Author: Slingshot Collective

The winter of 2011 found me moderately depressed, barely leaving the house, a recent college graduate with no clue why my life felt so empty. Growing up Black and middle class, it was pounded into my psyche that that piece of paper was my meal-ticket to happiness, prosperity, and social acceptance. As a radical feminist, delving into the world of activism, I was left feeling less than satisfied, to say the least. So I embarked on a journey of self-discovery. I left Ohio, looking for something more, some deeper answer to the lacking I felt. I traveled to New Mexico, land of enchantment, home to where I understood for the first time that the soil contained a spirit unto itself, that this Earth was a living, breathing being. I worked on a biodynamic farm and was introduced to concepts like deep ecology and biocentrism. It was the first time I had lived off the land, being fed, comforted, soulfully nourished by beings that I had overlooked as a suburban kid raised on television screens and shopping malls. And then I met Earth First!

I traveled to Missoula to meet up with some friends. I had never read the EF! Journal and was unfamiliar with the organization, let alone the unspoken tensions between differing ideological stances within the movement, particularly regarding anti-oppression. As a person of color, my experience at my first EF! Rendezvous — EF!’s annual outdoor national gathering called a Rondy — wasn’t too unlike most of my experiences growing up in a predominantly white community. Folks were fond of politely dancing around political correctness, pretending the reality of the situation was not, something is making marginalized folks feel unwelcome. There were some interactions that left a bad taste in my mouth, the most frustrating being repeatedly mistaken for the only other Black female perceived person, amongst a sea of white faces. I called it out, apologies were expressed, I moved on.

I chose instead to focus on the seed planted that would grow into the tools I needed to strike at the very root of the problem. I became alive with the knowledge that I could take into my hands the struggle that I felt so strongly in my heart and mind. For so long, oppression felt like an insurmountable monster that I had no hope of conquering. It is one thing to find words to voice the oppression one feels, to process the hurt, to rage over the injustice. It is another thing entirely to use your hands, your tiring muscles, your strength of will to fight those injustices. It forces the leviathan into reality, the physical plane, where it can be challenged in a tangible way. Now, here I stood among forest-defending warriors and whether or not the revolution was in sight or not, the dramatic sense of power I felt in myself was undeniable. I was hooked. That summer I traveled all over the Northwest, attending various gatherings and action camps. I learned to climb trees, came to love sleeping outside, met plants who soulfully offered healing guidance that I had only digested in written form. I felt more in myself than I had my entire life.

At that time, I didn’t have the words to voice my experience, my awakening, my coming home. In her essay, “Touching the Earth” from the book Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery, cultural theorist bell hooks explores this concept. She states that there is a “modern tendency to see no correlation between the struggle for collective black self-recovery and ecological movements that seek to restore balance to the planet by changing our relationship to nature and to natural resources.” Her statement sums up my approach to the activism and social justice work that had dominated my life. I did not understand my own internalized oppression, my own struggle, my own health as being intricately connected to the oppression of this earth or to the non-human beings that inhabit it. I was blind to understanding that our states of physical, psychological, and emotional health are all connected to one another’s, or put simply, deep ecology. Further, I did not understand this, until I experienced it; The feeling of my hands in frozen soil, understanding that I held seeds of life that would nourish and feed myself and others. Sweat pouring off my body as I climbed higher, staring my fears in the face, and climbing past them. Dark nights spent in the forest being reassured that the wild is not a place to be afraid of, but to revere and cherish. hooks states that it is this disconnect between body and mind that has lead to the estrangement of black folks from nature, allowing white supremacy to inform us of our sense of selves instead. But I couldn’t understand this through words. I had to understand it through action, experience, practice. Similarly, we cannot simply talk about how to challenge oppression — we must take action. We can use words to identify problems, but that is as far as our minds can take us.

To say that I was privileged to attend my first Rondy would be an understatement. To be sure, from the Greyhound bus ticket that was bought for me by the folks at Morning Star Farm, to the education that gave me the ability to consciously understand radical environmental theory, to my middle class background that helped create social connections with friends attending the Rondy, all of these factors made it that much easier for me to attend the gathering and feel comfort in my presence and engagement. Not everyone has access to these privileges. Arguably, most folks don’t have access to them. In her essay, hooks urges us to “bridge gaps and restore broken connections,” and EF! seems primed to do so if it chooses to live up to challenge.

In the article “Thinking Long Term,” Marie Mason articulates the necessity, magnitude, and urgency of this challenge because not only is the planet dying, but so too are thousands of beings, human and otherwise, as a result of the current ecocide happening in urban centers, rural communities, and the ever vanishing wild places across the country. Within the intersecting boundaries of these various groups, we will find the next eco-warriors. The beings that stand testament to the environmental degradation that mar their bodies and minds, laying their spirits to waste at the expense of this white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal machine.

White supremacy is the system of beliefs that devalues all other races, and places whiteness as top dog. Raised in this sort of environment, folks that fall outside of the dominant identity category continually consume cultural cues and messages that devalue their identity, disfiguring their sense of self worth and love for themselves, society, and the planet. These traits mirror those of any being that falls prey to an abusive relationship. The difference being that in the relationship between individual and a globally pervasive hegemonic belief system, there is no out. This is critical. We, as revolutionary fighters on behalf of Mother Earth, must see the essential necessity of connection to the wild. For it is in this relationship, that we unlearn the man-made destruction that lives in our hands and hearts. Because in the wild, we are free from the man-made abuses that we enact upon one another. In the wilderness, reveling in the will of the land, we remember our own wills — free from abuse, free from oppression. We recall, nourish, and strengthen our authentic, wild free selves. This is our struggle, this is our fight: For access, preservation, and protection of the wild so that we can heal the wounds of abuses inflicted upon us and the earth.

When we examine the myriad effects of this oppressive system, from learned patterns of abuse to a general inability to formulate healthy relationships with other beings, we can see how the collective consciousness of folks that fall outside of the dominant paradigm, much like the Earth, is under attack. As a result, we can observe that most people now have destructive relationships with themselves, one another, and this planet. Let’s think about this same concept a different way. Instead of talking about marginalized folks, let’s substitute the Earth. We can understand the various ecosystems within it as the collective consciousness and instead of the ideology of white supremacy, we’ll substitute anthropocentrism. This is easy for most radical environmentalists to comprehend. We can easily see the same destructive cycle of abuse and understand the urgency in healing the trauma we have inflicted on this earth, and therefore with respect to the philosophy of deep ecology, we must appreciate with the same magnitude the grave necessity of healing the collective consciousness of marginalized individuals all over this planet. If that sounds like an unreasonable demand, then “no compromise” has no room for you.

In order to stop our current path of destruction, we need to fight to end further harm, but we also must heal the damage that has already been inflicted. This is of utmost importance, for it is from these spaces of unlearning, wild spaces, that we will create a different way, that we will remember the old ways. Audre Lorde said the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Earth First! has used the master’s tools for far too long. We have been focusing on the end goal so much that we have forgotten the process. It is in this process that we learn to listen, learn to heal, learn to stop abusing one another. We must examine ourselves, our movement, and our beliefs in order to unhinge the abuse guised as “just the way things are,” manifested in oppressive patterns of language and behavior.

We are codependents in love with a capitalist white supremacist patriarchal addict that exploits, manipulates, and traumatizes us and the planet. A codependent is defined as someone whose identity is undeveloped or unknown due to the maintenance of a false sense of self, built from dependent attachments to external sources. Our sense of self must be recovered from this abusive partner. We must demand a change, live it, breathe it in, let it settle into our bones. We must remember ourselves, our wild feral selves, independent and free, courageously united for the sake of the saving this entire planet. As recovering codependents, it is our inherent responsibility as part of our own healing process to create safety for ourselves. As warriors and revolutionaries on behalf of Mother Earth, it is our fight to ensure this means safety for all, by any means necessary.

Further, making the concept of challenging oppression into a workshop topic is laughable, if not completely ridiculous. We are talking about living, breathing, pervasive systems that we’ve been raised up in, and that live within us, around us, informing and shaping our relationships with ourselves and each other. What does it look like to put this challenge into action? Well, Mason’s proposal seems like a step in the right direction. With the creation of spaces where we with the privilege of feeling, knowing, breathing in the power of a relationship with the land, share with those who are currently strangled under the weight of industrial capitalism, pervasive oppression, and the surmounting traumas unreleased and festering in our collective unconsciousness. We must humble ourselves to the fact that no compromise in the name of Mother Earth means no one left behind. We cannot ignore this monumental task set before us, for the sake of this earth, for the sake of one another, and for the sake of ourselves.

*** I’ve learned to think in a circle instead of a line. My spirit lost its way some time ago between television screens and mini mall super saver Saturdays. But in pine silhouetted black nights I read the moon with my heart and in return she whispered to me resuscitating secrets always had I known.

In between struggle and revolution there is a vital flowing energy. Composing the symphony of tides and flows spirals of life cycles of death. In it, we learn to dance without thinking, feel the rhythm with our hearts hear the notes with our souls. Shedding the skin of our human masks we lose ourselves in caves and waters.

Enamored with the darkness in love with the wild, we are bosomed in the long laborious ecstasy of everything and nothing.

In this we heal. In this we remember. In this we are free.

Throughout my collective organizing experience, most of my closest friends and I have struggled to avoid martyrdom, resentment, and burnout. I have seen many students join my old food co-op with excitement and motivation only to withdraw several months later after working more shifts and washing more dishes than they had actually wanted to. In examining these tendencies towards self-sacrifice, I began to see them as facets of a larger system of codependent beliefs and behaviors that often manifests in radical communities. Moreover, I noticed that these codependent qualities are mutually constitutive with the dynamics of our Western capitalist society. This society is defined by a power structure that alienates children from their needs and feelings, depicts self-sacrifice as loyalty, shapes us into victims, perpetrators, and rescuers, and benefits from the whole process. When individuals work to recover from codependency, they learn to identify their needs, establish healthy boundaries, and resolve childhood traumas. Because my experience with recovery has had such a beneficial impact on my relationship to activism, I believe that the framework of codependency holds great potential not only for our understandings of Western capitalism but also for our approaches to radical struggle.

What is Codependency?

Mental health professionals originally created the term “codependency” to describe common tendencies among partners of alcoholics, but the term was later expanded to include a much broader range of individuals who exhibited similar qualities. Codependent kids often grow up in families where issues such as addictions, illnesses, or abuse are not addressed. These kids learn early to repress their emotions and disregard their needs in order to accommodate the family’s unspoken dysfunction at the cost of their own wellbeing. Much of their self-worth revolves around pleasing others and being needed as a way to derive a sense of control over their surroundings. For many, a negation of their needs and feelings creates a sense of shame and insecurity, which drives them to continue their patterns of validation-seeking and self-denial as they grow into adulthood.

In my experience, codependency is less of a category and more of a network of tendencies whose manifestation ranges wildly among people and transforms over time. Despite this, I have noticed two consistent themes of codependent behavior in my communities.

The first is a pervasive perfectionism, in which an individual’s self-approval is contingent on their performance in a particular arena. For those of us who are social perfectionists, this means people-pleasing in order to receive external validation. Relationships with controlling individuals offer this sort of approval in spades, creating a predictable matrix within which one can “earn” validation by doing the “right” things. I have noticed that even in activist communities which embrace honesty and non-hierarchy, folks often hesitate to assert their boundaries or express disagreement to others who are charismatic, controlling, or (seemingly) essential to the functioning of the collective.

At my former collective, I noticed this sort of behavior happening when one of the well-established core members took actions outside of our consensus system. At one point, they temporarily withdrew from the collective in a way that obviously sidestepped our traditional process, and after their final withdrawal, they refused to return their key to the store. Throughout these experiences, the other members and I remained strangely inactive. For many of us, this was our first experience at a workplace where boundaries were not set for us. We lacked the skills to assert our collective needs and communicate what we considered to be unacceptable. If more of us had been willing to speak up about our initial concerns, we may have been able to address this individual’s behavior in a way that prevented future boundary violations and ensured a culture of mutual respect within the collective.

The second theme of codependency is a violent unselfishness; one’s connection with their needs and feelings is sacrificed in order to address the needs and desires of others. This pattern is characterized by flexible personal boundaries, martyrdom, resentment, and expressed dissatisfaction that never materializes in action. Over time, individuals who consistently disregard their needs and emotions may lose touch with them altogether, and end up struggling to identify what it is they actually want and feel.

In my time living and participating in a radical land project, I felt obligated to assist with more projects, process more feelings, and eat more dumpstered bread than I was actually comfortable with. I heard this sentiment echoed by multiple volunteers, who expressed feelings of guilt around enjoying leisure time. In the end I burned out, became mired in resentment, and developed an intense sensitivity to gluten. Had I been able to set better boundaries for myself earlier on, I might have been able to participate in a way that was productive and sustainable in the long-term, or identify an unsustainable environment from the start.

Codependents often conceptualize interpersonal relationships through the framework of the drama triangle. Within this structure, an individual in a conflict will alternately inhabit “victim”, “perpetrator”, and “rescuer” personas, which distract from a complex and empathetic understanding of the situation. With its overly simplistic, archetypal roles, this structure provides individuals with a familiar framework for their feelings: indignation for the victim, defensiveness for the perpetrator, and salvation for the rescuer.

In their withdrawal, one of the members of the food co-op mentioned having “wounded bird syndrome”. They described their recurring experience of joining struggling collectives (victims of the “system”) and attempting to rescue them. When the collectives would fail to transform, this person would experience great disillusionment, shift from the “rescuer” to the “victim” role, and feel resentful and frustrated with the collective that, in their mind, was no longer a “victim” but a “perpetrator” of their distress. Had they and other members taken time to disabuse themselves of this paradigm, we could have understood our relationships to the collective in more complex, symbiotic terms, while avoiding burnout in the name of that collective’s salvation.

Ultimately, all three of these patterns serve to redirect individuals’ attention towards external sites of validation. Within codependency, the drama of everyday life keeps us from confronting our deeper anxieties and traumas.

Codependency and Society

Many of us are born into a society, which shames us for showing our bodies, our emotions, and our failures. Within mainstream monotheistic religion, we are reminded that because of our inherent sinfulness, we must suppress our natural impulses in order to earn paternalistic approval from an authoritarian god. In communities thoroughly infiltrated by the culture of competition, many of us feel that our value is always relative to those around us and never inherent to us. This sense of competitive insecurity divides us and lays the groundwork for the creation of a malleable, competitive capitalist workforce. Within the framework of codependency, mainstream society is an excellent example of a dysfunctional family which negates the needs and feelings of its members, shames them for their perceived imperfections, and drives them to compete indefinitely for externally-granted validation.

For most individuals in our society, these systems of external validation manifest in our families, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our relationships to the legal system; these become our arenas for validation and salvation. When we fail to live up to the standards established for us, we are punished by the authorities as well as our own internalized judgments. These punishments victimize us, and since many of us never learn the skills required to define, identify, and satisfy our needs, we rescue ourselves through dissociation. Watching TV, shopping, eating, and drinking become our tools of emotional avoidance. In these patterns, there is an overarching connection to the self-sacrifice, search for validation, and disconnection from oneself that characterize codependence.

Meanwhile, the capitalist market perpetuates and profits from our distress. Advertisements in the media define images of perfection that erode at our sense of inherent self-worth and suggest consumerism as an appropriate solution to our inner defects. The message is clear: capitalism and its byproducts can rescue us from our ineptitude and victimhood. There is a safety in this message; it suggests that we do not have to look inward, to access our vulnerability or humanity, in order to find inner peace. There’s a product for that now.

The logic of the drama triangle dictates how people of color, working-class folks, women, queers, children, elderly, and disabled folks are characterized in mainstream media. Victims of disembodied circumstances and “bad luck,” these communities are framed as “in need of rescuing.” Within the project of “rescuing”, the locus of control is rarely placed in the hands of communities resisting oppression. The majority of professional philanthropists and non-profits descend on these communities with their own tactics, constraints, and agendas. In the process, they often reinscribe the victimhood of the communities that they allege to support by denying them the right to take direction of the aid projects. Similarly, in the realm of gender socialization, themes of martyrdom, self-invalidation, and approval-seeking are coded in the way that many women are instructed to relate to men. At the root of these instructions is the understanding that women are inherently flawed or incapable and need men for guidance.

Finally, the drama triangle plays a significant role in the formation of foreign policy among nation-states, or more precisely, its justification by the mainstream media. We are told that our government intervenes in countries on behalf of the victimized women, children, or ethnic minorities, who are sweet but frankly a little incompetent and need our bravery and machismo to vanquish their oppressors, who are made of pure, uncomplicated evil. This brand of philanthropy, like the domestic variety, recreates the conditions of the drama triangle through the implication that “victims” are incompetent, “perpetrators” are incorrigible, and “rescuers” are infallible. As such, it forecloses on complex understandings of social injustice that implicate imperialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, and any number of other dynamics that are associated with global colonialism.

Resolution and Transformation

The process of breaking out of codependent dynamics is two-fold. Codependents must address the fundamental, wounded parts of themselves with compassion and acceptance in order to heal any deep-seated shame. At the same time, we have to take action, setting and following through on concrete, loving personal boundaries. In this way, codependents can connect to their sense of self-worth and take pride in the actions they have taken.

I believe that it is essential for activists with codependent qualities to engage this process. For me, working to recover from codependency has radically transformed my activism. I figured out that feelings of guilt and inadequacy had been the primary motivators in my social justice work. I realized that I had internalized countless standards for what constituted a “real” radical that left little room for my strengths and my identity. Finally, I understood that I needed to prioritize self-care and communication in a way that transcended the lip service that I had given them before. I learned about what burns me out, what nourishes me, and what inspires me. Recovery from codependency has been a long and vulnerable process but I have already noticed that my collective organizing involvement has become much more sustainable.

In the arena of addressing larger social patterns, the experience of codependency recovery can help individuals frame their ideas of social justice with respect to the basic needs and boundaries of others. For example, I’ve noticed that when speaking to individuals who occupy oppressive roles, I have had greater success when taking great care to avoid the rhetoric of the drama triangle. In appealing to their vulnerability, their humanity, and their strength, I have communicated social justice ideas around consent, respecting indigenous spirituality, and complicating environmentalism in a way that does not put folks on the defensive. On a broader scale, I have noticed that when ally-ship organizations take the time to participate in communities that they are striving to support, familiarize themselves with their needs and feelings, and ask them for instructions on how to support their causes, the resulting activism is more respectful and effective than that of organizations that still see communities as victims in need of rescue.

Codependent dynamics permeate Western capitalist society and undermine many of our anti-capitalist communities. By gaining an awareness of the codependency framework, resolving childhood traumas, and learning to communicate our feelings, needs, and boundaries, we can transform our activism to build resilient movements that sustain, delight, and inspire us.

Introduction to Issue #112

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

Speaking your truth can be a risk. Sometimes people get pissed at you, or you realize later that what you said wasn’t actually true, or maybe it became untrue with time. How do we build a movement when communication is laden with so much risk? In this issue of Slingshot we printed hella articles about communication. Communication with others, with ourselves, with our environment. Open and honest communication is the only way we can learn and grow. With growth comes pain, but if we never push past our familiar routines, what are we but ghosts of our former selves? Neurologists have recently pointed out what radicals knew all along: the brain starts dying when you don’t take risks.

Recently, some members of the collective have noticed that the world outside the Berkeley vortex seems to be undergoing a cultural shift. Towns that had no counter-culture five years ago are now buzzing with travelers, squatters, info shops, coops, and all sorts of great radical stuff. And there’s been this incredible self-determined Indigenous movement, called “Idle No More,” sprouting up in Canada and around the globe, with native people demanding autonomy over their environment and communities. As we hot-waxed their article to the page, the author of “Keeping Carbon in the Ground” (on pages 10-11) called us from a march in Toronto as helicopters were circling overhead. Folks are up to something! Smashing the state with one hand and creating sustainable communities with the other.

According to the biological definition, a “radical” is the part of a plant’s root structure that is new. A radical is fresh and green, shooting off into new spaces. A radical also must be more aware and sensitive than any other part of the plant’s root structure, so it can make careful decisions based on the availability of nutrients and water. As human radicals, we embody a beautiful, reckless growth. We push towards something new and better. We walk to the very edge of the paths blazed by those who came before and we continue to push forward in the dark, warm soil as the permaculture sprouts in our wake.

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: Angie, Darin, enola d!, eggplant, Fern, Fred, Glenn, Gnat, Hayley, Heather, Jared, Jesse, Joey, Joey-2, Jonathon, Julia, Kermit, Lesley, Solomon, Stephski, Vanessa, Xander , and all the authors and artists who came together to make this paper.

Slingshot Technology Meeting

We’ve been putting off dealing with how the internet and other technological details relate to publishing our paper in a comprehensive way for years by putting band aids on top of band aids. On Saturday April 6 at 2 pm, we’re going to have an open discussion of what technology we want to apply and how to do it. If you know about tech stuff and want to help us explore and improve ways of spreading slingshotty-info digitally, join us at this meeting.

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting on Sunday March 24, 2013 at 4 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below.)

Article Deadline & Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 113 by April 20, 2013 at 3 p.m.

Volume 1, Number 112, Circulation 20,000

Printed February 1, 2013

Slingshot Newspaper

A publication of Long Haul

Office: 3124 Shattuck Avenue

Mailing: PO Box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703

Phone (510) 540-0751 • slingshot@tao.ca slingshot.tao.ca • fucking twitter @slingshotnews

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. Each envelope is one lb. (9 copies) — let us know how many envelopes you want. In the Bay Area, pick up copies at Long Haul or Bound Together Books in SF.

Slingshot Free stuff

We’ll send you a random assortment of back issues of Slingshot for the cost of postage: Send $3 for 2 lbs. Free if you’re an infoshop or library. Also, our full-color coffee table book about People’s Park is free or by sliding scale donation: send $1 – $25 for a copy. slingshot@tao.ca / Box 3051 Berkeley, 94703.

The US PROStitutes Collective (US PROS), formed in 1981, is a multi-racial network of former and current sex workers working in different areas of the sex industry. We are part of the International Prostitutes Collective. Our starting point is women who work the streets who are most likely to get arrested and face violence.

We estimate that about 70% of sex workers are mothers, mostly single mothers, supporting kids and other family members. Most are driven into prostitution because of poverty and lack of financial alternatives. The poverty rate for single mother-headed households was triple the poverty rate for the rest of the population in 2011. Punitive welfare reform policies have thrown thousands of moms into destitution. When welfare is cut, more women are picked up for prostitution and more women end up in prison.

We work in the sex industry for a variety of reasons. One reason is that sex work pays better than many jobs on the market, such as working in the fast food industry or as a receptionist or cashier. Sex work also often allows for flexibility and control over our work schedule. Whether working the streets, as call girls, online, as strippers, making videos, etc, if we are mothers, we can fit sex work around our kids’ school schedules. Those of us who are students can set our hours around classes and studying. Many of us use sex work to top off the low wages of other jobs.

But sex work is illegal and we face arrest every time we go to work. The prostitution laws criminalize us and we are illegal workers with no rights. An arrest or a conviction for a prostitution-related offense can have devastating consequences. We can lose custody of our children, get kicked out of our homes, or be deported if we are immigrants. And once we have a criminal record, it is much harder to get out of prostitution and find another job. Criminalization also makes us vulnerable to rape and other violence, and fear of arrest prevents most sex workers from reporting violent crimes. Police themselves can be part of this violence. 20% of street workers and 14% of indoor workers have experienced violence at the hands of police and 16% of indoor workers had been involved in sexual situations with the police.

One of the women in our network, a young Black mother, was convicted of violating a “Stay Out of Areas of Prostitution Order.” Working with Legal Action for Women (LAW), a grassroots legal service, we contacted numerous agencies for help with affordable housing so the young woman could leave prostitution. Nothing was available. She was left with a choice between destitution and sex work. Either way she risked losing custody of her children. Tragically, this young woman was arrested again for pimping, after she helped another young woman to get off the street. US PROS intervened to stop her from being registered as a sex offender which would have had drastic and lifelong implications.

Under a new California law called the Case Act, this young woman could now be considered a “trafficker” and face 12 years in prison. The Case Act (Proposition 35) funded by ex-Facebook billionaire Chris Kelly, and supported by law enforcement, will further criminalize sex workers and anyone who we associate with. US PROS vigorously opposed the CASE Act and was joined by other sectors in the community such as people of color, church, gay, legal, civil rights groups, and many individuals. Despite claims by the people behind this law, victims of trafficking will not be helped by it. As prostitution is pushed further underground by increased criminalization of those working in the sex industry, it becomes harder for victims to report exploitation, rape and other violence, including trafficking.

Laws of this kind are part of a moral crusade. Some anti-prostitution groups, including some who call themselves feminist, claim that all prostitution is violence against women and that all immigrant sex workers are trafficked. But a recent crackdown on massage parlors showed that anti-trafficking laws are used primarily to tighten immigration controls and deport immigrant women, not to protect genuine victims.

The anti-trafficking lobby has used phony statistics to exaggerate the numbers of trafficked victims and to shut down online ads such as on Craigslist and Village Voice, claiming that these ads promote trafficking and exploitation. Sex workers protested that censoring ads made it harder for them to work independently–some were forced onto the streets where it is 10 times more dangerous to work. US PROS organized a counter protest of anti-trafficking feminist groups protesting Craigslist. We exposed those organizations which have profited from anti-trafficking funding without any consideration of the impact on sex workers’ rights and safety.

Sex worker-led actions like this are part of a growing movement for the decriminalization of prostitution which is gaining momentum and support.

In 2008 a voter initiative in San Francisco (Proposition K) called on the city to follow the example of New Zealand which had decriminalized prostitution in 2003 leading to clear improvements in safety. Despite ferocious campaigning by the Mayor, the District Attorney, anti-trafficking forces and the police, Proposition K won 41% of the vote. It was modeled on the recommendations of the path-breaking San Francisco Task Force on Prostitution, which called for the millions of dollars squandered on criminalizing sex workers to be redirected into community resources.

With the Homeless Coalition and others, US PROS has organized against recent Sit/Lie laws, which have increased the harassment of street workers, homeless people and immigrant day laborers. Sit/Lie has made it illegal to sit or lie on the sidewalk between 7am and 11pm in San Francisco. Claims that laws used against people on the streets are implemented in a racist way, are strengthened by evidence which shows that Black sex workers are seven times more likely to get arrested than their white counterparts. Occupy SF was the location of one of the actions where people spoke out against the criminalization of survival.

We’ve also taken action against serial rapists. With Legal Action for Women/SF we spearheaded a community monitoring initiative at the trial of serial rapist Jack Bokin. Bokin brutally attacked and raped four women, three of them sex workers. For two years, we co-ordinated a rota of people to attend court and pressed for justice for the victims. This public scrutiny was instrumental in ensuring a conviction and a prison sentence of 231 years. The case of Joseph Naso charged with killing at least four sex workers, is coming to trial soon and we intend to be there.

As cuts in benefits and services deepen, the numbers of women, young people, homeless and transgender people going into the sex industry increases. US PROS is part of a new national campaign to end the poverty of mothers and children by supporting two breakthrough bills in Congress: the WORK Act, by Pete Stark, to “provide low-income parents the option of staying home to raise young children without being pushed into poverty”; the RISE Act by Rep. Glenn Moore, which demands that “poverty reduction be put at the heart of welfare policy”. These bills signal a much needed change. From the point of view of sex workers, if mothers were given the recognition and support we deserve, women wouldn’t have to go into prostitution to feed our kids.

“Like women everywhere who do 2/3 of the world’s work for 5% of the world’s income, sex workers are fighting for more money and less work,” says Rachel West, US PROS spokeswoman. “If the billions currently squandered on war and destruction came to women, the primary caregivers everywhere, and to our communities to fulfill people’s needs, no one would be forced by poverty into sex with anyone. Our demand, increasingly taken up by others, is: Outlaw Poverty, Not Prostitution.”

For more information, visit US PROS’s website at www.uspros.net, contact us at uspros@prostitutescollective.net.

Here’s an idea so friggin’ radical you just may dismiss it out of hand. Well, that’s one possible narrative. I’m open to others.

Narrative sharing. It’s about opening up to one another’s life stories, regardless of political outlook or life experiences. We are all living our stories, are we not? But who really knows these stories if we speak mostly in general terms of political discourse? How can I get to know you, and you me, beyond politically shaped categories?

Narrative sharing. It’s about pushing back at being told what to think, and given space to fully experience oneself beyond our categories. What if available categories miss who you really are? Politically available categories tend to fit me like a tight pair of shoes, inhibiting me from strolling freely in public spaces. I’m transgender with a spiritual dimension, or so I am told. More authentically, I am a ‘transspirit’ with a transgender dimension. I am compelled to connect to deeper potentiality, prompting me to transgress the more divisive constructed norms. But without a narrative for others to follow, this notion tends to get lost in political terms. I am much more than can be captured in generalized terms of political rhetoric. I am fully human.

Narrative sharing. It’s about transgressing the norms for idea sharing, to get to the depths of emotional sharing. Anyone can disagree with my liberal, conservative, anarchist or libertarian views, or my lack thereof. But who dares disagree with my anguished feelings about being a Native American in colonized spaces? Who dares dispute my emotions about being asexual amongst a sea of sexual privilege? Can anyone argue with my visceral reactions to being trapped within the American gulag? I mean, really, is it ever wrong to feel a certain way?

Are not emotions merely messengers, to the message of beliefs? And what point is there in shooting the messenger? Or in following the dominant culture notion that all feelings must be subordinated to rational thought, as if my thoughts and feelings should not be integrated with equal value? Narrative shares the emotions and the beliefs; political discourse tends to skip the wealth of vulnerable emotions and goes straight for defending beliefs. How engaging is that for others we seek to reach?

By sharing my narrative I expose the feelings that indicate my beliefs. I neither defend nor reject them, I simply acknowledge their existence and expose their level of importance to me. Since I don’t have to qualify my beliefs I feel free to share how I arrived at such beliefs. It’s a vulnerable space I protect from premature repudiation, to preserve intimate awareness. In the process I naturally invite others to more deeply feel their beliefs, to repudiate their own thinking norms, and find their own truth.

Narrative sharing tends to be more inviting and potentially more engaging than our typical Western styled didactic approaches. It invites others to relate in their own terms. Narrative sharing doesn’t ask for agreement, rather it asks for sharing the journey to those experiences shaping our beliefs. Political generalizations have an insidious way of overemphasizing our differences. Narratives potentially spark awareness of our common humanity, where it transcends all divisions and disharmony.

Transcending political differences

Not to say there is no place for political discourse. Can we do a little of both? Is there some way to integrate the two? Is there some way to invite understanding without relying so narrowly upon political rhetoric? Raw discourse is great when appealing to a mindset ready to share our beliefs, but can easily alienate a broader audience ready to empathize with our cause if expressed through a relatable character and plot driven narrative. The privileged white liberal has some experiences in common with the anarchist person of color, but if they start with their political differences, trying to convince one another of the rightness of their views, they will tend to keep invisible this potential for empathetic connection.

Understandably, sharing opinions feels safer in mixed company than exposing our feelings. The more diverse we find ourselves, the more we tend to depend upon the common ground of shared generalizations. Like traditional gender and sexuality norms getting in the way of our full potential, I find other interpersonal norms limiting our optimal possibilities. That includes imposed political divisions, as well as the constructed divide between rational thought sharing and emotional narrative sharing.

Narrative sharing challenges these norms of privileged alienation. By privileged alienation I mean the normalization of social spaces with others we barely know and accords advantages to those who function well with little if any intimate awareness of one another. It is a privilege skewed toward those with recognizable identities and against those with emergent identities. Who can know me as a transspirit if they have never heard of this potentiality?

Narrative sharing empowers us to transcend those political differences presumed in the norms of what Max Weber called rational-legal authority. Instead of constantly negotiating fluid social spaces, legal-rational authority allows us to settle for policies and norms established by our supposed cultural and political leaders who lay down the norms for us all to follow. That allows someone’s behavior on the West Coast to be readily predictable for someone on the East Coast. This mitigates stranger anxiety; otherwise the unpredictability of others would potentially make strangers of us all.

But such normative familiarity tends to stifle the diversity of human potential. Through narrative sharing we may find ways to explore such diverse human potential, as it finds expression in our unique experiences of gender and sexuality. I suspect nature counters this stifling of wholeness through organically atypical sexualities and gender modes. By being compelled to integrate my inner feminine and masculine ascribed energies I am naturally propelled toward communion of what is normatively alienated. This could create subject matter for a compelling, attention grabbing narrative.

Meanwhile, our unique experiences tend to be shared exclusively among group members and remain poorly understood outside of our social circles. In-group diversity tends to challenge any one-size-fits-all narrative, but is it not possible to craft a narrative with enough ambiguity to be more inclusive? Is it not possible to craft a narrative that starts to open vistas to welcome others’ insight into our uniquely shared experiences and needs? Or is it possible to craft a politics that allows others to understand me well enough to enter my space?

Transpolitical

For me, politics make good windows, but poor doors. They’re great for looking into my world and getting a sense about what is inside, but no one may enter simply by approaching me with some trusted sociopolitical category. As a transspirit, I tend to defy just about every constructed category put upon me, and even scapegoated for not easily fitting in where expected. This definitely includes any political categories. As a transspirit I am not only transgender, I am also trans-political. Pulled toward connecting to all potential, I naturally transgress the political divide. I naturally yearn to connect to all across the political spectrum.

As I listen to the narrative of my conservative friends I hear them expressing their ego needs as more pressing than their social needs. Their sense of belonging tends to be richly met in their close-knit circles. But who they are individually, with unsettling erotic desires or anxieties toward a larger impersonal world crashing in on their smaller tightly-knit circles, appears painfully exposed and wanting. To fill that void, I see them gravitating toward ideals of individualism, as an ideological or even pragmatic hope to ease the pains of unmet ego needs. If by some chance they can actually ease their strained ego needs, I see them becoming less dogmatically conservative.

Likewise, as I listen to the narrative of my liberal friends I hear them expressing their social needs as more pressing than their ego needs. Their sense of identity tends to be richly met with a strong sense of who they are in any social environment. But who they are socially, negotiating where and how their unique selves may fit into their many social environments, appears painfully exposed and wanting. To fill that void, I see them gravitating toward ideals of collectivism, as an ideological or even pragmatic hope to ease the pains of unmet social needs. If by some chance they can actually ease their strained social needs, I see them becoming less dogmatically liberal.

When attempting to critique their political views they tend to react as if it was an attack. They circle the wagons, only to reinforce the very views I invited them to question. Often, all I am doing is attempting to share some wisdom to perchance open a dialogue to their life stories. It is not my intent to impress them with my words of wisdom, as if I could ever change their political views. As long as their needs swing toward imbalance (and who of us doesn’t by at least some degree?), I don’t see any amount of convincible rhetoric will ever sway them.

Narrative sharing isn’t about demanding a change in one’s beliefs. But it can begin an exploration to uncover the experiences and their interpretations leading to our hardened beliefs. Instead of my ideas asking them to see what’s inside my head, my narrative invites them to come and see what’s in my heart. And it’s mutual. I’d rather relate to what they honestly feel than sort through what they think. Yeah, it goes both ways. Like most of them, I’m open to any opinion, except those being crammed down my throat.

Steph Turner served as editor to a zine for and by trans/GNC prisoners (2005-2008) till the money ran out, and was a regular contributor to Fort Wayne’s (IN) Reality Magazine (2009-2010) till the money ran out and it folded too. After earning a master’s in public admin with a nonprofit emphasis and serving as a strategic planning consultant to a statewide trans org, Steph is currently working on a second master’s degree, in counseling, at least till the money runs out.

Dear Slingshot,

I was happy to see Alex making the effort to keep prisoners in the loop with their article “RABBID Wants You to Write Prisoners.” Hey Alex, I dig mail! I also really dig that Alex did not refer to us as “inmates,” a term of derision inside the walls (Liane Apple, please take note). However, Alex should know that there’s no such thing as a “Prison Industrial Complex (PIC).” This is a misnomer Angela Davis has been trumpeting for years, and as far as I can tell, she made it up. It falsely implies that somehow various governments, state and federal, are making money from prisons, when nothing could be further from the truth. Even with our slave labor, the profits, if any, are negligible and prisons are bleeding state budgets and taxpayers dry. There is nothing “industrial” or “complex” about prison, so people should refrain from using this misleading terminology.

In counter-rhythm,

Rand Gould C-187131

Thumb Correctional Facility

3225 John Conley Dr.

Lapeer, MI 48446

Dear Rand,

Thanks for writing! We dig mail too! But I’m going to keep using the term “Prison Industrial Complex” and here’s why:

The body of a prisoner is a hot commodity under capitalism. Every aspect of a prisoner’s life is parceled up by the government and auctioned off to corporations. Multinational powerhouses such as Sodexo, Aramark, Westinghouse, GEO Group Inc, Correctional Communications Corp., Sprint, and AT&T (to name a few) have won massive government contracts to exclusively sell or rent their shitty food, furniture, facilities, vehicles, surveillance & communications technologies to prisons at inflated prices. (Ever wonder why it costs six times the normal amount to make a collect call from prison? …this would be why.) Some corporations–such as American Express and General Electric–have gone so far as to construct private prisons in Oklahoma and Tennessee which they rent out to the state at a profit.

With over 1 percent of the American population behind bars at this time, the prison market is booming and CEOs are scrambling to get a piece of the pie. As of 2011, total state spending on corrections reached about $52 billion–which is double the cost it was ten years before. Taxpayers are picking up this enormous bill, which subsidizes the corporations that profiteer off prisons.

The irony of all this–or “strategic investment incentive,” depending on your point of view–is that prisons create more crime. Once you have prison time on your record, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to ever get a legit job again. In most states, you can’t even receive food stamps. After release, many former prisoners find they must engage in criminal activity to survive. It’s a vicious cycle, with over 40% of folks released from prison ending up back behind bars within 3 years.

It would seem the system is designed to keep its captive market captive, with the lobbyists and PR specialists that write the laws and control the mainstream media ensuring that the War on Drugs and fear of crime are used to legitimize the PIC to the taxpaying public.

Perhaps it isn’t a surprise that the emergence of the Prison Industrial Complex can be traced to banking tycoon Nelson Rockefeller, who, as governor of New York, signed the controversial Rockefeller Drug Laws into effect in May 1973. These laws instituted minimum sentencing of 15 years for possession of narcotics, criminalizing the choices made by consenting adults about what they do with their own bodies. These laws became the model for future drug laws that have dramatically bolstered the prison population.

Also, I wouldn’t discount the economic impact of prison labor. Around 1.6 million people are in state & federal prisons (as of the last U.S. census in 2010), and every able-bodied one of them is required to work. Prison laborers are paid between 23 cents and $1.15 an hour for manufacturing clothing, solar panels, weapons, etc. Although it is illegal for Federal Prison Industries (also called “Unicor”) to sell prisoner-made goods to consumers, the government purchases these goods, replacing private sector companies. The result is the elimination of manufacturing jobs, decreased wages, and subsequent damage to the economy. Last year, NASA contracted prisoners at San Quentin to make Satellite parts for pennies an hour–a job once reserved for unionized engineers. Soon, the products of prison labor will be floating between us and the stars.

I wish I could say that this is all some freakish accident. But the truth is, this is exactly how capitalism is supposed to operate. The Prison Industrial Complex is simply an extreme example of the way capitalism hijacks the lives of all workers: thanks to private property laws and the taking of the commons, the working class has been made doubly-free–We are free from the ability to provide for ourselves, and free to sell our labor to bosses. Ironically, capitalism’s exploitative double-freedom operates just as easily behind bars.

Over the last two decades, similar trends of privatization have occurred in education and medicine, with corporations increasingly forcing themselves into the lives of people who interact with those spaces. Last year, in the tiny college town of Davis, a group of students and teachers shut down a bank on their campus through peaceful protest. Now they are facing 11 years in jail. The corporations are determined to invade every scrap of public space left in the world, and if they deem you a threat to this conquest, you will end up serving them in prison.

In contra-rhyme,

Teresa Smith of the Slingshot Collective

As the winter snow descends on the North creating a pristine canopy of green and white, resistance remains strong and active at the Unist’ot’en Camp. Here, 66kms south of the colonial town of Houston, British Columbia, a solid core of indigenous community members and allies are forming a resistance community to protect unceded Wet’suwet’en territory. These ancestral lands are being threatened by several multi-billion dollar pipeline projects. These proposed pipelines represent the efforts of government and industry to construct a giant ‘energy corridor’ to connect Tar Sands and shale gas extraction projects with ports in Kitimat and Prince Rupert on BC’s west coast. The aptly renamed Carbon Corridor intends to blaze a right-of-way as much as three kilometres wide through hundreds of kilometres of wilderness, farmland, and traditional indigenous territory. The Unist’ot’en and their allies have determined to never allow this to happen.

In 2010 the Unist’ot’en clan decided to clear a site and begin building a cabin on their traditional territory of Talbits Kwa. The cabin is located on the west bank of Wedzin Kwa (colonially known as the Morice River), directly on the path of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway and Pacific Trails Pipelines (PTP). In the summer of 2012, construction on the cabin was completed just in time for the Grassroots Wet’suwet’en to host their third annual environmental action camp. The camp convergence was attended by over 200 supporters from across Turtle Island, and a crystallization of long-term solidarity took place as the grassroots Wet’suwet’en called for a shift from passive support to the forming of a concrete, committed network of allies.

During camp and the following months, many new structures were created including additional outhouses, a smokehouse, a sauna, a root-cellar, and a major expansion of the main cabin itself. Then, to defend against the probability of industry attempting to re-enter the territory, members of the Unist’ot’en and Likhts’amisyu clans made the important decision to permanently occupy the camp following the August convergence. The family did this to make a permanent home, and to allow for 100% monitoring of territory.

Crow, a permanent supporter at camp, reflects on the late summer and fall berry-picking season, and on the ecological stewardship of the territory practiced by the Wet’suwet’en. “When I arrived at camp in early September, I was amazed by the vastness of the berry patches. I had never seen such a wealth of berries in one place. Later I learned of practices that the Wet’suwet’en had to ensure the abundance of the land, practices that today are known as permaculture. More and more I am becoming aware of the wisdom that allowed the Unist’ot’en to live in harmony with the land, in a way that did not degrade the land base and did not rely on exploitation. That way of life, as well as the land itself, is what the Unist’ot’en Camp is here to defend,” states Crow.

The Grassroots Wet’suwet’en

The Wet’suwet’en are composed of five clans: Unist’ot’en, Likhts’amisyu, Gitimit’en, Lakh’silyu, and Tsayu. The Unist’ot’en (or C’ihlts’ehkhyu, Big Frog Clan) are the original Wet’suwet’en distinct to the lands of the Wet’suwet’en. Over time in Wet’suwet’en History, the other clans developed and were included throughout Wet’suwet’en territories. The Unis’tot’en were the strongest and most resilient clan as they dominated vast regions of Wet’suwet’en territory, and were know to adapt and thrive in very treacherous terrain. To this day, Wet’suwet’en territory remains unceded. They are not and never have been under treaty with the colonial government, and they maintain complete sovereignty over their lands which are not under the dominion of the Canadian state.

In order to assert their traditional sovereignty over the territory, the Grassroots Wet’suwet’en have broken away from the Office of the Wet’suwet’en (OW), an institution that was created as part of the treaty process with the Canadian government. Despite the presumptuous title, however, the Office of the Wet’suwet’en is not the representative of the Wet’suwet’en people, it is an illegitimate colonial proxy-institution that remained after all five clans of the Wet’suwet’en opted out of the treaty process in 2008. Today the Office of the Wet’suwet’en remains as a hub for corrupt community members to sign up-front deals with industry, which normally come with cash incentives. Most recently, OW has signed confidentiality and communications agreements with PTP and are trying to reignite the defeated treaty process with the government.

In the present day, the more traditionalist and grassroots elements of the Wet’suwet’en have designated themselves the Grassroots Wet’suwet’en to identify as separate from certain corrupted and co-opted segments of their nation. Asserting themselves as Grassroots Wet’suwet’en they do not operate from a boardroom, they walk and breathe their laws with a powerful and unbreakable marriage to the land.

The Pipelines

Several companies have proposed projects intending to cross Wet’suwet’en territory as part of industry and government’s conceptual “Energy Corridor.” Several shale gas pipelines are also proposed to run from Summit Lake and the Horn River and Liard Basins, fracking fields in northeastern BC’s Montney Shale Formation. The intended destinations of these pipelines are LNG processing terminals in Kitimat and Prince Rupert.

The first and most immediate threat to Wet’suwet’en territory is the Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP), which intends to transport shale gas through a 42 inch diameter bidirectional pipeline. The project including the pipeline and processing terminal on the coast called Kitimat LNG (KLNG) was shared by EOG Resources, Encana Corp., and majority owner Apache corp. of Houston, Texas. PTP is the intended trailblazer of the prospective ‘energy corridor,’ and plans to stretch 463km from BCs fracking fields, all the way to the Douglas Channel on the west coast.

Then, on Christmas eve, the KLNG/PTP project sent the Unist’ot’en resistance an interesting present. In a surpise move EOG and Encana sold their shares in the project to Chevron Canada, a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation, which will now move into a 50% ownership position along with Apache for the continuation of the project. This consisted of a big shift in the complexion of the project considering the small-player-status of EOG and Encana, vs. Chevron as the second biggest oil company in the U.S.

Coastal GasLink is another prospective shale gas pipeline and LNG terminal project proposal. The pipeline would initially carry 1.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Montney formation over 700 kilometres from Groundbirch, near Dawson Creek, also to Kitimat, on the west coast. The project is owned by a consortium of Companies called LNG Canada led by Shell Canada Limited, including Mitsubishi Corporation, KoreaGas (KOGAS), and Petrochina. TransCanada corporation is contracted by LNG Canada to build Coastal GasLink, the same company trying to force through the notorious Keystone XL Pipeline.

The LNG Canada project has been estimated to be in the $ 12 billion range, while the Coastal GasLink Pipeline is estimated at $ 4 billion, and according to BC Energy Minister Rich Coleman is slated as “one of the largest, if not the largest, investments ever in B.C.” The pipeline dimensions are projected at 48″ (1.2 meters), six inches larger in diameter than PTP. In short, everything about this pipeline is big.

But the Grassroots Wet’suwet’en have no intention of allowing any of the pipelines to happen. “The Unist’ot’en with Grassroots Wet’suwet’en will stop all pipelines by any means necessary. In solidarity with nations also opposing pipelines in their territories, we do not take any “Not In My Back Yard” approaches in our strong stance against poisoning waters for money and greed,” declares Freda Huson, spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en. “We stand beside communities in all directions taking action to stop the pipelines that exist,…. or proposed pipeline projects awaiting approvals.”

Resisting the Carbon Corridor

The Grassroots Wet’suwet’en have already twice acted to protect their territory from contractors working for the Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP) project. In November of 2011, they confronted, and escorted out, PTP field workers attempting to carry out directional drilling.

Just over a year later, On November 20th, a crew of surveyors was intercepted at the cabin site entering Unis’tot’en territory. In the absence of Freda Huson, Toghestiy, hereditary chief of the Likhts’ amisyu clan invoked biKyi’ waat’en, the right of the husband, in telling the industry surveyors to immediately leave the territory, and issued an eagle feather to the crew. In Wet’suwet’en law, an eagle feather indicates a first and only warning of trespass.

After they were turned back, a crew from Unis’tot’en camp snowmobiled some 20 kms to retrieve materials left behind by the work crew. The materials were confiscated and brought back to camp where they are being held until Apache and PTP agree to open up appropriate lines of communication with the Unis’tot’en. An active blockade of the territory started and a letter was delivered asserting the sovereignty of Wet’suwet’en territory and denying of consent to the pipeline project, stating that “any further unauthorized incursion into traditional Wet’suwet’en territory will be considered an act of colonialism, and an act of aggression towards our sovereignty.”

On December 6th, PTP under the cover of FNLP (First Nations Limited Partnership) held a town-hall meeting informational session at the Moricetown Band Office in an attempt to entice the community with the promise of economic benefits. The grassroots Wet’suwet’en quickly mobilized and stormed the meeting with banners, drums, and a traditional war dance. Towards the end of the meeting, Lhtat’en, an Unist’ot’en elder, speaking decisive words declared, “the Unist’ot’en have never lost any wars, and we won’t lose this one either!!” Facing overwhelming opposition and pressure from hereditary chiefs and clan members, the meeting was cut short and the FNLP reps fled without addressing the media.

Developing a Grassroots Network

The support from allies across the country during the November 27th day of action, Raising Resistance, proved that grassroots networks working together can equal or surpass the efforts of large NGO coalitions. Having money but often lacking base support, the NGO model has shown itself capable of mobilizing, and often wasting, large amounts of resources towards sensationalist one-off actions, and incapable, or uninterested, of developing meaningful relationships with communities. That is why the Unist’ot’en and Grassroots Wet’suwet’en in 2011 made the decision to turn from unhealthy, non-reciprocal NGO partnerships, and to go the grassroots direction instead looking to long-term sustained relationships for the future. In this context of looking to genuine, long-term community building, collectivist and mutual aid principles brought forward by Anarchist allies at camp have meshed well with communal indigenous practices.

Now is a crucial time to develop that spontaneous outpouring of grassroots support into a sustained solidarity network. Straight up, community awareness creates increased security for the camp. The more people that know about us and actively show support, the harder it is for government and industry to move against us.

The past and the future connect on the territory in a very important way. Hereditary chief Toghestiy explains how “the Grassroots peoples have a great potential to reverse impacts of colonization and eradicate the resultant social and spiritual poverty by continuing to show the next generations to walk with their laws. The Grassroots peoples of the Wet’suwet’en are healers, warriors, elders, hunters, fisherpeople, knowledge keepers, and are culturally driven.”

The camp and growing community at Talbits Kwa is an effort to get back to the land, and to reassert traditional practices. One of those practices is the Free Prior and Informed Consent Protocol where all visitors upon arrival wishing to enter the territory, must introduce themselves and answer questions before being granted permission to enter. This is a living assertion of traditional Wet’suwet’en law asserted via protocols such as this one for thousands of years. The Wet’suwet’en also had to present themselves as such when travelling to neighbouring peoples’ lands to conduct trade, build and maintain relationships, assist allies in battle, and attend feasts and ceremonies.

In the contemporary context, the Free Prior and Informed Consent protocol is part of an ongoing process of decolonization and harmonization. It serves as a re-actualization of natural law and a manifestation of mutual freedom and respect in moving across land and territories without state borders. It also presents an opportunity to implement a new standard of autonomy within indigenous territories, re-establishing spaces free of the existence of the state. One of the greatest necessities in addressing the global ecological crisis is the imperative to localize our economies, and this also requires us to localize our communities. As such, this new emancipatory process that the grassroots Wet’suwet’en have adopted offers an opportunity not only for political and cultural decolonization, but for the creation of healthy, local, and sustainable communities. The collective aspect of their strategy is that they are not claiming ownership over the grassroots FPIC protocol, but actively encouraging other clans, nations, and territories to do so as well.

Likhts’amisyu Chief Toghestiy speaks of harmonization as moving beyond decolonization. Having shed the social and cultural damage of the past, harmonization points toward creating a natural balance between human and the wild, and to understanding and coming into harmony with the interconnectivity of everything in the ecosystem. In other words, harmonization is the pursuit of an eco-spiritual balance. Toghestiy speaks of liberating our thoughts in order to cast aside the idea that there are superior and opposing forces. Fighting against something feeds energy to it, and so harmonization seeks to move beyond the idea and the omnipresence of capitalism and colonialism, and to live spiritually, socially, and culturally in a world that is ours, on our own terms.

Starhawk speaks of “embodying the alternative,” and Eduardo Galeano writes about finding answers to the future in the traditions of the past. That is what we are doing here. We are not just fighting to overcome the affliction of industrial consumerism, but for a way of life that is ancient and perfect. What is now unfolding on the west bank of Wedzin Kwa is not simply resistance to a pipeline and the defense of a territory, but the building and rebuilding of a radical alternative and traditional living. That is why such a strong emphasis at camp has been placed on community building and empowerment, so that organizing and resistance can be integrated into the spaces of everyday life. This is pre-figurative organizing that confronts an injustice by counteracting it with an alternative. The resistance community, therefore, is the illustration that building and creating is the most comprehensive form of resistance, that there is no separation between life, and the defense of life.

It is time to start creating communities that are both able to sustain themselves on their own terms, and able to maintain their autonomy from the ever-present threats of industry and state. Clearly it is a tall order to start a community from the ground up, and for that reason we encourage the forging of strong alliances with communities already on the ground, and new ones to come. The Unist’ot’en Camp anticipates total victory in its fight against the carbon corridor and the hope is that the success of this community can serve as an inspiration and as a demonstration of the possibilities born of strategic occupation. We expect victory to come with sacrifice and this success to come with our ability to mobilize and build relationships with the people, groups, and communities around us.

Let us unite and harmonize by always putting the earth first!

Check unistotencamp.wordpress.com to donate or unistoten on facebook.

February 14 – 18

Earth First! Winter Rendezvous Athens, OH appalachiaresist.wordpress.com

February 16

International Anti-Surveillance Day in solidarity with Berlin (see p. 14)

February 17

Los Angeles Zine Fest, @ Ukranian Cultural Center (4315 Melrose Ave) lazinefest.com

February 23

International Day for Privacy anonrelations.net/idp13-privacy-day-655

March 3

International Sex Worker’s Rights Day Look for events in your region

March 8

International Women’s Day internationalwomensday.com

March 15th

International Day of Action Against Police Brutality, Corruption, and Murder Demo Birmingham, UK facebook.com/birminghamstrong4justice

March 16 – 17

Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair XVIII The Armory Community Center @ 14th & Mission, San Francisco, CA bayareaanarchistbookfair.wordpress.com

March 17

Berkeley Anarchists Students of Theory and Research & Development (BASTARD) conference – East Bay sfbay-anarchists.org

March 24 • 4 pm

Slingshot new volunteer meeting / article brainstorm 3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley

April 6 • 2 pm

Meeting to discuss how Slingshot relates to digital technology – techies welcome 3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA

April 15

Steal Something From Work Day stealfromwork.crimethinc.com

April 15

Zagreb Anarchist Book Fair Zagreb, Croatia. ask-zagreb.org

April 20 3 pm

Article deadline for Slingshot #113 – send articles to slingshot@tao.ca

April 21 – 22

Look up! The Lyrids Meteor Shower peaks during this period

April 25

Denim Day, day to protest rape culture internationally denimdayinla.com

May 1

May Day & International Worker’s Day Ask an anarchist or an immigrant organizer about events in your area

May 12

Mother’s Day, the United States’ original anti-war holiday

May 13

Three Days of Struggle (Noise Festival) in Vittorio Veneto, Italy. codalunga.org

May 24 – 26

Balkans Anarchist Book Fair in Ljubljana, Slovenia a-federacija.org

May 25 – 26

Montreal Anarchist Book Fair and Festival of Anarchy anarchistbookfair.ca

June 8 – 9

The 37th Annual San Francisco Free Folk Festival @ Presidio Middle School (450 30th Ave @ Geary)

August 10 – 14

Joint conference of the Mycological Society of America and the American Phytopathological Society in Austin, TX msafungi.org

Ongoing Events

The San Francisco Critical Mass meets on the last Friday of every month at 6 pm in Justin Herman Plaza

Thanks to you if you bought a 2013 Slingshot organizer – selling them funds this paper and other radical projects! We still have a few copies available if you want to buy one or make a wholesale order. This year the binder made about 1,000 slightly defective pocket sized ones, so if you have ideas of ways to give free surplus copies to low-income teens or other folks who are unable to afford one, let us know. Email slingshot@tao.ca. 



We spotted two big errors in the organizer so far:

(1) In the spiral version only, on the 3rd page of the organizer that has a full year calendar for 2013 and 2014, the title at the top says “2013” over the 2014 calendar and “2014” over the 2013 calendar. Please correct it in your copy and tell your friends.

(2) In both versions the menstrual calendar is missing some numbers towards the end of each month. The calendar still works, i.e. the order is correct – you just have to hand-write in the last few numbers for each month. Below is a corrected version that you can paste into your organizer to fix the problem. This is also on our website so tell a friend.

Believe it or not we do have a big group of proofreaders each year, but sometimes errors creep through, even though when the proofreaders finished this year, they left so many sticky notes on the layout sheets that it looked like the organizer had chickenpox.

The award for the most creative use of the organizer goes to Diane of the Origami Resource Center. She made amazing book sculptures out of a box of surplus 2012 organizers and you can see photographs on their website.

Six months ago we agreed to create an organizer “app” for the iphone and other smart phones, but we still haven’t found a programmer who can turn our ideas into reality. If you know how to program smart phone applications, let us know. We can pay the right person to do this work. Let us know if you have specific suggestions for what you would like to see in an app.

We will continue making paper versions of the organizer, too, until someone pries the scissors and pens from our cold, dead hands.

Let us know if you want to help create the 2014 organizer. We’ll work on editing the radical historical dates in May and June, do the artwork for the calendar in July, and put the whole thing together over two hectic weekends August 3 & 4 and 10 & 11. If you want to design a section of the calendar or send us historical dates, let us know by June 22. Send us information for the radical contact list, cover art or features for the back by August 3.