Author: Slingshot Collective

Suigetsukan dojo in Oakland, California has long been popular in Bay Area progressive communities because of its balance of intensity and inclusion, tolerance of diverse life-styles, and sliding scale tuition. Compared to other places I’ve had the opportunity to train in North America, I’ve felt a supportive yet rigorous climate, one without machismo, mystification or mindgames. Suigetsukan hosts the Girl Army, a Women and Transgender Self-Defense program that integrates an anti-oppression analysis.

I was intrigued to hear of youth Jujitsu classes starting up at Suigetsukan, and surprised that word hadn’t gotten around in the community. In life’s tempest I had wandered to the Midwest for some years and come back to find a lot of my friends turned into ‘rents. And how were they showing their kids how to hold their own in Oakland? Didn’t they remember that cool dojo where squatters met nuclear engineers at swordpoint?

An Ancient Tradition

Jujitsu is derived from the grappling arts of the Samurai–techniques taught to defend themselves were they to lose their weapons on a battlefield. From these roots have evolved a wide variety of fighting techniques, including Judo, Aikido, and Brazilian Jujitsu. The style taught at Suigetsukan is Danzan Ryu, developed by Henry Okazaki after he immigrated to Hawaii from Japan. He was one of the first teachers of women and non-Japanese.

A little cross-culture reality-check: As Asian martial arts became popular in the West, an image emerged of a peaceful warrior. This icon not only hoped to use force only when necessary in an ideal sense, but also had the calm spirit to not rush to fearful conclusions, and the presence of mind to see non-violent alternatives.

Is this because Eastern culture is thoroughly infused with a mellow mysticism? Actually, the Japanese arranged their harsh, pragmatic arts as sport and personal development because the American occupiers frowned on anything resembling military activity. Before that, in the rush for Japanese military modernity in the late 1800s, practitioners of traditional warfare sought to preserve their craft as an idealized cultural heritage.

Meanwhile in China, according to legend when the Manchurians demanded the secrets of Tai Chi from their Chinese subjects under penalty of death, they were granted a watered-down recreational version. The emperors were happy. Yet in all the great traditions of the soul, from Bodhidharma to P.T. Barnum, showmanship and hype can be vehicles for the profound truths of life.

The Youth Program

All these ideals translate well into a youth program. Suigetsukan youth classes offer a safe environment for girls and boys to learn Jujitsu. Through a blend of games, drills and traditional forms training, students get to have fun while gaining all the well-known benefits of an early martial arts training such as improved self-esteem, confidence, focus and healthier bodies.

Sensei Gina Rossi is the lead youth instructor. She’s been studying martial arts for 19 years, and is a fourth degree black belt in Danzan Ryu Jujitsu and a third degree black belt in Aikido. She also teaches after school youth classes at Urban Promise Academy in Oakland and adult Jujitsu, Aikido and Battodo classes at Suigetsukan Dojo.

Usually I find martial arts classes hard to watch, something geared for a bodily participant rather than distant eyes. But this kids class fascinates. The children have silly natures. Gina must guide them to mastery without thwarting their true natures; it is a Ju-Jitsu of the spirit. “Have fun with this, but be serious,” she says. She must draw the line sometimes: “Try not to be silly.” This class could be the beginning of a life-long journey; it is more than social occasion. “Focus on yourself.”

Q: How did you [Gina] decide to coordinate the youth program? Was the program your idea?

Yes, the program was my idea. I had been teaching youth at a middle school after school program for a year and I decided to start the program at the dojo. I think having a youth program is an important part of a martial arts school.

Q: How are parents involved?

The parents are involved to varying degrees. One parent, Gopal Dayaneni, is also one of the instructors. He is a green belt at the dojo and teaches with me every Thursday. Some parents watch class and help out at events. Other parents just drop their kids off and come back when class is over.

Q: I see your “not-too-tight, not-too-loose” approach. How has practice shaped your original theory/ideas?

I started off not wanting to be authoritarian and wanting the kids to have fun but found that if I don’t have clear boundaries and structure then it isn’t as fun and we don’t get to do as much martial arts. So, I try to find a balance between serious training and time to be silly and I try to be transparent about it so the youth know what to expect.

Q: Suigetsukan’s been around for 20 years. Besides using the mat, how does the kid’s class build on that?

I think the youth program brings a lot to the dojo. It makes the dojo intergenerational. It is easier to integrate martial arts techniques at an early age. Many of the great martial artists started as kids (for example, our own Mike Esmailzadeh Sensei and Jonathan Largent Sensei). To learn more, see suigetsukan.org/youth-classes/.

I think anarchists should give up the notion of trying to make a difference within society. I do not mean that I think the anarchist-identified do not make any difference within society or that they should necessarily give up doing the things that they do; what I mean is that I think anarchists should do what only anarchists can do. Anarchists must informally attack society, and without a plan for the future. Modernity is a systemization of control, an entanglement of automation, which is much too large to contemplate or exist within in any meaningful capacity. Individual freedom cannot exist alongside society, but is brought about by the process of challenging society’s mandates. By introducing ourselves as personalities — living individuals with needs that are absolutely opposed to the needs of capital and the state — we supplant the detachment and isolation imposed on us with meaningful relationships informed by individual character. The liberal statists offer us change, and the leftist tendencies of our milieu set about changing change. However, as activists inaugurate society’s reform, they mostly only reform themselves into models of the alienation they set out to challenge. The system is efficient at imposing its mechanical silhouette across the lived experience of its subjects. The point of entry into political discourse is the willing resolution of innate antagonisms against the existent, and a propensity for self-deprecation. Whereas politics is the recuperation of interpersonal relationships by the state, activism becomes the descent into the shallows of surrogate activities.

It is not that I think anarchists should give up activism, but that they should give up activist work — and that is only because I am set at odds with the institution of work. I see the distinction as a matter of both perception and motivation. I think people should do nice things for other people, and I think people should struggle to stifle repressive elements of the status quo; but at the same time, avoid the urge to fill up their time with “productivity” or the ubiquitous “getting shit done”. Giving up the aptness to sacrifice ourselves in service of abstractions calls pretty much every justification for control and domination into question.

Let us not talk about politics. Political conversation is uninteresting because it is a consideration of power that does not end with the determined conclusion to destroy power. Let us instead talk about each other. Let us instead talk about ourselves. Let us instead talk about how it is that we will live together and against this world. So then, what is to be the point of our conversations? To experience joy. To come together with others. To fulfill our needs as humans. To engage in total liberation. To destroy society.

It seems naive to hope that this world is ever going to be anything more than it is presently. Even as we grow physically, as our relationships with each other grow and develop, everything around us departs this life and turns to dust. Each day we collectively experience such a tremendous loss that thoughts of the future are much more akin to a terrible nightmare. Surely, anarchists are not the only ones that dream of freedom. Our style of living and our ideas about how to live intersect within our daily actions. In fact, friendship and the theory of friendship — which can be lived as the same thing — are the essential element of the impulse for limitless association. Too often, we forego dialogue and experiences that would help to explain the complexity of our relationships, and instead opt for alienated forms. Through actual conversation there is the spread of shared affinities — of mutual desire communicated through similar frustrations. We want to pursue radical discourse that does not conclude with the inception of played out projects or the formation of impersonal collectives.

Jean Weir says, “Anarchists are judged by other comrades according to what they say and do, and the coherence between these two factors, not through diatribes about their personal — real or invented — attributes as practiced by organizations that rely on charismatic leaders…”

By striving to become as unique as possible we directly subvert the irrelevance that we have inherited; when we meet with others on those terms we can form meaningful relationships that are in conflict with the present social order in every aspect. Deepened self-knowledge and the consideration of personal needs instigate conflict with the existent. Alienated forms form alienation, whereas diminutive forms encourage the experimentation of freedom and participation in liberation.

All we can really do is hang out with our friends, break stuff, open cages, lie to authority, cheat the system, steal everything, and talk shit about the people we do not like. Nothing is going to change about society.

Students around the US are building towards a National Day of Action for public education on March 2 to maintain and expand public education and oppose plans to defund and dismantle it. State budget shortfalls caused by the recession are being used as an excuse to undermine public education by laying off teachers and staff, dramatically increasing fees for higher education, and pushing privatization. There are also growing attacks on education workers, their unions, and their pensions.

Students are pushing back — March 2 will feature student strikes, marches and direct action. In addition to demanding free, quality public education from pre-K to graduate school by taxing the rich and corporations, student are seeking meaningful participation in governance of the educational system.

Students at the 10-campus University of California (UC) system will confront the UC’s governing Regents at a March 15-18 meeting at UC San Francisco. The Regents are appointed by the governor and have no accountability to students.

The overall shift of the UC system and other public universities around the world is towards a more privatized model with more money coming directly from corporations to carry out research for private, not public, goals. Struggles against privatization at universities represent a conscious challenge to the trend towards corporate control throughout society.

Governments around the world are instituting austerity measures that attack social services including public universities. Students in England facing a tripling of tuition to 9,000 pounds took their outrage to the streets in coordinated national actions. They broke into Torie headquarters and a group attacked Prince Charles’ car when it blundered into the protest. Someone yelled “Off With Their Heads!”

In Italy, students took over a highway, invented the bookbloc, and occupied the Leaning Tower of Pisa (!). Puerto Rico is seeing increased activity around la Universidad de Puerto Rico. Venezuela has had its own series of student protests. And this is barely the tip of the iceberg of the global fight for public education.

Without a doubt, we cannot rely purely on the spectacular actions — there is no moment of instantaneous change. This points us towards is the importance of sustainability. How can we create a culture of resistance that will prove most fruitful in the long haul?

Student activists have contact with hundreds of people. Some people are sympathetic while others aren’t. And even more haven’t formed a definite opinion. As we have seen in the Americas and Europe this past year, students are ripe with political rage. It is important to try and gauge where people are at through conversation. Asking questions like “Have you heard about March 2nd?” or “What do you think about the regents meeting?” can bring one to realize either that exciting things are happening or that some energies need to be spent disseminating information. I focus on information because I believe it provides something that is important: presence. Without a perceivable presence on campus (or anywhere), it becomes difficult for anyone to get involved in exchanges and activities surrounding issues of concern.

People working together is powerful. There is no doubt that energies are high around the world. Our goals should include sustaining our acts of resistance and solidarity at the university and beyond.

Abandoned homes tell a story of violence. These forgotten buildings tell us that this capitalistic culture would rather throw it all away than to allow us a shred of human dignity. They are a visceral reminder that the dollar takes precedent over human rights and common compassion.

During this period of recession our landscape is dominated by these acts of violence. While the system shows its true colors, there is an opportunity to visibly resist the violence of this system, but also to build an infrastructure of resistance, which we can defend. Housing occupations, long-term squatting, and other land actions allow us to publicly and in very real terms reject the system of private property while creating alternatives and a network of support for others who resist. We have no chance of changing the world if we lack a space to organize and lay our heads. Nor do we have a chance if we are slaving our lives away to pay rent.

A successfully defended squat (especially one rooted in its neighborhood community) could provide the spark of inspiration leading to a surge of reclaimed and occupied spaces. As occupied spaces have a vested interest in the defense and survival of other occupied spaces, strong networks of solidarity could be created that in turn could be applied to liberation struggles outside of the squatting / occupation scene.

If you’re interested in rent free living, finding an abandoned building will be easy. Finding the right abandoned building, and the right people to collaborate with can be hard, so make sure to be picky with both. Ride around town on your bike with a pen and pad. Jot down address of houses you think are abandoned. Some clues are overgrown lawns, overfilled mailboxes, and boarded windows. A nifty trick is taping the door to the doorframe somewhere discrete and coming back to check if the tape had been broken. Search on-line for a city blight / board-up list which has properties that the city had to clean or board up.

Research the spots you scope by using your local on-line assessors map to find the parcel number (APN), and use that on the county tax record site to view its tax history. Some counties won’t let you get owner’s info on-line, so just call the assessors office. Relevant information would be the current and past ‘owners’, and their address (don’t stress, people ask for this information all the time and for many different reasons). If the goal of your occupied space is longevity then consideration must be given to what the chances are of owners coming to the space (be they banks or individuals). If the goal is to defend the space then it should be considered what type of owner would be more universally resisted (probably a bank).

It is not illegal to enter a building if it’s wide open, but I doubt you will be that lucky. It might be a good idea to scope it out during the day to get an idea of what tools you might need. Most would agree that exploration should be done at night. Be mindful of light and noise. It might be wise to minimize your time carrying tools as they can be hard to explain should someone ask. If the space is to your liking it could be a good time to change the locks. If there isn’t one already, put up a mailbox and have mail sent, in your name, immediately. It will be useful later.

Often, the first major trial for a squat is the initial police encounter. The longer you’ve been established before this encounter the better. As it is often suspicious neighbors that will call the police it is extremely important (and neighborly) to communicate with those living in the area. When the police do come, your attitude of legitimacy, proof of occupancy, and knowledge of local law will be your greatest tools. Keys to the house (to prove access) and mail (addressed and stamped) can be considered the bare minimum but utility bills add to the legitimacy. Research of state, county, and city law can be done over the internet but your local law library can be an invaluable resource. Try looking up state civil codes that deal with occupancy. The saying that ‘possession is 9/10ths of the law’ applies in some states where occupancy is considered ownership (unless proven otherwise).

City building and coding people can be a wild card. They have the power to declare a building unlivable and have people evicted immediately. This is more of a concern if the building lacks any utilities (many areas require a building have water, electric, and gas to be considered livable). Officials will most likely just look at the meters (and meters can be hard to get) so its preferable to chose a building with the meters preexisting.

In these days of economic upheaval, the iron is hot for us to take back our lives. Working a job to make your landlord rich is slavery, and squatting is nothing less than emancipation from the system of debt peonage. Collective revolt can happen if we know a better world is possible, and we can prove it with squatting and solidarity.

When I dropped into Oakland 8 months ago my plan was to hang out for a week or two, catch up with some friends, and continue south to Mexico. But not long after I arrived some friends and I took a liking to a well abandoned building. For 7 months an average of 15 people, 2 cats and 3 dogs called that building home.

At first only a few people from our greater community desired to live in and repair a building that had more than its fair share of feces, syringes, and garbage. Trash was bike carted out, toilets snaked, walls scraped and painted. Months of work went into the yard, now a flourishing garden. It took weeks of constant labor to get the plumbing functional and $280 for the water meter. We gathered wood to fix floors, make tables and bunk beds. We secured donations of windows and doors, and the house lit up more with each week.

It wasn’t long before the police kicked in our door, claiming we were burglarizing the place. We presented mail, keys, a water bill and an ID with current address; overwhelming evidence of legit occupancy. California civil code §1006 clearly states that occupancy is sufficient title of ownership unless it’s contested in court by other title holders. The burden of proof is on the non-occupants: a perceived owner must contest the ownership of the occupants in court. It is possible to get legal title of the property through 5 years of uninterrupted occupancy (and paying all back taxes) in a process called adverse possession. In the months to come we would be visited more by police, a city building inspector, and eventually people claiming to be the long absent property “owners”.

Once the house was established it removed much of the ever present risk that all we had created would be taken away without warning. It was easier to find people willing to work on and live in the space. Before long water flowed where none had before for over 15 years. The yard of head-high thistles and weeds was transformed into a garden of edible plants and flowers. Rooms once filled with rubble housed artists, lovers, travelers, animals, builders, and revolutionaries. We transformed silent and lonely spaces with conversation, music, and laughter. Projects were thought up and enacted. Plans were made. Life created.

We were able to achieve a lot in the following months, but we lacked resources for some bigger projects. Although donations from neighbors helped us make some structural repairs to the house, certain areas, such as the roof, were not repairable. For the roof we settled for some plastic sheeting to cover the bigger gaps temporarily for the rainy season. Electricity too, was a difficult situation. The meter had been completely removed by the electric company and to get a new one we needed to present a title proving ownership of the building. We used LED light arrays, wired to batteries in the mean time (although many wanted to keep the house off the grid permanently).

A main goal was to open up the first floor, a large open space, and the garden into a community center. Projects for the space included a radical library, free store, DIY bike space and event hall. We hosted garden work parties, often helped the neighborhood kids work on their scraper bikes, invited people to look through our free store, and held an event to raise funds and awareness for Black Mesa, but a lot of work and resources were still needed in order to open the doors to the public.

Snafu

It was around this time that a man claiming to be one of 8 owners of the building appeared in our back yard. At the time we had no reason not to believe him since his name did appear in the county records although later the issue of ownership became increasingly unclear due to numerous contradictory statements by the alleged owners. He had decided to check out his property while passing through town. He was surprised but friendly and told us how trashed the house was when he was last there, nearly a year ago, and how good it looked now. We told him how we had improved the house, protected it from being scrapped many times, and how we brought the house out of blight by following the directions of the building and coding inspector (replaced windows, cut down and disposed of high weeds, painted the front of the building).

He told us a bit about his family, black Muslims that had lived in and around the Bay Area for generations, eventually accumulating a fair amount of real estate. Later, his sister and co-owner also came to check out the house with two of her daughters. They seemed pleased and excited that the house was getting put to such inspiring use. Their liability was their main concern, so we drafted a waiver of liability, ready for their next visit. Everyone in the house was excited that the owners turned out to be so supportive of what we were doing. They assured us we were not going to get kicked out without notice.

That excitement was short lived. Another co-owner and family member came, and he was much more business minded. He said they were to sell the house, but the process wouldn’t be started until January, so we had that much time to figure things out. He came back soon after, the day before Thanksgiving, and told us we had to be out in eight days. We called him many times in those eight days, both directly and via a third party. We offered many alternatives, from working with a professional in bringing the house up to code in exchange for staying there, to rent-to-own agreements, to just plain paying rent, and all were rejected blankly. We brought up that we were legally entitled to a minimum of 1 month notice before getting evicted. They didn’t care, and claimed that they would be there that day with cops and friends to evict us.

We figured our worst-case scenario was that the cops would come, declare we were trespassing, and we would barricade inside and eventually be arrested. The situation was made more difficult because over half of the house’s full time occupants left to travel, coincidentally, just weeks before the eviction. We created a phone tree and invited friends to occupy with us.

On December 2nd the owners came with the police, as promised. The police asked us for proof of residency and we presented our water bill. The police then told the owners that they would have to file an eviction notice and packed up to leave. Before they had left unidentified associates of the owners (thought to be a combination of friends, relatives, and people they hired) hopped the fence to the back yard and succeeded in removing the barricade. What followed was truly chaotic and can’t be fully described from any one point of view.

After the hard barricade was broken and they gained entry, occupants were repeatedly assaulted and battered. The occupants, without much conversation or planning, sat in and around the back door forming soft barricades. During this time, individuals non-violently forming the soft barricade had book shelves thrown at them, were slapped on the face, had a dish rack with cutting knives thrown at them, and were trampled, in one case resulting in a concussion. Personal items were smashed and stolen, along with tools. Furniture was destroyed and thrown out the back door down a flight of stairs to the back yard. Veggies and bushes growing in the garden were ripped out of the ground and the donated lemon tree was trampled.

As people were being attacked many of those present including house members and supporters urged the police to be called. Despite our general distaste for the state, many felt we had no other option in response to the escalating violence. As the police liaison, I was responsible for making that call. When the police returned all those being most violent quickly left except one who was arrested. That owner, who himself tried to have us arrested, was put in handcuffs, and later cited and released.

In the days after we issued a statement on-line and continued to try and open
dialog with the owners. They responded with threats, often made on the comments sections of various on-line articles. One of the owners’ associates, who was also very aggressive and violent at the attempted eviction, stalked the house and one night punched a house mate in the ear while he was entering the house. Those days were tense, as were the discussions on what to do.

Around a week later, in the middle of the day, a group of 8 or so men armed with bats and hammers stormed the house forcing the few people that were there out on to the street. Out front on the sidewalk the owner’s extended family, including middle school aged kids, were there to insult, degrade and threaten those they were evicting. They allowed some people to go in one at a time to gather belongings from the house but those people were intensely intimidated while inside and alone. Many personal items were stolen, and they damaged the house itself (ripped out walls, broke windows) apparently to make it unlivable. A group of friends and housemates were punched and slapped while they were leaving, a few blocks from the house.

The building, what we call the Safehouse, is still there on 3277 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland, trashed and empty. It’s hard to explain in words what the Safehouse was to those who had the experience of creating there. It was living proof that we indeed had the power to change the world (or a very small part of it) in a very real way. Things left wasted by our society could be reclaimed, reshaped, and used in ways thought impossible in our day and country. We may have failed at creating an overt, long term, squatted, community space and radical housing project (no small feat in the USA), but we now know that such projects are not only possible but inevitable if we can learn from our mistakes.

Book by: Kathy Labiola

Greenery Press (2010) $15.95

While a number of good books about polyamory — having sexual / emotional relationships with more than one person at a time — have come out over the last dozen years, those curious about the subject will want to check out Kathy Labiola’s new book because of her unique perspective and focus. Labiola is a practicing relationship counselor and draws upon her work with many poly clients to address practical issues (jealousy, disclosure, honest communication, etc.) that come up for people trying to carry on open relationships.

Labiola has also been poly herself for almost 40 years, so she can also draw on her personal experiences with the subject. I found her writing funny, daringly honest and easy to get through. She writes from an explicitly activist and feminist perspective — it is nice to read about someone wanting only secondary relationships because they’re busy with a lot of activist meetings!

Rather than mostly containing an argument for the viability or “ethical” quality of a poly lifestyle, Love in Abundance is directed towards people who are already convinced that open relationships make sense to them, but who may need help actually making them work in practice.

The book is full of check-lists and specific tips. My favorite sections were on communication skills, which I think could be helpful for monogamous as well as poly people. She has a great section on metacommunication — communicating about communication itself. Labiola breaks down communication into a few basic purposes: to make connection, to solve a problem, to ask for support, etc. Person A may be communicating to ask for support, and if person B understands it as an attempt at problem solving, they may fail to connect. If person B first takes time to understand the purpose of the communication, they can react more appropriately and avoid friction.

Another insightful section is on disclosure. Labiola has observed that most people fall into one of two camps: either you want as much information as possible to feel empowered by knowing all the details, or alternatively knowing details causes you to fixate and feel overwhelmed, and it is actually better to know less. Knowing which camp you and your partner are in and figuring out what facts you need to know to feel safe can make life a lot easier. One of my favorite parts of the book is where Labiola publishes her three page long list of precisely what she wants to know from her partners about their involvement with a third person. Getting to the point where you know what you need to know — and communicating it with your partners — is an advanced state of honesty and self-knowledge.

I recommend Labiola’s book even while I feel very far from being comfortable with either the poly vision it presents, or monogamy. Becoming sexually involved with another person — which at the time usually feels like the expression of a special closeness with that person — very often eventually destroys all connection with that person when the relationship breaks up. While ex-lovers often never want to see each other again, friends rarely break-up. Sometimes you may drift away from a friend over time, but that doesn’t require you to fight, cling to past ways of relating that may change, or declare a formal end to the relationship. Friends can be more accepting and free about each other — less rigid and bound by abstract rules of how the friendship is supposed to be. I’m still close with many “platonic” friends I made 30 years ago and I often feel a greater degree of emotional intimacy with them than I do with people I’m dating.

If sex so often separates us, rather than unites us, with people we love, maybe it makes more sense to concentrate on non-sexual love and intimacy with other people, which you can have with a number of people simultaneously under either poly or monogamous rules. Domestically, the monogamous ideal is living with one other person and perhaps any children from the relationship. The poly domestic arrangement described by Labiola would be living with a number of lovers, or perhaps living part time with one lover, and part time with another. A third option — sort of neo-poly because it is non-sexual and yet involves more than one person — is communal living in which one lives with and is emotionally close with a number of housemates who are not sexual partners. This maximizes intimacy and options for community but downplays issues of jealousy, possessiveness, competition, and the risk that relationships will be destroyed in the heat of a sexual breakup.

Labiola’s book is about how to have practical poly relationships — figuring out rules based on everyone’s consent and open communication. Building relationships with rules and expectations means you’ll still face breakups and lots of opportunities for people to hurt each other. I appreciate the poly scene because it seeks to question and change some of the most oppressive rules of monogamy, but it is up against very deep sexual repression and patriarchal socialization that most of us hold deep within us.

From a certain point of view, Labiola’s description of the very real limits of polyamory is depressing. We want love in abundance, but we’re merely imperfect humans doing the best we can, and real abundance may be beyond our capacity at this moment in history. Having more love than permitted under tradition rules — either through polyamory or trying to expand the emotional content of all types of relationships — is a good direction to move.

[Full disclosure: Labiola has helped Slingshot collective by typing prisoner addresses into our mailing list.]

Thanks to folks who bought a 2011 Slingshot organizer. We still have copies available if you want to buy one or make a wholesale order. 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’ll be making the 2012 organizer this summer — it will be available October 1. Let us know if you want to help us make the 2012 organizer. Here is a timeline for the work:

• In May and June, we’ll edit, correct and improve the list of historical dates. Deadline for finishing: June 24.

• If you want to design a section of the calendar, let us know or send us random art by June 24. Deadline to finish calendar pages or give us suggestions for 2011 is July 29.

• We need all new radical contact listings and cover art submissions by July 29.

• If you have ideas for the short features we publish in the back, let us know by July 29. We try to print different features every year.

• If you’re in the Bay Area July 30/31 or August 6/7, we loving having help with the final organizer design — all done by hand, which is extra fun. Contact us. We especially need to find some really careful proofreaders those weekends.

Finally, let us know if you want to throw us a party to celebrate taking it to the printer, or have a publication release party.

Outcast calendar

February 19 – 20 • 9-5 pm

Teach in on racism & police violence 1023 MacArthur Blvd. Oakland, CA -oaklandtribunal@gmail.com

March 2

Day of action for public education – mobilizeberkeley.com

March 8 • 3 pm

Mardi Gras and International Women’s Day – Berkeley parade at People’s Park

March 15 – 18

Protest University of California Regents meeting – San Francisco

March 19 • Noon

Protest the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq – rally and march – 7th & Market, SF

March 27 • 4 pm

Slingshot new volunteer meeting – 3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley

April 1 – 4

Power Shift youth environmental / social justice convergence – RFK Stadium, Washington, DC energyactioncoalition.org

April 1 – 3

All power to the Imagination conference – New College, Sarasota, FL, allpowertotheimagination.com

April 9 – 10 • 10-6 pm

Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair – San Francisco County Fair Building, 9th & Lincoln

April 9

New York City Anarchist book fair – Judson Memorial Church – anarchistbookfair.net

April 10

Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory and Research & Development (BASTARD) conference – UC Berkeley campus sfbay-anarchists.org

April 15

Steal Something from Work Day

April 16 • 3 pm

Article deadline for Slingshot issue #106

April 16 – 17 • 10 – 6 pm

Boston Skillshare – Simmons College – bostonskillshare.org

April 22 – 24

Houston Anarchist Book Fair & Film Festival – houstonanarchistbookfair@gmail.com

May 21 – 22 • 10 – 5 pm

Montreal Anarchist Book Fair – CEDA, 2515 rue Delisle – anarchistbookfair.ca

May 17 – 18

Montreal 6th annual International Anarchist Theatre Festival – anarchistetheatrefestival.com

May 27 – 6 pm

SF Critical Mass bike ride Justin Herman Plaza – always the last Friday

June 25 – 26 • 12 – 10 pm

San Francisco Free Folk Festival – Presidio Middle School – sffolkfest.org