Category: Articles

Slingshot has always offered free subscriptions to prisoners and we will continue to do so, but as the number of in-print publication shrinks (with more and more activists switching their energy to on-line media) the amount of time and energy our tiny collective spends doing prison distribution is making us consider our options. We’re now mailing around 1,000 copies of each issue to prisoners, and we get dozens of new subscription requests a week. It isn’t so much the money for postage or printing — the real issue is the time it takes to type in all the new addresses, maintain the list and actually do the mailing. Returns of papers sent to prisoners who move (prisons seem to move prisoners frequently) or rejected by the prison also is a hassle and expensive — $1.44 per copy! Our collective is very small and all-volunteer.

We have four ideas for dealing with this:

(1) We would prefer it if people publishing resource guides of publications that are free for prisoners stop listing us — we’re overloaded just with the current word of mouth.

(2) If you live in the Bay Area and have any energy to help us with our prisoner mailing project, please contact us! We need the most help the week or so before each article deadline, and in the week after the issue gets published (see page 2 or our website for these dates).

(3) We’ve noticed that at some prisons, many prisoners separately subscribe to the paper. If you are a prisoner and someone else on your cell block gets the paper and you can share a single copy, that would help us out.

(4) One idea that would be a lot of work, is for us to figure out prisons that have libraries where we could mail a single copy — we would then just distro to libraries and only mail individual papers to prisoners who were unable to read us in their prison library.

Please let us know if you have other ideas or comments on these ideas, or if you have energy to make any of this happen. Email slingshot@tao.ca or write to 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705.

It’s 2008 now, and as we mark one decade of anarchist resistance to I-69, it’s clear that we’re entering the critical moment. We’ve always believed that we can defeat I-69, but if we’re to stop this road, we have to do it now.

I-69, an interstate highway that currently runs from Port Huron, Michigan to Indianapolis, Indiana, has been facing a fifteen-year battle to expand in Indiana. According to overall plans for the highway, it would eventually run from the Canadian border at Port Huron, through Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, before ending in Laredo, Texas. At the US-Mexico border, I-69 is designed to connect to a network of highways, railroads, and other infrastructure projects being built as part of Plan Puebla Panama (PPP) to enable increased trade between Canada, the USA and Latin America. However, the highway has never been completed, in large part due to widespread opposition to its construction in Indiana.

In Indiana, the highway would run from Evansville to Indianapolis along a 142-mile route. That route — the majority of which is “new terrain” and not built over an existing road– would cut through farmland and a wildlife preserve while paving some 5,000 acres of farmland, 1,500 acres of forest, and 3,000 acres of wetlands. The highway is expected to evict 400 families, a few of whom have already signed contracts giving up their homes and lands under the threat of their land being seized by eminent domain.

Construction in Indiana is almost certainly set to begin late in the spring or early in the summer of this year. Over the course of 2007, construction on its connector roads in Latin America has continued or intensified, as has repression against those resisting it, while Canadian multinationals have begun considering investments in sections of I-69 in the American South. The Indiana Department of Transportation began evictions in earnest last summer, though the vast majority of families threatened by the road in Indiana are still on their land.

We are now confronted with a choice. We can organize to take a strong symbolic stand against all of this, to let the world know that what I-69 represents is wrong.

Or we can ask ourselves: What will it take to really stop this highway? And then act according to the answers we develop together, in our communities and in our affinity groups.

Because as I-69 comes closer to becoming a reality — as all the multinationals and other vultures line up to profit from the devastation — it can seem like the highway juggernaut is unstoppable. In reality, as it approaches this phase, it is more vulnerable than ever. Opposition has been building for a long while. All of the assembling bidders can still be scared off, and for the first time, there will be “progress” on the ground. If we choose to, we can impose a crisis on this entire project, an opportunity we don’t often have.

An invitation stands to develop your own autonomous and creative contributions to stopping I-69, or to participate in the collective organizing process initiated by Roadblock Earth First! (among others) at last September’s consulta in Evansville, Indiana. In either case, we recommend forming an affinity group with those you know and trust; getting to know the land, the history of the struggle, and the communities directly affected. And know that whatever path you choose, now’s the time to prepare for action.

Over the last decade, eco-radicals have worked hard to prepare the ground for this moment by building bridges between radicals and residents affected by the highway. The campaign against I-69 has used a variety of tactics to cultivate these connections, among them a “listening project” that allows for dialogue between radicals and others, a bike tour through the area that would be affected by I-69, and “road shows” along the route of I-69.

While resistance to I-69 has been strong for the past fifteen years, direct action tactics have become more common since 2005. That year resistance to the project increased, with a “Roadless Summer” campaign that focused on a variety of private companies including firms funding the project and Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT).

INDOT has admitted that they lack full funding for the project. This lack of funding is a key weakness that can be exploited by radicals organizing against I-69. With an estimated cost of $4.5 billion dollars but only $700 million to fund the road actually on hand, the state of Indiana has turned to unpopular measures to try to fund the road including privatizing it and making it a toll road. Anything that makes the project even more expensive makes its completion more difficult and unlikely — especially as government budgets now face recession-related cuts. Early disruptions in the construction process will throw a huge monkey wrench into the works. If I-69 can be stopped in Indiana, it could kill the whole project since many states are waiting to see how construction in Indiana proceeds.

With the very climate of the earth hanging in the balance, now isn’t the time to let the state and the multinationals sink billions of dollars into even-more highways to move ever more global trade.

For more info, check out stopi69.wordpress.com, earthfirstjournal.org or rootforce.org. Or write to roadblockef@yahoo.com to learn about organizing in your area.

Folks around the world are preparing for diverse, decentralized, absurdist direct actions on Leap Day — Friday, February 29, 2008 — taking seriously the call to use our extra day to smash capitalism, patriarchy and the state. In the Bay Area, Leap Day Action Night will start at critical mass at 6 p.m. in Justin Herman Plaza near Embarcadero BART in San Francisco. The bikes will ride round and round — where the action happens — and what oppressive institutions it targets — no one will know . . . until the water balloons filled with lube begin to fly and the clowns playing flaming brass instruments arrive.

People around the world have been talking with their friends, forming affinity groups and preparing to disrupt business as usual. Leap day is an extra day — a blank slate waiting to be transformed into a spontaneous, inspirational rebellion against the corporations and institutions that are destroying the earth and transforming the amazing experience of being alive into a drag filled with rent, stupid jobs, boring suburbs and polluted freeways.

Every four years in the USA brings another ridiculous Election Year when the system tries to channel everyone’s growing dissatisfaction with the ways we’re getting screwed into a spectacular distraction. Candidates all promise *Change* and the media plays dramatic music while endlessly trumpeting the election process circus to convince you that if only you vote for the right person, if only you buy the right product, if only you drive the right car or starve yourself so you have the right body, everything will be okay, afte rall. And somehow everyone forgets the betrayal of the last election year — forgets that the media and corporations and politicians offering the change are the same ones who created the whole mess in the first place. And the real issues — why is everyone working to make these jokers richer and richer and why are the forests and rivers we used to play in when we were young getting torn up to build another parking lot for another fucking Wal-Mart? — no one talks about the real issues during election year.

Luckily, every four years also brings Leap Day Action Night! Leap day offers an opportunity to go beyond protest — merely decrying what we’re against — and focus on living life in a positive, creative, loving, cooperative, sustainable fashion without domination of others or the earth.

Leap Day Action is not being organized by anyone and yet it will happen in cities and towns everywhere because — without asking permission and without boring meetings, email lists or moldy coalitions — people will act on leap day. At night. The key is a wild brainstorm to figure out what we haven’t tried yet — because all the stuff we’ve been trying hasn’t worked yet. What tactics are too risky or too laughable? Those are precisely the ones that just might be the key to a memorable leap day.

Life can be transformed from dull and ordinary at the most unexpected moments. The January critical mass bike ride in Berkeley was proceeding normally — no cops around, no edgy anger in the air — when suddenly, someone noticed a huge hole in the chainlink fence between the frontage road we were riding on and the 10 lane wide Interstate 80 Freeway. Suddenly, the hum drum of the predictable shattered and bikes were streaming onto the freeway — how many lanes could we shut down? One lane . . . two lanes . . . three lanes. Cars swerving, horns honking. And then we rode, bike lights blinking. And 5 minutes later, we were taking an exit and escaping into the dark — still no police, no tickets — just a brief vision of liberation and resistance!

On LD8, our lives will shift from talking about freedom and liberation to living chaos in real time — getting back to the roots of rebellion instead of running our activist efforts like we’re trying to replicate the computerized, bureaucratic structures of “the man”!

How do you want to spend your Friday Night? What props and costumes and maps of targets and flyers describing a new world will you bring along? In the Bay Area, meet us at San Francisco critical mass bike ride. Everywhere else, organize your own leap day. Leap for it!

Check www.leapdayaction.org for info. To get free 17 X 23 inch Leap Day Action Night posters with a space to write your event, email leapdayaction@gmail.com or write LD8, c/o Slingshot, 3124 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705.

In the San Francisco Bay Area: gather at San Francisco critical mass bike ride (Justin Herman Plaza near Embarcadero BART 6 pm) and ride with the mass to the undisclosed location of a leap day action starting at about 8 p.m. Bring costumes, decorations, refreshments, drinks, games, musical instruments, art supplies, dancing shoes, fliers, gossip, your friends, sports equipment, skateboards, puppets, stilts, frisbees, unicycles, toys, pogo sticks, juggling clubs, funny hats, skipping ropes, kites, banners and your dreams & desires for a different reality. Think the unthinkable – demand the impossible! Use your extra day to smash capitalism, patriarchy and the state.

The latest threat to People’s Park in Berkeley — a living testament to the struggle to reclaim land and the dream of sharing it in common — comes in the form of University of California sponspored proposals to “re-design” the park. To defend the park, we need to go to the meetings of the university-appointed advisory board, and we need to be proactive about creating community based process.

People’s Park has always relied on “user-development” — the process of those who use the park collectively deciding what should be done, and then doing it. In 1969, the Park was created spontaneously and without permission. Much in the spirit of Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement, People’s Park has been a 39 year experiment in tending gardens, feeding one another, building and keeping up tables and benches, the free clothes rock, the free-speech stage, and providing community. The concept of paid contract workers implementing a design by “experts” that was commissioned by bureaucrats is completely against the nature and unique value of People’s Park.

In a recent Orwellian twist, the design architects hired by UC Berkeley published a report declaring that People’s Park was under-utilized and lacked diversity. In fact, People’s Park has more users per area than probably any other Berkeley park and is arguably one of the more diverse places on Earth. What “lack of diversity” meant in their report was that some well-off, white, “nice” people don’t feel comfortable using the Park.

The semantics of the debate on People’s Park are carefully couched in politically correct wording, seldom using words like “class”, “race”, or “gentrification”. Instead it is worded as issues of “comfort” and “safety”. What’s really going down is that the Park has become a sanctuary for people who are increasingly marginalized. Skyrocketing rents, closed psychiatric wards and spinning times have left many homeless and unwelcome in other parts of the city. It’s challenging all right. In the face of all this, the Park has provided a remarkable service — giving tangible, physical support and more subtly providing a scattered, yet real web of community for those most in need.

Unfortunately this creates a place that is understandably “uncomfortable” to those who are used to more predictable and controlled environments. One is likely to find folks talking to themselves, partying or hustling a few bucks.

Meanwhile the population of both the City of Berkeley and the University of California students has been getting richer and whiter. “Compassion burnout” is exhibited in recent Berkeley anti-homeless legislation and a San Francisco Chronicle columnist spewing homeless hate on the front page. The University, neighbors and rich hill folks would like to see it “cleaned up.” So here we are, the soul of Berkeley and People’s Park teetering in history.

The Park has its problems. The Park is not the cause of these problems. One should look toward economic structures and social dynamics for the cause. In fact, the Park alleviates the symptoms. I shudder to imagine Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley without the Park. The green space and singing birds and freedom is the breath of soul all us city dwellers need.

Of course the common goal is to have the Park inviting and nurturing for all. The challenge is to create this. That is not the same as removing people who make others, who have to witness their difference or suffering, uncomfortable. Instead we should focus on creating an active, diverse and healthy place. Dilute the problems with the solution.

And since People’s Park is a do-it-yourself kind of place, it is upon all of us to make it more how we dream it could be. If folks would like to see more neighbors’ picnics, well bring your neighbors and some food and blankets. There have been great ideas lately of activities for the Park including Tai Chi classes, art shows, movie nights, tea parties, theater, beer-fest etc. Organize an activity! Come to the Park, enjoy it, share music, food, conversation, sun, chess, Frisbee, gardening. People’s Park is yours, believe in the dream of sharing.

A member at the last People’s Park Advisory Board actually passed a proposal for a design “competition”. People’s Park is about cooperation not competition.

If you care about the Park, please come out in support of it now. We are planning a “Quest for Common Ground” process to vision the park in the spirit of cooperation. There will be visioning activities on Sunday Mar 30 (April 6 rain date) and on the Anniversary, Sunday April 27, in the Park.

UC advisory board meetings are on the first monday of each month at 7 pm at 2362 Bancroft Way in Berkeley. Check www.peoplespark.org for the UC architects’ proposal and updates. Please get involved in these processes soon to add our generation’s contribution to this unique legacy.

Viewed by many as one of the few Manhattan neighborhoods that is not yet completely gentrified, East Harlem — or El Barrio — has been the target of landlords, business owners, and corporate conglomerates who are eager to profit. Movement for Justice in El Barrio has been resisting attempts to push people out of their homes.

For nearly three years, the Movimiento por Justicia del Barrio (MJB) has been fighting gentrification in East Harlem, organizing one building at a time for better housing conditions. Two years ago, they connected their local struggle to struggles worldwide when they joined the Zapatistas’ Otro Campaña (Other Campaign). Since then, they have continued building a grassroots movement in their own neighborhood while articulating a broader struggle against neoliberalism.

The group recently held a presentation at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan. Member Oscar Dominguez began the presentation by providing a background of The Sixth Declaration of the Lacondon Jungle, released by The Zapatistas in June 2005, which identifies capitalism and neoliberalism as the root of many problems facing oppressed groups today. Said Dominguez: “The capitalist system forces people to migrate to other countries.”

Dominguez went on to describe how The Sixth Declaration condemns capitalism for robbing people, destroying cultures, and displacing communities.

Ana Laura Merino then introduced The Other Campaign, a two-tiered campaign that developed from the ideas of The Sixth Declaration. Dedicated to autonomy and direct democracy, The Other Campaign addresses “the need to change Mexico and create a new one,” said Merino.

The campaign involves the Zapatistas working in solidarity with other Mexicans to identify the needs of various communities and determine how to move forward. During the first stage of the campaign, Subcomandante Marcos traveled throughout the 32 Mexican states to listen to people’s problems and take detailed notes. The second stage is currently being implemented as Zapatista delegates travel throughout the country and listen to how people want to overcome these problems.

Due to immigration law, most MJB members were not able to attend the two meetings held in Juarez, Chihuahua, for Mexican immigrants living in the U.S., so instead, they made a video message which MJB member Juan Haro presented in Juarez.

The video, entitled “Message to the Zapatistas,” featured interviews of Mexican immigrants living in El Barrio. They told stories of being forced to leave Mexico due to extreme poverty and having to leave behind their homes and families to find a better life in the US. They also described the problems they faced in the US, such as racial discrimination, low-paying jobs, and poor housing conditions. Lastly, they gave messages of support to The Other Campaign, expressing their hopes of creating a better Mexico and someday returning to their homes and loved ones. “We believe if Mexico changes we can return to our country of origin,” said Dominguez.

Throughout the presentation, MJB members emphasized the importance of autonomous and inclusive organizing, in which the people make decisions for themselves. They frequently brought up the struggles of women, poor people, people of color, lesbians, gays, and transgendered people, noting that it is the most marginalized people who are most hurt by neoliberalism. Haro discussed the importance of connecting these issues so that marginalized groups can come together under “one broad struggle.”

Georgina Quiroz spoke specifically about the repression of women. Quiroz brought to light the unsettling fact that women and their bodies often become collateral in times of political repression. For example, in the Mexican city of Atenco — which has been a hotbed of state repression and civil unrest — sexual assault against women has been frequent. Quiroz ended her talk about women by announcing an upcoming international ecuentro for women. Hosted by the Zapatistas, the encuentro, or gathering, took place on December 27th in Chiapas.

The night ended with Haro sharing a recent victory and next steps. Haro explained how MJB successfully forced millionaire and ruthless gentrifier Steven Kessner to sell the 47 buildings he owned in El Barrio. Shortly after Kessner left town, the buildings were bought up by a multinational corporation based in London called Dawnay, Day Group. Dawnay, Day has since instigated dirty and illegal tactics to force long-term residents to leave their homes. MJB is planning a trip to London to confront the company at their headquarters.

As Movement for Justice in El Barrio continues to organize, the group is helping people better their housing conditions in El Barrio while waging a broader struggle for liberty, justice, and democracy around the world.

2008 is an election year and the media (and everyday conversations around the USA) are turning to the ‘excitement’ of the presidential election race. But in the radical community, a different kind of excitement is building — very serious and extensive efforts are underway to disrupt the Democratic National Convention (DNC) from August 25-28 in Denver, Colorado and the Republican National Convention (RNC) from Sept. 1-4 in St. Paul, Minnesota. National meetings have laid out detailed strategies, outreach is underway nationally including an impressive call to action newspaper, and this spring, road shows will criss-cross the continent all in an effort to bring tens of thousands of people to St. Paul and Denver.

Why should anyone put time, energy, and ultimately their body on the line to shut down the national party conventions? The see-saw discourse of Democrats and Republics is all a huge distraction from the systematic corporate attack on the earth and its human inhabitants, after all.

And that is precisely the point. These two parties — really a few thousand politicians and activists plus a few thousand more individuals who run the political party’s corporate funders — dominate politics in the world’s richest country, and thus these people dominate the whole world. Most people in the US see the election campaign as their chief opportunity to participate in and change society.

Ultimately, if radicals want to make any progress, we can’t ignore the Democrats and Republicans stranglehold on power and legitimacy — we have to expose them and confront their domination of our lives and our future.

As the flyer being distributed by convention disrupters explains:

“Bewitched by the spectacle of politics, we confuse elections with freedom, representation with self-determination. We look to politicians to solve our problems, and when they fail, we replace them with other politicians. These politicians have been unanimous in their support for a disastrous war based on false pretexts. They are unanimous in defending borders that tear up families and countrysides while enabling corporations to export jobs, exploit workers, and pillage resources. They are unanimous in pushing cutthroat competition as the only possible economic model, even as the gulf widens between rich and poor and profit-driven environmental destruction causes global warming to accelerate at a catastrophic pace.

“They’ve created these problems, and now some of the same politicians offer to solve them for us. They try to maintain our attention by debating whether to change this or that detail. But it is foolish to expect different result from appealing to the same class of people: we can only extricate ourselves from the mess they’ve made by acting for ourselves, without so-called representation.

“Our protests against war, global warming and exploitation must be directed against the electoral system itself, so they are not reabsorbed and neutralized when new politicians offer to “represent” us. Our protests must interrupt the practical activity of the politicians — otherwise, [the protests] can be brushed off, to remain in the sphere of personal opinion. Even if we do not throw off their power entirely, the most efficient way to exert leverage upon politicians is by bypassing them to make the changes we desire ourselves, so they can offer us nothing and must struggle to catch up.

“We are proposing a strategy for each convention — a general framework to coordinate our individual efforts so they add up to something powerful. This must be public, so thousands of people can take part: a good strategy is effective regardless of whether the authorities are forewarned. This framework must offer space for a wide range of tactics and plans, so a diverse array of people can participate. Inside this framework, participants can craft their own roles, retaining as much privacy as they need to play the parts they choose. If we succeed in disrupting the political spectacle of the conventions, politics in this country will never be the same.”

Crash the Convention

As we learned at the political conventions in 2000 and 2004, the system will call out thousands of police to prevent any disruption to the conventions. Thus, mounting any serious challenge to the conventions is a numbers game — the more of us on the streets, the better chance we have of interrupting business as usual at the conventions. The cops may be able to arrest us in our thousands, but even if they do, it will take time. As we’ve learned in the past, massive police action in and of itself disrupts conventions. If we’re well–organized, we can use the police response and (over)reaction to our advantage.

Police in Denver and St. Paul have been “practicing” their convention tactics on local activists. The August critical mass ride in the Twin Cities saw a police riot and vicious arrests. Denver’s Columbus Day protests was met with chemical weapons and police carrying machine guns. The cops are trying to scare people off the street but it won’t work.

The political system has harnessed fear very effectively since September 11 to control the population. In 2004, New York city police used the excuse of “domestic terrorism” to infiltrate and spy on people preparing for the convention. But in 2008, the fear-mongers will be met with their own biggest fear: people mobilized, organized, and taking the future back into their own hands!

Unconventional Action, which is coordinating the protests against the RNC, has described how the convention protests fit in with the broader struggle for liberation by setting forth their goals: “A new reality will not emerge by simply stopping the 4 day spectacle of the RNC. We need folks with an alternative vision to come to the Twin Cities and turn their dreams into reality. Start something new, be creative, and come ready to build sustainable alternatives worth fighting for and defending. The new skills that we teach, learn, and put into practice here will allow us to return to our communities stronger, smarter, and more empowered.” They have called for the following strategies:

“1. Start Strong – Throw all of our energy into the first day. We’ll kick this off right and stretch the militarized police state out so far that it can no longer contain and suppress our voices and desires.

2. Transportation Troubles – This includes blockades downtown (at key intersections), on bridges (10 bridges over the Mississippi River in the metro area), and other sporadic and strategic targets (busses, hotel and airport shuttles etc.).

3. Respect, defend, and be prepared for autonomous self-sustaining alternatives – Lasting projects and spaces will be born out of our actions and will need to be protected. We also won’t knowingly bring the hammer down on existing long-term community projects. It doesn’t matter if we win the RNC battle, if the war for our lives is lost.

4. Be inclusive of local communities and respect alliances – We are all on the same side of the barricades and are trying to build lasting bonds for future mutual aid. We may not agree with each other on all of our tactics, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t venues for us to work together and build on the trust and community that already exists.”

And one tactical observation, the Democratic convention is scheduled just 3 days before the Republican convention. No doubt police in the 2 cities are in communication. We have to avoid a situation in which most of us get arrested in Denver so we are either in jail and can’t make it to St. Paul or are too exhausted to do so. Pace yourself.

Get connected

This spring, you can help the effort by bringing the road show to your town, distributing convention protest materials, and forming affinity groups to go to the conventions. It wouldn’t hurt practicing at anti-war protests in March (or even on leap day!) Check out www.unconventionalaction.org, www.nornc.org or www.recreate68.o
rg for lots more details and information.

The Marine Corps opened a recruiting station in downtown Berkeley in January 2007. In September, when they discovered it, CODE PINK and Women In Black responded with protests. Since then, protesters outside the office have hardly given the marines a moment’s respite. By the time recruiters go for a brisk morning jog with ROTC students from UCB, the activists are settled in to start the day for peace by reading and meditating. Throughout the week, the curb in front of the recruiting offices becomes a venue for a variety of efforts to disrupt the recruiting and, ultimately, to drive the marines out of Berkeley. Protest singing, dancing, Tai Chi, yoga, breastfeeding mothers, kiss-ins, and photographic portraits for peace are some of the motley tactics Code Pink uses to keep the action lively. Guerrilla theater actions included a symbolic street cleansing (to wash the marines right out of Berkeley and the blood off residents’ hands), and a New Year’s Day dumping of manure outside the recruiting center.

After being recruited to sing one January afternoon with the women of Code Pink, I sat down in a plastic pink lawn chair in the street and lazily waved a sign saying “You can’t go to school in a body bag.” Behind me a bold pink banner was unfurled and a woman dressed in a marine core uniform played possum on the pavement. Potted orchids, gory photos of war victims, and cardboard sculptures littered the sidewalk in front of the station. A conversation about the horrible suicide rates among vets led to a brainstorm about giving out scholarships and jobs in front of recruiting centers. I put out my cigarette when Linda Maio and Max Anderson walked up to the picket. These two Berkeley City Council members gave stump speeches urging the protesters to keep the banner high.

Recruiters think they’ve got trouble reaching quotas already – imagine protests like this one spreading across the country. The open ended protest invites everyone who walks by to participate and add new layers of creativity and resistance. The palpable reality on the street leaves no room for the recruiter to paint his lurid picture of hope and glory in boldfaced lies. Hats off to recruiting protesters keeping the opposition to the war in our faces.

You can join them every weekday 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Marine Recruiting Station, 48 Shattuck Square, Berkeley, CA. Call CODE PINK 510-524-2776 for information.

This spring, Native activists will walk across the United States together. The Longest Walk 2 will mark the 30th anniversary of the historic Longest Walk — the last major event of the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement in which several hundred Native Americans marched from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. to symbolize their forced removal from their homelands and to draw attention to continuing problems plaguing the Indian community. Longest Walk 2 will take two routes from the Bay Area to Washington, DC to raise awareness about issues impacting the environment, to protect sacred sites and to clean up Mother Earth. The five month journey will conclude July 11.

The original Longest Walk in 1978 was conducted in part to protest proposed legislation that would have dissolved Native Treaties which protected Native American sovereignty. As a result of The 1978 Longest Walk those 11 bills were defeated and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) of 1978 was passed.

“In 1978, our communities faced many hardships such as non-existing religious rights and criminalization of our people who fought for cultural survival, this is why the Longest Walk was necessary. As Indigenous Peoples in the United States, our environment and our cultural survival are directly correlated and are still imperiled today; this is why we must walk once again” states Jimbo Simmons of the International Indian Treaty Council.

The Longest Walk 2 is an extraordinary grassroots effort on a national level to bring attention to environmental disharmony; it is part of many communities’ ongoing commitment to protect sacred sites, preserve cultures, and create awareness about the environment. The message from the Longest Walk of 1978 will be carried and continued: “The Longest Walk is an Indian spiritual walk, a historical walk; and it is a walk for educational awareness to the American and the world communities about the concerns of American Indian people,” according to American Indian Movement Co-founder Dennis J. Banks.

The Longest Walk 2 will take two routes. The Northern route will travel the original route of 1978 across 11 states and 3,600 miles. The Southern route will follow the 2006 Sacred Run route across 13 states and 4,400 miles. Both routes will visit sacred sites across the Nation and promote educational awareness for sacred sites protection and preservation. The Southern route will be launching The Clean Up Mother Earth Campaign where Longest Walk participants will work together to clean up our country’s highways and roads by collecting debris found along the Longest Walk route.

For more information please visit: www.longestwalk.org

El 1ro de Abril, muchas personas alrededor del mundo tomarán acción directa contra el imperio de combustibles fósiles, declarando este día tradicional de bromas, como el «Día de Inocentes de los combustibles Fósiles». Rising Tide (Marea Creciente), Rainforest Action Network (Red de Acción de los Bosques Pluviales) , Global Exchange (Intercambio Global) y Earth First! (¡Primero La Tierra!), como también amigos y aliados, están convocando a que ustedes hagan una broma que pega fuerte contra las industrias que son las más responsables por el cambio climático . Ahora es el momento para aumentar el nivel de resistencia.

Nuestro mensaje es simple: para tener alguna esperanza de evitar un cambio climático catastrófico, tenemos que dejar de quemar combustibles fósiles. Todos los cálculos de «neutralización de emisiones de carbono»y palabrería de reducir un X porcentaje de emisiones para 2010, 2020, o 2050 no significarán nada si los combustibles fósiles todavía se utilizan. Pero esto es exactamente lo que promueven los políticos «progresistas», empresas, e incluso algunas de las grandes organizaciones verdes . Mientras engañan al público con su discurso hábil de «carbón lavado», con autos híbridos, y compensaciones de carbono con lo que harán que las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero desaparezcan mágicamente las empresas de energía están ocupadas construyendo nuevos oleoductos y gasoductos, explotando nuevos pozosy desarrollando una nueva flota de centrales eléctricas de carbón tradicionales.

Incluso si hubieran maneras de capturar y guardar permanentemente los gases invernaderos producidos por el consumo de combustibles fósiles (que no existen, a pesar de mucha exageración acerca del secuestro de carbono), todavía rechazaríamos su uso continuo. Desde las montañas antiguas de los Apalaches que están siendo sopladas a pedazos para el carbón barato hasta los tributarios de la Amazonía que están siendo envenenados por la extracción del petróleo. La industria petrolera ha traído solamente terror, muerte, y destrucción a la tierra y los pueblos que los ocupan.

Está bien claro que los gobiernos y empresas del mundo no resolverán la crisis del clima. No queda mucho tiempo. Tenemos que tomar acción inmediata y directa para parar la pesadilla de combustibles fósiles en que vivimos, haciendo frente de tamaño y escala del problema con una respuesta apropiada a la misma. Puesto que lo único que las corporaciones que gobiernan el mundo no quieren es parar la producción de combustibles fósiles. Necesitamos obstruir el imperio de combustibles fósiles hasta que la extracción y consumo de petróleo, carbón, y gasolina no serán mas empresas provechosas.

El Día de Inocentes de los combustibles Fósiles es una invitación para tomar tal acción. Estamos llamando a los pueblos alrededor del mundo a tirar una llave inglesa en el macanismo de las companías que producen, distribuyen y venden combustibles fósiles. Ideas incluyen, pero son de ninguna manera limitadas a: cerrar gasolineras, bloquear centrales eléctricas, ocupando minas de carbón y pozos de petróleo, Home Depots, paseos en bicicletas de Masa Crítica (Critical Mass), perturbar la construcción de nuevas carreteras y ocupar oficinas, concentrandose en bancos como Bank of America y Citi Bank las cuales invierten en carbón.

Desafortunadamente no podemos solamente resistir los combustibles fósiles y pensar que estamos seguros. Empresas de energía ya están persiguiendo una multitud de nuevas y también viejas tecnologías para alimentar el hambre insaciable de energía para la sociedad industrial. El poder nuclear está viendo un renacimiento en plantas nucleares, estas compañías reclaman ser “cero emisiones” no es así, ya que cada año ellos botan toneladas de desperdicio atómico tóxico. ¡Empresas de petróleo están poniendo sus ojos codiciosos en “combustibles agrícolas”, las consecuencias son desastrosas como el uso de más pesticidas, más contaminación, y lo peor de todo, menos alimento! Y por supuesto hay estafas dudosas llamadas “compensaciones de carbono” en las que uno puede pagar empresas para plantar algunos árboles o instalar molinos de viento, prometiendo “neutralizar” su emisión de carbono.

Estas compensaciones de carbono que uno compra hacen muy poco para reducir las emisiones de carbón. Algunos están basados en el modelo colonial del “desarrollo verde o ecológico” en los países de tercer mundo que no les importa la autonomía de las comunidades, roban la tierra de los indígenas, y destruyen comunidades ya autosuficientes. Por ejemplo, las plantaciones en Brasil, que son los llamados en el esquema como los mayores compensadores de carbono, son referidos por los locales como “desiertos verdes” Ya que esa tierra fue originalmente selva o bosques lluviosos, donde había diversidad biológica fue transformada a monocultivos de árboles exóticos, pagado por gente millonaria del norte supuestamente para compensar las emisiones de carbono han sido transformadas en tierras donde no hay animales para cazar o alimentos para recolectar, por lo tanto estas comunidades han desaparecido. Por lo tanto estos sistemas de compensaciones de carbono, no solamente están destruyendo la diversidad biológica pero también la habilidad de comunidades para vivir autónomamente. Quizás lo peor de todo, los modelos mentirosos de compensación de carbono perpetúan la noción que nosotros podemos luchar el calentamiento de la tierra sin parar el uso de combustibles fósiles.

A lo mejor, estas intrigas aflojan ligeramente el desplome inminente del clima, pero en realidad esto acelera las emisiones, la continuación nuestra de dependencia en combustibles fósiles, amplifican las desigualdades actuales, y crearán nuevos problemas sociales y ambientales. Si luchamos exitosamente en el cambio del clima tenemos también que resistir estos tecno-fijares rápidos que buscan solo cebar las carteras del elite del mundo.

El futuro depende de nosotros. Hasta ahora, el movimiento global para justicia del clima no ha enfrentado la urgencia de la crisis del clima con igual intensidad de la problema. Esto no quiere decir que no han habido ejemplos inspirados de resistencia. Activistas en Australia han cerrado repetidamente la fábrica de exportación de carbón más grande del mundo. Granjeros en Irlanda están usando desobediencia civil para luchar un oleoducto de gas lo cual Shell esta construyendo en su tierra. Tribus indígenas por toda la Amazonía bloquean físicamente el acceso de las empresas de petróleo a la tierra. En los EEUU ha habido fuerte resistencia a nuevos centrales de carbón. En 2006 organizaciones como Tierra Primero! (Earth First!) y Marea Creciente (Rising Tide) bloquearon un central de carbón en Virginia. En el noreste de Nuevo México gente del tribu Dine’ han ocupado el sitio de una central de carbón propuesto por más de un año.

Es este tipo de acción que esperamos ver estallar alrededor del mundo el 1ro de Abril y más adelante. El mundo ya ha visto suficientes activistas vestidos como osos polares con letreros y celebridades posando en glaciares derretidos. Es tiempo para que vayamos más allá de la acción simbólica e interrumpamos negocios inocentes de combustibles fósiles. Varias acciones ya han sido planeadas en los EEUU e Inglaterra. Tenemos una multitud de recursos en la red de internet como revista y carteles que pueden ser encontrados en www.fossilfoolsday.org y www.risingtidenorthamerica.org. Si usted está planeando una acción abierta, por favor déjenos saber y le ayudaremos en divulgarla. ¡Si usted está planeando una sorpresa grata cuéntenos como les fue! Contactenos a: fossilfools@hushmail.com

When a cargo ship ran into the San Francisco Bay Bridge November 7, spilling 58,000 gallons of heavy bunker fuel oil into the bay, millions of Bay Area residents who love the bay ecosystem reacted with immediate horror. If you live in the Bay Area, you feel strangely connected with nature through your proximity to the remaining natural aspects of the bay — the shore, the birds living there, plants on the rocks, some fish — even while you dwell in a densely populated urban area covered in concrete. Hearing about an oil spill or industrial pollution in the bay feels personal.

In the wake of the oil spill, everyone expected some kind of dramatic Response — massive efforts to clean up the oil and save wildlife. In these situations, you figure the government is going to Do Something. But recalling government bungling of the response to hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, it quickly became obvious that the government was the problem, not the solution, in the wake of the oil spill.

The oil spill was on Tuesday. Government officials immediately sealed off access to beaches for miles and miles around the bay and warned citizens not to go there. On Saturday after the spill, I happened to bike down to the Berkeley Marina — figuring I wouldn’t be able to get near the water — but I decided I wanted to get as close as I could to see what an oil spill looked like. I figured I would see officials out cleaning the oil and I might see some dead or dying birds.

When I got there, there were signs posted saying that the beach was “closed” but lots of people on the beach by the bike path that goes along Interstate-80 between the Berkeley marina and Emeryville. I didn’t see any oil on the beach from the bike path and I didn’t see any cops around so I walked down to the water.

I had never seen an oil spill before. In fact, there was oil all over the beach and rocks but not a constant sheet – it was in globs between 1/2 an inch across and up to 6 inches across. I didn’t see much oil in the water itself. The oil was black and the consistency of tar. Some was on the sand and some was on the rocks.

I realized that about half of the other people on the beach were cleaning up the oil. At first I figured they were government workers or “official” volunteers but I quickly realized that they had just been drawn to the water to clean up without any official approval or organization. They had plastic bags, kitty litter scraper shovels, rubber gloves and buckets. It wasn’t one group — just a collective, un-organized, individual need to do something. I hadn’t intended to do any cleanup but I immediately realized I wanted to pitch in and so I asked someone who was already cleaning what I should do. He explained how it worked. I found some plastic bags and started picking up oil.

It turns out that when the oil globs are on the sand, you can just roll them up in the sand and put them in your bag without getting it on your hands at all. When it had gotten on the rocks, it looked almost impossible to get off — I left that to others with better technology. I picked up maybe 5 lbs. of oil globs from the sand (plus some other trash) in just a few minutes. With the number of people on that particular beach, it looked like we would get pretty much all the oil on the sand, but none of the oil on the rocks. Most of the shore in that area only has rocks — no sand.

It was really a horrible scene — seeing the beach so dirty and realizing how nasty the oil was and that the entire edge of the bay might look like that for miles — but I found the outpouring of un-organized public energy inspiring. When I biked a mile north to the Berkeley Marina, the police had sealed off the area and were telling the many would-be volunteers who had spontaneously showed up to go home and not go near the oil. I only saw one person in an orange vest doing any clean up there — this is over a vast area. There were tons of cars and trucks with supervisors and bureaucrats, plus lots of cops. That was in contrast to dozens of people actually cleaning the other beach (which wasn’t protected by the police.) I later got an email from a friend saying that 1,000 volunteers showed up to an event in Marin county where people were told to go to volunteer but the authorities were so overwhelmed that they told everyone to go home.

So the reality was that tons of regular people wanted to do something and there was clearly a lot of work to be done, but the government was doing everything it could to stand in their way.

Why did the government spend so much time and energy working to prevent people from dealing with the oil spill while the government wasn’t spending any energy actually cleaning up the spill? Because the government’s main interest is in control of the population — enforcing passivity and preventing spontaneous, independent citizen organization to deal with problems. If people are permitted to organize and solve problems themselves, they’ll realize they don’t need the government or the corporations that control the government. The government’s first job is to justify its own existence.

The government’s eventual response, many days after the initial spill and after they had prevented the public from dealing with the spill themselves, was to bring in corporate clean-up crews — Mexican-American workers, probably poorly paid, doing the same type of work I saw people doing on the beach spontaneously and independently.

The government kept emphasizing how dangerous the oil was and how regular people had to stay away from it for health reasons. Sure the oil was nasty — but how many nasty chemicals (like your average gas station which millions of people visit every day) does the government try to convince us are no big deal?

After the spill, the mainstream press was filled with expressions of outrage blaming the ship operators or its crew for the disaster. But all of this missed the real causes of the spill. Global capitalism involves massive ship traffic around the world to sustain consumerism and enrich corporate interests. Inevitably, oil spills happen with all this commerce. The oil spill — from the government/corporate point of view — is really an acceptable, ecological cost of doing business. Oil spills can’t be viewed as isolated disasters, but must be viewed as another symptom of the capitalist assault on earth to bring a few people in developed areas more acres of plastic crap, along with global warming, deforestation, etc.

Seeing people spontaneously out on the beach self-organizing the clean-up shows that people could get together on a larger scale — to address the root problems. When will we get together to build local economies so we don’t need ships crossing the oceans to bring corporate crap? When will we get together to find energy sources that aren’t toxic and oil based? When will we organize structures to replace the control and management of the government with participation, cooperation, and direct, un-mediated engagement with our lives?