Category: Articles

A year-round swimsuit season? Cool! Global warming is now an American household concept, thanks to compelling doomsday scientific evidence, myriad legislative and technology-based ‘solutions’ — and a dominant culture of consumption that doesn’t give a fuck about the end results of catastrophic climate change.

Is this the point at which radical activists can safely hand over the campaign to progressive lobbyists and industry leaders, who float rosy tales of stellar fuel efficiency standards, clean coal technology, and industrial emissions trading — the ultimate in green capitalism?

Radicals, our work continues to be crucial: we can put the concept of stopping emissions back in the public mindset — demonstrating that gradual improvement ultimately doesn’t work within a context that continues to prioritize economic growth above all else. With creative thinking, radical activists can supplement pragmatic approaches, emphasizing global warming as a systemic flaw in capitalism joining racism, classism, poverty, and environmental concerns on global scales.

Strangely, after decades of study, and increasing evidence that humans are altering the earth’s climate, the subject is still debated. Conservatives papers, like the New York Post, use blizzards and winters storms to joke that “it’s not getting any warmer!” They’re missing the point. Warmer average global temperatures don’t mean more pleasant days at the beach; the sobering consequences extend far beyond longer growing seasons and expanded access to Arctic shipping routes. Rising temperatures mean atmospheric chaos, manifesting in erratic weather patterns: severe droughts, heavy rainstorms, heat waves, more frequent hurricanes, mud slides, floods. The sea does not rise smoothly.

National and international climate scientists, including analysts at the Pentagon, agree that humans have caused air and ocean temperatures to rise over the past 50 years — essentially ruling out natural climate variation as the cause. Greenhouse gasses, like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are emitted by almost every facet of industrial life, including driving, power generation, mass-scale farming, waste disposal, and of course many industries. Carbon dioxide is by far the most common greenhouse gas. Others, like sulfur hexaflouride (SF6), a popular non-toxic insulating gas here at ground level, are less prevalent than CO2 but absorb far more heat in the upper atmosphere. Deforestation is a major contributor to rising CO2 levels, as CO2-absorbing rainforest is converted into cash crop fields.

Scientists long thought that climate change happened gradually — presumably giving society time to adapt. But recent evidence from Arctic ice cores suggests that in fact climate change can happen very quickly, over the course of a few years!

Rising global temperatures could paradoxically lead to another ice age in some areas as soon as 2010-2020, while other areas get warmer. Temperatures could fall 5-6 degrees F in the northeastern United States and northern Europe, as the warm gulf stream is disrupted by fresh water from melting glaciers. In parts of South America, Australia, and southern Africa, temperatures could rise 4 degrees F.

According to a 2003 Pentagon analysis, which classifies the possible ice age as a national security priority, global chaos and war could break out soon after 2010. Britain could resemble Siberia, intense droughts could hit food producing areas, and wars could be fought over water. According to the Pentagon, rich areas like the US and Europe could become “virtual fortresses” to keep out waves of migrating “boat people” from the rest of the world (as if this wasn’t happening already).

How likely is this doomsday scenario? It is, of course, hard to say. The Pentagon report was designed to “think the unthinkable.” Although it was commissioned by leading Pentagon planner Andrew Marshall, it was not passed on to his superiors and was suppressed by the Bush administration.

The Pentagon approach suggests that we in the US have to stretch our minds in inconceivable directions to even imagine weather-related disasters common in other parts of the world. From the American position at the top of the food chain, it’s not at all “unthinkable” for Haiti or Bangladesh or some low-lying Pacific atoll country — unheard of except by locals and rich adventure eco-tourists — to be devastated by rising sea levels, heavy rainfall, and flooding.

Villages in the Himalayas are already being washed away, as mountain lakes formed by melting glaciers burst their natural dams and flood valleys. The Inuit in the Arctic face imminent destruction of their way of life as ice and permafrost melts, ending their access to food and collapsing roads and runways. People in poor countries everywhere, living on deforested hillsides, risk death as heavier rains cause mud slides and flooding.

But it is somehow shocking when south Florida is wiped out by hurricanes, or when mud slides cover homes in southern California — even though similar events happen here every few years. The same economy that is driving global warming has created an infrastructure in the US that can withstand extreme weather far better than a tent city housing migrant factory workers in, say, China, Malaysia, or Ciudad Juarez. But even apparently sturdy societal infrastructure is only as solid as the land upon which it rests. Driven by growth, development in the US is continually expanding into unstable ecological areas — like floodplains and the desert hills and mountains around LA — that leave even suburban Americans disaster prone.

Here in California, we are already seeing the effects of global warming in our water system. It’s likely that dams will have to be raised all over the state to store drinking and irrigation water, as warmer temperatures lead to less snow pack in the Sierras, and precipitation patterns become more chaotic. The Colorado River basin is experiencing the worst drought in 500 years, with effects worse than during the Dust Bowl.

US culpability

Since there’s no question that humans are causing catastrophic climate change, why is the mere reduction in industrial greenhouse gas emissions offered by fuel efficiency standards, clean coal technology, and industrial emissions trading an acceptable goal? Perhaps the point is to merely attempt to postpone global disaster a little bit, till the seawalls and concertina wire guarding Fortress America have been beefed up. “Sorry guys, we tried to pass that fuel efficiency bill, but the political atmosphere just wasn’t working with us?”

Better fuel efficiency standards are an obvious, reasonable idea, but they will only guarantee that each individual vehicle emits fewer greenhouse gasses per mile of driving. Automobile industry executives, and the current presidential administration, would still be happy if more people bought more cars and drove more miles every day, driving not only their new vehicles but presumably The Economy. This, in fact, is the essence of Bush’s porous approach to global warming, which advocates reducing “greenhouse gas intensity” by emitting fewer greenhouse gasses per unit of economic output — still allowing the total greenhouse gas output to increase.

Bush hopes to achieve this false reduction with the development of new, environmentally benevolent technology. This is humorous, because technology development is always shaped by who controls the development — in this case, the same capitalist class hell bent on burning every last bit of fossil fuel. The Bush administration recently awarded $1.2 billion for hydrogen-burning car development — hardly environmentally benign, despite lower greenhouse gas emissions. New technology always has unintended negative side effects, often not diagnosed for years after the technology has been in everyday use.

Furthermore, the US gov
ernment is very specific about how it invests in more “environmentally-friendly” technology. For example, approximately 850 new coal plants are scheduled to be built in China, India, and the US by 2012, which would spew almost 5 times as much carbon dioxide as the Kyoto Protocol aims to reduce, according to a study done by the Christian Science Monitor. Of the 72 plants likely to be built in the US, only 2 are currently designed to use cleaner coal technology, called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) technology, which would siphon off CO2 before it goes up the smokestack. The US Department of Energy says they want to continue developing new technology by 2012 — but funding for a key IGCC experimental program is missing in action! Even US ‘dirty coal’ plants are more efficient than those in China or India, who are planning 562 and 213 new plants, respectively. Both countries are scrambling to fuel ballooning economies — to the pleasure of international investors.

Capitalists responded to global warming typically, by opening the Chicago Climate Exchange in 2003. Member companies can trade reductions in their emissions — commodifying, and therefore approving, the right to pollute. The atmosphere, something that moves fluidly around the globe, can now be portioned off to companies — privatized. “Americans always felt their air and water was free,” Richard Sandor, CEO and founder of the Exchange, noted in the Christian Science Monitor. “But that’s just not true anymore and we felt we could apply that to markets.” When Company A reduces their emissions and sells the reduction to Company B, the people living around Company A benefit with cleaner air to breath. But those around B continue to suffer, and the emissions themselves, “rightfully” emitted, cannot be controlled. This capitalist mindgame is highly popular: the US market for sulfur emissions is now worth more than the US wheat market, and companies will soon begin to trade mercury emissions and even endangered species!

Are we screwed?

What does a radical, anti-capitalist campaign against global warming look like? We are in the middle of a major war geared towards securing access to oil — which will all eventually be burned into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel consumption irrevocably links the Iraq occupation and global warming. The dead Iraqis ultimately caused by that SUV driving down the street are sadly matched by dead Haitians, Inuits, 3,000 French people killed by a heat wave in 2003, and countless others. This is an issue at the intersection of almost every single-issue campaign: the environment, poverty, racism and classism on global scales. The commercial trucks that emit 13% of US carbon dioxide emissions also spew asthma-causing compounds into the frequently low-income communities near shipping centers, like West Oakland.

It is hard not to find the United States responsible for the devastation of climate change, despite industrial and economic growth apologists. The US contributes directly — due to massive greenhouse gas emissions — and indirectly, through resource mining, labor, and trade policies that destabilize lower-impact ways of life in favor of engorged economic growth. It’s not just the policies of the Bush administration that are to blame. The Affluent First World lifestyle, epitomized by the popularity of the Hummer, fuels this near-term time bomb. Almost everybody living in the US contributes to the country’s effect on global warming, whether we intend to or not, because greenhouse gas sources are the structural basis of our society. Societies with fewer emissions are less industrialized. The fight is both cultural and structural — what will create the cultural change of everybody retiring their refrigerators in favor of “old-fashioned” cold boxes? What will create the structural change to make driving unattractive on a mass scale? Radicals are very good at effecting change within our own communities — how can we help this change ripple very quickly across mass US culture?

There are hundreds of legislation-based “good ideas” that would limit greenhouse gas emissions on a mass scale, from fuel efficiency standards, emissions limits, increased funding for non-fossil fuel energy sources, public transportation. But legislation that comes out of an industrial power structure won’t ever fully stop industrial emissions. Emissions are a waste product of industry; capitalism is only interested in limits if they produce value in some way, like on the Climate Exchange. The severity of the scientific evidence, of our global environmental and social predicament, is not matched by gradual, within-the-system solutions to global warming. These approaches are limited by the weakness of the hands applying them.

Any activist work done to counter first world consumption is work against global warming, and any community organizing against potential environmental disaster is valuable in countless ways. Cuba has a well organized system of neighborhood response to hurricanes that helps prevent disasters like that in Haiti last summer, where the government was already destablized with US help. Organizing for a coming disaster — figuring out how to get fresh water and food in a non-industrial context, for example — is a good way to bring the serious consequences of global warming home to our neighborhoods and daily lives.

The climate has inertia — it takes a long time to see the effects of climate change. Sea levels will continue to rise for several hundred years after CO2 emissions are stabilized. Clearly, the earth is responding powerfully to the current weight of first world living — not to mention the burgeoning capitalist growth in China, India, and other parts of the world. Can radicals organize for community sustainability — and for the very real possibility of industrial collapse?

Slingshot is an independent, volunteer-run, more-often-than-quarterly radical newspaper published in the East Bay since 1988.

Though it sometimes appears that repression is increasing nationally and internationally and there’s little hope of political relief in the States any time soon, we’re gonna continue on with the paper. Every stone you throw is important, even against armored tanks. Eventually, there will be enough of us to use catapults.

In March, Slingshot turns 17 years old! Never coquettish, we’re proud to be outspoken and wacky.

Last issue, we put out a call for more submissions, and we’ve been inundated with ‘em. Having more material to create the paper does at least three things: it lets us focus more on layout and editing, usually raises the quality of material in the paper, and improves the political and geographical diversity. This issue’s articles are from authors in Tennessee, Thailand and Japan — as well as Berkeley and Oakland. So, we again urge you to send us your articles. Slingshot is part-you, part-us.

As you’ll notice, there’s a Spanish page in this issue! Thanks to the translators!!! We’d love more (or any!) Spanish or bilingual submissions.

Thanks to Holi (www.kontravisual.com) for the poster on page 11 and to Nikki McClure for the cover art (www.stellamars.com). Nikki cuts her pictures from paper using an x-acto knife! We love it when people send us fantastic art. In publishing these two pieces of art, we once again saw our archaic, pre-computerized, wax and scissors production methods running up against the sad, modern reality that publishing is all computerized now. How long can we hold out against the micro-chip tide? We don’t know for sure, but whereas it once was about our lack of money to buy computers, now its about soul. A digitized world is a cold lifeless world.

This issue was brought to you by beer, hot tubs, New Zealand stripies, and a fabulous quiche made from dumpstered eggs. Never pay for eggs in Alameda County!

As always, editorial decisions are made by the Slingshot collective, but not all the articles reflect the opinions of all collective members. We welcome debate, constructive criticism and discussion.

Herbs not the only abortion option

Hi slingshot-ers,

Thanks for the new organizer, i’m glad for the update in the back pages! no more west coast astrology charts (finally!!) & plus the inclusion of the periodical table rocks!

i am a anarcha-single-mom. i am excited to see stuff on relationships & more sex positive info.

i am concerned about some of the reproductive health care information. i come from a fiercly-pro choice backgrand & as a young mama myself & am now in medical skool…so i have done TONS of research about contraception & options if you’re pregnant.

first, i hope that next year you’ll include more on contraception (and more alternatives to penis vagina sex)

mostly, tho, i am concerned about the over-reliance on herbs as effective forms of birth control/abortifcants. i’ve noticed in the ecoanarcho-scene that there is a vibe that looks down on hormonal birth control, or even the IUD etc, as “not natural”. basically i think that a lot of folks in our scenes judge herbs as being the ultimate form of health care. i’ve seen SO many women get prego using “natural family planning” and SO many women’s herbal abortions fail. the most optimistic data i’ve read is that 50 % of herbal remedies work in preventing pregnancy. but, elsewhere i’ve read that herbal remedies (vit C, carrot seed, cohosh etc) are no better than placebos. basically, women are gunna get seriously shafted if they rely soley on this herb information (which, hey, hopefully no one is doing…but…)

its really important for me to make sure that women who are maybe unexpectedly pregnant make sure that they have a health care provider & a support system. Plan B is readily accessible in most major cities & college campuses, but if women wait a few days to see if their carrot seeds kick in, they aren’t going to have the time to take Plan B. (Also, plan B works upto FIVE DAYS…not 3…and in some cities is available thru a pharmacist, not just thru a doctor’s visit & is covered by most Medical Assistance.) anyhow, if women don’t want to deal with a pregnancy crisis we should not advocate carrot seeds as a radical remedy.

women need to know what to do when/if herbs don’t work & they want to terminate their pregnancy. there have been cases of women thinking that herbals, like cohosh, are working, because they’re cramping, when actually they have an ectopic pregnancy. this has resulted in at least one woman dying.

word. please include more information about women’s health! please remember that herbs, in general, don’t prevent pregnancy with high accuracy. if they did i can guarantee that no one would be unexpectedly pregnant. women need information about medical and surgical abortions too! we need more accurate info on how to mimic Plan B with birth control pills

(http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/BIRTHCONTROL/EmergContra.htm)

can you add a page about consent & contraception? abortion? parenting?

thanxxx

rebecca

Thanks, “Junkie”

i just wanted to write to let you know that i really enjoyed reading the article, “Junkie: We the People” in issue 83, Autumn 2004. i have had a history with drug use and while fortunately i never got into using anything harder than marijuana, i still ended up spending a summer in rehab at the end of my freshman year in high school. after that i got into the whole underground scene and decided to claim edge and until i went to college this last fall i kept that edge. but yeah, i just really liked what you said about seeing people not as junkies or as the stigmas society has created, because having been edge even after experiencing some of the struggles of drug use myself, i started to lose sight of that, and it wasn’t until recently that i realized what a closed-minded person i had become. and i still see a lot of alienation from the straight-edge kids toward those who are not. i don’t know, this turned out to be really scattered and somewhat incoherent, but i just wanted to let you know that i thought it was cool that you would write an article on this subject especially within a community that is (ironically) many times very closed minded to the free-thinking that you have displayed.

– colin

Support Radical Education! Send your zines!

Hello,

I’d like to request a subscription to Slingshot for Special English Program (SEP), a post-high school program in Umpium Mai Refugee Camp, Thailand, for Burmese refugees. The school has 100 adult students and is trying to build up the periodical library so students can learn about progressive politics.

Material with progressive/anarchist politics are especially useful because many of the students will do activist work in the community after graduation. We have a very limited budget so we were wondering if you and other indy publishers could donate subscriptions? Back issues would also be great.

The postal address is:

SEP School PO Box 114 Mae Sot, 63110 THAILAND

Please contact me if you need any more information and happy New Year.

In solidarity,

Dave

How should anti-authoritarian socialists respond to the politics of the great wall of water of 12/26 in the Indian Ocean and the spectacle of its havoc? Its horrific tragedy is interwoven with the very architecture of our world system built on inequality, privilege and greed — structures of neo-colonial control and dependency, wealthy centers and desperately impoverished peripheries — and spliced with the image machinery of the society of the spectacle. The tsunami becomes a text through which to view anew the contradictions of this system highlighting the need for a world built on socialist principles of mutual aid and self-organization.

Why No Warning?

Giles Ji Ungpakorn has stressed: “As events in Thailand show, natural disasters, such as violent storms, earthquakes and tsunamis may have natural causes, but their effects are the result of the profit-driven system we live in.” [2] The systems’ priorities are inscribed in a chilling fact on the morning of 12/26: a warning was sent from Hawaii to the American military base on the island of Diego Garcia far south of Sri Lanka — while elsewhere there was silence. Here in Thailand, someone in Bangkok made a conscious decision not to “alarm” the tourists at the very peak of high season on the Andaman Sea coast [3]. Simple science in the hands of the masses could have saved tens of thousands [4].

There were a full two hours in Thailand between the seaquake’s first tremor at 8 a.m. and the cataclysm that hit our southwestern coasts at 10. One of my own students, a tour guide out in a longboat with 21 passengers at Bamboo Island in Krabi, escaped in the nick of time because she suddenly spotted the Great Wave coming, was near shore, and hurried her boat captain and astounded tourists to high ground. She had a cell phone in her pocket and could have easily been given a warning had her firm been notified. There was no warning.

As Fred Goldstein notes: “Capitalist television networks have recently carried footage of amateur video showing the tsunami hitting Banda Aceh. But first you saw people cleaning up from the earthquake, slowly and methodically for 25 minutes, completely oblivious of what was to follow — despite definite danger signs, like the sea receding. An organized, educated, prepared population with the government fully behind it could have evacuated thousands of people, even at the site closest to the epicenter of the tsunami. Evacuation to safety in most areas involved moving people only a relatively short distance from the coast. This holds in even greater measure for the high-casualty areas further from the quake, such as Thailand, Sri Lanka, India and of course East Africa” [5].

Horror on the Margins of a Margin

This has been a calamity on the “periphery of a periphery,” massively affecting in the main simple fisher families and their economies where people live literally on the edge. Natural disasters affect poor and developing countries disproportionately because the struggle of the down-and-out for daily survival does not allow for disaster preparedness. And as mappings at the Earth Institute at Columbia University clearly show, most of the “disaster hot spots’ on our planet lie in the Global South. The geology and meteorology of calamity ominously overlap with the geography of poverty [6].

Profits not Mangroves

Yet this calamity was due in significant part not to geology but to massive environmental degradation as a result of a profit-driven system of priorities: the destruction of the mangrove forests along the coasts of the Indian Ocean over the past two decades, sacrificed to tourism development and excessive shrimp farming. As Devinder Sharma has stressed, the devastation wrought by this wall of water was “the outcome of an insane economic system — led by the World Bank and IMF — that believes in usurping environment, nature and human lives for the sake of unsustainable economic growth for a few” [7]. Nearly 72 per cent of the shrimp farming is confined to Asia, and the expansion of this shrimp farming in India, Thailand, Indonesia and elsewhere, has been specifically at the cost of tropical mangroves — amongst the world’s most important ecosystems. Here as elsewhere, the priorities of the World Bank were guided by concern for profits not people, greed not need, despite many warnings by environmentalists about the potential impact of the loss of mangrove forests. Sharma points out that at the very time the tsunami struck, logging companies were busy axing mangroves in the Aceh province in Sumatra for exports to Malaysia and Singapore. “Ecologists tell us that mangroves provide double protection — the first layer of red mangroves with their flexible branches and tangled roots hanging in the coastal waters absorb the first shock waves. The second layer of tall black mangroves than operates like a wall withstanding much of the sea’s fury. Mangroves in addition absorb more carbon dioxide per unit area than ocean phytoplankton, a critical factor in global warming.” The market-driven eco-collapse behind the disastrous effect of the tsunami has been underplayed by the capitalist media.

Spectacle’s Schizophrenia

Indeed, at the heart of the way the media have treated the tsunami’s havoc is a kind of schizophrenia in the face of the everyday tragedy of misdevelopment and inequality that ravages the Global South. At the core of the way the neoliberal corporate governments have responded is a similar schizophrenia. The extraordinary perhaps excessive “tidal wave” of charity masks an underlying indecency in the way our Spectacular world is organized — its fundamental dehumanizing indifference to the massive death of the poor. Natural disaster is a natural candidate for media and charity hype. Horrific suffering of the innocent is momentarily turned into the spectacle of the month, a barrage of benefit concerts, while the vast oppression that is much of humanity’s everyday in the Two-Thirds World remains endlessly invisible: the more than 2 million who will die this year of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, the 900,000 who will die of malaria, the 11 million AIDS orphans in Africa at this very moment, the 2.7 billion on our planet who live on less than 2 dollars a day.

Certainly 12/26 has been the most mediatized natural catastrophe in modern memory. As Mike Whitney notes: “This is where the western press really excels: in the celebratory atmosphere of human catastrophe. Their penchant for misery is only surpassed by their appetite for profits. . . . The manipulation of calamity is particularly disturbing, especially when disaster is translated into a revenue windfall. . . . Simply put, tragedy is good for business. When it comes to Iraq, however, the whole paradigm shifts to the right. The dead and maimed are faithfully hidden from view. . . . The uneven coverage (of Iraq and the tsunami) highlights an industry in meltdown. Today’s privately owned media may bury one story, and yet, manipulate another to boost ratings. They are just as likely to exploit the suffering of Asians, while ignoring the pain of Iraqis” [8]. The anti-war movement needs to seize on these contradictions, bringing home to ordinary Americans their split consciousness: the hypocrisy of gala charity drives for tsunami victims and profuse “giving” — to ease our consciences — while our army and corporations wage a war literally against the world.

Compassion and Victimization as Control

Harsha Walia stresses that “political global compassion is often an ideology of political and social control couched in euphemisms and contradictions of humanitarian intervention . . . Let us be clear that there is no doubt that humanitarian work in order to save lives and provide adequate access to food and shelter is absolutely necessary. But the larger context must never be lost: international aid and NGO work will largely defuse the anger of those affected by the tsunami. . . . The power and anger of the people has again been channeled into victimization
to curb any political resistance” [9]. Central here is the entire hierarchical structure of much aid — top-down, dispersed by international governments and NGOs. Handouts construct a whole curriculum in the inculcation of dependency, drying up the wellsprings of self-sufficiency, reinforcing hierarchical structures that serve well ruling class interests. The governments in all the affected countries have sought to build a consciousness of victimization by “natural disaster” to deflect public anger.

Another aspect of such a frenzy of focus is the “tsunami relief industry,” largely Western, that rushes in with NGOs and bureaucrats quite literally to “exploit an emergency to reproduce their own bureaucracies,” for their own benefit, to justify their own existence, as detailed in an insightful article on the “accomplices of destruction” [10]. As Arundhati Roy reminds us: “NGOs . . . defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche. They turn people into dependent victims and blunt the edges of political resistance. . . . They unwittingly reinforce racist stereotypes and re-affirm the achievements, the comforts, and the compassion (the tough love) of Western civilization. They’re the secular missionaries of the modern world” [11].

Social anarchists need to be speaking out, telling people this calamity was in significant part preventable: you are the victims of the human greed on which this system is founded, you should be damn angry. We need to contemplate how to make this disaster a “politicizing” factor for self-action and rage against governments, statecraft elites and their inevitable failures — instead of one more lever for intensifying depoliticization and the passivity of the victim. That is also fed by the culture of ‘fate,’ what Thai Buddhists call ‘duang,’ acquiescence in the face of ‘predestined’ oppression and suffering.

The Tsunami and its Geopolitics

Troops in Aceh, Sri Lanka and Thailand have all been fighting separatist insurgencies for years. After the tsunami, these troops were more focused on these internal insurgencies than mobilizing to assist the Cataclysm’s victims [12]. This is another reason why Washington found it convenient to step in with such a massive ‘military humanitarian’ presence, conveniently attuned to its own geopolitical interests and imperatives across the region.

Indeed, Bush’s Pentagon is eager to reenter its old Vietnam War era military base U-tapao in Chonburi province 90 miles south of Bangkok [13]. Washington has been pressing Bangkok for the past 18 months to allow it to use Thailand as its new “forward positioning” site facilitating its armed forces in the war against terrorists in Southeast Asia [14]. Now that door has been opened, as Thailand is made a “regional hub” for a massive redeployment of military equipment and personnel, with the linchpin at U-tapao. And the pictures beamed across the planet of American soldiers helping distressed Moslem survivors in Indonesia is engineered to ‘improve’ Washington’s ‘image’ in the Moslem world and beyond, while at the same time reproducing and demonstrating capitalism’s military hegemony. Socialists in Sri Lanka (New Left Front) have called for the removal of American troops there: “On the one hand, it is an opportunity for the US to gain a foothold with designs to suppress the LTTE and control the Tamil liberation struggle on behalf of local capitalist rulers. On the other, it also provides an opening for the US not only to arm-twist Sri Lanka to go along with global capitalism, but also to use Sri Lanka’s strategic location to consolidate its neo-colonial agenda all the more blatantly” [15].

The spectrum of tsunami relief can be read as a lesson in the geopolitics of the manipulation of image and bolstering of power & influence in the name of compassion. Condy Rice called the tsunami a “marvelous opportunity” for showing the world how “generous” the U.S. is. It has also been a boon for Japan, China and India, major geopolitical players in the region [16].

Communalist Alternatives to Social Atomization?

An anarchist network of socialist communities grounded on mutual aid, radical direct democracy, self-organization and self-help, would know better how to respond to disaster. It would be better prepared by assuring that what safeguards exist are equally shared, not reserved for Hawaii, Japan, and the California coast. It would redirect the vast expenditures on the military toward help for the people. The networks of associated communities and regions would be able to distribute assistance where needed more equitably, more rapidly and without the vast corruption associated now with NGOs and their channeling of humanitarian aid through hierarchies of authority. The people would have had a proper system of information and education about the danger of massive Walls of Water. The need for science for the people is a natural moral of this horrific tale. Anarchist information structures could tap the reservoirs of traditional folk knowledge, reconnecting with the Earth, as in Thailand where Chao Lay nomadic fisher communities on the Andaman coast — so-called ‘sea gypsies’ — read the warning signs according to ancient sea lore and were able to flee in time to higher ground [17].

Fundamental here are basic eco-socialist water management, sustainable rural communities, a proper infrastructure of roads, adequate health care, a halt to the destruction of mangroves and their restoration. Decentralized empowerment would mean working class people doing far more for themselves on the ground where they are. This is the grassroots mutual aid in action, of which there are countless untold examples in this disaster — tales that radicals need to salvage and retell.

1. Harsha Walia, “The Tsunami and the Discourse of Compassion,” ZNet, www.zmag.org

2. Giles Ji Ungpakorn (Workers Democracy, Bangkok), “A “natural’ disaster made worse by the profit system,” Socialist Worker, 8 Jan 2005, www.socialistworker.co.uk/ ; see also the insightful interview with Mike Davis, “The burden falls on the poorest societies,” Socialist Worker, 7 Jan 2005, www.socialistworker.org/

3. “What if an early warning had been given?,” The Nation (Bangkok), 31 Dec 2004, www.nationmultimedia.com/ As a ranking Thai official noted: “The important factor in making the decision was that it’s high season and hotel rooms were nearly 100-per-cent full. If we had issued a warning, which would have led to an evacuation, [and if nothing happened], what would happen then? Business would be instantaneously affected.”

4. Arthur Lerner-Lam et al., “Simple Science Could Have Saved Thousands,” Los Angeles Times, 30 Dec 2004

5. Fred Goldstein, “Cuba leads world in managing disasters,” Workers World, 20 Jan 2005, www.workers.org/

6. Michael Schirber, “Scientists Chart Global Disaster Hot Spots,” www.msnbc.msn.com/

7. Devinder Sharma, “Tsunami, Mangroves and Market Economy,” GM Watch MMII, 14 Jan 2005, www.gmwatch.org/

8. Mike Whitney, “Iraq Vs. Tsunami; The Duplicity of the Media,” Anarchist People of Color, www.illegalvoices.org/

9. Walia, op.cit.

10. Thomas Seibert, “Komplizen der Zerstˆrung,” Sozialistische Zeitung (Cologne), Feb. 2005

11. A. Roy, “TIDE? OR IVORY SNOW? Public Power in the Age of Empire,” San Francisco, 16 Aug 2004, www.democracynow.org

12. Ungpakorn, ibid.

13. Sirinapha, “Tsunami Relief as a Subterfuge? The Pentagon Scrambles to Reenter its Old Thai Air Base,” http://dc.indymedia.org/

14. “Terror Offensive: US Wants Forward Base Here,” The Nation (Bangkok), 12 June 2003, www.nationmultimedia.com/

15. Dr. Vickramabahu, “No to induction of foreign troops!,” International Viewpoint, Jan 2005

16. Jacques Amalric, “The Tsunami and False Friends,” LibÈration, 20 Jan 2005, www.truthout.org/

17. “Wisdom of th
e sea,” Bangkok Post, 17 Jan 2005, www.bangkokpost.com/

The people of Appalachia need your help. Katuah Earth First!, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, Mountain Justice, and Coal River Mountain Watch are calling on all residents of Appalachia, traveling activists, ex-Appalachians, and concerned human rights and environmental activists to join us in defending the world’s most productive and biodiverse temperate forest ecosystems. In the traditions of Freedom Summer and Redwood Summer, we will be using publicity campaigns, mass demonstrations, and direct action to shut down King Coal during the summer of 2005 by stopping mountain top removal dead in its tracks.

Most Americans have never heard the words “mountain range removal/mountain top removal” It’s the dirty little secret that the U.S. government wants to keep hidden from the eyes of America, and the world. There is no better example of a human catastrophe linked to environmental destruction than life in the coal fields of Appalachia.

What is mountain top removal? It starts with the removal of all vegetation. Trees are bulldozed over and pushed into the valleys to be burned. Huge access roads are then built in order to bring in mammoth earth moving equipment. This alone requires much blasting, but once the equipment is in place, the real horror begins. Holes are drilled in the ground, and then packed with high explosives. Part of the mountain is then literally blown away.

Next come the giant earth movers (GEM) that dump all that is not coal (called overburden) into nearby valleys, burying mountain streams with pulverized rock, iron, copper, lead, chromium, mercury, and many other heavy metals that were once buried deep in the earth. Next, the coal is removed and sent down the mountain by beltline. The blasting and mutilation continue until all seams of coal are extracted, sometimes taking off 900 feet or more of the mountain, and creating huge valley fills above the homes of us who live there. What used to be rich topsoil is either incinerated or buried deep beneath heaps of blasted rock. The ecosystem of the mountain is destroyed forever.

The coal that is extracted has to be cleaned at the preparation plant before shipping. The coal goes into a gigantic chemically treated cleaning tank. This process removes impurities including mercury, arsenic, and many other toxins. The sludge generated from this cleaning process settles in the bottom of the tank and is then pumped back up the mountain and put into huge toxic sludge lakes confined by an earthen dam. The cleaned coal is then loaded into train cars or coal trucks and sprayed with a chemical binding agent in order to keep the coal dust down on the way to market.

Obviously, the environmental impact to plants, trees, and wildlife is enormous. But what about the impact on the human species?

The coal industry portrays opponents of mountain top removal as extremists who care more about birds, bats, and bullfrogs than they do about people. The coal industry lies. Appalachian PEOPLE — individuals, families, communities, and an entire culture — suffer the coal barons’ abuses in the U.S.’s mad lust for cheap, dirty fossil fuel. The coal industry and the media portray Appalachians as ignorant, backward, inbred hillbillies who are completely undeserving of the mountains in which they live. By dehumanizing the mountain residents, the coal industry uses the same tactics used by all colonial powers to justify robbing, displacing, and massacring the people of Appalachia. The struggle in Appalachia with the coal barons has been ongoing since the late 1800’s.

Those of us living in the coal fields exist in a constant state of terror. Since there is neither vegetation nor topsoil on the mountain to absorb the rainfall, we live in fear when it rains. During a rainstorm, our children go to bed fully clothed, plotting escape routes in case we have to flee in the middle of the night.

We have had people swept away in mud slides and water tides, pouring down from mountain top removal sites. Yet, the coal companies have the audacity to call these events, “acts of God.” In October of 2000, a sludge dam in Inez, Kentucky failed. Three hundred ten million gallons of toxic sludge spilled into Tug Fork of The Big Sandy River, destroying all aquatic life and poisoning ground water and soil for 110 miles downstream. These earthen dams will fail again. On the Coal River in southern West Virginia, there are four such dams pointed directly at communities and schools. All of them hold over two billion gallons of toxic sludge each. One of them, known as the Brushy Fork impoundment is the largest sludge dam in the United States. It currently contains 7 billion gallons of sludge and it is scheduled to soon grow to over 9 billion gallons. If it fails, all life will most likely be lost for 40 miles downstream. A smaller dam than this one caused the 1972 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia disaster, in which 127 residents were killed.

Despite all the hardship caused by mining, the people of Appalachia keep hanging on. They’re hoping for better days ahead or they’re just too stubborn to leave the land that has been in their families for eight or nine generations. Meanwhile, the coal industry convinces the masses that Appalachia must be leveled in order to provide employment and national security. Yet, as coal production has risen, coal employment in West Virginia has dropped nearly 75% in the last 20 years, due in large part to mountain top removal (source: WV Coal Association). Mountain top removal employs a handful of blasters and heavy equipment operators — a fraction of the numbers needed for underground mining. The ongoing exodus from West Virginia has resulted in closed schools, loss of congressional representation, and loss of hope for many.

A culture that allows these abuses will allow any abuse. We are being forced off our land and our mountain communities are being destroyed. Our mountains and valleys are being turned into a sacrifice zone for cheap electricity. Our Appalachian politicians ignore the pleas of their constituents while their pockets are lined with coal money. Our teachers, small business operators, and press are intimidated into silence. And the nation continues to waste energy by the megaton while coal companies and mountain top removal threaten to end our existence forever, putting the finishing touches to a long-standing cultural genocide.

To help, please contact The Mountain Justice Summer Coalition at: mountainjusticesummer@hushmail.com or call (976) 456-2345

Activists in Europe are calling for a Global Day of Action July 5-8 2005 to coincide with the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Perthshire, United Kingdom (Scotland, around 40 miles / 70 km from Edinburgh). The G8 is made up of the world’s most powerful capitalist countries which meet annually to coordinate the global economy. The summit, and ongoing activities throughout the year, involves communication between central bankers, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, think tanks and government finance ministers. The G8 shapes the lives of workers around the world with scant public participation. Much of the increasing trend towards a globalized world economy based on lowering wages, gutting environmental protection, increasing privatization, destroying local farming and dividing workers across boarders while uniting their bosses can be traced to the G8.

Dissent! Network in the UK has called for people to join the convergence in Scotland to disrupt the Summit, and for people to organize and take part in simultaneous actions in villages, towns and cities around the world.

The plan: On July 2 in Edinburgh: “Make Poverty History March”. July 3: “Protest at Dungavel Detention Centre” (Ayrshire). July 4 “Blockade of Faslane Nuclear Weapons Base” (Argyll) July 5: “Convergence on Gleneagles G8” (Perth) July 6th-8th, Gleneagle Hotel “Alternative Summit and Big Protests G8” (Perth) July 9: Gleneagle Hotel “Alternatives Concert.” (Perth)

For info, check out: www.agp.

org or www.pgaconference.org and www.dissent.org.uk or email info-g82005@riseup.net

Following up a successful 2003 Anarchist People of Color conference in Detroit, Michigan, the next Anarchist People of Color conference is being proposed for October 7-9, 2005 in Houston, Texas. Stay to the 10th to march against 500+ years of colonization on Monday October 10th (formally Colombus Day)!

Since the 2003 event, there have been APOC regional gatherings, new collectives and many projects, and we’re still going strong. Where are we as a unified movement? Come discuss community action, theory, internal struggles, external struggles, with the larger theme of “We are one, we are many, and we are a part of something bigger…”

Anarchism offers a dynamic ideology and methods of struggle against racism, poverty, police brutality, and other issues affecting peoples of color. We add ideals about building movements based on the masses of people rather than charismatic leaders, and building a new kind of radicalism recognizing that the political government is not our friend, nor is electoral activity a way to obtain our freedom. We will get our freedom and justice in the streets when we stand up and take back our communities from the white power structure. Finally, we present a new method of uniting all peoples of color against the common enemy, not just capitalism and the state, but white supremacy/European domination in all its forms.

As with the 2003 conference, the 2005 event is only open to people of color. Those sympathetic to the conference are encouraged to offer political support, solidarity and deep and honest understanding while we hold this conference and build our movement.

The conference will be kid friendly and some housing and travel assistance is available. There is a conference fee; no one turned away. For conference materials, downloadable flyers, information on how you can help, or anything else, visit www.illegalvoices.org/conference/. To participate, send your name, level of interest, commitment and what skills/committee you would like to contribute: conference@illegalvoices.org.

BASTARD (Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development) will be hosting their 5th annual anarchist conference on March 27th, 2005. It will be in the East Bay again this year, at UC Berkeley. There is no set theme this year and BASTARD is currently seeking proposals for workshops. Proposals on all topics of interest related to anarchist theory are welcome. For more information or if you would like to propose a workshop please visit http://sfbay-anarchists.org/conference/ . Or, if you prefer, send a proposal to: BASTARD, 3124 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705.

Some of our brothers and sisters have been struggling with physical and emotional injuries after recent confrontations with the police state. In response, many of us gathered at the Long Haul community center in Berkeley, Calif. to brain storm about coping with the psychological effects of police brutality. We agreed that a better support network is needed to help activists stay alive and active.

We are good at preparing for all the possibilities of any protest or direct action. We lend solidarity outside jails, inside court rooms, mobilize roaming medics and write phone numbers of law collectives on the back of our hands. We have empathy for anyone who has been shot at, tear gassed, beaten bloody, or had their limbs twisted and yanked out of their sockets by the cops. But once the visible wounds are healing, many of our friends are left alone with their fears, their sense of defeat, their suicidal despair, or the resulting addiction to pain pills. Those of us who cry openly are often told we shouldn’t be surprised that we got hurt fighting the system. But such response grossly misinterprets and invalidates the feelings we are expressing. We are not surprised. We are shocked. We are traumatized. Nor is trauma something we choose to indulge. It is the typical human response to violence and injustice. In fact, in a community of activists who actively confront the capitalist system, trauma is inevitable. An emotional support network should be part of protest preparation right along with the medics and legal aid.

If we want to prevent burnout, and keep our activists from recoiling in fear of the next confrontation with reality, we all must learn to recognize trauma, develop a better understanding of the emotional impact it has on ourselves and on the community at large, and take the recovery of the individual out of isolation. Right now it is common for comrades who don’t know how to deal with emotional crises, to encourage us to seek professional help, unaware that they are sending us into a mine field.

Having battled my way through the mental health industry, I am well aware of the difficulty and even dangers of finding professional help for mental and emotional needs. Unlike medics and legal aid who simply must have knowledge of medical science or written rules, psychology is a surprisingly menacing field, and available support systems are hard to distinguish from cult-like communities and mind sets. The time to prevent further injury at the hands of these “professionals” is before we are traumatized to the degree of desperation, when it becomes especially easy to fall victim, and to research what type of safe support is available.

Hijacking Science to Justify Oppression

To understand the mental health system in place today, it is important to understand that psychiatry was never a medical profession, but has always been primarily a tool of oppression. It was first established as the Holy Inquisition was coming to an end, indeed actively replaced it by reclassifying “witches” as “mentally ill”, and apologizing for the church sanctioned mass murders by explaining that the inquisitors were well-meaning but misguided by superstition, all the while validating their persecution of the endless victims of the witch hunts by continuing the same persecution under the guise of science. Early psychiatric literature is eerily similar to the writings of Holocaust revisionists and apologists of today. Let us never forget that the very first deaths in Nazi gas chambers were psychiatric “patients”, this time under the guise of euthanasia.

Psychiatry was never based on science, nor is it today. There are no physiological tests to diagnose disease in psychiatric “patients”, not even to find the chemical imbalances, which the current “scientific” fad attributes “mental illnesses” to, nor its supposed genetic origins. Diagnosis is based on talking and observing behavior, classifying culture and personal expression into categories according to the physician’s own culture and personal opinions. It is not unusual for psychiatric “patients” to be diagnosed differently by each psychiatrist they see. The diagnostic standards themselves seem to change according to whim, weather, and regime change. The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) for psychiatrists listed homosexuality, for example, as a mental disorder until the 1970’s, yet even though it was removed and invalidated as a disease at that time, queer youths are being incarcerated and drugged in psychiatric institutions to this day.

I don’t doubt that many people feel they owe their lives to psychiatric drugs, or at least feel the drugs have been useful tools to help them function better. I certainly defend people’s rights to take psychiatric drugs, or illegal street drugs for that matter, if they choose. But I won’t legitimize these substances as medicine. Medications claiming to treat illnesses for which there are no medical evidence are experimental at best. All the tests of these drugs are designed, funded, and supervised entirely by the pharmaceutical companies themselves, with outrageous scientific protocols and manipulations of data. The side effects are rarely disclosed to “patients,” especially those who are forced to take them. Aside from tragic changes in people’s personalities and creative abilities, the most severe side effects range from tardive dyskinesia, a disorder similar to Parkinson’s, and indicative of permanent brain damage, to seizures, coma, and unexplained death. Psychiatrists usually claim that the side effects or even the withdrawal symptoms are further symptoms of the “mental illnesses” the drugs are supposed to treat. As a result, larger doses are often administered, with the victim caught in a vicious cycle, treating a disease caused by the drugs intended to cure it.

One should step inside psychiatric offices with great caution. No matter how good the intentions of individual psychiatrists, the system they work for is structured more like law enforcement than medical practice, and treats people who are labeled “patients” like they are criminals. People with a psychiatric diagnosis can be incarcerated and drugged against their will. The stigma alone has permanent effects on many people’s ability to get health insurance, jobs, into school, be approved to adopt a child, or be believed as a witness, not to mention be free from prejudice from their own families and friends. It is nearly impossible for psychiatric survivors to win a case for injuries inflicted by psychiatrists, because they are easily discredited as “unstable”. Unlike medical records, access to ones own psychiatric records can be denied “for the patient’s own good”. Freedom of speech also does not apply to psychiatric “patients”. A psychiatrist is required by law to lock up anyone who admits that they feel suicidal, for a minimum of 72 hours. Psychiatric institutions are prisons where we get put into straight jackets and isolation, and get our brains washed, doped, lobotomized, and/or electrocuted, as the case may be. 2005 in Berkeley, and you can still get your brain fried at Herrick Hospital by people who are paid living wages for the privilege.

And the oppressive legacy of psychiatry continues as the Bush administration’s “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health” is lobbying to screen all Americans for mental illness, beginning in the schools with children and their teachers, and eventually extending to everyone at routine annual doctor visits. This would result in psychiatric treatments with only the most expensive psychiatric drugs on the market, as the proposal is backed by pharmaceutical companies. It is already implemented in school districts in several states. Teachers all over the country have been pressured into dispensing drugs for some time now, and there are financial incentives for underfunded schools and families on welfare to label children as mentally ill. The number of ADD/ADHD diagnoses in schools have been increasing
at an alarming rate. Sally Satel, the psychiatrist Bush appointed to the “National Advisory Council for the US Center for Mental Health Services”, the committee that reviews federal grants for mental health services, is advocating for more coercive psychiatric treatments, including more outpatient commitment, which court orders people to take psychiatric drugs against their will, and is already well established in most US states.

In contrast, psychoanalysis, even though it evolved out of psychiatry, is practiced mostly by people who do not claim to be doctors. Freud’s “talking cure” developed from the discovery that traumatic experiences cause mental confusion (now called “dissociation”), and are often acted out unconsciously, without any conscious memory of the traumatic event itself. He found that the confusion could be alleviated to varying degrees by bringing the traumatic memories into consciousness and by talking about them. But in an oppressive society that normalizes abuse, the truth is inherently unwanted, and secrecy is part and parcel of psychiatry. The psychiatric community threatened to ostracize Freud for revealing the frequency of child abuse, and he abandoned his most relevant psychological findings, and replaced them with the theory that memories of abuse are really fantasies of the victims. This act continues to have lasting, devastating repercussions on how our society defines feelings, actions, and truth. Since then, the validity of repressed memories has been repeatedly challenged, debated, and confirmed, but attempts to squelch the truth continue. In 1992, shortly after changes in the judicial standards of evidence extended the statute of limitations to accommodate survivors of child abuse who had repressed all memories of the events until well into adulthood, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, an organization of parents accused of having sexually mistreated their children, began to wreak havoc on the support network established by survivors. Its attacks were aimed directly at therapists, who are often the first to provide survivors with a relatively safe place where the truth can be expressed.

Speaking our Minds

When self-articulation is chronically discouraged or made impossible through the imposition of secrets, confusion and lies – especially in abusive homes where the abusers’ priority is to conceal their crime, but also in schools, at work, and in combat – our communication can no longer follow traditional patterns and we find ways to express our truths any way we see fit. Some of the resulting patterns and behaviors are considered awkward, unintelligible or even frightening, and rather than attempt to truly understand the troubled person’s plight, our society readily stigmatizes us by labeling our communications symptoms of mental “illness”. But no matter how cryptic our “craziness”, to those who try to decipher the meaning, the same message keeps repeating: unresolved trauma causes ongoing disorientation, with the degree of disorientation being in direct relation to the degree of trauma. While it may seem disorderly in its extremes, this disorientation, or “dissociation”, is something all people do to varying degrees. It is in fact fundamental to human functioning: it filters useless or overwhelming information by fragmenting from consciousness experiences, feelings, memory, other people, ones own body, sense of self, reality, and more…

Trauma and the difficulty of working through it, are at the core of why individuals are labeled “mentally ill.” When we are traumatized we are confronted with a reality too overwhelming to cope with. Sometimes the shock is so great that people can’t find words to tell their stories, are in fact speechless, catatonic. After the traumatic event is past, some of us begin to behave strangely, while others continue seemingly unaffected. But regardless of how it looks from the outside, traumatized people frequently feel a sudden disconnection from reality, often re-experiencing the event as though it was still happening in the present. We are easily triggered by reminders, and defend ourselves against the intrusive flashbacks by numbing out the present along with the past. The resulting confusions distort reality to varying degrees, sometimes to the degree of hearing voices, having visual hallucinations, and body memories. Many develop insomnia to avoid nightmares, and are too frightened and depressed to participate in life.

I personally didn’t leave my home for several years because I was overwhelmed with several deaths among my closest friends, one due to police violence, which was followed by a threat to my livelihood by my abusive boss, and then a sexual violation, which catapulted me into flashbacks of a terrifying childhood. I became suicidal, fluctuated between manic anxiety and exhausted grief, and starved myself into the hospital. My dreams were so vivid I couldn’t tell if they were real, or if I was in the past or present. I heard voices inside and outside my head, hallucinated spirals opening up in front of me, and one day I looked in the mirror and every time I blinked someone else looked back at me. During that time many people offered me remedies ranging from pills to prayers, none of which I trusted, so I researched what support was available to me. The stories and solidarity of people with similar experiences helped me realize that my coping mechanisms were perfectly understandable, even predictable in the context of my life, and I learned to adjust them according to my present needs.

Among the available tools for recovery are a wide variety of therapists (psychologist, social worker, eco-psychologist, shaman,…) with a wide variety of methods (EMDR, bio-energetic, transactional analysis, non-violent communication, primal scream,…), guided and anonymous groups with specific focus (addiction, abuse, grief,…), peer counselors, herbs, massage, meditation, yoga, tai chi, dancing, capoeira, martial arts, self-defense, art and music, keeping a journal, changes in life style, such as nutritional, sleep, home or work environment, and finding supportive relationships and ending abusive ones. One of the more interesting approaches is Soma, which was featured in a recent edition of Slingshot, but to the best of my knowledge is available only in Brazil. But the most important consideration in seeking help is personal rapport with therapists and allies, and agreement on fundamental boundaries and concerns. Method (if any) and structure can then be negotiated. It’s best to go for a mixture of approaches that work for you.

Trauma is both universal, yet deeply personal, and psychotherapists come in many flavors. Many therapists believe in psychological categories of how humans function, either based on the biological reductionist models of pathology or drive, or on personality typing or ego states, or according to various vague religious explanations of destiny, fate, or karma. Their solutions range from remedies intended to “cure illness”, to modifying behavior, to talking and supporting their clients in developing insight, self-awareness, autonomy, self-esteem, hope, and self-determination. In order not to be retraumatized it is essential to get some questions answered before entering into a therapeutic alliance. One of the potential pitfalls of searching for allies is that the anti-psychiatry movement is comprised of a wide political range, from psychiatric survivors, Marxists, Civil Libertarians, to the Church of Scientology (as the Citizens Commission on Human Rights). Even Co-Counseling seems to have its origins in Dianetics, and has been criticized for their sectarian practices, and history of sexual abuse and abuse of authority by its founder. Another issue most people will be confronted with when exploring therapy options, is the trend to apply the term “codependence”, which originally implied a partner of a person dependent on alcohol or drugs, to all interdependence and to thereby discourage any truly intimate relationships. Fundamentally, the first st
ep in recovery is finding a place where it is safe for the fog to lift, so that the truth can be integrated into conscious reality, and can then be acted upon.

Truth telling is part of both recovery and revolution. Language can be either oppressive or liberating. Many people who have been labeled, feel that the labels are useful, because it provides them with a language to put their struggle into words. While it may be helpful to embrace some of the psychiatric labels as metaphor, we have to take care not to actually pathologize our struggle and our humanity in the bargain. Reclaiming labels is a powerful act, but just like the swastika is too loaded a symbol to appropriate for any meaning other than fascism, talking about “mental illness” at a time when people so categorized are stripped of their human rights, is using not only the symbols, the language, but the very attitude and perpetuating it. In this system differently-abled people may have to accept being labeled, just to provide for such basic needs as housing, food, and health care. Plenty of people would love an excuse to take away the meager disability benefits some of us receive as a result of our inability to function in this abusive system. Our political objections may make us feel like liars, so we push ourselves beyond our limitations to prove we are not disordered, or we validate the labels by acting them out instead of our own experiences. Either way it is fundamentally problematic to use labels that define our humanity as a medical problem, because it adds to any mental confusion we are struggling with. We must dismantle the language that oppresses us, while somehow keeping what little support is available to us in place.

Since the brain storm at the Long Haul, some of us are in the process of putting together a resource guide to help activists in crisis navigate the system, including emotional and mental support, advocacy, legal aid, access to medical care, disability benefits, and other basic needs, information and personal stories about recognizing trauma and how to survive it. We’d also like to create a safe space where activists can share about their struggles and network for support, both casually over tea, or more formally in workshops, support groups, and one on one peer support. Ideally we would like our own free emotional crisis clinic for people not willing to be labeled “mentally ill”, that is politically conscious of class, gender, racism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression. But until we can accomplish such an ambitious task, we must start small. I urge you to do your own research of what support options are appropriate for your situation, share resources, educate your co-ops and affinity groups, talk openly and honestly about your experiences, and always defend your full range of emotions. Most importantly, be good to yourselves and each other: this rotten to the core system won’t do it for you.

Sources for my analysis are too many to list here, but the books I recommend most are: Trauma and Recovery – The aftermath of violence – from domestic abuse to political terror by Judith Lewis Herman The Manufacture of Madness – A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement by Thomas S. Szasz The Assault on Truth – Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson For questions, further dialogue, or if you have resources you’d like to share with the community, Dr. Ruthless can be contacted at feralmadwoman@riseup.net

I have been having a lot of great sex lately. But why am I sharing that information with you in this format? Well, I’ll tell you. In this political and historical climate, great sex can be a quite subversive, expansive, and radical mode of dismantling socializations and creating alternatives to mainstream drone culture. More and more, the christian right’s morals and limits are seeping into the larger culture. Take a look at fashion, security precautions, what is being passed off as education, entertainment, etc. This nauseating wave of puritanism and conservative values hangs in the air, almost un-noticed like the stale salty grease cloud present when passing a McDonald’s. Subtle, toxic, bland, unhealthy, normative. So when I heard Slingshot wanted an article on how to have great sex, I thought, “Hell, let’s queer it up and discuss perverting this political culture…time to fuck shit up- literally.” I have a disclaimer, which is: These are merely my opinions and results of my experiences that are subject to change. If my experience doesn’t work for you, please feel free to ignore and move on with your life.

And another thing, for clarity’s sake, I am not discussing relationship models here: polyamory, monogamy or non, multi-fidelity, self-sexing, sleeping around, etc. Who we do it with and how we negotiate these relationships is indeed a part of having great sex, don’t get me wrong. These preferences evolve and fluctuate. The intricacies are limitless and differ based on individual experiences. Therefore, discovering which models work for us, who we are attracted to, how we show it and how often, are personal choices I’d rather keep distinct from the issues I am about to go off on.

Okay, Sex. Comfort in one’s skin and sexuality, consent and self-care are an essential backdrop to this discussion. For me there is no way to have freeing sex if I am not actively checking in with myself and whoever I am having sex with about emotional and physical comfort and openness. If folks are shutting down, going on to the ceiling, disassociating or not that into it, then how the fuck can it be any good? Knowing what one wants is not easy, as we are taught very boring and limited sexualities in this culture. Part of what can make sex so revolutionary is discovering what it is we like and pushing ourselves (consensually of course) to and beyond our limits.

Here is where I go into 5 components that enhance my sex life. Hopefully this information is useful or at least entertaining. Some elements I have recently noted as being helpful to my sex life are laughter, role-play, gender fucking, lube, and physical boundary pushing.

Laughter

I laugh a lot during sex. Solo laughing is a recent addition to my sex life. It can be diverse; from a coy giggle, to a belly laugh, to laughing at myself at an awkward moment or just as a way to communicate joy. Oftentimes, new lovers are curious about why I am laughing. Am I laughing at them? What sparked that chuckle? My answers vary as what inspires a giggle really depends on what is going on. However, I always explain that I am not laughing at them and try to relieve any insecurities or anxieties my gaiety may bring up. Usually this is well received and may even inspire peals of relieved laughter. Plus laughter is contagious and can put folks more at ease. One may laugh solo or in unison w/ sex partners. For me, laughing with lovers during sex is different than spontaneously laughing as a release. Sometimes I laugh to relieve tension- not get so caught up in my “performance”. You know, seeming slick and skilled and oh so sexy. I mean honestly, what we are doing is goofy and silly and in fact hilarious. There is a myth that we should act a certain way during sex; virile, coquettish, animalistic, blasé, submissive, dominant, alluring etc. Laughing helps me hush those “you should be fill in the blank” voices. It neutralizes the tape-loops that play in my head, freeing me from self-imposed expectations of hotness based on media-inspired sources. Laughing is also a good way to express sensation. Noise in general during sex is, in my opinion, a fabulous added layer to events. Sound can act as a reflection of what is going on and also act as a release for the sensations being experienced; crying, screaming, moaning, gasping are all marvelous additions to this sex symphony. Something about laughing, for me, just enhances the intimacy and the experience in general.

Role- Play

Adding some drama to the scenario can provide many things: lessen other social/psycho/dramas that folks tend to drum up when the issue of sex arises, keep things interesting and creative, help explore different identities, help approach taboo subject matters, and be healing from past traumas, just to name a few. I notice that sometimes we get stuck in sex roles or sex acts. I encourage myself and others to not get stuck in roles like butch or femme or top or bottom or daddy or slave. I think those roles are awesome, but anything gets boring if not tweaked or switched up from time to time. It is very easy to stick with what we’re good at or cling to a role or identity out of habit or just plain comfort. Role-play can be a great way to challenge one’s rigidities and discover hidden perversions in a safe context.

Switching up roles is exactly as it sounds; availing oneself the opportunity to receive when previously being the provider; taking turns sucking and being sucked, biting and being bitten, slapping and being slapped, holding and being held, fucking and being fucked, you get the picture.

Story telling is another version of role-play. For me this includes setting up characters in a setting with a plot. It can get intricate with scripts or songs, heck even a dance routine. The important thing here is that everyone is okay with where the story goes. Also these scenarios can leave the bedroom and social norms. Here is where many taboos can be explored; intergenerational sex, and inter-species sex (you’ll be the farmer and I’ll be the livestock) are a few examples of such taboos. These games could challenge political and social norms in positive and smarty-panted ways. For me it is important to remember that this is fantasy and that these role-play scenarios set up safe consensual spaces for folks to go there consciously, critically, humbly and with an open mind.

Reading aloud can also be a fun way to explore roles. Reading stories, erotic or not aloud can absolutely add a certain something to the moment. It gives an added activity and focus and brings in more opportunity for fetishes. For example, reading an entomology dictionary, political theory, or porn to each other adds a certain geeky quality that can really do it for folks.

And finally drag, props and outfit sex. These dramatic elements can really heat up a moment. Messing with outfits and identities and incorporating them into a sex scene can be so erotic. Beyond changing the physical location, adding new physicalities can heighten the reality and challenging nature of a scene. In my experience, I could get hotted-out just by someone’s outfit, so incorporating costume changes works wonders in the bedroom. Just imagine what the addition of a mermaid outfit, a map, and kitchen utensils could add to your sex life.

Of course all these examples are not mutually exclusive and often get mixed up altogether; outfits, role-playing, story telling, reading aloud and whatever else you can think of, the more the merrier, sillier, nastier.

Gender-queerness

One element of my sex-life, with or without other people involved is fluid gender. As someone who travels many gender identities beyond anatomy in my day-to-day life, it follows suit that my sex life is a stage for non-binary- gendered bodies. When re-learning to have sex, I switched my focus away from stereotypical notions of genitals and genital contact. (Boys get blowjobs and girls get finger banged.) There is so much to play with and destroy, pervert, re-name. One lesson I have learned is that it is respectful and sexy
as hell to ask people what they call their body parts and how they want them touched. When opening-up what we consider erogenous zones, more conversations about re-imagining bodies, gender, society may become possible. Anybody can get a blowjob anywhere on their body and the same goes for finger banging. I try not to focus on genitals and orgasms but nerve endings and what turns them on and works also on an emotional level for a person. This concept helps me move away from the dualities of gender often put onto sexual situations. Expansion, re-defining and being aware of people’s boundaries are key in this realm and essential to my sex.

Lube

Why is it so revolutionary to be wet? Because we get taught how to have sex wrong. It is astounding to me how many people have sex without lubrication. The orifice does not matter, what matters is that it feels good. As a youngster, figuring out what to do with my parts, I was unaware of adding moisture. In my opinion, everything is better with lubrication, lots of it. As I get older, my commitment to maintain moisture increases and that is why lube made it to this list. Different folks like different qualities of lube, from sticky to slippery, gummy to smooth, chunky to creamy even. I would love for more people to experiment with different wetnesses and see what works best for their bodies. I imagine the world would be a more joyous place if that happened. Slip it in.

Pushing Self Limits

Like dismantling racism, sex can push us beyond comfort zones bequeathed to us by the dominant culture. Many things we are taught are dangerous or scary, nasty or off-limits can be explored safely in a sexual situation. Personal stories of abuse, neglect, self-hatred and other of the myriad of private struggles surface in this practice and what is good limit pushing for me may not at all be good for you in your process. It is important to go at our own paces with boundary pushing and not go places inappropriate to our own experiences. Many issues can come out with consensual boundary pushing; power dynamics, stereotypes to be de-bunked, pain thresholds, ideological differences, and the concept of the comfort zone in general. As a person who challenges norms, I find sex a wonderful place to keep pushing myself beyond the comfort zones of society at large. Recently one of the boundaries I have being pushing for myself has been the issue of cutting. In an extended knife-play scene, I asked to be cut. Health, safety, safer sex and self care strategies were well established and adhered to in this scene. Since then I have explored the many levels of emotions, trust healing and comfort in my sexual self through this and other forms of personal bounadry pushing in bed. I have hope that if we hold enough space for each other to expand these concepts, then maybe other forms of social and environmental change can manifest.