Author: 8420a707a8099321768f84ad8b407c7c

Slingshot is an independent radical newspaper published in Berkeley since 1988.

It is easy to look at all the problems in the world and get confused about what are just symptoms and what are the root causes of the many struggles currently underway. It is crucially important to know which is which, because when communities organize to address a problem but we’re only attacking the symptom without dealing with the underlying social systems creating the symptoms, we’re bound to fail.

So for example while particular corporations build particular factories that pollute particular neighborhoods, it is futile to tackle this problem one factory or one company at a time. The underlying problem is an economic and political system that concentrates power — the idea of distant, faceless people owning shares in corporations in the first place. And even more deeply, a system of competition and private ownership that sucks meaning out of the world by reducing our lives and the natural world to an endless pursuit of economic growth, efficiency, and profit.

All around us, we’re facing the dramatic fallout from the recent economic recession. Recessions are unavoidable parts of the capitalist economy — they aren’t a problem with the system, they are the system. But rather than undermining support for the system itself, people are reacting to the recession by chasing symptoms. Under all of this emotion, it can be hard to see the more basic reality. The capitalist system is killing the planet. Our lives are more and more controlled by economic, technological and political systems that can seem inevitable and natural, but aren’t.

The situation, however, is far from hopeless. Frustration is building on a mass level — not just in a punk ghetto but everywhere. Crisis on this scale can produce massive and rapid shifts in priorities. Crucial to this process is figuring out the real target for our collective energies, and avoiding wasting it on distractions.

• • •

Meanwhile, while we were working on this issue, we got news of an adverse court ruling against a long-term squatted house where many of us live. This is the raw, ugly face of what ownership, money and power really mean. While people have been using this house for years — in part as cost-free housing for travelers, musicians and artists allowing people to work on projects like Slingshot rather than being tied down to a job — to the system it is just a piece of real estate that is only meaningful to the extent it earns profit for someone. Our lives are much more meaningful, real and full of pleasure than the system’s bank balances or the absurd laws it uses to guard them.

We’ll laugh in the face of its grim police if necessary because we’ll always be free while the system of private property and means to a pointless end will always be doomed.

• • •

Slingshot is always looking for new writers, artists, editors, photographers, translators, distributors, etc. to make this paper. If you send something written, please be open to editing.

Editorial decisions are made by the Slingshot Collective but not all the articles reflect the opinions of all collectives members. We welcome debate and constructive criticism.

Thanks to the people who made this: Aaron, Alex, Apple, Bird, Booker T & the MGs, Brendan, Dee, Eggplant, Gregg, Heather, Jason, Joseph, Julia, Kathryn, Kermit, Kerry, Leona, Lesley, Lew, Owen, PB, Rena, Sandy, Shannon, Shirley Dean (RIP), Stephanie, Tree, Will.

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting on Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 4 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below.)

Article Deadline & Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 103 by April 17, 2010 at 3 p.m.

Volume 1, Number 102, Circulation 19,000

Printed January 29, 2010

Slingshot Newspaper

Sponsored by Long Haul

3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94705

Phone (510) 540-0751

slingshot@tao.ca • slingshot.tao.ca

Circulation Information

Subscriptions to Slingshot are free to prisoners, low income and anyone in the USA with a Slingshot Organizer, or $1 per issue or back issue. International $3 per issue. Outside the Bay Area we’ll mail you a free stack of copies if you give them out for free.

Slingshot Back Issues

We’ll send you a random assortment of back issues of Slingshot and other publications for the cost of postage: Send $3 for 2 lbs. or $5 for 5 lbs. Free if you’re an infoshop or library. Or drop by our office with cash or check to Slingshot 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705.

Slingshot will award its sixth annual Award for Lifetime Achievement — the Golden Wingnut — at its 22th birthday party on Friday, March 12 at 3124 Shattuck in Berkeley (8 pm). Slingshot created the Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize direct action radicals who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for alternatives to the current absurd system. Wingnut is the term some of us use to refer to folks who blend radicalism and a highly individual personal style — more than just another boring radical. Golden Wingnuts mix determination, inspiration and flair. The winner has their biography featured in our next issue, and will receive a wingnut trophy and super-hero outfit.

We’re looking for nominations. To be eligible, an individual has to be currently alive and must have at least 25 years of “service”. Please send your nominations by 5 p.m. on March 1 along with why a particular person should be awarded the Golden Wingnut for 2010 to 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705 or slingshot@tao.ca.

Hi there,

I just picked up a copy of the organizer for 2010 and was all smiles until I came across your booklist…

Jeffery Archer [sic] – The Prodigal Daughter

Really? Doesn’t anyone know this guy is kinda like the UK version of Rush Limbaugh?

Please read the wiki page on this sleaze:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Archer

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, just go for the controversies section – it’s large enough. Do you start with the missing funds from Red Cross or his part in the 2004 Equatorial Guinea coup d’état attempt?

He was arrested for perverting the course of justice. He was also a key figure in the Conservative government of the Thatcher era – which in itself isn’t damning (totally, is it?). He also has his fingers in so many media pies in the UK – ones that we collectively detest and work against.

He needs no more money – don’t suggest people buy his books PLEASE!!!!

Thanks for reading my rant 🙂

Keep up the otherwise truly amazing work – we are collectively better for it!

Dan

Oops! Thanks for the info, Dan. Our bad.

Thanks to everyone who bought a 2010 Slingshot Organizer — their sales pay to print this paper and for other radical media projects. If you still want one, we still have a few in stock — check our website for a list of places that distribute them. If you want to order more than 40 copies (wholesale) you can order directly from us.

We’ve appreciated hearing from everyone who has written us to let us know about various errors, and also with many kinds words. We’re already thinking about the 2011 Organizer. If you have ideas about things that we should include, contact us now. We’re in search of radical historical dates, radical contact listings, feature ideas / articles, doodles and graphics for the calendar, etc. In particular, we are seeking cover artwork — every year it is a huge, often last minute, struggle to find cover art. If you think you could draw better cover art that we have, you may be right — stop talking and start drawing! (Please note that sending us a link to your web page that features a whole bunch of images is not all that helpful. If you want to send us art, that means you should pick a particular image and say “Here, how about this this.”)

A common comment we hear is, “Why didn’t you print a particular date in this year’s Organizer — does that mean you don’t care about [fill in the blank].” Over the years we’ve accumulated a huge list of historical dates for each day – about 10-20 per day. We thus don’t have room to print each date each year. To keep each year’s edition fresh, we like to print different dates (and informational features) each year so the organizer isn’t precisely the same year after year. The individual artists who design the calendar pages get to decide which 3-4 dates (out of 10-20) to pick, so their decicions don’t necessarily reflect all of our opinions in the collective about what is important. If we missed a date in a particular edition, it is nothing personal to your or anyone else — chances are we printed it the previous year or we’ll print it next year. Feel free to let us know about dates you don’t think we have.

We’ll start work on the 2011 organizer in June, with most of the work happening the first two weeks in August. The deadline for radical historical dates is June 1. We’re going to edit and improve the historical dates all month. The dealine for art for the inside of the calendar is July 1. The deadline for cover art, features, radical contact listings and all other submissions is August 1.

If you are in the bay area during the first two weeks in August and want to work on the organizer — even if you have no publication experience — join us for the fun! Contact us — many hands make light work and we like to incorporate new energy into the project. We’ll have the organizer back from the binder on October 1, 2010.

On March 4th, students and workers across the US will join in a coordinated national day of actions and student strikes to demand prioritization of education and human needs over bureaucracy, rich corporations, prisons and war. While the call for a national student strike came at a mass meeting in Berkeley, planning is already underway for actions in New York, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Massachusetts, Maryland, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, Connecticut and North Carolina, as well as at schools and communities all over California. You can participate in an action, strike or protest near you on March 4.

The action protests extreme education fee increases, budget cuts, layoffs and privatization schemes in public school and higher education systems across the country at a time when bankers and Wall Street have received hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. The governing board of the University of California increased student fees 32 percent at a meeting November 19.

A powerful labor-student-faculty coalition to defend public education formed across California in the aftermath of a September 24, 5,000-person-strong mass student walkout and university workers’ strike at the University of California, Berkeley organized around the main demands of “No Budget Cuts! No Layoffs! No Fee Hikes!” On October 24, 2009, more than 800 students, unionists and activists from more than 50 cities across the state gathered at UC Berkeley and issued the call for a March 4, 2010, Strike/Day of Action to Save Public Education.

The attacks on public education and all public-sector services are deepening in California as a result of the growing state budget deficit and the recession. Similar scenarios are playing out across the US: tax revenues are down and public service cuts are targeting those least able to afford them. While the March 4 action is being called from California, the underlying issues apply everywhere.

In California, public education workers are being pitted against other public-sector workers with the threat of increased privatization of services, and with more so-called “reforms” aimed at gutting union contracts and destroying essential services. While much attention has been paid to the cuts at the elite University of California level, cuts to California State University system and community colleges have a deeper impact on working class students of color; with 40,000 CSU students to be shut out in Spring 2010 classes and an estimated 250,000 community college students denied access because of funding cuts and dramatic fee increases.

California is not just suffering a budget crisis but also a crisis of priorities. For example, 2009 was the first year the state spent more on the racist criminal justice system than on higher education. In building for March 4th, we are building a popular base to demand that the state tax rich people and corporations to pay for essential services.

A more unique issue for California is the need to reinstate majority rule over state spending priorities. Currently, each year’s budget and any new taxes have to be passed with a 2/3 vote, which gives an extraordinary amount of power to a minority of voters who elect conservative representatives who pledge “no taxes.” Another California obstacle to adequate public funding is a state law called Proposition 13, which severely limits tax revenues by taxing some property (particularly that owned by corporations) at 1978 levels.

There are many ways to get involved in the March 4 actions, from talking to your neighbors or family about the attack on the public sector, to organizing at your school or workplace to join in March 4 actions. For more information visit www.defendeducation.org.

The Long Haul community space in Berkeley beat a government motion to dismiss its federal lawsuit November 30, 2009 meaning that the government defendants have to answer the lawsuit and a trial is now scheduled for May 16, 2011. Long Haul filed suit a year ago against all law enforcement involved in an August 27, 2008 police raid on the space by a joint terrorism task force composed of University of California police, sheriffs and the FBI. The police seized all computers at Long Haul after breaking in with guns drawn to execute a search warrant as part of an investigation of threatening emails allegedly sent to UC Berkeley animal researchers from a public-access computer connected to the internet at Long Haul.

Long Haul is a non-profit organization that publishes Slingshot and operates an infoshop and library at 3124 Shattuck in Berkeley. It is clear that the police never would have gotten such a broad search warrant to seize every computer at the Berkeley Public Library if the email in question had come from the public library, rather than at a radical Infoshop. While the police perhaps intended their raid to intimidate local activists, Long Haul was able to reopen the night of the raid. The public-access computer room reopened a month later with new (used) donated computers. The police searched and copied hard drives from the seized computers.

The lawsuit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California, seeks relief against law enforcement using the data from the seized computers for improper purposes. While the legal process has so far moved very slowly, the struggle goes on to push back against big brother police tactics against activist spaces.

February

February 11-15

Earth First! Organizers conference/ Winter Rondezvous. www.2010oc.org

February 16

Mardi Gras – in Berkeley, join the frog parade at 3 in People’s Park: this year’s Berkeley theme “America Drones On”

March

March 4

Nationwide Day of Strike Action in Defense of Public Education – www.defendeducation.org

March 8

International Women’s Day

March 12 • 8 pm

Slingshot 22nd Birthday party – after Berkeley Critical Mass bike ride – 3124 Shattuck Ave.

March 13 -14• 10 – 6 pm

SF Anarchist book fair with John Zerzan, Laura Whitehorn, Jessica Mills, Tomas Moniz Free – SF County Fair Building, 9th & Lincoln

March 14 • 10 – 6 pm

11th Annual BASTARD anarchist theory conference UC Berkeley sfbay-anarchists.org

March 20 • 11 am

March and Rally to demand US out of Afghanistan and Iraq – in SF at Civic Center –protests also in Washington DC & LA answercoalition.org

March 21 • 4 pm

Slingshot new volunteer meeting – 3124 Shattuck, Berkeley 510 540-0751

March 26 • 6 pm

SF Critical Mass bike ride Justin Herman Plaza

April

April 1 • 7 pm

Deadline for entries Chicago Anarchist film fest

April 9 • 6 pm

Berkeley Critical Mass Berkeley BART

April 15

Steal Something from Work Day

April 17 • 11 am – 7 pm

4th annual New York Anarchist book Fair 55 Washington Square South, Manhattan – anarchistbookfair.net

April 17 • 3 pm

Article Deadline for Slingshot issue #103

April 30 • 6 pm

SF Critical Mass bike ride Justin Herman Plaza

May

May 1–2

Protest at the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Talks, New York. thinkoutsidethebomb.org

May 7 – 9

10th Chicago Anarchist Film Festival

http://home.comcast.net/~more_about_it

May 27 – 30

BASH BACK Radical Queer Conference in Denver bbworkshops@gmail.com

Mid-May

Trial of Johannes Mehserle (BART cop who shot unarmed Oscar Grant) begins. 210 W.Temple St. Los Angeles antiracistaction.org

June

June 22-26 • 7 pm

US Social Forum – Detroit, MI ussf2010.org