Month: November 2026

By Rosehairy Legs

It all started with house shows. I moved into a garden shed in the back of a large communal house in North Oakland, and we were excited about a lot of things. We’d discuss our creative visions, share epic stories about our favorite alternative forms of travel (hitch hiking vs train hopping vs bike trips) and plot our immersive parties on the front porch over endless pots of coffee and shared spliffs. We decided to host shows once a month, and the everchanging and endlessly creative inhabitants of our home meant we had a lot of connections to musicians within the community and abroad. 

Once a month or so our messy collective sprang to life — brooms and rags in action, record player bumping. We’d clean up the yard and the common spaces, redecorating with newfound objects from freepiles, sometimes fabricating props like cottony clouds billowing down from the ceiling. By early evening there were good smells bubbling out of the kitchen from big pots of stew, or pasta and veggies simmering in a cauldron of sauce. Eventually, some time before or after the last hangers-on finally stumbled home, guest musicians would retire into their sleeping bags on the living room floor or curl up on the porch sofa. Perhaps one band member was lucky enough to get snuggled by Sazmo, the sweetest of house cats.

I’ve done a lot of touring with my own bands over the years, making the most of friendships with other musicians. If I follow opportunity there’s always a place to play, a place to stay, and I can provide the same hospitality when folks come through Oakland. These creative connections still feel like my truest form of riches, the epitome of what I love about DIY music culture. You get a view into someone else’s world, what the stars look like from their backyard, what crazy outfits are in their closet, which albums they collect, where they walk for morning coffee. The (deaf?) kitten who likes to hang out inside the kick drum even while the drums are being played. 

These days I don’t do as much band touring anymore, but I still find myself plotting adventures with brave friends. We travel by bicycle, and living in California gives us the opportunity to do so year round. I have a solid crew: a motley assortment of young and old bicycle riding weirdos, staunch outdoorspeople and lifelong wanderers, fearless of the weather. 

It was on a bicycle trip to Angel Island about 5 years ago that my life took a turn. Angel Island is a place that you may not have heard of, since many residents of Berkeley and SF don’t even know it exists. It sits in the middle of the bay not too far from Alcatraz, across from the chaos of San Francisco’s bustling waterfront and North Beach neighborhoods, yet somehow entirely remote. What makes this place special, besides a little endemic mole and many strange abandoned buildings from bygone eras, is its complete inaccessibility to automobiles. You can take a ferry there, or a sailboat, or even a kayak, but no bridge spans from the mainland to the wilds of this mysterious place. How raccoons, deer and, more recently, coyotes got there remains a bit of a mystery — I like to imagine they came on tangled rafts of floating trash.

We had camped out at kayak camp, a 20 person site down a muddy hillside, and as the fog rolled away we went out to ride around the island and explore. We found a military battery, doors open, dark passageways that once held ammunition now littered with driftwood and pinecones. The battery was perched near the top of the mountain facing San Francisco, flanked by 3 campsites and not much else. As we surveyed the multi level ramparts, the strange passages, odd staircases and plateaus of concrete, a sweet adventurous friend of mine, a retired librarian, turned to me and said “Wouldn’t this be the best place for a music festival?”…and I had to agree. It didn’t take long for our excitement to spark like the cracklings of a fresh campfire. What could be more fun than exploring the world, sleeping outside, communal meals, evenings full of music and mornings full of coffee and sunshine? Sharing all this with our not-yet-bikey friends! And inviting bands!!! We had to try it…

The trickiest part about creating a multi-day DIY music festival campout is finding community to collaborate with. Lucky us…we have just that. My bike camping crew is family. We cook together, we eat together, we climb mountains together, we draw arrows on the ground in chalk so that no one misses the turns. When someone’s got a flat, we sit down with them while they fix it, offer them whiskey and make up a silly song. We dry our socks over an open fire, teach each other crafts and wilderness skills. We swim naked under bridges with the swallows and the bats. 

And now I’d like to share the newest skills we’ve acquired, the ones we use to book music festivals…

You can find out how to book any campsite by checking online. You do have to plan ahead — sometimes as much as six months in advance. 

Here, we have multiple group campsites that can host between 35 and 300 people depending on the price. These are sites that anyone can book if they call in. But you’re up against a lot of other boy scout troops, church groups, schools and other well-organized normies, so it’s best to have a team of at least 5-10 people to call in on the appropriate morning in order to secure camping. For our events, we pick a first choice of dates and locations, and try to have our second and third choices planned out as well, since there’s no guarantee that we’ll get what we want even with multiple folks calling in for several hours on end. At some parks, we find that we need to reserve 3 or more sites in order to avoid sharing our sonic space with other campers who might be seeking a quiet time in nature, not a bunch of bands.

This brings us to another necessity — site visits. The more people you can get to visit the site ahead, the better understanding you’ll have of what your event might be like. Folks start to get excited when they see a space and can imagine the possibilities. Some campgrounds have cool structures that can provide shade or shelter in inclement weather. Some allow fires, some do not. You might find location specific ways to install art or deco, and visualize how to add lighting for utility and ambiance. 

What do you need to make a music festival? If you’ve never done an event like this before, try it on a small scale first. Our very first music campout, our practice run before Angel Island, was a 35 person campout at Pt. Pinole. 

We loaded a few vans with an excess of music gear – drums, battery powered amps, mics, stands and a small piano. Acoustic pianos once inhabited every well-to-do parlor in the country. They’re free on Craigslist, but someday even this seemingly endless resource will disappear. We treat our pianos with love, passing them to good homes and even installing pneumatic wheels on our main set of ivories so it’s fit for adventure. If you need battery powered music gear, Guitar Center has a great free rental policy – Buy stuff, save the box and receipt, and return within 45 days for a full refund.

As experienced campers, we knew to bring a lot of firewood and a lot of beer to Pt. Pinole. Over the course of our four day weekend we set up camp, adorned the stage and kitchen areas with lights, deco and tents for shade, and enjoyed the good vibes as 12 bands serenaded each other, plus a few lucky guests. Really it felt like everyone there was participating in the art in some way. Some people were making food. Another person brought battery and solar powered lights that proved indispensable. Others brought cargo bikes and helped musicians move their gear from the parking lot to the site — a hefty 1.5 mile trek through forested hills and grasslands along the bay. Seal Pup Fest went very well. As we stood on the hill watching the sunset and hearing the music waft up from our little pop up village below, we knew we could do it again. And that we wanted to.

What about food? Well, it depends on your style and resources. We love to feed people, and our lead chef has a determination as big as his heart. A few heavy duty portable propane stoves, a big cast iron griddle for frying potatoes, a giant tea kettle, large coffee filters and insulated carafes, and a heavy duty fire extinguisher have all become part of our arsenal. Buckets upon buckets of vegetables get chopped at home and hauled out so they can go into the stir fry. 

How do you communicate about a music festival? Well, I’m old fashioned and I like email. I send emails to plan in-person picnic meetings, online meetings and group bike rides to visit proposed event sites. We have an email account just for our event series, which was annoying to set up but very useful — it means the communication stays separate from my personal affairs. It also means we can have multiple email moderators (also a bit tricky to set up, but worthwhile). We use multiple email lists for volunteers, core volunteers, and campers. We try to remember to use b.c.c. — and just in case I screw it up, my sweetie helped me set up the “undo send” email function, which has saved me from tears. There might be ways around this, but we also use many of google’s free services such as sheets, docs and forms. 

We’ve turned to using forms as an easy way to aggregate the info we collect. Not because we’re monitoring whether or not people chip in funds, but because we need to understand our numbers so that we buy enough food, and have enough parking. It turns out that cars are by far the biggest hassle of a group campout. You can (often) fit a lot more humans into a campground than the technical capacity of the site, but if they each drive their own vehicle you’re fucked. So we encourage people to carpool, or better yet ride a bike! Heck, we’ll bring your camping gear to the site ahead of time if you wanna join the group ride. Or if you want to try bike camping, strap a rack on your steed and hit the bay trail with us. There’s some fabulous bike camping opportunities for beginners all around the bay, keeping to the flats and the bridges. And there’s mountains here that will kick your ass and prepare you for bike touring anywhere you want to go in the world.

How do you finance a music festival? This one is tricky. If you need a starter fund to pay for food and camping, you can throw a few fundraiser house parties. This can also help spread the word about your endeavor and recruit more movers and shakers to participate. If folks like the idea some may be able to pitch in out of pocket. And we’ve always found that when a lot of people are doing a lot of quality work for free, it spreads a sense of goodwill that inspires folks to be generous. Our events are never advertised or ticketed, they are notaflof and the costs are covered by suggested donation. No one gets paid to work — it’s a giant labor of love. When we collect funds that exceed our expenses, we offer thank you stipends to the bands.

How do you advertise a DIY music festival campout? YOU DON’T! At least we don’t, because we don’t want the cops or the park rangers to shut us down. Our events are not technically festivals, they are Family Reunions, a point that we reiterate over and over in our email communications. We encourage our community to forward the email invitation to their friends, to help the community grow, to keep bringing in new artists of different genres. But we draw the line and say NO POSTING ON SOCIAL MEDIA. When bands mess that up, as touring bands sometimes do, we ask them to take down their posts so they don’t jeopardize our events. Amplified music is technically not allowed in regional parks, but rangers tend to turn a blind eye because they appreciate what we do. State Parks are trickier — be aware that state park rangers can have a stick up their ass about the rules, and they may shut down your event. It’s happened to us.

How do you book a music festival? Well, start small. Book your own band, and a few others that you really know. If you don’t know bands, investigate the DIY scene where you live. Look for the house parties, the cafe shows, the park shows, the anarchist collective shows, the underground parades. Remember that you can’t quite control what you create if you aren’t offering people cash dollar capitalist compensation, which is cool. Real DIY community isn’t one person’s dream, it’s a group effort, organic and alive. People have to want to join for the love of it, and for that they need the freedom to influence it as well. Once you make friends with a few really rad bands, once you show people hospitality, appreciation, hard work, quality art…the reputation that your events are fun will ripple across communities. Pro sound people will offer their time and their gear, because they know they can enhance the experience for everyone. More people will want to join, to help, to bring their ideas and talents. Through word of mouth, we’ve recruited large interactive musical installations, epic sculptures, bike-powered carnival rides, homemade ice cream pop-ups, live screen printing of fresh designs for events, and pedal-powered sound systems. We’ve enjoyed performances by bands spanning from punk to hip hop, folk, jazz, blues, rock, brass bands, balkan music, choirs, ambient and noise music, touring bands, and many artists with unique and undefinable sounds. Our strength lies in our diversity and open mindedness. Brave visual artists have installed works perched above poison oak groves, with hammocks for restful viewing. We’ve been asked to remove swings installed high in trees, we’ve followed dancers on interactive journeys through the forest, and heard the power of live music in dimly lit, reverberant spaces. We’ve had pillow fights and cuddle puddles and climbed trees while epic bands serenaded the crowd. We’ve enjoyed morning qi gong. We’ve vacuumed scores of dusty rugs, and adapted our living spaces to store all kinds of weird gear. Trashy treasures that get pulled out and appreciated at least a few times a year, by a few hundred happy people.

Looking back over my story, it may seem like my friends and I live in a perfect world where everything goes smoothly. It’s not. You can’t make everyone happy, and you can’t insure against catastrophe. Vehicles break down at inopportune times, bands show up too late to get into the campground. Equipment gets forgotten, and hopefully people are forgiving. You might find yourself setting up the floor tom on logs and rocks because you forgot to bring the legs. You might find bands and audience cold and disappointed because the music is running hours late, and you might regret having said yes to so many performers, and creating a schedule that is impossible to uphold. You might learn the hard way NOT to bring someone into the fold in a high-stress volunteer position unless they have already attended an event and seen what they are getting into. You might train a small child against the dangers of poison oak and days later, find that you squatted in it yourself while peeing in the dark. Hosting events can be really stressful, and I have repeatedly ended up with bathroom issues while at our music campouts — a problem I’ve never faced before. Sometimes I wear down my immune system by working too hard, aiming too high, partying too much to cope with the stress. Drink lots of water! Try to get some sleep! Be kind to yourself and your friends, and remember that just doing something big and communal is a success in and of itself, even if there’s hiccups or failures. Making mistakes is unavoidable, but also it’s the best way to learn, or to remember how to do things better. One thing I have been working on is learning how to delegate and ask for more help, since burnout is real.

I hope these anecdotes have proven entertaining. And I hope they can inspire you to bring your friends together, to share the music and art that you make with each other under the open sky, away from the confines of buildings, cars and busy city streets. Wherever you live, we welcome you to explore the beauty of nature and witness your community feasting and reveling in musical celebration for its own sake, whether it’s a few hours drive out of town or better yet, just a bike ride away, in the lush wild corners of your own backyard.

By Jesse D. Palmer

We’re in a simultaneously dark and exhilarating time. Many people are feeling paralyzed and overwhelmed by economic stress, authoritarianism, the collapsing ecosystem and war.

And yet the system is toppling itself — bringing danger but also a path to a better future. How many people other than the oligarchs, the dictators and their henchmen feel like things are going well or support the economic and political establishment at this point? The bosses have over promised and under delivered — and billions of people are seething. Capitalism faces a looming debt crisis and stock market bubble of its own making, ruinously high fuel prices because of the war in Iran, increasingly destructive weather, and populations unable to start families, get decent jobs or afford health care and basic necessities. All the system seemingly has to offer is AI that will either usurp control over our lives, or go off the rails and kill us by mistake. 

Extreme contradictions like this are highly unstable. You can feel it in the air — something has to give. Around the world revolts and riots are breaking out and old illusions and inertia are slipping away.

The only tool the system has left to save itself is distraction, disempowerment, isolation, and maintaining a sense that there are no alternatives — that current conditions are inevitable. Also police thugs and attacks on immigrants. None of it brings fulfillment, contentment, meaning or more than a fragile and superficial resignation to the status quo. 

I want to do something to fight, but most of the time I can’t figure out what will work. It is tempting to just focus on my personal life because my little corner of life is still pleasant. But keeping our heads down under these circumstance is dangerous and just makes me feel worse in the long-run. 

I think it helps to articulate the world we want clearly, boldly, publicly, and often. Corporations, computers and hierarchical structures only offer more of the same. It is up to us to dream worlds worth living in — full of emotion, cooperation, pleasure, abundance, beauty, community engagement, local color and meaning. You can’t make social change if you’re only focused on how bad everything is all the time.

We need to get beyond our bubbles and avoid setting our expectations too low. Community gardens and free boxes are great, but we can think bigger and demand more fundamental transformations. Let’s eat the whole pie, not just nibble around the edges. 

When established structures collapse, it can suddenly open up opportunities for alternatives based on life-affirming values and principles. Luckily, decentralized networks and counter-institutions have been developing and refining non-coercive, horizontal, cooperative forms of organization and DIY skills for decades. These sleeper cells are ready for our moment. 

We also need to be clear about what is unacceptable: wars in Gaza, Iran, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere. Masked thugs on the streets snatching our neighbors and surveillance cameras on every corner. We can’t tolerate a system which concentrates wealth for a few billionaires while most people are struggling — built on ecological destruction, fossil fuel dependence, deforestation, toxic pollution, and plastics choking the oceans and our bodies. 

The passion behind the widespread rejection of data centers isn’t just about electricity prices or noise. AI is the logical conclusion of capitalism. The bosses have always sought to increase efficiency by replacing human labor with machines. Unlike previous tools that expanded human abilities, AI seeks to replace us entirely — our ability to make decisions and create. Constant interactions with machines brings only loneliness, isolation and meaninglessness. AI can’t benefit regular people — concentrates ever more wealth and power in ever fewer unaccountable hands. 

To wake up from this nightmare, we need to focus away from danger, loss, grief and fear of police repression — and instead concentrate on our desires, the brighter future we’re fighting to build and the unbelievable weakness, fragility and isolation of the billionaires, their government puppets and those with fear and hate in their hearts who seek to serve them. 

Making trouble in the streets isn’t the only answer — you can’t riot alone and sloppy actions can empower repressive forces — but a little disruption sure feels better than doing nothing. Action can help break the veneer of apathy and acceptance. 

Since no one knows what will get us out of this quagmire, it’s time to throw spaghetti against the walls and see what sticks. Being in community is especially vital right now. Acting against this rotting edifice feels impossible on my own. But when I’m with my housemates, at a Slingshot meeting, or on a midnight parade in San Francisco with paper lanterns, costumes and a marching band, survival and creating a new world worth living in seems within reach and even inevitable. 

Liberation isn’t only something we’ll achieve later. We should practice, nurture and achieve freedom now as often as we can and in as many aspects of our lives as possible. Not just on a political and economic level but culturally — in our families, workplaces, schools and on our blocks.

Creating a new world isn’t a duty or responsibility we have to others. It’s a constructive and important game we play for ourselves and with those around us that makes life exciting and that helps us to figure who we really are. 

By tom eichlersmith
	One way to look at it is that I boycott a lot of things — Amazon, Target, AI, Israel, cars, animal-products and probably others that I'm forgetting since its been so many years.
 	I am against harm. The simplest way to reduce my contribution or complicity in harm is to refuse to participate in it. This is why I boycott all of these things, but it seems to be more clear to others that I am always against something.
	Boycotts are often pitched as "targeted" actions that "can force" some other organization or system to change, as purely "wallet activism" that only works if there is enough participation to force change through economic pressure, but that is too small scale. I don't want apartheid states, mega-corporations, slop-factories, animal agriculture, car-centric transportation, or other sources of harm in my future society so I remove them from my life now.  Living in the future society I want now. Since we as individual earthlings form a society, a radically and systemically different society will require all of us to radically and systemically change how we live our lives.
	A boycott that never ends defines a new culture, a new set of rules about what is valued. 
	These never-ending boycotts are a new frame of mind; one that pushes against the convenience and consumerism of capitalism. In the short term, there is a perception of friction as you are trying new, different things. Where do I get this item now that I'm not shopping on Amazon? What do I eat now that I'm not eating boxed mac-n-cheese? However, life and happiness are not about these conveniences. This perceived friction quickly evaporates as you develop new habits, ones that are more life-giving, ones that require you to push back against convenience capitalism by biking to your nearby hardware store or cooking a meal from produce grown in your community garden.  The longer-term friction, the one that consistently causes me difficulty, is interpersonal friction.
	When friends and family consume animal products in my presence, I feel disgust, frustration, and sadness. “You still shop on Amazon? You ‘asked’ ChatGPT? How have you not woken up to the real harm apartheid states, mega-corporations, slop-factories, animal agriculture, car-centric transportation, or other source cause?” These internal feelings focus on a basic question: how can they believe this is all right? Our current culture tells us that these sources of harm are not only acceptable but inevitable. The process of defining a new culture, a new society, requires us to communicate our discomfort, our friction, with others in our community.
	I don't want to argue in favor of total "individual responsibility" politics. We must demand change from institutions, but changing ourselves and our community now improves our quality of life. Many of the replacement activities bring me a lot more joy than what I was doing before. I enjoy riding my bike and the community of public transit so much more than the fear and anxiety of driving a car. The folks at my local hardware store are so much nicer than the folks at whatever mega-corporation is near by. I eat a larger variety of food, have become a much better cook, and saved a lot of money once I embraced plant-centered cuisine as compared to my old meat-and-potatoes meals. While these boycotts originated out of an ethical imperative for me, they also improve my quality of life now — giving me the energy necessary to also fight for larger, systematic change.
	The power of boycotts is in the interpersonal friction that they originate — the force dragging people near you along, towards a better world. Some folks will resist more than others, but they are still feeling this force. They are feeling the discomfort, the pull towards a new world, one that does not have these sources of so much harm today.
	I am not boycotting these sources of harm because I want them to change. I am boycotting them because they do not improve my quality of life. Removing them from my life, my community, my society, and my culture demonstrate that they are not inevitable and we can form a happier society, choosing instead habits and practices that foster community and improve our quality of life now.

By Friend 

On July 27th, 2026 the U.S. government and Fisher industries cut down three ancient cottonwood trees in a small town called Lochiel, Arizona in order to build not just one but two border walls. This area is the habitat of the endangered Mexican Wolf as well as jaguars, bears, foxes and many other bizarre, beautiful bugs and animals. It is also the home of the Tohono O’odham people, important to many indigenous tribes on both sides of the border. When the three grandmother cottonwoods were cut, one brave comrade stood in front of construction equipment, preventing the destruction of the last ancient tree and the construction of the border wall. In that last tree, we began our tree sit. With the support of hundreds of activists, the land owners, nearby towns and tribes, and even the local sheriff department, we halted construction of the walls for 75 days.

For 75 days, activists sat in the remaining cottonwood as ground support grew into a sprawling camp. It was the first tree sit to stop border wall construction and was briefly the first binational tree sit in history, with a sit erecting on the Mexican side for three days in August. During these 75 days, O:shad camp, jaguar in O’odham, held morning ceremony in the easement, the road which enforced the border. Ceremony frequently extended to effectively halt all construction vehicles for the day, or days at a time. People fell in love, they danced in the mud, cooked communal meals, all while defending the land. Utopia felt nearby. 

Then, on October 5th, hundreds of border patrol officers, accompanied by turning point usa, invaded O:shad camp. They cut down the grandmother cottonwood and forcibly removed the tree sitter without a proper extraction team, risking her life. Activists on the ground circled the trunk to protect the tree and continue their resistance against the wall. More than 10 activists were arrested and many more brutalized. Though on private property and with no warrant, they ransacked the camp and destroyed our belongings. 

Indigenous and non-white activists were singled out and beaten much worse than white comrades. Border Patrol violently pushed, pulled and dragged, but also kneeled on throats, punched eyes, pushed skin into barbed wire. They specifically targeted our medic (who is Indigenous) to be violently dragged, beaten, and arrested. They prevented our media team from capturing what happened, while escorting Turning Point USA to film the day in order to spread their right wing propaganda. 

The next day, as Border Patrol expanded their boundaries further into private property to make way for the wall, five more of us were taken, and lawyers were unable to find them in the system while border patrol ignored calls from their lawyers, friends and family.

A day later, my comrade locked herself to a cement truck and stayed in a stress position without food or water for 7 hours while Border Patrol covered her with an emergency blanket despite the hot climate. One officer told her and the other officers that they should drive her to the middle of nowhere where no one would be able to hear her scream. They began to move the vehicle with her still above the tire; we all thought she would be killed. Two comrades who ran towards her, worried for her life, were tackled, brutalized, and arrested – one was sexually assaulted during her arrest. Finally they brought in an expert extractor who took her out of lockdown and she was taken to detention and then federal prison. She is now facing federal assault charges.

The rest of us were shot with pepper balls, tear gassed, leaving us vomiting, injured, bruised and emotionally exhausted. After the tree sitter was removed from the grandmother tree in Lochiel, a comrade reinstated the sit on the mexico side. Cut off from ground support by border patrol, she went over two days without food or water. When mexican firefighters and Fisher construction workers went to pull her out, she free climbed further up the tree. They destroyed her platform and life sustaining materials, leaving her to perch in the cottonwood branches without a platform or supplies. She suffered dehydration and starvation in high heat but still managed to keep a backpack on her, which she filled with clippings of the Abuela tree so that no matter what happened, the trees offspring could be replanted. 

The following day the wall continued.

In total 30+ of us have been arrested, and many more brutalized, injured, and traumatized. We are the first people to be charged for this specific resistance against the border wall and our court date is in January 2027. Some of us have misdemeanor charges, others have felonies.

Some of us in Lochiel are intertwined through solidarity work in Palestine. We have seen how the same tactics used overseas to commit genocide are the tactics used here in the united states. Much as in Palestine, on the border there is constant surveillance. We cannot let this continue here or anywhere —these are the struggles of all people and we are all interconnected. 

Though camp is now over, our resistance has spread. What took them five days to finish had been stopped more than 70 because of everyday people who believed in something. An ancient cottonwood in Mexico was preserved, the town of Lochiel now has international attention and resistance to the double wall got support from Palestine, Norway, Italy, Berlin, and across the US. We have clippings from the grandmother and Abuela trees that are already being propagated.

Border patrol came from sites all over the region to deal with us, which prevented them harassing other more vulnerable populations during that time. Border checkpoints that hadn’t been closed in years shut down because border patrol officers from all over were relocated to deal with protesters. We were able to pull away hundred of goons throughout 70+ days from harassing “immigrants” and citizens alike.

Though we can’t see all the things our camp accomplished, it helped question what a border means. 

The state has created borders everywhere which means they can be resisted ANYWHERE. You can’t do everything but you can do SOMETHING. The federal government is still initiating ice surges. Families, your neighbors, your favorite spaces will lose people to these abductions. It’s time to give up comfort and ignorance to do what’s right. 

It’s not about winning anymore, it’s about doing everything you can do to resist fascism and create the world you want. Chattel slavery took 400 years to end. Along the way resisters were consistently told they couldn’t win, and it’s true that most did not see the end. It took dedication and movements of people throughout hundreds of years to kill it.

People love to yell fuck ice but this moment calls for more than just vocal support. There are always things to do. Accompany people to their immigration hearings, host foot patrols in areas dense with migrant communities, set up free coffee and know your rights cards outside of day laborer sites like home depot, throw up banners on freeway overpasses, make a zine, take a stop the bleed training and use it at protests, canvass your neighborhood, host a fundraiser and donate the proceeds, research who profits and find out how fast their windows can be smashed. Learn how good it feels to be free. 

We have everything we need to resist. One day the land will be free. Fight tonight, dance tomorrow, and if you need help, just ask.

By two comrades based in Oakland, CA

“Wii’i Gdwiisa [we-e gud-we-suh], known in english as Red Butte, is a sacred mountain just south of the Grand Canyon. It is the birthplace of the Havasupai people. In 1974, uranium was discovered on the Havasupai reservation. Despite the tribe’s attempts to prevent mining on their sacred lands, the u.s. government approved mining permits and the land was stolen (again). There is a long history of violence in the so-called american southwest committed against indigenous people and land by the nuclear industry. This is a story of that legacy and the uranium mine currently operating at the northern base of Red Butte. This is also a story of the steadfast resistance by the people born from these lands and those who fight alongside them. Wii’i Gdwiisa is still alive, still breathing. Her people ask us to live and fight in solidarity with her and all sacred land/water under attack by the settler colonial capitalist regime.”

On the weekend of May 14th–18th 2026, networks of land defenders called a gathering to defend Red Butte against uranium mining. We gathered some comrades to make the journey and as we left Oakland, we didn’t realize how transformative the trip would be. On the journey back home, we decided to pull over to pray and honor the sunrise the way we had been taught at the gathering, and we knew our lives and organizing would be forever changed by Red Butte.

When we arrived at Wii’i Gdwiisa after two days of travel, comrades were setting up camp at the southern base of the mountain. Our Indigenous comrades invited us to greet the land, give an offering, share our lineages and intentions, and ask permission to camp. We listened to the wind and rocks for answers and proceeded only once the land responded. Ceremony was at the center of this gathering, grounding us in an ongoing conversation with the land itself as we planned our actions in defense of Red Butte.

The gathering was autonomously organized and guided by Indigenous organizers with established protocols. People were invited to take whatever action they were called to, rather than relying on direction from specific leaders. The autonomous strategy was apparent in moments of confusion and disorganization, but allowed us to nimbly shift programming in response to emergent situations like radioactively contaminated desert winds and police repression. It also created opportunities for everyone to contribute what they could and grow into roles that needed doing, like bathroom duty, shelter construction, political education, vibes, radioactive decontamination, or cooking in a fully-functional desert kitchen serving three hot meals to 150 people every day. 

Two sacred fires, one for Wii’i Gdwiisa and one for Dookó’oslííd (known in english as the San Francisco Peaks), were the heartbeat of the camp. We burned medicine and other offerings in their flames which burned uninterrupted throughout the gathering, we shared stories and meals around their circle, and we sang and danced in their warmth at night. We were taught to gather and cut wood with clear minds and good intentions. Fire-tenders stayed up every night to ensure the fires didn’t go out. As we kept watch over the fire, we also kept watch over the safety of the camp. Other practices, like the daily sunrise ceremonies and a ceremonial sheep slaughter led by Diné comrades, similarly intertwined spiritual consciousness and soulful embodied connection to Red Butte with the meeting of basic needs like sleeping and eating. The rituals were hard work, which taught us to be good guests and showed the necessity of strong spiritual practice in sustaining a lifelong militant commitment to fighting for land. 

We were invited to Red Butte by Havasupai elders, who cannot themselves return to the birthplace of their tribe because the radioactive contamination is too big of a threat to the tribe’s survival. They wanted us to learn about uranium mining and make a public show of support for the tribe’s fight. After taking the first day to set up, the following two days were full of teach-ins, workshops, discussions, and planning for the elders’ call to action. We thank those who shared their knowledge with us, including groups like Haul No! and Stop T.H.E.M., as well as indigenous experts of the local land and academic experts of history and hydrology.

Local elders told us their stories about the u.s. government colluding with private companies to extract uranium while poisoning the land and people. They also told us about their fights against these violations. This legacy has left a deep scar in the so-called american southwest, and indigenous communities still suffer health impacts from the “uranium boom,” which peaked in the 1960s and waned in the following decades. Now, with growing global interest in data centers and a desperate need to power them, the extractive nuclear energy is rising again. Many companies are activating mining claims after years of dormancy and either digging new mines or re-opening existing ones. One such company is Energy Fuels, which first laid claim to a patch of land just north of Red Butte in 1986 to build the Pinyon Plain uranium mine. This mine began extracting uranium in earnest within the last few years.

Today, radioactive material from Pinyon Plain Mine contaminates vast underground aquifers, pollutes soil, and generates toxic dust. The impact compounds because the trucks hauling uranium ore to the mill in White Mesa Ute lands spread dust along the entire haul route, primarily on reservation lands. Plants and animals, rivers, humans, and mountains are impacted for millennia when nuclear contamination occurs. The wake of destruction compounds when you consider how uranium is used to reinforce bullets and tanks and make bombs that are used by the u.s. military machine to kill people worldwide. There is also potential for the uranium to be used in small modular nuclear reactors to power data centers, further entrenching us under the technofascist foot of empire. The anti-nuclear movement needs to forefront Indigenous sovereignty and show up for protecting sacred sites; we can stop the machine at the source of the raw materials it needs to wage war.

On the day of our camp’s action, the energy was buzzing, as if Wii’i Gdwiisa was charging us up for the fight ahead. We were excited, but felt like we could have used more time to prepare or talk about contingency plans. We had built relationships with a lot of people, but still had questions about how much we could trust folks. We lined up along the highway, the main road to and from the Grand Canyon, busy with tourists who knew nothing about the toxic uranium mining destroying the land for corporate profit happening just a few feet away. Comrades from all over the southwest joined us for the demonstration. We made a stand with banners, buckets, and chants, and despite police pressure, we stopped traffic and educated people passing through. At one point a hauling truck arrived, headed to collect uranium from Pinyon Plain, but it was stopped and had to be towed away due to certain actions that were taken against it. The action was a success and although the police used intimidation tactics to scare us, we built trust and were vigilant, organized, and protective. That evening, we had a feast and stayed up late strategizing how to continue the support for Red Butte and the Havasupai people once the gathering ended.

Looking back, our time in ceremony with Wii’i Gdwiisa was empowering and moving; we realized that even the action on the highway was a form of ceremony for us. Some of the rituals we learned have reaffirmed our connection to the land through introductions, altars, and care. We always pay our respects when in new lands, whether a city or a mountain. Thinking back to camp, we recall with a mix of nostalgia, longing, and awe how at home we felt. Our practices made us feel like we could sustain the camp for months and months. It feels weird to be back home, far away from Red Butte, thrust back into our regular lives. But life is not regular anymore. Every day we think of our comrades, of the fires, of the fight for sacred lands, of ceremony. We tell friends about the sense of transformation we feel after participating in the gathering. This trip has made us more powerful, more deeply rooted than ever before, and more able to fight for the land. Our movements for liberation need to be connected to land and spirit to win.

“Once a fire is lit, it desires to spread. We invite you to join the struggle to protect sacred land against extractive industry. We invite you to share this knowledge with others. Most importantly and urgently, we invite you to take action.” ______

This article includes excerpts from the zine “Fire for Wii’i Gdwiisa” to which the authors contributed: tinyurl.com/redbuttezine. It has more info and actions you can take. Also check livingandfighting.net.

By Spilt Coffee & Bad Hairday
	In the northwoods of so-called Wisconsin, they are building a new oil pipeline route around the sovereign Bad River reservation, leaving scars on the earth in their wake. We are watching them tear into the earth, and resisting as best as we can. In the summer of 2026, amidst the massive earth moving machines barreling down the highways, out-of-town pickup trucks following and harassing locals, and the non-stop sound of construction in the woods, there was heated chatter in the newspapers and cafes, people feeding each other and meeting in libraries and dance halls, and gatherings of prayer and protest alike. 
	Line 5 is an oil pipeline built in 1953 through the Great Lakes region without the consent of local Tribal Nations. It has leaked more than 1.1 million gallons of oil in its lifetime, and just this summer tragically spilled over a million gallons of liquid natural gas, inflicting major health hazards on residents and workers and contaminating an immense area just east of Ashland, WI.
	Enbridge owns Line 5. They're the multi-national corporation responsible for building and operating the expanded Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, which faced over a decade of resistance. Enbridge operates pipelines crossing many midwestern and eastern states, trafficking crude oil and natural gas products in and out of Canada. Instead of cleaning up the old & leaking pipelines, Enbridge is now building new sections of pipe along the Line 5 route: under the lake bed in the Straits of Mackinac, and a re-route around Mashkiiziibii (the Bad River Reservation). This re-route is a direct attack on Indigenous sovereignty: when Bad River said no more pipelines on their land, Enbridge retorted by putting the pipe just outside of the reservation border.
	Enbridge is clawing through sensitive wetlands with heavy machinery. They use the city of Ashland's municipal water, contaminating it with a secret industry mix of toxic chemicals that enable them to drill. This drilling has failed several times: as of late October 2026, 10 known frac-outs have occurred, where the clay-and-chemicals drilling slurry burst from the drill path and flooded the surrounding areas, choking rivers, streams and wetlands. They've unintentionally 'released' oil 11 times, and breached an aquifer that provides drinking water to local people's homes. Michel's, the subcontractor managing most construction activities for Enbridge, has been so problematic that the DNR has had to come out and issue them... a paper slap on the wrist.
	The resistance to Line 5 during active construction has been reminiscent of the many land, water, and community defense campaigns that have come before it. Inspired by the week of action against the ICE occupation in Minneapolis, a network of neighbors, water protectors, eco punks, community organizers, and agitated locals came together to make a public showing of resistance in Ashland WI. It wasn't hosted by a coalition of nonprofits or established organizations, it was just folks who decided that they couldn't let construction continue on unaddressed. 
	From there, we saw a slow ramp-up in the informational meetings, rallies, and talks, in the prayer and memorial walks, and civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action. Water protectors have put themselves in the way of construction work in order to stop it: walking into construction zones, camping out in threatened waterways, setting a tree sit, holding prayer lodges and ceremonies. News reports from Superior and Ashland this fall show us that Enbridge's work in Wisconsin is no exception to the rule that they are also fought with fire: evidenced by two incinerated worksites and one burned office, in concert with many other incidents of vandalism and property damage. 
	There is legitimate — if not widespread — public support for a wide diversity of tactics in our home, including property destruction. We've overheard cafe chatter exclaiming: "that's how it's done!" and applause from longtime water protectors asking for more of all of it. 
	Some of these actions have faced state repression; the Ashland and Iron County police departments are functionally on a paid retainer with Enbridge to respond to pipeline resistance. There's a law on Wisconsin's books that makes it a felony to trespass on 'critical infrastructure', which includes pipeline corridors. So far, the open cases include charges of disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, resisting arrest, trespassing and ordinance violations, ranging from misdemeanors to felonies.
	There's an ongoing window of opportunity for solidarity. Resist from every corner! Enbridge has operations across the territories currently held by the US and Canada. They've poisoned our woods and streams, and many of yours too. Some of our indigenous relatives have expressed exhaustion and disappointment in allies who refuse to plan resistance for themselves, instead waiting for instructions or permission from tribal members. Settlers on turtle island have an obligation to address the problems of settler society. You can join us in fighting this WI reroute here where the dragon's soft belly is exposed, or fight them where they snake through MN, MI, or TX. Or better still, Alberta, Canada, where their long entrenchment makes them think they're untouchable. 
	Because Enbridge is in many places, you don't need to be *here* to fight alongside us. Because Enbridge has many weak points, you don't need to commit to one tactic to find success. Timing is one factor we encourage everyone to be stricter about: the longer Enbridge is allowed to harm the land, the more our scope of possibilities shrinks. Destroyed wetland peat ecosystems like ours can never be fully remediated, and what we all lose will take many lifetimes to heal.
	Many of us are not convinced that we will win. We're resisting anyways. We show up to the fight without the belief that we'll be victorious. We look at the odds, know our own capacities, see who all is turning out, and notice that the crowd is thin. We try to be honest about the probability of this pipe being built. We reckon with the serious and lasting ecological harm being perpetrated, and we acknowledge that campaigns with more resources and better conditions lost. And still we resist, because it has its own dignity, because in fighting we find each other. Resistance is a value not conditional on an outcome. 

By Soren Dawson

The Saharawi are the indigenous people of Western Sahara, a territory in northwest Africa bordered by the Atlantic ocean to the West, Morocco to the North, and Mauritania to the South. Before colonization, Saharawi people lived here in nomadic or semi-nomadic communities, herding their livestock in the Sahara Desert when the rains turned it green. The same landscapes that fed them inspired a rich tradition of poetry and music that centers the beauty of this land and the peoples’ relationship with it. 

In the late 1800s, Western Sahara was colonized by Spain. The Spanish government repressed Saharawi culture and imposed education that enforced colonial rule, teaching the Spanish language and history instead of Saharawi. After nearly a century of occupation, in the early 1970s decolonization was on the horizon. Saharawis organized for an independent Western Sahara forming the Polisario Front in 1973, a liberation movement utilizing political advocacy and armed resistance to advance Saharawi self-determination. International consensus and law agreed that the Saharawi people had the only legitimate claim to sovereignty in Western Sahara, despite the claims of Morocco and Mauritania that they should have control of the land and the rich natural resources there. A decade earlier abundant deposits of phosphate had been discovered, and the coast is home to large populations of ecologically and economically valuable fish and other sea life. Instead of complying with international law and basic decency, Spain signed agreements with Morocco and Mauritania, and with the Spanish withdrawal came a US and France backed Moroccan invasion from the North and Mauritanian invasion from the South. 

Saharawis fought back. In 1979 the Polisario Front successfully forced Mauritania to give up its colonial ambitions in Western Sahara, but the war continued with Morocco until a 1991 ceasefire, which promised a referendum on self determination. That referendum has not happened, prevented by Morocco. The ceasefire still held until November of 2020, when Morocco attempted to occupy a buffer zone supposedly restricted to UN personnel. Active combat resumed, and continues as of this writing. 

Amid decades of violence and ethnic cleansing by Morocco, most Saharawis have been forced to flee Western Sahara, and now live in refugee camps in Algeria. They are prevented from returning home by the Moroccan government, and rely primarily on international aid for survival. Those who remain in Western Sahara are subjected to intense cultural and political repression including disappearance, torture, and retaliation against the families of activists. 

In addition to artillery and torture, Morocco uses cultural production and tourism as weapons for the ethnic cleansing of Western Sahara. “The Odyssey,” partially filmed in violation of international law in Dakhla, Western Sahara, is one example of how mainstream media is weaponized by the Moroccan state. This movie was filmed without any consultation with or even acknowledgment of the existence of Saharawi people. Instead, the production collaborated with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture, acting as if Dakhla was part of Morocco. The director and others involved in the production have never responded to calls to recognize Saharawi sovereignty and to not use the scenes filmed on occupied land without their permission, calls made a year before the movie came out. This is the playbook for laundering ethnic cleansing with mainstream entertainment, and we can expect to see it reproduced everywhere colonial regimes attempt to cement their power, from Western Sahara to Palestine and across the globe. 

We can make these attempts to use western pop culture to erase the Saharawi people backfire, and hold accountable those complicit in this colonial project. This is an opportunity for more people to learn about Western Sahara and hear from Saharawi people. Many people, even people very passionate and informed about other struggles for indigenous sovereignty, have never heard of Western Sahara. Few people know that the US recognized Morocco’s occupation in 2020 under the Abraham Accords in exchange for Morocco recognizing Israel, or that there has been strong solidarity between Palestine and Western Sahara for many decades. It’s past time to recognize the liberation of Western Sahara as inseparable from any true movement for liberation, and take action for a free Western Sahara! 

1. Take action now

Learn more about the history, present, and future of Western Sahara from Saharawi journalists, activists, and storytellers in the refugee camps and occupied Western Sahara: www.saharawivoice.org/

Boycott and Divest – Boycott corporations that operate in occupied Western Sahara, and boycott “The Odyssey.” Learn more about resource extraction in Western Sahara from Western Sahara Resource Watch and the call to boycott “The Odyssey” from coverage on Democracy Now on July 17, 2026. 

Pressure politicians to recognize the right to independence and self-determination of Western Sahara, end aid and weapons sales to Morocco, and revoke US endorsement of Morocco’s claim to the territory. More info: solidarityrising.com and festivalsahara.org

By Snakey

Amidst the October 2026 surge in ICE abductions in Northern California, two Oaklanders were beaten and abducted on October 16th, one in Emeryville, one in Oakland. Both were injured badly enough to require hospitalization. One was taken to San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and the other to Oakland’s Wilma Chan Highland Hospital (AHS). The person taken to SFGH was able to leave the hospital to freedom in three days. The unfortunate person hospitalized at the AHS hospital did not fare so well, and was disappeared into ICE custody after six days. 

Why the difference?

In short, past organizing fought and changed SFGH policies and procedures to prepare for this situation – policies and procedures that Alameda Health System still lacks.

After intense organizing in 2024-2025 by SFGH hospital staff, SFGH hospital had established policies and procedures that enabled the patient immediate access to lawyers and community support – a writ of habeas corpus was immediately filed, was approved and the patient walked away from ICE and back home after three days. 

Across the bay, Alameda Health System (AHS) hospital administrators ignored repeated staff and union demands for appropriate policies and procedures for ICE-detained patients. AHS hospital administrators collaborated with ICE agents, allowing agents to occupy a floor of the hospital and guard the handcuffed patient through 30 ICE agent shift changes. Hospital lawyers prohibited communication with or about the patient among staff and community, imposing a bubble of secrecy. Outside, community rapid responders carried out a constant six-day monitoring presence, identifying and logging 23 ICE vehicles and dozens of agents. AHS in cooperation with Alameda County sheriffs enabled ICE agents to assemble their vehicles in a secure, gated location. On October 23 evening, the patient was led on a walker by sheriff and ICE agents and bundled into an ICE vehicle convoy which brutally sped away past community monitors unable to stop the patients’ disappearance into the ICE gulag system.

Disturbingly, during the six days the patient was held incommunicado at AHS, no one, hospital administrators nor sheriffs, asked agents to show a signed warrant. ICE never had a warrant. The patient was unlawfully held – kidnapped – and both AHS and county sheriffs had openly violated Alameda County ICE Free Zone law and the sheriff’s own Zero-Contact Policy with immigration officials.

Community responders are fighting to hold AHS, the County and the sheriffs accountable. Hospital staff and union are demanding key changes to hospital protocols. It is critical that we all work to connect hospital and health care staff to community responders in our collective fight against ICE and for our communities. We stand in solidarity with Chloe Renae Freeman, the Ann Arbor, Michigan nurse charged by the federal government in October of helping an illegally detained ICE patient exit the hospital to freedom. POWER TO THE HEALERS.

By Two Organizers of Bay Area Buyers’ Clubs

Facing a potential ICE crackdown in the Bay in August 2025, organizers in Oakland started the ICE Out of the Bay Neighborhood Defense Assemblies, to establish robust networks of solidarity that can protect our communities. More recently, we have built a new initiative from these Assemblies, partnering with rural food producers in a politicized project of organizing produce “buyers clubs” that support migrant farmers while reducing our reliance on corporate food systems. This article explains a little about our motivation and our model for organizing.

Initially, six Oakland neighborhoods began meeting and training around ICE defense. Those that remain continue to build relationships, plan, train together, and patrol our neighborhoods. In late 2026, ICE seems to be increasing its presence after a year of relative quiet, reinvigorating the Assemblies. Lessons from the Zapatistas, Rojava, and the networks that were able to respond quickly to ICE’s Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, teach us that long term autonomous local organizing and relationships are the robust structures needed for ongoing support and solidarity in both acute crises and the everyday struggle against encroachment by the state and capitalism into our lives. They are also the structures in which we can imagine building something else — we can do much more than fight, we can also build together! To live well, we must create alternative ways to take care of ourselves that confront the exploitative, extractive, and individualist ways that capitalism forces us to survive. As we have learned from our political predecessors (specifically the legacy of the Black Panthers and the Food Conspiracies of the Bay Area), communities that feed each other can defend each other. Now more than ever, food is a vital point of mutual support and connection.

To that end, our anti-ICE formations have become a platform to move from urban defense to urban-rural organizing that strengthens our material autonomy. Our Neighborhood Assemblies are now organizing direct bulk purchasing of produce from campesinás in nearby areas who have organized themselves into the Coalición de Pequeños Agricultores de California (Coalition of Small Farmers). We receive food directly from the farmers and distribute it amongst ourselves, on a weekly basis. 

The Coalition’s farmworkers-turned-tenant-farmers utilize agroecological practices on 17 farms across about 200 acres. They face a market that favors Big Ag mega-corporations which exploit workers, pollute the water, the soil and the food itself, and then extract value across the distribution chain. On some Coalition farms, 1-2 people work up to 10 acres of land with limited access to equipment like tractors. In return for their hard work, standard aggregate distributors pay these farmers as little as 100 time less per unit than what we pay in the grocery store — literally pennies on the dollar. Just as we’ve seen gas prices soar in 2026 due to the US and Israel’s imperialist war in Iran, food prices are also projected to climb as much as 6 pecent this year. When inflation is high, grocery chains often raise their prices even higher. The cost of living in the Bay Area is already out of control, and instead of forking over so much money to distributors and grocery stores, we are organizing with our neighbors to provision ourselves.

By aggregating our demand across the neighborhood, we lower our costs while still maximizing direct support for farmers. Our self-organized ‘buyers clubs’ give us the chance to resist the ways that mega corporations alienate people in urban centers from their food production, and begin to break dependence on the production systems that isolate us, profit off of us, and diminish our capacity to live healthy and free lives. 

We were initially inspired by the Los Angeles Tenants Union, who also began purchasing and building relationships with the Coalición this year based on organizing efforts of the Plurinational Land Reform in California Working Group. Over the last 6 months we built a similar model in the Bay, with 7 neighborhood formations and 2 student co-ops. 

Farmers are organizing in their context, as we are organizing in ours — this project links our political struggle across territories. While we recognize there are many small farmers who grow food in and near the Bay, and many avenues to obtain free surplus produce (largely siphoned off the typical supply chain), we are choosing to work directly with a coalition that holds a shared political vision of the future: one that directly challenges mega-capitalist markets and extractive forms of agriculture, while building the collective power of tenant farmers and campesinás. 

A buyer’s club is only possible when robust autonomous organizing in both urban and rural contexts join together. When this happens, we also extend each other’s political horizons and new worlds become possible! But this requires intentional relationship building. As of late 2026, Bay Area buyers’ clubs have begun solidarity brigades to visit the farmers, support materially (although in a very limited way) the farmwork, and get to know each other socially and politically. 

A significant portion of California farmworkers are migrants at increased risk of targeting by ICE. By building material and relational connections with these farmers through a buyers’ club, our localized community defense and support efforts can ripple out to the communities we depend upon for food. This relationship may extend to supporting farmworkers during potential ICE surges in rural areas, supporting other farmworker struggles against corporate land and delivery monopolies, and fundraising for crucial equipment like tractors, harvest support etc. As we grow our movement, the possibilities of bidirectional solidarity are revealing themselves. Our struggle to protect our neighbors, feed each other, take care of the land and protect our neighborhoods from corporate consolidation — whether in Watsonville or in Oakland — are linked. We protect us – all of us!

Unlike a CSA:

1. We are not just buying locally, we are buying politically! This project directly connects community organizing in urban spaces to farmers organizing in a rural context, linking our struggles and our vision for the future. 
2. This is not a centralized or individual delivery service. We all have to organize to make it happen. The farmers organize in their context, aggregating produce, sharing resources etc. while we organize in our area, making orders, coordinating delivery and pickup, making distro boxes, etc. We are building trust in a shared system in which everyone participates and pays what they can, to ensure that anyone can receive food and that the farmers stay well resourced!
3. This is an opportunity to connect and organize with our neighbors, share food, provision ourselves and bring new folks into anti-ICE assemblies. Starting to organize around our food needs can be a great way for people to get involved in neighborhood organizing.
4. Organizing around material reproduction is a long game strategy to render our dependence on capitalism and the state obsolete and to resource ourselves to fight back better. This project is carried out in that spirit!

Radical Spaces #145

Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer

Boy do we need radical and DIY third spaces right now for face-to-face community — unmediated by corporations, hierarchical structures and their computer networks. At best, they’re repositories of home-spun practices and values that prioritize human beings, pleasure, beauty, creativity, freedom, love and the earth over mindless competition, conformity and greed. They can also provide a framework for decentralized mobilization and mutual aid in times of crisis. Here’s a few new spaces Slingshot has learned of since we published the 2027 Slingshot organizer contact list. Wouldn’t your life be fuller if you plugged into a space near you? We post updates online at slingshotcollective.org.

Mind Virus Counter Culture Books & Media – Fargo, ND

Book and zine store highlighting the “weird and obscure” that hosts events. 124 8th St N, Fargo, ND 58102 701-515-9688

Wheelhouse – Salt Lake City, UT

An infoshop with a lending library, radical bookstore, arts gallery and community space that hosts mutual aid organizing, talks, films and events. 451 E. Broadway, 2nd Level, Salt Lake City, UT 84111 385-549-3298 wheelhousesaltlake.org

Confluence Paducah – Paducah, KY

A book and record store that aims to be a “sober third place … inspired by the capacity of music and literature to bring people together.” They host community events and live music and genre-specific evenings (Tues: Metal!, Wed: Punk, Hardcore, Thurs: Indie, Folk, Alt-Rock, Fri: Electronic, Sat: Hip-Hop, R&B, Sun: Classic Rock, 60s, 70s, 80s). 311 Broadway St.  First Floor Paducah, KY 42001 270-594-0312 confluencepaducah.com

Iron Rail Infoshop & Aboveground Zine Library – New Orleans, LA

Radical bookshop with a book and zine library that hosts events. They’ve reopened (again) at a new space! 4210 St. Claude Ave, New Orleans, LA 70117

Cimarrón Cooperative – Austin, TX

An arts and education cooperative that hosts music, screenings, skillshares, talks, mutual aid and social events. 5703 Manor Rd, Austin, TX 78723

Earthbound Books – Brooklyn, NY

A bookshop that hosts music and events. “Humans are not going to Mars. We are Earthbound Forever. Yet most of us have no idea how to live here sustainably, let alone in harmony with nature.” They try to have “all the knowledge critical to the long-term survival of humans and all other species.” 148 Flushing Ave Brooklyn, NY 11205 212-965-9334

Lynchburg Punk Rock Flea Market (PRFMLYH) – Richmond, VA

DIY market featuring books, zines, food and crafts that hosts community events. “A safe space in a conservative city.” 1300 Court Street #2, Lynchburg, VA 24504

Village Green Foundation/Mobo Bicycle Co-op – Cincinnati OH

A bike kitchen with tools, parts and mechanics to help you fix your own bike and promote cycling. They also have a community room that hosts events and a People’s Garden community garden. “We believe passionately in shared community resources, increased self-sufficiency and advocating for a healthier and greener world.” 1415 Knowlton Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45223

Boxelder Community Room – Cincinnati, OH

A community room / artist studios that hosts events. 4573 Hamilton Ave. Cincinnati, OH 45223 cinboxelder@proton.me

LoLoBee’s Lounge – Bay City, MI

Coffee and tea lounge that hosts event “fostering arts, passion, and community!” 106 S. Linn St., Unit A, Bay City, MI 48706, 989-316-1339 lolobees.com

Black Oak – Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

An anarchist social space with a book and zine library that hosts weekly drop-in hours, reading groups and discussions. 492 James Street North, Hamilton, Ontario L8L 1J1 Canada north-shore.info/black-oak-anarchist-social-space/

Crossroads Women’s Centre – London, UK

A women’s center that is the home of 15 different groups supporting women, including single mothers, sex workers, refugees, migrants, and women with disabilities. They host meetings, social events, workshops, films and exhibitions. They also provide training and resources for self-help groups to grow. 25 Wolsey Mews, London NW5 2DX crossroadswomen.net

May Day Rooms – London, UK

Radical historical archive and resource space that hosts film screenings, poetry readings, historical talks, discussion and reading groups, and social nights for social movements, experimental and marginal cultures and their histories. 88 Fleet Street London, EC4Y 1DH. maydayrooms.org

Pelican House – London, UK 

A meeting and event space and social center for “worker organizing, movement building, experimental arts & culture” operated by a 22 resident organizations such as the London Renters Union and Coal Action Network. They host countercultural events, fundraisers, socials, talks, workshops, film screenings, community meals and coffee mornings. 144 Cambridge Heath Road, London E1 5QJ pelicanhouse.org

Casino for Social Medicine – Berlin, Germany

Anti-capitalist café and bar collective that hosts events, meetups, and mutual aid clinics. Sonnenallee 100, 12045 Berlin, Germany casinoooo.org

Luna16 – Vilnius, Lithuania

Radical community center with a library, print-workshop, kitchen, projector and meeting space that hosts events. Šeimyniškių g. 16, Vilnius, 09312 Lithuania 

Maiznica60 – Rīga, Latvia

Autonomous community center that hosts events Valērijas Seiles iela 12, Rīga, Latvia, LV-1003 IG: maiznica60

Bonus: places queers or POC might feel comfortable in Wyoming

• Night Heron Books in Laramie, WY

• Lander Bar and Grill in Lander, WY

Changes to the 2027 Slingshot Organizer

• The Punk Truck Shop has moved and is now located at 509 W. Spring St. Ste. 225 Fayetteville, AR 72701 479-935-3048.

• The mailing address of the Las Vegas Zine Library has changed to PO box 60151 Las Vegas, NV 89160.

• The Queery at 46 George St, Brighton BN2 1RJ England 07539 379069 is defunct.