Category: Articles

The third annual BASTARD (Berkeley Anarchist Students of Theory And Research & Development) Anarchist Conference will be Sunday, March 30, 2003, the day after the SF anarchist book fair. This year it will be held at New College, 766 Valencia St., San Francisco, California.

This year BASTARD has decided to try a theme for the conference; anarchist economics. An entire track will be dedicated to analysis of economics today, visions of future economics and theories of anarchist economics that differentiate it from market, utopian and Marxist theories of economics. Other topics will also be considered. If you would like to submit a proposal for the conference you can do so one of two ways. First, go to sfbay-anarchists.org and click on the conference proposal link. Or you can mail a proposal to BASTARD c/o Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705.

“The body of a man burned beyond recognition is still being examined to determine identity and cause of death after the body was found in a homeless encampment near Ashby Avenue and Interstate 80 on Wednesday night.” So read the Oakland Tribune of Friday, Dec. 13, 2002. The man was homeless. The body could not be immediately identified. His kerosene heater had somehow ignited his makeshift shelter.

The man was identified as David McKinney. He was a Bay Area activist, active especially in issues in regard to the Homeless. Homeless himself, he had finally been approved for treatment of a mental disorder. Before that could happen, with who knows what positive results, he died in this horrible way. His case makes us wonder, in our wealthy society, why are people sleeping on the streets? There are those who think the homeless “deserve” to be homeless. They are not like you and me. Knowing some details of David’s life, people who think like that may be surprised.

He has a family that mourns him; he had a degree in religion from Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. He had studied to be a teacher, attending San Francisco State. He worked as a substitute teacher in East Bay public schools, and taught as a student teacher for a while in the 1980s. He was involved with Slingshot, the Long Haul, Food not Bombs, and could be counted on to participate in protests or actions involving progressive issues.

I would like to quote from his sister Lauren’s eulogy, delivered Jan. 11, 2003 at Washington Memorial Chapel in Valley Forge, PA. :

“My brother David was a gifted and passionate person. How ironic that with his commitment to the marginalized and dispossessed people in our society, having even written a novel about the homeless, that he became homeless himself. His own demons made him quarrelsome and disorganized, making it hard for him to give and receive love, make constructive decisions, and just live day to day. Given his disability, what a gift that he lived as long as he did, and as well as he did. He never hurt anyone, and never lost his ideals.

“The world needs more people like David. How can we receive David’s unworldliness and deep empathy into our spirits? David never blamed or labeled the powerless. When we use a label to define ourselves against others, we close off the connection, we lose compassion, we kill. Sometimes we do that to stay sane in this world, to feel separate from chaos and darkness. But the chaos and the darkness are part of us, as all great literature reminds us. We cannot undo what happened to David, but if we see the homeless, the poor, the mentally ill, the dispossessed, as fully human, then we carry on his legacy.”

A memorial service will be given in the East Bay for David and information should be available from Steve Weiss at the Homeless Action Center.

An Eyewitness Account

The seventh summit of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) took place in Quito, Ecuador on October 31. The FTAA is an international trade agreement that would create the world’s largest free market zone-affecting 650 million people and $9 trillion in capital. It is a different name for the expansion of NAFTA to every country in Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, excluding Cuba. Negotiations began immediately after the completion of NAFTA in 1994 and are to be completed by 2005. The FTAA will make it easier for corporations to bypass environmental or worker protection laws and will increase corporate control over our schools, water, electricity and food. Justin Ruben, a graduate student at Yale has been active in educating and organizing against the FTAA for several years in Connecticut and was one of thousands who came from around the world to protest the most recent meeting in Quito.

Justin Ruben

October 31, 2002

During the first day of demonstrations I found myself 20km south of Quito with maybe 300 indígenas in one of two protest caravans that had crossed the country spreading the word about the protest against the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Quito. As we crowded into buses to head north, I called the other caravan, who reported that they had 80 people. I feared weak numbers but soon after we got off the buses and began a 15km trek to Quito, the number of people seemed to mysteriously increase, as buses from the South caught up with us and disgorged fresh groups of protesters.

The procession was a riot of color, filled with red and blue ponchos and hundreds of rainbow flags (the symbol of the Andean indigenous and campesino movements). People lined the street to watch as we passed by. One shopkeeper explained to me that the indigenous people were like burros, dragging along the rest of the country, who were also opposed to the FTAA because it would devastate the Ecuadorian economy, but who let the indigenous movement carry the torch for their opposition. Old women chanted ceaselessly for four hours, “No queremos, y no nos da la gana, ser una colonia, norteamericana,” (We don’t want, and it doesn’t do us any good, to be a North American colony). One group of Bolivians, led by Evo Morales, the coca-grower who almost became president there, marched with coca leaves taped to their foreheads.

When we finally reached our destination in Quito, we rounded the corner and found not 80 but somewhere around 4,000 people waiting. As the two groups approached each other, people on each side were visibly stirred, and some began to run. At this point, I realized that after 4 months of frantic organizing, the mobilization was a reality, that whatever happened we had already won, that thousands of campesinos and indigenas had come to Quito to unequivocally reject U.S.-style “free” trade. And I simply began to bawl.

Our group didn’t pause, but continued straight toward the Marriott Hotel, where the 34 trade ministers from North and South America were arriving to negotiate a treaty that promises to wipe out small farmers, to hand corporations a sweeping new set of tools to evade environmental, consumer and labor laws, to force the privatization of water, health care, education, culture, and biodiversity.

As we headed north we were joined by large groups of campesinos, students, trade unionists, and international activists who had already been fighting running battles with the police, who were attempting to turn everyone back several kilometers from the Summit. The march was led by a line of campesino and indigenous leaders (“dirigentes”), walking arm-in-arm, preceded by a Shaman conducting rites to improve the success of our efforts. Soon we were stopped by several hundred riot police. The dirigentes asked to send a delegation of civil society groups in to the summit to present a giant letter made up of the proposals and demands of thousands of people who had joined the caravans along their route. They were soundly refused

So the dirigentes deliberated and decided to head west toward the Volcan Pichincha. As we rounded the corner we saw a thousand or more people ahead of us. More groups drifted in from the sides, and soon la Avenida Colon, one of Quito’s widest streets, was packed for perhaps 8 or 10 blocks, with more people out of sight. There must have been between 8 -15,000 people. There were giant puppets, a smattering of black-clad anarchists, a surprising number of international activists and lots and lots of campesinos: 75 year-old women, small children, 20 year olds who wanted nothing to do with traditional dress, mothers and teenage sons marching together. And they were all psyched.

As the most important social movement, dirigente, approached the Avenida Amazonas, the police opened fire with a LOT of tear gas. They shot it at the crowd and over the crowd, so that as people ran away, they ran into more gas. I walked until I couldn’t see or breathe, then began to run, then someone grabbed my hand and led me away. (Why do I never carry goggles to these things?) The president of the National Judicial Workers Union was hit with three tear gas canisters and taken to the hospital. Several young kids passed out and almost asphyxiated. One woman fell on her baby, who was injured and taken to the hospital. A reminder that “free” trade can only proceed via brutal repression, which is now so commonplace at trade summits that it hardly elicits comment.

And so people retreated to the south to regroup, and I retreated to the communications center to try to get the word out about the success of the mobilization, and its repression.

Soon after, 2000 people marched up to police barricades, where they demanded that a much larger delegation be allowed in to deliver the letter. Clearly hoping to avoid the kind of confrontations that have occurred in past uprisings here, the government allowed 40 people from across the hemisphere to come in and meet with the ministers.

Later, in an auditorium where 25 trade ministers sat uncomfortably on stage, 40 campesinos chanted that they had no desire to be a U.S. colony. Peter Rossett of Food First stood up, his arm in a rainbow colored sling thanks to a protest injury. He yelled to Bob Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative, that he should be ashamed for pushing an agreement that would impoverish Latin Americans, not to mention many U.S. citizens. Zoellick stared fixedly at his shoe. It was a scene that is, I think, pretty much unprecedented in the history of trade negotiations.

Soon the civil society presentations began. A line of people fanned out in front of the ministers (and TV cameras) holding signs that said “Sí a la vida, No al ALCA” (Yes to life, No to the FTAA). Behind the podium stood an indigenous representative holding a beautifully painted Inca sun with North America and South America, and the words “Si Una Integración Solidaria Con Respeco a la Soberanía de los Naciones”(Yes to an integration based on solidarity, with respect for the sovereignty of nations).

Finally, the social movement representatives spoke. Leonidas Iza, the President of the CONAIE (the Ecuadorian indigenous federation), stated the social movements’ clear rejection of the FTAA and of neoliberalism in general. “We are in desperate shape,” he told the ministers. “You couldn’t possibly understand, you who were born in golden cradles and have never suffered” (at this the ministers looked even more uncomfortable). “But we don’t have food to feed our children. Our markets are flooded with cheap imports. Imported milk is dumped in Ecuador for half of what it costs to produce it, but transnationals [mostly Nestle] sell it back to us at $1.80 per litre. We have no way to live, and the FTAA will only make it worse. When we complain, the U.S. government calls us terrorists. We are not threatening anything, but we are hungr
y and tired and things have to change.” In the wake of widening protest throughout Latin America, the message was not lost on anyone.

Then a woman worker from Nicaragua spoke powerfully of the details of the FTAA, of the privatization and poverty and social exclusion it would bring, particularly for women. “Don’t think you can simply take your picture with us and push forward,” she told the ministers. “We will stop the FTAA.”

The meeting ended and, unable to contain myself, I stood up and shouted in English and then in Spanish that never again could Bob Zoellick claim that the people of Latin America were clamoring for free trade, because today they had unequivocally rejected it. Then Peter Rossett chimed in that polls consistently showed that the majority of U.S citizens oppose free trade, and that the Bush administration had no right and no mandate to push forward with the FTAA. There were loud cheers, and the moderator hurriedly announced that the ministers were leaving and could we please sit down so they could leave. “NO!” screamed the civil society folks in unison, and they pushed out the door, leaving the ministers sitting on stage.

And, at that moment, I felt something shift. I realized that (unless the media bury this entirely despite our best efforts to get the word out, which is always possible) the FTAA has in 24 hours gone from something whose praises its proponents sing, to something they have to defend. Like the WTO before it, the FTAA has become the treaty that has to be sold to an America that doesn’t want it. Or so I hope. I hope I hope I hope. This is how it feels here. But it may be different elsewhere.

We marched out of the Suissotel, reached the police barricades and were greeted by hundreds of cheering protesters, who had been dancing to traditional Kichwa music while we were inside. Then the partying began, I just said good-bye to a compañera from one of the rural provinces of the Sierra, I asked her what she thought of the day’s events, and she said, “I am happy. Very happy. This was the first time I have ever done this, and I think today we achieved something important, something that will improve our lives. And now I can go back to my children.”

I am so proud, so proud and amazed by the incredible work people have done here over the last few months, so moved by their commitment to this struggle, so humbled by the generosity, patience, tolerance, and trust they have shown me. I am so honored to be part of this fast-coalescing hemispheric movement for a new economic and political order, one based on reciprocity and social justice, on true democracy and respect for human and natural diversity And I’m so happy to be going to sleep.

If you’re at all like me, hearing the word “patriot” lately makes you stop listening, reactively clench your fists, or recall that grand old phrase “I love my country, I just hate my government.” However, there is one patriot that is worth paying close attention to and that is the USA PATRIOT Act [USAPA]. This forced and awkward acronym stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism [Act] a 342 page forced and awkward piece of legislation passed in a hurry a month after September 11 by a scared and vengeful Congress who barely read it. “Appropriate tools” in this case, means expanded surveillance and monitoring abilities as well as significantly reduced checks and balances surrounding how these tools are used. And “terrorism” means, well, almost anything.

You should care about the PATRIOT Act if you frequent libraries or bookstores, use pay phones, use an Internet service provider, go to school, go to the doctor, use credit cards or banks, have a lawyer, leave the country, go to jail, belong to an activist organization, read alternative publications [like this one] or know anyone who is contemplating any of the above activities, or maybe if you’re just a fan of freedom or the Bill of Rights. Why? Because the assumptions you may be making about your privacy, and your right to it, may be all wrong. Your rights to do all of these things, or do them free of surveillance and/or harassment, have changed in the past two years.

One of the most talked about implications of these new powers is the privacy of library and bookstore patrons, or lack thereof. Previously, a government or police official that wanted patron information [such as lists of books checked out, Internet habits, or home addresses and phone numbers] had to have a subpoena issued by a court of law. Now they usually need a search warrant, and the warrant, which can be issued almost immediately, does not need to have a specific name on it. In other words, the FBI can go on snooping missions in libraries or bookstores, and go there solely for the purposes of “gathering intelligence” on everyone who may use the library, not necessarily to track down a particular suspected criminal. They can also install monitoring software on library computers without telling anyone it’s there.

The worst part of this new legislation is the associated gag order. If the FBI does come to your library, your librarian is forbidden by law to tell you or anyone else that they have been there, or what they did. If they installed surveillance equipment on the computers, they can’t tell you. If they asked for the list of the last 50 books you or everyone who uses the library checked out or purchased, they can’t tell you. The same is true for bookstore owners and employees. The USAPA creates an entirely new class of prosecutable criminal: librarians who tell the truth.

Many libraries have written privacy policies that spell out what information they will or will not share [see link below] that are themselves offshoots of state laws regarding privacy of library information — all states but Kentucky and Hawaii have laws making library records confidential.

In fact many of these state privacy laws are themselves a reaction to another misguided program, the FBI’s so-called Library Awareness Program in effect during the 1980’s. During this period, agents went to libraries and asked for information on patrons it considered “suspicious.” Backlash by librarians and resultant heightened visibility of the program itself brought an early demise to the FBI’s activities and more codified assertions of public library patron privacy.

The American Library Association’s Office of Intellectual Freedom has offered legal assistance to libraries who are facing, or have faced, federal investigators in their libraries [as long as the librarians don’t tell the OIF they have been served with a search warrant]. The USAPA has created a series of conflicting laws where state laws contradict the USAPA which itself contradicts the Bill of Rights. What’s a librarian to do?

While this is all chilling information, the next question is: are these dreaded visits actually happening? While no accurate count of federal agents’ visits to libraries can be made due to the [insane and illegal] gag order, a recent survey of 906 libraries done by the Library Research Center at the UIUC [see link below] found that nearly half the libraries surveyed reported a visit by state or local law enforcement or the INS, in the year following 9/11/01, as compared to less than 15% reporting similar visits in the previous year.

Libraries who have been visited by the FBI can’t mention that fact AFTER the visit, but many libraries and library systems are becoming pro-active and getting ready in case the feds do come to the door. To this end they have begun making staff and patrons aware of the Act and its implications. Some of them have begun tweaking their systems for greater patron privacy: tossing out Internet terminal sign-up lists at the end of the day; not requiring a card number or allowing pseudonymous Internet signups; removing patron borrowing records once a book has been returned; and in some cases, working within their communities to pass resolutions against the PATRIOT Act and pledging non-compliance in advance.

At this writing, San Francisco, Oakland, Arcata, West Hollywood, Yolo County, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Fairfax and Sebastopol California as well as Boulder CO, Madison WI, Ann Arbor and Detroit MI, Burlington and Montpelier VT, Eugene OR, Fairbanks AK, Mansfield and New Haven CT, Flagstaff AZ, Cambridge, Amherst, Leverett & Northampton MA, Takoma Park MD Alachua County FL and Santa Fe, NM have passed some form of resolution condemning the USAPA. Almost all of these resolutions were the result of grass roots and/or library agitation by the general public fed up with infringements on their rights. If your town or city isn’t on this list, perhaps you could help it get there.

Other organizations have been fighting back as well. In August 2002, the ACLU, the Freedom to Read Foundation, The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the Justice Department to disclose how it has been using the USAPA since its inception. They had gotten no response by October, so they filed a lawsuit with the US District Court for the District of Columbia demanding a response. In November, a judge ordered the government to respond to the request by January 15th of this year. In January, the government’s response was widely reported in the media:

“On that date, the government supplied 200 pages, most heavily redacted or blacked out so nothing can be read. None of the documents contained any of the information that had been requested. In the letter accompanying the released pages, the Justice Department made it clear that it would not supply any further information based upon the August FOIA request without further litigation.”

Clearly the US government isn’t too happy about sharing information about its program to force other agencies to share information.

The next big question is what can we all do to prevent, thwart, ridicule and generally combat intrusive government surveillance and intimidation in our lives? There are many levels of involvement, all of which are useful and like most activism, doing anything at all is preferable to staying home and waiting for a knock on the door. Here is a short list of things you can do that will help expose the USA PATRIOT Act as the total unconstitutional violation of our civil liberties that it really is:

1. Inform yourself, follow these links below and learn what the USAPA is and what it is not. Make a point of telling people about it every day. Be aware of the many public places you go where you could be being s
   pied on just for crossing the path of a “suspected terrorist.”

2. Go to your library and talk to your librarians and library staff about the PATRIOT Act. Ask if they have a plan in case the FBI comes to their library. Ask them what privacy policies they have put in place. Remind them that it’s okay to tell people if the FBI *hasn’t* been in the library. Check out every book on Afghanistan and militias you can, and fill up the library computers’ Internet cache with articles on home made weaponry and drugs. Then, if the FBI comes to your door, tell everyone you know.
3. If your community hasn’t yet passed a resolution against the PATRIOT Act, see if you can get one passed. Check out the sample resolutions online, or craft your own. Have community meetings and talk with people about their rights, and their privacy, and what should or shouldn’t be allowed in a free society. Get people’s honest opinions on the new legislation and its effectiveness in fighting terrorism.
4. Write letters to elected officials. They passed it, they should deal with the repercussions. Tell them you are unhappy that they have sold out your freedoms for the sake of appearing “tough on crime.”
5. Resist, in whatever form you think is appropriate, government’s attempts to silence or oversee you.
   

Further reading

• Text of the USAPA http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
  
  

• Bill of Rights Defense Committee http://www.bordc.org/index.html
• Privacy, Computers and the PATRIOT Act: The Fourth Amendment Isn’t Dead, But No One Will Insure It by Steven A Osher http://www.flr.law.ufl.edu/pdf/july2002/osher.pdf
• EFF Analysis of the The Provisions Of The USA PATRIOT Act That Relate To Online Activities http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.html
• American Library Association USAPA Resource Page http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/usapatriotact.html
• Surveillance Powers, Changes after USAPA, from ACLU http://archive.aclu.org/issues/privacy/Patriot_Chart_law.html
• State Privacy Laws Regarding Library Records http://www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/stateprivacylaws.html
• Public Libraries http://www.lis.uiuc.edu/gslis/research/finalresults.pdf
• The State of Civil Liberties in the US One Year After 9/11 http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/excep/ccr.html
  

America divided; Bush in office because of nepotism; US teens on warships say the war is a crock of shit. War means certain chaos, soaring oposition around the globe. Intensified Muslim anti-western sentiment and retialiation. UN blackmailed, Afgani prisoners of war tortured.

From Europe, the setting for the evolving US attack on Iraq is clear. While the US pushes rhetoric of liberation, European English-language press consistently highlights the US imperialist, oil-driven agenda; the huge potential for a long, dirty, difficult war; and the lack of public support in the US, Europe, across the world.

It is widely acknowledged here in Europe that the US is acting on an imperialist agenda, driven primarily for the need for cheap, dependable oil supplies to fuel market growth, the US´s main imperialist tactic. The 8 European leaders who kowtowed to Bush in their letter of support for ´shared values of freedom´ are working furiously to erase the divide between Europe and the US, hoping to preserve their assumed status as the ´United States of Europe´ within US-lead capitalist world domination. As proof of US-EU power dynamics, the US has in fact offered EU membership to several new NATO states in the Balkans– without first checking with the EU! France and Germany are indeed representing the ´Old Europe´ of Rumsfeld´s pontifications, because they are unwilling to capitulate to their roles as US puppet markets and support the US war effort.

It´s hard here to forget that oil fuels the US market machine, and that Saudi Arabia, with 25% of the known oil reserves, is on the cusp of becoming an anti-US Muslim fundamentalist regime. Between Al-Queda´s Saudi roots, and the political turmoil in Venezuela, the US is forced to look elsewhere- towards Iraq, of course– to ensure continued market growth. In fact, some people are suggesting that France is hanging back from war support in order to secure better oil contracts for its companies in Iraq. Ultimately, though, it´s believed France not have the power (or desire) to block US desires within UN Security Council, because, although people wistfully talk about ´the rule of international law´, it is easy here to see the UN as just one more tool of the US. In this sense, people here perceive the US as both an imperialist and a rogue state, operating outside of and in disregards to international law.

But although US motives for war are clear, there is much fear here that the war will not be a clean, quick war for the US, like in Afganistan. There´s much discussion of the potential for a long, dirty war, complete with destruction of Iraq´s already decaying oil infrastructure (despite publicized US plans to immediately protect the oil fields upon attack). The press here is less willing to assume that America´s might will easily quash any opposition, and that a coup within Iraq will come easily at US prodding. The press here entertains Saddam´s many strategic options, including forcing the war into cities (maximizing civilian death), into the desert (minimizing press coverage opportunities), and using friendly foreign pressure to keep the war away from Bagdad. Importantly, Saddam has apparently installed around 10 media outlets underground, to prevent a repeat of US-dominated war images during the Gulf War. Although commentators entertain the possibility of a quick, clean war, necessary for further US imperialist aims, people lean more towards the sad prospect of a world completely destablized by a difficult war, expensive oil prices, and intensely inflamed Islamic anti-western actions.

Even within the European corporate world, concerns about the war run deep, in comparison to the ever-bouyant optimism of US multinationals (particularly that of US oil corporations, who just might drown in their saliva as their Bush admin. cohorts prepare Iraq´s oil fields to be carved up). While war fears have driven the the Dow Jones industrial down since Jan. 1, markets in western Europe have also taken severe falls, up iron. Is the war truly Bush´s ecomomic stimulas plan, people ask?

With the exception of Britain, it´s hard to find a public in Europe that supports the war. People are strongly against a war without UN support, and even with UN backing, public support is scattered. Moreover, people here know that there´s a strong anti-war movement within the US, and that even though US public support grew after Bush´s State of the Union address, it´s quite possible that, like during Vietnam, public support will quickly wane. But it´s also popular here to portray the US public as hopelessly addicted to cheap gas and MTV, happily oblivious as the US marches towards the mirage of cheap oil and the European public watches in horror.

Here in Barcelona, even people in the comfortable upper middle classes are vocally not only against the war but against the capitalist system. People can point directly to capitalism as the cause of world environmental distruction and hollow lives. But what is there to do about it, they say, besides be nice to people and live comfortable lives?

Thus, several things are clear: well-informed people across the world don´t go for US imperialist shit, but frequently national governments don´t give a damn. The downfalls of capitalism are blindingly obvious, and people are ready to work towards change. But they don´t know where to start!

Revolutionary thinkers need to articulate ways of radically changing the capitalist system, and lives within the system, actions that people across society and the world can grasp. The anti-war movement is strong within the US and Europe, and can be a tool for refocussing the anti-globalization movement into an anti-capitalist movement. This war is proposed for the sake of the US market, which, if you believe the Business section, has been primarily supported over recent months by that catchphrase, ´consumer confidence´. If growth is what the US government is after, we must stop growth in order to stop the war. To be more than a newspaper article and a global moral boost, anti-war movements must adopt tactics to force economic slowdowns while at the same time providing infrastructure that would be lost on days off work and out of stores. Consumer confidence, the willingness of people to purchase and consume, is a giant force. To stop the war, world environmental destruction, and US imperialism, we must replace consumer confidence, essentially the American way of life, with confidence in the power of people to provide for ourselves.

By the time you read this, it appears likely that the US government will be at war with Iraq. It’s is hard to believe this could happen — that the US could fight such a bald war of aggression.

We have been born here on the most beautiful planet filled with light and colors and creatures and wonder. Our bodies, our voices, our minds offer so many opportunities for joy, pleasure, creation and love.

But somehow, amid all the beauty of life, the most violent, most hateful men have risen to power. All our human intelligence and creativity over the centuries has given these hateful men terrible weapons. These men rule the world’s richest, most powerful land.

What went wrong that they are driven to kill, destroy and hate? What went wrong that they would use lies and fear to justify the unjustifiable? How can these men be so self-satisfied, so smug, and so comfortable in their business suits while they order murder?

You don’t need to be a moral scholar to be against this war. Its something you learn when you’re 5 years old on the playground: you don’t hit first. You don’t start a fight against another kid whose not trying to fight you. You don’t make up lies about what the other kids is doing to justify hitting first, and then hit first. You don’t go across the world to hit a kid first in his front yard when that kid can’t get to your neighborhood.

Yes, things seem more complex to Bush in Bush’s world — this kid has oil.

Is this merely a psychological defect in a small number of rich, white, powerful men? Were they denied breastfeeding? Were they punished for masturbating?

No. Life on this planet left to itself is full of beauty and love. But somehow, human society has become diseased. It promotes death, not life. It organizes suffering, not joy. Most individual people know this, but aren’t sure how to escape the structures we have built around ourselves like a prison. Like a grave.

Out of the killing in Iraq and beyond, let us hope enough people see what power and authority has done. Lest we all be destroyed.

People in the US are now in a very uncomfortable position. The government of the territory we live in is preemptively attacking other countries. It has accumulated the largest military on earth. It appears bent on empire and total world domination. It is ruled by a group of men who are very skillful in their use of fear, nationalism and lies to sway the population. These men aren’t accountable to anyone — if they want to order war, they are free to do so and no one can stop them.

But those of us living in the US don’t have to cooperate with this madness.

Those of us living here, in the heart of the aggressor, are in an uncomfortable position because we have to choose — are we Americans, or are we human beings on the planet Earth? If we’re human beings, we need to stand with the rest of the World, against America. Against this aggressor nation. We need to refuse to cooperate. We need to actively prevent the empire from killing our people — the people of the world. We need to join the war, and fight on the side of the people of the world, and against the USA.

This is a profoundly uncomfortable position because if we stand with the people of the world, our lives are at risk. We may be shot, blown up, tortured — killed by the aggressor American empire. If we stand with America, then we are already dead, for we have lost our soul and our humanity to ally ourselves with a monster of murder and domination.

Our position is uncomfortable because you can’t avoid making this choice. To remain silent, to go about our business while the US empire slaughters our people — this is to choose to be an American — to support the empire. Your work, your participation, your money, your silence makes the murder possible.

Now is not the time to be a good American and cooperate, even passively, with military aggression and murder.

If you think you can just wait this war out because it’s against someone else far away, think again. While the US has been building up its troops in the Middle East, the government has been proceeding with plans for a vastly expanded domestic surveillance and security state. In the same way that the US regime seeks total world military domination, the regime must also seek total internal military domination.

The US may be able to attack and defeat Iraq. But history has never permanently rewarded those who use naked military aggression. America’s war is going to unite the entire world against the American empire. When those of us here fight America, we join the rest of the world. And we ultimately struggle for our own liberation, because in seeking total power, the US empire must first defeat and destroy its own people.

500,000 Demand an End to the War

By the time all of you read this, the March on Washington against war in Iraq in late January will have started to recede into distant memory. Right now, we can still hope for peace, but perhaps the United States will have started to bomb Iraq (hey, maybe even North Korea!) by the time this issue of Slingshot hits the stands. Journalism lags behind history, and some might say that the January march will be irrelevant if there’s a war. The reality, though, is just the opposite. Whatever course of action the Bush administration takes, the January 18, 2003, March on Washington will remain a crucial day for the antiwar movement and for radical politics in the United States. For many who were there, it will be remembered as the day that American politics underwent a quantum shift.

The January march — held on one of the most frigid days of a bitter East Coast winter, as though to test people’s reserve —showed once and for all that ordinary American people are not unified around war and empire. Perhaps the most amazing thing about it was simply its size, especially given the news blackout that our media often gives to protests and to demonstrations. The rally filled up about two-thirds of the Washington Mall (the space between the Washington Monument and the Capitol, where Martin Luther King, JR’s, “I Have a Dream” speech was given). At about 1:00, people started marching the two-mile route to the Washington Navy Yard, a neighborhood where a lot of military people live. Three hours later, they were still marching strong, literally packed shoulder-to-shoulder across the wide Washington streets. Organizers estimated that 500,000 people were there; of course “official” estimates were lower. When we reached the top of Capitol Hill, I looked down and it was an amazing sight — the whole massive road full of people marching and carrying signs, and they just kept on coming with no sign that they would ever stop.

People came to Washington from all over the country: New York, Texas, North Carolina, Maine, Vermont, Chicago, Kansas, Washington, Connecticut, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa were just some of the signs that I saw. There were about 25 buses from New York City’s Local 1199/SEIU, the health and hospital workers’ union. People of all ages were at the march, from tons of high school students to the Grey Panthers from Detroit. While liberals have been shrieking about how the marches have been organized by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (A.N.S.W.E.R.), a group affiliated with the Workers’ World Party, it didn’t really seem to make any difference in terms of who came to the march or what it felt like — a sign that some of the people who wish there was a different anti-war movement should just get out there and do some organizing instead of carping and making it harder for the people who are doing the work.

Even more astounding than the size of the crowd was how radical it was. The march was a cross-section of the American population, but it had a sharp class politics. There were lots of signs about the economics and class politics of war: “How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?” “Bush, Iraq is Not Your Ranch.” “I Won’t Kill for Big Oil.” “Draft Jenna and Barbara.” “New Yorkers Against War” (with a big picture of the Twin Towers). “Remember the Maine…was a Lie.” The veterans’ organizations were fired up and noisy. Even the religious groups, of whom there were plenty, carried hard-edged signs: “Who Would Jesus Bomb?” Some people carried “Peace is Patriotic” signs, even some reading “Middle Class Homeowners for Peace” and “Soccer Moms for Peace.” Given the hysteria about A.N.S.W.E.R., such signs were quietly polemical. But they were also in the minority.

The anti-globalization movement and the revitalization of the labor movement helped bring a radical economics politics to the anti-war demonstration. But it also suggested that people aren’t going to experience this new era of war as protecting in their interests. Many people today know perfectly well that a war in Iraq — or Afghanistan, or Pakistan, or anywhere else — isn’t really about them. It isn’t going to make ordinary people in this country any safer or happier. It isn’t going to help them organize unions or get health insurance or find a job or make a living wage. It isn’t even going to protect them against terrorism. It’s just going to ask them to give their lives. The boom is over, the fantasies of the 1990s have gone up in smoke, and most people don’t see how bombing a country on the other side of the globe — let alone sending their kids to kill and die there, or going themselves — is going to make them one iota better off.

For most of American history, our country has had a very strong isolationist, even pacifist, political streak (though it’s also had a strong militarist and expansionist one). As a democracy — however partial — the United States has never been able to throw its people into war without protest. There was a brief window during which this was different: the Golden Age of the post-war boom, when the Korean and then Vietnam Wars were entered without much noise. Today, however, after twenty years of laissez-faire cruelty, it is pretty clear to everyone that the interests of the American empire and of ordinary working class Americans have nothing to do with each other any more. War, throughout history, has been a catalyst to broad, even revolutionary, social changes. The Civil War freed the American slaves. The First World War toppled the Tsar. The movement against the Vietnam War brought Richard Nixon down and helped spark the feminist and gay rights movements. Today, our quick wars seem easier to fight, and each one that we fight makes the next one seem easier. But in the end, there are always consequences. No one, not even the American elite, is immune to history. The March on Washington showed just how fragmented the supposed “consensus” of our country really is, and it suggested, for the first time in recent history, that if there is a war, more in American society may change than any of our leaders anticipate.

Coming back to New York City from the march, the city’s politics seemed fundamentally different. The whole city seems to be becoming politicized. A new demonstration is announced every day. Unions are taking resolutions against war. Calls for volunteers to help build the march on February 15th are going up on dozens of e-mail lists. There are antiwar stickers on phone booths and subway platforms. Restaurants offer “Antiwar Specials” (they seemed to be Mexican foods). Strangers with peace buttons are on the train and in the streets. One weekend, tens of thousands of “Win Without War” leaflets appeared all over the city, tucked into newspaper boxes and pasted to lampposts. People are calling up to peace groups, asking for posters and signing their names to petitions. Connections seem clearer, too: Every homeless person, every person begging for food, every child failing in school, every New Yorker without insurance — the money that could house and feed and heal them is going instead to war.

In the days after September 11th, there were vigils and demonstrations in Union Square downtown, dozens of chains of people holding hands and singing and crying for peace. I’ve thought about them these past few weeks, since the March on Washington. In some ways, living in a city that has been bombed helps us to see how fragile and precious the city is, how easily it is destroyed in an instant. If the March on Washington is any indication, there may be more and more Americans who are committed to making sure that it does not happen in our name ever again. And if enough people take this idea seriously enough, the whole course of our history seems more open than it has for some time.

I moved out to the San Francisco Bay Area about a year and a half ago with two years of organizing under my belt and high hopes of utopian radicalism I was sure would transform me. What I found was swarms of liberals, separate group of judgmental disillusioned activists, and dozens of the most boring marches and rallies I have ever attended.

As a disillusioned black bloc stylist and an initiator of radicalism in the East I was deeply disappointed and unsure of how to approach organizing in an environment that felt so foreign and stagnant.

After hearing about the protest on January 18 I was delighted to spot a blac block flier for a breakaway march (laughing at the “wear comfortable black clothing”) I felt optimistic. I decided to break out my old bandanna, bring along my camera, wipe the dust from my action first aid kit, and lend my voice and body to the anarchist tradition I’d been missin’.

My first impression of the masses that filled San Francisco was positive. Although numbers were not as impressive as those in Washington, DC. The streets were swarming with a general mood that held more determination and militancy than I had expected. Organizers estimated 200,000 were in attendance.

When the breakaway march began we were a mixed group of blac block, pink block, punks, radicals without stylistic statements, and confused liberals who were unaware of their fate. We were 1000 strong in the beginning and ended with approximately 200 after a militant tour of San Francisco that visited the financial center, smashing windows and graffitting symbols of US. oppression and capitalist filth, such as, the SF Chronicle, CitiCorp, Victoria’s Secret (has anyone figured out what it is yet???), the INS building, and the anarchist delight-Starbucks. Two were arrested and no injuries were reported.

I left the escapade excited, my head whirring with thoughts and questions. The militancy, size, and organization of the march was impressive and reassured me that the anti-capitalist community is indeed growing. Clearly, January 18, 2003 was an important turning point. Still, I was left with the same questions that I always have after smashing up a city…what next? What else?

How many newspaper boxes must we knock over before war is ended? How many windows must we smash before we effectively smash the state?

While the march was successful and inspiring I also worry that the most radical and militant of us are not using our energies to “push the envelope” as the saying goes. That there is a lack of discipline and focus.

The police reaction to the breakaway march left an uneasy impression on me. Their presence was minimal and I was completely awed at how we were left to do our bidding with minimal annoyance from law enforcement.

It made me think about how change is never comes without sacrifice and struggle. We are on the verge of a shift in consciousness and with the inspiration of mass demonstrations and militant anti-capitalist marches, it is time for us to step forward and carry our message forth in new and creative ways.

We have to use the momentum and vigor to inspire those in fear to step forward and defy. The reward is worth the sacrifice. A lock down on a bridge, a hunger strike in a school hallway, strategic blockades…creative and daring declarations of conviction in different places every day, everywhere-each one inspiring and giving courage to those too afraid to stand up; this is what it will take to move forward. It is the daring action of one person that has often inspired mass movements.

Block up February 16 but take it a step forward and stand up as individuals or in groups and disrupt, speak up, and push for a new world with creativity and militancy the next day as well.

Tree Sits

Dragon fly, wren, fireweed, lupine, sequoia, butterfly…

Are these names of forest-dependant species? Yes, in a manner of speaking…They are the arboreal dwellers of the Homo sapien variety who are standing-and sitting-strong to defend the remaining old growth trees. And then there are the names they have given their host trees: Luna, Mariah, Moment, Marvelous, Mesmerize, Jezebel, Jerry… A tree named Jerry?! Its not for me to second-guess the inter-species relationships that develop. Those bonds are deep and give strength to those riding out 50-mph winds and torrential rains under flimsy tarps on a 4-ft. by 6-ft. platform.

The tactic of tree-sitting has blossomed in recent months on California’s north coast. Most tree-sits rotate people through, and while Pacific Lumber Company (PL) employed climbers have dismantled some, a few have been up for extended periods of time. Remedy celebrated her 28th birthday in the tree Jerry on Jan. 3, about 2 weeks prior to her 10-month anniversary. Wren, a young woman from New Jersey, climbed into her perch within shouting distance of Remedy last May, and Mystique, who climbed a tree in September still remains aloft.

Those three women are in the Freshwater watershed, home to the majority of the tree-sits. There are also sits in the Mattole, on Gypsy Mountain (where activist David Gypsy Chain was killed by an angry logger in 1998) and in nearby Grizzly Creek where PL is logging in occupied marbled murrelet habitat.

PL climbers recently dismantled a tree-sit in the company’s “Demonstration Forest” where old growth trees are being logged nearly across the road from the Avenue of the Giants. Tree-dwellers are holding strong there since early November, riding through assaults from PL employees, confiscation of gear, and on Nov. 16, the physical extraction of two young forest defenders from high in trees. PL’s climber Eric strapped harnesses on the two while they were naked, used pain compliance holds and lowered them down to the waiting cameras of other PL workers. After spending three weeks in jail with an outrageous $100,000 bail, 19-year-old “Abstract” Jane Marsh, along with her colleague Jaime who likewise spent 3 weeks incarcerated, filed a complaint against the climbers and Pacific Lumber. Prominent political attorney Tony Serra has taken their case.

The art of arboreal living has deep roots, as it were, both in the eco-direct action movement and otherwise. The aboriginal tree people of New Guinea called Mava live in tree houses 75 feet up and developed a sophisticated yodeling-like language to call from tree to tree. The Efe, an African pygmy tribe climb trees to gather fruit, and often gather in the canopy in numbers approaching two dozen, using vines to bridge their way between trees. Malaysia’s Dayak people are expert tree climbers and similarly employ direct action to defend their forests against destructive development.

Earth First! pioneered the tactic in the ancient Douglas fir forest of central Oregon’s Millennium Grove in 1985, when a rock climber, arriving on the scene to see what he could do to help, adapted the gear and techniques of his sport to tree climbing.

Tree-sits are rarely about one tree, and bring a powerful symbolism to any forest campaign, as well as mainstream support, fascination, magic and heart. There is no more powerful way to exhibit a commitment to the forest than to embrace it as it holds you in its branches while its family falls around it. The level of risk and personal sacrifice is a statement of the urgency of an issue that needs no verbal articulation. There are also great rewards. Life in the canopy brings one close to a world most of us never have the privilege of observing. There are species, like tree voles, that rarely venture to the ground-a whole community of flora and fauna that is endemic to the forest canopy.

But what the sitters also bear witness to, all too often, is huge trees crashing to the forest floor, shaking their own tree, and low-flying helicopters creating wind storms high in the branches as they haul trees out on long cables. Tree-sitting is a tactic that is not an end unto itself, but an awesome act of commitment and courage that brings us all closer to our goals. Support your local tree-sitter!

Tree sits always need material support (gear, food, batteries), money for cell phone bills and ground support. For information, call North Coast Earth First! at 707-825-6598 or visit www.tree-sit.org.