Author: Slingshot Collective

As biodiesel becomes increasingly popular, we need a sobering reality check about its “sustainability”. As a potential solution to the crisis of disappearing oil reserves and climate change, there is a lot more to the picture than dumpster diving french fry grease to run hippie buses. We are now at a point where there is more demand for biodiesel than can be provided by used cooking oil. “If the entire annual output of used vegetable oil were diverted into the fossil fuel market, it would last us 36 hours,” according to Alexis Ziegler. The specter of industrial agriculture growing acres of genetically engineered mono crops in order to continue to power inefficient large vehicles, is anything but green. While biodiesel is debatably less toxic and has less emissions than petroleum-based diesel when burned, can function in current diesel engines and is touted as a candidate to replace fossil fuels as the world’s primary energy source for transportation, a number of important questions still remain unexamined.

One critique often absent in the biodiesel argument is the fact that a biodiesel world does nothing to diminish car culture and its requisite problems. It would be wonderful if only public transportation was a candidate for biodiesel conversion — this at least could be sustainable. However, biodiesel fans, in their enthusiasm to convert all cars don’t seem to consider the fact that roads will continue to take over what little we have left of nature, and we will not be any further away from a society of isolating over-consumption. Sure, SUV’s and other huge gas guzzlers are terrible for the environment but is a biodiesel Hummer really that different?

Though studies show that some emissions are less for biodiesel than petrol diesel, biodiesel still does not burn clean. Also there is little consideration of the often inefficient, old, polluting engines that are burning the biodiesel. In addition, there is a lack of information about the quality of fuel being burned from numerous unregulated sources. Many can attest to bodily reactions from breathing the french fry stench spewing out of biodiesel powered trucks.

Same infrastructure: Agribusiness, Capitalism

One major question, we must ask ourselves in the current frenzy of biodiesel love is whether it is sustainable on a global level which means looking beyond whether the EPA considers biodiesel a hopeful way to mitigate global warming. What about the problems that no “green” car can solve such as traffic accidents, road rage, and destruction of wetlands in favor of freeways and parking lots.

Another big problem caused by biodiesel is that it sets up a competition for land use. Arable land that would otherwise have been used to grow food or left wild would instead be used to grow fuel.

While some believe biodiesel is a grassroots effort with a minimal audience, the truth is that agribusiness and capital already have plans to reap huge profits from the world’s intentions to “cure their oil addiction,” which not surprisingly include environmental degradation, exploitation of workers, and large scale production plants popping up in countries all over the world. ADM (Archer Daniels Midland), the world’s largest agricultural processors of soybeans and corn and the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent US history, recently announced plans to build its first wholly owned biodiesel production facility in the US. According to ADM, the 50-million-gallon facility will be located in North Dakota and will use canola oil as its primary feed stock. ADM is already part owners of large biodiesel plants in Germany and Singapore.

Palm Oil and its path of destruction

Far uglier than the fact that biodiesel does nothing to change car culture is something that the biodiesel industry fails to mention in their marketing and promotion. While the European Union, the British and US government, and thousands of environmentalists imagine biodiesel as simply leftover vegetable oil or grease from McDonalds or even oil from algae growing in a pond, and enthusiasts continue to slap “Biodiesel for the Revolution” bumper stickers on their cars, they don’t realize that the major resource fueling the “revolution” will be at the expense of destroyed land and cheap labor from the palm oil industry in Southeast Asia.

There is increasing evidence and concern that the environmental impacts of palm oil include clearing rain forests to make room for large, new palm plantations and reducing habitat for threatened species such as the orangutan. What’s more, the resulting plantations are often run by agribusiness using low paid migrant workers destroying local and indigenous cultures.

The Malaysian government is refocusing the use of palm oil for production of biodiesel due to the growing demand for alternative fuel sources. The plants produce 100,000 tons of biodiesel annually and because Malaysia is the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil, they intend to make the most of its advantages.

According to George Biodet of the London Guardian, other new refineries are being built in the Malaysian Peninsula, Sarawak and Rotterdam. Two foreign consortiums – one German, one American – are setting up rival plants in Singapore. All of them will be making biodiesel from the same source: oil from palm trees. “The demand for biodiesel,” the Malaysian Star reports, “will come from the European Community … This fresh demand … would, at the very least, take up most of Malaysia’s crude palm oil inventories.” Why? Because it is cheaper than biodiesel made from any other crop.

Effects on Land Use

Some nations that have pondered transitioning fully to biofuels have found that doing so would require immense tracts of land if traditional crops are used. Analyzing the amount of biodiesel that can be produced per unit area of cultivated land, some have concluded that it is likely that the United States, with one of the highest per capita energy demands of any country, does not have enough arable land to fuel all of the nation’s vehicles. Other nations may be in better situations, although many regions cannot afford to divert land away from food production. “Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning” noted Cornell Scientist David Pimentel.

Industrial agriculture requires petroleum inputs in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel for tractors and transport. “American agriculture now invests three calories of fossil fuel for each calorie it produces. That is long before anyone considers putting those calories into a gas tank,” observes Pimentel. What about the long list of additional costs of industrial agriculture such as polluted runoff, topsoil loss, habitat loss, farm workers’ illnesses from pesticide exposure, ground water depletion, contamination of traditional crops from genetically engineered crops, unpredictable damage to natural ecosystems from genetically engineered organisms, loss of small family farms and arable land in general, consolidated control of our food supply by large corporations and so on. So while filling up your tank at Berkeley’s own Biofuel Oasis, which seasonally sells fuel from industrially grown and most likely genetically engineered, virgin soy oil, consider these ramifications.

Conclusion

Instead of repeating the same old patterns of unsustainable use and swapping one industrial fuel dependency for another, its time to move beyond the reformist preservation of car culture which stands behind the banner of biodiesel. Real solutions are needed that address our society’s tendency to use up one resource and move on to the next until the new crisis is upon us. We should all raise our eyebrows and wonder at the corporate vultures circling and G.W. Bush telling us to stop “our oil addiction”. Changes that reduce consumption are imperative; better fuel efficiencies, public transportatio
n, local lifestyles, walking, biking, e-commuting, local food productions and such offer a future of hope that biodiesel just can’t supply.

It has been more than three years since the US invasion of Iraq and, despite the humiliating failure of the war for the US empire, the slaughter continues. Neither Bush nor the Democrats can figure out a way to pull out US troops even though at this point, it is hard to imagine a favorable outcome. Bush just noted that it would be for “future presidents” to decide when to pull out troops — thus, he expects the occupation will continue until at least 2009. Bush can’t declare victory and leave in the face of civil war and insurgency fueled by the presence of US troops. Nor can he afford to admit defeat — admitting the hollow nature of US military power would be too costly for the US empire. The insurgents don’t need to defeat the occupying army — they only need to prevent the US from winning — which they have done. The pathetic Democrats — no matter what they may think — are too scared of being called wimps to say much of anything. Ultimately, most of them support the US imperial project and don’t want to see a defeat for US power any more than Bush.

So even as the US public increasingly concludes that the war is a total failure — begun for reasons that turned out to be lies and maintained at great cost for no comprehensible purpose — the mainstream political system is incapable of ending US involvement in the war. It would appear that this “alternatives-vacuum” would present an ideal opportunity for a third force –independent from the Democrats and Republicans — to organize opposition to the war.

Yet the recent March 18 national day of protest sponsored by ANSWER was a small and ritualistic affair — easily ignored perhaps because it was incapable of disrupting business as usual. Or maybe it was smaller than one might expect given the un-popularity of the war because people have protest-fatigue and are feeling discouraged. Marching down deserted streets on a Saturday in the hope that the media will notice doesn’t seem like a strategy equal to the task of stopping this disastrous war. Some anarchist types commented that they didn’t go because it was organized by the creepy sectarian ANSWER coalition, but isn’t the war worse than ANSWER? The current anti-war efforts aren’t breaking through, but it isn’t totally clear why — just that they aren’t.

This historical moment has all the ingredients for a political shift that could discredit the Republicans, the Democrats, and ineffective, bureaucratic protest machines. Figuring out how to seize this moment is the key task for radicals in 2006 because once the dam of opposition to the war really breaks free, its flood will be capable of carrying away considerable deadwood. The fertile ground for war opposition is demonstrated by the quick rise in prominence of Cindy Sheehan, who came out of nowhere and is now a key anti-war spokesperson. She stumbled on a dramatic tactic at the right moment.

Radicals need to be out in public trying lots of different angles — only by trying lots of experiments can we have any hope of stumbling on the right opportunity at the right moment. With luck, the social pressure that has built up around the war can be harnessed and used generally against the US imperial project abroad, the security state at home, and the US way of life that is destroying the earth every day. It would be a shame if the contradictions created by the war were met with a single-issue anti-war movement rather than a broad uprising against the whole social structure which created the Iraq war and which constantly justifies violence — against human beings and nature — as business as usual.

War and Empire

Maintaining a constant state of war is highly useful for a superpower because it provides the perfect excuse to centralize wealth and power, attack civil liberties, and it keeps regular people from taking aim at their real collective enemy — those in power. For those in power, the bloodshed in Iraq, human rights violations in the US and by US allies, systematic destruction of the environment, and structural poverty and misery are acceptable costs of doing business.

The war on terrorism is the ideal type of war for the US empire because it can never end, since it defines the “enemy” as any social group or individual who opposes the system — how does one forever “defeat” opposition? Even non-violent environmental activists can be labeled “terrorists” and included within the war on terror. Ultimately, anyone who opposes the rulers can be categorized as a terrorist.

Those in power emphasize that terrorism is not a “legitimate” form of social action because it uses violence — a highly Orwellian and illogical argument since the elite’s response to terrorism is violence, death and destruction on a massive scale. Bush denounces those who take hostages in Iraq while the US holds thousands of Iraqis prisoner in their own land. Those in power label any resistance from the oppressed “violence” while any systematic violence carried on by governments or corporations is just “business as usual.” Terrorists are defined as such because they hold the “wrong” ideas, not based on their activities and tactics.

But the war on terrorism alone wasn’t enough of a “hot” war to serve the system’s and Bush’s goals. Bush hoped the invasion of Iraq would “remake” the politics of the Middle East — not, as he claims, by promoting democracy, but by demonstrating that any opposition to US dominance would be crushed.

Thus, the disaster in Iraq — while it is a tragic waste of human life — is in a twisted way a positive development because it has crippled or at least delayed US hopes of empire. Because Bush cannot “win” in Iraq and thus cannot withdraw troops, he is unable to begin a new war with Iran or Venezuela. The US death machine has been taught a lesson it won’t soon forget — with all its sophisticated weapons, it could not ultimately establish control.

Radicals across the globe and here in the belly of the beast have an excellent opportunity to emphasize the paradoxical weakness of the US as a superpower. The disaster in Iraq will be impossible to forget for at least the next generation. Just as the US was inhibited from launching a major war for a generation after being defeated in Vietnam, Iraq has the potential to prevent future US leaders from launching a similar adventure for the next 20 years. It is up to radicals here in the US to repeatedly emphasize the failure of the pre-emptive war policy: Iraq was a war of choice motivated by a lust for power and sold to the public with lies. There is a pattern to US history — the same could be said of Vietnam.

The ultimate success of radical opposition to the war would be to extend the de-legitimization of the US empire from its foreign wars to it domestic abuses and from dramatic examples of violence to the routine, everyday way in which the US empire is destroying the earth and subjugating its population. The disaster in Iraq has much in common with numerous domestic economic, social and environmental policies that benefit a few and devastate everyone else. The key is uncovering the connections between all of these seemingly unrelated structures — shining a light on the power elite and on the system which serves it.

Direct Action

Direct action, creativity and vision is what can separate radicals from the institutional protest machine that has so far been unable to effectively exploit the historical opportunities for social change presented by the crisis in Iraq. Protest marches that come from the heart can create a sense of solidarity and power, but when they become ritualized and obligatory — devoid of passion — they become political wallpaper. The same can be said of “disruptive” tactics that become ritualized and sterile — like a black bloc that feels like a dress-up party with the militancy of a funeral. The key to effective action is not necessarily the tactic itself, but the spirit with which particular tactics are practiced.
Perhaps because disruptive tactics entail more risk, they are more likely to carry genuine feeling. The protest against the WTO in Seattle was disruptive, but even more it was heartfelt.

Tactics and events that are unique, joyful, humorous and exciting are all more likely to get through society’s stabilizing armor and churn up social motion. Now might be the time to think of lots of really funny or outrageous or even fabulous actions. What about having Halloween on the 4th of July with corporate and military zombies dripping with blood?

US activists have a dramatic advantages in destabilizing the US empire since we are, after all, right here in the belly of the beast. We need to figure out how to exploit this advantage by figuring out the social, industrial and economic choke points. Where can a small number of people have a huge effect with a very small investment of energy? What does the system require that can be disrupted? What physical and social locations does the system believe to be “safe” — the system’s guard will be at its lowest at these points.

It is crucial to have lots of different folks in different areas trying different things. Diversity and experimentation can uncover weak spots, plus unexpected actions are highly disruptive to a system that always seeks control and predictability. For example, plenty of folks have been going after military recruiters with mixed results — if this effort begins to become ritualized and stale, maybe its time to switch to targeting military contractors or other aspects of the war machine.

US involvement in Iraq will come to a close — by blocking the war, we can participate in laying the foundation for a new future.

Top US military contractors, 2005

The following military contract are making billions of dollars from the Iraq war arming the US imperial death machine. These corporations have offices, factories and operations all over the US. Thus activists almost anywhere can find good targets for disruptive actions aimed at the US war effort in Iraq. The arms makers here at home are crucial to the function of the US military abroad — they shouldn’t get a free ride here in the US while the slaughter continues in Iraq. Get together with your friends, use you’re creativity and be effective!

Rank Company Leader 2004 Defense Revenue (millions of dollars) % Revenue from Defense

1 Lockheed Martin Robert J. Stevens $34,050.00 95.8%

2 Boeing W. James McNerney, 30,464.00 58.1%

3 Northrop Grumman Ronald D. Sugar 22,126.00 74.0%

4 Raytheon William H. Swanson 18,771.00 92.7%

5 General Dynamics Nicholas D. Chabraja 15,000.00 78.2%

6 Honeywell David M. Cote 10,240.4 40.0%

7 Halliburton David J. Lesnar 8,000.0 39.1%

8 United Technologies George David 6,740.0 18.0%

9 L-3 Communications Frank Lanza 6,133.8 88.9%

10 Science Applications International Corp. Ken Dahlberg 4,686.0 65.2%

11 Computer Sciences Corp. Van B. Honeycutt 3,779.0 25.6%

12 General Electric Jeffrey R. Immelt 3,400.0 21.9%

13 Rolls-Royce Sir John Rose 3,069.0 27.0%

14 Misubishi Heavy Industries Kazuo Tsukuda 2,516.7 9.9%

15 Alliant Techsystems Daniel J. Murphy Jr. 2,516.0 89.9%

16 ITT Industries Steve R. Loranger 2,414.0 35.8%

17 United Defense Industries Thomas W. Rabaut 2,292.0 100.0%

18 Titan Gene W. Ray, Chairman 2,004.0 97.9%

19 Saab Åke Svensson 1,900.0 64.3%

20 Bechtel Group Riley Bechtel 1,742.5 10.0%

Source: www.defensenews.com

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

Hanging in the east bay radical scene can be so inspiring. We wish we could somehow write up and publish all of the myriad experiences we have every day that give us insights into how a new world might look. When people live their lives for pleasure — based on cooperation — living simply with few possessions but great richness and complexity — every day feels like it lasts forever filled with adventure, powerful emotions, long talks, hugs and dancing. Also gathering, mending, struggling and growth.

Sometimes it seems like the normal rules that control the operation of the rest of the world are crumbling in our personal daily lives, even as those rules seem to grow more oppressive out in the “real world.” But what is real anyway? Who says you have to spend your oh-so-short life working a job you hate, living compromise, letting days slip away? We’re dropping out of the rat race and into another place — a place where we get to define the questions, the conflicts, and our paths. . . .

The government’s recent prosecution of activists merely for writing or talking — without them committing any illegal actions — is designed to scare us. Here’s a little scary story that happened to Slingshot recently. We got a call from a reporter with The Herald-Sun in Durham, North Carolina. She was writing an article about some graffiti at a military recruiting center there and wanted us to comment on a report that we were responsible because of an article we had published about the Iraq war. Of course, we’re in Berkeley and don’t have any members in North Carolina, so we were fuckin’ confused! By the time we called her back, she had already published the article:

The motivation for the graffiti may have come from a [article] that urges readers to make “an anti-recruitment effort.” The [article] allegedly written by members of the organization The Slingshot Collective, lists 46 recruitment centers in 24 states as eligible targets for “disruptive actions designed to cripple the U.S. war effort in Iraq.”

We got hate emails from North Carolina after the article ran. She quoted the police and the military recruiters, so one of them must have given her the information. Who was it in the government who read our article and decided it meant that we were responsible for any random graffiti painted on a wall somewhere? A lot of our friends have reported similarly strange incidents and visits from homeland security. Despite it all, we’ll keep publishing as we please until they drag us off or we run out of James Brown tapes and beer. Take that spell-check.

Slingshot is always looking for new writers, artists, editors, photographers, translators, distributors and independent thinkers to help us make this paper. If you send something written, please be open to editorial changes.

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

Oops! — a ton of letters from prisoners asking for papers didn’t get typed in & didn’t get last issue – we’re trying to fix the problem.

Thanks to all who worked on this: Artnoose, Hefty Lefty, Kale, Cara, Sal, Dale, Eggplant, Gregg, Lew, Rachel, Nissa, Maneli, PB.

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting on April 30 at 1 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below).

Article Deadline and Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 91 by May 27, 2006 at 3 p.m. — however we may put off publication until the fall depending on events this spring, in which case the deadline would be delayed until September. If we decide to publish in June, we’ll display one ass in the North tower of the Long Haul. If we’re going to publish in September, we’ll display two asses in the North tower.

Volume 1, Number 90, Circulation 14,000

Printed April 6, 2006

Slingshot Newspaper

Sponsored by Long Haul

3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705

Phone: (510) 540-0751

slingshot@tao.ca • www.slingshot.tao.ca

Back issue Project

We’ll send you a random assortment of back issues for the cost of postage: send us $2 for 2 lbs or $3 for 4 lbs. Free if you’re an infoshop or library. Or drop by our office. Send cash or check to Slingshot to: Slingshot 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705.

Circulation Information

Slingshot is free in the Bay Area and is available at Long Haul and Bound Together Books (SF), plus lots of other places. Contact us or come by if you want to distribute Slingshot for free in the Bay Area.

Subscriptions to Slingshot are free to prisoners, low income and anyone in the USA who owns a Slingshot organizer, or cost $1 per issue. International is $2.50 per issue. Back issues are also available for the cost of postage. National free distribution program: Outside of the Bay Area, we’ll mail a stack of free copies of Slingshot to distributors, infoshops, bookstores and random friendly individuals for FREE in the US if they give ’em out for free.

As Slingshot goes to press, the US is experiencing the largest civil rights uprising in a generation as hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans and their supporters rise up to demand fair treatment for immigrants and to oppose H.R. 4437 — The Border Protection, Anti-terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. The law calls for construction of a 700-mile long wall along the US/Mexico border and would make illegal immigrants — and anyone who offers them support — felons. This would criminalize huge numbers of legal as well as “illegal” Latin Americans.

The massive, heartfelt marches — the size of which caught even their organizers by surprise — and the explosion of high school walk-outs and spontaneous protests across the land are not just about a single proposed law. The explosion of protest represents the awakening of a sleeping giant. Census figures show that there are more than 41 million Latin Americans in the US — yet this population has yet to see political power and respect equal to its numbers. These protests are not business as usual. A new spirit of liberation is in the air.

One participant at the Los Angeles march remarked, “The vibe in the air and the overall energy was infectious as you saw everyone from church goers to gang bangers all fighting to keep this oppressive bill from passing.” Dramatic reports from high school walk-outs in dozens of cities tell of arrests and heavy-handed police tactics underlining the enthusiasm, militancy and wide support behind this struggle.

While superficially the protests target H.R. 4437, the passion behind them is fueled by the grinding daily injustice that is US immigration policy. It is estimated that there are more than 12 million “illegal” immigrants in the United States. They make up 1 in 20 US workers. American employers depend on cheap labor provided by these workers who live in poverty and in constant fear of la migra (immigration police.) The US economy is built on a two-tiered foundation of inequality with “illegal” workers unable to organize to demand decent conditions.

Defeating H.R. 4437 won’t address this systematic injustice. While xenophobic Republican members of the House of Representatives push H.R. 4437 and the idea of refusing citizenship to children born in the US of “illegal” immigrant parents, Bush and business interests are pushing “guest worker” programs which would maintain a two-tier system designed to permit business to exploit immigrants for cheap labor. If all “illegal” immigrants could somehow be arrested and deported, the US economy would come to a screeching halt. Business owners know this and want to ensure their access to cheap labor — cut off from full civil rights. Although there are sharp divisions splitting both major parties over immigration policy, all mainstream politicians — Democrats and Republicans — want to ensure immigrants maintain their inferior and oppressed status.

The uprising in the streets demands respect and full participation for immigrants. Ultimately, this cannot be achieved within the mainstream US political system. Governments seek to divide people based on national and racial lines to facilitate exploitation by private employers. The immigration situation — in the US and around the world — is a perfect example. By creating artificial divisions between people — legal vs. illegal, native vs. immigrant, Mexican vs. US — corporations can play divide and conquer. While Latin Americans struggle for just treatment in the US, similar struggles are going on in Europe, Asia and the Middle East involving immigrants from Africa, Turkey, Pakistan and many other poor areas.

Regular people need to unite against their common enemy — the tiny number of rulers who control the global economy. Borders and nations are fake lines drawn on maps imposed by the rulers for their own benefit. How ironic is it that Latin Americans — descents of the original occupants of this land — are considered “immigrants” while European Americans are considered “native born?”

On May 1, activists are calling for a national general strike and boycott by immigrants: “Un dia sin immigrante” (A day without an immigrant.) They are calling for “No Work, No School, No Sales, and No Buying” as well as marches “around symbols of economic trade in your areas (stock exchanges, anti-immigrant corporations, etc.)” There will undoubtedly be many more school walk-outs and actions leading up to May 1. No human being is illegal. Only when all people are free can there be freedom for any one of us.

For information, contact Bay Area Coalition to Fight the Minutemen stoptheminutemen@ lists.riseup.net or Depoten a la Migra: deporten.a.la.migra@lists.riseup.net

In this discouraging period when the world is going to hell around us yet the signs of visible resistance — riots, strikes, protests, creative acts of defiance — sometimes seem in short supply, monthly Critical Mass Bike Rides continue to offer fantastic opportunities to get out of your armchair and into the street with a powerful vision of another world.

Critical mass rides have been happening in the Bay Area since 1992 and now occur in over 325 cities around the world. The idea is simple — people gather for an urban bike ride during rush hour. By having a bunch of bikes together at the same time, our usual biking experience of vulnerability and second-class citizenship under the iron boot of car domination is radically transformed. Once critical mass is attained, riding a bike becomes ”normal” for a change. We can ride safely, we can talk with others around us and experience our surroundings more fully, we feel free, the air smells cleaner, and the snarl of traffic is replaced by the joyous sound of hundreds of bells and whooping.

Critical mass has no leaders, usually no planned route, and no official or specific demands. These elements are CM’s strengths. Instead of a few leaders deciding what everyone should do, everyone cooperates, taking collective responsibility for the ride.

The lack of specific demands opens up huge opportunities for communication, debate, and community involvement in figuring out how the future should look. Inherent in critical mass is a lived vision of how the streets could be if transportation was human centered and environmentally sustainable. CM can’t be reduced to a single issue or bought off with a few reforms offered from above like a few more bike lanes and bike parking, etc.

Critical mass is positive and about living how we want now, not delaying our dreams while we beg someone in power to change things for us. My favorite rides try to avoid nasty confrontations with cars, and instead focus on riding our own bikes — making our own reality rather than just complaining. When I’m on critical mass, I want to forget that cars even exist at all. I don’t ride to slow auto traffic — it seems like cars slow themselves down easily enough every rush hour without my help.

While going to traditional, ritualistic protest events can feel like a chore, going to critical mass is like going to a party. And while so much of radical activism feels like you’re operating within a ghetto of people who already share your views — skillshares, protest pits, infoshops — critical mass is outreach on a very grassroots level since the rides typically go through all kinds of neighborhoods and reach lots of different kinds of folks. It is always amazing to see what a positive reaction the ride gets — a lot of regular folks understand on a gut level how hostile an auto dominated world is, and want to see alternatives. Fun, creativity and beauty are infectious. Perhaps some of the folks we pass this month will be riding with us next month.

From an activist point of view, CM is ideal because it takes virtually NO time and energy to organize, and yet provides an opportunity to be literally in the streets — massively disrupting business as usual — every single month. In the face of the war and the constant onslaught of industrial capitalism, raising hell is absolutely essential both on a personal and a social level. I have noticed that I get personally depressed when I go too long without doing something tangible to put my body into the gears of the machine. Riders sometimes carry signs or shout slogans if they want, but even if they don’t, CM protests the status quo.

On a very deep level, public events like critical mass feel subversive because of their voluntary, participatory, decentralized, free character. CM isn’t a part of the left-wing political machine or just another symbolic act — it is the very best expression of anarchist practice.

In the earlier days, I remember a big portion of the ride being radicals, anarchists, environmentalists and freaks of all stripes. These days, the rides are bigger, more broadly inclusive racially and with respect to age, and more fun than ever. One thing I’ve been sad about over the last few years is that I see less radicals (at least from my scene!) at the mass. It isn’t good when you see more of your scene at a private, politically invisible party than at a public even that takes over the streets. If you haven’t been on a ride for a while, check it out!

Critical mass happens the last Friday of each month at 6 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco and many other cities around the world — check www.critical-mass.info for a list. In Berkeley, Critical mass starts at 6 p.m. at the downtown Berkeley BART station on the second Friday of each month. A new ride just started in Oakland, Calif. at 5:30 p.m. on the first Friday of each month at Frank Ogawa Plaza at the corner of 14 and Broadway, near the 12th St. BART station.

Insane Liberation Front Manifesto:

We demand an end to the existence of mental institutions and all the oppression they represent.

We demand that all people imprisoned in mental hospitals be immediately freed.

We demand the establishment of neighborhood freakout centers, controlled by the people who use them. A place where people, if they feel they need help, can get it in a totally open atmosphere. (Everyone is insane and everyone freaks out).

We demand an end to mental commitments.

We demand an end to the practice of Psychiatry. It is based on the assumption that there is something wrong with the individual and not with society. The majorities of shrinks make money off us and see us as objects or categories.

We demand an end to economic discrimination against people who have undergone psychiatric treatment, and we demand that all their records be destroyed.

We want an end to sane chauvinism (intolerance toward people who appear strange and act differently) and that people be educated to fight against it.

We demand with other liberation groups an end to the capitalistic system with its racist, sexist oppression and with its competitive antihuman standards. We believe in cooperation.

We demand the right to the integrity of our bodies in all their functions, including the extremist situations, suicide. We demand that all the anti-suicide laws be wiped from the books.

From “The Radical Therapist”,

by Jerome Agel.

Do you ever feel that you are at the edge of a breakdown, see your life with despair and have no one to talk with because you are afraid of not being understood? Do you ever fear finding your worst fears and phobias hiding deep inside yourself and not knowing what to do with them? Do you ever think that you are “weird” (fucking society’s label) and that speaking up would make it worse? Do you ever find yourself being “too moody” and having emotional changes because of all the oppression and shit happening in this world nowadays and think that you might be crazy but are scared of being told that you need to see a specialist who would label you as mentally ill instead of an open-hearted and sensitive person subject to the evil things of this western civilization?

Do you ever run into people who live in another reality (whatever that means) and you feel like helping them but they are homeless, and others feel unsafe and threatened by them? But still you think that we all got to be compassionate towards others, so you want to help but you don’t know how because you ain’t a fucking doctor or got no resources?

Well, we’ve all been there before and ideally this is where community support and healing steps up.

Here’s the thing: we, all human beings, as radicals and activists are involved in too many things trying to change the world or just living our lifes’ dreams; we all then become too busy and forget that we need people; we need to be true and honest with each other and just sit the fuck down and talk about our fears, feelings, visions or the things that we see. For so long, society has tried to tell us that we ought to be normal, we got to have a job, be rational and all that crap. If you are different or ever find yourself communicating with animals or nature like the witches in the old times, are crying one moment and happy the next, you get locked up because you need to be “changed,” you need to become normal. They call it a rehabilitation program.

I know this person who is a projection of how sick this rotten society is. She did a bunch of drugs when she was young because of how her life was when she was growing up. Her childhood traumatized her: her parent’s oppression plus society’s twisted her mind and she lost it. She did a bunch of drugs to escape and her reality changed. I have met many people like that in my path.

She, because of her own choice, has been homeless for a while. She sees herself as an anarchist, an artist and a mom. She sees herself as an anti-system person who does not want to pay rent, get a job or get involved in society’s affairs.

This person kept getting kicked out of all the communal houses in the town where I live. People felt unsafe and threatened by her. Her presence and acts made them fear even for their children’s safety. This person would offer people poisonous hallucinogenic tea or inedible plants and shrubs. But we all have to remember something. Her reality was far different from ours.

Some people at the different collective houses offered her help, such as taking her to shelters where she could sleep and be safe instead of sleeping on the streets or trying to sneak into people’s houses. But talking with her was like talking to the wall. She was in denial and never wanted to be in a shelter- she wanted to be with people, do art, sit down and eat food with her friends, but people despised her because of their own fears and incapacity to offer her compassion because of the way she acted and the things she did. People got tired and wrapped up in their own bullshit so at some point it was too late to help. (You also can’t really help somebody if they don’t want to be helped.)

At some point she had a break down and called 911. For the third time (or maybe more) she got locked up–against her will.

This person was taken to a Psychiatric Hospital named St. John Georges. Three days ago there was an article in the paper about this place. What shocked me was that in the article it said, “The hospital had been cited by state and federal licensing agencies for failing to provide a safe environment for staff and patients”. Anyone could figure that out- the worst of the worst.

There is a law, Section 5150, that you can get taken to a hospital against your will and they hold you there for 72 hours if they think you are crazy or a threat to the community. After 72 hours, she got a hearing; nobody claimed her or tried to get her out, so she stayed and after 72 hours they started forcing her to take medication.

They have diagnosed her as bipolar and they are dosing her with Lithium, a “mood stabilizer” and a really bad chemical, which makes you numb and sucks your brain out. But she is not bipolar– that is just another label that the man has created.

I talked with the social worker that has her case and she said that the doctor and the judge will give her medicine until she changes, which means: until she stops talking about pixies, witches and the revolution, until she seems normal enough to hold a job or get a house.

Now, after a month or so, people in the community have started to make a move and this person has gotten herself someone who is going to play the role of her advocate.

I recently talked with her on the phone and she made sense, and this is what she said: “Maneli, I am not bipolar, I am just fucked up because I did a bunch of drugs when I was young because of how decadent my life and parents were. I want to be healthy, I want to get out, this is not a safe space and they are violating my privacy.” That sounded really “normal’ to me- clear thoughts, smooth words.

Anyway, one of the things that happened when she got locked up was that nobody cared, some people even wished that she was dead and had no compassion about mutual aid or her healing. But there were some people that still cared and know that to survive in this jungle, aside from focusing on your own personal healing, we’ve got to help each other. But to maintain our own sanity and help each other, we all must remain strong and grounded. And for that, you need community support; people who are there when you need them, people who won’t laugh at you or stop listening when you are having a breakdown. You need people who are able to communicate reciprocally in a healing way and practice mutual therapeutic acts.

A bunch of us came up with some ideas at a recent community discussion where we addressed issues incl
uding being homeless and mentally ill and the role of community support. Some of the ideas that were brought up and are actually practiced in other places were:

A group of people could open up a safe space (or freak-out place), but for that you need money to rent a space because unfortunately we all live in a capitalist world.

If you don’t have enough money to rent a space, you could start an Advocacy Group where people help each other by giving them information regarding resources of where to go, what to do, who to talk to and all that.

Or maybe we all need to have some sensitivity trainings where we learn how to treat each other right.

Well . . . that’s the story. Things like this happen all the time and people need help everywhere. And we all lose it at some point or another. We just need to be honest.

If you want help or want to help others and do not know what to do, here are some websites that you can check out:

Icarus Project : www. theicarusporject.net

Or mindfreedom.org (advocacy for psychiatric survivors)

Eco-activist Rod Coronado was indicted by a federal grand jury and arrested February 23 on charges of “teaching and demonstrating the making of a destructive device.” He is been accused of explaining, at a public speaking engagement in response to a question, how to build a destructive device, with the alleged intent on his part to impart such technology to those who would use it rashly. The root of this expectation is Rod’s activist history. He has consistently taken the path most likely to result in the survival of the greatest number of people, animals, and ecosystems.

The charges are frivolous. Not only is there no clear intention of contributing to direct action by allegedly being open with such information, but anyone who wants to build a destructive object can easily Google the knowledge, and wouldn’t be foolish enough to raise their hand and ask someone at an obviously surveilled event.

Rod was a Sea Shepherd guy for a while, and then he got busted in the 90s for actions against animal facilities, and did about five years. Because he was an unrepentant advocate for all-out resistance to animal/ecological abuse, everything he did was taken as a serious threat. When he recently put his body on the line against a state-sponsored mountain lion hunt (see last issue), the system came down harshly, hoping he’ll do a couple years just for that.

The latest charge of answering an audience question is part of Operation Backfire, a woodsy sounding Federal program to arrest and prosecute any activity possible that was undertaken to protect animals or for ecological reasons. This is the same operation targeting alleged ELF arsonists in Oregon and producing the conspiracy charges in Auburn, Calif.

This case is a landmark in the prosecution not only of illegal actions but the activism that inspired and explained these actions. Combined with the Auburn case, in which the defendants are accused only of discussing actions that never occurred, there is a new climate where even thinking about property damage to preserve living creatures is dangerous. While the system gives lip service to ideas that were once radical such as racial equality and feminism, this society is still very threatened by biocentrism, the idea that humans are part of a web of life and are not the whole point of everything, and will do anything to protect those who make billions from abusing animals and nature.

Additionally, many analysts see the entire crackdown against ecological activists as the inevitable progression of a police state, as mere property damage is considered the equivalent of foreign guerrilla attacks that kill scores or thousands. The limits on speech and freedom originally applied to Muslims will eventually be applied to everyone vulnerable or controversial.

Over the past few months, radical environmentalists from New York to Oregon have been arrested and accused of “eco-terrorism” — a term invented by pro-industry think-tanks that falsely links non-violent activists with atrocities like those committed on September 11. All those arrested are facing outrageously harsh prison sentences, sometimes for vague crimes in which no action actually occurred, and in other cases for instances of property destruction in which no one was injured. The harshness of the sentences are based on the politics of the defendants more than the seriousness of any crime — even assuming there was any crime. Some defendants face life terms for arsons which — if committed for non-political motives — would only earn them a few months behind bars. All of this has been termed the “green scare” to compare it with the “red scares” of the 1920 and 1950s — witch hunts against radicals based on what people thought, not what they did. The point of these government actions is to scare us, but we won’t be scared.

The recent cases include the eco-activists indicted in Oregon, the comrades arrested in Auburn, the SHAC 7 and Rod Coronado, among other cases. (See specific articles, pg. 12, 13 and 22.) The government’s attempt to label these activists as terrorists is a dangerous and baseless extension of the “war on terrorism” to domestic environmental activists. Whereas the State Department defines “terrorism” as involving violence against human beings, the FBI definition of domestic terrorism includes any politically motivated crime. Even actions such as graffiti, gluing a lock or clogging a toilet are included in the FBI’s lists of domestic terrorist incidents. Although the FBI describes property damage as “violence” for purposes of prosecuting activists, the FBI’s national Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system defines “violent crime” as murder, rape, robbery and assault. The FBI has used the media to accuse activists of being eco-terrorists even though none of them have been charged under the terrorist criminal statutes (US Code Sec. 2331) and “eco-terrorist” is not defined in federal law.

These arrests come as a result of extensive surveillance and the use of paid informants. They coincide with other draconian measures that are being taken by the government, such as the push for immigration legislation which would increase the persecution of people who are indigenous to this land mass, but are deemed ‘illegal aliens’, and those who support them, and increased surveillance of groups participating in direct actions that run damage control for capitalism outside of ‘legal’ frameworks like Food Not Bombs and Critical Mass.

The FBI has identified “ecoterrorism” as the Number One domestic terrorism threat, although in 2003, FBI statistics showed 7,400 hate crimes and only 450 environmental crimes — none involving human injury. By contrast, since 1977, anti-abortion activists have perpetrated more than 59,000 acts of violence and destruction in the U.S. including seven murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 165 arsons, three kidnappings, 122 assaults, 343 death threats and, most recently, 480 anthrax threats, according to the National Abortion Rights Action League.

In an excellent recent article, Catherine Komp credits industry groups — such as Ron Arnold’s Center for the Defense of Free enterprise — with inventing and promoting the concept of eco-terrorism. She explains that industry groups are now working to pass eco-terrorist laws: “The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative public-policy organization funded by more than 300 corporations, collaborated with the US Sportsmen’s Alliance, an advocacy group for hunters, fishers, and trappers, to write the Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act. If passed into law, the Act would consider arson, property destruction or trespassing acts of domestic terrorism – if committed by animal-rights activists. The groups also wish to criminalize acts [such as] providing ‘financial support or other resources,’ including lodging, training or transportation to aid eco-terrorist activities.” While these laws have not yet passed, she notes “On the state level . . . lawmakers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, Arizona, Washington and Hawaii are pushing various versions of the ecological terrorism legislation.”

It is important to ask why the state is putting so much energy and imposing literal and rhetorical force against people who have not harmed or threatened to harm any living thing. The reason this is happening is because those in power want to draw attention away from the failing ‘war on terror’ abroad and scare people from supporting groups and activities which call attention to the way that neo-liberal economic policies lead to poverty, death, and ecological destruction. This is especially true for movements that have gained broad public support.

Large segments of the public are beginning to question the sustainability of the ‘American way of life.’ Real environmental dilemmas are every day becoming more urgent and less easy to disregard. The idea that our world and the life in it, in all its diversity, is more important than property or monetary gain is one that resonates with most people. The result of this is that policy makers can no longer ignore environmental issues. Even George Bush has had to admit that our society is addicted to oil.

The people with money and power are trying to pacify and commercialize the environmental movement like they have every other social movement or sub-culture that has set itself against the status quo, purging it of its most radical elements and buying out what is left. The green scare is an attempt to separate militant environmental activists who have a radical analysis from mainstream environmentalism by falsely equating militancy and attacks on property with terrorism — the mass destruction of life.

Meanwhile what is left of the movement is herded into state sanctioned channels of dissent, such as voting, letter writing, product purchasing and boycotts, which often render all but the most short-term solutions unachievable. The results range from promoting unsustainable and lucrative alternatives to oil like ethanol to commodifying the aesthetics of environmentally conscious living so completely that once alternative lifestyles become just another set of niche-markets within the system of global capital. All of this despite the fact that the neo-liberal order itself is daily responsible for more real terror and destruction of life in all its forms than any other force — and that the only way to address the root causes of environmental catastrophes is to disassemble the system.

The green scare is also part of a larger process whereby the government slowly pushes forward the boundary of its power, gradually desensitizing people to increased top-down repression and control. Visible markers of this advance can be seen on a myriad of fronts, from the high profile arrests of people for ‘eco-terrorism’ to increasing intimidation of radical projects on a more widespread scale. Projects like Food Not Bombs and Critical Mass are a threat to those in power because they go against the principles of neo-liberal capitalism by demonstrating that people can come together and get things done without being motivated by the market; that mutual aid and direct action can be more persuasive and effective than isolation and greed.

The objective of these intimidation tactics, in the end, is to scare us because we have scared them and because we are being effective. We have scared the rulers by failing to respect the greed ethic of capitalism and by valuing life and the environment over corporate profits and property. They want us to watch what we say and who we associate with or to focus on reacting to their oppression instead of engaging with our world and creating new and beautiful visions for it. If environmental consciousness is to become ubiquitous, they want to make sure that i
t is also harmless and ineffective.

The only way they can win is if we give in to fear and spend all our energy reacting to their repression. They win if we cease to live in defiance of their brutal machine. Efforts like prisoner support are important, but can’t take the place of staying militantly on the offensive with vibrant and creative actions that are motivated by mutual love and respect for ourselves and our world.

I asked a man why he was in prison, and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he has stolen the railroads, he would be a US Senator — Mary Mother Jones

What happens when the FBI pays an undercover agent $75,000 to spend two years infiltrating a bunch of young activists by sleeping with one of them and providing them with a fully bugged and videotaped free place to stay, but although she constantly tries to convince them to do something illegal — anything — they won’t go along? Well, if you’re the FBI, you arrest them anyway and accuse them of . . . um . . . talking with your agent.

In a new low for the government campaign against environmental radicals, the FBI arrested Eric McDavid, Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner in Auburn, Calif. on January 13 and charged them with “conspiring to damage or destroy by explosive or fire” cell phone towers, power plants and US Forest Service facilities. They are not charged with any actual actions, and in fact, nothing was damaged or destroyed. The alleged conspiracy appears to have been an unsuccessful set-up based on conversations engineered by the FBI’s undercover agent. They have plead not guilty and face 5 to 20 years in prison if convicted. McDavid and Jenson remain in jail and all three need support.

Don’t trust nobody but your dog and your homies — ain’t that the truth sometimes. And that’s exactly how the FBI wants us to feel when we hear about a case like this. The FBI are watching people all the time and they will do anything to get anybody. People talk about security culture a lot, but even if you are really cautious, it might not help if you’re sleeping with an undercover FBI agent who is being paid to entrap you by encouraging you to talk about illegal actions. Being conscious of what you say in person, on the telephone or over email when you’re planning actions is important. What this case reveals is that this applies even if you don’t actually do anything.

The FBI’s criminal complaint is a public document available at portland.indymedia.org, and it shows how the FBI set them up.

In 2004, a person going by the name of “Anna” became a Confidential Source for the FBI. She was paid $ 75,000 for her two years of work and has allegedly been involved in 12 other “anarchist” cases. Since July 2005, “Anna” provided information about the three. Over the summer she infiltrated numerous radical events. She acted as a street medic for the Biotech protest in Philadelphia and at the Feral Visions Gathering in Tennessee. And she assisted at the Crimethink Convergence in Indiana. She even investigated going to Scotland to participate in protests against the G8. She wrote long reports on Indymedia websites describing actions she attended and asking people to send her photographs and other information. Anything sent to her was presumably sent straight to the FBI.

At some point in January, “Anna” and the arrestees traveled to California, where they all allegedly stayed at “Anna’s” cabin outside of Sacramento. This cabin was provided to her by the FBI — everything was being recorded and taped as evidence. The FBI also provided them with a laptop computer. “Anna” also secretly taped her friends & used text messages on her cell phone to communicate with the FBI. The complaint alleges that the arrestees created and signed a book that outlined an arson plan.

This is not an article to scare people; this is just the word on the streets. People met Anna and they trusted her because she was sleeping with one of the men who got arrested. FBI infiltrators are rotten and will do anything for money, even entrap activists by suggesting they plan actions and then gaining their trust by sleeping with them.

Zachary Jenson and Eric McDavid are beautiful souls and still remain in Total Separation at the Sacramento County Main Jail. If you would like to write them letters, or send them books, money or love, please contact sacramentoprisonersupport@riseup.net. Eric McDavid, X-2972521 4W114A or Zachary Jenson X-4198632 7E213A Sacramento County Main Jail 651 “I” Street Sacramento, CA 95814 .