermissing an opportunity for action or provocation.Orphaned at four, Train initially rose tofame and fortune by revolutionizing somebranches of the transportation industry andsingle-handedly inventing others. Along theway, he wrote and published some twentyfivebooks and pamphlets, invented the perforatedstamp and the pencil with attachederaser, and founded the city of Omaha,Nebraska. His voyage around the world ineighty days, taken in 1870, inspired JulesVerne’s novel on that theme. Train nearlyfailed to make it within his chosen time limit,on account of being imprisoned by theFrench government after he joined in theMarseilles Commune uprising; the reactionaryVerne left this out of the novel, deceitfullyrecasting his protagonist as a conservative,upstanding citizen.An atheist from childhood, Train wenton to become a vegetarian; he also fundedSusan B. Anthony’s feminist paper Revolution,declined presidency of a revolutionaryrepublic offered him by Australian minersseeking independence from England, identifiedhimself with the First International(the workers’ congress at which Marx andBakunin struggled over the question of statepower and liberation), and went to jail fordefending an advocate of free love againstthe notorious Puritan book-burner Antho-CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Old News Page 63

ny Comstock. He later boasted that he hadbeen imprisoned fifteen times without everhaving committed a crime.Train ran for president in 1872, thendeclared himself a candidate for dictator,promising to establish a “pure autocracy oflove.” Asked by a reporter if, as dictator, hewould occupy the White House, he repliedthat he preferred to rule the universe fromthe park bench he regarded as his headquarters.By that time he had finally succeeded inthe arduous task of using up all his wealth,and withdrew from public life for a period,insisting he would only interact with childrenand the squirrels with whom he sharedthe peanuts that were his principle food.He returned to the spotlight in 1887,when the purported leaders of the Chicagoanarchist movement were facing the deathpenalty in a show trial following the explosionof a bomb in the midst of a companyof police that was firing upon a crowd of civilians.Despite his efforts lecturing on theanarchists’ behalf, not to mention the factthat there was no evidence connecting thedefendants to the bombing, the city of Chicagoexecuted four of them (and would havekilled a fifth, too, had he not committedsuicide in advance)—and, to add insult toinfamy, banned Train’s newspaper, The Psycho-Anarchist.In 1890, Train again circumnavigated theglobe (“I go round the world every twentyyears, to let it know I am still alive”). In1902, two years before his death, he publishedhis autobiography.Train’s antics and adventures may seemwithout parallel, but he was only one outof millions who lived and acted in those tumultuoustimes. We can learn easily enoughof his exploits because he happened to be amillionaire, while the equally marvelous adventuresof less wealthy individuals alwaysgo unheralded and unrecorded—unless theyinfringe on the interests of millionaires, thatis. In being amused and inspired by the storyof his life, we can aspire to similarly fantasticadventures of our own, without need of thefalse grandeur of fame. These are bound tocome, anyway, in the course of our effortsto create a world in which none are wealthyand all are rich.-Much of this material was plagiarized from a piecein the excellent Haymarket Scrapbook, edited byDave Roediger and Franklin Rosement, publishedin Chicago in 1986 and quite possibly languishingin the stacks of your local college library.Anarchy in the Ukraine!Lenin and Trotsky DiscussTheir Good Friend MakhnoThe Secret Lives of Cab Drivers:Nestor MakhnoA true story for childrenThis is the true story of the youth of anobscure cab driver called Nestor Makhno,who grew up out in the countryside on theeastern edge of Europe . . .Page 64 Old News Rolling Thunder

Nestor was born into poverty in the smalltown of Gulyai-Pole in the southern Ukraine,under the reign of the Russian czar. His fatherdied before he was a year old. Like mostpeasant children, he only attended a coupleyears of school before it was time for him tostart working in the fields; as soon as he wasold enough, he got a job at a factory, too.Those were restless times in Russia and theUkraine. A failed revolution had just takenplace, and in its wake the czar’s secret policewere cracking down on political dissent ofall kinds. Anarchism—the idea that governmentis inherently oppressive, that humanbeings should organize their lives togetheras equals without domination or submission—waspopular in Russia, and youngNestor’s friends were involved in an anarchistgroup. The secret police discovered itsexistence, and arrested many of them—theyarrested Nestor as well, for good measure.At age eighteen, he was sentenced to life inprison, and sent away to a penitentiary farto the north, in Moscow.Makhno spent the next decade of his lifethere, and contracted tuberculosis in theprison’s notoriously harsh living conditions.While he was there, he decided he might aswell learn about the subversive ideas he’d beenaccused of, and spent many hours studyinganarchist literature under the tutelage of fellowprisoner Peter Arshinov, who was later tofight at his side in the Ukraine.Then, in the spring of 1917 another revolutiontook place, and this one was successful—theczar was overthrown! The Russiannation was thrown into turmoil, and in thischaos many prisoners were set free. Makhnowas one of these prisoners, and he immediatelyleft Russia, going south to his homeland,the Ukraine.Up in Russia, the new government wasan unsteady coalition of different groups, allvying for control; but down in the Ukrainethings hadn’t changed much yet. Makhnowas the only one to return to Gulyai-Poleout of everyone who had been taken awayby the secret police, and he was welcomedwith great expectations: now that the czarhad fallen, all the townspeople who had beenconservative before looked to radicals such asthey presumed him to be for a sense of whatwas to come. Working from the books hehad read in prison, Makhno began to organizeunions among the peasants, and to callcongresses among the workers so they couldget used to making decisions themselves.Later that year, another revolution tookplace throughout Russia and the Ukraine.In Russia, a party called the Bolsheviks, whocalled themselves communists and claimedto represent the masses, seized control of thegovernment; meanwhile, in the Ukraine, theprocess was more gradual and grass-roots: thepeasants’ unions and workers’ councils tookstock of all the land and property the aristocratshad, and redistributed it equally amongthe population. In both regions, the sloganwas “all power to the soviets,” for “soviet” isthe Russian word for workers’ collective. Thelandlords and bosses were not thrilled aboutthis, but there was nothing they could do;the police and armies that had protectedtheir property were gone.Soon after the revolution up north, someBolsheviks came south to the Ukraine, thinkingit was theirs now that they had taken theplace of the Russian government that hadruled it. Makhno welcomed them, as theywere revolutionaries like himself, but theymade him suspicious. There were even rumorsthat they were outlawing all opposingparties in Russia, just as the czar had.During this whole time, Russia was alsoat war with Austria and Germany—this wasthe first world war, and it was the pressure ofthis war that had resulted in the czar’s demise.The Bolsheviks were anxious to conclude thisconflict, so they signed a peace treaty turningthe Ukraine over to these countries. Beforethe Ukrainians could have any say in it, thecountryside was filled with Austrian and Germantroops. These put a puppet governmentin place, and returned all the wealth andland to the control of the former landlordsand owners. Peasants who had been active inthe unions were arrested or killed; Makhno’shome town of Gulyai-Pole was occupied bytroops who burned down his mother’s houseand shot his crippled brother.Makhno fled north, back to Moscow,where he’d been in prison, to see if the “revolutionaries”there knew what was going on inthe land they’d given up. He was given an audiencewith a funny looking little bald mancalled Lenin. Lenin assured Makhno that theBolsheviks were concerned about the fate ofthe peasants in the Ukraine, and also askedhim how the peasants there interpreted theslogan “all power to the soviets.” Makhnoreplied that they took it literally: they assumedthe revolution meant they wouldhave complete control of their lives. “Ah, youanarchists are so short-sighted,” said Lenin,mysteriously. “You think about the future,but you don’t understand how to be practicalin the present.”Makhno concluded that the peasants inthe occupied Ukraine would have to solvetheir own problems, and returned home,sneaking over the border into his homeland.While he had been gone, other peasants hadformed clandestine groups, and begun tofight the occupying troops by night. Withhis house burned down and his town patrolledby foreign soldiers, Makhno joinedone of these groups.Every few weeks they had to flee from onetown to the next, as the spies of the secretpolice worked to track them down. Makhno’sfriends from the peasants’ unions, whichhad now been made illegal, hid them and fedthem. As time went on, more and more peasantscame to join them in the underground,and more and more German and Austriantroops were sent to kill them. The insurgentsstaged a raid on Gulyai-Pole, Makhno’s hometown, and forced the soldiers out of it; butthe next week, many more soldiers returned,and the rebels were driven into the forest. Thesoldiers followed, and for days Makhno andhis companions hurried through the woods,the sound of marching troops behind them.One evening, they heard the same soundahead, and realized they were surrounded.They could not surrender to the Germantroops—they feared they would be killed—and they could not escape; Makhno proposedto the group that they try a surpriseattack. This seemed like suicide, but no onehad a better idea to try.Most of the occupying troops were stayingin a nearby town; there were over six hundredof them there, camped in the main square,and only one hundred peasants in Makhno’sgroup. Makhno and a few others who werequick and had not yet been wounded snuckright into the heart of the town, and climbedup on a rooftop. From there, they opened fireon the army below. The soldiers didn’t knowwhere the shots were coming from, and panicked,assuming they were under attack froma much larger force; they fled, unorganized,and surrendered to the rest of the peasants,who were waiting for them at the edge oftown. Suddenly Makhno was a hero!The peasants killed the commanders ofthe soldiers and took their uniforms, thenset the rest free, telling them to go backto their home countries and stop harassingUkrainian peasants. Dressed in thecommanders’ uniforms, Makhno and hiscompanions now traveled through thecountryside, presenting themselves to therich landlords as occupying generals. Thelandlords treated them to great feasts,thanking them for returning their wealthand power and crushing the peasants’ revolt.At the end of each meal, Makhno andhis friends revealed their true identities,and seized the horses and guns of the landlordsto arm the people.Soon they had assembled an army of theirown, a peasants’ army. True to anarchist ideals,each brigade elected its own commandingofficer, and each soldier designed his orher own uniform. Makhno became one ofthe generals in this volunteer army. Soon,other insurgent peasant groups came to jointhem; one of these was led by Maria Nikiforova,an anarchist guerrilla Makhno had longlooked up to.Together, these armies of peasants andanarchists returned to Gulyai-Pole, with theintention of liberating it from the Germansand Austrians for good. The attacked it bynight, and all the local peasants joined withthem in driving out the occupying troops;but the next day more troops returned, andthe local peasants would not fight with themby daylight, for if they were recognized theywould be killed by the foreign army as soonas it took over the town again. So Makhnoand his friends were driven out of Gulyai-Pole until nightfall, when the locals cameback to join them once more, and they wereable to push back into the city. This happenedevery day and night for five days, untilfinally the occupying troops were exhaustedand retreated.From Gulyai-Pole, the insurgents movedon to Ekaterinoslav, the biggest city in thearea, where the most Austrian and Germantroops were stationed. Makhno and hisfriends were completely outnumbered, asbefore, but once again he proposed a plan:at the beginning of the next day, when thetrain from the countryside entered the cityto take all the poor migrant laborers to theirjobs, Makhno and the others rode in on it,too, dressed as peasant workers, with theirguns hidden under their clothes. Once again,his plan succeeded, and the occupying forceswere taken by surprise, and surrendered!The first thing Makhno and his companionsdid upon taking the city was go to theprison, set all the political prisoners free, andburn it to the ground. They expected a counterattackfrom the Austrians and Germans,but the world war had just ended with thesenations in defeat, so they chose to pull theirarmies out of the Ukraine and cut their losses.The Ukraine was free!Makhno and the other peasants got busynow putting their anarchist ideas into action.They went from city to city, and in eachone they entered they announced that theywere not there to take political control, butonly to facilitate the passing of power andresources from the hands of the governmentPage 66 Old News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Old News Page 67

and the rich into the hands of the people.New farming collectives, worker’s councils,community projects, and newspapers wereorganized, and a great congress began tomeet every few months at which the problemsthat could not be solved locally wereaddressed. Police, prisons, and tax collectorswere abolished, and replaced by cooperativesystems; peasants, free from the constantpressure of laboring for their landlords, wereable to focus on educating their children andenjoying life. They organized theaters andperforming troupes; every night there werepotluck feasts, followed by dancing and singing.At the third Ukrainian anarchist congress,delegates representing over two millionpeople gathered. Makhno was able to relax,for a short period, and got married to thedaughter of a former police official, a toughyoung woman who operated a machine gunon the battlefield at his side.But the trouble was not over. In the south,the landlords and aristocrats who had losttheir privileges gathered with the remains oftheir wealth, and hired an army of mercenariesto fight under one of the generals that hadserved under the czar. Meanwhile, from thenorth, the Bolsheviks, who now controlled allof Russia, wanted to have the Ukraine backnow that the German and Austrian forceswere gone. Bolshevik forces showed up sayingthat the Ukraine was a part of Russia, and thatits workers should be organized under directionfrom Moscow. For them, “soviet” powermeant the power of the government over allthe workers it purported to represent. Ratherthan turning the land over to those whoworked it, they built great factory farms andset up party members as the new bosses, andshipped the grain produced far away. Peasantsin Bolshevik-controlled territories began torevolt again, and often the armies sent to suppressthese revolts mutinied and joined them.The tension was building between the peopleof the Ukraine and the Bolsheviks; butbefore it could explode, the aristocrats, whohad fled when the czar fell, attacked from thesouth with a great army funded by Westernnations. Makhno and his comrades gatheredvolunteers and formed a new army, and establisheda front blocking access to the Ukraine.They arranged a peace treaty with the Bolsheviks,on the grounds that both groups desiredto protect the revolution, and held off the aristocrats’army for many months.But the Bolsheviks, jealous of the independencethat thrived in parts of the Ukraine,had other plans. Once Makhno and hisfriends had their hands full at the front, theydeclared the fourth Ukrainian anarchistcongress illegal, seeking to consolidate allpower for their “revolutionary” government,and cut off all supplies to Makhno and hisarmy. Then, they called a meeting of all theanarchist officers; fearing treachery, Makhnoresigned his post, and didn’t attend. This wasfortunate, because the Bolsheviks arrestedand executed all his friends who did. Thearistocrats’ armies seized this opportunity topush through the front and into the Ukraine,and without the insurgent armies to stopthem, they drove the Bolshevik armies all theway back to Moscow. It looked like Russiaand the Ukraine were going to return to thehands of the landlords and czarists.The Ukraine was now occupied by the invaders,who reinstated the old landlords andbosses once again, and again slaughtered allthe peasants and workers who had organizedin their absence. Makhno gathered anotherarmy of volunteers from the peasant refugeesand deserters from the retreating Bolshevikarmy, and initiated another guerrilla war. Hebecame famous for the tactics of surprisehis forces employed: once, for example, thepeasants in what appeared to be a weddingprocession suddenly produced guns frombeneath their clothes and shot down the occupyingsoldiers who had gathered to jeer atthem. Local peasants in every town wouldhide, feed, and inform the rebel forces; intimes of need, the rebels could disappear intothe fields, posing as peasant family memberswhile the soldiers searched for them. Makhno’sforces were always faster than the Bolshevikand aristocrat armies, because they couldtrade their tired horses for fresh ones in eachfarming village. All the same, they were badlyoutnumbered by the aristocrats’ armies, andhad to retreat slowly before them. The aristocratssplit their forces in two, sending onearmy west after the Ukrainian anarchists andthe other north to Moscow.As Makhno’s group moved through thecountryside, more and more refugees joinedthem, until their army was accompanied bya wagon train of tens of thousands. Every dayit was a struggle to stay ahead of the attackers;Makhno was often wounded in skirmisheswith them, but seemed blessed with a goodluck that protected him from death. For fourmonths, the peasants retreated through thecountryside, until they were trapped: thearistocrats’ armies had encircled them, andthere was no way out except to fight.Once again, Makhno proposed a plan.He and the peasants with the fastest horsescrept out under cover of darkness, andshortly before dawn the rest of the insurgentarmies attacked the invaders’ army from thefront. The battle raged all day, and by sundownit looked like the peasants were finallygoing to be defeated, when Makhno and hishorsemen appeared on the other side of thebattlefield, surprising the enemy generals intheir camp and scattering their guards. Theinvading force broke up and fled, and thepeasants took thousands of prisoners.Now Makhno and the survivors advancedback across the Ukraine, liberating the townsand cities again, and opening and burningevery prison. In one town, where the priesthad turned over all anarchist peasants to thepolice of the occupying army, they took hisrobe and made it into a black flag to fly overtheir forces. The army laying siege to Moscowwas forced to retreat, as their line of suppliesfrom the south was cut off. Peace returnedbriefly to the Ukraine; a fifth Ukrainian anarchistcongress took place, and people triedto get their lives back together.But the aristocrats regathered their forcesand staged one last great invasion. The Bolshevikarmies were struggling again to resistthis attack, so they approached Makhno, offeringanother peace treaty. No one in theUkraine trusted the Bolsheviks anymore, butwith the invaders attacking again they feltthey had no choice but to cooperate withthese so-called revolutionaries.Makhno stayed home in Gulyai-Pole forthis military campaign; he had many injuriesto recover from, and was still suffering fromthe tuberculosis he’d developed in prison. Hewasn’t surprised to hear that his comradesdefeated the invading armies once again,but he was surprised when the Bolsheviksturned their cannons upon the peasants thevery next day; naively, Makhno had believedthat the conflict between the anarchists andcommunists came down to philosophicaldifferences, when in actuality the Bolshevikswanted absolute power for themselves at anycost. The entire Ukrainian peasant army atthe front was slaughtered, and Gulyai-Polewas surrounded by red Bolshevik troops closingin to kill Makhno and his companions.Thinking quickly, Makhno called his friendsand neighbors together and gathered all thered cloth in their households. Soon, one ofthe Bolshevik brigades saw a troop approachingthem, bearing red flags and singing theRussian communist anthem, the Internationale;they assumed it was another brigadereturning victorious from the village, untilsuddenly Makhno and his fellow peasantspulled out the machine guns. The element ofsurprise gave them enough of an advantageto break through the lines and escape intothe forest.Now the final military struggle of Makhno’scareer began, between the Ukrainianpeasants and the Bolshevik forces that soughtto subjugate them once and for all. All theprevious wars the Bolsheviks had been involvedin were over, so they were able tobring their armies from every corner of theSoviet Union to chase down Makhno andthe other insurgents. The anarchists hid inthe villages, in disguise, gathering suppliesand volunteers, while huge Bolshevik armiesstomped across the countryside, looting andeven burning entire towns they suspectedof supporting the renegades. Over 200,000peasants were killed, and just as many imprisonedor deported to Siberia; every non-Bolshevik organization and newspaper wasoutlawed and destroyed. With the help ofthe peasants, though, Makhno raised a newarmy and began to confront the Bolshevikinvaders. They took back Gulyai-Pole, andtook six thousand soldiers hostage; of these,two thousand joined Makhno’s army, glad tobe free of their communist oppressors, andthe other four thousand were freed to returnto their homelands. But many of the onesthey set free were caught and killed or forcedback into service by the next Bolshevik army,which drove the insurgents out of Gulyai-Pole and back into the woods.After this struggle had been going on forfour months, a bullet struck Makhno, enteringhis thigh and exiting his stomach. In thisinjured state, he still led every charge againstthe invaders, but he had to do so lying in awagon. A few days later, his army was corneredat the coast by a Bolshevik army, and everyonewith him was killed; he was the only survivor,smuggled away semiconscious in a peasant’scart. All the same, he continued fighting forfive more months, until his fellow insurgentsdecided he needed to leave the country to getmedical treatment for all his injuries.He set out for the Romanian border, butspies tipped off the Bolsheviks that he wasgoing there, and they sent an army to blockthe way. Fighting for days and nights on end,sometimes sneaking through the underbrushand other times forced to charge straightinto enemy lines, he and his friends madetheir way forward. In one of these engagements,a bullet entered the back of his skulland came out his cheek; it was back in thewagon for Makhno. Despite this, they madeit to the Romanian border, and escapedacross the river from the pursuing armies. Ofthe tens of thousands who had fought at hisside, only eighty seven crossed into Romaniawith him, including his wife Halyna. All thefriends he had begun the struggle with, al-Page 68 Old News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Old News Page 69

most all his family and all the citizens of Gulyai-Pole,were now dead. He had been shotand stabbed over twenty times, was coveredin scars, and still carried a bullet in his ankle,which surgery had failed to remove.In Romania, the Ukrainians were put inprison for months—they were, after all, illegalimmigrants—and then exiled to Poland,where they were also put in prison.Makhno’s tuberculosis, which had troubledhim his whole adult life, was getting worse.They were sent to trial, charged with beingenemies of the Polish state, but acquittedfor lack of evidence. Makhno’s wife Halynahad given birth to a daughter during theirincarceration, but before he could focus onhis new role as a father, he was arrested again,and put in quarantine—this time for havingtuberculosis. Polish anarchists helped himto escape, and the Makhno family hid outin Poland until they finally crossed the borderillegally into Germany. From there, theymoved to Paris, where Makhno lived the restof his life in poverty.He never succeeded in learning Frenchwell, or getting a decent job. He worked for alittle while as a cab driver, among other professions.Doubtless, some French petty accountantgot a ride from him one night, andswore at his bad French: “These fucking immigrants,they can’t even learn our language,they’re good for nothing.”Biographer’sPostscriptI’ve received a ride from an immigrantcab driver or two myself.I wonder—could I have been thepassenger of the former commanderof the anarchist forces inUganda? Could she have been thewoman who asked me for changethe other night?For that matter, what aboutthe rest of us, the cab drivers andcashiers who never got to havethe adventures we long for, whonever get to prove ourselves at thethings we’re really good at? In oneof my former lives before I becamean anarchist, I was a dishwasher. Imake a pretty good anarchist, butI was a terrible dishwasher. I thinkconstantly about my companions inthat dishroom, fearing that some ofthem are still there, wondering whatit will take for them to get out.How about the almost two millionpeople languishing in prisonin this country today—when willthe revolution come that givesthem their lives back, and thechance to live for something thatmatters? Could we find wars of liberationof our own to fight in, totake our communities back fromthe forces that occupy them? Orare we to live our whole lives withthe dubious consolation that suchthings are simply not possible, thatthey have never happened?a graphic depiction courtesyof the Beehive CollectiveBroken up across the next few pages is a figurative depiction of“Plan Colombia,” the U.S. policy in the Andean Region ofSouth America. This illustration is the outcome of many discussionsregarding colonialism, militarism, and resource extractionthat took place between the Beehive Collective and organizers in Ecuador,Colombia, and the U.S. in the spring of 2002. The graphic portrays someof the ways in which the so-called “War on Drugs” and “War on Terrorism”function as a smokescreen for the interests of multinational corporationsthat connive to extract the rich biodiversity and natural resources of theAmazon and her peoples. The picture illustrates this story in order to helpthe viewer experience the different aspects of an extremely intricate andviolent situation, and to give weight to the inspiring stories of hope, courageand struggle of those who experience it more directly.There are three “layers” to this image: first, THE NIGHTMARE OF PLANCOLOMBIA, on the surface. Being covered up by this madness is the storyof 500 YEARS OF RESISTANCE: the hope, struggle, and wisdom of thepeople and critters of this bioregion. On the margins, cutting away, are THELEAFCUTTER ANTS, swarming the poster, hauling away chunks of the illustrationto expose the powerful scene of bio- and cultural diversity that liesunder the surface of this nightmare.Text originally developed forthe voiceover accompanyinga contestoria utilized by abarnstorming tour to teach childrenUkrainian revolutionary history,summer of 2003. Although there isa dearth of evenhanded historicalmaterial available on Makhno andhis times, readers are encouraged tobegin with Voline’s The UnknownRevolution and Peter Arshinov’sHistory of the MakhnovistMovement.The Beehive Design Collective is based in Eastern Maine. All their workis anonymous and anti-copyright, for free use as popular education tools.To obtain full-size copies of this design or other artwork and educationalmaterial, or to collaborate with them in other ways, contact them at:Beehive Design Collective3 Elm StreetMachias, ME 04654207-255-6737pollinators@beehivecollective.orgwww.beehivecollective.orgPage 70 Old News Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Art Page 71

THE W.A.S.P. NESTSIn order to convey not just the current situation of Plan Colombia,but also the larger historical context of colonialism in LatinAmerica, the origin of this invasion is represented as a W.A.S.P.(White Anglo Saxon Protestant) nest. In nature, paper wasp nestsare structured in tiers: multiple colonies drop out of one another,each attached to the previous nest by a stem at its midpoint. Here,this is illustrated with the United States nest dropping out of, butstill connected to, the W.A.S.P. nest of Europe…So let us begin our story at the top, where three leaves of theghosts of Columbus’ boats fall from a white branch. From aW.A.S.P. nest shaped like the European Union, the monarchy ofSpain is directing the migration of “ghost” colonists towards theAmericas. Each of these W.A.S.P.s represents a different force inthe push for colonization.- Two Pilgrims have packed their bags, ready to move in…- While a Missionary flies in clutching both the cross of the bibleas well as the cross of Western medicine…- As a Conquistador invades with a sword and blanket coveredin smallpox…- And a Judge brings in the whiteman’s concept of time and the law…- His pal the General has doubled uphis arms with a sword and a musket toprotect the new landowners…- And they’ve brought along the popeto bless their mission with incense anda crucified ant…- And lastly, the Slave Trader isclutching his load of stolen ants boundin wooden stocks.Across the top of the W.A.S.P. nest shaped like the United States,written in a bar code font, is “Plan Colonia: 500 anos de terrorismo.”This is a reference to a common graffiti slogan from the AndeanRegion: “Plan Colombia = Plan Colonia.” This heading helpsto convey the intense irony of the US using the word terrorism as ajustification for war… and to remind North Americans of the unforgottenhistory of terrorism in the Americas that began with theimperialist push from Europe over 500 years ago. The larvae of theseW.A.S.P.s, hungry with the voracious demands of North Americanconsumerism, are isolated in each of their state cells, mesmerized byAmerican flags on their televisions and computer screens. A few ofthese larvae have become grotesquely overgrown: for instance…- In the Northwest is the Microsoft larvae, constantly thirsty for millionsof gallons of fresh water (see the Beehive’s FTAA poster for facts on the connectionsbetween water consumption and computer manufacturing.)- Next door in Montana, the land of cattle ranching, an enormousMcDonald’s larva isclutching an “ALCA Meal”as his happy meal. ALCA isthe Spanish acronym for theFree Trade of the Americas:Area de Libre Comercio delas Americas.- Over in Minnesota, Valerie,the Mall of the Americaslarvae, just went on a sweatshop shopping spree, “thanks to ALCA.”- Eastward to New York, a cocaine larva reminds us that the numberone consumer of cocaine in the world is the United States, wherethe racist and classist “war on drugs” is rigged to criminalize thosethat are economically forced intococaine production and trafficking,but not those that are trulyprofiting from demand.- Down in Texas, the oil baronlarvae, a close friend of the Bushadministration, will give you atax break… if your vehicle is bigenough. Thanks for driving!- Off in California, Larval Schwarzenegger’s Disneyfication of warabroad keeps the American people mesmerized with its well-timedHollywood blockbusters.THE SIX-LAYERED, MULTI-BILLIONDOLLAR MILITARY SWARMSwarms of metal-armored insects have been unleashed from thisnest onto South America, to carry out “Plan Colombia,” a multibilliondollar military operation in the name of the “War on Drugs”that is now being opportunistically morphed into a “War againstTerrorism.” Here follows a description of the layered formation ofthese operations…- First to emerge from the nest are three praying mantis missionariesparachuting out of Utah into remote areas of the jungle. It’s nocoincidence that they are bringing with them not only the cross ofthe bible, but the cross of Western medicine, as these two conceptsare simultaneously pushed on indigenous communities. This culturalpush is not just a thing of the past: even now, when a corporationseeks to extract resources from indigenous land, they first sendmissionaries to establish “friendly contact.”- In the air high above all other aircraft in the scene are the earsof U.S. surveillance: a scorpion-like military airship, covered withantennas, with one large, radar disk on its hind parts… these AWAKplanes are used for “listening” by the Pentagon, and for communicationwith smaller planes and helicopters below.- Out in this expanse of space is a web of surveillance satellitesscanning the scene from every angle. These satellites, which impartthe paranoid sensation that Big Brother/Uncle Sam is watching,are a little known indicator of the extent of the high-tech invasionof the fumigation operations. Thanks to co-ordination from a U.S.military base in Florida and a contract with the U.S. corporationDynCorp, satellites are being used to identify the actual chemicalstructure of the plantsof the terrain in Colombiadown to fourmeters. With the useof Global PositioningSystems (GPS), thissurveillance is supposedlyused to guide thefumigation planes to“pinpoint accuracy.”(We heard that aboutsmart bombs too,eh?) Given that theseshowers of chemicals,often dumped at highaltitudes, rarely hit their supposed target of coca, many believe thatthis technology is being used in heat-searching of human forms forcovert military operations . . .Page 72 Art Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Art Page 73

- In formation below this,a squad of DH C-47 andOV-10 Bronco planes createa “layer of protection” for thefumigations to take place.The planes are being used to“secure” the area. The manyincidents in which wholevillages, with their inhabitantsand farm animals present,have been directly fumigated indicate clearly that this force is notpresent for the safety of human beings in these areas.A swarm of metal-plated Blackhawk wasp-copters are itching for afight big enough to justify their multi-million dollar price tags. Theyhover in formation alongside the fumigation planes.THE LIE OF THE DRUGfWAR,THE HORRORS OFBIOWARFAREAmidst the ghost trees and animals is seen the depopulated, defoliated,and devastated countryside, where the fumigations of PlanColombia are taking place. On the left, you see a crop-duster withthe Monsanto logo, and on the right, a duster with DynCorp’s.These are the two U.S. corporations which are the major players inthis military operation. Monsanto is the multinational which has developedproducts such as Agent Orange, BT Corn, NutraSweet, andholds the patent on “Terminator Technology.” DynCorp, a defensecontractor based in Virginia, is a lesser-known actor in this foreignpolicy. It is a U.S. corporation that functions as a “private army”; assuch, it is involved at every level of Plan Colombia, from coordinationwith satellites, to shipping chemicals and training pilots.Monsanto’s products clearly illustrate the connection betweenwar and agricultural chemicals. Roundup Ultra, a broad-spectrumherbicide also known as glyphosate, is being used at many times itsnormal strength, and with additives that make it more gel-like forthe purpose of lingering longer on the plants. This chemical is beingsprayed to justify the war on drugs to the American people, but hashad devastating effects on both the crops of subsistence farmers andthe rainforest habitat that hosts some of the most diverse speciesof plants and animals on earth. T-65 Turbo Thrush planes, beingflown by DynCorp pilots, release stripes of chemical clouds ontothe landscape. In order to avoid being shot down by guerrillas andangry farmers, these planes release their chemicals at much higheraltitudes than they are designed to be released. This makes for a veryinaccurate spraying process that has resulted in the displacement ofmillions of campesinos and indigenous people from their homes.Faint illustrations of the chemical structure of glyphosate sprinkledown from the clouds, stripping trees of their leaves, and tricklingdown into the groundwater and earth below.A swarm of mosquitoes has landed to extract the resources ofthe area. Three petroleum mosquitoes—Occidentalfrom the U.S.,British Petroleum from the U.K.,and Repsol from Spain—havepierced the veins of the earth topump out its blood. These threecompanies are the biggest players inthe consortium known as OCP thatis continuing to build a contentiouspipeline in the Amazon Rainforestof Ecuador and Colombia. This, byno coincidence, is where the mostintensive fumigations are takingplace.- In the trees, a mosquito scrapesa rubber tree to extract for the automotive industry…- As a Nestle mosquito is extracting cash crops like coffee andcocoa from the countryside.- Pharmaceutical mosquitoes are busily extracting genetic materialfrom plants to use in patented medicines. The patents make it illegalfor indigenous communities to continue using these plants in theirtraditional medicines.- A Coca-Cola mosquito is sucking up the water from a river fullof fish skeletons that has been polluted by the fumigations. Coca-Cola is one of the major companies that have been privatizing waterthroughout Latin America. Notice that the can only shows the wordcoca, to remind the viewer that the big boom in the cocaine industryhappened with the introduction of cocaine in their products, andthat they have been involved in the massacres of workers and organizersever since.Central to this situation is theOCP (Oleoducto de CrudosPesados) pipeline, the jugularvein of petroleum extraction inthe Andean region. It is ownedby a conglomerate of multinationalcorporations, and hasruptured many times, causingirreparable damage to vital rainforesthabitat over the years. Ithas also been the target of insurgentmilitary groups who areangry at how little the impoverishedregions see of the money being made from the mineral wealththat is extracted and transported through this pipeline. As a blatantexample of war for oil, the Bush administration has given 98 milliondollars to create a special forces branch of the Colombian militaryto guard this pipeline.The paramilitary beetle in the foreground is rolling up a ball of antparts to represent the ferocious massacres that are taking place. Likeso many millions that must keep moving to escape this violence, afamily of ants is being displaced from their homelands. As they runfrom the massacre, a comrade ant beckons them to an entrancewayof the underground . . .Page 74 Art Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Art Page 75

STORIES FROM THE ANTWORLDThere they embark on a journey that takes them through a spiraltunnel where, thanks to the dismantling of the leafcutter ants, twocoexisting realities are juxtaposed on opposite sides of a cross sectionof the earth. These two layers of the situation, shown simultaneously,further convey the multi-faceted invasion of colonialism intoevery aspect of daily life and culture.KARAOKE VS. THE FIESTATheir adventure begins in the karaoke bar… But first take a lookat the opposite side of the world, where a traditional fiesta is raging.Fiestas have historically been used as a form of rebellion, a refusalto submit to genocide: an action taken by communities to cometogether to create joy in the face of madness and war. At this fiesta,five ants are singing, dancing, and holding hands as a musician playsunder a traditional party decoration and the moonlight. They haveone bottle of rum to share between them all.Back in that karaoke bar, there are only four ants, because a machinehas replaced the musician. Thanks to the anti-social influenceof homogenized culture, one of them is singing some commercialpop music while the others have their “fun” by pointing and laughing.They “party” under the disco ball; instead of passing around onebottle of rum, they all have their own individual bottles of beer.DOLLARIZATION VS. BARTEREDGOODSIn the next scene, the ants’ economy has been dollarized withU.S. currency. They now must trade dollars for corn and wool antsocks. On the opposite side, with both hands, they are barteringgoods with each other that they produced themselves—in this case,a bushel of corn for a specially made wool ant hat.ORGANIZING FOREMPOWERMENT VS. TRAININGFOR TORTURENext are the contrasts between two classrooms. A group of minerslearning about how to organize a union are having an animateddiscussion. The teacher is distributing pamphlets while raising afist and showing them on the chalkboard how to link arms to do ablockade. On the desk is a bowl of the coca leaves that miners chewon the job to relieve the fatigue, hunger, and pain of their labor.In contrast, there is a classroom at the School of the Americas inFort Benning, Georgia. The students, all sitting at attention, haveon their backs the flags of some of the Latin American countrieswhere SOA graduates have contributed major atrocities: Argentina,Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, and Colombia. The teacher, an Armyant from the United States, is simultaneously distributing diagramsof weapons, while banging his fist on the table and showing them onthe chalkboard how to remove arms for torture. Also on the boardis the emblem of the new name that the SOA has recently chosenfor itself: “The Western Hemispheric Institute for Security Cooperation.”Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Their emblem includes the Maltesecross as a representation of “Columbus’ legacy of security cooperationin the Americas.” Yikes!AGRI-“CULTURE” VS. AGRI-“BUSINESS”The next scene depicts a small indigenous farm that uses ancientpermaculture techniques. A square of four plots is surrounded bya ring of local fruit-bearing trees to create a buffer zone that helpsto protect the crops from pests. They have planted beans, quinoa,potatoes, and yucca, and are gathering them into baskets to bringback to their families.Back on the nightmare side is a scene on an industrial agri-businessfarm. The workers, whose traditional hats have been replacedby uniforms, are harvesting from massive rows of bananas, cocoa,flowers, coffee, and sugar cane. Instead of loading baskets for theirown consumption, they are filling burlap sacks, each with a flag ofthe different countries to where these cash crops will be shipped.GATHERING AROUND THEFIRE VS. TELEVISIONFurther down in the scenes on the “live” side of the Earth, anelder ant gesticulates wildly, telling stories of “La Violencia” to amesmerized group of youngsters gathered around a campfire, whosehair stands on end.In the analogous scene on the side of colonization, the childrenare gathered around and mesmerized by the campfire on the televisioninstead. The elder ant is now reduced to changing the channelfor them instead of telling his own story.MONOCULTURE VS.TRADITIONAL CORNThis story of corn is a separate scene from the other agriculturalscene, because of the significance of corn as a cultural icon with attendantmythology. On the left, a farmer’s crop, planted in straight,Page 76 Art Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Art Page 77

homogenous rows, is depicted as grenades with DNA strand tasselsto represent genetically engineered corn. The campesino is wearinga backpack sprayer, as well as the cap he got for free at the Ag storewhere he bought the chemicals. He is spraying weeds that are attemptingto run away to the other side of the story…On the right, the heirloom, seed-saved corn is many differentcolors and heights, and is fluttering with butterflies not endangeredby its pollen. A woman, still wearing her traditional hat, hasa child on her back instead of a sprayer. With a machete, she isharvesting from her field the small plants that she knows how touse for medicinal purposes.MAMA COCA VS. COCAINEThis is the dead end of the spiral path that many of the ants havebeen forced to tread. Here, a coca bush has been split down themiddle: on one side is leaves, and on the other they have turned intodollar bills. On the right is an ant that is brewing up a batch of cocatea for a young ant that feels fatigued from altitude sickness. On theleft, an ant adds coca leaves to an extractor. It is important to notethat he is adding many different chemicals as well, as it is impossibleto make cocaine purely from mamacoca. These chemicals, often includingkerosene and formaldehyde, are imported almost entirelyfrom the U.S. The young ant is packaging up the cocaine into a boxto be shipped back up to the origin of the demand: those resourcecraving consumer larvae in the U.S.LAYERS OF HISTORY IN THESOILIn addition to the scenes in the ant tunnels, the complexity ofthe situation is depicted in the different layers of soil underground.The first layer deep is a layer of the arms and compacted guns thatserve to pull communities apart. On the “live” side are various typesof basket weaving, representations of community work that weavespeople together.The second layer down are mass graves of ant skulls mixed withprotest signs to represent the massacres of those that have organizedagainst the nightmare. Opposite this are sprouting seeds. The thirdlayer, the fabric of society, is camouflage on one side, contrastedwith traditional woven fabric made in community on the other.Digging down to the last layers, on the side of monoculture onefinds a landfill of discarded bottles, cans, and trash, while oppositethis are vessels that are decomposing back into earth.THE HEART OF THE EARTHIn the center of the anthill is an anatomical heart that looks on oneside like a petroleum pumping station, alluding to the extraction ofwhat some indigenous communities in the Andean Region considerto be the blood of the earth. On the side of hope, on the other hand,it is a living heart with a spiralin the middle and the Kichwaword “pachakutik” writtenbelow it. Pachakutik is anindigenous word with manymeanings. It often refers tothe idea of time as a spiralwith the beginning in thecenter and the future spiralingever outward, in contrast tothe western idea of time as astraight, continuous line. Thisperspective offers hope, asthere is always a new layer covering up the previous one, and “whatgoes around comes around.” Surely this wise perspective can givecontext to current events in the North of the Americas, where thereis ever-increasing irony in the U.S. calling for a “war on terrorism.”THE NIGHTMARE BROUGHTTO JUSTICEAt the bottom of the poster is a reclamation scene. The ants of theleafcutter resistance, streaming up and down the sides of the poster,are carrying in the chunks of the nightmare that they have been busydismantling. They are further breaking these pieces up with theirtools, and taking them backto the soil. This compostingof the nightmare, processingit through the filter of theearth, will assure that whatgrows back in its place willnot be just as destructive.With this new hope, they arereplanting the countrysideand bagging up contaminatedsoil to clean up the manyoil spills that have resultedfrom the pipeline. A team ofleafcutters is dismantling the pipeline that spells out “Colombia” inacknowledgement that many indigenous people consider the conceptof “Colombia” to be itself a mass hallucination. The boundaries theyobserve between each other often transcend the borders imposed onthem by those who have colonized their ancestral lands. The antswork in tandem with an ally from the plant world: the Cat’s Clawvine, powerful enough to tear through concrete.The ant world has much to teach us. A popular saying in LatinAmerica is that revolution is “el trabajo de las hormigas”—the workof the ants. Their existence is a reminder of how small and inconsequentialwe may feel in the face of adversity, beneath the immenseweight of the work necessary to transform it. Yet they are also a potentsymbol of the constant and seemingly insignificant efforts all aroundus that work powerfully in concert to break the spell of nightmare.Page 78 Art Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Art Page 79

asBeggar (casually): There is no President—only some who believe there is one, and atleast one lunatic who believes it is he. He thinks the whole world revolves around him,but there are far more important people—me, for example, or even you.APresident (in disguise, but thronged with guards): …but tell me, what doyou think of the President?OTTObPresident (insulted): And what’s so important about you? What exactly doyou contribute to society?Beggar (imperturbable): Let everyone do what he enjoys and give away what he doesn’tneed, and all will have plenty.President: Oh yes? If everyone were a Beggar, what then?Beggar: And if everyone were a President? What then?President (incensed): That’s not the same thing! [triumphant laughter fromthe Beggar] Besides, there are ordinances against begging here.Beggar: I’m well aware that what you consider duty would have you jail me, Diogenes,Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis of Assisi…President: Yet we all must obey the laws of our nation.Beggar (animated): No, only of nature, and that is too many already! It is bad enough to beborn without wings; to be denied the free use of one’s hands and feet is simply intolerable.President: My friend, you live in a democracy—the laws that govern you aremade by a State that is nothing more than the will of the people themselves.Beggar (sardonically): Oho, the will of the people! Once the State proclaimed itself therepresentative of God’s will among us, now it calls itself the representative of our ownwill. I suppose lies must be replaced from time to time, when they become rusty! Twohundred years ago, Beggars were beaten by the will of God—now we are jailed by ourown will? At least we have made progress in wit! “Now I lock myself in prison”—“now Ipay myself minimum wage”! We Beggars are not so mad as to conflate ourselves with ourmasters. Are you?President: And who would you have maintain order, if not your government?Beggar: Governments are only necessary where there is disorder to be maintained. Leftto ourselves, Beggars are quite capable of maintaining order on our own. I daresay thesame is true of all.President: A world without governments? But that is utopian, an impossibleideal.Beggar: Perfect health, too, is an abstraction, an ideal—but I still fight off infectionswhen I get them! [feigns as if to take a sudden swing at the President; the Presidentflinches, then quickly reasserts an exaggerated composure] Besides, if there is to beimbalance, it’s better to be among sthe have-nots; at least then one sleeps better at night.[looks deep into the President’s eyes, as the latter’s guards step forward to surround him]We only have to be lucky once; you have to be lucky all the time.BJamie Miller, P.O. Box 4964, Louisville, KY 40204-0964The cans in Jerome’s backpack rustledand clanked as we came to a stop beneaththe billboard. I shifted the milk crate frommy left hand to my right and stared up atthe bottom of the brown metal ladder, easilytwelve feet out of reach. It wasn’t the bottomrung that bothered me, though—it wasthe top, a hundred feet up in the black sky.I could hear the bitter wind singing shrillythrough the structure far above—I couldn’ttell if it was an invitation or a warning.“You ever wonder why they don’t just fallover?” I said in a low voice, the same voicethat Jerome and I had used since we parkedbehind the nearby department store andhopped a few fences. “That big billboard,propped up on a narrow metal pipe? Thewind oughta just blow it over.”“It’s solid metal, dude. The pole goesdown into the ground, through that thickconcrete base.” Jerome’s voice was that of ateacher impatient with his student. Knownonly by OTTO, his vandal’s pseudonym, hewas infamous throughout the region—hatedby billboard advertisers, sought in vainby police, admired by graffiti artists, and reveredby anarchist groups.I had met Jerome through one such group,a small cell devoted mostly to animal rightsactivism. The cell was targeting the pharmaceuticalcompany Eli Lilly primarily fortheir animal experimentation, but also becauseof their role in “creating a benumbedProzac nation,” as one of the cell’s typicallyoverwrought press releases read.When I first saw Jerome at one of theirmeetings he almost seemed like a comicalfigure: a squat, bald guy with thickframedglasses, clad in an oversized blackhoodie and baggy, olive-drab cargo pants.He looked like a refugee from an MTVmosh-pit casting call. That impression wasdispelled when he spoke for the first time,outlining his objections to an unusuallyoutlandish call for action proposed by anothermember of the cell. He was brusque,articulate and firm without being aggres-sive or intimidating, though hisobvious intellect was probablyoff-putting by itself.I never would have met Jeromeif a few friends of mine, membersof the cell, hadn’t already trustedme enough to bring me into theircircle. All of them, including Jerome,were quite paranoid abouttheir activities, and at first I wasamused by all the cloak-and-dagger pretension.Once they felt comfortable enough toopenly discuss their more ambitious plansaround me—and once I realized who Jeromewas—then I completely understoodtheir desire for secrecy. One day, around thesame time that I stopped noticing that theapartment in which we met smelled of catpiss and garlic, I found that I was no longerplaying along with their “security culture,”but actually a serious part of it.I imagined that the few people who foundout that Jerome was OTTO felt a bit of surprise,awe and maybe some disappointment—like you might upon meeting a controversiallate-night radio host for the first time. Whenhe wore his bleach-white college cap, oxfordshirt, dark sweater and khakis—what he calledhis “undercover gear”—he looked like a personwho scorned double-parkers and welfarecheats, and not at all like an accomplishedvandal.Jerome was strictly into direct action,though he did a good job of concealing hisdistaste for theory and rhetoric. When thecollege students in the cell volunteered tocompose a manifesto, Jerome had no objections,but when it came time to plan whatthey called “night work,” Jerome participatedin every aspect of the planning.For this particular action against Eli Lilly,about half of the cell members were drivingto Indianapolis to target the corporateheadquarters. The rest of us separated intothree pairs, each of which was tasked withtargeting a particular billboard. Jerome hadactually volunteered to take me along for myI think that I shall never seeA billboard lovely as a tree.Perhaps, unless thebillboards fall,I’ll never see a tree at all.—Ogden Nashfirst time out, arguing that he was best suitedfor that job as the most experienced “writer”in the cell. There was no argument.The car ride from my apartment to the departmentstore parking lot was filled mostlywith Jerome’s music: fast-paced metal thatcareened from savagely heavy to curiouslymelodic and back again. He spoke only whenswitching CDs or punching equalizer buttonson his shimmering stereo, little silencefillingsentences like “You’ll like this track” or“Check out the lyrics to this one.” Sometimeshe’d mention how he first discovered a particularband or say that he’d seen them playlive a few times. I don’t remember him askingme if I liked listening to metal or not. Ithought, here I am sitting next to OTTO inhis car, listening to his favorite metal bands,and though I enjoyed the idea of hanging outwith such an infamous criminal, the reality ofit was so far less than thrilling.We could see our target from the expressway:a well-lit billboard featuring part of anAfrican-American woman’s face in the lowerleft-hand corner. The woman was laughing—guffawing, really—and glancing out at theexpressway with her head angled backwards,as if she had just told a great joke and wantedto let you in on it. In the upper right cornerwas the word “irritability” in giant sans-serifletters. The first five letters were crossed outwith a big X, and beneath that the boardadvised, “Think it’s PMS? Think again,” in anice italic serif font. It was an ad for a newmedication called Sarafem, targeted at womenexperiencing premenstrual depression.Page 80 Fiction Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Fiction Page 81

The billboard had seemed large but notintimidating from that distance, but here,gazing up at it in a fenced-in field of weedsbehind a department store at around three inthe morning, it seemed oppressive and vast.It was quite cold and all we could hear wasthe Doppler whine of passing cars and theoccasional 18-wheeler downshifting on theunseen off-ramp near the store.“Ready to do this?” Jerome muttered. Itwasn’t really a question.“How are we gonna reach the ladder?”“We’ll climb up on the base, then get upon that electric box near the ladder. Fromthere we oughta be able to reach the ladder.”The base was a squat concrete cylinderabout six feet high and four feet wide. Jerometook the milk crate from my hands andplaced it at the bottom of the base, then usedit as a step so he could haul his squat bodyup. I followed, not really needing the milkcrate but using it anyway.We leaned back against the billboard’s metalpole and looked down at our toes hanging offthe edge of the concrete. The lip of the basewas just under a foot wide. Jerome edgedaround the pole until he reached the utilitybox bolted adjacent to the foot of the ladder. Ipivoted on my left foot, being careful with mybalance and weight, so I could hug the metalpole and watch what Jerome was doing.He gazed at the foot of the ladder for amoment, then reached out and touched thetop of the utility box. It was about eighteenor twenty inches long, as tall as my arm fromtop to bottom, and around five or six incheswide from front to back. Two thick cablescame out of collared holes in the top andwent straight up the pole, carrying juice tothe billboard lights, which were still on.“Are we gonna work with the lights on?”I asked. I wondered if he was going to breakopen the box and pull a switch.“No. There’s a light-sensitive trigger upthere that we’ll take care of. You’ll see.”He peered at the box and its cables foranother silent moment. “OK. Are you anygood at pull-ups?”Because of the whistling wind overhead, Ithought he asked if I was “any good with bullets,”and for a few unreal seconds I thought thecell had decided to initiate me into some kindof anarchist assassination program—maybe Iwas going to learn sniper techniques up thereon that billboard. Then I figured it out.“No, there’s no way I can pull myself uponto that ladder,” I said with more than a littlerelief. Abort mission, I thought, the new guydoesn’t have the upper body strength for it.“Then you’re going first,” Jerome said matterof-factly.I’m not sure if he noticed my expressionof surprise. “I’ll come behind you with thegear—” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder,indicating his backpack—“and once you get tothe top, stay on the back platform, OK?”“How am I going to reach the ladder?”“I’m gonna boost you up onto this box.Use the power cables to steady yourself, thengrab the ladder and you’re set. I’ve done it amillion times, it’s no problem.”I considered this. I could have backed out,if I’d wanted to, but I felt obligated to completethe task. I wanted to get this messageup on the billboard as much as everyone elsein the cell did, and I couldn’t exactly expectthem to do it while I sat shivering on the sidelines.Also, I had to admit, I got a kick outof going out on a mission with a guy like Jerome.It was something like being starstruck,and since I scorned the cult of celebrity I wasashamed to discover this within myself.If I was really blown away by his celebritystatus, I reasoned to myself, then I’d betoo intimidated to go along with this. I’d bestanding off to the side, staring in admiration.He’s just a regular person like me, so Ishould treat him that way.“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Here I come.”I scooted around the narrow ledge of thebase until I was next to Jerome and the utilitybox. Without meeting my eyes—maybe he didsense that I was sort of in awe of him, and maybeit made him uncomfortable—he bent hisknees a bit and cupped his hands low betweenhis thighs. I grabbed one of the cables with onehand and put my foot in Jerome’s hands. Thisis it, I thought, and then before I could scaremyself with the idea of failure I hauled myselfup with Jerome shoving me from below.The ladder didn’t seem so far away once I wasstanding on top of the utility box. I leaned tothe side a little and grabbed the ladder’s fourthrung with both hands. The coldness of the metalwasn’t a surprise, but the rough surface was.The paint was chipped or peeling everywhere,and the center of the rung actually seemed to bewithout any paint whatsoever—probably fromyears of billboard workers’ sneakers grindingaway during ascent and descent.“Now kick your feet up there and get onthe bottom rung,” Jerome said. He soundedlike someone’s dad patiently explaining themechanics of bicycle-riding.I pushed off with my feet—and dangledagainst the ladder uselessly. I was asking mylegs to cooperate but they just weren’t payingany attention. Instead of folding up and toeach side so that my feet could hook onto theladder’s bottom rung, my legs just floppedaround below me.“Jerome!” I gasped, but he was alreadygrabbing my hips and steadying me so myfeet could find purchase. He shoved me upwardsas best as he could, too short to actuallyget me where I needed to be but sturdyenough to stabilize me.I managed to clamber up a few rungsbefore I realized how short of breath andfreaked out I was. I felt stupid and burdensome,like a kid who knows his older brotheris only just barely putting up with the incompetenceof his younger sibling. Jeromewas right below me, having already pulledhis whole compact bulk up onto the ladder.He tapped my foot and said “Let’s go, it’s along climb.”I made the mistake of looking up. It wasindeed a long climb. I couldn’t even begin toguess at the number of chilly, ragged rungsI’d have to grip one by one on the way up.It was literally too late to back down at thispoint, though. I took a deep breath andraised my right arm up two rungs, then myright leg, and pulled myself up; then my leftarm and left leg followed, and I was climbingthe ladder.I tried to focus on the thing that was ultimatelyholding me aloft—not the ladder,but the wide pole to which it was bolted. Itwas a nice steady reference to stare at while Imoved up, one hand and foot at a time, overand over again.Below me, Jerome murmured somethingindistinct, but the wind carried his wordsaway. I stopped and said “What?” in thatsame low, discreet voice we’d been using allnight long. He mumbled again and I toldhim I couldn’t hear him but he kept on muttering.I looked down at him to say somethingpolite but urgent like “Jerome, I’msorry, I still can’t hear you,” but my tonguefroze in my mouth when I saw just how farup in the air we were.The ground seemed as far away as it doesfrom a plane. The ladder started shaking andmy brain shrieked Earthquake! but it onlytook me a few seconds to realize that it wasjust my body trembling with fear. It’s notoften that we modern, civilized Americansare placed in a position where the strengthof our hands is the only thing keeping usalive, I thought, and as soon as I did myhands felt more tired than they had everbeen, more than after the three-hour writtenexams that my freshman English professorhad been famous for, more than theyhad after washing all of the dishes from mysister’s wedding reception, more than afteran entire day’s worth of piano practice. Myfingers were curled into claws around thatrung—I had lost count, but it could havebeen rung number ninety or rung numbernine hundred—and I felt like they couldnever uncurl, and if they did then they’dnever be able to wrap themselves around arung again and I would surely plummet tomy death.I was composing the next day’s headlines(which was worse, STUDENT PLUM-METS TO DEATH or STUDENTFOUND FROZEN TO BILLBOARDLADDER?) when I felt Jerome smackingmy right heel.“Hurry the fuck up,” he shouted over theshrieking wind, “we don’t have all fuckingnight! Look up, not down, fool!”I had just been chastised by the one andonly OTTO, and he had raised his voiceto do it. That was enough to get me going.Somehow I managed to issue the rightcommands to my frozen claws: Loosen,raise up, clamp next rung. Step up. Loosenclaws, repeat until end of ladder.The ladder ended in a rusty, man-sized,three-sided box behind the billboard itself.I managed to pull myself up and over toone side, though I was almost blinded bythe glare of the fixed spotlights shining justbelow the massive Eli Lilly advertisement.Attached to the rusty cage was a narrowmetal walkway with thin rails, as long asthe whole board, and there I planted myself,still shivering, to watch Jerome unpackhis bag and begin his work.He pulled out a roll of duct tape and atiny flashlight, then carefully stepped aroundme to examine the edges of the billboard. Iheard a quiet exclamation of discovery.“What’s going on?” I asked.He turned on the flashlight and pointed it ata small panel on the side of the billboard. Immediatelythe spotlights died and I blinked toclear the lingering harshness from my vision.“This is a solar trigger,” Jerome explained.“When the sun rises in the morning it cutsoff the spotlights. I need you to hold thisflashlight in place while I tape it down.”I grabbed the tiny rail and the steel frameof the billboard, braced my feet, and carefullyhauled myself up to a hunched standingposition. Despite the whistling wind whichthreatened to blow my wool cap off my head,the billboard was rock-steady, yet I still feltlike a green sailor trying to get his sea legs.I staggered over to Jerome’s position at theend of the billboard. He laid the flashlightflat on the small solar panel so that its lightformed a small parabola on the dark surface.I held the bulbous end of the light in placeas Jerome yanked a few feet of duct tape offthe roll, tearing it with his teeth. He pressedthe tape against the light first, then wrappedit around the sides of the billboard. He toreoff another long strip and applied it, thenone more, until he was satisfied. He noddedand I took my hand away. The flashlightheld; the spotlights stayed off.“Now that the lights are off, your job is towatch for cops,” he said, gracefully steppingaround me on the narrow platform. “Theirlights probably won’t be on, so you’ll have tolook for markings.”He picked up his backpack, pulled out apair of binoculars, handed them to me, thenheaved one padded strap to his shoulder andmade his way around to the front of the billboard.Almost immediately I heard the unmistakableratta-ratta sound of spraypaintcans being shaken.I laid down flat on the cold, rough walkwayand peered down at the departmentstore parking lot far below. The cars seemedtiny but their makes and models were easilydistinguishable in the stark glare of the talllight poles sprouting regularly throughoutthe lot. With the binoculars, I could tell if aparticular car had whitewall tires or not, so Ifigured I wouldn’t have any problem noticinga white Crown Victoria with a big coplogo on the side.Jerome seemed to have a certain way ofworking: rattle the can, spray a little, thenrepeat. Ratta-ratta-psssss, ratta-ratta-psssss.I knew he was a perfectionist when it cameto legibility and style so I had tried to get asPage 82 Fiction Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Fiction Page 83

comfortable as possible on the metal walkway,figuring that we’d be here for a little while.He surprised me by walking back aroundto my side of billboard about fifteen minuteslater. I felt his footsteps through the steelstructure before I saw him come around thecorner. I was ready for him to say somethinglike “Forget it, I dropped my cans” or “I sawa cop, let’s go,” but instead he said “I’m done.Let’s get out of here.”I stood up and handed him the binoculars.“Aren’t we going to get the flashlight?”“If we turn it off and take it with us, thespotlights will come back on, and then everyoneriding by on the expressway will see thatwe just fucked up this billboard. Come on,let’s go, dude.”“You going first this time?”“You wanna go first?”“Sure.” I wasn’t sure if volunteering to bethe first down would redeem me in his eyes,but it was worth a shot.Going down turned out to be a lot easierthan going up. I didn’t have to swing mycreaky arms up over my head. I was cooperatingwith gravity instead of fighting it. I feltsafe moving slowly towards the earth, as ifthe solid ground beneath me would be moreforgiving if I hit it while coming back down.The bottom of the ladder rose to meet mefaster than I expected. I let my legs dangleagain, swung them over to the utility boxand successfully lowered myself down to theconcrete base of the pole. I leapt down andpicked up the milk crate. Jerome dropped tothe ground beside me, landing on his feet ina crouch like a tomcat’s.In the car Jerome finally smiled. “We did it,dude! Fuckin’ A!” he shouted, throwing his uprightopen hand almost in my face. I reachedup and smacked it, grinning like an idiot.“You totally froze up going up that ladder,man,” he continued, becoming uncharacteristicallyexpansive. “I thought I was gonnahave to climb over you, do the job, climbback down and then call out the hook andladder truck, you know?”He laughed at my shocked look. “Just kidding,just kidding! You were fine for a virgin.You went down that ladder pretty damn fast,didn’t you? Fuckin’ A you did! Goddamn,I gotta hear some metal. How about someHarakiri? They’re from Indy. I wonder howthe Indy operation went? I hope those kidspulled it off. Dude, we gotta go to Denny’s.I always go to Denny’s after some successfulnight work.”He chattered like that for the rest of thenight and I was barely able to get a word in.Some of his metalhead friends were at Denny’s,so Jerome spent most of his time talkingto them. I felt sort of left out for a while.Once our food came, though, Jerome wasfixed in his seat, alternately taking bites of adouble stack of pancakes and a pile of hashbrowns covered in Tabasco sauce.Despite having ordered twice as much foodas I did, Jerome finished first and was biddingfarewell to his buddies when I ate mylast bite. We paid our bills and walked out tothe car. The sky, so dark just a few hours ago,was now pale gray and pink.Jerome clapped me on the shoulder.“Come on, dude, let’s go see our handiwork.”The adage criminals always return to the sceneof the crime popped into my head right away.As we left Denny’s and got on the expressway,I tried to remember the second part of“Hey Stella, I love graffiti and fuckingshit up in general, but have you noticedhow much of this magazine is justabout boys and their exploits?”“Yeah, that’s fucked! Let’s find theiroffice and burn it to the ground!”“Myself, I’m going to give them the benefitof the doubt: I’m going to send them articlesabout some of the bad-ass direct action wedo, along with an analysis of why machismois still so prevalent in anarchist communities,and if they don’t print them, then I’m goingto burn their office to the ground.”the saying. It came to me when I saw a policecar whizz past us in the opposite direction:criminals always return to the scene of thecrime, and that’s how they get caught.“Shouldn’t we be avoiding the scene of thecrime?” I asked Jerome, who laughed. I feltsilly and small again—the student humbledonce more.“Dude, it’s almost rush hour. Look around.There are hundreds of cars on the expressway.We don’t stand out at all. If we headed backto that parking lot and whipped out a cameraand started congratulating ourselves, thenwe might look suspicious. We’re cool, man.Trust me.”Jerome tapped his fingers on the steeringwheel and I rubbed the corduroy coveringmy thighs. We were impatient to see the billboard.Almost there, I thought, just aroundthis bend, and—“Ha! Woo hoo!” Jerome boomed, fillingthe car with his voice. “There it is, dude! Thatlooks great!”There it was, on the left side of the expressway,looming over the department store andits no-longer-empty parking lot. The African-Americanwoman was still laughing atsomething, and the upper right of the boardstill said “irritability” and “Think it’s PMS?Think again,” but below that text were massiveblack letters in a style all their own:“ITS NOT PMS, ITS RACISM AND SEX-ISM. FUCK ELI LILLY! STOP ANIMALABUSE!”Below that was a tall jumble of curves andlines, unintelligible to the untrained eye. Icould distinguish the two O’s and two T’s,though, despite the stylized capital A’s inscribedwithin each circles: OTTO.ok so farsitting on the curbfeet in the guttersmoking,alone,listening to music throughtiny headphones,one-thirty in the morningan unusual fog all aroundstaring at the fluorescentsacross the way at the gas station.i look at my bare feetthey don’t look like the feetof a young mananymorebut they never didreallyand they seem okok to still be with meok so far they seem to saywe’re in it together.winter in olympiaafter the filmat the capitolwalkingin the raina few blocksto my restaurantwhere they knowmeordering the usualpouring the teaholding the small cuptight and warmbetween my handswet haircold sticky skina mending hearta sip of teawarmthfrom the gut outwaiting for thespring rollto arrivewinterin olympiaearly springi would wake up firstalways andwatch her sleepinglook out the windowat early springit was quietwith herthereshe would wakestretch out her armsscrunch her facemoanpress up against mesighan eyes-still-closed smilewe would talkslow, weak-fingered talksome morningsshe rushed downstairsand returnedwith a beaten, discardedgrapefruitand peeled itwhile we sat together andwatched through the open windowearly spring sun and cloudsshe would put a sectioninto my hand andi would eat itwe spat the seeds outthe windowit was going to end andwe ate our early springgrapefruitsanywaypoems by nobodynot enoughif i sat across from heracross the tableagaini would reach outtouch herfacemy thumblightly resting onher cheek bonemy fingers grazing theunderside of her jawsoft and solidi would look at herand i would cryand not stopit is a lie and i think thisevery timebefore i see her againi never do iti keep trying everything elseand it failsi still don’t know what to dowhen love is not enoughPage 84 Fiction Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Poetry Page 85

taking care of the cathe had a girlfriendand the girlfriendhad this catit was very oldshe’d had it a longtime and had grownquite attached to itone day the cat got sickso she asked himif he would take care of itwhile she was at workhe said he wouldand later that dayafter she had leftfor workhe took the catinto the backyardand shot it thru the headwith a .22when she returned from workshe asked him about the catshe said, “what did the vet say?”“the vet?” he asked“yes,” she said “i asked youto take care of the cat—you tookit to the vet, right?”he nodded, slowlythinking, oh shit, is that whatshe meant?“well,” she demanded, “what did thevet say?”he looked at her and triedto project a sense of grim seriousnessthen took a deep breath and said,“the vet said there was nothing he could do.”“what?”“i had him put the cat to sleep.”“you did?”“i didn’t want the cat to suffer.”“you didn’t?”“no, and i didn’t want you to haveto make the decision becausei know how much the cat meant to you.”she stepped forwardthrew her arms around his neckand gave him a deep kiss“you’re the sweetest, most compassionateman in the world.”and he thought to himself,don’t i know itthe last man on earthjust heard thatthe destructionof the Amazon Rain foresthas jumped 40%it makes me short of breathjust to think about itSoylent Green is on it’s wayi’m the last man on earthalone in my roomwith nothing but the musicof the deadto keep me companythis is just the wayi like itfreedom of the working classall it takes to cheer me upis a pocketful of money.it certainly helpswhen i’m feeling smashed by the forces.it’s a nice feelingto be off on a fridaywith the weekendaheada fresh paycheck in my wallet;it almost makes the murderingof my hoursduring the restof the weekworthwhile.almost, but not quite;this is the pitiful freedomof the working class:48 hrs to do what the hell you want.poems by raegan butcherjubilant desolationthe clichés are trueyou can’t run away from yourselfit’s too badif you want tothe enemythe horror. to look intothe mirror and see my father’s face.to look down at my hands and seemy father’s hands. the hands of theenemy, of the man i don’t wantto be.THEVILLAGEA parlor game in the form of a psychodrama, courtesy of the Curious George Brigade (cgb@ageofdinosaurs.net)The Village is an excellent way for a room of acquaintances to get to know each other betterand have a raucous accusation-slinging, alliance-forming time in the bargain. Incidentally, italso provides rigorous training in deceiving, recognizing deception in others, remaining calmduring cross-examinations, persuading your comrades of an important truth when they havereason to believe you are lying, and many other skills that come in handy for those doing bothorganizing and undercover work.This game is still in the early stages of its development. Please feel free to experiment with therules and format, and report your findings to us. Happy bickering, dissembling, and mauling!To PlayTo play, you need at least nine people, one of whom will be the host. The host begins byrandomly distributing identity cards to the other players, who should not let each other knowwhat cards they have received. These cards will identify the players as Peasants, Witches,Elders, Hunters, Children, or Werewolves. There should be one card for each of these roles,with the exception of the Peasant role: there should be as many Peasant cards as you have extraplayers. For example, if ten people including the host are playing, you should distribute fourPeasant cards. In a pinch, as few as eight people can play, if you leave out the Child card.Players should sit in a circle, insofar as this is possible, so all can have a good view of eachother to watch for psychological cues. The host occupies a central position so he or she canofficiate throughout the playing and address players by night without it being clear to otherplayers who is being addressed.If you so desire, you can photocopy the illustrations accompanying this text and make theminto identity cards. You can also design your own such cards, or just scrawl the names of thedifferent roles on scraps of the napkin you found in the jail cell in which you are playing.PremiseThe Village is essentially a role-playing game: the players take theroles of citizens in a village that has been infiltrated by a Werewolf.The catch is that no player can be sure what role any other player isactually playing: thus, the heart of the game is the psychological challengeof deciphering the motives and activities of the others whilekeeping your own to yourself. Most of the game is spent in guardeddiscussions and heated arguments over Werewolf-catching tactics,punctuated by exchanges of accusations and denials about who theWerewolf is.It is the goal of the villagers to kill the Werewolf with a silver bullet.If the Werewolf is shot with a silver bullet, the villagers win. If the villagersrun out of silver bullets without killing the Werewolf, or if theHunter and all the Peasants are killed, the Werewolf—or Werewolfteam, depending on how badly things have degenerated—wins.General RulesIt generally works best to play with only three silver bullets forthe gun, unless there are twelve or more players, in which casefour bullets is a better number.The host is neutral and the final judge on all rules and procedures.Dead players should remain silent and not influence thegame—the dead don’t speak! No player may look at another’scard, or show another player their card until they are killed. Aplayer should not mouth information or otherwise communicateduring the night.Page 86 Poetry Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Games Page 87

First NightAfter each player is aware of his or her secretidentity, the host announces that the firstnight has fallen in the village. During eachnight period, the villagers all keep their eyesclosed while gently tapping their hands andfeet for atmosphere. The host addresses eachof those playing a special role in the village,without giving away who is who, in this order:“Child—wake up.” The player who receivedthe Child card opens his or her eyes,makes eye contact with the host, then closesthem again. Later in the game, the Childmay get the chance to silently ask the hosta question about the identity of the Werewolf.“Elder—wake up.” The Elder does thesame thing as the Child did. Later in thegame, the Elder will receive clues fromthe host at this stage in the passing of thenight.“Witch—wake up. Who do you want toprotect tonight?” The Witch opens his or hereyes and points to a player to be protected,as described below, then returns to “sleep.”“Werewolf—wake up. Who do you wantto kill tonight?” The Werewolf opens his orher eyes, points to the player to be killed,then returns to “sleep.”“Hunter—wake up.” The Hunter does asthe others called on before did. He or shewill not have the choice to kill or not killanother player until the following night.First DayAfter the first night, the host announcesthat day has broken—i.e., all the players canopen their eyes and stop making noise—anddescribes the death of the unfortunate victimof the Werewolf. In death, a player’s identityis revealed to the others.There follows a town meeting at which thevillagers discuss what is happening, speculatewildly as to the Werewolf’s identity, andtry to force each other to reveal their identities.Such characters as the Witch, the Elder,and the Child will usually want to keep theiridentities a secret so the Werewolf doesn’tcome after them; at the same time, they maywish to attempt to convey somehow whatthey learn. The psychological and emotionaldramas that play out during this phase arethe heart and soul of the game.If the Hunter was not the first victim, thevillagers now take a majority vote to give theHunter—even though his or her identity isnot known—a mandate to shoot someoneduring the following night. If a majority ofthe villagers vote for one player to be killed,the Hunter has a mandate: the Hunter mustshoot the person thus selected, or not shootanyone at all. If the villagers do not give theHunter a mandate, it is the Hunter’s choice:he or she can kill any one of the players, ornot kill anybody that turn.If the Hunter was killed on the first night,then the villagers vote for a sheriff, who takesover the Hunter’s weapons and role—see“Sheriff Rules.”If the players are taking too long to cometo conclude their discussions on any givenday, the host can hurry them along by announcingthat the sun is going down.Second Night, and AdditionalDays and NightsOn the second night, everyone againcloses their eyes, and the host addresses theplayers in the same order he or she did thefirst night. The differences are that, from thesecond night on, the Elder receives clues, theHunter—or the sheriff, if the Hunter hasbeen killed and the villagers have been ableto agree on a replacement—has the choiceof killing another player, and the Child canask silent questions of the host about theWerewolf’s identity, if a player on either sideof him or her has been killed by the Werewolf.On the second day, the host announceswho has been killed by the Werewolf, andwho, if anyone, has been killed by theHunter or sheriff. The villagers can tell thedifference between the two murders, as onehas been committed with a silver bullet andthe other with fangs and claws. Again, thevillagers must agree on a mandate for whotheir Hunter should kill. If the Hunter hasbeen killed, the village must elect a sheriff.On the third night, and then again onthe sixth night, a full moon rises. On a fullmoon night, the Werewolf has two options,and must indicate to the host which he orshe chooses. If he or she holds up one finger,she can turn another player into a secondWerewolf. If he or she holds up two fingers,he or she can attempt to kill two players.When there are two Werewolves, eachnight they must agree by means of sign languagewhom they will kill. The two can stillonly kill one player per night, at least untilthe second full moon.Variations and Field NotesYour skills in negotiating with others andassessing their sincerity will be honed to arazor’s edge through successive games of TheVillage. You and your friends may acquire asense of what kinds of proposals are “wolftalk,” and then use this to reverse-psychologizeone another. You’ll notice how peoplewho know each other well can make use ofthis in games, both to establish needed trustand to trick one another. You may developlong term strategies that extend over a seriesof games by which to teach your playmateshow to read and interpret your actions andthen, when the time is ripe, outwit them.Add additional characters or roles as youwish—some possibilities include the VillageIdiot and the Owl.Elder RulesEach night, excepting the first one, the Elder gets a clue. The host picks a question andannounces it to the entire sleeping village. The host will indicate the answer to his or her ownquestion with a nod or shake of the head, which only the Elder, being the only player withopen eyes at that juncture, will see.In a case in which there are two Werewolves, the Elder must indicate which Werewolf heor she is requesting a clue about by holding up one or two fingers before hearing the question.Like all players but the Hunter and the Peasants, the Elder can be elected sheriff, but cannotfire the gun. This means that if the Elder is elected, when it is the time of night when thesheriff is called on to decide who if anyone to shoot, the Elder can only decide not to shootanyone.Elder clues could include:Is the Werewolf male?Is the Elder sitting next to the Hunter?Is the Werewolf sitting next to the Elder?Is the Werewolf wearing a sweatshirt/facially tattooed/etc., according to the demographicsof the players—it helps to pick a characteristic that describes about half the players.Child RulesIf the Child’s parents—the players sitting to the left or the right of the Child—are killedby a Werewolf, the child’s ability to “peek” is activated. The reasoning here is that, as theChild was in the house during the attack, he or she may have gotten a glance at the Werewolf.When addressed by the host the night following his or her parent’s death, the Child isallowed to point at any player to ask the host if that person is the Werewolf. The host nodsyes if the person selected is the Werewolf responsible for the parent’s death. If two Werewolvestogether were responsible for the parent’s death, the child can learn about either one’sidentity as a Werewolf. If the Child’s parent was killed by a single Werewolf, the Child cannotbe told the identity of the Werewolf that was transformed afterwards.The Child can be elected sheriff, but cannot fire the gun.Witch RulesThe Witch can protect a person every night by pointing to him or her while everyone elsesleeps. The Witch can also choose to protect himself or herself. The Witch cannot choose thesame person two nights in a row—he or she can pick the same person twice, just not in arow.The person protected by the Witch is safe from all forms of Werewolf attack: he or she canneither be killed nor turned into a Werewolf during the full moon. The Witch cannot protectfrom silver bullets, however.The Witch can be elected sheriff, but cannot fire the gun.Page 88 Games Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Games Page 89

Werewolf RulesThe Werewolf, like all players but the Hunter and Peasants, can be elected sheriff, butcannot fire the gun. The same goes for the second Werewolf, should a player be transformed:even if the player could operate the gun before, he or she will no longer be able to.If, on the night of the full moon, the Werewolf chooses to transform another player, thehost asks all players to hold out their hands. The host then goes around the circle and quietlytouches the hand of the player indicated by the first Werewolf. The player thus selectedthen opens his or her eyes and makes eye contact with the first Werewolf: the two are nowpartners. If the player had been a Child, Witch, or Elder before being transformed, they donot retain their special abilities. If the player had been the Hunter, than the gun and remainingsilver bullets show up in the town square the next morning and an election is held for therole of sheriff.The host continues to act as if the second Werewolf still is a regular player: the host willcontinue to announce Elder clues, ask the Witch to protect someone, and ask the Child toopen his or her eyes. Only in the case of the Hunter does it become obvious to the wholevillage that the Hunter has now become a second Werewolf.There can never be more than two Werewolves in a game. If a second full moon falls withtwo Werewolves alive, the two Werewolves must attempt to kill two people. If, however, oneof the Werewolves has been killed by that juncture, then the remaining Werewolf can chooseto transform a third player into a Werewolf.Sheriff RulesOnce the Hunter has been killed, the gun and its silver bullets appear in the town square.The players must elect one of their number sheriff; the sheriff will take over the Hunter’s role.The vote is generally decided by a simple majority, although anarchist players with a critiqueof democratic voting processes may desire to explore other options.Any player can be elected sheriff and get the gun and silver bullets; however, only Peasantscan fire the gun. A Werewolf, second Werewolf, Witch, Child, or Elder cannot fire the gun.The sheriff is free to shoot anyone he or she chooses, no matter whom he or she promisedto kill. A sheriff is also permitted not to fire, if he or she so chooses, though this will likelyarouse suspicion.After every day’s town meeting, there is a new election for sheriff, even if the last sheriff isstill alive. If a mandate cannot be reached that day—i.e., there is no majority reached in thevoting—there is no sheriff for that day, much to the Werewolf’s good fortune.“A poor man needs the policelike he needs a hole in his head.”–Amadou DialloOn the Streets: Organizinga Copwatch ProgramCopwatch groups seek to contest or atleast limit police repression by directlymonitoring police officers. Copwatch volunteerspatrol the streets, observing policeand recording their interactions withcivilians. They often concentrate on areasof high police activity or to which knowntrouble-making cops are assigned. Copwatchgroups also advise people of theirrights and listen to their stories, and otherwiseendeavor to undermine and thwartthe police state.Most radicals, not to mention manyothers, realize that the idea of policingitself needs to be completely rethought.In the meantime, people have to be protectedfrom the brutality they face daily atthe hands of the police.Get a Group TogetherForm a group. Put out calls for one everywhere,even on the bulletin boards ofchurch groups and local grocers, not justin the activist community. Approach yourneighbors—the best neighborhood watchincludes a copwatch.Educate people in your communityand other communities, especially targetedones, about their legal rights, andabout how to carry out a copwatch. Holdclasses everywhere in your city, at accessibleplaces and times. These can be formalevents, or informal teach-ins outsidea movie theater or between performers ata show.Hold regular, accessible, well-advertisedmeetings—don’t depend on the internetfor all or even most of your communications.Many of those who needcopwatch most are unlikely to have easyor regular computer access. Decide as agroup what your goals are and how youwill go about achieving them.Find hotspots where police repressionfrequently takes place. Look for themin the police blotter in your local paper,or ask around in neighborhoods, or approachlawyers who do a lot of street workand request advice.Establish patrols, and have them reporton their observations on a regular basis.How to Fuck the PoliceYour group will be more effective if it iswell organized.For a variety of reasons, it makes themost sense for people to do copwatch patrolsin their own neighborhoods. If it isimportant that you patrol another neighborhood,make an effort to become familiarwith it: get to know locals, and makesure you understand local issues and context.Canvas from door to door if necessary,introducing yourself and your groupand announcing your intentionsand motivations. Be opento input from locals; they arethe ones who will experiencethe bulk of the repercussionsfrom everything that happensin their neighborhood. Comethrough on your commitments:don’t just show up out of nowheredoing a copwatch programfor a little while and thendisappear, stick around until localsknow who you are and thatthey can count on you.When the cops are particularlybrutal or kill someone, raisea ruckus about it. Put pressureon them and keep it on. Approachthe survivors and followtheir lead as to how to handlethings. Offer to organize protestsor benefit events, screenprint shirts,or play media liaison for them. If they’reinto it, hold demonstrations, spray paintthe names of the victims and murdererseverywhere, smash out the windows ofthe offending police station.Agitate for laws and regulations thatenforce stricter controls on police. Try toget the worst police officers fired. If yourcommunity has a Citizen Review Board,make an effort to give it teeth. Police reviewboards should be elected by district,not appointed. They must be empoweredto impose punishments and fire officers.People from communities that areterrorized will often be understandablyafraid to stand up for themselves. A copwatchprogram can be the first step towardssolidarity with each other.How to CopwatchTo copwatch effectively, all you need isyour eyes and ears, and some means ofrecording incidents. A small notebookand pen or pencil are the most usefuland least conspicuous. A camera or videocamera can also be useful, as can a cellphone or an audio recording device.Copwatching is generally safest andeasiest if you make sure to follow the letterof the law. There should be no drugs, alcohol,or illegal weapons on your person orin your system. Be careful not to jaywalk.This author has friends who have done aperfect copwatch, then jaywalked almostimmediately after leaving the scene, receivinga $50 ticket for their efforts. If youare driving, make sure that you and all ofyour passengers have on seat belts. Resistunnecessary horn honking or loud musicas you drive away—violations of noise pollutionlaws and ordinances can be used asexcuses to detain and arrest you. If you arenot following the very letter of the law, youmay end up doing more harm than goodand could get yourself arrested. Don’t givethem any excuse to bust you.Copwatching is best done with twoor three others—you are less likely tobe arrested in a group. One cool-headedperson can take the role of speaking to officers,getting their names, ranks, badgenumbers, district designations, squad carnumbers, license numbers, and generaldescriptions, thus making them aware ofyour being there as observers. The othersshould hang back, recording every detailof the encounter, being careful not to interfere,provoke, or draw attention. If youhave the numbers, one person can pose asan individual onlooker with no connectionto the rest of the group. Decide on yourroles before the encounter, if possible.Page 90 Games Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Recipes for Disaster Page 91

Presumably, you are there to defusethe situation, not escalate it. Don’t goadthe police into arresting people as a wayof getting back at you because of your attitude.Reign in the hostility you feel towardsthem—be polite but firm. Remember,police are dangerous. Walk, don’t run,and avoid quick or sudden movementsaround them.At the same time, don’t be so easilyintimidated that you cannot accomplishyour task. Police officers who feel threatenedby your concern about the victimsof their repression may well threatenyou, shouting “Move on!” and puffingthemselves up like territorial frogs. In thecourse of your interactions with them,you’ll develop a sense of what to expectfrom them and an instinct for exactly howseriously to take their threats.Carry cards detailing legal rights, flyerswith information about local copwatchprograms, and other information withyou to give to people subject to arrest orharassment. Inform people about theirrights, and of any numbers, local services,or internet sites by means of which theycan contact a lawyer or learn how andwhere to file a complaint. Citizen complaintreview boards are often virtuallyuseless as a way of dealing with policebrutality, but they can be useful for documentingincidents. Be aware of local lawsand limitations—for example, in somecities, in order to be able to file a lawsuitagainst the city, you must send a letter tothe mayor announcing your intention tosue the district within six months of theincident in question. In such a case, youshould emphasize to people who havesuffered police brutality that they shouldkeep their options open: “You don’t haveto follow through with it, but you shouldsecure your right to sue if the incidentwas severe enough for you even to thinkabout doing so.”When observing police officers’ interactionswith civilians, try to get as muchinformation as you can. Make note of theday, time, and exact location of the incident;the officer’s name, badge number,district, and physical description; wherearrestees are being taken; the names, addresses,and telephone numbers of anywitnesses; and vehicle or license numbersfor any police vehicles involved in the incident.Use cameras or other recordingdevices to document the event from beginningto end. Take down complete descriptionsof police actions and any resultinginjuries. If there are injuries of anysort, even preexisting ones, be sure to detailwhat medical attention was or was notoffered by the police—people have beenlet go by officers after copwatch membersobserved them being denied medical attention,even though the injuries hadbeen not caused by the police.If you feel it is warranted, you can call911 and report that someone is beinginjured. Wait until the end of your statementto note that it is the police doingso, but don’t leave that out, and stick tothe facts. As all 911 calls are recorded andare relatively hard for the justice systemto “lose,” they can provide useful documentationfor legal proceedings. You canalso call a friend’s or your own answeringmachine and record what is happeningas it happens, assuming the tape is longenough. The sound quality may not be asgood as an on-site recording device wouldprovide, but the police cannot confiscatethe tape; this method can be particularlyuseful if everyone present is getting arrested.If you get arrested and the policedon’t take your cell phone immediately,call a talk show or progressive radio stationfrom the back of the police vehicle.If you witness someone else being arrested,try to give the arrestee a way tocontact you, and vice versa. This is notto say you should give your name or gettheir name in front of police. Give yourname and contact information only if youare comfortable with the police getting it,unless there is another way.If you are comfortable doing an assertivecopwatch, introduce yourself whenyou approach the scene and explain thatyou are there doing a copwatch. Ask policewhy they are detaining or arrestingpeople, but don’t ask arrestees for theirnames directly, as they might not wishthe police to have it. If arrestees say theirnames and addresses to the police loudenough for you to hear, write them down.If the justification for the stop seems tobe vague, ask officers to name the sectionof the law they are enforcing. Officers willlie and make mistakes—if you know thecode do better or have a copy of it withyou, speak up. Don’t approach or speakto the arrestee directly while he or she isbeing detained; if you do, you risk beingarrested. Sometimes you’ll have to do justthat, but know what you’re getting into.If a detainee is let go or ticketed, makeuse of the opportunity to give your flyersand rights cards to them. If a detainee isarrested, you can fold a card in half andask the officer to give it to him or her—fatchance, but miracles happen. You can’tspeak to an arrestee directly without riskingtrouble, but you can loudly talk aboutwhat rights people have with the police ora bystander or your compatriot. These includethe right to remain silent, the rightto speak to an attorney, the right to refusea search of your person, personal items,or car.Stick around until the police have movedon. The Rodney King beating began withwhat seemed to be a routine traffic stop.Make use of every opportunity to haveeducational conversations. Speak to onlookersabout their rights, about what citizenscan do about police brutality, aboutcommunity alternatives to policing. Whenanswering questions about legal matters,don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.” Thisis always better then giving out wrong information.Collect statements from other witnessesif you can. Many will not want to get involved.Try to persuade and educate themotherwise, and get statements from themeven when you can’t get their names.Keep the information you have gatheredfrom your copwatching. If yourcopwatch group does not keep records,keep track of it yourself. It can be usefulto submit copies of your records to governmentagencies, so they will have themdocumented and on file. Do not edit anyvideotapes you shoot, as this can renderthem useless as evidence in court.If possible, carry with you the text ofthe laws most commonly used to justifyharassment. In addition to being familiarwith and ready to cite local laws, itcan help to learn local police regulations,though it is often difficult to obtain copiesof these. During your encounters with police,be forceful rather than tentative, butremain polite.In extreme cases, police will smash orconfiscate and “lose” your equipment tokeep you from having evidence againstthem. If it seems like this might happen,a member of your group should swiftlyleave the area with the evidence that hasbeen gathered so far.Be prepared to be arrested. Thoughcopwatch is not illegal, police will trumpup charges. Carry ID and at least $50 ifyou want to be able to get out of jail swiftlyand easily.Know what you will and will not do inextreme situations. Consider in advancewhat risks you are willing to take andwhat charges you are prepared to receivein order to intervene if someone is beingbeaten, injured, or killed by the police.Decide this ahead of time and talk aboutit within your group, so all of you knowwhat to expect from one another. If youcopwatch in some areas, you will eventuallyfind yourself in this situation.Be prepared to follow through on yourwork. If you couldn’t get an arrestee’sname and you feel that the situation wasbad enough to warrant further investigationor that the abuse will continue afterthe arrest, go to the station to which heor she has been taken. Loudly and firmlyask what condition the arrestee is in anddemand to know the charges he or shehas received; explain what you saw duringthe arrest, and ask to make a complaintagainst the officers. This makes the policeaware that people are concerned and willfollow through; it may stop a back roombeating.Be careful leaving the area after a copwatch.Police have been known to follow,ticket, target, or beat copwatchers a fewblocks from the site at which they wereobserved. Don’t let down your guard.Report on what you have seen to yourgroup, to whatever citizen review boardsyour area has, however ineffective, andto your community at large. Talk to citycouncil members about police conduct,and show them your evidence. Tell themyou want hearings and policy changes. Getyour information to the National LawyersGuild and or the ACLU. Tell communityand church groups. Write up reports andspread them through local independentmedia outlets, both websites and papers.If your copwatch group is ready, youcould establish a copwatch hotline, aphone number people can call to reportthe activities of police officers; you couldeven have a response team ready to followup calls. You could also start yourown local copwatch paper or website,reporting on your observations, the conductof local police, and the struggle inyour community to survive and thwartpolice repression.Copwatching AloneDon’t copwatch alone if there are otheroptions. You should not ignore those inexceptional danger just because you arealone, but be aware that lone copwatchingentails taking extra risk. If you havebeen convicted of felonies, have a lengthyarrest record, or are not a citizen, youshould probably not copwatch alone unlessthe circumstances are really exceptional.Be less assertive in engaging thepolice or the individual being detained orarrested than you would be if you were ina group. Police officers are much morelikely to arrest or assault you if there areno other witnesses present.Be especially careful to obey the letterof the law. If possible, remain at leasttwenty feet from the incident that you arewatching; try to phone someone and lethim or her know what’s happening. Asalways, take complete notes and, if possible,photos, audio, or videotape of theincident. If you take photos, make surethat they are taken at the last possiblemoment, to ensure the safety of you andyour camera. Be especially careful leavingthe area.In Private and Community Spaces:Handling a Police RaidIf police knock on your door, do notinvite them inside; stepoutside and close the doorbefore speaking to them,locking it behind you ifneed be. If there are otherpeople in the house, makethem aware that the policeare present. Don’t addressother people in the houseby name; let them decidehow they want to identifythemselves. After sayingclearly “I do not consentto this search,” stand asideand maintain silence. Donot answer any questions.If you are arrested ordetained in the course ofa raid, do not resist unlessit is absolutely imperativethat you escape and there isa high likelihood that you will be able to doso; instead, calmly ask on what basis youare being held. Don’t volunteer any informationor answer any questions exceptwhen you are asked to identify yourself.No matter what they tell you, speaking tothe police can never accomplish anythingexcept making things worse for you andthose you care about. If you have a lawyer,upon interrogation—whether formal orinformal, whether by federal agents or localofficers—simply present your lawyer’scard and state, “You can speak with mylawyer.” If you don’t have a lawyer, assertand maintain that you will seek legalcounsel before answering questions.If the police say they have a warrant,ask to see it but do not at that point resistthe search. A warrant is simply a piece ofpaper signed by a judge; it should have anaddress and some terms of the search. Itis not valid without a judge’s signature. Inmost cases, the police cannot enter yourresidence legally without a warrant. To geta warrant, they must have probable causeand a judge must sign his or her namevalidating this; judges can be sneaky, butthey also don’t want any heat to comeback on them. This is why we often don’tsee warrants used in activist raids: theresimply isn’t the probable cause. If theycan’t get a warrant, the police may tryto use other pretexts to get in: fire codeviolations, health violations, looking forpeople who have warrants out for theirarrest. Educate yourself on local laws andmunicipal code. If the police come bywhen there is someone inside who has awarrant, it may be best for that person togo outside so the police cannot use this asa justification for entering the building.If your space may be raided, decide inadvance how you will handle this. Exceptin a few specific cases—for example, ifyou are engaged in a political squattingaction with widespread community support,and you intend to resist eviction bymilitant means—it will make the mostsense to cooperate carefully with the police,and then take revenge later by legalor extra-legal means. Determine with everyoneinvolved what image you will try toproject—“nonviolent peace activists sufferingunjust police harassment,” for example—andmaintain it from the beginningof the process through the follow-upmedia and court campaigns. Hold discussionsin advance, so everyone who maybe affected by a police raid knows whatto expect, how to conduct themselves, andwhat their role will be in your response.Make sure everyone is comfortable withthe decisions made and understands eachother’s needs.Sometimes a police raid will come asa surprise. Other times, especially if theyare planning a raid on a larger scale, suchas at an infoshop, activist house, or convergencespace during a mass mobiliza-Page 92 Recipes for Disaster Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Recipes for Disaster Page 93

tion, you may be able to see it coming.Stay aware: if they are escalating theirsurveillance of your building or your activities,this may culminate in a raid. Thissurveillance may take the form of infiltrationby undercover agents, who may beeasy to recognize as such—on account ofpoor acting, suspicious questions, or suddenlygetting involved right before an action—orvery difficult to detect.If you are involved in any kind of activitythat demands security, your collectiveshould decide ahead of time how carefulto be in working with others who desireto get involved in your group and in actionsyou plan. Do you need to have avouching system to protect against looselippedliberals and undercover cops? Ordo you want to work with large numbersof people to such an extent that it makesmore sense to leave things wide open?Some collectives decide not to take onlast-minute stragglers right before an action:police infiltrators usually show uplate, because there isn’t enough fundingto put them in earlier.If you are on good terms with groupsthat are in dialogue with the authorities,they may be able to tip you off when a raidis nigh; likewise, locals familiar with theworkings of the local police force mightbe able to provide useful insights. For aserious raid, the police will establish astaging area a couple blocks from the location,which may give away their plans atthe last minute if nothing else has.In preparing for a potential raid, beconscious of what you have on the premisesand what can be found nearby indumpsters and adjacent lots. Make surenobody has any illegal drugs or paraphernalia,recognizably stolen items, or othermaterial which authorities could useagainst you. Police officers will routinelyconfiscate such standard household itemsas paint thinner and PVC pipe and claimthe possessors were using them to makebombs. Such ludicrous charges will notgenerally stand up in court, but they canenable the police to denounce your groupto the public; theycan also paralyzeindividuals, preventingthem fromparticipating in seriousactions untiltheir court casesare finished.Knives, spraypaint, gasoline, anarchistliterature,bottles of urine,and other similarlydangerous articleswill all be needlessliabilities when thepolice show up,unless you’re actuallyplanning tofight them off withthe stuff. Be consciousof what canbe seen even when your doors are shutand locked; the police can use items “inplain view” to look further, even withouta warrant. In extreme cases, the courtshave declared it permissible for the policeto enter a home to investigate further afterseeing something suspicious througha window. Be careful to follow the very letterof the law: police who can find nothingelse to use against you may ticket you forparking more than ten inches from thecurb, for example.Have a phone tree in place, to be activatedin the case of a raid: there shouldbe a couple numbers you can call to reachpeople who can instantly call others, andso on, until a large number of people havebeen informed. It is important that thereis always at least one person off-site whoknows what to do if he or she is the onlyperson not arrested.Don’t leave phone lists or similar informationaccessible to the police; there’s nosense in doing their intelligence work forthem. If those informed by the phone treeconverge immediately upon the space beingraided, this will force the police torestrain themselves, and show them andthe community at large that this is an issuemany take seriously; in a best casescenario, this can even transform theraid into a positive, community-buildingevent. Have local media ready to come:don’t miss the chance to have the localalternative or pirate radio station reportlive from your raid, or to get sympatheticcoverage in the alternative press. Plan inadvance what spin you want to give thestory, so the police play into your hands.Compose a press release ahead of timeand have it ready to go out.If you fear a police raid is possible orimminent, keep a video camera chargedand equipped with a blank tape, readyfor use in documenting police conduct.You can also hide secret cameras on thepremises; these may prove especially importantif the police break their own lawsin the course of invading your space. Getevery single badge number and licenseplate, and record every movement andaction of each individual police officer; incourt, it will be very much to your advantageif you can prove that, for example,a police officer who claims he remainedoutside during the raid was actually upstairsknocking over bookshelves andbreaking things. Your camera peopleshould be levelheaded; even if things areheating up, it may be more important inthe long run for them to record events asthey unfold, calmly and consistently, thanto get involved.Once you’ve got documentation, keeptrack of it. Don’t edit or adjust it in anyway. Be able to prove that your footage hasbeen in your “line of possession” from thetime you recorded it to the time it appearsin court; this means you should be ableto document everywhere it has been, andshow that it has been in the care of good,law-abiding citizens the whole time—andas few of these as possible. To this end,it can be wise to leave your material withsomeone’s conservative parents or responsiblesister-in-law; this can also be a wayto make sure it is not seized in a secondaryraid. Keep an organized journal, withtimes and dates and signatures, detailingall your observations from the time youfirst begin to fear a raid might take place.After one occurs, compile written narratives,with signatures, from all witnessesand participants, while the events are stillfresh in everyone’s minds.If you’re in the middle of organizingan action or campaign from the space thatmay be raided, make sure it won’t be crippledby a raid. Keep important materialselsewhere, make sure that all the peoplein pivotal organizing positions are neverin the space all at once, see to it that thereare other spaces to which activities can beshifted. Establish a place to get back togetherafter the raid or ways to reestablishcontact with one another and make surethat everyone is accounted for.When bringing suit against the cityover a raid, work out the local chain ofcommand and sue as high in the hierarchyas you can. Those who hold powerwill attempt to portray any misconduct asthe anomalous incompetence of individualunderlings; your job is to show that theraid was orchestrated from on high andthat the people at the top of the pyramidare to blame, if not the system itself. Getthe best lawyer you can—the AmericanCivil Liberties Union is generally a betterresource than the National Lawyers’Guild when it comes to violations of 4 thAmendment rights regarding search andseizure and 1 st Amendment rights regardingfreedom of speech. If you don’t ownthe space that was raided, make sure youhave the cooperation of the landlords: emphasizethat they too can get somethingout of the proceedings. Keep the mediainformed throughout the affair, and keepthe pressure on.AccountAs we were organizing a convergenceagainst a particularly ridiculous meetingof politicians, it became evident thatour city’s Red Squad had its eyes on us.We continued our work, though we realizedthat, under the circumstances, welacked the numbers to go forward withour original plans of turning the city intoour playground. We narrowed our focusand message, deciding our best bet wouldbe to embrace the image of pacifist peaceactivists: this would give us an advantageshould the defenders of Power attempt asmear campaign against us. Having establishedthis strategy, we decided thatthe weekend would go ahead as planned,with a festive street march and demonstrationsoutside the hotel where the politicianswere meeting.As the dates for the actions approached,we saw a steady increase in police trafficaround our collective space, which wasserving as a meeting and organizing pointfor the demonstrations. On multiple occasions,we experienced the unique pleasureof visits from undercover cops. Keepingtabs on liberal organizers we knew maintainedties with the police, we received additionalclues that we were facing impendingstate repression, which was likely totake the form of a raid on our space.We met as a collective and resolved toact preemptively in order to minimize anypossible harm we would suffer and, if possible,humiliate and expose the police. Westarted by compiling a phone tree of ourfriends and supporters in the community,as well as a list of local media contacts.Drawing on the precedents establishedby the numerous police invasions of autonomousspaces that summer, we tooka number of precautions, such as removingitems that had justified earlier absurdcharges against revolutionaries: for example,we removed all kitchen knives andVitamin C pills, since cooking utensilsand supplements had been consideredweapons and drugs in other raids. Wealso cleaned the space and planted newflowers around the house, hoping thiswould make the police look even moreridiculous should they choose intrude onour space. We stockpiled photo and videocameras, tape recorders, note pads, andother recording devices, and spread themthroughout the house, both openly andcovertly. We made sure that at least oneof the collective members was downstairsat all times, and that our door was alwayslocked—though this was particularly difficult,with so many people coming inand out. People who could not risk arreststayed at other locations.Everyone who spent time in the spacewas briefed on the situation and developedan understanding of the collective’srights. In a move that later proved to beof some importance, we painted the doorwith some “house rules,” including banson weapons, animal products, and substances.This has since been used in boththe media and in legal decisions as a furtherembarrassment to the police. We alsoprepared a press release, leaving only afew blank spaces for the details of the expectedraid, and left it with an uninvolvedfamily member in case the raid was accompaniedby numerous arrests.Busy as we were with organizingagainst the meetings, we were still able tokeep our space open for concerts and otherevents. Two nights before the plannedprotests began, the police arrived duringone of these shows, an apolitical folk performance.The raid caused quite a bit ofalarm for the artists and visitors! At thattime, some of us were leaving to workon the pirate ship puppets—described as“anarchist body armor” in police reportsto the media—that we were planning touse for street theater. As we were loadingthe ships into a pickup truck, we noticedthat police vehicles were assembling atevery nearby intersection and decided toattempt to leave. As soon as we begandriving, we were pulled over for the mostminute of traffic violations. We calledback to the space, where police were alreadyknocking on the door. We set in motionour well-planned phone tree, callingour lawyers, leaving reports on answeringmachines, and informing scores offriends that we were in trouble. It turnedout that the police had used supposedfire code violations to get into the house,because it is standard practice in our cityfor housing inspectors to be “protected”by police. Each cop and each inspectorwere followed everywhere by comradesfrom our ranks who documented everything.The police went through our bookselection, our kitchen, our desks, ourbasement, our storage areas, even ourbathroom, not to mention the personalbelongings of those living upstairs. Theysearched our whole house and the squattedhouse next door. They towed our cars,on the ridiculous pretension that theywere parked three inches too far from thecurb! In the end, they didn’t use violenceor arrests; they just hoped to scare us andreveal our supposedly violent machinationsto the public.The phone tree, however, paid off. Thelocal media as well as a slam poetry groupshowed up immediately, along with aboutfifty of our friends. In conjunction withthe drumming and the constant flash ofstill cameras, the slam poets created anatmosphere of festive defiance and creativelyinformed the media and curiouspassers-by about just how fucked up thissituation was. While normally hostile toradicals, the local corporate media couldnot resist covering the obvious foolishnessof the police, who wandered aboutthe property en masse with bomb-sniffingdogs while obviously earnest andnon-violent activists explained how theevents of the evening were—can you believeit?—causing them to “lose faith inthis society.”Thanks to the thoroughness of ourpreparations, we were able to upstage lawenforcement prior to the main event ofthe protests themselves; this coup gaveus much-needed attention and credibility.Additionally, afterwards we were able tosucceed in suing the city for tens of thousandsof dollars. This enabled us to fundmany new subversive projects, which theforces of order are even less equippedto deal with in the aftermath of their illthought-outraid.Page 94 Recipes for Disaster Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Recipes for Disaster Page 95

Handbook for theTraveling HouseguestSo, you’re sick of your town andheaded out into the world. You expectto find a trail of places to stay easilyenough by means of notes withaddresses, scribbled phone numbersof friends of friends, sister houses, andrumors of after-show living rooms forsleeping. It’ll be a snap. You’ll carry littleand expect little, meet sparkle-eyed newpunk friends, solve problems with greatadventurous yield, take in conferencesand gatherings here and there, andsuck the very nipple of romance itself,you vagabond hobo you.The prospects are bright, indeed.Your calendar is clear, you have enoughtime and wits to get all over the damnplace and back, your immunity ishigh, you’re innovative in a pinch. Youhave the trains, your thumb, scams inmind, counterfeit coupons, and punkconnections to boot.However, one thing works both forand against you: many just like you havecome before. Insofar as that is true,there is traveling punk protocol to lightyour path, not to mention a string offree motels, houses to stay at, a (barely)overground railroad. Occupants thereinhave likely had bodies clad like yoursshelter with them dozens and dozensof times before, and will not demandany rationale for your travels. Havingfollowed the string of would-be motelsthemselves before, they know betterthan to turn you away at the door. You’rein. But that many just like you havecome before can also mean that you’reout. Many of your predecessors have lefta stinky wake behind them that solicitsa requisite groan the minute the wordhouseguest is spoken. You, aspiringwonderful houseguest, are there tododge the groan from the momentyou arrive. You, aspiring wonderfulhouseguest, are an asset-in-training topunk houses everywhere.House MannersBe observant. The rule of thumb isto follow your hosts’ lead. Do they eatdinner together, go to bed early, turnlights out as they leave the room, sharethe groceries, leave shoes at the door?Take your cues from them… believe me,they’re there to be taken.Sleep neat and be tidy. Stuff yoursleeping bag into its sack in the morning,roll up your extra socks, bundle up yourthings and put them into the closet orcorner. Bring your own toothbrush,sweep up your messes.Be helpful. Offer to run an errand,babysit for an hour, clean the toilet, pickup the day old bread from the bakery,fix the broken bicycles, repair the dripsthe landlord never does, sew the tearin the sofa created by the last guest, doall the dishes—not just the ones youcreate. As a traveler you probably havegreater flexibility with your time thanyour hosts do. Consider what they doall day. Does it interest you? Shouldthey need help, offer to tag along. Youcan help make packages for a programthat sends books to prisoners, or assistin promoting a fundraiser for localprojects. You could cook for a secretcafé, help set up for a show, hang upposters, be a supporter at somebody’scourt hearing, or spread word for anynumber of important events. The GirlScout vows to always leave her spacebetter than she found it; consider thatold-fashioned but ever-applicable mottoas you drop in on the communitiesyou encounter in your travels. You arethe migrant worker of revolutionaryprojects everywhere!Be self-reliant. If the house hostingyou has a standing weekly house dinneror house problem to work out, assurethem that you have a good book, wouldlove to take a walk, were hoping to get aletter off, and will look for them anothertime. It’s generally a good idea to findplaces to be most of the day other thanthe house, so as not to wear on anybody’snerves. Find a public library, freemuseum, or basketball court; rest in thepark; look into community-sponsoredevents, fairs, and presentations; findout what talks are happening at thelocal college; go out to the dumpstersand bring back your bounty, makingsure to dispose of all your hosts don’twant yourself. Go ruffle some feathersout there in the city—but if you runinto an authority while doing so, don’timmediately go running back to yourhosts’ house where you could wrapthem up in it too.House PresentsYes, you should bring one. Putsome thought into the gift. What doyour hosts do with their leisure time?Garden, cook, read? Try to match yourgift to their interests—unless, of course,these are watching TV and drinkingheavily. In that case, feel free to presentthem with something different that youparticularly enjoy and could pass on tothem: sock tag, curiosity about a nearbylandmark, wacky cake baking—at leastthat way you won’t be politely boredthe whole time! If you don’t know yourhosts’ interests, arrive with food andthe ability to prepare it, and plan toleave something small but singularlyappropriate with your thank you noteas you leave. Don’t worry about it.A creative memento will receive thehighest marks. Is the house lackinghot-pads? Sew one from freebox scrapswith their house name or motto on itand rest in their hearts forever. Collectstreet sweeper bristles and weave theminto an ornament to hang from a treebranch at the house entry.Whatever you do, don’t just leavethem with more junk to deal with longafter you leave. It’s got to be usefulor special or at least be a thoughtfulreference to an experience you hadamong them. The opposite of housepresents are the leftover dumpstereditems and foodstuffs that some unwiseguests leave to sit collecting dust orrotting in the kitchens of frustratedhosts.The Traveling Punk as CarrierPigeonMention where you’re heading nextto the people hosting you. Perhapsyou could transport a bundle betweenfriends who live in different cities. Oneespecially unique thing about a nomadicsubculture is that we can depend onour old-fashioned word-of-mouthcommunication networks in times ofincreased surveillance of mail, email,and telephone conversations. You cantake secret messages between people,along with news and reminders. If yousee something wonderful happeningin Houston, be sure to pass it alongto the people you know in Gainesvillewho could build on it and make it theirown. Be a carrier pigeon that bringsinspiration, tales of tragedies andvictories to live by, folklore and plansfrom one battlefield to another.Horrors to AvoidOne house got evicted after a guest’sdog companion rushed the neighbor’scat, maimed it, killed it, then began tobark incessantly. The landlords werecalled, and this final straw broke thecamel’s back.One houseguest stayed in town longenough to make out with a bunch ofpeople, break some hearts, upset a fewcouples who didn’t see it coming, andring up an expensive long distancephone bill.One meat-free house was filled withthe stench of a rodent being boiledover the stove for hours when for ahouseguest decided to part the deadanimal’s skin from its muscle andbones.One houseguest carried strep throatfrom house A to every member of houseB by forgetting to wash up while sick.One house got wrapped up in somepolice drama when a guest shopliftedsome running shoes from a nearbymall and got chased all the way back“home.”One houseguest decided to abide bythis list of guidelines so obsessively thathe had so little fun adventuring that henever left town again.Page 96 Recipes for Disaster Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Recipes for Disaster Page 97

Recipes for Dinner:VeganFrench ToastBlend or whisk together two cups of soymilk, one tablespoon of margarine, five or six ouncesof silken tofu, one teaspoon each of vanilla and cinnamon, two shakes allspice, and half aI met E--- in a Chicago apartment at a small party following ashow. I was mute, as my band had just played and I was sufferingfrom serious vocal damage, and she was no more outgoing thanme, despite being on her home turf; we were the two people sittingsilently against opposite walls on either side of the chatting,jesting crowd.By the end of the night, everyone else was at home or asleep, andwe were pressed together in the stairwell, alternately kissing andrecounting segments of our life stories in excited whispers. I hadlost my voice entirely for eleven days straight the previous year,and had thought it gone forever; she had experienced somethingsimilar, having gone blind for some months as a child—althoughan operation had eventually restored her eyesight, she still had togather her courage in the morning before opening her eyes for thefirst time. I was on tour with a punk rock band, and had alreadyseen much of the world that way; she, too, had traveled the world,running away as a teenager to hop trains, squat empty buildings,and perform fire tricks with an anarchist circus in New Orleansand on street corners in Key West—hence the tattoos, piercings,and worn black coveralls. I hoped to put my art at the service ofrevolution; she was doing so herself, screenprinting radical posters,welding metal fortifications onto bicycles for street protests,designing a calendar to be sold as a benefit for friends who hadbeen arrested at a recent demonstration. I was an anarchist warrior,aspiring to bring about the downfall of capitalism; she kepther scalp shaved from her forehead to the crest of her skull andwore blonde dreadlocks behind that, as the women warriors of theNative American tribe she counted among her ancestors did. I wasterrified of death, as there was so much I still longed to do; shewas living with two different terminal illnesses and a host of othermedical problems, and had made her peace with the idea that theend might come at any moment.I didn’t return with her to her apartment that night; I was ina long-running love relationship that was tumultuous enough already.She departed reluctantly just before dawn, and I lay down toget a couple hours of sleep before my band left for the next show.That was the end of the honeymoon phase; things between us wouldnever again be so simple.Two months later, she came to join me at my friend M---’s placein Pittsburgh. It was the week before Bush’s inauguration—the secondBush’s first inauguration, to be precise, as I’m sure the citizensof the Roman Empire had to be in their day—and she generously setaside the time to teach us what she knew about screenprinting andother forms of do-it-yourself art, so we could show up with plenty ofsubversive material to share with the dissatisfied masses.We spent each day in a delirium of experimentation and invention.We ransacked the library, pouring through the rare book collectionfor formulas and formats we could appropriate. We stoleall the priority mail stickers from every post office in Pittsburgh,spread them out on the floor of M---’s studio, and used bargainpricedmis-mixed housepaint to paint them white; as they dried, westenciled designs on them, then stamped slogans across them witha stamper improvised out of wire and shoelace and dipped in mismixedblack housepaint. We stayed up all night in Kinko’s, takingturns distracting the seemingly drug-addled night shift employeewhile ripping off as many photocopied pamphlets and posters as wecould fit in E---’s van. We built a screenprinting apparatus, went toanother Kinko’s and stole all their posterboard, and screenprintedhundreds of huge multi-color posters decrying George W. Bush as amurderer 1 , one of which later occasioned an FBI visit to the dormroom of a student who had hung it on her wall. E--- took M---and me to a party, an affair far outside our usual social regimen;we barricaded ourselves behind the refreshments table, gorging ourselvesand excitedly scrawling crazy diagrams on the backs of paperplates as we hashed out the centerfold of our next propaganda paperand fought off the inebriated bores who didn’t understand why weweren’t drinking with them.Privately, things were more complicated. Owing to her medicalcondition, E--- had trouble with little things like climbing stairs,but didn’t feel comfortable enough to say out loud what she wasstruggling with; I often played intermediary between her and others,trying to help her avoid or escape uncomfortable situationsthat were invisible to others. More complicated still were the dynamicsbetween us: we were still attracted to each other, but I wasalso still involved with someone else, deep in denial of what I wasfeeling and doing, and this couldn’t have been easy for her. Wewere both sleeping in the living room, I on the couch and E--- inher sleeping bag on the floor; at night, after everyone else hadgone to sleep, she and I would talk, and I would end up on thefloor with her, our bodies entangled. Then, as indecisive and inconsiderateboys have since time immemorial, I would get up andgo to sleep on the couch, as if nothing had happened. If I regretanything from that period of my life, it is that I didn’t stay with heron the floor those nights; it wouldn’t have been any more disloyalthan what I was doing already. Non-monogamy has since taughtme and many others a lot about how to handle such situations, butnothing can wipe away mistakes already made.Holding E--- in my arms, I could feel the dents in her ribcagefrom the time skinheads had found her and her friends sleeping inan abandoned building and assaulted them. I have a particularlyvivid memory of one night when, immediately after we made love,she had to get up and pace up and down the room for half anhour to work off the adrenaline from the pain that came with hermedical problems. I lay there, naked and shuddering on a floor farfrom home, having just been unfaithful to my partner, overcomeby how interconnected desire and tragedy seemed to be, wishingdesperately that I had some idea where to start to make up to E---and the others I loved all the injustices of the heartbreaking world,not least the ones I was responsible for.At the end of the week, we all went to Washington, D.C. together;among other things, we were to assist in operating a pirate radiostation through the events. M--- brought along his friend T--, a performanceartist who, having never been to the capital city before,decided to experience the entire inauguration and attendant protestsblindfolded. This occasioned hilarious conversations in which E---and I imagined the strategic possibilities of a Blind Bloc, which thepolice would be afraid to attack for fear of bad publicity.The inauguration protests came and went in a flurry of blackbandanas, liberal signs about electoral fraud, and light midwinterdrizzle. Flushed with excitement after an invigorating day of flierdistribution and illegal broadcasting, E--- and I drove with a fullvehicle of maniacs to a small party at an apartment hosting friendsof hers.For the first time in the days I’d spent with her, E--- spent theevening drinking. By the end of it, she was thoroughly drunk and inbad condition. On the trip back, she lay prone and semiconsciousin the back seat of her van; as she was the only one who knew theroute, she called out the turns to us as we came upon them, her eyesclosed and her voice slurred, and thus guided us back to the houseat which we were to sleep. This she did flawlessly, despite not evenbeing able to control her bodily functions; as a train-riding hobo,her acute sense of direction was a point of pride.When we arrived at our destination, the others went inside, whileI helped her out of the van. Leaning with her head against the van,vomiting in waves, mortified to be in this condition with me, shetearfully insisted that I must hate her and that I should leave; steadyingher, searching for the words I needed, I insisted in return that Icared about her and wanted to be there. She confessed that, fearingPage 98 Recipes for Dinner Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Recipes for Dinner Page 99

Our sexuality is not repressed, it is produced, and informs custom-made to our social order.The paths to pleasure are frequently not pretty, butthey are our pleasures. Instead of denying them or glorifyingthem, we can try to understand them.Our sexuality is produced in the form of a commodity;our fantasies are repackaged and sold to us as productsin porn stores; our desire has the grammar of consumercapitalism, and those sexual forms will exist as long asthose social forms exist.tual class, but instead proceeds from thesubversive desires present throughout alllevels of society.Kipnis argues that these desires must informour participation in social struggles.Discussing so-called “mainstream” backlashagainst feminist politics, she cites a consumerstudy which analysts found that a majorityof housewives preferred roach spray overroach poison “because it allowed them toparticipate in the kill” and “a lot of theirfeelings about roaches turned out to be similarto their feelings about the men in theirlives”; here, Kipnis argues, barely concealedbeneath the pretense of suburban sanitation,is a furious rage that should be playing out insocial upheaval, not consumer sublimation.Why are many of these women so alienatedby the existing feminist movement that theydecline to participate in it at all? And whatwould it take to foment a new movementthat could deliver on their desires?Kipnis explores this subject further inher screenplay “A Man’s Woman,” a takeoffon the life of Phyllis Schlafly, a reactionaryconservative woman who, ironically, rose tonational prominence on the platform thatwomen should stay out of public life andpower. Given that as long as hierarchies exist,there are always going to be people readyto compromise themselves (and others!) tobe what Malcolm X would have called houseniggers, it’s worth asking what forces compelpeople to transform their own yearnings forliberation into tools of repression, and howthese forces might be offset.Kipnis is never one to avoid a controversialtopic or confrontational conclusion. In oneof these essays, she sets aside her feminism toconsider what she finds to be a powerful subtextof militant class consciousness in, of allpublications, Hustler magazine. This goes beyondquestions of censorship and obscenity: ifHustler uses the sexist medium of pornographyto mount attacks on bourgeois proprietiesand capitalist power, how are class consciousfeminists to negotiate their allegiances?The final piece in the book is her screenplay“Marx: the Video—A Politics of RevoltingBodies.” The central metaphor ofthe film is Marx’s struggle with illness—carbuncles, to be precise, a “proletarian disease”afflicting a dropout from the middleclass—as a physical manifestation of thestruggle between capital and worker, presentand future, death and life: “like a bodytrying to turn itself into another body.”Here, again, we have the grand themes ofhistory playing out on an intimate level,one of Kipnis’s fortes. A suffering Marx facesthe end with humorous rancor: “At anyrate, I hope the bourgeoisie will remembermy carbuncles all the rest of their lives.”The film itself ends with an exhortation:“Sometimes the lines in the conflict overpower are clear: sides can be taken, socialrevolutions enacted. Other times, they areless so; confused in such moments, we canbegin by interrogating ourselves.”For my part, I’ll post below in grey theconclusion to “Ecstasy Unlimited,” the filmscript from which her book derives its title, asummary of her account of modern sexualitythat is characteristic of her total approach.Do or Die—Voicesfrom the EcologicalResistance, Issue 10As radical publications go, this 382-pageblowout final issue of England’s long-runningpremier eco-anarchist/direct actionjournal is absolutely essential. If anyone elseis publishing material this refined, uncompromising,and comprehensive, it’s news tome! The first one hundred pages (!) are dedicatedto an exhaustive analysis of the pastand present of anti-authoritarian environmentalactivism in the U.K. and the worldaround it, coupled with an all-encompassingproposal of future strategy. The sheer arroganceof such an undertaking is inspiring,and while not everyone will agree with theiremphases (they pass over workplace organizingand so on to concentrate on protectingthreatened ecosystems, nurturing counterculturesthat can survive industrial collapse,and solidarity with those in resistance outsidethe West) it’s great to see somebodythinking in terms of the big picture.And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.Proceeding on, we encounter an interviewwith infamous animal rights saboteur RodCoronado, a discussion of the pros and consof different approaches to creating autonomoussocial spaces, and a primer on herbalhealing. In well-researched extensively-footnoted(yet not boring) expositions, the readercan learn about the history of Morocco’soccupation of the Western Sahara, the recentanti-authoritarian insurrection in Algeria,and current revolts and repression in Colombia,Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Surinam,and more. In addition to the environmentalfocus, there’s an insurrectionist slant here,as evidenced by “Without a Trace,” a pieceglorifying anonymous, decentralized revolt,and of course the introductory piece entitled“Insurrectionary Anarchy”; I can’t say I’mconvinced that secret acts of sabotage alonewill be enough to change the world, but Iagree that putting organization before activitymeans confounding means and ends.If you want a break from the serious stuff,It is ironic when we believe our “liberation” is in thebalance.Instead, we could say of sex what was once said ofreligion: that our pleasure is the sigh of the oppressedcreature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul ofsoulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.To do away with the illusion that we have chosenthese pleasures is to demand new choices.The call to abandon illusions about a condition is acall to abandon all conditions that require illusions.To critique our mode of sexuality is to criticize themode of social organization that produces it.you can read about a famous prison break,or humorous stories of animals outwittinghumans, or any of the various crazed lettersto the editor. On top of all this, there areextensive reviews of a variety of other radicalpapers and books.One can only hope that some equally formidablejournal will appear to fill the vacuumDo or Die leaves behind it—and that theadjacent vacuums in other strains of radicalthinking and organizing, as yet unfilled, willbe seen to as well. In the meantime, thoughthis final issue is by now almost certainly outof print, look for it in the collections of yourradical friends and local infoshops.Do or Die c/o Prior House, 6 Tilbury Place,Brighton BN2 2GY, England (www.eco-action.org/dod,doordtp@yahoo.co.uk)VagabondIsabelle Eberhardt“What I long for is the freedomof going about alone…”-Isabelle Eberhardt, VagabondSitting on the couch in the living room atthe punk house on Cedar Street, I thumbedthrough a few paperbacks on the coffeetable. There were some interesting titles inthe pile, but the third from the bottom,especially, caught my eye. Vagabond, it wastitled. Flipping through, I read a few lines:“He listened vaguely to the chaoticBabel of conversation going onaround him, deep voices joking indifferent languages, arguments insidethe frail tents buffeted by the wind.His place was here now. He wouldcurl up here, make a niche for himselfamongst these companions, eachof whom had his own secret past. Allthese lads had had cruel and damagingthings happen to them, and nowthey were blotting them out, escaping.They had abandoned for a whiletheir cumbersome personalities, as ifthey were shedding a garment thatwas too restrictive, and assuminganother that enabled them to walkmore at ease, to live a freer inner lifeunder the tyranny of rules, relievedof the dead weight of responsibility.In this return to the warmth ofthe herd, to animal life, there was asense of relief at casting off a burden,a lightening of the chest.”Only moments away from my own departure,I felt a little resonance with this writing,this talk of travel and the casting off ofold weights. I decided to steal the book.Later, I recognized the author, whosename had sounded vaguely familiar butelusive; it was Isabelle Eberhardt! I’d heardstories of her, the legendary nomad whotraveled through North Africa disguisedas a young Arab man, joining up withmysterious Sufi sects and wreaking havocacross the Algerian Sahara, shocking thetame French settlers with her libertineway of life. Isabelle Eberhardt—who remainsthe only European woman to haveever witnessed the ritual “fantasia,” whofought and killed with a dagger an officerof the French colonial police in the uprisingat Bone, who survived assassinationand conspiracy to die at the age of 27 in aflash flood in the desert outside of the AinSefra military base in Morocco.She was born in Geneva in 1877, thedaughter of Russian exiles. During herlife, she published scores of articles andshort stories in various European and Africanjournals, which were collected posthumouslyinto books and published alongwith her diaries. Her only novel, Timardeur(“Vagabond”), remained unfinished atthe time of her sudden death. In 1922, afriend of Isabelle, Victor Barrucand, publishedTimardeur with an ending he piecedtogether from some of Isabelle’s papers. Itwasn’t until 1988 that the novel made itsfirst appearance in English, translated fromthe French by Annette Kobak.Vagabond is the story of Dimitri Orschanow,a Russian anarchist who gives up hislife as a student in Saint Petersburg andtravels south, as a migrant worker andvagabond, through Europe and eventuallyto Africa, where he joins the ForeignLegion. In this highly autobiographicalReviewswork, Eberhardt discusses many of the dilemmasthat she faced herself while writingthe novel: love versus lust, individualemancipation versus the dogma of collectiverevolution, university study versusthe study of life experience. It is a rough,very flawed novel, with an unrefined, unfinishedfeel. The tone is warm and contemplative,with a distinctly Russian style;perhaps Eberhardt drew influence fromthe tradition of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.For me, the book was a guide, a mapthrough the world of adventure, a volumeI could consult for advice during my owntravels. The words derive their power fromthe experience of Isabelle’s life. Her passionateand relentless search for answers ina world that only offers excuses truly shinesthrough the character of Dimitri Orschanowand continues today to push me on towardsthe horizon, towards worlds of whichI have not even dreamed. While packing upfor my own Drift, I decisively left out theLets Go! travel guide, throwing in IsabelleEberhardt’s “Vagabond” instead. After all,when there’s limited space, we’ve got to keepour priorities straight, right?Vagabond and all of Eberhardt’s otherwritings are recommended for anyone whois interested in the things life has to offerbeyond what Ronald McDonald and hisarmy of burger servants can provide. Recommendedfor fans of Dostoevsky andAlexander Supertramp, it is a tale of rawadventure, a meditation on the price an anarchistmust often pay for freedom. It is atestament to what is possible, if we have thecourage to follow our hearts, be they frozenor enflamed, focused or confused, so long asthey are free.-Jon Sarrows, StockholmPage 104 Reviews Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Reviews Page 105

The Foundation: Liesand Half TruthsI cannot be expected to pen an objectivereview of this zine. It is about a house I usedto live in a long time ago, in a galaxy far, faraway. There is something comforting and alittle unhealthy about seeing pieces of yourlife set down in print, and I am not sure howrelevant these stories would be to me if I hadnot been so intimately involved. With all ofthat being said, though, I am really glad thatthis zine exists, and I recommend it highly.Lies and Half Truths tells the tale of therise and spectacular fall of The Foundation,a squat cinderblock hovel floating in a seaof kudzu on top of an abandoned landfillon the eastern outskirts of a certain shitholesouthern city. It is the dare I say archetypicalstory of some people (and other animals)who came together for a time, lovedand cared for each other, did some gloriousdeeds, failed and betrayed each other,did some truly awful shit, attained a kindCrimson Spectre CDThe Crimson Spectre manage to pull off areal coup by appropriating the ghoulish aestheticof bands like The Misfits, and employingit, in their own words, to “draw attentionto this collective political nightmare, and toarticulate it in a highly stylized and accessibleform.” This is a brilliant concept, and itworks. The lyrics are particularly strong, andoccasionally hit the nail so squarely on thehead that they beg to be scratched onto thewalls of Waffle Houses and Greyhound terminalseverywhere. These songs are set into ahard foundation of poverty, frustration, andloss—and I appreciate that. The music is succinctand well executed, and the guitar solosare convincing. The booklet even includes ahopefully prophetic picture of skeletons impalingthe severed heads of George Bush, DonaldRumsfeld, and various other businessmen onguitar necks in a graveyard. YEAH!I want to be able to wholeheartedly endorsethis band, not the least because Ihappen to know and deeply respect someof its members, but there is one problemhere, and it would be two-faced of me toof transcendence, and went their separateways. The story is bittersweet and beautifulin much the same way that Tortilla Flat byJohn Steinbeck is, and that is no small complimentin my book.It’s worth noting that, on a purely visualand tactile level, the zine is superbly done.It is thick and fat and feels nice to hold,is full of evocative color pictures, and ishandwritten in neat and legible script. Also,the author shows real skill and style in arranginga whole lot of vignettes to trace thearc of the big picture. It’s no fault of herown, but it’s also worth mentioning thatthe writer simply wasn’t around for someof the most inspiring and positive thingsthat happened out at that place, especiallyin the beginning. I do wish that some moreof those stories could have found their wayinto this collection, since they make the ultimatedemise of the house that much morecompelling. Her account unavoidably reflectsone perspective on what was a complicatedand multi-faceted set of experiencesfor a whole lot of people.avoid addressing it. There is a dishearteningMarxist/Leninist slant to every aspectof this project that I cannot let pass withoutcomment. I can understand. I grewup in trailers and pickup trucks, too. I’vestood at the end of any number of conveyorbelts, and I’ve seen the inside of morethan one day labor office. I know howoblivious the anarchist movement of todaycan be sometimes to the needs of peoplewho have to work for a living, and thatit can seem like just another playgroundfor privileged and ungrateful white kids.But none of that changes the fact that Ialso believe that if we have any hope ofextricating ourselves from the mess thatwe are in it will be in spite of the authoritarianlegacy that Lenin and his would-besuccessors have left us with, not becauseof it. The basic critique of communism byanarchists—that capital and the state areinextricably linked—has remained consistent,and unanswered, since the daysof the First International. If anarchism asit stands now is often missing a workingclass perspective then we who can do soneed to inform it with one, not abandon itThe Foundation was a refuge for outlawsand renegades, a sanctuary for the lawlessand ungovernable, and an asylum forsinners, outcasts, and pariahs of every description.It was a den of thieves and urbanpirates, home to an ever-expanding cast ofex-convicts, known felons, middle-agedvagrants, abused runaways, recovering addicts,hopeless drunks, sensitive activists,and homicidal maniacs. I learned moreabout direct action and mutual aid therethan I ever would have from a thousandprotests and pamphlets. It means a lot tome that someone finally took the time towrite about it. Toward the end she says,accurately, that “everyone who ever wentout there turned feral.” I’ll take that as akind of victory. It can be easy to lose myselfin regret and nostalgia while readingthis beautiful little zine about me and myfriends, but if there’s one thing I know it isthat the Foundation was a part of a subversivecurrent of which the last has not beenheard, and that the final chapter is yet tobe written.entirely. I, for one, certainly do not intendto take the hammer and sickle up out ofthe museum when they have had, to putit very mildly, such a questionable trackrecord in terms of their effect on the materialconditions of poor people’s lives.All of that being said, I really do like thisCD. The Crimson Spectre are, in practiceif not on principle, giving a reality check toan essentially anti-authoritarian counterculture,and that’s important. They deserve tobe commended for finding an original wayto draw attention to the “horrors of war, horrorsof occupation,” and the “horrors of poverty,”as they put it, and for giving a shoutout to Greensboro, NC. When the singerscreams “OUR DAY WILL COME!” at theend of “The Ghosts of Long Kesh,” I fuckingbelieve it, and I know he’s not just talkingabout the Irish. I just hope that come theday we end up playing for the same team.P.O. BOX 10093 Greensboro, NC 27404cspectre@slavemagazine.comCD available from The Magic Bullet RecordCo., 17 Argyle Hills Rd., Fredericksburg, VA22405www.magicbulletrecords.comGuardia Negra“Adrenalina!” CDIf you have been keeping your alter ego asa Red/Anarchist Skinhead with a penchantfor vengeful internationalist Oi and Skain the closet, this is the somewhat roughedgedanswer to your prayers. From the epicglam intro to coarse streetpunk singalongsto 1970’s-style Ska, it’s all here. Think saxophonesá la The Specials, or nasal lead guitarthroughout the entire song to complementthe tuneful strains of Oi-boy yelling andgang backing vocals. And the lyrics—talkabout over the top! “Skinheads, not likethe rest—red and black is our flag… withblack helmets and ski masks, the bourgeoisiewe’ll terrorize” “Let us follow the spiritof Nechaev—with knives and bombs therewill be no truce; in order to destroy all youremblems, I’ll kill with no problem… proletarianvengeance will be felt the wholeearth through.” There’s even a song abouttheir favorite football club, for Kropotkin’ssake! To their credit, the content also showssome political development, covering LatinAmerican resistance (including the dictatorshipin Argentina), anti-imperialist internationalism,and anarcho-syndicalism; it’s justthat, as has sometimes been the case withenthusiastic revolutionaries, it’s hard totell exactly where the thrill-seeking bloodlustleaves off and the cool-headed politicalanalysis and strategy in the service of justiceand compassion kick in. Most everything isin Spanish, with some English translations.The production is a little rough around theedges in a way that doesn’t flatter the musicthe way the terrible production of old didthe classics of Oi, but I wouldn’t say thesinging or playing is slick enough that it’slosing anything in the mud. I have to admitthat, despite actually being a fan of old Blitz,that one song “Victims” by The Strike, and,of course, “Freedom” by Last Resort, not tomention some Prince Buster, I’m respondingto this more as a cultural curiosity piece thanas an artistic masterwork; but that’s not tosay there’s nothing to recommend this. -bFire and Flames, P.O. Box 24, Boston, MA02133 (www.fireflames.com)HK/Pledge Alliancesplit CDThis is a lovely example of a fully-realizedopus of passionate hardcore punk, andworth the attention of anyone moved bythat music and culture. I’ll go further thanthat—as far as I’m concerned, this is a classic,that should not be forgotten by the punkscene for a long time. The packaging itselfestablishes this, as to every song is devoteda separate lyric sheet with artwork, translationsof the lyrics in three languages, and anexplanatory essay on a fold-in sheet.From the first haunting guitar note,Pledge Alliance flaunts everything I treasurein the best hardcore punk: fiery, forcefuldelivery, flawlessly constructed songs, anatmosphere of epic drama, and uncompromisinglyrevolutionary content. The musicalthemes are as compelling and eternal asBeethoven would have written, the arrangementsin which they are developed buildand build the intensity like the stoking ofa fire, the deep roaring vocals and incineratingguitars offer a perfect vessel for thisrage and longing. The first song is a timelessanthem to gatherings outside the dominationof power, an invocation of wildness formodern day witches’ sabbats and anarchistconvergences. The second, a work in severalmovements fully ten minutes long, evokesand the turbulence of social struggles suchas the recent one in Argentina through mesmerizingmusical dynamics, and further exploresthis lyrical theme in the liner notes.That a member of more of this band hasbeen to Argentina, and on the front linesof the struggle in Europe as well, is evidentfrom the soulful performance as well as thecontent here. The final song, named “TheEnd of the Epidemic” in a reference to theirinfluence Diamanda Galas, applies a morerock sensibility in contrast to the metallicaesthetic of the others; it concludes: “FIRESWILL BREAK OUT. FIRES WILL BREAKOUT. FIRES WILL BREAK OUT.”HK took a while to click for me, fixatedas I was with the Pledge Alliance songs, butnow that they’ve connected, I’m thrilledabout them, too. Their songs alternate betweenrepetitive staccato attacks and grooveswith which they establish a hypnotic rhythm.The genealogy of their abrasive discord andshrieking vocals goes back to Acme, if anyonereading this remembers that 7”, buttheir songwriting focuses on extensive explorationof themes rather than blitzkriegassaults. I have to say I was surprised by thewhite-boy funk intro to their last song, but ahealthy musical diversity is important to anyband. Unlike Pledge Alliance, they haven’tyet broken up as of this writing, so we mayget to see where they’re going with it.Collectif Maldoror, Champrevault, 58170Luzy, France (maldororpunx@free.fr)Impure Muzik, 19, Faubourg Tarragnoz,25000 Besancon, France (www.impuremuzik.com)Page 106 Reviews Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Reviews Page 107

Page 108 Comics Rolling Thunder CrimethInc. Summer 2005 Comics Page 109

Postage included. CrimethInc. Far East, P.O. Box 1963, Olympia, WA 98507 USA (www.crimethinc.com)how can you resistRecipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook—$12For ten long years, our operatives have honed their skills, testing their wits and mettle againstthe global capitalist empire, the most formidable adversary in the history of life on earth. Wehave learned how to redecorate the walls of cities occupied by armies of riot police, to transformrandom groups of damaged, isolated individuals into loving communities capable of supportingone another through the most severe bouts of repression and depression, to shut down corporatesummits and franchises armed with little more than plastic piping or eyedroppers of glue. Now,we’ve compiled many of the techniques that made these feats possible into a 624-page handbookentitled Recipes for Disaster.The sixty-two recipes run the gamut from Affinity Groups to Wheatpasting, stopping alongthe way at topics as disparate as Hitchhiking, Sabotage, and Supporting Survivors of DomesticViolence. Each recipe is illustrated as necessary with photographs, technical diagrams, and firsthandaccounts. Countless individuals and collectives have contributed to the testing, composing, andediting, in order to put the most useful and comprehensive manual in the hands of revolutionarieseverywhere. Recipes for Disaster has not yet been banned by the U.S. government; it is currentlyavailable from us for no more than the costs of printing and transportation. We hope this bookwill help those working to transform both their own lives and the world at large, but the rest isup to you.Days of War, Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners—Your ticket to a world free of charge: the famous invitation to the adventure of overthrowingcapitalism, hierarchy, and everything else, by turns wild-eyed, romantic, and prophetic. $8Evasion—The controversial chronicle of one boy’s saga of willful unemployment, crime,and adventure. $6Off the Map—A punk rock vision quest in the form of a travel narrative, being theadventures of two women squatting, hitchhiking, and dreaming their way across Europe. $3Stone Hotel—These are Raegan Butcher’s poems from prison: straightforward,harrowing, and sometimes uplifting. $10Zegota 7”—Two brand new songs from the long-running flagship band of eclecticand idealistic hardcore punk: an unabashed street protest anthem entitled “Anarchist CheerleaderSong,” and a spine-tingling cover of the traditional spiritual “Sinner Man” á la Nina Simone.$4.50Umlaut “Total Disfuckingcography” CD—38 songs and 80 pagesof depraved terrorist punk rock and propaganda from the most Finnish band of all time. IfSteppenwolf put the “high” in “highway,” Umlaut puts the “highway” in “highwaymen.” $9The Spectacle “Rope or Guillotine” CD—Drawing on the legacies ofsuch bands as Catharsis, His Hero Is Gone, early Gehenna, and Godspeed, You Black Emperor!,these Norwegians are possibly the best band in the world playing hardcore today. $10Zegota “Reclaim!” CD—The third wide-ranging full-length album from theseexpatriate artistic geniuses. $8Face Down In Shit “Passing Times” CD—These tortured maniacstwist the punk and stoner rock traditions into something somehow at once ugly and beautiful. $10Countdown to Putsch “Interventions in Hegemony”double CD—C-to-P draws on punk rock, free jazz, and radical theater to create one ofthe most daring experimental works to come out of the do-it-yourself milieu. $10Blacken the Skies CD—This was Stef’s band between Catharsis and Requiem;imagine early Zegota, if they were a d-beat crust band. $9BEHIND OUR MASKS WE ARE YOUWe want the things you want, but today, not tomorrow. We think the things you think, but we acton them, too. We run the same risks you run, but we’ll be damned if we’ll run them for nothing.We cover our facesto uncover ourselves.We discovered that we had been holding our trueselves at arm’s length our whole lives, each of usafraid no one else had one. We had smuggled theseunlived through a bitter world, cherishing them asthe might-have-beens of another, impossible world.Though we shuddered dutifully at the televisedspecters of masked criminals and villains, our publiclives were themselves the masks of prisoners whonever dared act as if no one was watching.Donning masks, we realized we had been keepingthe wrong things secret. We had been acting in theopen, and only in the ways we were permitted to actopenly, while hiding our desires. We should havebeen proclaiming our desires openly, so as to findeach other, and laying secret plans.

PUNCH COPSIN THE FACE. . . and get away with it!To say police abuse their authority is redundant—as everyone who’s ever been on the other side ofa badge knows, the only authority of the policerests on the abuse they can threaten and inflict.Police brutality is not an aberration from the norm,but normal life in this society taken to its logicalconclusion. Wealthy executives, warmongerpoliticians, and others who benefit from inequalityand oppression claim that law and order must beestablished for peace and freedom to be possible,but in fact it’s the other way around: crime andviolence can only intensify as long as our socalledprotectors enforce the social imbalancesthat give rise to them.Fortunately, there’s now a cure for this socialdisease. We anarchists, believing that our owncommunities can govern themselves better thanany armored occupying army could, have spentlong years perfecting methods for resisting theirencroachments upon our lives. These tactics arenow ready for general use.If you treasure liberty—if you hunger for justice—if you crave revenge . . .JOIN THE ANARCHISTSw w w . c r i m e t h i n c . c o mw w w . i n f o s h o p . o r g