Category: Issue #131: spring 2020

February 15 • 11 – 5 pm FREE ALL AGES

Dear diary zine fest – Berkeley City College, 2050 Center Berkeley

February • 15 2 – 6 pm FREE ALL AGES

SF Bay Area Punk Rock Record Fair and Swap Meet – the Knockout in San Francisco

Febuary 15 • all day FREE ALL AGES

Nisi Shawl, author, African American multi-media conference – Oakland public library Melrose branch

February 22 • 5:30 – 8:30 pm

Oscar López Rivera, author, former political prisoner, and freedom fighter – La Peña 3105 Shattuck, Berkeley

February 23 • noon – 4 pm

Oscar López Rivera, Mission Cultural Center 2868 Mission SF

February 28

Richard Wolff on Understanding Socialism 2407 Dana, Berkeley

February 29 • 2 pm

Leap Day Action – gather at Berkeley BART – leapdayaction.org

March 6 – 15

Earth First!! Appalachian Climate Action Camp – West Virginia along the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline

March 8 FREE ALL AGES

International Women’s Day

March 8 • 7 pm FREE ALL AGES

Party for 32 years of slingshot publishing – Long Haul 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley slingshotcollective.org

March 11 • 7:30 pm

Gretchen Sorin on Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights 1300 Grand Avenue, Piedmont, CA

March 13 – 8 pm FREE ALL AGES

East Bay Bike Party – BART tba eastbaybikeparty.wordpress.com

March 29 FREE ALL AGES

NYC Feminist Zine Fest Barnard College feministzinefestnyc.com

April 4 • 10:30 – 4:30 pm FREE ALL AGES

Milwaukee Zine Fest – library binderymke.com/milwaukeezinefest

April 20-22

Series of climate change protests around Earth Day details TBA

April 24 FREE ALL AGES

Deadline to volunteer to draw art for 2021 Slingshot Organizer

April 25 • 10 – 6:30 pm FREE ALL AGES

Bay Area Anarchist Book fair – Omni Commons 4799 Shattuck Ave. Oakland bayareaanarchistbookfair.com

Late April FREE ALL AGES

51st Anniversary of People’s Park concert, peoplespark.org

May 1 FREE ALL AGES

MAY DAY

May 15 – 16

Chicago Zine Fest – chicagozinefest.org

May 23 • noon – 6 pm FREE ALL AGES

Zinecinatti Zine Fest – 1212 jackson st. Cincinnati

May 24 • noon FREE ALL AGES

Judi Bari day: 30 year bombing remembrance – Park Blvd at Macarthur, Oakland

May 24 FREE ALL AGES

Soupstock Food Not Bombs concert – celebrate 40 years of free vegan food – Santa Cruz, CA santacruz.foodnotbombs.net

May 30 – 31 FREE ALL AGES

Help create the 2021 Slingshot Organizer 3124 Shattuck Berkeley

May 31 FREE ALL AGES

Los Angeles Zine Fest – Helms Bakery lazinefest.com

June 6 – 7 FREE ALL AGES

Help create the 2021 Slingshot Organizer 3124 Shattuck Berkeley

July 13 – 16 FREE ALL AGES

Protest the Democratic National Convention – Milwaukee, WI

August 24 – 27 FREE ALL AGES

Protest the Republican National Convention – Charlotte, NC

Summer

Rise Up! Youth Action Camp, Northern Calif. riseupcamp.org

August 16 • 7pm

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting / article brainstorm – Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA

September 13 • 3pm

Article submission deadline for Slingshot issue 132

THIS SEEMS LIKE ENOUGH but could add:

–gay shame?

–earth first gathering

–rainbow gathering

Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer

Making Slingshot would be impossible without work space at the Long Haul infoshop in Berkeley, a modest radical library with a funky meeting space, overflowing boxes of zines and a lot of dirty dishes. Long Haul just turned 40 years old and it’s still going strong! (But we could use help staffing a few shifts.)

The radical spaces we create seek personal and social transformation and freedom. Each space exists on its own, but together spread over the globe, they help form a decentralized network building alternatives to the death machine based on love, cooperation and fun. Here are some new spaces and corrections to the 2020 Slingshot Organizer’s radical contact list, which aspires to collect as many liberated spaces as possible to help guide your travels and organizing. Please send any corrections or additions you know about. An updated on-line version is at Slingshot’s website.

Cat’s Claw – New Orleans, LA

An organizing space, information center and meeting place for New Orleans activists and the DIY community with books, zines and harm reduction resources. 2221 St. Claude (next to the Fair Grinds coffee shop.) catsclawcollective@proton-mail.com

Blacklidge Community Collective – Tucson, AZ

A space with a free library, zine collection, internet and public restroom that hosts punk shows, poetry readings, support groups, book clubs, coffee and tea socials, Spanish classes, game nights & presentations. They have harm reduction supplies, food, water, caffeine, first aid kits, and hygiene products. Open M-F 11-5, Sun 11-2. 3027 N. Stone Avenue Tucson, AZ 85705 520-622-8571 bcctucson.org

Anarres Infoshop & Community Space – Portland, OR

Anarchist free space that hosts events. They lost their previous space but just found this one. 6011 NE Oregon St. Ste 7 Portland, OR 97214

Lavender Library – Sacramento, CA

A research and information center for LGBTQI community that hosts events. 1414 21st st Sacramento, CA 95811 916-492-0558

Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) – Providence, RI

A community organizing non-profit that hosts community events and operates campaigns. 340 Lockwood Street / Providence, RI 02907, 401-351-6960 daretowin.org

Bricolage Art Collective – Paducah, KY

An art gallery with a workshop and event space. 107 Market House Square, Paducah, KY 42001 bricolageartcollective.com

Cafe Con Libros – Brooklyn, NY

Feminist community bookstore and coffee Shop. 724 Prospect Pl, Brooklyn, NY 11216 347-460-2838

Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance – Providence, RI

A coalition of people of color-led organizations, building a rapid resistance network against violence and hate crimes. They provide legal services to protect people from ICE and other law enforcement agencies and culturally competent psychological services. 669 Elmwood Ave. #13 / Providence, RI 02905, 401-675-1414

biblio>media:take! mobile infoshop – Vienna, Austria

They distribute zines, stickers, books, shirts etc. regarding anarcha-feminism, queer, self-empowerment, creative action forums, political and social struggles and movements, DIY/ commons, ecology/sustainability from mobile locations including augasse 2-6, 1090 Wien, infoladen.kukuma.org, bibliomediatake @riseup.net

Clandestina – Havana, Cuba

Lesbian-owned clothing store that makes clothes for all genders with an emphasis on sustainable fashion and ethical clothing production. They host parties and fashion shows. Villegas 403 (between Teniente Rey and Mural) Habana Vieja, Cuba 10100, clandestina.co

Institute of Barbarian Books – Fukushima, Japan

Alternative space with a library and print shop. 2518-3 Kamiokinohara, Kaminojiri, Nishiazu, Yama-gun, Fukushima, 969-4512 Japan tel 080-4684-0130

Cuba Libro – Havana, Cuba

A coffee shop and English language bookshop with an emphasis on being a safe space for queer folx. They host free events. Calle 24 between Calle 19 and Calle 21 in Vedado, La Habana, Cuba, cubalibrohavana.com

FERi Gallery – Budapest, Hungary

Independent feminist, antiracist and queer gallery. 1084, Budapest, Német utca 6

ISBN – Budapest, Hungary

Bookshop with underground books and journals that hosts events. 1084, Budapest, Víg utca 2

Auróra – Budapest, Hungary

Leftist community center where a bunch of NGOs are working, eg. Budapest Pride and Roma Press Center. They host screenings, workshops, exhibitions, trainings, concerts and a bar. 1084, Budapest, Auróra utca 11

Gólya – Budapest, Hungary

Leftist community house with a big concert room. 1089, Budapest, Orczy út 46-48

Corrections to the 2020 Slingshot Organizer

• The Bellingham Alternative Library has moved to 1309 Billy Frank Junior St. Bellingham, WA 98225.

• The Center for Sustainable Living in Indiana no longer has a physical address. You can send mail to POBox 1665, Bloomington, IN  47402, contact @simplycsl.org

• 1919 Hemphill in Fort Worth, TX closed.

• Resistencia Bookstore in Austin TX is now at 2000 Thrasher Ln, Austin, TX 78741.

• Inside Books Project is now at 3106 E. 14 1/2 St., Austin, Texas 78702.

• Hive Mind in Akron, OH closed. The goodbye message said the following venues are still going and although we don’t know anything about them, the names alone are fun: Oakdale House, Blank Slate Elyria, It’s a Kling Thing! House, Rubicon Cinema, The Dome in Kent, Akron Bless This Mess, Project Three Gallery, The Center, Live Music Now, East End, The Venue, The Moving Castle, Live From Emerald City, Yello House.

• Phosephene in Pt. Townsend, WA (listed in the last issue of Slingshot but not in the 2020 organizer) closed.

• We got a report that On Pop Collective in Greensboro should no longer be listed.

• Faith House in Ontario, Canada is no longer a radical space.

• The Feminist Library has moved they are now at the Sojourner Truth Community Centre, 161 Sumner Road, Peckham, London SE15 6JL.

• The Kebele project in UK (Bristol) has changed its name – to BASE – explanation at network.23.org/kebele2/ourstory/

• Pelech Infoshop in Brno, Czech Rebublic and d-zona in Prague have both closed.

• El Bar De Ciro on Jirón Quilca in Lima, Peru — where “most rockthrowing kids drink after a riot” — has closed. We will let you know when we figure out where the rockthrowing kids are drinking now.

Plus a lot more spaces in Europe…

No descriptions but these all come recommended – send us info if you visit:

• Syndikalistriskt Forum: Linnegatan 21, vån 3, 41304 Göteborg, Sweden

• Bokcafét i Jönköping: Svavelsticksgränd 7, 553 15 Jönköping, Sweden

• Bokcafé Pilgatan: Pilgatan 14, 903 31 Umeå, 090-12 18 30, Sweden pilgatan.se

• Bokcafé Projektil: S:t Persgatan 22 B, 753 29 Uppsala, Sweden bokcafeprojektil.se

• ETC bokcafé: St. Paulsgatan 14, 118 46 Stockholm, Sweden, etcbokcafestockholm

• Majkällaren: Spånehusvägen 62A, 214 39 Malmö, Sweden

• Kontrapunkt: Norra Grängesbergsgatan 28, 214 50 Malmö, Sweden, 0728 – 56 04 47, bygglove.nu/kontrapunkt

• Folkkök Umeå: Hamnmagasinet, Västra Strandgatan 4, 903 26 Umeå, Sweden, folkkok.se

• Joe Hill-gården: Nedre Bergsgatan 28, 802 51 GÄVLE, 026-65 26 41, Sweden, joehill.se

• Syndikalisterna bokhandel: LS Uppsala, Svartbäcksgatan 97, 753 35 Uppsala, Sweden, 018-69 46 89

• UFFA: Innherredsveien 69C, 7043 Trondheim, Norway

• 1000FRYD: Kattesundet 10, 9000 Aalborg, Denmark Phone +45 20 95 06 66, 1000fryd.dk

• Paramount DIY: Eriksvej 40C, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark

• BumZen: Baldersgade 20-22, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark

• Kupoli: Mannerheimintie 5B, 7th Floor, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

• Mustan kanin kolo: Hämeentie 26, 00530 Helsinki, Finland+358 44 5779057

By Teresa

I haven’t driven a car in sixteen years. Before you get all excited, I should admit, I did not quit the car habit for selfless environmental reasons. The decision was made for me when I was in my mid-20s and I developed a form of epilepsy that prevents me from driving. Bicycling turned out to be a good alternative, as well as buses, trains, and light rail. As I’ve gotten older, the seizure disorder has for the most part subsided, but now I can’t imagine myself ever wanting to own a car.

Bicycle culture and public transportation are a magical gateway into public life. Riding your bicycle, you get to take in the sights and smells of the city—the gentle scent of bread rising at the anarcho-syndicalist bakery, the setting sun offering itself up to you without a screen of glass between you and it. When you’re on a bike, you’re there. Wildly, radically there. And riding the BART train is like that too. Crammed into one of those wailing sardine can cars you might unexpectedly bump eyes with a dear friend you forgot you’ve been missing, or maybe you’ll encounter some wingnut from the infoshop who will talk your ear off about 9-11 conspiracies the whole way to the Mission District, but either way, it’s a far more meaningful and personal experience than sitting alone in a traffic box listening to some bottled form of “connection-like-substance” such as the radio or a podcast.

Riding on public transport, you get into the rhythms of the city, into the strange respirations of leisure and labor and resistance. Your BART experience will be radically different depending on whether there’s a Raiders game going on, a protest in the city, or it’s just the typical Tuesday commuter crowd. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a packed BART car next to that barista from the anarchist coffee shop as she leans in to tell you that next week she and some other very brave ladies are going to take their shirts off in public and step into an Oakland intersection to block traffic because #SayHerName. God dammit, say her name! Because you’re on BART, and you’re in community, and the train is just so damn loud going through that tunnel under the Bay there’s no way in hell the NSA is going to be able to parse that shit, and also, damn, I will not lie, as she told me this I was blushing. (That’s probably my second favorite random BART experience, second only to the Valentine’s Day I rode with a lover to the annual pillow fight in the San Francisco Embarcadero—the entire BART car was filled with people hugging pillows, everyone chatting like old friends, as we all got ready to burst off the train and begin walloping each other with pillows! What a fun day!)

Driving would have robbed me of ten-thousand hours of connecting with my community, of emergent, spontaneous interactions and connections that helped make me feel at home on this planet, moments that have defined by 20s and early 30s. Yeah, having epilepsy is shitty, but every time life shits on you, there’s at least compost; there’s at least some new dirt where things can grow.

Life without driving is a grand and beautiful adventure, and for those who want to let go of their carbon-emitting activities, there are a number of amazing alternatives out there, if you’ll just take a chance.

Get out of that box, yo! It’s really nice out here.

In a little sidebar:

Slingshot Collective would like to acknowledge that this article reflects the author’s experience and not all people with disabilities are able to ride bikes.

By LB

The first thing I noticed when I entered the room were the clothes. Hundreds of shirts, socks, shorts, ragged and wet, hanging flat against the walls. Straight in front of me, items dangling from an unplugged orange extension cord that looked like an oversized noose.

And then I saw the men.

They were laid out like cordwood, two men to each tiny 3-inch thick mattress placed directly on the tiled floor. As we entered at 1 A.M., many arose because, despite the late hour, the lights in the windowless room blared oppressively. A few even stood up and walked over to us with a warm greeting. After all, we were going to be joining them in just a moment. Simply more prisoners caught up in the international immigration system.

We were in the Estación Migratoria de Villahermosa. A small building in the capital city of the state of Tabasco, found on the Southern end of the Gulf of México.

From the outside, the structure appeared to be nothing more than a garage. A large grey sliding door obscuring the horrifying reality contained within.

I was certainly not the norm. A single Canadian with expired papers in a sea of upwards of 300 men, women, babies, and teenagers traveling without parents. Most were from Central America, chiefly Honduras and El Salvador, but there was also a smattering of folks from Cuba, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. During my intake interview in the office I was careful to note a poster made by the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) outlining our rights as migration prisoners–rights that I would see systematically ignored during my stay.

Nearly everyone was in the same situation: striving to get to the United States or Canada to be able to work and send money home to their families. All now in stasis. Caught and knowing they would eventually be deported, but in the dark about when or how that would come to pass. In one case, I saw a man collapse in on himself, tears streaming down his face, as he recalled his daughter on the phone a moment earlier asking him where he was and when he would be home to hug her.

There was another group though, a clump of bodies huddled together in a corner that stood out starkly. They were African men, non-Spanish speakers, most from Cameroon, with a few from Ghana.

The Cameroonians are part of a huge contingent of English-speakers from that country fleeing a civil war that has raged since 2017. The journey is harrowing: first escaping on foot to Nigeria, then flying to Ecuador, then walking six days through the jungle. Then taking buses and trains, trying to get to the US. Hundreds of dead bodies littered along the way.

There are at least five thousand people in their situation in México today, mostly in the small city of Tapachula in Chiapas, as it is the closest estación to the Southern border with Guatemala. They are trying to gain refugee status in an attempt to get away from the brutal French-speaking government of Cameroon that has been killing them for years over sovereignty, territorial, and resource disputes.

In the face of this estación, though, nearly everyone was equal. Forbidding walls rising twenty feet into the sky. No natural light, no fresh air, and no legal support. Four toilets and four showers, which worked sporadically, for more than two hundred men. The smell of hundreds of sweating bodies melding with the scent of the pile of styrofoam containers of leftover food from the previous meal. One ninety-second phone call per day to reach the outside world, whether family or consulate. Finger-sized cockroaches with free rein. And the pleasure of arriving during the rainy season in Tabasco, which meant flooding and soaked clothes and bedding on a daily basis, often in the middle of the night. On top of this were abusive guards, who would only grant access to a locked bathroom when they felt like it.

I must admit that I was treated better by the immigration officials than everyone else. As the lone white person there, the only gringo, I was a curiosity. They asked me about myself, wondered about Canada, and generally was dealt with as a human rather than a number. Being able to speak Spanish also meant that I could communicate with everyone and that, after a few days, I became the official translator for the Cameroonians and Ghanaians, since they had been provided none.

In fact, the first West African man there, who spent most of his days crying over his disappeared family back home, had sat for nearly four weeks before I arrived. He had been periodically brought in for interviews, but since he spoke only English and French, and they only Spanish, he was left to rot. No translator, no attempt to help him. Just waiting in a dour concrete prison with no idea what to do next. When I arrived I was happy to help, although being placed in the position of both prisoner and unpaid employee was certainly not ideal.

A recent report from the La Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH) stated that most of these Estaciones Migratorias in México are well beyond capacity, many holding 300% more than they should.1 Villahermosa is part of a system of nearly sixty such facilities, run both federally and by the thirty-two individual states.

The refugee crisis in Cameroon has certainly contributed to this overcrowding, but much of it stems from President Donald Trump’s July 2019 decision to outsource his country’s immigration problem to México. By supporting and funding further crackdowns south of the border, he has essentially dumped the issue into the laps of Mexican officials who are more than happy to take the new jobs and money. Like the private prisons of the United States, these facilities have a vested interest in remaining full. And while similar facilities in the US have been the focus of exposés, pushing the issue into México has meant that this is happening outside the purview of the mainstream American press.

Trump has also managed to exploit a country where wages are depressed, human rights defenders are overstrained, and a deep antipathy toward Central Americans already exists. To this end, the US pledged $10.6 Billion to curb Central American migration at the end of 20182. All these factors together help to create the perfect breeding ground for this kind of abusive detention center.

While this narrative could be explained with governments and policies, it is also a human story. It is the story of men escaping a war at home only to be imprisoned in a place they don’t understand. It is the story of a Honduran man falling off of a train, having his legs severed at the knee, and then being dumped in a prison-room with children who are then charged with tending to his infected wounds. And it is the tale of thousands of people being told that their desire to work hard and provide for their families is not enough to be treated with respect.

I was only in the facility for a matter of weeks before I was able to acquire an emergency visa to return home. But many others are not so lucky, and often remain without rights nor aid for months on end. And things are getting worse, not better, as the US floods more money into México for more checkpoints, more roadblocks, and more immigration police.

Perhaps the sadder truth is the answer I heard time and time again when I asked the men what they would do when they returned home:

“I will spend a night or two, and then I will turn around and come right back. What other choice do I have?”

If you or someone you know is struggling to gain status in Canada, or to work through the immigration system of another country, you can contact No One Is Illegal at: nooneisillegal@riseup.net for more information and/or legal advice.

first draft word count: 1345

1

 https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/pais/al-triple-estaciones-migratorias/
2

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/us-mexico-pledge-billions-in-program-to-reduce-migration-from-central-america/2018/12/18/22ecf7bc-02f4-11e9-958c-0a601226ff6b_story.html

By Gerald Smith w/ Isabel Fava Bean

The Cops and the Klan Go Hand In Hand is not merely a propagandist slogan. It is a fact of life. So much so that it must become the guidepost for every Anti-facist, every trade union militant, every conscious Black person that understands the dangers that come with the rise of fascism in America. There are many ways the police work directly to assist the fascists:

(1) Police have allowed fascists to carry knives and guns. The VICE News documentary Race and Terror, which focuses on events in Charlottesville, North Carolina in August of 2017, revealed that white supremacist protesters were armed and proud of it. This is a film that all Anti-fascists should see. In 2018, Portland, Oregon police discovered members of white nationalist group Patriot Prayer positioned with a cache of weapons atop a roof overlooking a planned rally, made no arrests, and kept the incident a secret for months.

(2) Meanwhile, police have actively disarmed Antifa while enforcing and physically defending the so-called “free speech” of fascists. For instance, in anticipation of an Alt-right gathering in 2018, the City of Berkeley passed a series of ordinances banning commonly owned objects like skateboards and bike locks. But folks not going to the demonstrations often didn’t know about the new ordinances. They banned Anti-fascist protesters from using poles to carry banners, commonly used in nonviolent demonstrations, and then arrested many of them for “possesion of a banned weapon” and unspecified “crimes”. The city was attempting to disarm Antifa to the point where we couldn’t have a sign on the end of a stick!

(3) Police have framed up, assaulted, and arrested Anti-fascist protestors, while carefully avoiding arresting white supremacists, even those who have criminal records. In 2019 a public records request revealed that Portland police had been amicably texting for years with Patriot Prayer organizers and had, on at least one occasion, coordinated directly with the organizers to warn them personally before arresting them, allowing the white supremacists to walk free while anti-fascist counterprotesters were arrested the same day.

These issues are intertwined as ways that the cops and the state assist fascists and undermine anti-fascists.

But there is another way that the police help the fascists that is sometimes overlooked. Through conscious misinformation — a form of psychological warfare — the police can and do disorient and paralyze our base of support. For instance, when responding to violence perpetrated by fascist individuals against anti-fascist demonstrators, law enforcement have suppressed evidence, failed to charge the perpetrators and instead engaged in profound acts of victim blaming — bringing charges against victims and misleading the public to believe that the anti-fascists are actually the violent ones. Yet, because of broad public support for Anti-fascist demonstrators, those charges often don’t stick. The Berkeley 5 are anti-racist protesters who were accused of beating a fascist after a rally. They were arrested on assault charges, but when brought to trial, the jurors found them innocent. The Sacramento 3 are activists, members of the Brown Berets and By Any Means Necessary, who were arrested while serving as security to protect counter-protesters at an Alt-right rally. Their felony charges were eventually dropped, leaving only minor charges for which they did community service.

Cops have, time and time again, failed to intervene to defend isolated individuals or groups that are clearly outnumbered by fascists prepared to do them harm. On August 11, 2017, the day before Heather Heyer was murdered, a group of interfaith clergy from all over the country had gathered in a Charlottesville church ahead of Alt-right demonstrations that weekend. At the end of the service, white supremacists surrounded the church with torches, threatening those inside. Police failed to intervene, but Anti-fascists arrived and pushed the white supremacists back, defending the clergy and churchgoers. Cornell West, who was inside the church, told Amy Goodman that Antifa saved the lives of the clergy.

The same weekend, Alt-right men surrounded teacher and hip hop artist DeAndre Harris, beating him within an inch of his life. Video footage, aired on national television, clearly showed that cops were watching from the police station across the street, but failed to intervene. Astoundingly, police put out a warrant for DeAndre, who turned himself in while still recovering from the attack. The bogus charges were later dropped. According to an independent review of the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia Alt-right protests and counter-protests, “The [police departments’] planning and coordination breakdowns prior to August 12 produced disastrous results… officers failed to intervene in physical altercation… Virginia State Police directed its officers to remain behind barricades rather than risk injury responding to conflicts between protesters and counter-protesters.”
One of the many ways that the police help the fascists is by publicly misidentifying them in noteworthy cases that have gone viral thereby causing mass confusion on the actual danger of fascism. When young Black woman Nia Wilson was murdered in cold blood on the platform of the MacArthur BART station in 2018, police failed to disclose that her killer, John Cowell, was a Proud Boy (white supremacist). The cops were covering up the fact that her murder was a hate crime — because Cowell did not know Nia, racism was obviously the motive. Police tried to erase the racial motives of this murder.

As the cops fail to identify white supremacists as such, they are meanwhile projecting Nazi motives onto suspects when it serves them. One example is the handling of the December 29, 2019 violent attack on Hasidic Jews attending a New York Hanukkah celebration. Cops have filed hate crime charges, though the perpetrator, a Black man, is clearly mentally ill. Audrey Sasson, of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, commented after the attack: “Anti-Semitism is on the rise. It is in the water. It is being fueled by a white nationalist administration… And it is causing a rise in hate crimes across the board. The way it shows up against Jews is different than the way it shows up against other communities, but all communities are targeted by white supremacy and white nationalism. And so, our response is to come together with other communities that are targeted.” Sasson is pushing back against the state’s efforts to pit two communities who are both threatened by fascists — Jews and African Americans — against one another.

We have to stop aiding our enemies by repeating their narratives. They are not our political analysts. But how do you know the police are lying?

If they’re talking they’re lying.

By Teresa

In the 1990s, two feminist geographers named Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson began writing under the shared moniker “J.K. Gibson-Graham,” and with their work they begun to apply understandings from feminist schools of thought to economics.

According to Gibson-Graham, rather than saying “the economy,” we ought to be saying, “economies,” as in: there are diverse economies all around us that we’ve been directed away from seeing and acknowledging.

Just as feminism has taught us to avoid essentalizing gender (and rather urges us to treat sex and gender as separate), the diverse economies model pushes us to avoid essentializing “the economy.”

As Gibson-Graham point out, the capitalist finance economy is mistakenly treated like the only economy. This economy (called “The Economy”) began to be treated as if it were a force of nature in the 1970s, when, at that time, news broadcasts started treating stock ticker numbers as if they had the same sort of material reality as weather reports (Gibson-Graham 2005). But the economy isn’t a force of nature. Rather it is a performance. The economy is performative.  Just like gender.

In acknowledging the diverse economies all around us, we grow better at seeing and making sense of the many other types of labor relations that exist outside of high finance circles. These are frequently unpaid, informal, and pirate relationships, pushed out of the public eye and dismissed for being “feminine” or “just a hobby” or “criminal.”

Evoking a diverse economies model is a way to invite these other performances of economy into our social practices of acknowledging and each other’s work.  Diverse economies include barter, trade, volunteerism, localized time-dollars, dumpster-diving, freeganism, photosynthesis, and a number of other relations that exist outside of finance capital.

It’s time to stop treating the problems of the investor class as if they are the only economy, and strengthen and acknowledge the many other economies through which labor, care, and goods get passed around.
Further reading by J.K. Gibson-Graham:
-Take Back the Economy!

-The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It) A Feminist Critique of Political Economy.

-A Postcapitalist Politics.

-“Economy” from New Keywords: A Revised -Vocabulary of Culture and Society.

-And also by Lawerence Grossburg: Chapter 4 of Cultural Studies in the Future Tense

Review by rachelle hughes

“This book makes my heart feel like its filling the whole Long Haul!” -Slingshot member

Let’s start with the cover. A gnarled tree rises up from the ground, its bright rainbow trunk eventually melting into the cold indigo of a harsh landscape muddled with stacked boulders and barbed wire–a potent symbol of queer survival in a world set out to shackle, suppress, and silence our very existence.

VOL. 3 contains 27 comics from 26 different incarcerated queer artists across the country, and each comic offers a unique glimpse into the life of the artist within their respective institution. The prison conditions, inmates, and sentencing laws may change from comic to comic, city to city, and state to state; the only constants are the many levels of oppression incarcerated (queer) people face on a daily basis within the U.S. prison system and the tremendous amount of courage and love these artists demonstrate.

A common theme in this anthology is throwing love and mutual aid in the face of the hate and divisiveness that is taught by society and reinforced by prison walls. For example, in “Mami Mamasita…” by Kinoko, a rampaging drama queen-monster is brought back to her senses by super-women sharing their sweetness, love, and inner light with her. In “In the Hen House!” by Joanlisa Featherston, a group of inmates provide each other with hope and emotional support. In “Love Overcomes Bullying”, Tony Gentry shows us that the power of love and queer self-care can overpower adversity. Don’t get it wrong however; this anthology is also crammed with pain, suffering, and anger, but the juxtaposition of these themes is visceral and draws the reader deep into the characters’ lives. Expect to shed a tear or two over this anthology.

As written in the book, “ABO is a collective of creators and activists who work to amplify the voices of LGBTQ prisoners through art. The profits [they] generate go back to incarcerated artists, especially those with little to no resources. ABO believes our interpersonal and societal issues can be solved without locking people in cages.” (ABO Comix).

To learn more about the cool work this Bay Area radical publishing collective does and how to support the mission, visit abocomix.com

 

The Slingshot gets tons of attention. People send us things they wrote and want us to read and review them–we get plenty of self published “zines”, a couple of which are featured here, but honestly…this paper is run on such a bare-bones skeleton crew that we actually cannot even read most of what is sent to us. I mean, this is a recent development–not long ago we had 3+ collective members excited by zines. Not the case now. Still we plod on…

oh I mean volunteers are encouraged to contribute their “shit work” to our project.

The Decieved #2 $5- $10 sliding scale

PO Box 14276

4304 18th st.

S.F. CA. 94114

The Deceived #2 is 36 pages of powerful artwork, poetry and information from the perspective of Sparrow; a government mind control and ritual abuse survivor. It features information on MK Ultra and Project Paperclip as well as a variety of personal healing techniques and resources.

For anyone who is a fan of the first issue or who is interested in a deeper understanding of the crimes against humanity committed by our government, this zine is a must have. Not only is The Deceived a plethora of revolutionary information but it is a graphic masterpiece, clearly created with love and tears.

Copies of the first issue of The Deceived are also available.

Any additional funds from purchases will go towards helping those who cannot afford to get a copy.

Can’t afford it? Write and ask for an issue and send what you can (stamps accepted as form of payment). (Alessandra)

PIGS ON A TRAIN: The Growing Transit Crisis & How to Fight It

itsgoingdown.org

A very concise overview of the situation with outrageous fare hikes which currently are fueling rebellions in NYC & Chile. A timely tract facing off with a facet of Neo-Liberal policy. It could utilize our attention better by illustrating how people are fare evading. As it is, it works as a good primer for the uninformed much as the way that Crimethinc publications are known for. Maybe it will find usefulness with copies left at Jr High Schools or at family reunions…. for your pro-Trump relatives. (eggplant)

Type 2 Travel Stories

brybry@riseup.net

blackmold.storeenvy.com

Miniature size for easy storing. The writing is big at heart, journaling the high and low moments across the vast empty USA. Almost like the highlights of a good letter or a series of postcards. The vignettes of clandestine crash spots and dumpstered pizza are rendered on typewriter and accompanied by classic looking photos. The writing is compelling, it will encourage you to do something rash and timeless — like leave town with no destination or pick up a hitchhiker. (eggplant)

Turkey Neck

A Bay Area based photo-zine that mostly covers the skate scene and people who have more personality than what can normally be captured. Its another “Blast from the Past” made by a young person who is re-creating what people did decades ago. It seems they are totally enthusiastic about transforming reality. When the internet goes dim we will hungrily reach for such collections of “wasted youth” to delight and inform us of other worlds that are possible. (eggplant)

Night of the Bloody Tapes #1 $1

5902 Valley Wood

San Antonio TX 78250

Sorta malevolent, swinging fists approach to culture making. But what do you expect from Texas? i can dig it. The zine is motivated by celebrating the dirt cheap VHS tapes that can be found and used to spark a listless night. Here in California everything is so goddamn expensive, so I can relate. I mean the movies he finds for 25 cents we get for $1-3. (when not thrown away for free). The zine is mostly a series of synopses of hollywood crap heaped on with loads of attitude. The busy layout harkens back to how zines once were done. Something to hide under the covers from those eagle-eye parents. (eggplant)

Clock Tower Nine #14 $3+shipping

www.antiquatedfuture.com

A collection of various writers exploring unrelated topics. Its sort of like a variety show with mixed quality and styles that take the stage then quickly vacate it. If you want to read something with factoids, nostalgic flashbacks and a general exaltation of minuscule things then this will suit you. The production is pretty clean with large “no squinting” font. It seems like a pretty frequent publication so the ultimate joy with this zine is having a consistent familiar voice to warm the dull nights. (eggplant)

Fluke Fanzine #17
Fluke Fanzine

PO Box 1547

Phoenix, AZ 85001

Newly encountering Fluke as courtesy of another Slingshotter, I read Fluke #17 on the subway, at my kitchen table and before bed. This cohesive bundle of stories, interviews, art and poetry make a stellar issue. Within the neatly organized zine are slick-printed images and various outlooks from authors across the U.S. covering the underground punk scene, music, skateboard culture, and surviving collectively.

I was touched by two pieces in particular: the interview with artist Danny Martin of Tucson, AZ and How We Got There From Here, an essay by Anna Marie Armstrong. Hailing from Alabama, Martin is a printmaker and muralist with a narrative, Wild West and Mexican-inspired aesthetic. His detailed backstory, beautiful images and love letter to Tucson are earnest and reflective. Armstrong provides an analog perspective of her adolescence in the Bay Area, entrenched in music, driving to an R.E.M. show with her brother Billie Joe (the same as Green Day’s frontman?!) Every moment is captured in passionate reminiscence.

Nostalgic, gritty and mature, Fluke #17 was a fascinating first-read and I look forward to diving into many more. (Nat)

 

Respawn: Gamers, Hackers, and Technogenic Life by Colin Milburn

2018. Duke University Press.

By H-Cat

When I first started working with the Slingshot collective 10 years ago, I felt like I had to stay quiet about loving certain video games. To the hippies and punks who made up the Slingshot Collective at that time, any mention of video games or computer technology was often met with annoyance and tense shoulders. These were folks who were radicalized in the cow pastures of Woodstock, in all-ages punk shows at The Gilman, and in the decades-long struggle to defend People’s Park. Many of them had dropped out of mainstream culture long ago—none of them owned televisions, more or less video game systems. To them, the video game was a sign of defeat: it was a sign that they had failed to end capitalism, that “the machine” was still in operation despite their best efforts to throw their bodies upon its gears.

How could I explain to my new comrades that I’d been radicalized as an environmentalist and anti-capitalist while playing The Secret of Mana, Zelda, and Final Fantasy? How could I express that so much of who I am emerged as part of the cosplays I started doing with my gamer friends in high school? How could they understand that the values I learned from videogames had everything to do with why I attended the WTO protest in 1999, and that gaming and game literacy helped me recognize that I had a role to play in the movement against neoliberal globalization?

In the years since I first joined this collective, more and more gamers and hackers have become part of the Bay Area radical community. Gamers make up a contingent of radicals whose “Woodstock moment” was gathering in the streets in Guy Fawkes masks to sing GLADOS’ song from Portal while protesting Scientology, and in smol ways and large, hackers and gamers bring our unique understandings to the global and local struggle against capitalism, white supremacy, ecocide, and gender violence. Sure, the hippies and punks don’t always seem to get what we’re doing, but they’ve gradually become awesome allies for the new types of projects we bring to radical spaces—projects that include the creation of open-source software, the implementation of locally-owned MESH networks, and also educational activities about things like encryption, net neutrality, and surveillance (not to mention RPG and board game nights!).

This gets me to what I like about Colin Milburn’s book, Respawn: Gamers, Hackers, and Technogenic Life (2018), which is to say it’s a book written for gamers and by a gamer. Anyone who wasn’t radicalized through game culture probably isn’t going to get what’s going on in this book (sorry), but to those of us who were, this author is a worthy bard, and the stories he tells are hella helpful for making sense of the somewhat ephemeral moments of resistance that emerge within, alongside, and out of gaming culture. Using schlxr skillz like research and archives, he weaves together tales of gamer resistance with careful attention to detail, but not without a few lulz, some lite L337speak, and some deep philosophical reflection on what it means to pwn.

Milburn’s theory of pwning is something to be reckoned with. If, as Milburn argues, to pwn something is to take responsibility for mistakes that have been made, how do we pwn GamerGate? Likewise, the author invites us, as gamers, to engage the question of how we might take responsibility for climate change, ending the book with a thoughtful examination of the environmental destruction and labor abuses caused by the gaming industry itself.

By Margaret Killjoy

The world might be ending.

* * *
There’s a commonly replicated piece of anarchist folk art that means a lot to me. I don’t know who drew it. It’s a drawing of a tree with a circle-A superimposed. The text of it reads “even if the world was to end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today.”

I grew up into anarchy around this piece of art. It was silkscreened as patches and posters and visible on the backs of hoodies and the walls of collective houses. It was graffitied through stencils and it was photocopied in the back of zines. It’s a paraphrasing of a quote misattributed to Martin Luther (the original protestant Martin Luther, not Martin Luther King, Jr., although plenty of people misattribute the quote to him as well). The original quote is something like “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” The earliest reference to it anyone can seem to find is from the German Confessing Church, a Christian movement within Nazi Germany that sought to challenge Nazi power. The quote was used to inspire hope, to inspire people to action. I’ve learned that it is a paraphrasing of a hadith: “If the Resurrection were established upon one of you while he has in his hand a sapling, then let him plant it.”

That’s something I can get behind.

* * *
There’s this book that means a lot to me, On the Beach, by Nevil Shute. I’ve never read it. I can’t bring myself to. I think about it quite often, regardless.

The novel describes a nuclear war destined to kill all life on earth, and it describes the last days of people living in Australia waiting for the inevitable death of all things. It describes how they live their lives, how they find meaning during the apocalypse. It’s a book about how to live without hope. It’s a book of resignation.

It’s too much for me, I think, at least right now.

* * *
The world might be ending.

A lot of people will argue with me about that. They will correctly point out that for large numbers of people all over the world, especially in the parts of the world long ravaged by Western imperialism, the world has been ending for a long time. They will correctly point out that the world itself isn’t going anywhere, that change is constant, and even if what is left behind by climate catastrophe and war is a scorched desert, it’s probable that life will continue. Human life, non-human animal life, and plant life will all, in some form or another, survive all of this.

People will argue, correctly once more, that most every generation has believed that the world was ending. The machine gun slaughter of World War I, the genocide of World War II, the Doomsday Clock of the Cold War, the AIDS epidemic, those all must have felt like the apocalypse. For entire peoples, they were. Yet here some of us are today, alive.

None of those arguments detract from the fact that it sure feels like the world is ending.

Mountains are blown up for coal to pump poison into the air, pipelines clearcut the last vestiges of the wild to help us pump more poison into the air. Oceans are swallowing islands, hundred-year storms happen every year, and it feels like every day we break new climate records. A sense of urgency about coming disaster is fueling a rise of “I got mine, fuck you” nationalism, and climate scientists are being ignored to an unconscionable degree.

The world is ending.

It’s always ending, but it’s ending a lot right now. For me and the people I’m close to, it’s ending more dramatically than it was when I was born thirty-seven years ago.

That’s fucking paralyzing.

The news is full of extinction and fascism and death and death and death.

And we’re expected to get up in the morning and go to work.

* * *
For awhile, I coped by means of a cycle of denial and panic. The potential apocalypse was, basically, too-much-problem. I couldn’t wrap my head around it or its ramifications, so I acted like it wasn’t happening. Until, of course, some horrible event or reminder of the apocalypse broke over a certain threshold and sent me spiraling into despair. Then numbness took over once more and the cycle began again.

That didn’t do me much good.

About a year ago, I decided to embrace four different, often contradictory, priorities for my life. I run my decisions past all of them and try to keep them in balance.

Act like we’re about to die. Act like we might not die right away. Act like we might have a chance to stop this. Act like everything will be okay.

Act like we’re about to die
Every breath we take is the last breath we take. You Only Live Once. Smoke em if you got em. Do As Thou Wilt. Memento Mori. Our culture is full of euphemisms and clever sayings that focus around one simple idea: we’re mortal, so we might as well try to make the most of the time we have.

Embracing hedonism has a lot to recommend it these days. It’s completely possible that the majority of us won’t be alive ten or twenty years from now. It’s completely possible, although a lot less likely, that a lot of us won’t be alive in a year.

I used to think, when I was younger, that I was a terrible hedonist. As a survivor of sexual and psychological assault and abuse, I’ve never had much luck with drug use or casual sex. But fucking and getting wasted, while perfectly worthwhile pastimes, aren’t the only ways to live in the moment. Hedonism is about the pursuit of pleasure and joy. The trick is to find out what gives you pleasure and joy.

For myself, this has meant giving myself permission to pursue music, to sing even though I’m not trained, to play piano and harp. To travel, to wander. To seek beautiful moments and accept that they might be fleeting. I’ll rudely paraphrase the host of the rather wholesome podcast Ologies, Alie Ward, and say “we might die so cut your bangs and tell your crush you like them.”

My hedonism is a cautious one. I’m not looking to take up smoking or other addictions. I’m not trying to live like there’s a guarantee of no tomorrow, just a solid chance of no tomorrow. Frankly, this would be true regardless of the current crisis, but it feels especially important to me just now.

Act like we might not die right away
Preppers have a bad reputation for a good reason. The people stockpiling ammunition and food in doomsday bunkers by-and-large don’t have anyone else’s best interests at heart. Still, being prepared for a slow apocalypse, or dramatic interruptions in the status quo, makes more and more sense to more and more of us.

Preparing for the apocalypse is going to look different to every person and every community. For some people it will mean stockpiling necessities. For other people, securing the means to grow food.

One thing I’ve learned from my friends who study community resilience and disaster relief, however, is that the most important resource to shore up on isn’t a tangible one. It’s not bullets, it’s not rice, it’s not even land or water. It’s connections with other people. The most effective means of survival in crisis is to create community disaster plans. To practice mutual aid. To build networks of resilience.

Every apocalypse movie has it all backwards when the plucky gang of survivors holes up in a cabin and fends off the ravaging chaotic hordes. The movies have it backwards because the ravaging hordes are, in the roughest possible sense, the ones doing survival right. They’re doing it collectively. Obviously, I’m not advocating we wear the skulls of our enemies and cower at the feet of warlords (though wearing the skulls of would-be warlords has its appeal). I’m advocating staying open to opportunity and building collective power.

There are infinite reasons not to count on holing up in a cabin with your six friends as an apocalypse plan, but I’ll give you two of them. First, because living a worthwhile and long life as a human animal requires connections with a diverse collection of people with diverse collections of skills, ideas, and backgrounds. It’s all fun and games in your cabin until your appendix bursts and none of you are surgeons—or you’re the only surgeon. Likewise, small groups of people who tend to agree with one another are subject to the dangers of groupthink and the echo chamber effect, which will limit your ability to intelligently meet challenges that face you.

Second, because by removing yourself from society, you’re removing your ability to shape the changes that society will go through during crisis. If you go hide in the woods with your stockpile and your buddies, and fascists take over, guess what? It’s kind of your fucking fault. Because you weren’t at the meeting when everyone decided whether to be egalitarians or fascists. And guess what? Now that rampaging horde is at your doorstep, and they want your ammo and your antibiotics, and they’re going to get it one way or the other. Fascism is always best stamped out when it starts. It’s never safe to ignore it. Not now, not during any Mad Max future.

Tangible resources do matter, of course. Any likely scenario that prepping is good for won’t be so dramatic as an utter restructuring or collapse of society. It might mean food shortages, power outages, water contamination. It never hurts to keep nonperishable food, backup sources of power, and water filtration systems around for yourself and your neighbors.

Still, this is a terrible basket to put all your eggs into. You probably shouldn’t live out your days, whether they’re your last ones or not, over-preparing for something that may or may not come to pass.

Act like we might have a chance to stop this
We can and we should stop the worst excesses of climate catastrophe. We can and should stop fascism by whatever means necessary. Throwing up our hands and walking away from the problem is no solution.

It’s hard to remember that we have agency. Unless we were raised ultra-rich, we’ve had the concept of political and economic agency stripped from us at every turn. We’ve been told there are two ways to effect change: vote for politicians or vote with our dollars. Politicians in western democracies are likely incapable of changing things as dramatically as they need to be changed, and they certainly won’t bother trying unless we motivate them to do so in fairly dramatic ways. As for economic agency, there is a small handful of men with more wealth—and therefore power—than the rest of us combined.

We’ve been told we cannot take matters into our own hands, politically or economically. We’re not allowed to have a revolution. We’re not allowed to redistribute the wealth of the elite.

You’ll be shocked to know that I don’t put a lot of stock in what we are and aren’t allowed to do.

Still, even if we give ourselves permission to undertake it, revolution feels like an insurmountable challenge. We’ve got, optimistically, ten years to completely overhaul the economic system of the planet. It can be done. It has to be done. Yet it feels like it won’t be done.

We’re all running the cost/benefit analysis of acting directly. We all have different “fuck it” points—the point beyond which we can no longer prioritize our immediate wellbeing but instead must act regardless of the outcome. In the meantime, we’re waiting until it seems like we can act and actually have a chance of winning.

All over the world, even in some Western countries, people are no longer waiting. They’re acting. We need to be helping them, supporting them with words and actions, while we get ready to act here as well.

The revolution needs mediators and facilitators, medics and brawlers. It needs hackers and propagandists and it needs financiers and smugglers and thieves. It needs scouts and coordinators and it needs musicians and it needs people invested in the system to turn traitor. It needs lawyers and scientists and bookkeepers and copyeditors and cooks and it needs almost everyone, almost every skill.

One thing it doesn’t need, though, is managers. The people who claim to know how to run a revolution don’t know how to run a revolution or they would have done it by now. The authoritarian urge, to decide what the revolution should and shouldn’t look like, how people should and shouldn’t express their rage and reclaim their agency, will fail us every time. Authoritarian communism is the death of any revolution. Authoritarian liberalism is the death of any revolution. Even the more dogmatic anarchists will get in the way if given a chance. The revolution cannot be branded. Despite Hollywood representations of rebellions, they don’t work as well under a single banner. They are diverse, or they are not revolutions.

The revolution cannot be controlled by a vanguard of activists; if it is, it will fail. The revolution must be controlled by its participants, because only then will we learn how to claim agency over our own lives and futures.

We have a chance to stop this.

I forget that sometimes, but I shouldn’t.

Still, I can’t count on hope alone, or the days when hope fails me would lay me low.

Act like everything will be okay
All the times the world has come close to ending before, it hasn’t. It’s ended for some people, some cultures. Civilizations have collapsed. Ecosystems have radically shifted. Species have gone extinct—including the species of humans before homo sapiens. Colonization was an apocalypse. Some people survived those apocalypses, but plenty more didn’t.

Still, the world is still here and we’re still here.

Capitalism is a sturdy beast, quite adept at adaptation. Marx was wrong about a lot of things, and one of those things was the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism under the weight of its own contradictions. With or without capitalism, the society we live in might stagger on. We might curb the worst excesses of climate catastrophe through economic change or wild feats of geoengineering.

I won’t bet on it, but I won’t bet entirely against it either.

As much as I need to live like I might die tomorrow, I need to live like I might see a hundred years on this odd green and blue planet. Unless things change, I’m not burning every bridge. I’m trying to maintain a career. If I was certain to die under a fascist regime by 2021, there wouldn’t be much point in writing novels: they take too long to write, publish, and reach their audience. I get some joy from the writing itself, sure, but I get more joy from putting my art in front of people, of letting it influence the cultural landscape. With novel writing in particular, that takes time. That takes there being a future. I want there to be a future. Almost desperately. Not enough to bank on it completely.

Keeping some small portion of my time and resources invested in the potential for there to be a future is important for my mental health, because it keeps me invested in maintaining that health.

* * *
The world might end tomorrow, and it might not. If we can help it, at all, we shouldn’t let it end. We still ought to act like it might.

We ought to figure out what trees we would plant either way.