Author: Slingshot robot #1

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

For people of conscience, life in the US is an ongoing nightmare. Making Slingshot is just one way to address the myriad issues. Yet the issues rarely get better and a question persists how much our efforts are changing things and if at all.

We’re not smart enough to figure everything out and we’re a tiny collective so we don’t have the resources to cover every issue that’s important to us. We have no magic solutions for all the world’s problems. No one does. During these post-reality times, it is important to say that out loud and be humble about what any individual or group of people can do. Because to pretend otherwise just makes us all feel even more paralyzed, anxious and isolated. Nevertheless, we decided to make this paper.

Publications like everything are judged by their worst qualities. Publishing half ass shit written by people who only have a partial grip on their subject is a Slingshot tradition. It is grassroots and allows unheard voices to be heard and sometimes is cute, but to some it feels tone-deaf and disconnected now given the risks and stakes we’re facing.

The anxiety and uncertainty of the pandemic, wildfire smoke and rising fascism made it hard for us to concentrate on making this issue. We’ve needed more time for self-care, which takes time away from writing and editing.

Because it has felt like everything around us is coming to a head while we were making the issue, it was hard knowing the paper would be tragically incomplete and imperfect — missing so many topics and so many voices. We’ve been gripped with doubt and we kept putting off finishing perhaps in the hope that if we waited, some of the missing pieces might magically be filled. This isn’t the last word or the full statement of what we’re thinking about. Slingshot is different from the internet — there is a months-long gap between us writing something and anyone reading it. We can’t respond to each twist and turn. We couldn’t talk about the election (or post-election fascist coup?), because by the time the paper got mailed, it would all be different.

Because of the pandemic, a lot of our normal distribution channels are not working. So if you like what you see in here, you could really help us by emailing us places we can send our paper. Also, more and more stuff is read on-line, so it would really help if you can link to articles you like in your internet world. They are all on the Slingshotcollective.org website.

Shout out to Mike Lee & Aragorn!, people we know who died since last issue.

We dropped the ball on certain key topics, namely, demonstrating how we show up for Black lives. We believe this is indicative of Slingshot priorities, or lack thereof. There is a lack of new and diverse voices in the collective. As our reality becomes more and more dire, we want and need your voice to capture the multiplicities our movements require.

With this issue done, we reprioritize the challenge of how to engage the voices that have been few and far between — namely those of people of color who spearhead paradigm shifting movements. If we are real about our dreams for revolution, it is incredibly clear that we cannot go back to normal, and thus neither can Slingshot in the way we move forward.

We’re a collective, but not all the articles reflect the opinions of all collective members. We welcome debate and constructive criticism.

Thanks to the people who made this: Alexis, Alina, Caroline, Cleo, Dov, egg, Elke, Fern, Gina, Hannah, Jesse, Joey, Juhlz, Kathryn, Rachelle and all the authors and artists!

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting on January 17, 2021 at 7 pm at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below.)

Article Deadline & Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 133 by February 6, 2021 at 3 pm. (we might do a fascist coup emergency issue, too, and if we do we’ll announce a deadline on-line)

Volume 1, Number 132, Circulation 20,000

Printed October16, 2020

Slingshot Newspaper

A publication of Long Haul

Office: 3124 Shattuck Avenue Berkeley CA 94705

Mailing: PO Box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703

510-540-0751 slingshotcollective@protonmail.com

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Circulation information

Subscriptions to Slingshot are free to prisoners, low income, or anyone in the USA with a Slingshot Organizer, or $1 per issue. International $3 per issue. Outside the Bay Area we’ll mail you a free stack of copies if you give them out for free. Say how many copies and how long you’ll be at your address. In the Bay Area pick up copies at Long Haul and Bound Together books, SF.

Slingshot free stuff

We’ll send you a random assortment of back issues for the cost of postage. Send $4 for 2 lbs. Free if you’re an infoshop or library. slingshotcollective.org

By Leslie Valentine

I wrote this in order to archive the process that took place in organizing a tenants’ union in hopes that you will learn something from our mistakes and successes. I believe all stories of resistance serve as a catalyst for a better world, helping us sharpen our methods. This story takes place on stolen land, the land of the Creeks and Cherokee peoples, currently known as Atlanta. 

As I swung the front door to leave my apartment, I found a red letter taped to my door and read the words capitalized in bold: “$350.00 patio fine; we will only accept a certified check or money order; we will not under any circumstances accept next month’s rent if it does not include this amount”. I lit up with fury and came to the conclusion that this must be a mass eviction, as there has been construction noise every morning from the green, gentrification paved walking path at the steps of our apartment complex called the Beltline. It had already demolished and flattened much of Atlanta’s Black elders’ homes in the name of “eminent domain” for so-called progress. As if we hadn’t been slapped by gentrification hard enough this year, with tech’s ‘live work play’ industry taking over and most of the Los Angeles film industry relocating to Atlanta for the tax exemption the city offered them. Not to mention, the Super Bowl that was hosted here in February. 

As I chain smoked outside, I thought of what my next steps were going to be. All of a sudden I noticed a lot of people in the parking lot with their red letters, and some were asking for help with translating. Even though roughly 97% of the neighborhood did not speak English, every red letter was written in English. A lot of the community members here, off of Buford Hwy, are originally from Mexico, Central and Latin American countries, China, Korea, and Vietnam.

We all came to find that we were all frustrated with the landlords long before the fines and threats of evictions happened.

After some more shit-talking and beers, I went back inside to start digging deeper. I read through the lease agreement looking for any information I could find about fines and I researched tenants’ rights in Georgia.

There’s a knock on the door, who is it so late? At the peephole is my neighbor Yami and they have some exciting news. Yami had mobilized residents at the apartment complex they lived at last year. That tenants’ union had worked alongside the grassroots tenants rights’ organization called Los Vecinos de Buford. Yami called their friend in Los Vecinos and we started to devise a plan. 

Morning came. Yami and I had some coffee while creating forms to go door to door with. The forms were to gather information such as a contact, if they were given a red letter, what they planned to do about it, and issues or repairs needed in their unit. We started with our building, and gained a few helpers along the way. It took us almost into the evening to even get through a third of the doors, as the complex consists of buildings A through K and each building has anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight units. Not to mention, people had a lot to share with us. Neighbors were so happy to hear that someone cared enough to ask, even letting us in to show us the disrepair their unit was in. Folks here were paying $1100+ a month for these units and most of them are riddled with mold, have no A/C, no heat, no running water, broken water heaters, broken appliances, exposed beams, clogged water pipes, torn flooring, flooded areas, leaks, windows that don’t open or no window at all, and/or worse issues. Some folks have been living here for 5, 10, even 15+ years, some because they didn’t have the documentation to sign a lease anywhere else. And because of gentrification, rent steadily increased from $650-1100 in just under 5 years! 

After canvassing, we decided to call it a day and met up at my place to put together everything we just witnessed over some dinner. We looked into who owned the property and what other properties they owned. The company is called FifeCo Properties and Fife is the owner’s last name. Yami and I decided that night to call ourselves ContraFifeCo, set up an email account and start a hashtag with it for social media purposes. We organized all of the data we compiled that day and transferred it into a Sandstorm account under a trusted server. We continued to reach out to others for guidance, and brought more friends along with us who had experience around tenant organizing and unions. Some were from IWW, and others from a group called Housing Justice League.

As exhausted as we were, the next morning we continued to canvass, posting flyers on all the doors about this evening’s first tenant meeting in the center of the apartment complex. In the afternoon, a march we planned went through the streets of the entire complex with drums, noisemakers, and megaphones in hand to show solidarity and promote the meeting. Announcing in Spanish to the onlooking neighbors on their porches, two neighbors in the march shouted “Don’t be afraid, come out and defend yourselves!”, “Fight back!”, “Unidos en la lucha!”. For some of the neighbors, it looked as though they were shocked to see us marching down the streets. After all of the work and support, it still seemed as though we had very few people from the apartments physically on board. However, at the park for the meeting, there were probably about 20 people at 6pm, and then it seemed that every five minutes, another twenty people had trickled in. By about 6:30pm we counted more than 120 people there! 

It was at this first meeting that we decided to start an official tenants’ union and call ourselves Residentes Unidos (Residents United). Those who went door to door explained how exhausting it was, so instead we collectively decided that there would be 2-4 ambassadors for each building, and those delegates would ensure that info about the next gathering would get out to everyone in their building. Furthermore, we agreed to a list of demands, for the fines to be expunged, and the repairs to be made swiftly. It was also at this meeting where we devised an action for the next day, or Monday morning, when the office would re-open. Folks wanted to involve the media, so a press release was made. We rested better that night, feeling inspired and empowered. 

About 30 of us in the neighborhood were able to meet up as planned, and with us were several crews of reporters. We bore rent checks in hand, marched into the leasing office, and made note on camera that the landlord was refusing to take our rent. This gave us the legal upper hand to fight against the eviction while not actually paying rent. In Georgia, if a tenant withholds rent, that is grounds for immediate eviction. The property management at the leasing office was particularly hostile this morning, shouting at us to get out and mocking us.  One of the leasing agents said that they would call the cops and another said that they would contact their lawyer if we didn’t stop filming them. And then the cops arrived. 

We were 30 deep and most had children, and/or were undocumented. In a quick response of compassion, we made sure everyone knew that it was perfectly alright if anyone had to step back, go home, and that there would be no judgment. Everyone nodded in agreement as we could hear the cop car doors slam just around the bend. And as they inched closer, to our surprise, nobody flinched. All of the residents stood grounded, feet planted, and chins high. We linked together arm and arm, and smiled at each other. It was an honor to be here experiencing this moment where solidarity was with us and it didn’t really even matter to us what happened next. And then silence broke. Folks arm in arm started shouting at the cops that what is happening here is injustice, some explaining the outrageous fines, and another stating that property management had blamed the issuance of the fine on the city. Neighbors asked why the city had fined the apartment complex for having children’s toys, non-metal patio furniture, and bicycles on the porches. And then a cop actually responded that the city doesn’t have the authority to fine residents on private property for their porch items. Residentes Unidos were lit with validation and rage!

The cops then entered the leasing office, where property management was to explain their side of the story. Two minutes had not even passed before the manager opened the door and said, with a shaky voice and wide eyes, that the fines would be dropped. Someone shouted back, “What about the late fees for this month’s rent?” The manager replied that there would be no late fees, which by the way was $100 for each day that it was late. Folks started cheering about the dropped fines and feeling alleviated about not facing an eviction after all! 

We converged at the park to celebrate our first victory!

As the weeks passed, we continued to gather, chat on the thread, and gain comrades. We helped one another set up email accounts to give the apartment complex horrible reviews online and post the pictures of all of the many issues, one of which was a photo of the condemned sign that states no one is to be residing in this building. 

Residentes Unidos were emboldened now to demand that repairs be met promptly. Tenants’ rights organizers spoke about steps that the residents could take to ensure that the repairs are made, and that the property management be held accountable. By giving the leasing office notice that the repairs will be met within a “reasonable time”, which can be just twenty-four hours, the residents were able to file complaints to the local city code enforcement agency when they did not meet this reasonable time. The city would then fine the landlord for each day that the repair was late which could be upwards of $200 a day. That evening we convened at Yami’s place to create forms for this ‘notice of due diligent repairs’ (which were in Spanish, and did not have to be legally translated in English for the landlord). This was purposefully done as a jab, just as how the lease agreement was only provided in English. 

These complaints had to be supported by physical evidence, like photos and/or videos of the damages. It was also awfully specific about what constitutes a repair that can be supported by the city vs a repair that required assistance by the county or state. For instance, if one had cockroaches, they had to contact the health and safety department. If one had a sewage problem, this complaint had to be directed at the county. Furthermore, the tenant had to be available for a walk-through home visit. More often, there was very little prior notice given for the visit, and if there was any notice, no specific time slot would be given; folks were literally expected to just be available or start all over with this process. Not only that, but when they did show up, they looked like the fucking feds, they were literally dressed as and had the demeanor of police, I mean, they are called Code Enforcement after all. 

This was terrifying to many tenants. It was such an arduous process that rarely was followed through to the final step of reaching the landlords to actually make the repairs. Although, the few times this did actually occur, it was pretty satisfying seeing them scramble to make the repairs. And it kept them on their toes and busy enough for us to keep hitting them where it hurt and devise the next steps. The point was to never allow the landlords a moment of time to think rationally whatsoever, we want them making mistakes and fumbling at all times.

We met about 2-3 times a week from this point on and together we made everything happen. Folks posed questions on the thread and in the meetings when they needed help, and everyone was gladly willing to offer guidance. There was such a beautiful culture of solidarity in what became a compassionate community. When property management put up security cameras around the dumpsters to police the amount of trash each person threw out, the lines were mysteriously cut…twice. And when one of the most enthusiastic and outspoken people in the tenants’ union faced an eviction in retaliation, folks came to court to support when they contested the eviction. In this case, they won by proving that the timeline of exerting their rights with the tenants’ union against Fifeco’s violations was the catalyst for this retaliatory eviction. They settled for a good sum of cash, free rent until their lease ended, and then they happily moved. 

The tenants’ union still exists and is even stronger now than it was last year. They’ve joined forces with the tenants of the other Fifeco properties and have helped them in making similar demands. 

As soon as you move into an apartment complex, if there isn’t a tenants’ union, start one. Most likely, you or your neighbor will need one. And we would have had a quicker response and a greater advantage if all of the organizing aspects were already formed and not forming in the time of crisis, which was extremely stressful and left most of us without sleep. We got lucky in many ways that folks had been fired up individually for a long time and that so many of us were collectively affected. Secondly, don’t waste too much time looking for legal advice. There is so much you can do without it; direct action is really really effective. And lastly, always let people collectivize themselves. I provided helpful tools but I ultimately stepped back often. I hardly even spoke at the meetings, I just listened and supported. I had not even lived there a full year yet, and many others had been there four to nine years. They need to be the loudest voices, the ones that decide on the intensity of the resistance. 

“Unidos en la lucha!”

For inquiries, contra.fifeco@gmail.com 

By Crow

I had the opportunity to participate in a Sun Dance in Mexico this summer which helped to purge the negativity that I’ve been carrying for a long time. When I am at my best, my activism is purely an expression of my spirituality, and I feel very much recharged. I am hoping to bring some positive energy.

I have the feeling that a lot of people are very drained of their libidinal energy. The meaning of the word libido is life-wish, and I think that right now the political mood is more one of a death-wish.

I remember many times where my passion for my activist work was very much akin to the passion that one carries into an exciting new romance, an energy that comes from a seemingly inexhaustible force coming from within, yet not coming from oneself, but from a source much greater than oneself. In the moments I identify with this source of energy as my true nature, rather than the person who is desirous. Essentially my desire in these moments is to be of service, and in this is the true joy that sustains me, for it is desire born of love, the desire that is fulfilled in giving of myself for the benefit of the Great Other, who is really no Other at all, for we are all ultimately one, and all illusion of separateness is born of ignorance of our true nature. And this is what I return to, and what I must return to, in order to maintain my hope in a world that seems dead-set on destroying itself.

What I was taught, and what I took to heart, is that prayer and ceremony must precede action, and that the intention that inspires action will create results corresponding to that intention. And so I believe that this movement needs spiritual guidance, needs to be guided by love, and the wisdom that comes from a practice of love, as a way of seeing and perceiving and understanding the world. I have been fortunate enough to have had this guidance in my own life, and to me it seems like it is the only way that we will break out of the divisiveness of us-and-them thinking that perpetuates oppression and the repetition of the cycles of abuse that have defined history (or at least Western history) for millennia. And I believe that this is the fundamental message (or at least one of the messages) that underpinned Standing Rock and recent indigenous uprisings.

But there is a taboo against discussing spirituality in anarchist circles, with certain exceptions granted. But I believe that unless we internalize that message, we as a movement will keep spinning our wheels. Really, I believe the many crises — ecological, economic, and political — stem from an underlying spiritual crisis, the result of generations of oppression and alienation. For so long, religion has been used as a tool of social control, and the result has been the suppression of true, authentic spirituality. The very people and institutions that were supposed to offer spiritual guidance, to help human beings orient themselves spiritually, served to turn them against themselves. And so as we became more able to think for ourselves, we turned from religion, recognizing it for what it is, tools for oppression.

There is a great spiritual hunger in our times. I believe that as economic, political, social, and cultural conditions deteriorate, this will become an increasingly defining feature of the zeitgeist, and I have no doubt that movements will arise which speak to that hunger. Some of these movements will be revolutionary, some will be reactionary. Some will seek solace in memories or romanticized notions of the past, some will speak to the urgent need to radically transform our relationship to nature, to one another, to the cities and territories we inhabit. Those of us who have long wished for a radical transformation of society may well live to have our wishes granted, though there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will be what we hoped for, or even an improvement to the current social order. But I feel certain that a great change is coming, that many more people will come to feel that we have come to the end of the road for the materialist paradigm currently defining Western civilization.

We must learn to revere the Sacred again. We must learn to highly value that which is worthy of profound respect. We must learn our place within the great web of life within which we live, which we are a part of, and value ourselves and one another as belonging to it, as being worthy recipients of the gift of life. We must learn to be humble, to be willing to listen and to learn from the perspectives of others, even those of people we are opposed to, to work towards understanding why others feel the way they do. I see too much self-righteousness in activist circles these days. Activists are often judgmental, fault-finding, and narrow-minded. We keep doing the same things that we’ve been doing without honestly asking ourselves if it is working.

I have been highly involved in the anarchist movement for a decade and I have seen countless people driven out of radical scenes, and at least in the area where I live, it doesn’t seem to me that new people are coming in at the rate they are being driven out. And all of this in a movement that purports to create more inclusive society, where people are freer to be themselves, where police and prisons would be unnecessary because everyone would have access to the support that they need. To believe that this is possible is to place tremendous faith in the power of love, kindness, and acceptance to change human behavior, and if we are to convince the people that such faith is a viable political approach, we must demonstrate its effectiveness by practicing it ourselves.

By Jesse D. Palmer

Please take a deep breath with me, and try not to freak out. A lot of people are getting paralyzed with relentless scary apocalyptic news and too much social media exposure. This constant level of negative distraction is causing anxiety, depression, and preventing us from focusing on making coherent plans to fight back. This is not an accident. Those in power want to terrify us. They want to dominate the narrative and framing of what’s going on. They want to keep us focused on reacting to the latest outrage so we’re constantly off balance. Computer companies make money the more we stare at our phones, and so these tools manipulate our emotions to keep us hooked up.

We do not have to live like this – in a world organized around fear, division, scarcity, control and dehumanizing technology. We can create structures based on cooperation, justice, harmony with nature, freedom, generosity, playfulness and connection, not alienation.

The most important shift is psychological – calming our minds and believing in our collective power. The slogan “we are the 99%” is still right on. The unjust system serves a few thousand billionaires at the expense of everyone else. Without our labor, our consent, our going along with the machine, this rotten system can be swept away.

Even though ecological collapse seems overwhelming and too far along to resist, giving up in defeat, resignation and sadness will not help – doing so throws away any slim chances we might have. While the current system is suicidally unsustainable, it might not be too late to save some things. We have the knowledge and technology to get along without destroying our planet – but those in power make so much money and get so much power from the way things are that they are sacrificing the future while we watch, feeling grim and helpless.

Since our collective psychology is the key out of this mess, our first task is to ground ourselves – calm our minds – and think our own thoughts rather than reacting to hypnotizing bad news from our cell phones.

We need to shift our focus to what we want, not what we’re against. And beyond our interior thoughts, we need to articulate our values and discuss them widely with our friends, our family, our neighbors.

It is crucial to recognize that life, other people, the earth, and the experiences our lives offer are good, pleasurable, beautiful, worthwhile and meaningful. While politicians and media emphasize fear, division and hate, most parts of our un-mediated lives are not like that at all.

The people we actually know and interact with day-to-day are mostly okay – spending lives caring about our friends, our pets and gardens, and our family and neighbors. Sure, there are some mean and abusive people out there, and not everything goes great all the time, but overall people are doing their best, taking care of stuff around them and giving a shit.

So when engaging with the ways in which things are apocalyptic – the earth is threatened, the economy is collapsing, armed racists are killing people – we have to balance the awareness of being in a time of unprecedented danger against our lived reality. What type of risk are we really in today? When danger is immediate, one has to jump out of the way, but facing generalized risk means there is a little time to think and plan.

We cannot know what crazy things the world will throw at us next. What matters is not so much a specific 10-point plan, but developing and practicing values that can help guide us no matter what comes up. Caring about other people – being generous not selfish – being creative not boring and grim — and supporting each individual to pursue what pleases them are good places to start. These values lead to mutual aid, cooperation, and relating to others without ownership or rulers. Communities and systems can be organized from each according to ability and to each according to need. We can cooperate to get what we need without exploiting others or concentrating power.

Environmentally sustainable values focus on using land and resources mindfully and only for what we need, not for greed or profit. We need to value beauty and fun more highly than cheapness, speed or efficiency.

Power grabs, increased repression and chaos are related to a dam breaking — releasing pressure built up over decades of wealth being concentrated at the top while regular people’s income and wellbeing has stagnated and declined. The pace of technological and social change has finally become unmanageable, and a way we individually experience it is that everything feels out of control. But this hasn’t come out of nowhere – we’ve been the frog in the gradually warming pot. We’re realizing — I hope before it is too late — that we’re about to get cooked.

The rulers causing these unsustainable conditions are trying to turn ordinary people against each other lest we all unite against them – intentionally stoking divisions based on race, urban vs. rural, employment sector, and other made-up divisions.

When you’re in pain, you want to lash out at someone, but what we need now is solidarity in the biggest sense. Not within groups that are already culturally and mentally cohesive — activist-speak solidarity — but across sharp boundaries. Solidarity with people you don’t feel much in common with based on common humanity, shared suffering and mutual interest. It is hard to know how to get this going — it won’t be possible over the internet which favors echo chambers and antagonism.

The corruption and cruelty modeled by those in power is encouraging sloppy individual bad behavior. Perhaps a response is to be extra compassionate in traffic, in communal houses, in collectives, in families, to folks on the street or at the store. A time of collapse and instability is not the time to tear up our personal bonds when we need them as strong as possible. Experiencing and expressing gratitude for things that are still good rather than focusing on resentment and shit-talking is personally healing and socially helps nurture resilient and empowered communities.

Early in the pandemic lockdown as commerce was put on hold, local and grassroots community, solidarity, and mutual aid suddenly re-emerged. Despite the unfortunately named social distancing, I began feeling closer to those around me than I had before. There were people spontaneously singing and dancing in the streets all over the place. And while a lot of things went online, a lot more people around here are still walking on the streets and often saying hi. A lot has happened since the early days of the lockdown, but that wide collective feeling is something to hold on to, build upon, and harness.

The constant dislocations of the pandemic, economic meltdown, rightwing attacks, wildfires and general chaos are not the revolution we imagined, but we need to recognize moments of rapid and dramatic change when they happen, seize on them, and turn them into something positive.