Category: Articles

Back in ‘98 when a friend and I started the Fall Creek Treesit, we sat alone in that forest; no ground-support, no other treesits – just us. We watched from our perch high in the canopy as Grandmother and Grandfather trees were felled to build the road. I remember spilling the coffee I was brewing on our little stove as I watched. My friend, the most mean and cynical man I’ve ever known, said the first and only kind words I’ve ever heard escape his lips:

“Some will fall so that others may be saved.”

The tears streamed down my face in silent protest of what I was witnessing. Below, the loggers jeered and laughed. I donned my climbing gear and my knife. I was going to the ground, and, one way or another, this was gonna end.

My friend stopped me. I don’t even remember what he said. But I remember sitting there in spilled coffee, tears in my eyes. It is the most powerless and helpless I’ve ever felt.

I think back to that time now because I am feeling very similar. I’m sitting trapped in a cell watching the world go to shit and I can’t do a damn thing about it.

A couple of articles caught my eye the other day. One was about fish farming and the necessity of domesticating the ocean. The author, a scientist, went on to say that we have accepted the domestication of the land, now we must accept the domestication of the ocean; the days of wildness are over. The other article was about global warming. It said it was too late – not enough had been done, not enough would be done; all we can do is prepare for the consequences.

A friend sent me photos of the recent protests in Scotland. The army helicopters flying over, dropping off troops, protecting the rich – the elite – the only humans that matter. I was amazed (but not surprised) that people are still shocked by this. (I guess they don’t remember US soldiers with M-60s at last years’ G8.)

Back in the states the Patriot Act has been renewed. Bush just took away all the wilderness designations environmental reformists fought so hard to get. US courts have ruled it is legal for developers to demolish homes to build malls. And our prisons are filling with radical activists and would-be revolutionaries.

What can I do? My words cannot galvanize the masses. I can’t make people fight back. I am lost. I could write a guerrilla manifesto on how to fight a successful revolution in the US, opening myself up to more consequences, maybe even more time. But would anyone act? Would anyone organize? Would any non-militants offer aid; offer to help put society back together? Would anyone open themselves up to the risk? Would you?

I think that I can answer all those questions: No. Inaction is the price of privilege. Hypocrisy is the cost of comfort. It is impossible to inspire by inciting feelings of guilt. I know this, but, it is also impossible to inspire when I believe it is a lost cause.

Even when I take into consideration the many brave cells out there fighting, and I know why they fight; in the depths of my spirit I know and I understand. I still believe we have lost. Those are the three words no one wants to hear. The words I am loathe to write. But maybe hearing them will slap you back to reality. This isn’t a game. It sure as hell ain’t a fucking fairytale with a guaranteed happy ending.

The resistance is up to you. You can organize – really organize bringing people together. You can teach – not just your friends, but strangers. You can propagate the resistance with graffiti, stencils and flyers. You can create alternatives by squatting, guerrilla gardening, creating and using alternative energies. You can become a militant – a smart one who learns how to cause the most damage and get away.

But what you can’t do it sit on your ass and flap your gums about how messed up things are. Because if you know how bad it is and you do nothing, you are the reason we lost. And you insult and betray everyone who has fought back. You spit in the face of those who have given their lives or lost their freedom demanding something better.

If our international movement cannot mount an offensive that is more than just a spectacle, then we deserve our fate. And I deserve 22 years for being foolish enough to believe we had a chance.

There are many who will continue to fight against all odds. Because for us, it is personal. If nothing else, we will go down fighting. That’s a lot to ask of someone – asking them to fight a losing battle. But, I’m asking it of you. If we are going down, let’s go down swinging. Let’s make it the toughest, hardest fought battle this system has ever faced. And if we lose, at least we will have made them earn it; at least we won’t have just handed them the world. At least we will have made a stand.

There is no shame in losing a fight – if you fight. That’s the only thing I expect of any =/human being – when they are pushed against a wall, they fight back. I expect that of you.

*Jeffrey Free Luers* *#13797671 OSP 2605 State Street Salem, OR 97310*

Sometimes a series of accidents, seemingly unrelated events and mistakes by rulers come together to open up critical moments for radical change. Looking at the confluence of events over the past three months swirling around Iraq, global warming, rising gas prices, Hurricane Katrina and Bush’s general fumbling, we may be moving into such a period — if we can seize the moment.

Radicals need to shake ourselves out of the political paralysis we’ve been caught in since the beginning of the Iraq war and figure out what new alternatives, projects and modes of living are opening up because of the political and cultural shifts that are underway all around us. Right now there are rich opportunities to criticize the status quo but even more importantly to build parallel economic, social and political projects.

In the best case scenario, these projects will allow us to withhold our contribution — in terms of money, labor and time — to the mainstream consumer/industrial machine, and instead redistribute this energy locally. When we spend our days contributing to the system, we strengthen the hand of the rulers and become more dependent on and tied to their institutions. When we create our own counter-institutions for our own needs and those around us, the rulers are weakened.

Building for ourselves isn’t about taking on a new burden — a new clutter to our personal schedules — or about performing an act of charity. The key is transforming our day-to-day lives now — living life now consistent with ideals of cooperative local control and environmental sustainability — rather than hoping that we can live differently some day in the future.

Stopping the Iraq War and rejecting the US Empire

Something about the Iraq war shifted this summer. Cindy Sheehan’s protest over the tragic death of her son — the kind of thing America usually has an easy time ignoring — touched a nerve. People began wondering if a war costing so much blood and so much treasure was worth it in the face of consistently grim news. Iraq teeters on the brink of civil war with no US strategy other than “stay the course” — but for what?

Radicals have already been pushing back in modest ways such as by organizing protests at recruitment centers around the US or by dogging military recruiters at high school and college campuses. Right now there are huge opportunities to expand these initiatives and shift the tone of mainstream US debate about foreign military intervention.

One of the biggest threats to the struggle for liberation around the world is the always looming threat of US military invasion and occupation should local political movements threaten fundamental US corporate interests. For example, across Latin America, the political tide has been turning over the last few years against neoliberalism and colonization by multinational corporations — witness the recent general strike in Bolivia and events in Venezuela.

The last time so many people rejected capitalist inequality in Latin America, these movements were crushed by CIA sponsored coups or guerrilla campaigns from the 1950s to the 1980s. US activists working within the belly of the beast have a special role to prevent that sort of response this time by undermining public acceptance of US military intervention in “the US backyard.” When Pat Robertson recently suggested that someone should assassinate Hugo Chavez, the Bush administration had to backtrack.

Just a few months ago, it seemed like Bush wanted to lay the groundwork for a war on Syria or Iran — made possible by the permanent US military bases currently being constructed in Iraq. Now, Bush is on the defensive as more and more people call for an immediate pullout of US troops whether the Iraqi regime has “stabilized” or not.

Radicals need to take every opportunity we can to undermine US military legitimacy, frustrate recruitment efforts, and make connections with people in Iraq and around the world who have been exposed to US military brutality.

Beyond all the particulars, the floundering war effort fits in with a general loss of public confidence in business as usual and the status of the US as an invincible Superpower. Despite all the military’s fancy weapons, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the US is losing the war in Iraq — or at least that it can’t win.

Hurricane Katrina

Even more than the particulars of Bush’s mishandling of the Hurricane or the racism and classism it exposed, the legacy of the hurricane has been to further shake public confidence. Many have been linking the failures in Iraq to the failures in New Orleans: how is it that hundreds of billions of dollars can be spent in Iraq while the levees in New Orleans were allowed to crumble and poor people were left with no options?

The hurricane has made it is unusually obvious that while the government functions to take care of corporations — Halliburton has been getting Iraq-style no bid contracts to rebuild New Orleans — regular people are on their own. This sets up perfect conditions for radical self-organization. The elites are weakened and people are looking for alternatives that are human focused, locally controlled and economically just.

Global warming

The recent series of hurricanes have also underlined the key environmental dilemma of the fossil fueled industrial machine — global warming. There is now massive scientific evidence that global warming is underway and that it is being caused by human activity — mostly burning fossil fuels and modern agriculture. The recent hurricanes have demonstrated that global warming will increasingly have real world effects — not just to people in the third world, but to people in the USA who are disproportionately causing the problem.

Hurricanes are expected to increase in intensity as global water temperature — which fuels hurricane activity — rises. This is already underway. A Georgia Tech study found the number of hurricanes that reached categories 4 and 5, with winds of at least 131 miles per hour, have gone from comprising 20 percent of hurricanes in the 1970s to 35 percent today with only a half-degree centigrade rise in tropical surface water temperatures.

Simultaneously, the temporary disruptions to US gasoline supplies caused by the hurricane– and the spike in prices that have gone with these disruptions — have showed how fragile modern reality is and how vulnerable folks are to far away forces which are totally beyond their control.

All this creates exciting opportunities to promote alternatives to the fossil fueled, centrally organized, environmentally irresponsible world order. As fuel prices increase, people are re-exploring alternative fuels like wind and solar. Folks are even prying themselves out of their cars and getting on public transit or their bike. Radicals can make the links between environmental alternatives and new forms of social organization that empower individuals and local communities.

Participation in the fossil fuel system is perhaps the most centralizing, non-democratic, non-local aspect of most people’s daily lives — to say nothing of the environmental consequences. Every dollar spent on fuel strengthens the most powerful elites and flows out of the local community into a complex global system. Stepping even modestly away from fossil fuel participation is particularly difficult because our society is so thoroughly intertwined with these systems.

Thus, radical projects in this moment of opportunity are likely to emphasize a move away from fossil fuel dependence because such a move simultaneously addresses local control, power concentration and environmental sustainability while having the potential to dramatically change how we go about our daily lives.

During unstable political moments that open up new opportunities, it can be hard to seize the initiative and articulate alternative visions because these unstabl
e moments create stresses and confusion within radical communities, as they do within the entirety of society. These moments of instability often are exploited by demagogues and authoritarians. If we stay focused on localism, participation and empowerment, we’ll be able to weather the storm.

On June 12, 2005 Lorien Bourne of Bowling Green, Ohio carried out an act of civil disobedience. Her act took place on Bowling Green’s Slippery Elm Trail. Unlike more publicized acts, like sitting a tree slated for demolition, Lorien’s act was not so predictable and etched into the public’s mind.

Lorien’s removal of her shirt served as the act’s focal point. As Lorien explained, in a recent interview: “I did an act of civil disobedience; challenging the double standards, protesting the selective enforcement of the laws, the societal sexualization of women and the control of women’s bodies by men.” And indeed her act was neither arbitrary nor unprovoked. Rather, the presence of unclothed men on the Slippery Elm Trail inspired her action.

A park ranger confronted Lorien after nearly half an hour of her walking on the trail without a shirt; not unlike the aforementioned male citizens. The park ranger curiously accused Lorien of perverting the park as he stated that she would “bring all the wrong elements to the park.” After this verbal exchange, the park ranger warned Lorien and declared that he would conduct an investigation.

On June 14, 2005, the park ranger contacted Lorien and, saying it was “such a nice day for a drive”, he arranged to meet her and speak in person. Upon his arrival at Lorien’s home, he gave her three citations, two minor misdemeanors of indecent exposure and disorderly conduct, one fourth-degree misdemeanor for public indecency. With these Lorien immediately began facing the possibility of up to $300 or more costs in fines, court costs, and several weeks in jail. According to Lorien, the park ranger’s interaction with her was condescending and patronizing. Her embellished paraphrasing of the park ranger sums it up well, as such: “You poor feeble-minded little girl, the definition of indecent exposure is too long and difficult for you to understand…and I can waste no more of my valuable time with you.”

Lorien requested a public defender for her case. The public defender, a woman, instructed Lorien to plead no contest in order to have two charges immediately dropped. Based on what the public defender said Lorien would have to pay a fine for public indecency and do a year of probation. The other possibility, according to the defender, was to plead not guilty and go to trial. Going to trial would mean losing, according to the defender, paying the highest fine, and going to jail. Lorien decided to do some research.

With the help of a friend, Lorien found the Bowling Green Ordinance that requires everyone, except males under the age of twelve, to wear a shirt. She likewise found a definition of indecent exposure as being “the deliberate exposure of the private parts of the anatomy.” So Lorien asked her defender what “private parts” entailed. The defender admitted that such parts typically refer to genitalia.

A week or so later, the prosecution dropped the disorderly conduct and public indecency charges. The indecent exposure charge still stood however. Lorien, in her defense, was quick to describe the men who had inspired her act of civil disobedience. The prosecution, was not as sensitive to selective law enforcement.

Lorien wanted to fight the charges, seeing the situation as discriminatory and a clear violation of her Fourteenth Amendment rights, “equal protection under the law.” The prosecution proceeded to offer a $50 fine plus court costs, without jail and without parole. Lorien took the offer, pled no contest, and paid $110 in total. As she explained: “It broke my heart to take the offer. I didn’t want to do it, I cried.”

Lorien has subsequently filed a complaint against the park ranger and asked that signs be placed in the city’s parks stating that everyone must wear a shirt. Officials have denied her request.

Readers are welcome to contact Lorien at: styxhere@hotmail.com

Phil McGraw is a whore, a bully, and a deeply crooked, unfathomably vile, individual. This doesn’t make McGraw unique among paid entertainers, and if there were nothing else to him he might not be worth mentioning. McGraw markets himself as “Dr. Phil.” The title “Dr.” is essential for what he does, because it is the basis for his perceived authority. He has gone through the accredited institutions (paid them a lot of money), fulfilled their requirements, and has earned an advanced degree in psychology, designating him an expert on the human mind. Since then, he has cultivated his role in the long line of history’s charlatans. Charlatanism of his sort has served a vital social function for thousands of years. This could be traced to the advent of food surpluses, which created the first non-productive classes. Invariably, these classes’ rulers utilize the charlatans – or merely encourage their existence, even if just by the default of persecuting those who question their authority – to psychologically manipulate and control the ruled oppressed majority.

Post-Enlightenment charlatanism of the McGraw type uses the language of science and reason, as opposed to traditional superstition. The meaning of their activity, however, is achieved not by their definition of reason, but by their application of it, with its attendant social functions and implications. In this sense there’s nothing unique about McGraw. Yet the particular character of his brand of charlatanism demonstrates some attributes of modern society. (Of course traditional superstition still abates. Adorno’s The Stars Down to Earth examines a year’s worth of LA Times astrology columns circa 1950. The mystical character of astrology wasn’t disputed as such, but largely stood in entertaining contrast when supernatural spirituality commanded being an obedient wage slave. Self-destructive and arbitrary social relationships are invisibly accepted and presented as natural givens of life).

Everything about the “Dr. Phil” television program bespeaks the construction of authority. In addition to his “expert” status, the man is “manly”, large, authoritative, and tough. He is a former linebacker, which supports his guise as all-American straight shooter. Thus the US mass audience is assured that he is a true anti-intellectual. His education suggests that he has learned what there is to know about scientific brain studies, and has assuredly internalized many of its truths. But, informed by a more universal and sound “common sense,” he is the one who goes beyond it, a village seer who has traveled far only to learn that the essential wisdom was home all the while. This is the meaning of his southern accent. While that accent typically connotes stupidity in the one-inch thin symbolic vocabulary of US understanding, combined with articulate authoritarianism it, negating suspicion of the intellectual, signifies truth.

“Dr Phil,” as a market-constructed individual cannot be separated from the meaning he acquires as a television symbol. Most people first encounter McGraw through watching television. That is, a deeply unilateral disseminator of propaganda, owned and operated by the ruling class, animates the relationship between viewer and McGraw. The inherent passivity of television watching perfectly complements the self-certain proclamations of McGraw. It makes no difference that he can’t listen to the viewer, because he doesn’t need to listen to anyone anyway, or at least only insofar as to point out in what way that they are wrong. While the program is popular for its own reasons it would not be on television in the first place if it – beyond being the product of mass commercial culture – did not fulfill the ideological demands of network owner and advertiser. For this reason, “Dr. Phil” exists partially by default. For there are innumerable shows that could not air in its place, and, as something needs to be on television, “Dr. Phil,” not challenging the prerogatives of its masters, is allowed to exist.

The program, like any other, fuses spectacle with ideological indoctrination. The viewer naturally allies with the show’s host, who they see five days a week. The guests are invariably people who are somehow “failing” in life, whether through drug addiction, mangled relationships, or simply being overweight. McGraw uses a blend of “home-spun” pseudo-wisdom, rank manipulation, and bullying to force his guests to succumb to the dictates of “common sense.” Lynne Murray challenges popular notions of weight, advocating for the aesthetic and political acceptance of heavy people, and writes of her experience watching the program on fat acceptance in Spin Dr: Phil McGraw vs. Fat Acceptance: Making Fat People Cry for Fun and Profit. This episode, according to McGraw’s formula, featured him paternalistically berating his guests for not accepting his and society’s standards regarding fat people.

He referred to health statistics as proof of the objective dangers of obesity, rejecting out of hand the contention that self-esteem need not be predicated on fulfilling arbitrary and unattainable social standards (dieting doesn’t work, though McGraw has written a dieting book and has a line of “Dr. Phil” weight-loss bars and such). For the only rule for McGraw, the personification of authoritative society, is what society commands. Murray writes that when one guest, Sally Smith, responded to McGraw’s chastisement by noting that ninety-five percent of dieters regain their lost weight, McGraw asserted that this is because the motivations of the dieters are flawed – engaging in speculation and thereby completely jettisoning the so-called scientific basis of his shtick, as Murray notes. That dietary habits correlate to work, time, city design, and profit-based mass production is invisible. likewise there can be no connection made between control of women’s bodies, the conceptualization of women as objects, and patriarchy. If any of this is mentioned in response to forcing women to change their bodies, the dragon of personal responsibility roars, destroying anyone who would dare place one’s experiences in a social-environmental-historical context, i.e. attempt to understand reality. That more people proportionately are overweight in the US compared to Europe can only indicate that “Americans” have less personal responsibility, at this point in time anyway.

But we never get this far, lest we make excuses. Nor can the truth be acknowledged that in the past heaviness was an aesthetic attribute, as it, then and now, is inseparable from class. Previously the wealthy and “attractive” were symbolized by access to food, whereas today’s first-world rich are designated by the leisure-time and money that allows the avoidance of fast food and ability to go to the gym. In both cases, wealth and class are interconnected with attractiveness. Indeed, it is not typically wealthy people appearing on “Dr. Phil,” nor are any Samoans, whose representation would less suggest the laziness and sloth that McGraw extrapolates from heavy, non-affluent, white women.

The ruling ideas are indeed the popular ideas, and McGraw gets people to cheer him through his astute sense and application of today’s ideological hegemony. I recently watched an episode where two parents tricked their son into coming on the show so that McGraw could “help” him with his alleged drug “problem.” The captive guest was proud, angry, and intelligent, and made a mockery of McGraw by noting that he had been deceived into coming on the show, and asking if the complexities of drug addiction are suitable for treatment on a forty-five minute talk-show. McGraw is a skilled rhetorician, and shamefully used the fallacy of the tu quo que to tell the man that since he had allegedly lied more than anyone present, it doesn’t matter that he has been lied to as well. In answer to the young man’s justified anger at the manner in which he had been treated, McGraw berated him for “being self-righteous.”
The guest didn’t appear to have the experience or desire to overcome the rotten tactics McGraw uses, and was eventually coerced into submitting to a “drug-treatment program.” McGraw started out as an adviser to attorneys on how to manipulate juries, and everything about his debating “technique” embodies manipulation, dishonesty, and bullying of the most wretched sort. It is bad enough that ends justify his means, it is even worse when the ends amount to social control.

Perhaps the most obvious exhibition of McGraw acting as the cop of social control – his thick mustache, the type found on cops, firefighters, and rightwing baseball players evokes hyper-masculine authority – was when he had two “anti-war activists” in his feared “hot seat.” The guests, one of whom was former gubernatorial candidate Medea Benjamin, need to be deeply faulted for coming on the show in the first place. Under whose authority did they become the spokespeople for the “anti-war movement”? Moreover, agreeing to appear on McGraw’s ridiculously staged trials precludes any meaningful possibility of conveying one’s message. McGraw likely had them on to nominally consider their argument only in order to undermine it, inoculating his viewers to the growing idea that something was amiss with the US’s latest imperial butchery.

And this is what he did, savaging the mostly hapless Benjamin. When she did manage to break out a few points, lecturing the audience that there indeed was no connection between Al Qaeda and Hussein, McGraw excoriated her for “getting on your soapbox.” Even if Benjamin, who is more informed, articulate, and experienced than almost any other person McGraw could have gotten to come on his show, had been able to make her argument, he would have simply dismantled it in the editing room.

With cameras panning the pro-military audience’s solemn faces, nationalist music cueing the commercial breaks, and various other devices, McGraw guaranteed that the message that an anti-war attitude is treasonous would be delivered. While it is true that Benjamin didn’t have much of a chance that still doesn’t exculpate her dishonest attempts to use “Dr. Phil” speech to appeal to the audience’s perceived jingoistic sensibilities.

She is the real American because she cares more than anyone about our troops, and she’s tried to lobby her representatives and newspaper editors but they haven’t responded to the implorations of their constituent. Perhaps they know better than you, McGraw explained their dismissal, dismissing the nominal pretense of representative democracy. McGraw eventually hammered Benjamin for failing “to accept responsibility” for her “free” speech, which in this case placed “our troops” in harm’s way by boosting the morale of the “enemy.” Instead of noting the preposterousness of this ludicrous and blatant form of censorship, applying the lesson to German citizens under the Nazis, by noting that it is the government who puts the troops in “harms way,” or by noting that all the “moral support” in the world would not enable Iraq to defend itself against the US’s aerial onslaught, Benjamin pathetically tried to crawl out of the charge.

McGraw and audience shook their collective head at this possibly well-meaning but dangerous fool. But the point is not that Benjamin failed but that it was impossible in the forum, buttressed by all the dead wisdom of might makes right red white and blue we are good brainwashed stupidity, to “succeed.”

McGraw’s message, predicated on the belief “that which appears is good, that which is good appears” is reinforced by the mainstream media and culture industry. How could he be wrong when Jay Leno, David Letterman, and Anthony Robbins are saying the same thing? When it is, after all, common sense. The only ones who voice “subversive” views, like Mike Farrell and Michael Moore, are necessarily confused egomaniacs.

They are only listened to when the system can make use of their argument, explaining the popularity of Michael Moore, as his myopic attacks on Bush are supported by upper echelons of the military, intelligence departments, the State Department, old-style Republicans, the Democrats, and international financiers horrified that Bush the Maniac’s fanaticism is slaying the golden goose of international slavery. Much of the Left, notably the Counterpunch creeps (where, ironically, a furious open letter to McGraw responding to the Benjamin show could be found: “The Politics of Therapy” by Richard Lichtman, April 8, 2003), are so disgustingly desperate for any anti-Bush criticism that they kneel before sordid nationalism.

Like Moore, having no respect for the masses, they attempt to exploit – but create – the basest impulses, sacrificing lucid analysis for fascistic drivel seeking to go back to a “better time” in US politics, before foreign usurpers (namely the Israelis, and sometimes Saudis, or the British for their LaRouche cousins) “occupied” our beloved institutions. These themes are prominent on neo-Nazi websites. Faced with such horrendous bullshit from the self-proclaimed “opposition,” it is no wonder that the monster McGraw carries on. The popularity of McGraw is inseparable from the egregious shortcomings of the Left to articulate and maintain an honest and persuasive diagnosis of today’s historical, political-economic crisis.

Because they have no integrity they do not agree that it is better to be quiet and think than to foster false propaganda as a means to “fixing things.” And they do not see or care that it is no small part their false propaganda that has contributed to this desperate world condition in the first place.

*Radical: From the Roots to the Extremes

The Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective is a group of people who have all struggled with mental health problems either in their own lives or as allies to friends and family. We are trying to open discussion about alternatives, provide resources, and get dialogue going about mental health in the radical community.

We are group of people who’ve decided to work together on specific projects. While we don’t offer each other support through the kinds of processing and group sharing that tend to happen in traditional “support groups,” we do find working side by side with people who share the same struggles and hopes for the world builds a sense of solidarity and connection that supports all of us in our daily efforts to build healthy lives and survive the madness of the world.

We’re probably best described as an activist or affinity group, which is usually understood as a small group of people who work together autonomously on direct actions or other projects. The concept of affinity groups and collectives goes back hundreds of years and was particularly successful in the Spanish Civil War, when groups of people in local communities organized to discuss ideas and plan actions.

You can form an affinity group with your friends, people from your community, workplace, or organization. Affinity groups challenge top-down decision-making and organizing, and empower those involved to take creative direct action. Affinity groups by nature are decentralized and non-hierarchical, two important principles of anarchist organizing and action.

Activist/affinity groups can form in all kinds of ways: some, like Food Not Bombs, are open to anyone who drops by that week and starts chopping vegetables; other groups form around specific political events or actions; others begin as discussion groups or support groups for the people involved.

The Bay Area Radical Mental Health Collective began through dialogue in the community and partially through the gentle prodding of a mutual friend of many of the collective members. A handful or so of us received a mysterious email invitation:

“I’m e-mailing you because I’ve met you and know the active work that you do around radical mental health stuff, I trust the integrity of your work, and I would like to propose to you the idea of working together to create a new collective and/or mutual support network of East Bay anarchists/radicals actively involved in mental health/psychology areas. I envision that we could help each other in producing a number of different things – everything ranging from publication of new and old material, counseling, work-shops, support groups, developing radical mental health theory, and even the possibility of creating a new East Bay mental health free clinic. These are just a few possibilities among many. Actual activity, and organizational structure (or lack thereof), is all up to us to determine.”

One member of the collective felt partially motivated to join the collective because of the Bush Administration’s steady pressure to dispense psychiatric drugs to more and more children, diagnosing the very nature of childhood as mental illness. “I don’t want my child to grow up in a society where teachers are required to drug their students.”

After e-mailing back and forth for several days, a small crew of people agreed to meet around someone’s kitchen table on a Thursday night. We discussed our hopes and frustrations with the current systems of mental health support, shared parts of our personal stories, and started plotting projects we could undertake to start creating some of the changes we wanted to see. It became clear pretty quickly that all of us were burned out on collaborative efforts that involved taking on too much work and getting overwhelmed, so we agreed in the interest of our own mental health that we would begin by meeting weekly and committing to small projects we felt like we could actually complete.

After spending a few weeks getting to know each other and discussing possibilities ranging in scale from a mental health lending library at the local infoshop to a free clinic in the East Bay, we decided to start by facilitating a class on Radical Mental Health with the newly formed East Bay Free School.

Our class description ended up something like this:

The aims of the radical mental health class are many. We hope to inspire discussion about the mental health industry and valid institutional critiques of this system. We would like to analyze perceptions of “mental illness” within our culture and media. We aim to help create forums where those involved in the mental health system can locate and create alternatives that meet our needs in non-hierarchical, non-exploitative, and non-dominating ways. We see great benefit in encouraging self-care and awareness of one’s options for healing. We aspire to a world where there are strong communities that care for one another with compassion and justice. We recognize the complexities of the mental health system and continue on.

The class has turned out to be the most popular, consistent class at the Free School. We have a focused topic each week, and usually incorporate some mix of information compiled by collective members and open discussion into our class time. Topics for the classes have included: language and madness, race/class/gender and mental health, medication vs. herbs, and shamanism and mental “illness”. Some weeks we have a specific person facilitate the class, which helps us stay on topic and prevents any one person from taking up too much conversation space. Other weeks we have more of an open discussion led and shaped by everyone who’s come to the class that week.

Overall, it’s been a really effective structure that allows people to participate as much or as little as they want, and creates a space for dialogue where a whole diverse range of people return loyally to discuss their shared questions and concerns about the way mental health is understood in our society. This has worked really well for us and thus far none of our collective members feel like the commitment level required is going to make us go crazy.

In fact the momentum that we feel from this past summer’s free school classes has propelled us forward into inviting new collective members, continuing classes into the fall, and discussing new projects. We hope to have a Radical Mental Health Resource List out for the New Year and have plans in the works to start a radical mental health support group. Other projects that we aspire to in the future are creating a mental health lending library, group therapy, a hotline, free peer counseling, and ultimately the acquisition of our very own space where all of these things can happen.

We’re taking things as they come and flexibly working and making sure to meet ourselves where we’re at before moving forward in order to maintain our health and the sustainability of the project itself. We believe that this is a model that would benefit many other radical projects that time and time again fizzle out due to the common ailment known as “activist burnout” in our communities.

The need for mental health support and resources in our communities is glaring and this fact has been demonstrated to us through the participation, active involvement and enormous response we have had in the past several months.

If you are interested in mental health issues and would like to start a similar collective in your area, feel free to get in touch with us and ask questions. The need for such resources and support is so great that we have found here in the Bay that things really fell into place and happened organically. We suggest you start small, form a collective, have a weekly class, and help build an alternative to the current mental health system!

To join our listserv and receive information on the free school class schedule as well as other upcoming events and projects e
mail radicalmentalhealthcollective@lists.riseup.net or call 1-800-MY-YAHOO, press the # key and enter the ten digit code (radicalnut) to hear upcoming events and classes. Feel free to leave a message if you have questions.

Berkeley’s premiere Pirate radio station, broadcasting on its 104.1 FM band since the early 90’s, is staggering back to it’s feet. Berkeley Liberation Radio, the present incarnation, has been squatting the air waves since 1999. When BLR started, Free Radio Berkeley — which had broadcast on 104.1 earlier in the 90s — was embroiled in an ugly legal battle and hence defunct. Activists retook the band when the court case was at a deadlock.

Shortly before the 6 year anniversary of Berkeley Liberation Radio, the studio’s landlord, a scummy music promoter, gave a 30 day notice which was followed by a notice from the FCC. The FCC said the 100 watt station interfered with airport control radio from over 8 miles away. Some suspect the FCC had pressured the landlord for eviction and convinced the judge signing the order that it was an emergency since that is a tactic the FCC often uses when otherwise ignored.

For two months, broadcasting continued at sporadic locations on Sundays until a temporary home was found at the Hellarity House in North Oakland. A considerable amount of shows were lost with the move as well as the station’s music library.

The Bay Area is home to a dozen micro stations, many of whom focus on web broadcasting. Stations in Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Santa Rosa are all on-line after confrontations with the FCC. Three years ago Berkeley Liberation Radio was raided with a strong police presence. Guns were put in the DJ’s face, the equipment stolen and a sad silence for at least a week was all there was to tune into. The station was built back up moving from marginal equipment to quality shit. Despite concerns of a subsequent raid The station didn’t move onto the web nor did it move out of its studio. The issue of making monthly rent was just being resolved with a schedule of due paying dj’s when the 2005 eviction came down.

Ashby community garden was started in February 2004 by a crew of friends who wanted to begin growing community from an empty lot on a busy street in a lower income neighborhood in Berkeley, Calif. The vision began as an urban sustainability project where people could grow food, share land and knowledge. Starting as a handful of people, the Sustainable Ecology Collective grew beyond the fenced lot through hosting a number of workshops including bee keeping and cob oven construction.

Through the next year as the garden took root in the neighborhood, the intention for the space was to collectivize everything by eliminating any plot systems, common in most community gardens, and in that same vein, care for chickens, bees, and bathtub-ponds together.

We currently occupy one of two adjacent lots (both abandoned approximately 35 years) and are finally realizing our dream of cultivating the fallow lot next door. In the process of expanding we hope to create even more of a community space through murals, fruit trees, a gathering area and community effort.

We realize that creating a garden is a fragile venture working on an abandoned urban space. With this in mind, our vision is to create a space that could move on if development sets in. Ideas are a moveable mural and potted fruit trees that can easily be relocated. Despite the bullshit land ownership system and lack of land access in the city, we want to grow beyond the limits of all that to inspire more gardens and community projects on unused property. Community building need not acquiesce to the hands of development.

The COG Bicycle Lending Library is a volunteer run, community based, not-for-profit organization in Oakland, Calif. that lends out salvaged and recycled bicycles to make bikes equally accessible to all members of the community. The project is grassroots and wholly supported by donations and the energy of volunteers.

Bicycles are donated or salvaged, volunteers fix them up and members check them out for 1 month with the choice of a $10 deposit or a work-exchange of fixing 2 bikes. After a month, members may receive their deposit back or re-check out the bike for an addition 6 months for no additional deposit or work. Members may exchange their bike for another or come and learn how to work on their library bike at anytime. And, of course, membership is free.

Logistics aside, our intention is to create a program that takes bikes off the market and out of the money economy, and a space where people feel comfortable and empowered to ride a bike, learn how to fix it, help out the program, or just be a part of a project in their community. Bicycles are very expensive and a great commodity here in America, yet we find them trashed on the sidewalk on big trash days, and in massive heaps at large transfer stations.

Maybe if enough people knew that, the market and street value of bikes would fall, and lower income people would have easier access to bikes, learn the simple mechanics, and have a reliable, cheap form of transport that they don’t have to guard with their souls. Bicycles are easy to work on and we hope to incorporate more workshops and classes, and possibly an open shop for working on personal bikes into the program in the future with hopes of empowering people to learn skills and do things for themselves.

The Cog was started in late March of this year and we’re currently open Saturdays from 11am to 4pm at 3833 Martin Luther King Jr. way in Oakland.

Volunteers are always welcome and needed at the Cog!

All over the country, folks are shifting their time, money and passion away from the corporate rat race and into local cooperative projects that serve human needs. Why spend your life working a boring job you hate making some fat cat rich when you can build something meaningful yourself to meet your own needs and those of your community? On these pages, we’re featuring articles about some local projects in the East Bay, plus a round-up of projects across the US we’ve heard about in the last few months. These projects provide a model for how society could be organized differently. We also hope that hearing about different projects — and how they get going or keep going — can inspire folks to start projects in their local communities.

Boing! Anarchist Collective – Salt Lake City, UT

They’ve been around for 3 years but we just found out about ’em — they do Food Not Bombs on their front porch, have a huge infoshop and library, free public computers, group meetings, sponsor protests, have a bike garage, and a Free Vegan cafe called Cafe Anarchista. Check ’em out 12pm – 9pm at 608 S. 500 E. Salt Lake City, Utah 84102; 801-364-2426.

Black Rose Collective Bookstore And Freecycling Space – Portland, OR

A community space based on cooperation not competition serving the rich cultural and economic diversity of their neighborhood. They have books, zines, cds, and a free porch. Open 12-8pm Tuesday-Saturday. 4038 N. Mississippi Ave. Portland, Oregon 97227

Soapbox – Bellingham, WA

They’re an independent shop and exhibition space that “encourages and celebrates independent participation in media, politics and culture through re-claiming, re-using and re-working the spaces we inhabit.” They continue, “Refusing to be colonized by cynicism, despair or apathy, Soapbox aims to empower all those who hope, dream or struggle for a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.” Check them out at 215 W. Holly St. H-23 Bellingham, WA 98225; 360.676.1724

Vox Pop – Brooklyn, New York

They’re a radical bookstore/fairtrade coffeeshop that also publishes books (both for int’l distro and also print-on-demand locally). 1022 Cortelyou Road, Brooklyn NY 11218; 718.940.2084.

Rock Paper Scissors Art Collective – Oakland, Calif.

RPS is a new art space in downtown Oakland. Come share or add to the local craftiness. Free and low-cost classes, sewing and art-making equipment, zines / library and gallery. Open 11 a – 7 p. closed Tuesday. 2278 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94612; 510 238 9171

908 Collective – Fort Collins, Colorado

Check out the infoshop/ community space. They also have ties to a new radical paper The Rocky Mountain Resister based out of Laramie, Wyoming: rockymountainresister.org. 908 Laporte Ave. Fort Collins, CO 80521

Green Heart – Collingswood, NJ

An environmental shop with vegan and fair trade stuff that is converting to a non-profit collective. 661 Haddon Ave. Collingswood, NJ 08108; 856-833-1144.

Autonomous Peoples’ Project – Louisville, KY

They have a lending library to promote people’s organizing — we don’t know the physical location. PO Box 2903 Louisville, KY 40201; (502) 291-8992.

Sedition Collective – Houston, TX

An Infoshop that hosts events and has a meeting space but not yet regular opening hours. 4420 Washington Ave, Houston, TX 77007

Thought Crime victim of gentrification in Phoenix but Anarchist Library lives

“I’m writing with a heavy heart. I just received some sad, sad news… Thought Crime just received a 30 day notice, after 10 years – one of Phoenix’s longest running artspaces. The building is being purchased by someone who wants us out. Well, I’m sure this story is all too familiar to you, in the Bay Area.” Although Thought Crime closed, the Anarchist Library that shared the space moved and is now open again Monday from 6-midnight inside the back room of The Counter Culture Cafe 2330 E McDowell Rd Phoenix AZ 85006.

Victims of Hurricane Katrina?

It breaks our hearts that our contacts in New Orleans may be completely wiped out — as of press date, we have no information. If anyone learns the fate of the Aboveground Zine Library, the Iron Rail Bookstore or the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, please let us know. We got a very sad email from the folks at Hot Iron Press who were getting ready to put on the New Orleans bookfair in late October: “As for the future of Hot Iron Press and Jenny and I, – more than likely we will cease to function for quite some time, if not for good. It is almost certain that our house/studio and all of our equipment – presses, type, paper, tools, all of our artwork, and everything else we own – are underwater, if the building is even still standing at all. Unfortunately, all of the distro stuff – artists’ books, zines, etc – were also all left behind and are most likely destroyed as well.”

Mistakes in the 2006 Organizer!

The Organizer is just back from the printer and we already know about tons of errors! Fuck! Anyway, correct these errors in your copy with a nice pen and tell a friend:

• MayDay Infoshop in New York City lost its lease and is no longer on 1st St.

• Flor y Canto in Los Angeles has ceased operations.

Other Places that are gone or . . . ??

• Crossroads Infoshop in Kansas.

• We got a package returned from reAct in Omaha, NE – does anyone know if they moved or ceased to exist? Let us know . . .