Author: Slingshot Collective

On November 11th 2016, Scouts from Port Militarization Resistance noticed a train they were watching was about to leave the Port of Olympia, WA and called for a blockade of the railroad track before the train could leave. Folx blocked the train tracks to stop the train that was carrying fracking proppants to North Dakota. Shortly after the train rolled up to the human blockade, people began to bring couches and pallets to block the train. Food Not Bombs showed up with free food. The two people who were operating the train asked the blockade to move and claimed they were only carrying organic corn, but the occupation stood firm and refused to vacate the area. Word began to spread and the location of the initial blockade made the train stand off a highly visible spectacle, which helped to galvanize support and led to the train backing off and returning to the Port. The site of the blockade eventually moved to 7th & Jefferson on public land. Nightly General Assemblies were established to create a more horizontal decision making process. Some of the backbone of this resistance was houseless folx, who helped maintain the camp as well as organize it. What started as blocking a train resulted in an encampment with places to eat, sleep, hang out, and be merry. There was a kitchen area, and people brought food and drinks. There were couches and sleeping bags, and a tent full of extra coats, blankets, gloves for campers to use. This encampment allowed for a sense of community and solidarity, even in the face of state violence and repression. The blockade started small, but ultimately resulted in a mostly enclosed space, unable to see in or out from the front side, and unable to get in easily from all other sides as well.

A week later on November 18 the Oly Stand camp was raided by riot police with pepper balls, batons and concussion grenades.

There is no way to write about the camp without acknowledging the power of capitalism over all experiences in our society. Any dissent against capitalist exploitation, extraction, or production is faced with state repression on differing scales. Here we saw riot police. In other areas of North America and parts of the world, people are going up against automatic weapons. In the streets of the United States the police terrorize people of color with profiling, arrests and gunshots.

As we learn new ways to hit pressure points on the expansionist force of capital power, we can recognize the pressure points we push on ourselves, and our own communities. For the latter it might not be so much of a point as a flavor, a taste beyond blind constructs of control mechanisms and so called realism. There was an autonomous zone formed in a downtown nook on a layer of tracks. It was on stolen land that has not been reclaimed; and the dynamics between groups holding far swaying political ideologies and cultural normalities was far from utopia; but the action and the place it was held in further catalyzed public opposition, forged bonds and comradeship, and gave many who were involved a taste of what is worth dying for.

I witnessed how a primal and radical impulse awakened or strengthened in many as they poured themselves into building a statement and sustaining their companions. Many just needed the right time and platform for an opportunity. So maybe all along the tracks, the tracks built in the name of manifest destiny, the tracks ever growing old and brittle already being a choke point, a weak spot in the robber baron enterprise, its Achilles heel; maybe these tracks are our bow and arrow. Pressure points work both ways, when one side is compressed the other expands. When communities have room to expand they organize. To all those involved in the struggle, may you keep finding those pressure points. Fight on!

 

Slingshot got this call to action from comrades in Ottawa, Canada, but of course it applies . . . everwhere!

At some point after his inauguration on January 20th, 2017, US President Donald T***p will visit Canada, and very likely Ottawa. The Donald Trump UnWelcoming Committee invites you to join the organizing to resist Trump’s inevitable visit in 2017!

While the exact details of Trump’s visit are unknown, we’re not waiting for specifics. In solidarity with the massive and continuing anti-Trump protests across the United States, we aim to resist his racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and far-right politics. We resist deportations and Muslim bans, call for open borders and cross-border alliances, and support peoples’ struggles, from the water defenders at Standing Rock to the Black Lives Matter movement.

We don’t put much stock in politicians or political parties — the only way we can build a truly better world is through creating and supporting the collective power of grassroots networks and movements. To that end, we are calling for large-scale, decentralized actions to take place when Trump visits Canada. We aim to create spaces for people to act and demonstrate with fewer relative risks, but we also support spaces where people can actively confront and disrupt any meetings.

Visit: trumpunwelcoming.org

 

Radicals seem to love printed matter, as evident in seeing all the hub-bub that’s made for book fairs, infoshops, distros, study groups, free schools…you name it. A ton of paper thrashes onto this scene; pamphlets, zines, newsletters, journals and various new forms of organization not easily pigeon-holed. The world may seem to be turning less free but that shouldn’t stop us from thinking and dreaming out loud. Here’s some self-published works that have recently crossed our path.

Dispatches From Standing Rock

Dispatches From Standing Rock is a collection of previously published pieces that describe the weeks leading up to November 1. An interview with an anonymous protestor details the history of the Sacred Stone camp and gives a feel for daily life there. An excerpt from itsgoingdown.org discusses the millions of dollars of DAPL property damaged in Iowa and calls for people to come to Standing Rock but also to organize locally in their communities. A piece previously published on Facebook urges global solidarity with people at Standing Rock. Two pieces describe the events of October 27 when tear gas filled the sky and the camp directly impeding construction of the pipeline was bulldozed, detailing tensions between property destruction and non-violence, indigenous and non-indigenous, autonomous actions and those taken in context of solidarity. A compelling portrait of a few weeks in the life of Standing Rock encampments. (L. Sherman)

 

The Criminal Legal System for Radicals: Setting and Balancing Personal, Political, and Legal Goals by the Tilted Scales Collective, tiltedscales@riseup.net. Published by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness.

Extracted from the upcoming book, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant from Combustion books, this is an informative ‘zine written with both legal theory and its political practice so an untrained comrade such as myself can better try to follow the twists and turns of the US injustice system. Available for free from tiltedscalescollective.org. (A. Iwasa)

The Shadow #59, Winter 2016-Spring 2017

shadowpress.org

$1.00 or mail order $2.50 by money order to: Shadow Press PO Box 20298, New York, NY 10009

I first found back issues of The Shadow in the Long Haul Infoshop’s periodical archive while doing research on squatting. There are a tiny handful of 20th century copies giving a glimpse not only into squatting in that era of New York City (NYC), but all over the world via scene reports!

Much to my joy, last year I discovered The Shadow is still in print! #59 includes hard hitting investigative journalism by Greg Palast exposing how the 2016 US Presidential Election was stolen by the Republicans, to a couple of different in depth accounts of gentrification in NYC via sleazy politicians and the investors who own them. These articles in particular I felt could be a model for Slingshot to work from in our analysis of the Bay Area’s rapid and heartbreaking gentrification.

Sharply laid out with a wide variety of articles, and high quality art and photography made this newspaper a pleasure to read, though make no mistake! It is a call to action that should be taken seriously. (A. Iwasa)

The Spaces Between

By the kids who never fucking left

spacesbetweentour.wordpress.com

thespacesbetween@riseup.net

A few people from Denver, Colorado, currently the fastest growing city in the US, put together this ‘zine full of interviews with people from Evansville, Indiana; Athens, Georgia; Minneapolis, rural British Columbia, Modesto, Louisville, and Tucson. They followed up with a tour that included some of the hotspots that could be characterized as local Anarchist Disney Lands such as Chicago and Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, but I think this makes sense and I am unoffended by the term they seem to only apply to the San Francisco Bay Area.

I found the interviews thoughtful and inspiring. I was a little perplexed that Minneapolis and Tucson were considered “Spaces Between” since I’ve spent time in both and consider them to be major hubs on several levels. I brought this up to one of the ‘zinesters, Josie, who replied: “We painted the idea of ‘the spaces between,’ with a pretty broad brush. While some cities or towns included in this first round of interviews can be considered hubs for anarchists, like Minneapolis, geographically it is isolated. In the future we plan to include Eugene, OR, which was once a major hub of anarchism and now has found itself to be much more of space between.

“We are continuing to work on this project, after taking a break to tend to other areas of our lives, and would love to hear from people who would like to participate! We hope to tour again in 2017 as well.”

The only thing I didn’t like was there wasn’t a way printed to contact the comrades in Evansville. There probably should have been info printed for all the interviewees, or at least projects they think are worth sticking around for. (A. Iwasa)

A Mountain River Has Many Bends: The History and Context of the Rojava Revolution

From Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness

tangledwilderness.org

This text is an excerpt from A Small Key Can Open A Large Door from Combustion Books. It is a great primer for both understanding the history of Kurdistan in the grand scheme of things and in the contemporary realm of national liberation struggles.

It should be required reading for everyone in the world even sympathetic to the Anti-Authoritarian Left who can read English. In fact, it should probably be read and discussed by everyone who can get access to the text one way or another. It can be downloaded for free from the website above, and I’ve made a point of reading it twice to help further my understanding of the Rojavan Revolution. (A. Iwasa)

 

ClockTower Nine #11 $3

Danny c/o Spin Cycle

321 Broadway East

Seattle, WA 98102

Various perspectives covering things like favorite records, the outlawing of Pinball machines in the 1940’s, post card messages, Cleveland and the psychology of buying clothes. This reminds me of the kind of shit people made before the internet took over as it opens up the world in its own way. (egg)

 

Cans on the Shelf AKA Restless Legs

$7 USA $10 World

www.cargocollective.com/bryanbrybry

Take the highline with this photozine as it travels across the US in mid-2016. Featured here is this generation’s young people who “Having Little Being Much” are rendered in full color at off-the-map locations that are intimate. A document of life at the edge….and very soon into oblivion. (egg)

 

Parents On Parenting (POPS)#1

Jonas PO Box 633 Chicago IL. 60690

popszine@gmail.com

The Editor opens this first issue wearing his self doubts on his sleeve setting the tone that a parent is not merely an authority figure, but someone grappling with flaws and crisis. The contributors bring with them a variety of approaches that challenge the popular image of family in the modern world. Including the dilemma of radicals subverting a child’s run-ins with gender norms or the stigma towards disability–that will make some people raise their eyebrow. One piece borders on existenstial while another seem like notes to a therapist. A mixed bag. (Egg)

 

Dropkick Slurpee#2 $2

dropkickslurpee@gmail.com

Bored teenager fighting back using an art pen and a 3rd eye aiming towards outer space. Punk, junk food and creatures of an unknown origin on display in a comic book fashion. (egg)

 

Cheap Toys#19

Giz c/o CIRA

50, Rue Consolat

13001 Marseille France

Another zine rooted in travel, punk, radical polictics and a general tone of human warmth. There’s a subtext of border crossing as the narrator bounces and hitchhikes across Europe, sliping between writing in French and English. Haunting Anarchist libraries, sleeping on couches and making art yet there’s a sense of wearieness with how things are changing for the worse. This zine’s style atests to the lingering inspiration that charted a life of hope for the author. (egg)

By Keith McHenry

We the people will stand up to Trump. Creating a strategy on how to transform America into a sustainable, post-capitalist society will take imagination. There are things we can do to prepare, to fight back.

Forming affinity groups is an important first step. An affinity group is simply a voluntary group formed around a common goal or interest. Such groups typically have five to ten participants who know one another and meet at least once a month, sometimes as much as several times a week. An affinity group provides a space for discussing tactics, strategies, and specific actions. It also provides a place to work cooperatively on projects. Importantly, it also serves as a means of mutual support and validation, a means of overcoming the crushing isolation that keeps people alone, disempowered, and hopeless; it can provide inspiration and stir the imagination in these dark times.

The longer a group works together, the more trust and strength it will have. Many affinity groups are organized in a non-hierarchical manner, often using a consensus decision making process, and are frequently made up of trusted friends. Affinity groups provide a means of organization that is both flexible and decentralized, and that makes it easy for like-minded groups to coordinate their activities.

A number of affinity groups can be formed into what activists call “clusters.” For example, in the effort to stop the Seabrook Nuclear Power Station in New Hampshire, clusters formed in geographic locations such as Boston, North Shore, and so on. All participating affinity groups would send representatives to cluster meetings, and any decisions they made then had to be approved by participants in the member groups.

Where this process fails is when large groups try to come to consensus on every minor matter. We saw this problem often during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Detailed discussions of minor things is better kept at the affinity group level, or, even better, are best left to work groups. An example would be food procurement and preparation at large gatherings and actions, which is usually delegated to Food Not Bombs or other work group.

An affinity group structure can help sustain blockades of rail lines, ports, highways, pipelines and other infrastructure needed to continue fascism. Access to food, water and shelter could be impacted for many of us. Affinity groups of food providers, medics, lawyers, artists, authors, musicians, construction workers, seamstresses, plumbers, electricians, gardeners, bicycle mechanics, scientists, yoga practitioners, teachers, software developers, media people and the many other skills will be necessary to sustain blockades, occupations and self defense efforts.

An affinity group can provide both emotional and practical support. The dire reports on our failing society can be stressful. Having close friends in an affinity group to talk with could be essential. Knowing that we have practical support if jailed can make it possible for more of us to take risks. We could share important passwords with a trusted ally and provide access to our homes so plants can be watered and pets cared for. If risking arrest we may want to give a designated member of the affinity group the birth dates, legal names, important people to contact and have a lawyer available. An affinity group could be vital as we experience the advent of “naked fascism.”

If thousands of us dedicate ourselves to forming affinity groups, organize nonviolent direct action preparations in our local communities, build decentralized networks of activists, and plan for an increase in harsh political repression we might be able to provide a solid foundation for opposing whatever Trump, corporate capitalism and fascism have to deliver. See you at the next action. Don’t mourn, organize!

Keith is a Food Not Bombs co-founder and author of Hungry for Peace and The Anarchist Cookbook

 

By Acácio Augusto

The main agent of violence in modern societies is the State. Through violence, it defines and maintains itself. Contrary to popular belief Brazil is an extremely violent country, despite the popular stereotype of football and carnival. This violence is directly connected to the high level of police lethality. In 2015 alone, 58,383 people were murdered, 160 killed each day, according to official government data compiled by the Brazilian Forum on Public Security in 2016. 3,345 of these deaths are attributed directly to the police, but a number of factors that link other deaths indirectly to police action must be considered. In general, the vast majority of the population applaud the police action.

Besides the violent and predatory colonial history of Brazil and the fact that it was the last country in the Americas to abolish slavery, recent factors contribute to this extreme lethality. In 1964 the country suffered a civil-military coup that inaugurated the series of coups in South America with US intervention as a way to secure the zone of influence in the context of the Cold War. However, when the civil-military regime ended in 1985, the so-called “slow, gradual and safe transition” did not extirpate from public life the various social sectors that sustained and benefited from the period of exception: from large media communication groups to sectors of regional rural oligarchies. The so-called political opening was the result of a pact among the elites. It met the demands of so-called civil society, which corresponded to the new planetary guidelines synthesized by the UN in the context of the collapse of the Soviet world.

In the XXth century, Brazil had a cycle of so-called progressive governments, inaugurated by two mandates of a sociologist of Marxist tendencies, linked to the “Social Democrat” party, of neo-liberal policies; followed by a former union leader and a former guerrilla woman connected to the fight against the civil-military dictatorship, both belonging to the PT (Worker’s Party), which boasts of being the largest party of the masses in the Americas. This sequence of governments in a formal democracy without military interference in political life ushered in a cycle of prosperity, arousing strong hopes both internally and externally: a country that would finally “work.” The recent impeachment process, completed in the second half of 2016, which overthrew the second term of the president by direct vote seems to have halted this cycle. This causes many in Brazil, especially the sectors close to the former government to proclaim the process a coup!

In fact, the process that toppled the president was fraught with legal maneuvering, games with public opinion, and petty interests of representatives of the legislature. Added to this was an intensification of conservative and even fascist positions in society, both in the middle and lower classes. In the last decade, and along with historical State racism in Brazil, the hatred of the different has gained ground in the country, and is amplified in digital social networks and has found political representatives that use this discourse. However, it would be wrong, or even simplistic, to attribute the impeachment of the president as the culmination of an authoritarian escalation in the country. As if, after the so-called coup, democracy would have been undermined. From an anarchist perspective, what is happening today in Brazil is a logical consequence of a representative state democratic regime that is only maintained by an extreme judicialization of life and politics and a government practice that is increasingly reduced to hyperbolic security production, in spite of any other political and social value, even democracy. This did not begin with the deposition of the president. Even if the consummation of this fact has generated, in the language of the constitutionalists, a legal insecurity and has legitimized conservative sectors that saw in PT government a communist threat, no matter how absurd it is.

The 13-year PT government brags about having achieved a number of goals set by international institutions such as the UN. The main one would be the eradication of misery by means of income assistance to the poorest. In addition, it advertises a number of social policies related to the expansion of retail credit, popular housing programs, and student credit programs. In short, the democratic government of the left in Brazil promoted a politics that included consumption and produced a mass of new debt. This is something that the banks, state and private sector, appreciate. Not only that. This government has been at the forefront of developmental mega-projects, such as the construction of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Power Plant, with damage to indigenous and riparian peoples. And like every social democracy in the post-Berlin Wall world, it invested heavily in security. It created a new repressive police in 2004, the National Security Force. It carried out a program of mass incarceration that began in the previous government and poured rivers of money into the pacification policy of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, the UPP (Pacifying Police Units), the cross-border face of MINUSTAH, a UN military intervention in Haiti led by the Brazilian army. One of the last acts of the president was the creation of an Anti-Terrorism Law that opens brutal legal precedents for the criminalization of social movements.

The point of no return for politics and social contestation in Brazil were the days of June 2013, which witnessed unprecedented and spectacular demonstrations across the country. Initiated in São Paulo, amid the protests against the increase in the collective transportation fare, these demonstrations put in question the narrative of great Brazil and the country that finally succeeded. This would be confirmed by the reception of planetary mega-events such as the UN’s RIO+20, the FIFA World Cup, and the IOC Olympics, scheduled, respectively, for the years 2012, 2014 and 2016. Many of those who went to the streets warned that in this large Brazil, poor, black and indigenous were still being murdered by the State; historical inequalities continued to be reinforced; the former persecutors of the sociological president, the syndicalist president and the guerrilla president, are now the allies of government. The emergence of the ungovernable on the streets in June 2013 exposed its intolerability to any government, the insufficiency of democracy, and opened a rift for manifestation of anti-political revolts that did not fit into the plans and papers of the current misery managers in the country.

The government, even if it was anointed as progressive, left and democratic, acted as any state would act: it severely repressed the protests. Promptly, the press and a number of political (left and right) analysts produced a flurry of “analyzes,” differentiating “peaceful” demonstrators from “vandals,” the latter identified among anarchists, autonomists that were not connected to any party or social movements aligned with the government, and especially practitioners of black bloc tactics. With the vandals expelled from the streets by police bombs and clubs, the so-called peaceful demonstrators were gradually occupying these streets. But this time, dressed in the Brazilian flag and asking for greater morality of the rulers, greater punishment to offenders of high and low politics, and with demands that went from the impeachment of the then president to the requests for new intervention of the military. Finally, the centrality of the State and its violence was restored, after brutal repression to the ungovernable and a troubled electoral process in October of 2014.

From an anarchist perspective, there is nothing to be regretted about this process, except to continue to fight against State violence and the exploitations of capitalism. However, if today, January 2017, the country faces a president who was not directly elected by vote, the scary growth of hate speech against blacks, gays, women and all manner of manifestation of difference and political protest, and violent manifestations spread from police in street demonstrations to beheadings inside prisons, this is due to the fact that, at the moment when State violence was put on the streets, the Left who then occupied the government did everything to restore its centrality.

Call it a coup or impeachment, the current political situation of instability in Brazil is the sequence of historical blows perpetrated here by oligarchs, military and political leaders / managers who never hesitate to restore and reaffirm the centrality and violence of the State. Despite extremely worrying economic issues, Brazil continues, as before, with the world’s most deadly police. And as any anarchist knows, the police are the permanent coup d’etat.

There is no solution or salvation for the present situation, but the continuous fight or the small war, as recalled Proudhon. There is the rebel struggle against the misery of State’s wars, waged beyond the borders and against those declared enemies within. Since June 2013, autonomous struggles have grown in Brazil, as well as interest in anarchy. Nonetheless, a conservative movement has also emerged and, unlike other moments in this country’s history, has taken the streets and organized itself in the shape of a “social movement”. These groups, from the elected-president’s impeachment, managed to give vent to the conservatism of the Brazilian society. Anarchists continue their struggles while the institutional left fight for hegemony. We remain on the streets with black flags and the black blocs, at the universities with our researches and publications that defy the order. We refused the order during the so-called left government and we still during the new governmental conformation of the neo-liberal rationality that announces a conservative adjustment in all planet. Our work is of the craftsman in the construction of a different life, in the transformation of the self, in the fight against what we are and in war to the State and Society.

Acácio Augusto is a member of nu-sol – anarchist association that does research, publications, records, and actions towards anarchy and against the punitive system – www.nu-sol.org).

 

 

[FOR THE PICTURES]

Picture 1 (“ataque à polícia”): A black bloc activist attacks the police at June 2013 in São Paulo. By Vice Brasil

Picture 2 (“antifa SP”): Gathering for the demonstration against the bus fare, organized by MPL (Free Transportation Fares Movement). January 2016 in front of Municipal Theatre of São Paulo. At the center of it the Antifa SP flag. By W. Raeder

Picture 3 (“BB Copa”): Black bloc positioned against the police in action against the World Cup in 2014, Rio de Janeiro. Unknown author

Picture 4 (“BBs”): Black blocs with shields at an action in Sao Paulo downtown, in June 2013. Unknown author

Picture 5 (“estudantes RJ”): Two students in a Rio de Janeiro’s school that has been occupied, holding a sign: “Fuck the Military Police”. February 2016. Unknown author

Picture 6 (“contra a olimpíada”): Black blocs with flares in Act against the 2016’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, in the city downtown, August 2015. Unknown author

Picture 7 (“flávio galvão”): Black blocs destroy police car in Sao Paulo, at the Republica neighbourhood, in June 2013. By Flávio Galvão, ADVP (People’s Video Direct Action)

Picture 8 (“imagem oficina”): Black blocs in June 2013 against the Police in Rio de Janeiro. Unknown author)

Picture 9 (“leviatã”): Anti Riot Military Police in Sao Paulo, lined to defend the windows of a movie theatre at Avenida Paulista in Sao Paulo. January 2016. At the backcround the movie’s poster: “Leviathan”. Unknown author

Picture 10 (“acácio vix”): Act against the bus fare at downtow, in Vitoria, Espirito Santo State. January 2016 . By Andre Lima

 

Slingshot welcomes unsolicited non-fiction article submissions on a variety of topics. Many topics are of interest — we suggest you write about stuff you’re involved with, know about, or are passionate about. Because we only come out every 3-5 months and it takes a while for an article to go from the author to getting distributed, the best Slingshot articles are analysis, not pure news updates. Analysis is a process that examines and discusses news events and facts and reaches conclusions. It is different than an opinion rant — just spewing about what you think. While sometimes pure opinions are interesting, you’ll increase your chances of writing something publish-worthy by going beyond just ranting. We also like funny articles that make political points in a funny or interesting way. We like first-person articles where appropriate much better than dry articles with no “heart”.

One big purpose of Slingshot is to go beyond just providing information and analysis about social issues and provide some inspiration. Every day the mainstream press is full of articles about problems. The alternative press is at its best when it goes beyond just talking about problems and instead points to solutions — areas available for struggle, the development of new and creative tactics, hopeful stories about people who are changing things. A lot of people know we’re facing problems, but usually, this awareness just makes people feel hopeless and paralyzed. The alternative press can help figure out how to move people from disempowerment and resignation to action!

Slingshot has no formal political “party line”. We aim to reach a number of audiences:

• folks who could potentially be sympathetic and active, but haven’t yet made the step from critique to action.

• folks who were active at one point, but who’ve become discouraged or withdrawn.

• folks who are concerned about single issues or skeptical about the social direction, but who haven’t developed ideas about answers — what could be done, what would a new society look like, how can people organize to create change?

• people who are already inspired and motivated to act and want to hear about what other people are up to and think about new tactics or be exposed to what is working for other people.

Radical media can point out connections between seemingly distinct issues and social problems — a lot of problems and solutions come down to a critique of hierarchy, power, racism, patriarchy, dehumanizing structures, and economic / technological systems. We want to create media that goes beyond an academic, cold discourse and touches what is really human, precious and unique about each of our lives.

A good Slingshot article may contain some or all of these points:

1. Contains an analysis of a particular aspect of social reality that looks at the problem or phenomenon from a new angle or in a way that goes beyond “common wisdom” about the issue or typical liberal / progressive (or even radical / anarchist) points.

2. Suggests solutions vs. just pointing out how fucked up things are.

3. Inspires folks to actually do something. Just understanding an issue and knowing a theoretical solution is not enough. Each of us has numerous opportunities during our lives to change, grow and struggle. A great article will connect solutions to these opportunities.

4. Be fun to read, reach people on a personal / emotional level, maybe be funny or exciting, use non-jargon filled language that is accessible to a variety of people, explains or defines terms and ideas that are not universally understood and spells out group names vs. using acronyms. Articles should also address the who, what, when, where, how and why. Slingshot articles do not have to be objective but an author may find it helpful to define their biases where applicable. It is easiest for us if you send the article as an attachment to an email either as a .doc, .rtf, or .txt file.

The next article deadline is ?. Once people turn in articles, we have a weekend meeting where a big group of us read all the articles together. If you are in the Bay Area or can come here, join us for the reading and editing – it is fun and we’ll feed you and entertain you with jokes and ancient music played on vinyl records. Through that process, we either decide to publish an article as-is, decide to contact the author and ask them to revise the article, or decide that the article isn’t right for Slingshot. If we contact you and suggest revisions, you’ll have 3-4 days to make the revisions and one of us will be available to discuss the requested revisions with you. Submit to Slingshot!

By Leonie Sherman

“Tomorrow only fasting and praying to stop the pipeline!” declared Dorothy Sun Bear. It was the night before a national holiday that’s been celebrated with feasting since the Civil War, but there was no appetite for gratitude in the Oglala Wounded Knee Dining Hall, half a mile north of the Standing Rock Reservation. Four dozen people turned to Sun Bear and the bustling army tent fell silent.

“We don’t have nothing to be thankful for! They’re still stealing our land, they’re still digging up our ancestors!” She spat the words in disgust. “And we’re still fighting like we have been for 500 years.”

Sun Bear, a Lakota woman from Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation, saw a video of a grandma getting tackled by Morton County Sheriffs four months ago. The grandma was resisting construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) where it was slated to cross the Missouri River. A spill, rupture or leak—there have been 3,300 such incidents nationwide in the past six years —would pollute the drinking water for her relatives on the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota and 18 million people living downstream.

“I had to come here to defend her,” explained Sun Bear on Wednesday, Nov. 23. She brought six of her children and grandchildren. “We’re staying until the end, until we win. Then we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving.”

On Nov. 24, Oceti Sakowin, the main camp, swelled to an estimated 10,000 people. I had arrived four days early after a grueling three day driving marathon from Santa Cruz. “I think that one of the reasons people are coming here is because Donald Trump got elected,” says Madonna Thunderhawk, a Cheyenne-River Sioux who has been living at camp with her daughter and son-in-law since August. “I mean, where else can you go in this country right now to experience any kind of hope for positive change?”

It’s all about the land,” says Thunderhawk, gesturing at the brown rolling hills and bristling tipis of Oceti Sakowin. “People come out here with a lot of different agendas, but for us it’s always been about the land. Our ancestors are buried here. We come from here. We grow up here. This isn’t about climate change for us, it’s about the place we call home. The land is all we’ve got. We don’t have anything else left.”

 

 

“We aren’t just doing this for our people who live right downstream, whose drinking water will be contaminated by a spill,” continues Thunderhawk. “We’re doing this for all the rest of the people who live downstream as well, for all of us whose waters will be affected by an accident here.”

Security guard Hunter Short Bear, a Lakota from the Spirit Lake Nation, spent Thanksgiving Day responding to rumors of a camp raid and dealing with the constant stream of cars clogging the entrance station. “Today is supposed to be about giving thanks and coming together with family,” he says, gesturing at the dusty prairie bustling with activity. Supporters from around the world are bundled against the bitter wind, carrying lumber, sawing nails, hauling water and splitting wood. “Well, here we are. We’re all family now.”

“For us, Thanksgiving was never about family or friends,” says Tara Begay, a young Dine woman from the Navajo Reservation. “Our grandma used to tell us it was a time to remember those who have passed and what they fought for. To us, Thanksgiving was about genocide. It was about murder.”

Many people at the camp ignored the official government holiday completely. “There’s no vacations in camp,” says Everett Bowman, who is part Dine and part Paiute and calls the Owens Valley home. “We’re always working.” Sam Tame Horse Gallegos, a Mescalero Apache who lives in Pueblo Colorado, echoed that sentiment. “I came here to be part of this struggle however I can,” he says. “I’m going to spend the day helping out around camp, just like I do every day I’m here.”

“Normally on this day, the tribe gives us free food and we have a big dinner,” explains Sun Bear. “We’ve been programmed to celebrate the stealing of our land. That’s got to stop, we have to change that. We’re not thankful they took our land and stole all our natural resources. So, we’re fasting. My family won’t celebrate on this day anymore. We will fast and pray.”

BeaVi McCovey has been fasting on this day for over 50 years. She travelled here from the Yurok Reservation in Northern California and plans to stay through the winter. “My great-grandmother told me that the first mistake our people made in contact with white people was to feed them. She said if we’d just let them starve, we could have come back a year later and they all would have been dead,” she says. “We would still have our land and our way of life.”

“My mom thought Thanksgiving was a day to feed people who didn’t have money or a place to go, so there was always a big crowd at my house that day. Well, I thought this was a great opportunity to get up on my soap box. I would only drink water, and when people asked why I wasn’t eating, I would tell them what my great grandma told me.” McCovey smiles at the memory. She has fasted on this day since she was 9 years old.

But this year, she broke her fast. “I worked so hard with everyone, preparing the meal, I called it the harvest feast,” McCovey says. “It was such a communal effort. And then all these different natives sat down together and we shared what we had. It felt so great to be in a community of people that are gathered in prayer and ceremony.”

McCovey pauses to reflect on her time with the American Indian Movement and occupations she participated in decades ago. “We were more militant then, it seemed like a fight to the death. It feels so much more peaceful here. Maybe it’s because there’s no drugs or alcohol here, maybe I’m just older now.” She stops and squints into the smoky campfire. “The resistance here is so powerful because it’s a spiritual resistance,” she says finally. “We all have different beliefs, but we’re all here in prayer.”

Those joined in prayer represent the largest and most diverse gathering of indigenous people on the continent, maybe on the planet. “A month ago 3/4 of the registered tribes were present here and today there’s even more,” says Farron King, a 28-year old Cheyenne-River Blackfoot. “I was just kickin’ it with some Pawnee and some Crow; traditionally our people were enemies. So thank you oil companies for bringing all these indigenous people together!” He beams as he looks around at the young people with whom he shares the International Indigenous Youth Council Camp on the south shore of the Cannonball River.

One of those people is Mia Stevens, a 22-year old woman from the Paiute Reservation in Nevada, who is of Mexica, Ute, Dine, Paiute and Puerto Rican descent.

“On Thursday we wanted to make an honorable prayer for the trauma and genocide our people have been through, to heal the hatred and pain that led to. So we marched in silence to Turtle Island,” she says. Half an hour walk from her camp, on a hill above the Missouri River, lies an ancient burial ground that DAPL dug through to lay a section of pipeline a few weeks ago. Natives call the site Turtle Island. DAPL guards it with riot cops.

“We sang and prayed for the next seven generations, that they wouldn’t have to fight the way we do. Over a thousand people stood with us. We only sang our ceremonial songs. We approached the guards, in peace, and asked them to stand down,” she says, her eyes glowing with the memory. “They didn’t, but some of them lowered their face shields to respect our prayers. That was really big. Because we pray for them too. We know they’re just doing their jobs. We’re doing this for their children too.”

“Some celebrities offered us a big dinner and all this feasting, but we said no,” Stevens recalls, shaking her head. “We don’t want their pity food. We want them to stand with us. We want them to pray with us.”

“We don’t call what we’re doing actions or protests,” explains King. “We call them prayers. Everything we do out here is with peace and with prayer. When I came out here I started learning my language and our songs. When we all sing together, I can feel myself growing like a tree.” He inhaled deeply and straightened his spine, sitting up taller. “Now that we’ve found our way, we’ll never stop fighting. This is just the beginning.”

 

By Karma

There’s a game radicals, progressives, and liberals like to play. We are always looking for the turncoat in our midst. Did you catch someone confusing transsexual with transgender? Five points for you. Someone ignorantly, but not sarcastically, asks “what’s wrong with the phrase All Lives Matter,” 10 points for you. Sexist blonde joke? 4 points. We collect these points when we call out what we see for what it is: racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. And what do you get for all these points? You get to hide behind your accusations, behind your pointing finger. This is classic projection. If we can prove how racist someone else is, we will prove our own knowledge and superiority and no one will notice our own racist thoughts.

Perhaps you are thinking, “I am not racist.” This is a dangerous thought. It immediately makes me suspicious.

But my intent is not to wag my finger and shame you for your dirty, dirty -isms. No, I’m here to tell you to keep your wagging fingers to yourself.

My approach to racism is based on the work of Beverly Daniel Tatum, who compared race to smog: if you’re around it every day, you’re bound to get polluted. Like the puppets in Avenue Q sing, “Everyone’s a little bit racist.” We can apply Tatum’s logic to all the -isms. Sexism and the rules of gender are a collection of memes that people on the left are bombarded with relentlessly. A Kindergartener knows not to describe her friend by race; she knows that the princess is supposed to be rescued. By Tatum’s logic, though I’m a woman, I’m indoctrinated with sexist thoughts. Like when I catch myself assuming that a stranger on the Internet is a man, or how I enjoy objectifying women in movies. It’s harder to examine these tendencies in ourselves, so easy to call it out in others. Easier to deflect, deny. The Gotcha Game is seldom solitaire.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t call people on their bullshit. The examples above are offensive. But is your intent to help them grow, or is it to prove your own righteousness? If you acknowledge that ignorance is like smog, then you acknowledge that we all have to do work to become better people. Having faced our own imperfections, we will be gentle with the feelings of someone else who messes up. We are asking them to confront themselves. That’s hard enough.

I am a social justice warrior, because I am fighting for social justice. I’m not ashamed of that. Fighting for social justice sometimes means uncomfortable conversations. I want people to say these offensive things in my presence, because I want to have dialog. Dialog is only possible when people feel safe to express their view or ask questions.

For example, I once met a punk who opposed affirmative action because, as a white man with a mohawk, he too faced discrimination. Gotcha! It would have been easy to call him out for his racism, put him on the defensive as no doubt he expected. Instead I asked if he knew that most affirmative action jobs go to women, not minorities. I told him about how the first skinhead punks shaved their heads in solidarity with the unemployed Rastafarians who had to shave their locks. And without malice I pointed out that he could shave his hawk, but a minority can’t shed her skin. He admitted that he hadn’t thought it through, and I commended him for being so open-minded.

You might be thinking, “I’m not here to educate dumb racists. They need to educate themselves.” I get it. I run out of patience too, but we must fight this inclination. The Gotcha Game has real consequences, dangerous ones, as this election has shown.

The first is that people are turned away from our movements because they don’t feel safe asking questions. I’m not talking about allowing harassment or discrimination, people play the Gotcha Game around even the most innocent mistakes. Like the young white punk, these are allies who are just trying to sort through the smog of xenophobia and misogyny we’re all breathing in. But that can’t happen if we make him too uncomfortable to ask questions. .

Second, there is backlash to the Gotcha Game. Yes, we want to create safe spaces for marginalized people. But Reddit, Tumblr, and Facebook aren’t safe spaces. We shouldn’t want to enforce a strict no-offense policy in the world, because the world isn’t fucking safe. Like smog, shitty discrimination is lurking everywhere. It doesn’t help to hide it.

You can’t convince fascists to believe in human rights. They believe that the world is cruel and therefore any kind of rights are a lie to give a leg up to those who are currently winning. The fascists believe that might makes right, so being oppressed makes you inherently inferior. But most people aren’t fascist. Most people want very much want to believe that humans are good, that they themselves can be good. Yet there is a huge backlash against anything left-wing because people think that progressives are judgmental.

With real, sustained, open dialog people can be swayed. But no one listens when they are being chastised. Telling people what language they’re allowed to use doesn’t make anyone safe. It just makes them angry, and drives them into the arms of the fascists.

This article is one example of the sort of delightfully offensive, post-utopian smack talk you can find at the new website, reth.ink, edited by two of your favorite Slingshot-wielding women.

 

By A. Iwasa

On Wednesday February 1st thousands of people participated in the successful shutdown of so-called Alt Right speaker, editor and writer Milo Yiannopolous at the University of California-Berkeley (Cal).  As a witness of the events, I strongly believe that what actually shut down the talk was the dozens of people who attacked the building Yiannopolous was supposed to speak in. We sent the message loud and clear:  his anti-immigrant and anti-feminist views are not welcome in the East Bay.

As should probably be expected, Yiannopolous, one of the Berkeley College Republicans and local corporate media reporters all denounced the direct actionists as repressive, and bemoaned that this happened at the home of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) on the evening news.

This is a very interesting way to try to flip the script considering the FSM was started in the struggle to spread the word about the Civil Rights Movement.  Many of the participants in the FSM were later involved in a direct action campaign to kick a Navy recruiter off campus starting with a sit down protest around the recruiter’s table and culminating in the 1966 student strike.

Studying the rise of fascism in Europe and what it led to indicates why people of conscience should feel moved to stop events such as the Yiannopolous talk, part of a tour that was also shutdown in Los Angeles and Davis, California.

Much like the Tinley Park 5’s participation in shutting down a white nationalists’ economic summit in Chicagoland, I think Cal’s Black Bloc are heroes and should be given awards for helping make February 1st the most beautiful night in Berkeley so far this year.

As Chris Crass wrote the next day in “The Time of ‘Never Again’ is Now” for the Anarres Project, “It’s crucial to remember that no one looks back at Germany during the rise of the Nazis and says, ‘well at least they respected the Nazi’s freedom of speech’. They say, ‘Never Again’.”

March 3-6

10 years since the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad. Global events including San Francisco

 

March 7 • 7:30pm

The Case against Sugar 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley kpfa.org

 

March 8

International Woman’s Day (and maybe General Strike of women – date is TBA as of press time)

 

March 9-12

Extreme Appalachia Conference appalachianstudies.org

 

March 10 • 8pm

East Bay Bike Party. 2nd Friday each month

 

March 19 • 7pm

Slingshot new volunteer meeting 3124 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley

 

March 23-25

The Promise of Ethnic Studies Conference. San Francisco State University ethnicstudies.org

 

March 29 7:30pm

We Were Feminists Once. 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley. kpfa.org

 

March 29 • 6pm

San Francisco Critical Mass, meets at Pee Wee Herman Plaza (foot of Market Street) sfcriticalmass.org

 

April

Take Back the Night protests internationally against sexual assault takebackthenight.info

 

April 4

Liverpool Anarchist Bookfair

 

April 7-13

Sacred Peace Walk to Nevada Test Site

 

April 7-9

Balkan Anarchist Book fair-zagreb.org

 

April 8-9 • 10-5 pm

Punk Rock Flea Market trentonpunkrockfleamarket.com

 

April 14 – 15 All Day

“Engendering Change” Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL

 

 

 

 

April 15

Protests planned on numerous topics everywhere

 

April 15

Article deadline for Slingshot issue #124 3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley slingshot.tao.ca

 

April 19 • 7:30 pm

Omar El Akkad author of the “American War” 2727 College Ave., Berkeley kpfa.org

 

April 22 CHANGE SINCE SLINGSHOT WENT TO PRINTING PRESS

EVENT POSTPONED and will not be on April 22 – postponed to September, 2017 –  Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair bayareaanarchistbookfair.com

 

April 22

March for Science on Earth Day. Washington DC and other locations marchforscience.com

 

April 23 • 10-6pm

Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory, And Research & Development conference sfbay-anarchists.org

 

April 23 – 29

Mass Mobilization to Stop the Drone Wars Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. shutdowncreech.blogspot.com

 

April 28

Chicago Critical Mass chicagocriticalmass.org

 

April 28-30

9th Brooklyn Folk Fest St. Ann’s Church

 

April 29

Pagan Ritual Beltane Magic Meadow. San Francisco bayareareclaiming.org

 

April 29

Humboldt Anarchist Bookfair humboldtgrassroots.com

 

April 29

People’s Climate March, Washington, DC peoplesclimate.org

 

May 1 • 6pm

May Day Anticapitalist March Space Needle, Seattle, WA (and elsewhere). General Strike may also be on the menu.

 

May 1

Application deadline Worcester Artist-Activist Residency worcesterartistactivistresidency.weebly.com

 

May 13

11th NYC Anarchist Bookfair anarchistbookfair.net

 

May 20 • 10-6 pm

Sheffield, UK Anarchist Bookfair sheffieldbookfair.org.uk

 

May 27-28 • 10 – 5 pm

Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. Montreal, Quebec anarchistbookfair.ca

 

May 28 • 10 – 6 pm

LA Zine Fest California Market Center lazinefest.com

 

June 2-6

Left Forum John Jay College, CUNY NYC leftforum.org

 

June 10

Stockholm Anarchist Bookfair Telefonplan 3, 126 37 Hägersten Stockholms Län, Sweden

 

June 10 • 12 – 10pm

2017 San Francisco Free Folk Festival. 450 Church St

 

June 20 • 7:30pm

Pagan Ritual Litha/Summer Solstice Ocean Beach, San Francisco bayareareclaiming.org

 

June 24

London Radical Book fair Goldsmiths – University of London

 

July 4

Rainbow Gathering welcomehome.org