Contact us by April 17 if you want to draw art for the 2027 Slingshot Organizer — you do not have to live in California to draw. 50 artists from all over contribute to each edition. 

Please send additions and corrections for the Radical Contact List by May 22. We’re especially looking for contacts in under-represented areas, states and countries — anywhere in Hawaii, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Africa & the Middle East.

If you want to work on editing and adding to the Radical History dates, reach out between now and April 17. We want to add protests or notable events from 2025 / 2026, older stuff we’re missing, especially marginalized issues and movements, and we need help proofreading to try to locate and correct errors. 

If you are in the Bay Area, join Slingshot for the art party weekend to put the Organizer together by hand May 30/31 (24/7, baby!) at Long Haul 3124 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley. “It is like an art rave — but geeky and free.” Drop by for an hour or stay all day and all night. 

Selling the Organizer enables Slingshot to print and distribute this newspaper for free. If you know of a store in your area that could sell the 2027 Organizer, let us know. 

We ran out of copies of the big spiral 2026 Organizer but we still have copies of the pocket size and pocket-spiral size if you want some. 

PRODUCT RECALL: The week of April 24 in the big spiral 2026 Organizer says “May 24“ for some reason not “April 24”. You can fix it with a pen. We’re very sorry about the error. Please tell your friends. 

By El Llanto

In June of 2025 I participated in the 40 mile march to the state capital for immigrant rights called La Caminata. As a member of HPEACE (Health Professionals for Equality And Community Empowerment), I had the opportunity to be a part of the medic team comprised of physicians, nurses, and health professionals. We were a team of 30 medics providing care on foot and in support vehicles all along the way. The Sanctuary Coalition, Almas Libres, Jobs With Justice, SEIU, the Nurses Union, and CHIRLA organized to make this event possible. We provided foot care, distributed electrolytes, and monitored their health every step of the way. 

Up to this point in my life I had taken a 10 year hiatus from organizing. When I became a member of HPEACE, I found an organization of health professionals who believe in peace through health. We value showing up for the community that we serve. For me personally, my duty as a health professional doesn’t stop at the ‘EXIT.’ Being a street medic, being a healthcare worker, and the mutual aid that I have done my whole life is a byproduct of my worldview. I see it in the eyes of the people I organize with right now. 

I never stopped caring. As a youth organizer I protested the Iraq War. As an abolitionist I founded a Copwatch chapter in my town. I served Food Not Bombs. I organized for a Sanctuary City Ordinance in Santa Rosa and Petaluma. Then came the Occupy Movements. I was disillusioned by the lack of vision in the occupy movements I was a part of locally. I went to school and became a healthcare worker. I decided to learn as much as I can. 

My mother wanted to be a nurse. She taught me everything that I know. She couldn’t be nurse herself because she grew up in a tough environment, Guatemala, where a civil war shut down her high school repeatedly and disappeared her relatives — a civil war instigated by America that lasted 36 years. She saved her money from 14 to 16 years old when she finally made the decision to come to America. She became a healthcare worker. I am following in my mom’s footsteps, but it is my hope to go beyond. To achieve what my mom couldn’t afford to do: become a nurse. In my mind I am a nurse.

La Caminata moved me so much, I could not help but continue to organize for the Caminantes after the experience was over. A few months later, Almas Libres, the Sanctuary Coalition, and faith leaders — those same individuals who I showed up for at the Caminata — decided to go on a 7 day Huelga de Hambre, a hunger strike, demanding the County of Sonoma to stop collaborating with ICE. 

La Caminata has not stopped for me. We continue to organize in Sonoma County in the face of state repression fighting for a Sanctuary Ordinance. A coalition of street medics, safety team leaders, and organizers has formed out of this struggle. We continue to collaborate, to organize, and train together. A tapestry of resistance has formed.

The federal government’s crackdown on immigration has mobilized hundreds of people. From court accompaniment, to driving kids to school, to driving folks to appointments. We’re organizing on behalf of day laborers and community members. Many are becoming members of the North Bay Rapid Response as legal observers or dispatchers. We continue to fight for just immigration reform. ICE Out Now!

ICE is driven by nothing but money, bravado, and hubris. We are driven by love. 

Alex Pretti’s death hit me hard as a human, a healthcare worker, and a cyclist. I was already feeling the weight of the world as it is. I tried to organize a ride in his name and ended up being a co-organizer alongside Phil from the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition. I did a land acknowledgement at Howarth Park and then we blasted Bad Bunny all through Downtown Santa Rosa and I got the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition to say “chinga La Migra.” The next day Bad Bunny wins not just one Grammy, but three. 

“The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” Bad Bunny said in front of the Academy, for the whole world to hear. 

We gotta celebrate the wins, but remember all we have lost to state repression. That is what we are up against. The structures of power are preying on children and exploiting all who we love. We have to continue to protect each other. Remember we are caretakers, not takers. That is what sets us apart from the structures of power that must come down. The Republicans are the raw face of Imperialism. The Democrats are the bourgeoisie. There is no “deep state.” This is a class war. We must burn fascism to the ground.

Uzumati

Excerpts from “What the Flock is that?” zine

Flock Safety is a company that traffics in surveillance technology, infrastructure, and data. Their main operations involve installing automated license plate readers (ALPRs) along roadways at major intersections in order to collect images and data about passing cars.

Flock’s technology is a new kind of mass-surveillance infrastructure: their product is searchable data logs about our movements. This constant monitoring can deter people from exercising their freedoms, like attending protests or engaging in other forms of free expression.

Flock uses artificial intelligence to manage, sort, and search data, and sell access to the data to police departments on a subscription basis. They started out selling their cameras to homeowners’ associations, and later expanded to selling them to police departments. Flock claims to be successfully surveilling 70% of the U.S. population. As of 2025, Flock claims to operate in over 5,000 communities across 49 U.S. States, and perform over 20 billion scans of vehicles every month.

Flock’s cameras have a distinct look, and once you know what to look for, you’ll start seeing them everywhere. The cameras are all black with a black solar panel. They’re mounted on either a stoplight, streetlight, or a standalone black metal pole. The cameras take photos of every car that passes, recording the license plate number, time, date, and location.

Flock’s cameras aren’t just license plate reader cameras — they use Al to create a “unique vehicle fingerprint” based on scratches, dents, aftermarket add-ons, bumper stickers, and many other metrics. When you drive past one of these cameras, Flock takes in all this data to track your movements in the database, which is stored for 30-90 days.

The Flock network is widely available and susceptible to misuse. It is accessible to subscribing police departments across the country, major government agencies such as the ATF, DHS, FBI and ICE, private entities such as homeowners’ associations, and the Home Depot Corporation. The databases are also accessible to anyone with whom a user unlawfully shares their login credentials with, which is documented as happening.

Flock has positioned themselves in communities so quickly because they solicit subscriptions from police departments directly. Most departments add Flock services to their budgets without stopping to ask the community if they want those services, or making any effort to prove a need for them. Flock tells small-town police that their services will rapidly solve crime, and even stop crime before it happens. There is no data to support this claim.

Mass surveillance of vehicles through the Flock network circumvents traditional warrant processes: police can look up all movements of any license plate at will, at an unprecedented scale, with no oversight on probable cause. There is little to no oversight on how police search Flock’s database.

Flock’s strategy is currently working so well for them because people are kept in the dark about what is going on. But many communities across the country have fought Flock and won simply by raising awareness and starting a public conversation. Austin TX, Denver CO, Eugene OR, Oak Park and Evanston IL, and Sedona AZ have all cancelled their contracts with Flock after community campaigns. With a little bit of work, you could achieve the same in your city or county. 

Safety isn’t found in surveillance. Meet your neighbors, watch their cats while they’re away, and ask for that cup of sugar. We can keep each other safe!

RESOURCES

• “How to Pump the Brakes on Your Police Department’s Use of Flock’s Mass Surveillance License Plate Readers” from ACLU. aclu.org

• “Street Level Surveillance” at the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

sls.eff.org/technologies/automated-license-plate-readers-alprs

• The Deflock Project: deflock.org has basic info and an ALPR map showing many documented ALPRs across the U.S. and elsewhere in the world.

By Anonymous and Decay

Panic and paranoia are counterproductive — stop wondering what will happen, or why nothing’s happening. If we’re going to survive the ongoing collapse of capital and empire, we need to be able to identify our goals and work to catalyze the conditions they require. Now is the time to stand up for ourselves and our communities, not kneel before we’re commanded to do so. If you don’t know where to start, here’s a rough guide to community organizing, rapid response networks, and emergency planning.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

(adapted from A Civilian’s Guide to Direct Action — CrimethInc)

First of all… Brainstorming: Choose a project (ex. providing groceries to those who cannot leave their homes) and devise a plan. Establish the goals, scope, and timeline of your project. 

Structure: Start small. Work tightly with those you know and bring in other individuals and groups thoughtfully. Make sure power and responsibilities are distributed evenly within your group to avoid burnout.

Groundwork: Study the existing infrastructure, gather supplies and equipment, scout the location(s), and begin to divide up roles (ex. food procurement, drivers, community outreach) according to the scale of your project and group.

During and after actions: Stay alert; keep each other informed of upcoming threats, individual capacity, unexpected issues, etc; and debrief. Regroup regularly to discuss what went well and what didn’t. 

Remember that community itself is a natural human behavior and exists all around you already. This includes preexisting friend networks, neighborhood watch groups, coworkers, etc — don’t reinvent the wheel, focus on refining and reinforcing it. Be prepared for things to fizzle out occasionally.

Further detailed reading: “How to Start a Successful Group Guide” by Neighborhood Anarchist Collective.

RAPID RESPONSE NETWORKS

Rapid response is a model primarily used by disaster relief organizations to address natural disasters, medical emergencies, and mass casualty events. It relies on preparation and collaboration across highly localized groups to effectively assess and respond to threats. The goal is to document, neutralize, and begin recovery efforts as quickly as possible following an event.

Combining this model with traditional cop watch patrols designed to monitor and track police activities gave rise to anti-ICE rapid response networks across America. These groups typically communicate via end-to-end encrypted messaging platforms, such as Signal, and work within and across cities. Specific patrol groups may arise as needed in the form of temporary offshoots (ex. establishing an escort/observation group for specific schools or streets for a set period of time during ICE operations nearby).

Successful rapid response networks will regularly host or facilitate security trainings, legal support sessions, and mutual aid distribution for affected community members. If your area has an established rapid response network, such as ACILEP in Northern California or Monarca in Minnesota, be sure to communicate verified reports from within your group for broader engagement and information building. Many large groups will keep a running list of known ICE vehicles present in their areas and will follow up with victims and their families to provide additional support. When reporting potential ICE sightings, the following format (SALUTE) is recommended. 

Size (ex. 5 enforcement officers)

Activity (ex. stopping random people and 

demanding IDs)

Location/direction (ex. heading west from 

393 Blossom Hill Rd, San Jose CA)

Uniforms (ex. dark blue vests that read 

“POLICE” across the back)

Time (ex. 12:45PM February 11th)

Equipment and weapons (ex. they have 

helmets, vests, and batons)

Be careful to verify, document, and clearly communicate these details to avoid false reporting or misdirection of resources.

Once you have a community group, consider whether ICE is or may become a threat in your area and act preventatively. Set up the infrastructure to track them within your community spaces as early as possible.

Community members at high risk include undocumented people, lawful permanent residents, refugees with criminal convictions (regardless of whether they served time), Spanish speakers, people of color, activists, and anyone even marginally in their way.

Identifying ICE activity:

Warning signs include increased police presence, roadblocks or checkpoints, previous raids in the area, and unfamiliar vehicles idling near work zones, schools, and Latinx community centers. ICE typically carries out their operations early in the morning, although they can be active at any time — day or night.

Local Law Enforcement vs ICE agents:

In California, police and sheriff badges are typically star-shaped with six or seven points. Across the U.S., star and shield-shaped badges are both common for law enforcement. ICE typically uses oval or shield-shaped badges with eagle crests.

Unmarked police vehicles may have additional equipment distinguishing them from normal cars, including lights hidden on side mirrors, top of the front window, or behind the grill; push bars on the bumper; dark-tinted windows; partition bars; heavy-duty radio equipment; laptops or multiple screens in the center console; and (in California) CA exempt licenses. Look for unusually clean cars and a lack of personalization.

Undercover police vehicles can be any make and model but may share some characteristics with the above list.

Known unmarked ICE vehicles may include the above traits and will typically be U.S.-made vehicles with ultra-dark tinted windows and regular license plates (or dealership placards). However, they operate more like undercover police vehicles and may be any make or model.

ICE agents will usually be in groups of two or more, avoid showing ID or badges when asked, cover their faces, and dress in semi-casual or tactical gear (t-shirt or polo shirts. tactical vests, utility belts, heavy boots, cargo pants, etc).

When you receive a potential ICE alert, respond if you are nearby or have immediate access to transportation to the location, and verify whether or not ICE is present. If they are, begin filling the following roles (listed in order of importance)

–Cameraperson 1: Films ICE and 

gathers information about the victim

–Note-taker: Captures handwritten notes 

(including the victim’s full name and date of 

birth, as well as their immigration 

identification number if applicable)

–Cameraperson 2: Films cameraperson 1

–Dispatcher Liaison: Maintains 

communication with RR hotline or group 

chat, ensures that all documentation/ 

photos/videos are sent to coordinator(s)

–Community liaison: Explains the roles

that volunteer responders play to

community members, gather information

from surrounding people

–ICE liaison: Attempts to obtain identifying 

information from ICE, deescalate the 

situation, and move ICE away from 

observers 1-3

Listen and limit communication to “I cannot 

speak on anyone’s behalf.” Do not post videos of ICE raids where victims are visible or identifiable on social media without obtaining explicit consent from the individual affected or their families. Be ready for ICE to quickly escalate to violence or turn on observers.

EMERGENCY PLANNING

Under the current fascist regime, building community is only part of the survival strategy. Preparedness is critical on both an individual and collective level, and what follows are some steps to consider as threats escalate. Pick and choose what works for you and your risk level. 

General Emergency and Communication Plan

In the event of an emergency (you are abducted or detained by ICE, experience a medical emergency, cannot return home, etc), ensure that you have a trusted contact who has access to your full legal name, birth date, and address. Communicate your medical, childcare, pet care, and other relevant needs. Depending on risk level, consider providing legal releases (power of attorney, medical, estate) and if desired, financial account and information on how to access your living space.

For immigrants, have accessible copies of passport, ID, immigration documents, and proof of residence. Establish protocols for yourself and family or friends about who to contact and what to do in the event of emergency, raid, subpoena, etc. This may include financial account access, transportation plans and emergency relocation, or developing safe words and coded phrases to counter AI deepfakes, covertly signal alarm, and verify authenticity.

Encourage memorizing important phone numbers and practicing emergency plans within your community groups. You may want to discuss and rehearse scenarios like raids, service confiscation, questioning by law enforcement, and loss of communication devices.

Particularly important with rapid response groups and broader activist networks is communication discipline. Do not openly speculate about cases or share sensitive information online or via phone. Law enforcement targets “weak links.” Even end-to-end encrypted platforms are only as secure as the individuals using them.

Legal Plan

Conduct a legal-risk audit to identify who is most at risk or vulnerable to charges (particularly false charges). This may include reviewing property, devices (computers, phones, etc), records, emails, and accounts (social media, financial, etc) to assess what a preliminary investigation may uncover. Initiate and maintain contact with movement-experienced attorneys.

If necessary, plan ahead and secure legal documents you’d want to have prepared in case of an emergency. This may include one or multiple of the following:

Durable Power of Attorney (POA)

This allows you to name someone as your

“agent” to handle your finances and legal

matters if you’re detained, abroad, or

incapacitated. This arrangement stays in 

effect even if you’re incapacitated (for 

example, hospitalized or in custody). Agent 

can sign documents on your behalf, pay 

your lawyer, collect paychecks, maintain 

your home, etc. Prevents frozen accounts 

and unpaid bills.

HIPAA or Medical Privacy Release

Authorizes medical providers to share

health information with specific people such

as your lawyer, family, or trusted friends. If

you’re detained or unconscious, it may be

difficult to find out your condition without

this release.

Advance Health Care Directive / Living Will

Instructs doctors about your wishes

regarding life-sustaining treatment if you

become terminally ill or permanently

unconscious. It reduces the emotional

burden on loved ones and ensures that

your healthcare preferences (not hospital

policy) guide all medical decisions.

Government Agency Release

Allows a trusted person, usually your

attorney or advocate, to communicate with

agencies such as ICE, DHS, DOJ,

jails/prisons, the VA, or Medicaid on your

behalf. This lets your representative request

records, file appeals, or update information­

— avoiding delays if you’re detained or

unavailable. Especially important for

immigrants, people on public benefits, etc.

Surveillance Plan

Surveillance isn’t just live video: it’s built on layers of data aggregation. Data brokers collect lists of locations, behaviors, demographics, device IDs, purchase histories, etc. These datasets are sold to law enforcement, private actors, or intelligence agencies. To be as safe as possible, assume all public and digital activity is monitored to some degree. 

Research whether or not your area has automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras or contracts with ALPR companies like FLOCK, PlateRanger, Rhombus, etc. These can track your travel via car or other means and build a profile of your vehicle. Other camera systems like Ring doorbells are both widespread in residential areas and vulnerable to attack and access by enforcement agencies.

Be aware that as Al models for creating deepfakes improve, they become harder to detect. Deepfake videos, audio, and manipulated images can depict people saying or doing things they never did. These facial recognition and Al pipelines are now woven into mass surveillance systems. 

You cannot fully escape surveillance in America or most other countries with well-funded military and spy systems. Just be aware of what surveillance apparatuses exist in your area and do your due diligence to minimize exposure where possible.

Digital Security Plan

Good digital hygiene can involve regularly clearing out your email, regularly factory resetting your phone, and deleting inactive groups and chat histories. Try to use zero-knowledge backup services.

Consider purchasing services to delete your data from data brokers. California residents can use the state’s DROP program at privacy.ca.gov/drop to legally require data brokers to delete their data for free. These services are not comprehensive, but if you remove some data, algorithms have fewer points to triangulate your identity or movements.

If you plan on using a service like DROP, do not delete your device’s MAID (mobile advertising ID) as you will need it to fully delete the profile of information that advertising agencies have collected on you. A deleted MAID renders the profile inaccessible to you and deletion services, but data brokers can still access the information and potentially connect it to you.

Encrypt all devices and enable two-factor authentication, never use biometrics (facial or fingerprint scanners), and inventory which of your devices and cloud accounts contain sensitive information. Consider storing sensitive files somewhere safe, particularly with an attorney. Be aware of tracking tools (transit cards, RFID, license plates, apps, phones, internet) and clean your data from social media, online dating, other apps with location sharing (Uber/Lyft, Food Ordering, payment apps like Zelle and Venmo) carefully: Remember that deleting doesn’t erase.

Consider taking and/or providing digital security trainings, and set data retention and destruction policies within your group (Electronic Frontier Foundation has guides).

Paper, Records, Ephemera Plan

If raids or searches are a high concern for you, consider taking inventory of all physical records and locking up sensitive files, lists, correspondence, photos, and associated activity. Keep backups or duplicates with your trusted contact or attorney. Prepare your space so nothing can be misused as “evidence.” Think about what is in the space that would be misconstrued in court to keep you in pre-trial detention or add charges or enhancements, for example:

Books, zines, and reading materials =

“radical and dangerous and extreme views.”

Stickers, buttons, patches = “group

affiliation” “danger to law enforcement.”

Posters, art, and flags = “calls to violence”

“threats to the government”

Social media and Signal chats =

“coordination”.

Raid Plan

Train to stay calm, refuse consent, ask for a warrant, and call counsel. Post the script/plan, emergency contacts and instructions at entrances to relevant community spaces.

Detention Plan

Keep the following written down and shared with your trusted contact:

-Attorney’s name and number

-Emergency contact info for anyone else

(kids’ school, work, animal care, etc.)

-Dependents, caregiving, or animal duties

-Medical needs and allergies, glasses, etc

-Where you keep IDs, keys, prescriptions 

(in labeled bottles, as required by jails), and

relevant legal documents

Post-Raid / Post-Detention Plan

Contact lawyer and emergency contact person immediately. Document everything:

-When and how agents arrived (time,

agency, vehicles)

-Number of officers, badge numbers, and

identifying details

-Questions asked and items seized

-Witness names and contact info

-Take photos of damage once safe

-Request all paperwork from agency

Avoid using devices once they’ve been seized or tampered with by enforcement agencies.

Transportation / Reunification Plan

Designate who manages vehicles and transportation in emergencies and arrange rides for vulnerable people. Discuss schedules and who will be available for different days or times.

BE READY, NOT SCARED

Frame preparation as proactive care, not panic. Say something like “I’ve been worried that activists are being targeted. We’re safe right now, but I want us to have a plan in case one of us is detained or questioned so no one panics.” You understand yourself and your community better than anyone else (including the feds), and it is up to your group to decide what level of risk is accurate.

Small autonomous groups have been able to land some massive blows against the state throughout history, and the more of us there are the harder it becomes to track and target each of us individually. Safety lies in solidarity.

Don’t forget to create art, arrange potlucks, and check in on your neighbors. Beyond all the security trainings and preparation, joy and connection is what will keep us going when the raids reach our doorsteps. Love you all! 

More comprehensive readings include “The Black Flag Catalyst Revolt Guide,” as well as “A Practical Guide to Anarchist Organisation” by Andrew Flood.

by Fig

A loving push to reconsider any fidelity to the political-economic-social entity called “America” in these revolutionary times

What is “America” anyway? That’s a question each of us should contend with, now more than ever. Our words carry worlds.

A concept like “America,” while ambiguous and fluid, carries specific histories, ideologies, and norms. Put simply, it has baggage. More precisely, it has an inherent and structuring logic that benefits a colonial elite at the expense of the rest of us. It is time for us to face it: the project of “America” has never been for your benefit – no matter what they’ve told/sold us, or what we might have hoped. 

America’s M.O. is enslavement, is land theft, is exploitation. The story of America is the story of imperialism – it is the choking and plunder of the land, not only Turtle Island but every part of the Earth it can get its grubby abuser hands on. 

The recent escalation of brutality and white supremacy is just that: an escalation. America has always been brutal, and the system it imposes through its ill-gotten authority has always served to bolster white supremacy and capitalist wealth-hoarding. So, when we see the American project faltering, intensifying, spreading itself too thin, lying to our faces, we should push harder against it, not cling to its illusions.

You, my dear comrade – living, breathing, loving you – are not what I mean by ‘America.’ America is not the people; America is the guise of the peoples’ antagonist. All that is good about this place currently called the U.S.A. is in spite of the American project, not because of it. From its beginning, the authority of “America” on this landscape and over our lives has been bitterly contested. The pockets of safety we’ve been able to carve for ourselves in all our wild, multicultural, queer, feminist, and neurodiverse splendor are the result of (unceasing) militant movements against the machinations of “America.” Such movements for autonomy, sovereignty, and liberation have offered visions of a world beyond the hierarchical capitalist system upheld by America – and yet, America seeks to absorb these histories into its own image while leaving the root structure intact. This muddies our struggle: suddenly we are not seeking liberation, but recognition; we are not seeking the end to war, but a seat at the table of war-making.

This will not suffice. As Michi Saagiig Nishaabeg writer and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson articulates in her book ‘A Short History of the Blockade’, an adamant “no” is a way to make space for a generative and powerful “yes” – when we reject the premise of America, we no longer have to operate by its (inconsistent and unfair) rules of how to ‘make change’, we can reclaim our power to build a better world On Our Own Authority.

Artists, poets, care workers, gardeners, craftspeople, educators – anyone working towards collective flourishing is doing so because they believe in it, because their humanness demands it, but we are choked by America. “You don’t deserve to be compensated, fed, or sheltered; nor do you get to have health care or affordable higher education; instead you may go into debt,” says America. America wants to see you worked to death (or to take up a career in tech…). America wishes you would just fall in line, give up on that Red / Black / Immigrant / Worker Power shit, so it wouldn’t have to send its thugs out to brutalize you. Who am I kidding, America loves to brutalize you. It makes it feel big and tough. Daddy issues probably.

Well fuck that. We will make our own safety through solidarity. We will feed each other with the food we grow, decorate each other’s homes with the art we make, take care of each other’s kids and teach them to play the banjo. We do not need America. Now is the time for LAND BACK – let’s not forget: America is a settler-colonial invasion (in the present tense!). Let’s get clear about what side we are on. The time has come to un-identify with “America” and re-associate with each other, the land we live on, Indigenous sovereignty, and movements for liberation globally. 

America wants to see the living Earth reduced to rubble for the economic benefit of a few sociopathic heirs. America can’t see the sacredness of the rivers, can’t comprehend the wisdom of old growth forests, and doesn’t understand that you can’t drink oil. The land is not America either. The land resists America. The land wants to support you, share with you, luxuriate under the sun in collective abundance. America won’t let it. 

If you still believe we can reason with America, reform it, well, I encourage you to try – genuinely. I think participating in political organizing is the quickest way to realize that the American systems of governance some call “democratic” are set up to distract, delay, and ultimately quash any effort to re-distribute power and wealth. It’s exhausting and disheartening. Yet, you may meet some comrades and collaborators in the process, you might develop your theory of change, you might start to build networks of solidarity, you might, then, for example, be able to rebuild each other’s homes in the aftermath of a supercharged storm, in spite of America. You may realize that you don’t need America after all. 

But where does this leave us? There are many possible paths forward. One framework that makes sense to me is the ‘divest/invest’ model advocated by abolitionists and other militant movements. It is rooted in the simple notion that we begin to ‘divest’ or stop investing the resources of our lives (time, energy, labor, money, even attention) in the structures of American power/the State, and begin to ‘invest’ these resources into our communities. In doing so, we diminish the (already illegitimate) authority of ‘America’ and build the capacity for taking care of each other and ourselves, developing our own power. We can’t just turn away from the reality of America (the bloated military makes sure of that); but once we figure out where we stand, we can work to diminish its power over us and in the world. This is a subtle but major shift for a lot of us: we need to stop settling for reforms that only serve to invest more resources in and rehabilitate the illusion of America. As we (hopefully) all learned from the George Floyd uprisings, when they say “police reform” and “body cams and sensitivity training” what they mean is “more money for the police.” This is obviously insufficient, when what we need is to abolish the police and prisons and re-allocate those resources to community-directed initiatives like free food programs, health clinics, non-carceral justice processes, and free education. 

The loss of the illusion of America can come with some hard feelings. Fear and uncertainty – grief, even. When you are conditioned your whole life to understand the world and your role in it through the prism of nation-states and the capitalist economy, your sense of yourself and the dreams you hold can become wrapped up in the project of America – even if it isn’t serving you, even if you are watching it destroy everything. It is a deeply emotional process to reconceptualize your internal world to oppose something that attempts to be so totalizing. I am with you in the uncertainty, but take heart that it is neither reckless nor idealistic to desire the end of America – it is tactical. We don’t need America, because we keep us safe. Don’t do PR for empire by clinging to its illusions out of fear. Many of you, I hope, have already begun the process of building a new world in the shell of the old – you have figured out that the ostensible “safety and order” imposed by America is not true safety for you and your community, and started to find ways to live otherwise. This is the path towards healing, liberation, and empowerment; one where we can relinquish the false security of America and build the rich and meaningful lives we deserve. 

I do not mean to sound flippant or facetious; this is a very dangerous time. The violence being unleashed is immense, and the stakes are quite literally the whole world. We are witnessing American-enabled genocide in Palestine, unabashed imperialist invasion in Venezuela and Cuba, I.C.E. kidnapping and murdering community members across Turtle Island, not to mention the ever-worsening ecological crisis and many other global injustices. But it would be a mistake to think this is an aberration, an anomaly – no, the veil is being lifted: this is America and it always has been. The path towards liberation is an abolitionist one, there is no reforming this. We can do better than America. We must. We just have to find the courage to try. 

A few books that have informed this article, for further reading: 

• “As Black As Resistance” by Zoe Samudzi and William C. Anderson 
• “Blood In My Eye” by George Jackson 
• “Red Skin, White Masks” by Glen Coulthard
• “Autonomy Is In Our Hearts” by Dylan Eldredge Fitzwater
• “Intimate Direct Democracy” by Modibo Kadalie 
• “The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study” by Stefano Harney and Fred Moten 

By Average Joey

Things feel fucking hopeless. The wolves of fascism are no longer at the door — they are ravaging the house. And the house is on fire. The climate collapse is in full swing, secret police murder and abduct people in broad daylight, it is a matter of verifiable fact that our rulers are all sociopathic pedophiles, genocides have become integrated into our daily scroll, and the economic precarity of late-stage capitalism makes everyday life for working people untenable. The mundane brutality is unbearable.

Despair, grief, and rage are all rational reactions to these conditions. In this moment, the concept of hope feels naive, even cruel. When basic survival and psychological well-being are such a struggle, the idea of salvaging a future seems unthinkable. The distress we are all experiencing stunts our ability to care for ourselves, connect with our communities, and join up in action, but when distress is processed communally and channeled into collective action, it can deepen our resolve and ignite a sense of purpose.

The capacity to imagine a better world is a necessary step towards bringing it into being. This imagining requires a radical hope. Hope, in this context, is not simply optimism. Unthinking positivity denies the gravity of the moment and relies on individual behavioral solutions to global crises. Radical hope does not turn away from the truth, however bleak. Rather, hope calls us to unite around shared interests despite the challenges we face. “Hope,” Mariame Kaba tells us, “is a discipline.”

The horrors at hand are the direct consequence of a colonial capitalist global order whose violent structures and ideological foundations shape our reality. Any attempt to confront the current crises without dismantling capitalism as the predominant economic and social paradigm is to make meaningless reforms and marginal adjustments to a death machine. Radical hope guides us towards a world free from domination: one founded on interdependent relationships, meaningful connectivity, and authentic communities.

As the fallouts and crises of this collapsing empire worsen, it will be communities of people we are in physical relationships with — whose well-being we are invested in, and who are invested in our well-being — which will be the most important resources of all. You can take all the firearms classes you want, learn to garden to perfection, or have the sharpest articulation of theory — none of this will matter in isolation. Confronting the upheavals we face can only be done meaningfully through the processes of interdependence with trusted, embodied community.

Human nature is one of cooperation, and disaster brings this out in us. We may find in this great unraveling the kinds of acts of solidarity which are inherent in human communities under tragedy or crisis. Interdependent communal relationships in which one’s personal well-being is inextricably connected to the well-being of other members of the community is the basic social structure under which human beings have lived for nearly all of our species’ history — imperialist capitalist social relations are a mere blip on the timeline. A return to this collectivist nature may be revealed through the terrain of crises as we all turn towards each other in order to survive, meet our needs, and maintain dignity as the bottom drops out beneath us.

This will be far from romantic! Grief and loss and anguish and tragedy are sure to come, and we can’t downplay the resulting disorientation or assume it will automatically bring about more egalitarian social conditions. We cannot simply skip over the mourning and anger at the injustice and needless suffering surrounding us. But grief and joy, hope and rage are not opposite ends of a swinging pendulum; they are entangled sentiments which occur in relation to each other. If we can collectivize our grief, rather than suffering it individually, we might garner further resolve in our movements, and stronger connections with one another. Despair is individuating. Hope orients us towards the other.

The harsh reality is that we’ve already been defeated. The biosphere is degraded, the violence becomes ever more blatant, the fascists are empowered politically and culturally, and nobody is coming to save us. While we have historical reference points, this moment is in many ways unknowable and unprecedented. So, with that being the case — now what? Knowing we cannot “win,” what will we do?

How we answer these questions should not affect our willingness to, as best as we are able, embody our ethical principles, engage in collective struggle, and insist that the current social order is not inevitable. If we remain steadfast in these values, the sacrifices and dedication required to make revolutionary change are experienced not as a begrudging duty, but an irresistible desire. We fight for a radically different world because we cannot help it.

Hope is not a prediction, it is a vision. To hope is to be prepared for that which does not yet exist, to be willing to fight for it. Now is the time for this preparation.

What do you know how to do?

What are you good at?

What makes you feel alive and embodied?

How can you do those things in service of other people?

How can you use these skills to contribute to larger movements and to improve the lives of those around you?

When we’re feeling hopeless and powerless, these are good questions to return to.

Like it or not, dramatic shifts to the world as we know it well underway. We are facing the end of the world, in a sense, but this current global order should be ended! Our rage is justified, we are right to grieve — these are evidence that our hearts and minds still function. These emotions, though, cannot be detached from our desire and willingness to struggle for a better future. The contempt we feel for this world must come from a place of longing and love for the world that could be. Hope charges our disdain and anger with an imagining of something better and an insistence that we build it together. With these values as our guidepost, we take the crisis as it comes with a willingness to figure things out together, accepting failure with grace, and recognizing that the chaos of what is to come leaves no guarantees.

What is important is not anticipating exactly what will happen but retaining our humanity regardless of what happens. Living with radical hope, acting collectively and in service to the social good — even if it is futile — is far more likely to create a meaningful life full of loving relationships than being possessed by impotent rage or passive detachment. If fear and nihilism are our motivating forces, we become paralyzed and prone to alienation and distrust. Hope arms us with a closeness — a belief in each other and our collective power.

The future will not be fully utopian or dystopian — it will be neither heaven nor hell on earth. It will be an intermingling of grief and love, intimacy and tragedy, confusion and resolve. Regardless of what humanity faces, no matter what tragedies our communities are subjected to, if we confront them collectively, rather than in isolation, we experience them not as hellish agony but as opportunities for solidarity, social connection, and mutual care.

A faith in people (including yourself!) is required to embody radical hope; a trust in people’s ability to figure things out together if given the proper support and conditions, and a willingness to participate in that process collectively. Faith, in this context, requires sustained focus, critical thinking, and principled commitment. It recognizes that hope for a better world requires extending a helping hand rather than turning away in judgment.

We have to embrace messiness, failure, uncertainty, and contradiction. We have to believe that compassion and rage can coexist and empower each other. It is worth every bit of effort and energy we can afford to try and make our world as dignified, humane, and caring as we can.

J River Lerner

In California, it is beginning to be poppy season. Threading their way up through cracks in the pavement and gaps in the sidewalks, their teal, tendril-like leaves soak up the spring sun and rain, growing, building. And then they blossom. Their small, cup-like flowers are an indescribable orange — deeper and more golden than neon highlighters, but a million times brighter than anything else. A backlit sugar maple in the second week of its autumn turning comes close, perhaps. But that is a thing of fall, of fading, a last glorious gasp. Poppies have a glossier shine, the vivacity of things in fullness of bloom.

The poppies grow in groups and clusters, coalitions. A single seed will blossom into a plant with many flowers, but seeds rarely grow alone. And so, in the dirt of abandoned lots and cracks in the cement of the center median, poppies burst forth in great bundles or bushels of bloom. Beckoning the diverse cosmopolitan coalition of pollinators it requires to propagate. Hoping to seed. The poppies are art.

California poppies are perennial plants, in gentle climates. In the rolling foothills of NorCal and the mild coastlines of SoCal, California poppies will regrow each year, creating seeds in these ideal conditions, becoming a thick, brilliant groundcover as new seeds grow to fill in the gaps between the old. On hillsides where poppies thrive and become the dominant vegetation, the entire landscape glows orange, even when seen from a distance. A superbloom.

But poppies don’t just grow where conditions are gentle. They grow much higher into the Sierras and deeper into the deserts than winters should allow. These poppies die with each winter freeze, but still the next spring speckle the high mountains and far deserts with bright beacons of spring. How? These poppies live on through their seeds. In gentle climates, the poppies only seed when conditions are ideal. But in harsher ecosystems, they seed relentlessly, each year, so the next generation can flourish and bloom.
The poppies make me grateful. The poppies remind me why we do the work. They are a reminder that our protests can produce seeds that will help them survive the darkest of times, to grow and flourish in another spring. 
What are the seeds that our protests and movements can sow? What are the seeds of dissent? Our seeds are ideas. The slogans, the songs, the techniques of protest and of countering state violence, metaphors that help us show up for our neighbors and beliefs. Our seeds are people. Each one of us, ourselves, empowered and politicized by the experience of speaking truth to power, of standing for our beliefs. And each new person who attends a protest or action or pod-meeting, they are another seed also. And our seeds are our networks. Our organizations, both structured and unstructured, draw us out into the streets not just individually, but together, as a mass greater than its parts, as a united blossoming coalition of voice and action and outrage.
All of these seeds can survive the momentary loss of a movement, the collapse of a political moment, or the brutal repression of one protest, after another, after another.

It’s no accident that we’ve seen Minneapolis and Portland show the fuck the up and turn the fuck out, standing up for their neighbors in huge numbers even in the face of terrible weather and far more brutal repression than elsewhere. The protests of summer 2020 bloomed largest there, were pollinated the best, and bore the most seed. 

This winter was a cold one. In Minneapolis and Portland, and all across the United States where families were separated and neighbors pulled from their homes, the last months have been brutal. As Slingshot was collecting articles for this issue, in late January, we reached out to a number of organizers and activists we know in Minneapolis, hoping for their perspective on events on the ground there. Did any want to write an article? But all of our friends, contacts, and acquaintances were busy surviving. Surviving, and getting out in the street, and helping neighbors survive. They were busy and burnt out and traumatized, physically and psychologically battered by weeks and weeks of unrelenting state violence in their communities. 
To all the badass activists all over this country, who are too exhausted from activism and organizing to write an article right now, too engaged with sowing dissent to create fun art, too deep in winter to yet feel the burgeoning warmth of spring. To all of you, thank you! May the warmth of Spring bring us energy to bloom, make art, and sow happier seeds. But the seeds you have sown in yourselves and your communities will also bear untold golden gifts in the springtimes to come.
Winter will come again. So will spring. We must find reprieve where it exists, in sunshine and bright flowers. Making friends, making art. Creating coalitions. Cross pollinating. Living and thriving, growing heavy with seed.

Poppies don’t just let their seeds fall. Their pods burst open energetically, audibly. Rather than letting seeds fall, they scatter them. 

So scatter your seeds of dissent, as our people, your ideas, your organizations. Bring someone to their first protest, help them feel powerful, if you can, or safe if you can’t. Or, at the very least free. Spread new ideas. Our movements need new songs, and new slogans. Inspiring graffiti and informative zines. And most importantly, organize. Build new community, start new conversations. Ask how we could change things, ask who else we could include. Scatter your seeds of dissent onto the ground ahead of the cold winter to come. Not all of them will grow. Almost all will not. But still we will grow them and still we will scatter them, in the faith that through them, on the other side of winter, poppies like these ones will once again bloom.

Welcome one and all to the last but certainly not least segment of Slingshot! Enclosed here is a trove of curiosities and wonders to satiate your seemingly endless appetite for radicalism — go forth and feast. But enter with caution, for the world of independent publications can dazzle your spirit, expand your mind, and whisk you into a world of possibilities.

On a serious note, every time I review a zine lately I think of Des Revol — a comrade arrested in July of 2025 for the crime of possessing zines. He’s still in Federal prison today (you can get updates at freedes.net). Free press in America is in danger in a way we haven’t seen since Nixon. Zines are the new Samizdat, which makes reading and sharing them all the more important. Seek out small publishers and zines, and know that if you don’t find what you want — make it! 

Submit your creation to Slingshot for future reviews, share with your friends, and wreck havoc on the status quo. Now, without further ado, we present a wonderful array of fascinating (and possibly dangerous) reads!

You Are Not Immune to Conspiracism

Free PDF – 47 Pages
drive.proton.me/urls/HTMCM5GS64#SGiGoVMJfve0

Media Literacy in the digital era is a wild west of bullshit, memes and AI-powered propaganda. It’s enough to make you want to drop your phone in the snow and sprint off into the woods without any intention to return.

Do not despair. There are ways to tune out the voices on the internet. You do not have to give up the media, or even mad ravings. It’s just that not all the voices are to be trusted. Do not go towards the light.

This zine tells us that the most important thing to hold onto is your skepticism. It delineates clearly between misinformation and conspiracies. There are also pages of resources that go beyond basic pre-bunking. 

I think most of us pay far too much attention to our phones now. It’s daybreak and the internet is demanding your attention. That cellphone is standing over your reclining body, shining a big 12-inch Maglite® right in your face, poking its fingers right in your eyeballs, blasting Wagner’s Ride of The Valkyries from somewhere in the living room. The best defense is a good offense; maybe try turning off your phone sometimes too.

Pivot Point – Issue #1

24 pages – Free instagram.com/pivotpointdistro

I called into my doctor’s office recently and the automated phone attendant was an AI. It was not just a phone menu. It responded to my answers with synthetic sympathy and I have never been more offended in my life. It was a new, existential kind of offense; an inert insult against humanity. Their tens of thousands of servers are an ichor upon the human race, masquerading as a tool. They are supplanting every human aspect of our lives. Phillip K. Dick tried to warn us. 

This zine speaks to me. Jameson and I both seem to feel the same righteous burning ire for artificial intelligence — AI. It’s certainly artificial but it’s not very intelligent. Editor Alan Jameson put together this first issue himself, and the text on the cover reads “FUCK AI” in a 50 point font, black toner on bright green paper. It’s as subtle as a traffic flare. 

Jameson doesn’t come bearing much in the way of hope. His essay on page 15 is succinctly titled “We’re Fucked” which he backs up with cold hard facts. He even concedes in the introduction “There is no chance of stopping it at this point.” But you don’t have to forsake the internet and go Amish. Despite that resounding lack of optimism, he concludes the issue with six pages of action steps you can take in the analog world to protect yourself and preserve your sanity. Good luck.

Circuit Punk #2

38 pages – $6  circuitpunk.org

It is one thing to repair… It is entirely another thing to hack. This zine dives right into the deep end of electronic hackmongery. The first article is about connecting an electrode to a bluetooth MIDI controller to record your brain activity. Does it work? No, probably not. But we are soldering a $20 sensor to an Arduino and strapping it to your forehead anyway. No, this zine is not OSHA compliant. Keep a fire extinguisher handy.

I appreciate that this pirate crew didn’t just start another hacker channel on Reddit or Discord. This is a series of curated projects in the spirit of old head sparky magazines like Popular Electronics, Nuts And Volts, and Circuit Cellar but with a decidedly strong music focus. It is self-evident that this zine is put together by some serious nerds. 

The skill level for these projects is pretty varied. I’m pretty adept with a soldering iron but some of these kiddos leave me in the dust. But that Ashton Felix tutorial on converting radios into guitar amps… that’s my speed. Good job, weirdos… good job.

Hammer Times – Issue 29

2 legal size pages – Free hammertimes@riseup.net

The first thing I noticed was the logo, three inches tall on a page that’s just 14 x 8. I can make out some, but not all of the letters. The title looks like a black metal logo but more stylized like rippling smoke in a Simon Bisley comic. In the lower right hand corner of it is the eight-arrowed symbol of chaos magic, from the work of Michael Moorcock. This zine is chaos magic indeed.

I contacted the editor for a little more background. They let me know that Hammer Times was originally inspired by a newsletter from New York called Chaos Star which had a similar format.

Hammer Times very intentionally does not exist on the internet. This review might be all you ever find, and that’s how they want it to stay. Get out of the house you basement dweller, not everything is on the internet!

Hammer Times comes out monthly. You can find issues at the front desk zine section at the Long Haul in Berkeley, CA, the Bound Together bookstore in the Haight, the Hasta Muerte Coffee shop in East Oakland, and the Ape curiosity shop in the Mission District among other fine subversive establishments. 

Puget Sound Metal Bulletin

8 pages – $3.50

instagram.com/pugetsoundmetalbulletin

When you think of places that are very metal, certain cities come to mind: Tampa, FL; New York, NY; Birmingham, UK; Gothenburg, Sweden; the entire nation of Finland… Admittedly the Puget Sound region was not on my metal radar. But now it is, and I think that’s the purpose of this monthly-ish zine: celebrating all things local and metal. 

The editor, Old Man Winter, keeps every issue fresh. Album reviews are a given and both music news and gossip are assumed. But his long-format interviews go deep, to the bottom of Lake Sammamish. His concert calendar can only be the work of a deeply obsessive person. Subdivided by month, city and venue, the effort is an excel-induced nightmare for mere mortals.

The Puget sound stretches from Olympia in the south, to Mt. Vernon in the North. Everything beyond that is the Salish Sea. It’s not clear how strict the criteria for “local” is but I haven’t heard of a single one of the bands in this issue. My spell check keeps trying to change Puget to Pungent; how very metal. 

A Common Treasury! – Issue #1

24 pages – £2.00

theanarchistgardenersclub.substack.com

There is room in the world for every venn diagram of interests, including British Anarchist Gardeners. To quote the zine: “The AGC has no members list, no structure, no AGM’s. If you believe in anarchy, in the death of capitalism, in the realisation of the most beautiful idea through connection to land and community then hey, you’re in the fucking club, babes.” 

In the real world, anarchists have often been like this: Kropotkin was an avid gardener, advocating for more vineyards and orchards. Vives Miréd in more broad terms advocated for growing food locally, as did Marco Casagrand and Mike Hamilton, editor of EMAB. Emma Goldman wrote endlessly about gardens, literally and metaphorically.

To paraphrase one of the pseudonymous writers, the simple choice to grow vegetables in a city is the anarchist choice. The choice to grow your own veg is the anarchist choice. To eat vegetables when they are in season is the anarchist choice. To grow your own vegetables and opt out of the industrial food system is the anarchist choice. I adore this zine.

The Communist: Issue 18

15 pages – $5 communistusa.org

The title “The Communist” has some deep roots for the party in America. It was the name of the official paper of the Communist Party of America for its first print run starting in 1919. That iteration ran for three volumes, ending in 1921. There were several dozen different Communist newspapers published at different times in the 1920s and 1930s but few were bold enough to assume the title. One that comes to mind is “The Communist,” a monthly journal of the Workers Communist Party based in New York City. 

This newspaper is published by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, often known as the RCP. That’s not the same as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) which does have a newsletter but does not have a print edition. This is a shame since the CPUSA is the direct descendant of the 1919 publishers of “The Communist.” Instead, that paper pulp miracle is left to the RCP, whose roots go back to radical student groups of the 1960s. Both groups have survived multiple schisms (and CIA infiltrations) in the intervening decades.
While always risky, every influx of new members brings new ideas and new energy to any movement. Their success at integrating new people proves that Communism isn’t just the fading value system of wrinkled bolsheviks on the Commune. This paper is chock full of relevant political news about current events. It reads very professionally, a bit like Policy Review for pinkos. What kind of Communists cite FICO scores and YOUgov Polls? This is either written by CIA plants or these kids are going to change the world.

The Shadow: Issue 66

25 pages – $2 – PO Box 20298 New York, NY 10009 – Free PDF shadowpress.net

I had to delete a lot of profanity from the first draft of this review. I can barely type the acronym “ICE” without the prefix “Fuck”. I endeavor not to project my politics onto these zine reviews so as to let the zinesters speak for themselves. I’ll quote Frank Morales from the opening paragraph of the issue:

“The mercenaries of ICE who have invaded cities across the US are a lawless gang of trigger-happy thugs relying on deception and brute force… They have been given a free hand to utilize all means of violence, including murder, to force their way. Numbering in the tens of thousands, ICE “police” and their associated partners in crime … are a danger to the citizenry, a stark violation of Constitutional norms, a violent social pathology masked as “law enforcement.”

The Shadow is a very bold zine. One article describes the murder of Alex Pretti more factually than anything I’ve read elsewhere. Everyone knows Nazis are garbage people and that fascism is a bullshit ideology. But it’s a whole different level to publish an article like “The American Empire is Dying” and then lay out your argument as thoughtfully as a eulogy. You should read this zine. 

Let’s Talk About the Mainstream
28 Pages – $4

The zine title comes from a talk Aaron Cometbus gave in Moscow. Aaron gave his talk then at the end an audience member asked a question that clearly stuck with him. 

“…the older I get, the more I suspect that not only were we right, we weren’t extreme enough. I believe more than ever that we need to turn away from pop culture, celebrity culture, and the idea of making it big. We should ignore the blockbuster movies, the music on the radio, and art in big galleries. I’m not saying it’s all bad. But most of it is.” I can’t add a word to that thought. I can only raise my hands and shout hallelujah. 

This zine is one of four in a set, the other three being Pensacola, Cometbus Mail, and East Bay Beat. The self-published series takes an odd position in his lengthy bibliography, collecting his rare and unpublished works. This one includes, among other things, articles from New York Nights, AVA, Drawn & Quarterly, Fleabites and even one from issue #140 Slingshot, back in the hot Summer of 2024. With Cometbus, the B-sides are just as strong as the A-sides, so this read is for all fans of Cometbus, not just the completionists and collectors.

The Stowaways: Issue 21

80 pages – $5
romancandlesmusic@gmail.com

This beefy zine was put together by Christopher Gyorgyovich of the band Roman Candles. I think the writing in Stowaways has shown tremendous growth since the first issue back in 2011. This issue is chock full of interviews and show reviews. It’s thick like a novella, inviting you to curl up with it on a cold, snowy day and drink tea. I was reading up on the back issues and I discovered that Craven Rock kind of crapped on the last issue and had previously shat on issues 11 and 12. I asked Chris about it and he didn’t take it personally. Clearly he is much nicer than me. 

Gyorgyovich usually describes The Stowaways as a “fanzine.” The terminology usually means that one is a fan of a certain genre or band. There have been many bands named “The Stowaways”. My hope had been that he is a fan of the 1970s Stowaways from Cologne, Germany, for no reason other than that it would be hilarious… but we need to know the truth. 

So I asked, and he told me that the name actually came from his fascination with train hopping. At UC Berkeley, he wrote his senior thesis on the history of hobos, tramps, and trainhoppers. This is super cool, but I will resist changing the subject. I would absolutely rate Stowaways in a class similar to other fine zines like Ear of Corn, or Noise Widow. 

Gutter Bravado: Issues 11 & 12

$8.88 – 32 Pages yarrowtomorrow@gmail.com

Mindi’s subconscious was talking very loud from inside her brain stem when she typed this zine out, confessing into every carriage return. She sent a nice personal note with her zines. I do like it when zinesters do that. I have been keeping them. Do I have a plan or am I hoarding? I’ll decide later and retcon as needed. Continuity is over-rated. 

Issue 12 is subtitled “Monsters” and opens with the phrase “The smell of shit hangs heavy in the air from having hit all the fans.” On the cover is a Labubu. I realized over just a few pages that the author’s voice changed when there was a Labubu on the page. Mindi contains multitudes. Whether intentional or not, the Labubu takes the form of her id, the devil on her shoulder. The Labubu tells her to rip up the carpet in her dead brother’s room. The Labubu says that this is the robot zombie apocalypse. Labubu says no one is illegal on stolen land, and never surrender. It says boycott the internet. If you see the Labubu throw a rock at that cop, no you didn’t. 

I’m sorry life is hard. I can’t promise it will get better, only that we all get better at dealing with the hard parts. It sounds like she’s moved past the pursuit of normality. Good — normal is boring. Mindi is much too interesting for that. Please listen to the Labubu. 

Fifth Estate: Winter 2025

$5 – 48 pages – PO Box 201016

Ferndale, MI 48220 – fifthestate.org

I always look forward to reviewing the Fifth Estate. It’s nice to review a high-brow periodical between punk rock diatribes and reviews of Estonian black metal 7-inches. Nothing against diatribes, I just enjoy the variety. I read in the New York Times that mass market paperbacks are going extinct. In the long term, I fear for the survival of print. I enjoy the stink of ink, so these rough pages feel like home to me. 

How can you not love a magazine that’s half book reviews? That is la grande Indulgente. This issue has reviews of 14 books. Highlights include anarchist geographers, surrealists, colonialism, anthropomorphism and a nice review of The Popular Wobbly. The Wobblies never get enough column inches. Long live the IWW.

Some of the essays were more topical like the psychopathy of Alex Karp, but others were more educational, at least for me. The article Queerness & Prison Abolition hits hard. Its subtitle “Love is Contraband in Hell” hits even harder. There’s a piece by John Zerzan whose name you probably recognize. The feature about David Chichkan, an artist who died on the battlefields of Ukraine, was short but genuinely touching. I think my favorite piece was a colorful writeup on Wooden Shoe Books & Records in Philadelphia, an infamous anarchist bookshop. In Philly, they grease the poles because they have to. 

Razorcake: Issue 150

$3 – 112 pages razorcake.org

It’s a momentous occasion, the 150^th issue of Razorcake. It’s been in publication for 25 years — a quarter century. In ancient Rome, one was not fully an adult until the age of 25. So by any measure Razorcake is now an adult. It can drive, it can drink and even pay taxes, but maturity? Let’s hope not. I opened to a random page and found a quarter page advert for “Alien Snatch.” I think we are safe.

I learned so many things from this issue. Cumbia has always been punk, John Reis of Rocket has corrosive Portuguese sweat, Fuck ICE, Travis Millard likes to draw dogs, people miss their flip phones and there is some debate as to the actual name of the Ramones Atmos Collection. Razorcake is a national treasure. 

Every time I get a copy of Razorcake I flip straight to the back. It’s not like a novel, there are no spoilers. Sure, I want to read the record reviews and the zine reviews. But the first page I flip to is the Top 5s. There is nothing more chaotic in Razorcake than this section. A Top 5 is most often records, concerts, books or zines, but there are no rules. Top 5s this time include the anti-fascist whistle warriors of Chicago, a deceased cat, the instagram account calloutfakeclinics, gluten-free pistachio donuts, and the Razorcake Happy Hour. Thesis papers have been written about less. 

Murrwat Slushes Zerklenyne

Free PDF – 9 Pages
instagram.com/p/DSQPPjSD2kD

I don’t totally understand this zine. The bottom of the page reads “Made by donated lumpenproletarian labor of the Murrwat Collective.” Lumpenproletarian we all understand, that’s the unorganized underclass. But Murrwat or Zerklenyne? I remain baffled. Zerklenyne is very similar to the German word zerkleinern, meaning to crush or pulverize. Slushes? I don’t know. It kind of sounds dirty. They all seem to be made up words, but as a friend reminded me recently… all words are made up. I did email the maker but there was no response. They decided to remain mysterious, which is sometimes for the best. May the mystery endure.

The meat of this zine is a series of tips on activism. The structure lands somewhere between a numbered manifesto and an old 1960s “list” zine by the Fugs. It reiterates a few key points: activism is messy, don’t ever take the cops’ side, read, and all those things are all surely true. But “Bernie Sanders is a fraud?” Elon Musk said the same thing, and that alone gives me doubt. 

By Sprout

Crisis, by its nature, is disruptive. It changes the landscape of what is possible, whether good, bad, or just different. We live in a time characterized by manyoverlapping crises (all fueled by capitalism) changing the landscape of our realities. Crisis can be the overturning of a rock: casting sunlight into dark spaces, even while it crushes and smothers out another patch of grass where it rolls. In the upheaval, new pockets of soil can sometimes be exposed. Soil is always an invitation to life. 

In Covid-19’s rupture of capitalist time in 2020, in my darkest place of burnout and PTSD, I found a space and stillness I never had before. I could not function, so school, work, everything I wanted to do or not, all came to a stop. The school psychiatrist prescribed me antidepressants, and time outside in the sun everyday, directing me to take the sun as seriously as the pills. So I spent time with the moss on my gate.

Zoom in, moss is a tiny forest with a full ecosystem of its own. 

Zoom out, I walk by a patch of moss on an old gate almost daily, taking no notice of it at all when it dries in the summer, only appreciative when it swells with life with the rains in the Fall. It has been here longer than I have.

In this time, I came out as nonbinary, and found my way back to myself and community through learning regenerative gardening, one of the only things that I could find energy to do. I was experiencing food insecurity, and was able to buy seeds and plant starts with EBT through the SNAP gardens program, and had the privilege of access to a backyard. Every day felt terrible except when I looked up a plant growing in my yard, or watched bugs crawling in my compost, sat with my tomato plants in the sun, or watched a seed sprout. I feared the weight of the climate crisis, about to crash into us, and processed that grief and the reality of the empire I lived in by crying, smoking weed excessively, and gardening. The excess food I grew went to the new community fridge mutual aid network that had been founded during the pandemic and organizing with them led me to some of my closest friends. 

My commitment to academia, the time I spent working to pay for it, then actually doing it, could only go as far as my body could physically take me. When I ignored its reminders, then demands of rest, food, more slowness, it stopped trying to communicate and just immobilized me however it could. It did not care about my timeline, or my ideas of the future, or the work I was excited to do. But in my body stopping me, I was able to build a different relationship with myself, and my work. I was able to turn to community in crisis in ways I never could when I let overwork isolate me all the time. I believe in these moments, with my hands in the dirt, trying to process the history of death the empire I was a participant in was built on, the ongoing state violence, the cusp of the climate crisis, and all we would lose in a post-Covid world, I was in conversation with past and future kin. 

That mass disability and death and rise of fascism has continued to play out as I feared. Even so, in that time, in facing and forcibly reprocessing that grief instead of ignoring it, I was able to find not just a productive avenue for resilience and resistance, but joy. Some of the happiest moments of my life came out of the connections I made with other people and myself that started from me first putting my hands into soil. 

In the words of Congolese filmmaker and eco-activist Petna Ndaliko Katandolo, soil is an archive of the Earth’s memory. From an indigenous perspective, relation to land is taking part in perpetual memory making with past and future kin. When we die, we return to the land, and while we live, it can return us to ourselves.

I CANNOT JUST ACCEPT THAT THE EARTH WILL BE DESTROYED BY SOMETHING THAT WE KNOW EXACTLY HOW TO STOP. I REFUSE TO DEATH DOULA THE WORLD TO SLEEP AT THE FEET OF CAPITALISM. WE CAN BUILD A NEW WORLD, NOW.

The climate crisis, caused by colonization and capitalism (often one and the same), is arguably just another eddy in their wake. Capitalism’s greatest feat to conjure the climate crisis was convincing many of us of a separation that does not exist, that allows us to poison land as though it is any different than our bodies, that allows us to poison bodies, communities, as though they even could be other than our own. It’s no mistake or coincidence that Black and Indigenous communities disproportionately face the brunt of climate fallout. Beyond the climate crisis forcibly shifting everyone into crip time (although with different degrees of impact) through rupture, the Earth can also be read as our othered, chronically ill, disabled more-than-human kin, on queer crip time of its own. Through the process of creating this piece, I am in conversation with past/present/future kin – including Earth, soil, land – through time and space (including you, reading this right now). 

Crisis Queers

And it Cripples

And it undoes time and future

My disabilities each affect my perception and experience of time differently. For instance, the best way I could describe the flashbacks I experience from PTSD, especially at the beginning, was using Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five description of his main character being “unstuck from time.” Vonnegut was a World War II veteran with PTSD, and through writing, he is still able to be in conversation with disabled community across time even after death. Time, which I had already experienced as somewhat non-linear, felt tangled, overlapping, an ocean with a strong current. The past would come, unbidden, and swallow me whole, as real as the present moment, and leave just as suddenly. I could not control my experience of time. It suddenly took on its own agency, and I couldn’t align it with what other people were experiencing, or expecting. 

Around the time of my breakdown, the university I was going to happened to offer free group EMDR therapy, a type of trauma therapy that was usually expensive. A bunch of us sat at a long table, with pieces of paper and crayons as the facilitator led us through a process of imagining the most traumatic moments of our lives in as much detail as possible, drawing it, rating our distress, and being led through bilateral re-regulating exercises to calm us down. Bi-lateral stimulation is a key part of EMDR therapy. It’s meant to mimic the back and forth motion of our eyes as they process memories in REM sleep. Trauma is like a corrupted file, a memory that didn’t save right and so keeps coming back up like pop up ads in your mind. If you can reprocess that memory, it reduces the pop ups. Reprocessing that memory means reliving it, which we did over and over and over and over again; drawing the event, then how we feel, then learning how to calm ourselves down again. Sometimes people use flashing lights, or pendulums for bilateral stimulation. Our group session taught us what they called “the butterfly hug,” where you link your thumbs together and spread your fingers out like a butterfly over your chest and “flap” the wings rhythmically one side at a time. It felt silly at first, but it did help.

My mother, who has had extreme anxiety my entire life which I couldn’t understand until I experienced some trauma unhappily similar to some of hers, gave me a gift during this time. She hand-made me a drop spindle from dowels and bits of things in her craft room, taught me how to spin, and sent me home with big bags of fluffy wool roving. 

“This will help,” she said. I didn’t believe her.

We had recently begun discussing neurodiversity, learning about each other and ourselves in a new light, and helpful terms that described behaviors we had always participated in but never had the words for. For instance, “stimming” or self-stimulation are repetitive motions or actions that people (especially neurodivergent people) use to self-regulate. This can be when distressed, when trying to focus on something, or when happy. A family member of mine used to get in trouble at work for cackling hyper-realistically like a chicken whenever they became too stressed. We always laughed at this, but this family story describes vocal stimming. I, too, make bird calls and other vocal stims, quite often. Most of my memories of my mother are of her with her hands busy, knitting, beading, crocheting, getting into more and more niche crafts like leatherwork, silver soldering, micro-macrame etc… She cannot concentrate on a movie without a craft in her hands, cannot hear if her hands are quiet. 

I remember being a pre-teen watching my mother sit in the kitchen, light coming through the window, past the fat spider she called “friend”, sitting in its web. She sat with brightly colored fluffy wool roving she had dyed with food coloring. They looked like dragons to me, nestled in an old salad box she had recycled- or a sunset being slowly spun into yarn.

Sometimes, stims feel like motions out of time, a desire to be walking down a village road while creating thread on a drop spindle.

Fidget with purpose

You become an agent of synthesis

Combining air and fiber, the imperceptible oil of your skin

Whirrlll whirrlll

It’s now one

And that one becomes one thread

Whirled into a two or maybe 4 ply yarn

Four threads in one stitch

One strand in a sweater

So many rows of weaving

Like people in a crowd

Like ants on a plain

City lights from above

Zoom out and it’s a complete picture

Erasing the one

Nevermind the original three

We lose the whirl of the spindle in the zoom out

But that doesn’t change its affect

Each prick of light in the pointillism of the Earth

Blue dot in our zoom out

Zoom in

Cells in our blood 

Blood in our veins

Mitochondria, an assimilation of another into us (Margulis, 1970)

The borders get hazy hazy

When you zoom out

Zoom out

“Just” a person

“Just” Earth

I met Rain at a vigil 

For Palestine, Sudan and the Congo

Bushy shoulder length hair, a full beard, bright eyes, wearing all green, always

He mentioned a club he helped run at a local weaving school. I recognized the club name. 

By this time I had been helping manage the community fridge’s social media with my friend. We had seen the club’s account pop up many times and had wanted to go, but had never gotten around to it. 

Rain mentioned a Pride Picnic – just local queer people meeting up in a park, doing crafts, swapping art, clothing, and resources, and building community. A place to get a free binder! A place to play music and share food! Learn new recipes! Meet people! I had found queer community in mutual aid organizing, but we were what felt like a small pocket of queer trans folks in an assertively normative area. I kept seeing or bumping into queer people around, but there never seemed a place to actually meet.

I went to the explicitly non-capitalist pride picnic with my friends from the community fridge and found that the club was the next day, held at the weaving school: 

Every Sunday, always with soup, no matter the season.

The week after the Pride picnic and my first weaving club, Rain had surgery and I made him a big pot of lentil soup for his recovery. Lentil soup has been my favorite since childhood, and was the first soup my mother taught me how to make growing up. Rain & I have been good friends ever since. He often calls me up to talk about navigating limited capacity. It’s been five years since my breakdown, and I’ve become very open about my experience of working myself to losing functionality, and in that openness have found others with similar experiences.

Rain taught me to weave. I found the repetitive left-right, of pulling the shuttle with yarn through, tamping the threads down with a heddle, then right-left of the shuttle comforting, familiar. I soon found that weaving and weeping helped me process big emotions and then realized it was bilateral stimulation, similar to in EMDR therapy. Then, for the first time I taught my mother a craft. My mother taught me to spin for my anxiety, Rain taught me to weave, and then in a way, I was able to hand back the basic tools for processing trauma to my mother, by teaching her to weave for the first time. 

In “How to Write as Felt”, Stephanie Springgay explains the difference between “smooth” and “striated” spaces, using the metaphor of striated weavings, or knit fabric vs. the inherent enmeshment of creating felt from wool – an entanglement that cannot be undone, reminding us of how we inherently bleed into each other. “Striated” spaces are institutional and colonial spaces, while these felt “smooth” spaces are open and more radical. In this sense, the spaces that open up from queer community building (the non-capitalist local Pride Picnic, the queer trans neurodivergent space opened up by Sundays at the weaving school, spending time with queer loved ones) are “smooth” spaces of “innovation, experimentation… resistance” and importantly, entanglement. For the purposes of this piece, though I am literally writing about weaving, I am writing as felt, in both senses of the word. 

In these specifically queer trans disabled “smooth” spaces “access intimacy” contributes to the entanglement through neurodivergent/disability-specific acts of care: keeping a list of a friend or community member’s allergies or labeling ingredients in foods at a community potluck, keeping in mind and accommodating people’s varying physical limitations and creating/choosing environments accordingly, wearing masks and/or creating well-ventilated spaces, having ongoing conversations about managing capacity, having flexible expectations of each other, urging comrades to not overextend themselves when they already have “low spoons”, creating low-sensory spaces for people to go if they become overstimulated, etc. This entanglement, and the building of alternative infrastructures of care that it represents, is an example of queer ecology. 

As more and more of the world’s population become variously disabled from compounding issues of the climate crisis (pandemics, overexposure to wildfire smoke or smog, environmental racism, natural disasters and extreme weather, deregulated pesticides, etc.) these access intimacies and networks of queer disabled care that make up queer ecology become important for us all surviving this together. As our Earth becomes disabled and chronically ill along with us, we can even see integrated ecological practices (beyond “sustainability”, more akin to indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge) as a form of access intimacy with our Earth.

Humans have coevolved with microbial “old friends” who “colonize” us through interaction with the environment and train our immune-regulation. The soil we touch as children shapes our immune system for the rest of our lives. Without soil that is alive to play in and around, without being able to make “old friends”, friends all of our ancestors have had the privilege of making, our children develop chronic illnesses like asthma, allergies and more. Not touching soil is quite literally disabling. Touching soil triggers the release of serotonin in our brains, helping us to regulate. We co-regulate with soil. Our health individually and as a species literally cruxes on us communing with land. Land as kin is not a metaphor.

Soil is the second largest active store of carbon in our world, only behind the ocean. Soil health not only directly relates to our ability to sustain life (and populations) through food crops and immune health, but to the health of our climate. When our soil is not regeneratively maintained, we lose it to erosion or it “dies” (lower microbial diversity and health), and can release carbon into the atmosphere. We are a thing within a thing barely separate if at all from our ecosystem, and there are things within us that blur the line between us and other. Similarly, our mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell!) are other ancestral “friends” that are now permanently parts of us. We are not one, we are many! Soil is kin, soil is community, soil is archive, soil is food sovereignty, memory, immune protection, community health, resistance, an ecosystem in its own right. As are we.

In our climate grief, processing, bargaining, 

Resistance

We are in conversation with our past/present/future dead

Our past/present/future queer and/or disabled Kin

We grieve what is not yet [lost]

But marked as expendable 

I spent the night of the 2024 presidential election at the weaving school with Rain. There were no screen running play by plays, and we tried to not check our phones. I succeeded, stubbornly, so found out how it was going from different community members wandering in throughout the night, looking increasingly haggard and sometimes exclaiming doom. We chatted, crafted and kept each other company through that night. 

There is power in archiving. These experiences are snippets of my life. They’re me hanging out with my friends and family, discovering things, and growing as a person. These radical queer spaces existed, exist. It’s important that in 2026 as transphobia is steadily being codified as the law of the land, autistic people are being put on a registry, and services are being increasingly cut for disabled and trans communities, so disabled trans people care for each other, hang out, have picnics, feed each other, craft together, go on ecology hikes, share skills, organize and take action. There can be joy in the grief, and possibility in rupture. 

March 28

No Kings protest – everywhere – nokings.org

April 18 

Lansing, MI Independent Comics & Zine fest liczfest.com

April 25 • 2-8 pm

The DC Black Cat Bookfair St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 1525 Newton St NW DC dcblackcatbookfair.com

April 25 • 11-4 pm

Madison Print & Resist Zinefest – WI

madisonprintandresist.wordpress.com

April 25 – 26

10th Los Angeles Anarchist Book Fair laabf.wordpress.com / IG @la_abf 

April 27

MassArt Zine Fest – Boston, MA

May 1

International Workers Day – who wants to organize a general strike?

May 2

Santa Rosa Zine Fest – Northwest Santa Rosa Library, CA

May 2 and 3

Upstate Anarchist Book Fair 21 Emma St.

Binghamton NY upstateanarchistbookfair.com

May 3 

Black Zine Fair – 322 Third Ave. Brooklyn NY blackzinefair.org

May 14 – 20

Constellation 2026 – May 16 Anarchist Bookfair / May 17 Anarchist Skill Faire CÉDA (2515 rue Delisle) Montreal, QC Canada constellationmtl.net

May 30 

Olympia Zine Fest – Olympia, WA

May 30 & 31

Art Party to make the 2027 Slingshot organizer – at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley

July peaking 3-4 

Rainbow Gathering – ask a hippie for details. 

August 15

OC Zine Fest Anaheim Central Library, CA

October 3

Bay Area Anarchist Book fair – Humanist Hall, 415 28^th Street Oakland, CA

Repeating Events

Every Friday

Folk Punk Church – at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley

Last Friday of every month

Critical Mass bike ride in cities around the world – in SF at Justin Herman Plaza 

1st Friday of every month

San Francisco Bike party – starts at a different location each month 

2nd Friday of every month

East Bay Bike party – starts at a different location each month

3rd Friday of every month

San Jose Bay Bike party – starts at a different location each month

Every First Thursday

Open screening at Artist Television Access, San Francisco atasite.org

Every Monday

Shut Up and Write – 6 pm-ish – at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley

Every Saturday

Feral Artists Guild – 10:30 am – 1:30 – at Long Haul – 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley