a15 – The Slingshot organizer app is here

Slingshot is pleased to announce the release of a Slingshot organizer smart phone app. It’s a calendar app with hand-drawn art, menstrual calendar and the radical historical dates that appear in the paper version of the organizer. If you click on the historical date, you can see all the dates we have in our list — up to 20 events for each day. The app syncs with your google calendar so all dates added in the app or in your google calendar will appear in the other automatically. The menstrual calendar in the app has a graphical predictive feature. The app is free with a donate button.

We hope you’ll try the app and if you like it, tell your friends. It seems like on-line things like the app get spread and popularized on-line, which poses a problem for Slingshot since we don’t have much of any on-line presence, so we leave it to our readers to help. Many people have approached us over the years and told us they previously used the paper organizer, but then they started using their phone calendar. We hope some of those folks will give the app a try. 

In our wildest dreams, the app will help get radical information beyond our comfort zone and the activist ghettos based in big cities, college towns, and the coasts. Maybe it can get some Emma Goldman and IWW dates out to folks who’ve never seen the paper Organizer, or who don’t find it practical to use anymore. 

We’re going to keep publishing the organizer on paper, because the paper calendar has different uses than an app. We decided to make the app a few years ago and it ended up being harder than expected to make the app a reality. 

The app is a work-in-progress, and we expect we’ll find some bugs and perhaps upgrade or adjust it over the next year or so. Please send us your questions, comments or suggestions. Currently, the app only works on Android phones, and a big question is whether we should invest additional resources to make an iphone version. We don’t have an iphone programmer so if you know how to program apps for the iphone and want to help, let us know. To download it, go to the google play store and search “slingshot organizer.” 

a15 – Radness is your radius

Compiled by Jesse D. Palmer

As usual, as soon as we took the 2018 Slingshot organizer to the printing press, folks started emailing us with updates and additions to the contact list. Let us know if you see things we should correct or add. Due to computer problems, we have been unable to update the on-line contact list (or even fix an error that eliminated all of Europe) for the last 6 months. We hope this will be fixed soon. The new website is slingshotcollective.org. 

The Aquadome – Kirksville, MO

A volunteer-run DIY venue and art space that hosts events. “It is, unfortunately, not a water park.”  120 S Main St, Kirksville, MO 63501

Aboveground Zine Library – New Orleans, LA 

They were closed for 6 years and now they have a new location at a radical / self help bookstore and flower shop (!) that has been nice to lend them some space. Open Wed-Sat 11-7 pm and Sun 11-5 pm closed Mon and Tues. c/o Rubber Library 3240 Dauphine St. New Orleans, LA 70117, 504-945-4662. 

Appalshop/Boone Youth Drop-In Center – Whitesburg, KY 

A non-profit arts and media project in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields. They have video training facilities, a community radio station, a 150-seat theater and an art gallery space that hosts community projects. 91 Madison Ave, Whitesburg, KY 41858 606-633-0108 appalshop.org

The Plantory – Lexington, KY 

A coworking space that rents work and meeting spaces to various non-profits. Our contact recommended it so if you visit, let us know what you think. 501 W 6th St Suite 250, Lexington, KY 40508 859-255-6999 plantory.org 

Good Life Center – Harborside, ME

A five acre homestead farm that promotes “simple and sustainable living skills, social and economic justice, organic gardening and the non-exploitation of animals.” It was the home of Helen & Scott Nearing who promoted sustainable living starting in the 1930s.  Someone suggested we include this in the contact list and it’s hard to know if it is a good fit – it is part museum and they host some educational projects. Let us know what you think. 372 Harborside Rd.Harborside, Maine, 04642 goodlife.org 

Diggers Books & Zines – Prince Edward County, ON, Canada

They sell books and zines on radical topics and they host events. 2569 County Rd. 13, Prince Edward County, ON, K0K 2T0, Canada 613-920-4914, diggersbookshop.wordpress.com

Andrými – Reykjavik, Iceland

A new radical social center. Iðnó Vonastræti 3 Reykjavik, Iceland, andrymi.org 

Updates to the 2018 Organizer and news bits

• The Che Cafe in San Diego – which had been in an epic battle for survival with the University of California – won and now has a stable lease!

• Peoples’ Action for Rights and community in Eureka, Calif. closed but left behind a super thoughtful communique about running a radical space amidst the horrors of capitalism. It will be included in the on-line version of this article. 

a13 – Many hands makes the work light

hoping you find at least one thought provoking sentence in every issue! Slingshot loves it the slow way, loves to do the hand job: writing, drawing, cutting, waxing, rolling, folding, putting the slingshots in envelopes, taking it to the post office on bike trailers…

We’re enjoying the collective(‘s) time together sharing our ideas, crazy thoughts and big questions while working together till the pages are all done and ready for the printer. That’s why we spend little time in front of the screen, that’s why it’s so hard to find us on the ‘other end’ of the screen: on your smartphone, tablet or computer, on social media…we started publishing in 1988, before the first website existed. Some of us think that computers and the internet won’t exist forever and we don’t want to lose our skills, want to stay independent from the system(s).

As a collective we still want to spend as little time as possible attached to the flickering box, and we’re also not good at it (guess why!). But we acknowledge that some of you are and you might even like it! Besides those of you that we meet on the streets (here is our limitation mainly to the Bay Area) we would love to reach as many active people as you out there in all possible ways into the farthest corners of the globe. Please help us! Please share the sentence, the article you like with your friends! Please make us more visible on the internet by posting a link in whatever computer platform you favor!

Every Slingshot issue you’ll find online at our websites slingshot.tao.ca or slingshotcollective.org – you can even dig deep down in our archive. Which social media (fb: slingshot collective; twitter: #slingshotnews) seems secure enough for you to chat with us, start a discussion, we would love that. …and if you want to retreat to our slow way we’re extremely happy to meet you in person in Berkeley at the Long Haul Infoshop!

a13 – Next year is coming – resist now

The 2018 Slingshot organizer is available now. By selling the organizer, we are able to print and give away this paper for free, so if you want to support the paper, please buy the organizer for yourself and as gifts. 

Because our costs went up we raised the wholesale price for the organizer — the first price increase in over 10 years. The way stuff works, we don’t set the retail prices, but they’ll be higher. Thanks for your understanding. If you can make it to the Long Haul Infoshop at 3124 Shattuck, Berkeley, you can purchase it at the old price. 

You can order the organizer on-line but if possible, please buy it from a brick and mortar store which helps support the many coops, infoshops and independent bookstores that sell the Organizer. If you know of a store in your area that might like to carry the organizer and/or the paper, let us know. We would like to meet them. 

The process to make the 2018 organizer was particularly fun this summer and we think it looks amazing. A number of people who we had never met before dropped by to make last-minute art and stayed until 2 am. Thanks to everyone who helps make the organizer lovely.

a12 – A challenge to bro culture in feminism

“The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power; cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity […] In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false generosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source”
-Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed  
Talking Feminism- some new ideas
by Dorian Commode  
This article is an exploration of the way those of us already invested in the destruction of patriarchy and gender create space to talk with and educate each other. It is not patriarchy 101, nor a proposal of specific solutions. In the tradition of popular education, I believe that the oppressed already contain enough information to assess and destroy our oppression, but that we must structure spaces in a way that such information is brought out in an actionable way.  
Patriarchy remains a structural element of global society. It is neither about to be destroyed by the class climbing of a few highly privileged women, nor the injustice system “locking up rapists,” nor by genderfucking. Every transperson and woman I know (and a significant amount of men) has experienced some combination of sexual assault or domestic violence, almost entirely at the hands of men. Following the logic of The Shock Doctrine, this near universal, continuous experience and helpless witnessing of torture primes us to think of ourselves as individuals in permanent conflict with “The World”, incapable of solidarity and unable to resist the ongoing waves of violence we experience on larger economic scales as well as the regular abuses and entitlements of men*. As I wrote this article, I was “mildly” sexually assaulted by someone in my community. Of course, he honestly wants to do what he can to be a good feminist, and I honestly believe him. The condition of privilege is that of ignorance — the easiest thing is to participate in oppression. It is not an outlier.
Of course this is urgent. It’s been urgent for 5000 years. Of course men* of conscience want to defect. Of course they don’t know how. “What should I read?” I don’t know. “Educate me.” Are you ready? Am I? Are we? To be educated as an oppressor is to be reduced from a position of power as the oppressed free themselves. Since when should the oppressed not have to educate the oppressor”? Who else will?  
While the quote above should be considered by all “allies,” the “oppressor” Freire referred to was not the privileged individual (man, white person, straight person, etc), but the economic ruling class. His “oppressed” are the economic/racial underclass. Men compose the majority of this ruling class, and are fused in a cross-class alliance with other men, most clearly within the Men’s Rights Movement which blames women, transpeople and queers for their (for poor/working class men, very real) disempowerment. If the privileged man* is not an oppressor, per se, what is strategy is left for common struggle? How will the privileged defect from their alliance with the oppressors? When must we struggle against them, and when can we struggle with them?  
Articles like this one tend to provoke resentment, defensiveness, or unthinking submission from privileged people. Are these responses the failing of the writer? Or the fault of the “fucked up” reader? This lack of connection between voice of oppressed and ear of privileged is simply that — one that hasn’t been made yet. To focus on the “fucked-upness” of individuals is to silently acknowledge that the best we can do is get a few people to act slightly better. We need them to, yes, and a lot more.  
The notions of declaring oneself a “male feminist ally” and forming a “feminist men’s group” (much like the whites-only anti-racist group) persist as “the” way to organize as aspiring feminist men. This is rather bizarre, considering that some prominent male feminists of the 70s ended up founding the Men’s Rights movement.** A group of privileged people, especially a group such as men, who are generally socialized to be competitive and uncommunicative, getting together in a “safe space” to talk about their privilege seems to me like an incubator for anti-feminist activity. Let me explain:  
What I’ve seen of organized feminist men’s groups, and in subculture that considers itself feminist is this: those men who are best at talking the feminist talk are elevated as “good men” who can be trusted, regardless of their actions. I’ve known male women’s and gender studies majors who refuse to wash their dishes, feminist queer men who mansplain abortion rights, macho bros who feel really righteous when they “kick rapists’ asses,” men who are so excited to use “bitch” again now that it’s ok if you attach “basic” or “white,” and on and on. At worst, I was around a men’s group organized by two (unacknowledged) male rapists. These guys were, of course, “good dudes.”  
This is what happens when talk is more important than walk, when someone can be considered an “Ally” as their static identity. Ally is a verb, something which must be done, not something to be. As long as we allow ourselves to fall into thinking that there are Good People and Bad People, rather than reacting to what people Actually Do, we will continue to be fooled by those who say all the right things and do all the wrong ones.  
The evolution of a caucus of privileged people into a reactionary group is predictable because it imitates the structure of mainstream society — a space in which privileged people are listened to, but worse because the rest of us aren’t even there to observe or react. If men* need a space to process the (very real) hurt they carry from patriarchy, it’s probably best that they do that within organically developed, trusting friendships with people of many genders. Within a group of men* discussing feminism, it’s unlikely that members have a high enough degree of vulnerability and trust with each other to avoid a competition to be “most feminist.” It seems like a set-up for men to feel good about themselves either by ascending to the top of the hierarchy of “good dudes” or to engage in indulgent self-punishment for being “bad” (hire a dominatrix, it’s simpler). to make
Women and transpeople make groups for ourselves because we don’t have spaces in mainstream society where we hear each other and see each other as valuable. These spaces have far more potential to transgress normal social relations. I say “potential” because women-only spaces are an essential part of maintaining patriarchy. The kitchen, the laundry, the servant’s quarters, the boarding school, the brothel,*** the finishing school, the female-dominated care industries, and the private discussions in which we discuss those most unpleasant things: abortions, yeast infections, rape, who to watch out for. Those things that men just shouldn’t have to think about. Women also enforce gender norms on each other in these spaces: discussing men, instructing each other how to act and look in order to please them, putting each other down for our gender transgressions.  
We need to change the way we relate within groups of oppressed people, too, and not assume that we are radical or feminist simply by getting together. Someone who experiences a certain type of oppression knows better than someone who doesn’t what that experience is like. What one does with that information varies.  
I think it would be more useful, as far as discussions go, to have mixed gender groups in which men* are actively obliged to both speak honestly and respect other’s ideas. Women and trans people in such groups must also transgress expectations to not upset or offend men, to actively name when men are being overbearing or disrespectful, and to name and discuss openly aired patriarchal ideas. We’d have to challenge ourselves to be radically unsafe in a group of people with whom we could feel (but never actually be) safe around. Conflict in such a space could easily be dismissed as “too hard to deal with” (for men who have the option of avoiding discussions of patriarchy), or as a product of the irreparable ignorance of the privileged. Or it could be avoided. Or it could be productive. 
We are not yet equipped for insurrection against patriarchy. Discussion groups, caucuses, and collective action make possible this insurrection by fusing the information we already have into something actionable, which then can be reanalyzed and turn into something even more effective. The discussion group is not an endpoint. What I’m proposing is the most challenging of actions- telling the truth to each other and ourselves, so that we might do something useful together. Maybe we will decide to try doing clinic defense again, become union organizers, get guns, learn to do abortions, infiltrate legal advocacy, opt for political homo- or asexuality. Who knows? We need to talk about it first.

*for brevity’s sake, I will use “men*” to refer to people who experience male privilege. AFAB (assigned female at birth) and AMAB are more descriptive terms than “men” and “women,” but I’m making the always debatable choice to use less accurate, more accessible language.

**There is some documentation of this available, some evidence is anecdotal. I have also witnessed the effects of an echo chamber of men talking about their experiences of oppression within patriarchy lead towards regressive, sexist conclusions.  
www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/warren-farrell-mens-rights-movement-feminism-misogyny-trolls/

***Let’s not kid ourselves- patriarchy fully necessitates sex work/ers, it simply terrorizes them to keep them in line and to keep other women in their place- that is, performing obligatory sexual labor for free. The terror wrought upon transfeminine sex workers is an overlapping and equally charged topic worthy of its own article.

Note: This part doesn’t seem to fit into the rest of the article, could be a sidebar? possible titles: ally as a verb, feminism in action, how to “do” feminism

Feminism has given us the adage “the personal is political.” Meaning, in part, what you actually do is the truest indicator of what one will continue to do. Your actions are your politics. You can aspire to something different, sure, but what you do is what you believe is ok or necessary to do right now.  
— Listen to people, especially those who don’t get listened to as much as you do. When you think their experiences or complaints sound too bad to be true, ask yourself where that denial comes from. Get in their shoes. Part of female socialization is constantly putting oneself in other’s shoes, try doing the same so we can try staying in ours. When someone has a patriarchy-related problem ask if there’s something you can do, don’t be disappointed if there isn’t, do not try to be a primary actor in the “resolution” nor reneg on responsibility to act.
— Be nice to people. Assume that most people, especially those that experience oppression(s), have gone through some fucked up shit.  
— Seek validation outside of activism, that’s what good friends are for. Successes are few, and trying to “look busy” or be seen as a “good ally” rarely assists in strategic collective action.  
— Clean up after yourself. Seriously. It is a continual problem that men don’t clean up their shit, I assume this comes from a confidence that “someone” will come deal with the mess, or that the mess is “not a big deal.” The sense that someone will take care of you or that getting other people sick won’t impact you is an entitlement that most people don’t have. Oppression is always economic. One’s health and stuff is precious and costs money that is often hard earned. Yes, there are messy femmes, I live with them. It’s annoying but the political and social weight is just not the same.  
— Don’t participate in trends like calling women “basic bitches” or whatever. It’s still sexist. 
— Sexual tension is often used as a form of social control. Men have the option of using flirtation to insure themselves against being challenged, whether or not they are actually sexually interested in their subject, as femmes and women are less likely to compromise getting laid by being argumentative. It’s unacceptable to rely on being charming, sweet, or flirtatious as a way to avoid responsibility for ones actions.  
— Learn and practice feminist theory: Reading ideas and stories of women and transpeople is a great way for men to educate themselves without overburdening those people. Remember that this is not “self-education,” the writer did the work and is educating you, and someone had to make the reading list. That said, I’ve known plenty of men who’ve read all the right stuff and still act like sexist assholes. Why? Because they equate thinking with doing something. To be a true ally you cannot just do the homework — you must take what you’ve learned and actively apply it to your life, your behavior, your sex life. The future is unwritten, comrades.

a11 – Dangerous, alluring, meaningful – students on People’s Park and their role in its destruction

By Sam

The University of California Berkeley is very concerned about the housing problem the city faces, but not the one that immediately comes to mind. Apparently the school is about six thousand beds short and student homelessness has been on the rise (though so are student fees and chancellor saleries, but apparently that’s neither here nor there to them). The school has nine sites in mind as future student housing centers. Perhaps inspired by how many folks it currently houses, one of those sites is People’s Park, an area that the school technically owns, but has no control over. Originally a proposed spot for student housing in the fifties, the university lost funding and intrest and ceased construction. In 1969 there was a community effort to turn the area into a park, but the university abruptly demanded the space back. Clashes between people and police lead to rioting, police shootings that left one man dead, and a National Guard occupation of Berkeley, but in the end the people kept their park.

So my original idea for this article was to simply report on the university’s plan, but a thought occurred one day while lazing around on Telegraph, watching the students roll by: do any of these people care? I mean, it’s for them — people that will only be in Berkeley at most four years — that Cal is attempting to get rid of a spot loved by so many. How do they feel about that? As far as I can remember, I don’t ever recall seeing a student pass through the park. Why did they avoid it so much? With all of that in mind, I got a tape recorder decided to hit the streets for answers.

My initial approach — chasing kids down Telegraph with a microphone — yielded no results. It was pretty depressing how those kids eyed, or refused to eye, me. They seemed disturbed by the fact that someone they’d never met was smiling and saying “Hi” to them. I wondered if they assumed I was a panhandler, and then wondered if that, coupled with their reaction, had answered my question better than any interview could.

Finally a freshman agreed to talk to me. His thoughts on the park? “Not so great.” In regards to it’s possible destruction, he said that he’d indeed heard about it but had yet to form an opinion. “It would be nice for the students to have more housing options,” he added. Next was another freshman who actually lives right next to the park! He described it as a home for the homeless and “a place where a culture of hippiness is fostered.” Fair. Unfortunately, he was actually in favor of the proposed project, adding “it’s not like they won’t rehabilitate the people that have been displaced”. Quite baffled, I asked him if he really thought that the university was going to help out the homeless if they got rid of the park. “Uh, I’m not so familiar with the system yet; it’s only been one month here.” One month where, on this planet?!? Sheesh.

Next up was a Cal graduate named Edward, who said that he’d heard that “sometimes girls are afraid to go past it alone at night, but it hasn’t caused me problems so I’m cool with it.” He thinks that, while some renovations wouldn’t be too bad, overall he “[doesn’t] think they should build a complete housing unit [there]”, though he cynically added that “the guys with suits do whatever they want.” Good lord, conceding to authority? What are they teaching those kids there?!? Fortunately his friend Ivan, also a former Cal student, was a little more optimistic. “[The park] has a special vibe that you can’t find in other places,” says Ivan. “When my friends come over to Berkeley that go ‘Oh! That’s People’s Park!’ I think if there were just ordinary buildings there it would take out the uniqueness of the place. Even though it’s kind of sketchy and dangerous, I still find the allure of the place pretty meaningful.”

Dominique, a junior at UC Berkeley, said that “a lot of people say it’s a hole in the wall and they don’t wanna go there,” though personally he finds the patrons of the park “harmless for the most part”. When I asked him about the proposed project, he said “I know there’s a shortage of housing, and I know that the park isn’t liked very much, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.” As for it’s historical significance, Dominique gave me one of the best understatements I’ve heard in a long while with “I know some people say it has some significance along with the Free Speech Movement and things like that.” These fucking kids, man. “I feel like eventually it’ll be taken down because of the need for housing.” Housing for the students or the homeless? After all, both are in need. Dominique shrugged and said “In this particular area [they] would prioritize students.” 

At this point, the sun started to go down and I knew I’d have to wrap up soon. I was still a bit dismayed. I’d succeeded in getting people to talk to me, but their answers gave me little to no hope. The fact was almost none of them cared about the park’s past, present or future. 

The last person I talked to was actually someone who turned me down before doubling back and saying “No wait that sounds cool.” Was he familiar with Slingshot? No. Did he attend UC? No, but he had grown up in Berkeley. Was he familiar with People’s Park? At this his eyes lit up, and I started to come out of my depressed haze. “[The park’s] history is so rich and just so fucking cool,” he excitedly exclaimed. Without my even bringing it up he added “It breaks my heart that they might turn it into student housing. That mural tells the whole story.” Awesome! So, maybe the students don’t care too much (or at all), but I think it’s safe to say that the defenders of the park have strength in numbers. Right? Right.

a11 – Book review: Being the change

BEING the change:

Live well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus

Reviewed by elke

New Society Publishers $21.99 or read at the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley for free

This book is inspiring as it holds the mirror just in front of my face: We are the (climate) change! It talks about our common predicament and our millions of little ways of denial and escaping. It’s written by a fellow traveler in the middle of this industrial society, though he has to deal with the undeniable data and facts every day as a climate scientist.

Using very understandable language, he shares with us a critical view of how this data is processed in the culture/society.

The second part is the story of his gradual opting out to where he is now living using 1/10th of the fossil fuel of an average (ever rich) American (1/5th of the average German). Following his adventures on this path, the book explores and challenges his/our general mindset, his/our underlying beliefs and ideals, looking at it all that with one scientist’s eye and human eye. He attempts to find sense in the craziness, calling out the brokenness in the system and in us. It’s also a hands on instruction manual for living in a post-fossil fuel society, without ignoring the frequent and sometimes overwhelming questions and contradictions. I appreciate the 60 pages of source material for my own further research!

Why are we not fucking doing it? It’s right there! Peter Kalmus is not leaving us out of it, so Let’s fucking do it!! Let’s opt out of fossil fuels and everything connected: militarism, industrial society, separatism, and our death inducing imperial behavior towards the Earth.

Look forward to an interview with the author in our next issue.

a -10 Book review – The lamb will slaughter the lion

by Tom Doherty Associates

www.tor.com

Review by Steve Brady

In The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion, Danielle hitchhikes to Freedom, Iowa, a ghost town settled by anarchy-punks. She’s searching for clues about her best friend’s mysterious suicide, and what Freedom might have to do with it. This community has all the pieces of a good idea but something is wrong—in the air, in the animals. Turns out their murderous demon has gone off-leash and rogue. And there’s a bigger and more dangerous problem: the usual squatter dysfunction and folly.

While Margaret Killjoy’s first novel, A Country of Ghosts, came out on her own label, this one is published by Tor, a leading sci-fi and fantasy publisher. Through speculative fiction, Margaret has found a way to bring her anarchist culture and ideas to a broad audience. Fortunately, she has a real talent for telling the punk-traveler experience.

Well, because so much written about the life is terrible. There’s so many bad zines, Kerouac-ism, and Evasion. All of this horror pales before what outsiders and poseurs write about us. Instead, Margaret Killjoy gets it right. She shows us as flawed and unpredictable, but beautiful and resourceful. This story is neither Lord of the Flies nor News From Nowhere. It’s about people who aren’t cut out for normal life living the only way they can. How amidst the ugliness and danger, that way of life is still worthwhile. 

All the details are authentic; even when I disagree with her traveling and self-defense advice, it’s still real and doesn’t make me gag. One thing I find tiresome about urban fantasy is the moment the normal characters find out magic, vampires, ghosts, etc. are real—it’s never convincing. But in this skilled portrayal of a culture where anything can happen, Danielle’s acceptance of the demon’s existence goes down flawlessly.

And Uleksi is an outstanding demon. He’s mysterious like Moby Dick, an archetypical symbol of something or other, but he’s also more than that. Killjoy gets what it means to be intelligent without being human. Uleksi’s actions make consistent sense, but his idea of what to do is alien to us. Uleksi seeks out those who have violated others, but that’s because it’s his nature, not morals.

Uleksi fits in well with the theme of justice in anarchist communities and societies, which was also a major theme of A Country of Ghosts. Outside the system just like within, no one quite knows the answers. Killjoy’s anarchist characters know they’re merely doing the best they can. They’re not amoral or dogmatic; they’re sincere, but just because justice is anarchist doesn’t make it pretty. 

To be vulnerable, Danielle’s lover reveals her weakness: “I fucking love trashy romance. The straighter the better. The worse the politics the better. I’ll just eat that shit up.” If this isn’t you, if you want a starkly unpredictable novel, that ignores gender conventions, with solid ambivalent politics, read The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion.

a10 –

By Shane Redd and Gerald Smith

For movie fans hoping for some semblance of a political perspective to offset what has become a repetitive and mostly stale Hollywood, the summer 2017 movie season remained mostly apolitical. Yet one summer film represents that bright shining star in a Hollywood sky filled with dull mindless remakes. 

War for the Planet of the Apes is part three of what has become one of the more inspiring movie trilogies of the decade; it’s also a major studio production (20th Century Fox) that has consistently highlighted the danger of the capitalist system and its potential to lay waste to the large majority of humanity, while offering a glimpse of the potential barbarism in store for the unfortunate souls who survive. War for the Planet of the Apes is the third film of 20th Century Fox’s reboot of the critically acclaimed 1968 original film — Planet of the Apes, based on French author Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel – La Planete des Singes. With War, fans of the trilogy can appreciate the highly relevant themes they’ve come to expect from watching Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , including: Mans ceaseless attempts to manipulate and conquer nature, the dangers of shadowy capitalist industry (biotech, robotics, etc.), animal liberation, the importance of leadership, and socialism vs. barbarism. Each of these themes will inform the analysis of the film and help draw parallels with present-day capitalist realities.

At the opening of the third film, a mere fifteen years has passed since Caesar and his fellow apes uprising from captivity and escape into the redwood forests of Northern CA. In those fifteen years, planet earth has seen over 90% of humans killed off by a simian flu virus created in a Biotech research corporation (Gen-sys laboratories) experimenting on apes in the hopes of curing Alzheimer’s. 

Gen-sys is the biotech corporation where Caesar, a chimpanzee, and his mother before him were given samples of an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that allowed for their intelligence evolution. With the first film, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, audiences are given a crystal clear glimpse of the dangers inherent with shadowy profit-driven capitalist industry. This danger becomes more significant and relevant to the present-day when considering the neoliberal deregulation that has become a staple of late capitalism. Humanity could any day come face to face with a contagion that wipes out the vast majority of people, with the survivors similarly blaming the victims, in the film the victims are the apes and the masses– all guinea pigs of profit driven biotechnology and big Pharma fantasies.

In the second film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, we see the contrast between two communities of survivors. The apes, led by Caesar, have set up a communal society and are thriving in the Redwood forests to the north of the Bay Area. They live by one simple rule, “Apes don’t kill other Apes”. In contrast to their communal society, the surviving humans in San Francisco are struggling to come to terms with the reality they face. Rather than adapting and evolving to the new dawn, they are stockpiling weapons and are hell-bent on fixing a power source that lies in the heart of the Apes forest enclave. In other words, they cling to the hope that the capitalist society they knew, a society responsible for humanity’s demise, can be rebuilt.

War for the Planet of the Apes starts with the barbarism of the humans on full display. An elite soldier unit (Alpha Omega) has found the Apes hideout and is hoping to eliminate Caesar and his fellow apes once and for all. The elite soldiers are led by a demagogic colonel who is obsessed with exacting vengeance on the apes, despite their having nothing to do with the simian flu or the current war. The Alpha Omega soldiers are resisted by the Apes army, while four human soldiers are captured and ultimately let go by Caesar with a message for their rogue Colonel McCullough (played by Woody Harrelson). The message was clear and simple, “the apes did not start the war and they want peace between apes and humans”. Here again we see the “humanity” of intelligent apes compared with the vengeful barbarism of humans whom, despite their dwindling worldwide numbers, must conquer the apes and reclaim their “dominant” status on the planet.

Men and their ceaseless desire to manipulate and conquer all forms of nature is a consistent theme throughout the Planet of the Apes trilogy. The importance of leadership is also quite prominent, none more so than in the third film. At a certain point Caesar’s band is captured by the Alpha Omega soldiers and forced to work without food or water. Caesar steps up and tells the rogue colonel in no uncertain terms that if he wants the apes to work for him then he needs to feed them and quench their thirst. A request the desperate colonel grants as he needs the apes to build a wall to fend off an attack by U.S. Government forces, as it’s revealed (spoiler alert) the colonel and his Alpha Omega soldiers have gone rogue and are operating at the whims of the colonel who enjoys a cult status amongst his troops. 

At issue is the colonel’s callous disregard for chain of command and his troops all in the pursuit of the alleged enemy of humanity. Here parallels can be drawn with the Bush Administration’s hawkish disregard for international law in going after those responsible for 9/11, and more recently the Trump Administration’s failure to even bother investigating whether or not Assad Sarin gassed his own people before launching missiles at a Syrian Air Force Base. Like Assad

and Hussein before him, the apes are similarly blamed to suit hawkish military purposes. Throughout the film we see the courageous leadership of Caesar set against the fascist-like demagoguery of the rogue McCullough. With these contrasting leadership styles its not hard to surmise which side wins out.

“Winning”, unfortunately, isn’t a very accurate description at the conclusion of the “war”. The apes suffer heavy casualties throughout the fighting but ultimately they persist. The humans, never able to come to grips with the new reality on the planet, still hold out the belief that there is something to be won despite the 90% loss of their species, and the remaining pockets pretending nature can still be conquered. This is the real tragedy portrayed throughout the trilogy.

The Planet of the Apes series is a work of science fiction, yet many of the themes resonate with the present reality of 2017. We still see a relatively small group of humans mistakenly believing in their race supremacy, we still face shadowy capitalist industries with the potential to destroy humanity, we still confront world leaders who believe that nature can and must be conquered, and we still have yet to accept our only chance for survival is through collective and peaceful coexistence.

Maybe, before its too late, some intelligent apes will come along and save humanity from

ourselves, until then the War for the Planet of the Apes much like the entire trilogy is worth a

look.

8 – Beyond leftist fundamentalism

To me the eternal Anarchist is ever replacing pavement with lush gardens. 

~Lew

I have found the enemy, and [she] is us. ~Pogo

By Teresa Smith

It is early autumn and helicopters are circling the UC Berkeley campus as I write this. I can see them from my window. The tut-tut-tut of their propellers punctuate my thoughts.

A few days ago, I rode my bike up to the university to use the library, and had to navigate through a swarm of media and security workers. An Alt Right speech was scheduled on campus that evening, but it was still several hours away. There were no protestors yet, but cable news teams were already milling all over the place, setting up their equipment, preparing their spins. I passed a vlogger talking into a cellphone, addressing his viewers: “Okay guys, we are here, just hours before these horrible, horrible people show up…” Meanwhile, near Sproul Plaza, the epicenter of the historic Free Speech Movement, police officers and rent-a-cops were blocking off intersections and erecting metal barricades, carefully constructing a designated space for the upcoming spectacle.

Not during Occupy, nor during Black Lives Matter, did I see this level of event staging occur for protests. The conflict between the Alt Right and the Antifa, it seems, is a very special type of media/security commodity. For the first time in recent memory, American protestors aren’t expressing dissent towards the corporate oligarchy or the state, but rather are pitted squarely against each other. Since January, citizens from “both sides” of the political spectrum have come together in Berkeley to punch, pepper spray, and kick the shit out of one another. Ribs, fingers, and noses have been broken, and people on both sides have wound up in the hospital and in jail. Security for these events has cost UC Berkeley $2.5 million this year — a stark overshot of the $100,000 yearly budget that the university usually allocates for security at protests. 

These street brawls, or whatever you want to call them, are a brilliant media commodity. There’s something for every demographic: there’s action, there’s politics, there are costumes and snarky commentators. A major news event rolled into a game show rolled into the rhetoric of the end of civilization. Could this be the rise of the modern gladiator? 

Every viewer, no matter where they fall on the political spectrum, is supposed to have a stake in this conflict, and thanks to social media and livestreaming technologies, you can follow your team’s champions as they navigate these hyper-historicized events in real time.  Is this the initiation of the mobile coliseum? 

It’s the Free Speech Nazis verses the Antifa Brawlers, and front row seats are just a click away…

*

As I struggle to scratch these observations down on paper, I find myself looking over my shoulder, feeling nervous. From within me, a critical voice arises, shouting, “You must take a stance — a strong stance — against the Alt Right!” 

So many people in my life have been saying that lately, saying things like, “Anything short of beating up a Nazi is racism!” 

In my mind now, these people are chasing me, throwing bricks and bagels, angry at me for discussing present events without firmly taking sides.

“Erase everything you have written!” these internalized voices say. “Erase all this and replace it with an impassioned treatise in defense of punching Nazis!”

*

I realize I cannot go any further until I unpack my Privilege Knapsack. Until I lay my Oppression Credentials on the table. So here goes:

I’m a mixed-race gender-queer cis-lady who spent her childhood in low-income housing and foster care but who has attended college and gained a master’s degree. 

As a mixed-race person, I acknowledge that I sometimes have the privilege of passing as white, but because I don’t always pass, I’ve experienced racist bullshit throughout my life, like having my bag searched in the grocery store as a teen, or being asked by teachers to speak to the class on behalf of my “race,” or…a million other things. As a cis-lady, I have the privilege of having been assigned the gender I supposedly identify with at birth, but I have to deal with the financial, sexual, and emotional oppression experienced by women, cis- and trans- alike. As a gender-queer person, I don’t always quite identify as female, and at times I sorely want to express myself in traditionally masculine ways, but because I live in a binary-enforcing culture I am pressured to pick one gender and stick to the script. As someone who grew up in low-income housing, I have some serious PTSD triggers from having experienced the violence of poverty as a child, but having an advanced degree has granted me access to types of spaces, communities, and conversations that many of the people I grew up with will never be able to enter. Additionally, myself and my entire extended family was born on the “correct” side of certain borders, so I have never had to deal with the fear of myself or my loved ones being kidnapped and deported by ICE. Also, I was raised Catholic so I have never had to deal with Islamophobia or anti-Semitism and the horrible hate crimes to which they give rise. Also, I have had the privilege of having been exposed to certain ideas and communities that have allowed to me properly frame this statement of my identity, privileges, and oppressions in such a way that people on the left are likely to accept me — and even tokenize me as someone who is supposed to be visible and speak — so long as I follow the script.

So there we have it.

Have I passed the checkpoint?

Am I allowed to continue to speak? 

Or perhaps I don’t have quite the right identity markers, and for me to open my mouth at this time will be dismissed by people on the left as pointless noise.

*

How you ever been accused of being white as a way to silence you? I have.

It happened to me three years ago in a radical newspaper meeting in which a collective member shot down an article I’d written about my fear of the police because “no one wants to hear that kind of thing from a white person.” 

I’d written the article under a pseudonym, and hadn’t mentioned my race because I wanted to focus on class. I wanted to focus on the way people are policed in low income housing, about how as a little kid I watched my fourteen-year-old babysitter, who happened to be white, get chased by cops with their guns drawn through my apartments. Even once I’d left the projects and was safely in grad school, all the fear came rushing back every time I passed campus police officers patrolling the halls with guns and batons strapped to their bodies.

“No one wants to hear that from a white person,” is what someone in my collective said. This person, by the way, was white. 

I was wildly triggered at the time — to be told you can’t speak because of whiteness you don’t possess is crazy-making. But later, I started to wonder if this is how white people must sometimes feel in leftist spaces. To be told your pain is invalid, just because you’re white? That’s not right. Pain is pain. 

Sure, there are moments when someone else is in a lot more pain and they need attention first, but that doesn’t mean your pain doesn’t matter at all.

*

Recently, I was drinking beers with a friend who is queer and brown who told me, “Yeah, I got called ‘white and straight’ by a roommate a few weeks ago…” 

He explained that the housemate was trying to make a case against him to the other housemates, and in the process said something along the lines of “he’s just a freaking white straight male” — even though he very clearly is not. Weirdly, the person who accused him of being white was, you guessed it, himself white. Hmm…self-hatred much?

This reminded me of another friend who is a rad mixed-race Asian lady, who last year told me she was accused of being white by someone in her zinemaking collective, and after that, just dropped out, because, yeah, the accusation of whiteness being used to silence you, especially if you aren’t even white is really, wow. Just wow.

I can think of several other examples of moments when, in leftist community discourse, folks of color who were specifically accused of being white as a way to undermine and silence them.

It seems like there is an undercurrent in leftist circles of accusing someone of having a type of privilege — especially white-maleness — as a way of saying their opinions don’t matter, that they should stop taking up space.

*

Another, more common way that leftists shut down underprivileged people whose opinions they don’t like is to accuse them of harboring an “inner oppressor” — of being “white/able-bodied/etc/male on the inside.”

If a brown or black person takes part in a “too militant” anti-capitalist action, other leftists of color may accuse you of being a “Coconut” or “Oreo” — this literally happened during the 2012 occupation of the UC Davis Cross-Cultural Center. People of color, it seems, are encouraged to speak and hold space by mainstream leftists — until it is realized that we have a class analysis, and then the mic is quickly taken away. “Ignore that brown person,” the liberal1 p.o.c.s say, “She is really white on the inside!” 

Likewise, women who voted for Bernie Sanders during the primary election were accused by liberal “feminists” like Gloria Steinem of “letting their boyfriends vote through them.” It didn’t matter that Clinton was the big-bank candidate — women are apparently supposed to only ever vote for another woman, regardless of whether or not we agree with her politics, otherwise we are denounced as being mindless pawns of men.

On the mainstream left, women, people of color and other oppressed groups are embraced as tokens, but only if we promote the big-bank-friendly neoliberal version of diversity. If we happen to have a post-colonial class-based analysis (which is to say: if we’re friggin Marxists who read Fanon, baby), we are robbed of our p.o.c. and lady points. The mic is taken away. We are accused of being “white on the inside,” of being the “empty vessel for the will of our boyfriends.” 

*

When, on the left, did we let “white” become such a dirty word that we’re using it on people of color to silence them? 

Since when did we start accusing women of being “pawns of males” as a way to indicate their opinions don’t matter? 

I’m tired of feeling like I have to police my privilege and slap my oppression credentials on the table every time I want to speak. 

I’m tired of seeing words like “male” “white” “straight” and “cis” thrown around like they are insults. 

I’m tired of watching people play the Gotcha Game: calling out microaggressions so fiercely in our spaces that bystanders get scared and never want to come back.

I’m tired of the weird witch-hunts that go down in squats, radical spaces, and housing projects in which a small group gets accused of “having inner oppressors.”

What I’ve started to see is a type of leftist fundamentalism emerging. Rather than attempting to repair our communities when microaggressions occur, we’ve fallen into a pattern of vilifying and taking down the _______-ist. Like, rather than identifying hurtful/oppressive behaviors, we’ve started putting labels on individuals in such a way that those individuals are not able to redeem themselves. Or we simply label oppressor groups as being inherently _____-ist, whether or not individual members have done things to change. 

I think the fact that the term “whiteness” gets thrown around on the left as a way of saying “shut up” has everything to do with the reality of those helicopters outside my window: we now have a fascist movement that has descended upon the leftist epicenter of the Free Speech Movement, eager to provoke us into beating them up because they know they can come here to get media images that prove their point to rural Americans that urban leftists are unreasonable.

At this time — a time when all Americans are suffering in the wake of a recession that decimated the middle class — white Americans are being offered two very different versions of reality. According to the left, white people’s pain isn’t valid and they need to shut up. According to these Alt Right assholes, white people are some kind of magical unicorn “superior race” being held back by an “evil left wing conspiracy” of “enforcing diversity.” 

We all know how ludicrous the words of these Alt Right speakers are, and yet, there are millions of white people in America who are buying into this fantasy version of themselves being offered by the right. And at moments, when I see the way “white” gets thrown around as a slur in leftist circles, I can almost understand why. 

These Alt Right fascists are idiots. We can outsmart them. But we have to put effort into building up our own spaces, and we have to start working towards smarter discussions in which everyone’s suffering is given space. We need to stop telling people they aren’t allowed to have any pain simply because they are part of an oppressor demographic. I believe we can do this, while continuing the vital work of undermining the oppressions created by race, class, gender, sexual bio-essentialism, and capitalist colonialism. We can do our amazing work of building intersectional community on the left without othering people. 

Several friends in the Bay Area leftist scene are ready to engage in compassionate criticism that moves us beyond Leftist Fundamentalism. We are starting a new publication called Subversas.com. We are interested in articles that discuss leftist taboos, and that hold space for the types of discussions that normally get shut down on the left. The fundamentalism that has emerged on the left is like concrete being poured over a lush garden — it is time for the flowers to break through the cement!

The American populace has never been so close to uniting against the big banks and stripping the 1% of their power. The corporations are dumping money into fanning the flames of conflict because they know how close we are to going for their throats. 

1 Liberals are leftists who think the system is working, and thus are afraid of revolutionary politics & anti-capitalism.