Category: Articles

Guerilla Journalism

About an hour before the sun rises, the smell of pepper gas lingers in the air. I’m not one of the intended recipients, but pepper gas doesn’t discriminate among its victims, like all the rationalized practices of prison and society.

The gas drifts from the solitary confinement cell block and assaults us as we march by, two-by-two, toward one of the many factories here on the Wynne Unit.

This morning, like almost every other in this institution, two themes are evident: the extreme control and segmentation of social roles and the violence employed against the non-compliant.

I work within the confines of the factory, but not in the factory proper. I write for The Echo, Texas’s sole “prisoner”” publication, aside from the occasional samizdat.

I work within the confines of the term “prisoner publication” loosely because The Echo is censored and fed information solely form the administration of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The term “prisoner publication” is true–I suppose–as the statement The Houston Chronicle is the “free press.”

The fact that Texas even has a prisoner newspaper is amazing. The trend of many prisoner publications in the punitive penological atmosphere of late has been that of the dodo. Texas, however, is no basis of liberal (whatever that means) penological practice.

The State, while being the home of the most reactionary, can often be anomalous. The TDCJ, for example, still retains and emphasizes education, offering up to Master’s level degree programs.

The paper is not the product of the liberal-minded prison administrators; it is an instrument of knowledge-control.

The knowledge TDCJ wants its population to know trickles down to me. For being a journalist, my information is rather scarce.

I can critique, too, provided the criticism is not of the TDCJ or of Texas–particularly in these prickly political times.

Under these circumstances, I am forced to wage guerrilla journalism. I peddle the TDCJ’s propaganda, but the inconsistencies in the information provided are obvious. I try to juxtapose those contradictions. I still critique, too, but my criticism must be highly abstract and carefully constructed.

I have help from comrades inside. They cull information and assist me with ideas. This is guerrilla journalism. My raison d’être in pushing my oppressor’s propaganda is the hope that we can educate this sea of warehouse humanity, awaken a consciousness.

There is much we lack, much we are unable to do. We need assistance from the outside, dialogue, information.

Prison, like the rest of society, is designed to alienate. The prisoner can be hard to reach, but could be a rich, revolutionary resource. We desperately need help of those who can helps inner pursuit.

Clifford Barnes #755504

Wynne Unit

Huntsville, TX 77349

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Slingshot/Long Haul,

At this moment I’m stuck in a Texas prison and have been here for a little under three years. By now your probably wondering why I’m where I’m at. Well in my brilliance I was getting shwilly (nothing wrong with that) on some Guiness when a friend threw me some Xanax. This is my blackout:

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When I came to three days later I was being charged with Burglary of a building. Now this is funny in a fucked up way. What I did was break into a McDonald’s and tore the place up. And so here I’ve sat for way too long.

Before I was fitted with a slave’s collar I’d been traveling and hopping trains (doin the squatter thing) for about eleven years. I’m from Amarillo, TX and our scene, at one time, was rock n’. Then Brian was murdered in a brawl with some jocks and the scene just died out (if you don’t know about this murder, check out www.briandeneke.com).

I’m also writing in hopes that you or someone you know might be willing to write and keep me informed with what’s going on in our scene.

I hope to hear from you. Stay safe, stay real, and always, keep rock n’.

Brad Walker # 1146948

998 County Rd. AA

Plainview, TX 79072

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Dear Folks at Slingshot:

My name is Dee and I live in Montreal. Recently I picked up a free copy of your newspaper at the Alternative Bookshop and I mailed it to a prisoner I’ve been in contact with for quite some time. Unfortunately, I have been informed by Shicon, (the prisoner) who phoned me the other day from Auburn (a max. pen.) that they have put the Slingshot newspaper, your latest issue, I believe, in the “review board.” The info. that Shicon got (he has given me the OK to share this info. with you) is that they have a problem with “la pagina en espanol.” Supposedly they said they would have to decipher it before they would let him read it. Though, personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was for all the newspaper’s content. So hopefully he’ll receive your newspaper after the review board looks over it, although they told him they may just tear out the pages that they don’t want him to read!

Shicon is currently studying with Jalil Muntaqim, who teaches Black History and many other subjects of interest.

Shicon is a Black man and like so many others in prison he is a victim of the war on some drugs. He has spent close to 10 years locked up –you know how it is, once you’re inside you get other charges laid against you. He has always been honest, respectful….a downright good person. Although we have never met face to face, we have written to each other over the years (a lot when he was Upstate, the supermax., a.k.a. Hell on Earth) and we have spoken a few times on the phone. He wrote me a letter in regards to the recent lock down in Auburn, but I never received it. It is obvious to me that the authorities are destroying prisoners’ mail.

I have often read Slingshot and then mailed it to prisoners in the US (there is much more censorship in Canadian prisons and stuff like this doesn’t get in, we can’t even send books to prisoners, just to prison libraries). I would like to thank you all for the hard work that you put into your newspaper. It does not go unnoticed. Continue on the road that you are on, what you do is needed and much appreciated. Hats off to you all.

Dee LeComte

Slingshot is a quarterly, independent, radical newspaper published in the East Bay since 1988.

As the article deadline grew worrisomely closer, we wondered if this issue was going to contain articles with the breadth and insight we dreamed of. A big cause of our writers’ procrastination were the 15,000 Slingshot organizers sitting in the basement waiting to be sent to folks around the globe. Shipping all those books is a lot of work for an all volunteer collective.

Luckily, a ton of new amazing volunteers showed up from all over the world! Half the collective which made this issue were new to Slingshot. Our artistic minds were also inspired by the wonderful and glittery art and letters that people send with all their organizer orders, and an editing weekend full of Indian, Mexican and Ethiopian food. Layout happened on the hottest weekend ever in the Bay Area (thanks, Arnold!) and we roasted our brains in our barely ventilated loft.

The world is in so much pain right now with the death of thousands of faceless Iraqis, US soldiers, Johnny Cash, and almost 400 women in the Mexican Maquiladora town of Juárez. It can be hard to take sometimes, but it also inspires us to keep struggling by creating Slingshot and by doing all the other projects we’re involved with.

As we finished the paper, half the collective was downstairs putting on a benefit for the FTAA protest, while the other half was across town doing a benefit for a rape crisis center in Juárez. It’s so crucial to struggle on all of these different fronts at the same time so we can build a new world.

Slingshot is always on the lookout for writers, artists, editors, photographers, distributors and independent thinkers to help us make this paper. Right now we especially hope you’ll send us a print of your latest stencil or other artwork. If you send something written, please be open to editorial discussion.

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

Thanks to everyone who helped create this issue!!! Thanks to everyone who ordered Organizers!!!

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting December 14 at 1 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below).

Article Deadline and Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 80 by January 17, 2004 at 3 p.m.. We expect the next issue out in early February.

me 1, Number 80, Circulation 12,000

Printed October 30, 2003

Slingshot Newspaper

Sponsored by Long Haul

3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94705

Phone: (510) 540-0751

slingshot@tao.ca

http://slingshot.tao.ca

The 7th annual National Conference on Organized Resistance — a space for radical discourse and collective empowerment — is scheduled for January 24-25, 2004 on the campus of American University in Washington, D.C. Last year’s conference featured nearly 70 workshops, panel discussions and skillshares, as well as tabling space for dozens of radical groups. During the weekend, D.C. also hosted political demonstrations, benefit concerts and radical parties. This year’s NCOR will be more of the same, plus whatever YOU want to bring to the table. Visit our website, www.organizedresistance.org, for more information or drop us a line at NCOR@mutualaid.org. Look forward to seeing everyone in January!

Continue to Fight All Governement!

The Republicans will hold their party’s National Convention in New York City from August 28 to September 4, 2004. There have already begun mass preparations by many groups in opposition to the RNC. These groups are calling out the Republicans’ effort to further exploit the grief of the residents of NYC by planning the Convention a week before the three year anniversary of 9/11. It is not to early too start planning for the 2004 RNC protests right after we return from the November FTAA protests in Miami.

Mayor Bloomburg is excited to host the RNC in NYC, expecting the event to draw 50,000 visitors and generate about $150 million in economic activity. His decisions are clearly not in the interest of the city’s residents, but in the commercial profits being brought in from tourism. With NYC unemployment up from 4.9% in May, 2003 to 6.3% in October, 21% of NYC families living beneath the poverty line, and 70% of NYC eighth grade students below grade level reading skills due to inequitable funding between urban and suburban schools, Bloomburg should be handling the current economic crisis on his hands rather than co-chairing the NYC Host Committee’s Finance Committee. Other co-chairs include such corporate hotshots as John P. Costas of UBS Warburg, Henry A. McKinnel of Pfizer, Henry M. Paulson Jr. of Goldman Sachs, David Rockefeller, Jerry I. Speyer, a developer, Jonathen M. Tisch of Loews, and Stanford I. Will of Citigroup. Former Mayor, Rudolph Guliani, is the Committee’s Chairman. This Committee has donated $60 million to the $91 million 2004 RNC budget. Such an elite group of CEO’s and special interest lobbyists can only guarantee the type of corporate sympathy the Republicans represent and the influence they desire over NYC policies.

United for Peace and Justice, one of the main organizations planning demonstrations for the event, says that the Republicans are using the tragedy of 9/11 to further push right-wing reforms, such as slashing funding to healthcare and education. UFPJ calls for a mass global march on Thursday, September, 2, the official day of the nomination of Bush as the Republican presidential candidate. CounterConvention.org is a website organized to create an early dialogue to “increase the effectiveness of our demonstrations.” Their website has logistical information and lists of organizations demonstrating against the RNC. RNC Not Welcome is another group gearing up for the RNC by encouraging a diversity of tactics, fundraising with film screenings of Whispered Media’s We Interrupt This Empire at ABC No Rio and Walker Stage in NYC, hosting a civil liberties and immigrant detention panel discussion, and having a Reclaim the Streets in Brooklyn this past September. The SOA Watch, an organization that protests annually at the School of Americas in Fort Benning, GA, is calling for people of conscience to join the events that are being planned. They propose non-violent direct action to call attention to the double standard between the “War on Terrorism” and the terrorist tactics taught at the SOA supported by the Bush Administration . Food Not Bombs! in Richmond, VA is calling for in international FNB World Gathering 2004 in conjunction with the RNC protests to mobilize against the regressive right-wing reforms and discuss food-sharing and direct action.

There are a host of resources on counterconvention.org and rncnotwelcome.org from how to bring a corporation to its knees, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA style, to how to form a black bloc. Affinity groups can organize to blockade the site of the RNC, Madison Square Garden, and take back other key sites swarming with Disney-endorsed tourism, such as Times Square, and the shopping mall, SoHo. Get your pirate radio transmitters up and running to keep media free and really inform the NYC resident’s what is happening. Take over the offices of the Convention’s sponsors, such as Pfizer and Loews. Some groups are responding with counter-discussion to RNC Not Welcome’s encouragement of diversity of tactics, a dialogue that should be kept open and healthy, considering methods that would not to alienate the work of Community Based Organizations. Other agendas that should be discussed when working with your group are race, gender, and class issues and organizing, and your groups needs, such as transportation, housing, and organizing space, and possibly, jail solidarity.

We can no longer stand back and allow the government to provide taxpayer money for the occupation, not just in Iraq, but in urban areas such as NYC, where protest has been deemed terrorism and the police have taken over the streets during the recent past anti-war, anti-Bush demonstrations. While the blatant atrocities executed by the Bush Administration brought many people into the streets to demonstrate, as anarchists, we need to outline our goals in ending all domination perpetuated by government, not just against the Republicans. Even if we succeed in bringing down the Bush Regime, US imperialism will still continue if the government holds power. Bush is not the only problem. he is simply the puppet with the corporate agenda’s hand up his ass. He just made many people finally realize the full and dangerous potential of government backed by profit-driven interests. The Republicans did out in the open what the government has been doing covertly since its inception, waging war against people who stand up to capitalist domination. Organize now against the 2004 RNC! Continue to build broad movements against all government!

Biodiesel is fuel for diesel engines made primarily from urban waste — used vegetable oil. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it could be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. Most oil restaurants used for cooking and frying must be disposed of as a toxic waste, but any one who has tried to burn fat knows, there is a lot of potential energy stored in that dirty oil. What the petroleum companies don’t want you to know is that diesel engines were designed to run on vegetable oil . . . and still can!

The use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and particulate matter compared to emissions from diesel fuel.

Biodiesel helps mitigate “global warming” because the carbon dioxide released when biodiesel is burned is recycled by growing plants, which could later be processed into more fuel.

Biodiesel is available for sale at public fuels and biodiesel dealers. You can also manufacture your own biodiesel. It can cost up to twice as much at the pump as petroleum diesel. As an alternative fuel, biodiesel is very competitively priced.

If you need or want to know more, or if you want to know about purchasing biodiesel, producing your own or converting a vehicle to run on biodiesel, check out www.biodiesel.org, www.americanbiodiesel.org, www.biodiesel.com, www.ecologycenter.org.

Imagine . . . no more pollution, no more oil, no more war!

“War makes privatization easy: first you destroy the society and then you let the corporations rebuild it.” — Hacene Djeman, general secretary of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions

Although Iraqis and US troops alike are getting shot everyday in Iraq, the hand-picked US governing council in Iraq has already selected a finance minister who has announced a plan to privatize Iraqi state owned industries. The announcement makes clear that the war wasn’t just about oil — the war gives US authorities a chance to carry out dramatic economic restructuring in Iraq without the pesky local political opposition to such right-wing schemes that has been increasing everywhere else in the world. Apparently, the US government sees wars and global treaty negotiations to create “free” markets as two means to the same goal — economic domination by multinational corporations over everyone on earth.

The idea is simple. The US invades and sets up a puppet “interim” governing council during the transition period. During the interim period, the council lays the groundwork for economic privatization and large scale “free” market reform. US corporations are hired to reconstruct the country, ensuring foreign corporate control of the economy. After the economic restructuring is well underway and all of the important foundations and decisions are made, the US occupation force calls elections to ratify the results.

This appears to be what is currently happening in Iraq, although many Iraqis are resisting and attempting to delay crucial economic decisions until after elections.

Long before the invasion, right-wing think tanks were already excited about the possibility of trying their policies of economic restructuring, privatization and “free” markets without the opposition regular folks usually mount against these policies.

For instance, in a paper published in September, 2002, Ariel Cohen, the former Director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at the right-wing Heritage Foundation, suggests that a new regime in Iraq would privatize state industries (including especially the oil industry), seek to layoff workers, deregulate energy prices, keep taxes and tariffs low, apply to join the World Trade Organization, and liberalize trade policies. Cohen notes “During this time, the U.S. government and the IFIs [i.e. IMF/World Bank] would have to ensure that the political will for privatization remains intact.”

He also emphasizes the specifically ideological work to be done to ensure the Iraqi people would accept these measures: [the US should] “Educate and prepare the Iraqi population for structural reform and privatization through a public information campaign[.] Only when the public, including key stakeholders, elites, and the population at large, understand the goals of economic reform will they become more receptive to change and less likely to succumb to the anti-Western demagoguery that undoubtedly will emanate from the remnants of the discredited Ba’ath establishment and Islamic fundamentalists. The new Iraqi government will need to use the media and the educational system to explain the benefits of privatization and the changes to come in order to ensure broad public support.”

Kamel al-Keylanim, the finance minister appointed by the Governing Council in September, 2003 has already announced a plan to privatize state industries within two years. Although he notes that the government will “make sure the issue is acceptable to the Iraqi people” before privatization, he announced immediate plans to “lay the foundations” for privatization. Cohen conveniently lists some of these foundations: “creating government-held companies instead of ministries, issuing stock for these companies”, hiring foreign-trained consultants, “taking inventory of assets and liabilities; Exercising necessary efficiency-improvement steps, such as retraining and layoffs ; Introducing GAAP and other modern financial and management practices; Signing international conventions against nationalization of foreign investments . . . .”

Under Saddam’s regime, most important industries were government owned. Thus, privatizing these assets could put foreign investors and corporations in control of most economic activity in Iraq. Such dramatic privatization would mean massive layoffs and unemployment, while Iraq’s wealth would be siphoned out of the country. Proposals for low tariffs and free trade would have the same result — workers in Iraq would have to compete with the lowest paid workers around the world, and local environmental resources would be subject to global economic forces aimed at their extraction and destruction.

A particularly disturbing development is the US military’s hostility to independent political organization and protest during the “reconstruction” period. Already, the US has attacked protests organized by the unemployed and workers, arresting and shooting at the participants. International and US unions have protested the hostile environment for Iraqi workers under the occupation.

The records of corporate involvement in the reconstruction effort so far is also telling. Huge US corporations are making billions on reconstruction contracts, often bringing in low-wage foreigners in to do the work while millions of skilled Iraqi workers are unemployed. Contracts are being distributed as trophies to major corporate Bush supporters, often with no competitive bidding or any pretext that the contracts are for a fair price. For instance, it has come out that the US is paying corporations millions to rebuild bridges that could be rebuilt locally for a tenth of the cost.

And don’t misunderstand the situation and believe things would be much different if the United Nations, instead of the US military, were to step in and take over the situation. At the recent UN donors conference to seek financial grants and loans for Iraq reconstruction efforts, it was generally understood that corporations from nations which donated to the reconstruction would win reconstruction contracts. To the extent the international community increases its involvement and the US steps back, that will only mean Iraq will be privatized by a diverse group of international corporations, instead of primarily US based firms, as is now the case. Economic colonialism is still colonialism whether it is carried out by the US alone, or by the US, Europe and Japan, acting together under the cover of the UN.

Before and during the war, Bush talked a lot about democracy, elections, and giving power to the Iraqi people. People who opposed the war should demand that all decisions about Iraq’s economic system be made by Iraqis, not the US occupation authority controlled by right-wing free market promoters — or anyone else.

This summer, the fun adventurous stories I heard of friends on the road were mixed in with the serious, deadly knowledge that a woman was killed on I-5 while hitching up to Oregon. Then I heard rumors of another woman killed, and I kept thinking of folks I knew who were raped while hitching—and how I hadn’t ever spoken of the incident since out of respect for their request for anonymity.

As much as I love insane travel stories, I’m worried our bravado obscures the truth of what actually happens to us on the road. I’m getting the sense that as we try to not sensationalize atrocities, respect survivor anonymity, and not scare ourselves, we end up hush-hushing big, important, harsh things that actually do happen to us. Like with all silencing, the aggressors end up ahead as we leave home less informed and prepared. As I add the I-5 killings to my too-long list of terrible things that happen while traveling, I’m ready for a big community response. A flood of self-defense classes, recovery networks, benefit concerts, media, zines, stencils—flamboyant displays of our belief and pride in this kind of travel. Because there’s nothing wrong with sharing rides with strangers.

In the US, the open road poses great difficulties. I know this—many people, including myself, cover thousands of miles without planes or our own cars, by hitchhiking, hopping freight trains, bicycling, following the grand hobo tradition that’s been taken to heart by parts of the anarchist movement. Meeting challenges is a part of travel anywhere, and a treasured element of hoboing, but here in the US there seems to be a particularly high percentage of assholes ready to mess with people doing something different than the norm. It’s not our fault; we’re not ‘asking for it by the way we’re dressed.” This harassment is just one more ramification of violent, divisive, fear-inducing, fucked up American culture.

My uncle actually stopped talking to me because he thought there was something wrong with asking strangers for rides. To him, hitchhikers and trainhoppers were irresponsible mooches too lazy to provide for ourselves. He burned with the thought of dirt-stained people expecting to invade his car-secured privacy. His attitude was pure American. In Mexico, Canada, and many other parts of the world, the stories I’ve heard suggest the ethic of helping travelers balances suspicion of strangers and obsession with privacy. Sharing resources does not imply mooching, and interactions between respectful, courteous people are valuable, not lecherous.

Traveling folks romanticize the inevitable struggle, singing old hobo songs like Big Rock Candy Mountain, building courage with tattered copies of Ben Reitman’s Boxcar Bertha and Jack Black’s You Can’t Win. Boxcar Bertha and Jack Black surmounted amazing challenges in their travels around the turn of the 20th century. Arguably, hoboing is safer these days, with modern trains and railroad bulls who won’t shoot tramps on sight. But the American cultural experience of Ben Reitman and Jack Black is different from ours today. At the turn of the century and during the Depression, more people were tied into the hobo world through relatives and friends on the road. Hobos were certainly pariahs to many, but family to many more. Now, as American society has become more compartmentalized, car-obsessed, and divided by concerns of privacy, ‘safety’, and fear, the hobo’s position has shifted. We are much more likely to be considered dangerous intruders or potential victims of somebody’s frustrated rage.

Perhaps in response to this unforgiving mindset, the modern anarcho-punk hobo aesthetic prioritizes toughness. With our carharts, multitools, and maglites, we are always prepared. We build ourselves up to be superheroes with crazy stories of narrow escapes from psycho truckers and rail cops. In some circles, coolness is measured by the speed of a train you jump. Seeking validation in a culture of toughness, I used to cancel train trips with people who said they felt more comfortable getting on stopped trains. I left behind people who were sick, and expected people recovering from severe train-wreck injuries to keep on riding. The trains kept moving, and people’s personal needs fell aside.

But there are many sides to being tough. As I consider the different challenges we all face, it seems far wiser to value respecting and managing individual needs and risks, rather than forcing a standard that is not that far from status-quo jock. Things—trains, cars, people, lives—move at many different speeds. There is no competition when it comes to taking care of your own needs, because the ultimate arbitrator is yourself. Now, I check myself:

Are the stories told to get spirits up actually enforcing one standard of behavior and making other people feel like shit? Do the stories paint a story different than the reality of the road?

The longer I travel, the more difficult situations arise. I’m trying to pull myself out of denial about some possibilities, and superstitious paranoia about others. I want us all to do the homework to be realistic, confident, and prepared to deal with sketchy situations. This article is not a scare tactic! I think “alternative” travel is beautiful and valuable on so many different levels. And while getting a car might be a personal solution, it doesn’t affect the broader picture.

Traveling mirrors the struggle of our lives.

Recommended zines: Ring of Fire, about finding amputee pride after a wreck, $1 plus postage, PO Box 22824, Seattle, WA 98122-0824, USA

Women’s travel stories, edited by Spoke, 164 Lac du Pin Rouge, St-Hippolyte, QC, JOR 1PO, Canada

I tried to avoid it for a while, but if I wanted to find and meet other anarchists in the east bay, I needed to go to the Long Haul, an anarchist infoshop in berkeley. So I took a deep breath, opened the door and entered, trying to free myself of my previous feelings, my stereotypes, my love and hate for the anarchist community; and yes I know it ain’t one homogeneous thing, but regardless, my experiences with it have been fraught with good ol’ revolutionary angst.

Let me explain

I have never been into the punk scene, I am not white, I became a father at 20 and had to think about changing diapers, not just about changing social structures. I remember being chastised by someone trying to get us to go up one summer to the logging protests and when I reminded him of my responsibilities, he snapped back: ‘what was more important?’ I wanted to punch him, to make him see his ignorance, the elitism of privilege, the typical dismissal of people with children, with jobs to pay for food and rent. Yet, this has happened over and over. Meetings at 6pm or reading my child a bed time story? How to choose? It felt as if I could never fully commit, never be as dedicated as the people I met — mostly younger, white, students, who were mobile, who could survive on a fluctuating income. Now there is nothing wrong with this, but this was not me, not my experience, not my culture. But I knew that the anarchist views more closely resembled my views about how life could be lived than anything else, so I tried as much as I could to find that community. brought my kids to meetings; I swapped childcare with other parents on my block (a nice way of realizing it truly does take a neighborhood to raise a child). I tried to figure out how to balance riding bikes with my kids around the block versus riding in critical mass, which is right at dinner time. I realized I needed the anarchist community after years of trying to compartmentalize the seemingly disparate aspects of my life — the non-monogamist, the self-schooling parent, the activist, the Chicano academic, the fuck-the-police poet. But how I got to this point is another story. It is in fact many stories.

Starting at the beginning

I began noticing the glaring discrepancies in my life; I grew up on hip hop and could see it being co-opted into cheap fronting and frivolity. This was not the community I was a part of, dressed in hand-me-downs and learning to break on ripped up sections of linoleum. I simply couldn’t handle the growing consumerism, the value placed on objects, after having lived in poverty, after scoffing at and detesting the symbols of wealth for so long (yes out of envy and jealousy at the time perhaps). Yet, I desperately needed to believe in the anti-authoritarian politics of NWA, Public Enemy, Freestyle Fellowship, and others, for I was not hearing it from anyone else nor in any other way that spoke to me.

It continued in undergraduate classrooms in which I was appalled at the refusal to engage in anything but what was deemed ‘practical and possible realties.’ After being told that republicans and democrats held the only legitimate and viable worldviews, I wondered how the hometowns I grew up in – Las Vegas, New Mexico, Kailua, Hawaii, Ventura, California — were included in anything we discussed. How did these ‘viable’ political choices account for the poverty, the single mothers, the drugs, and the lack of choices available? There had to be another way. And when I did make my way to an anarchist study group, I seethed at people’s unwillingness to even attempt to connect anarchy with issues of race and privilege. There had to be other ways. Other places.

So I retreated for a while into my own experiences, creating and nurturing a lifestyle that embodied the values I couldn’t find elsewhere. I found connections with my imprisoned father and prison issues that introduced me to Attica, to my father’s penitentiary, to political prisoners. I reveled in becoming a father and was soon horrified as disciplined behavior became the primary learning objective in my son’s school. What could I do, where to turn? I refused to participate in the privilege of private schooling so that was out. And then I found The Teenage Liberation Handbook, and we created our autonomy, but struggled to connect with others who chose to homeschool for reasons of liberation rather than christian bullshit and racist, classist fears about public education. Where were the other parents? People fuck, so I know people reproduce.

Moving to the east bay from the city did help me meet more people with similar values. While attempting to create a relationship based on free choice rather than social coercion, my partner and I met another young parent questioning the rigid social definitions of what relationships could be. With the inspiration from Emma Goldman and the practical advice from The Ethical Slut, we began to embrace non-monogamist freedom to explore our own sexuality, our growing identities, our interests. But even here we felt out of place: we weren’t 50 year old hippies reminiscing about free love, nor were we new age converts trying to fuck while rubbing crystals and engaging in tantric poses. We were in our late twenties, we were looking for others more like us.

All these interests and choices of my life culminated in the tear gas of Seattle. Studying globalism as an advisor to student clubs on the campus I taught at, we decided to participate in the WTO protests, not realizing the dramatic and liberating events that we would be a part of. So after the smoke cleared from Seattle and then DC and then Quebec, I realized that I could no longer chase the revolution, that I could no longer compartmentalize the different aspects of my life. I needed a way to synthesize them all. After ten years of making half-hearted attempts to connect with people who seemed to look and live so differently than me, I decided to toss aside my ego, my attitude, and my fears to find and help create the community I wanted.

In the three years since I have made this commitment to be involved in the anarchist community, I have met some powerful and inspirational people; I have learned to see that resisting the oppressive and seemingly undefeatable social world we live in can be practiced in so many minute, marvelous and meaningful ways – in fucking, in gardening, in punk, in slumming it, in cooking. Perhaps even in crystals. I’ve been a part of RACE (revolutionary anarchists of color), been to and participated in the anarchist conference, started a zine, boxcutter, with a few others to explore aspects of personal liberation. I even staff a shift now at the Long Haul. With each step I try to bring my stories and my experiences with me. I want to be a part of something that combines theory and praxis, that can talk the talk and walk the walk. I want to work with people that I can learn from, that inspire me in my own efforts of teaching, parenting, and living my daily life. I want to try and fail rather than remain safe in stasis. And yet, at times I still feel like an outsider to the radical/anarchist community. But now I know that I am a part of it, and so I have a responsibility to help shape it. I am writing to engage myself in this process that will force me to embrace more of it, to be more involved in it, and welcome other people like me – marginalized from the mainstream, yet not quite the typical anarchist – to join this discussion. I know many more people are out there, many more stories, and I hope we can start sharing them.

Let me tell you a story

I’m sitting at a park bench in south berkeley as my kids are running around waiting for me to play shark attack with them. I’m talking to a young man of color with a child in the 1st grade about schooling versus home school, about the waste of money and the recall, about how things could be. He’s talking about how he wishes there were other places to get information about all this shit going on. I te
ll him about the info shop; I tell him that there are others thinking the same thing.

The kids tell me they’re tired of waiting and want me to attack. “That’s the place across from la pena. I always wondered what that place was.” he says. We say good bye and he thanks me for the suggestion. I get up, but look back and say, “Come in there some time, I’m there Thursday nights.” “I think I might just do that.”

It has now been two years since the US government set up its newest and most perfect prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prison was built to hold those captured in the US invasion of Afghanistan and the “war on terrorism” — about 700 people so far. It’s America’s most perfect prison because it takes the basic goals of prisons — to isolate, silence and break those held — to their ultimate conclusion. Those held on Guantanamo have no official legal status, and thus are denied any legal protection under either American or international law. They are totally isolated, denied contact with lawyers, their families, the media, independent human rights groups or the outside world. Since the prison is within a US military base and is physically offshore and isolated, the government has total control. You can’t get within hundreds of miles to see it or to protest.

Slingshot has wanted to write about the situation over the past few years, but it’s hard to know what to say from any kind of radical or anarchist perspective. The whole thing is a bizarre example of life imitating scary science fiction, or an Orwell novel. Guantanamo is just the most extreme example of a prison industrial complex that destroys millions of lives every single day.

Liberal groups like Human Rights Watch, the ALCU, and the Center for Constitutional Rights have brought so-far unsuccessful lawsuits trying to pick apart the legal contradictions of Guantanamo.

For instance (and there are many examples of legal contradictions regarding Guantanamo) the government claims on one hand that the prisoners aren’t protected under the US Constitution because they aren’t on US soil, although the US government is solely responsible for setting up Guantanamo and bringing prisoners there. On the other hand, the government claims the prisoners aren’t protected under international law or the Geneva Convention.

The government is claiming it can hold the prisoners without trial as “enemy combatants” (who have none of the rights of Prisoners of War) until the end of the conflict, even though the “conflict” in question is the war on terrorism, which the government admits will probably never end. Thus, the prisoners face life in prison with no trial, no lawyers, and no independent determination about whether they should even be there in the first place.

So far, the lawsuits filed against the Guantanamo situation by liberal groups have been unsuccessful. From a radical point of view, lawsuits are a pretty pathetic response to a government out of control, since they concede the legitimacy of the government’s courts, authority, and system from the get-go. It isn’t much of a surprise when the government’s courts find that the government’s prison is “legal.”

The normally mild-mannered and generally impartial International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been the only outside group allowed into Guantanamo to observe prison conditions. The US hoped that the presence of the Red Cross would convince the international community that the US was respecting human rights, even while the US refused to abide by international law or treaties.

In a signal that things are not going well for the US public relations campaign, the ICRC recently joined the chorus of human rights groups who have denounced the Guantanamo prison.

The ICRC complained that it has been asking the US to grant legal rights under international law to the prisoners since the prison was set up, with no meaningful response. Prisoners at Guantanamo are experiencing significant psychological deterioration after living in a legal limbo for years, with no idea what will happen to them, and no procedures in place for finding out, according to the ICRC. There have been 32 suicide attempts at Guantanamo so far , and a large portion of the inmates are being fed anti-depressant medications. There have also been continued reports that the US is very aggressively interrogating the prisoners, using methods verging on torture.

So what is to be done? The 700 prisoners at Guantanamo — allegedly terrorists — are unpopular and thus have few defenders in the US. Since media coverage is strictly controlled, there isn’t a lot of news getting out about the situation. They are gradually being forgotten, just another footnote of a US government drunk on power and out of control.

Now that some of Bush & Co.’s lies about Iraq are being exposed, perhaps the public is ready to question recent American human rights abuses justified by the “war on terrorism.” Let’s demand that Guantanamo be dismantled — loudly, publicly and all across the United States. We can’t allow the government to establish a secret gulag, because eventually, they’ll want to put us in it.

This is my story — a story that I got to share with all of you, who want a better world, who want change, who want to live and want . . . just to be free. This goes to everybody, but mostly to those who have moved to other places, looking for either a change or just because you wanted to create another path of living.

I’ve been in Berkeley long enough — long enough to feel like it’s my home (if there is such a thing), long enough to fit into the community and long enough to realize that here, now, is the time and the place to change the whole world

I’m not from Berkeley, not from the Bay, not even from the USA . . . I’m from some tiny beautiful islands next to Morocco. I chose to be here, I chose to live my life and do the things that I’m doing here, even if the government is bad, even if Capitalism is taking over . . . this is where I’ve chosen to live for a while because it is a time of change, a time of the revolution, and maybe it should be started in the so-called first country.

Myself, to be able to be here, I got to get married because my visa had expired. Being illegal meant that once I left the country I couldn’t come back for ten years and I didn’t want that at all because I got some roots in here already. I was lucky and my friend helped me out. I did not mind — the whole process of paperwork has just been another game, one of those stupid games you have to play for the future.

My situation has been not so bad. I got arrested on March 20 in San Francisco protesting the war on Iraq, which was one of the craziest and most delirious experiences ever. My friends and I were in jail for 17 hours, got solidarity from inside and outside and the cops let us go.

The INS interview to see if my status was “real” went ok . . . still I’m in process. We’re under the poverty line, which says that the minimum income in a household should be $1,500 a month. We did not make that money, it’s all about money, so either we have to get a sponsor or work more. For two to three years I have to be checked by the INS, which is Homeland Security right now.

It’s a game, if you lie . . . you get what you need . . . if you don’t play, you get screwed and you got to go.

I just want to say, that we have to change this world. People should be free. People should be where ever they want to be, without racism, without depravation, without going through the whole system of lies and bureaucracy.

Some people want to do things, but the system oppress them, they are not free at all. We cannot allow the government to choose for us. We shall be free.

Don’t let the evil system put you down, be who you want to be . . . and if you don’t like what you see, change it!

Lucha. No dejes que el sistema te joda, se libre.