Category: Articles

2000 to see international actions against capitalism

This May 1st, thousands of activists in dozens of countries are expected to simultaneously disrupt business as usual in what could be the largest international anti-capitalist mobilization in years. Following in the afterglow of Seattle, and coordinated by a loosely knit coalition that staged over 100 simultaneous protests in over 40 countries against economic globalization last June 18, the global mobilization includes a call for a General Strike on May Day, which falls on a Monday this year. In San Francisco, planning is underway for a creative, colorful and effective action against the capitalist forces which are destroying the earth’s environment and emiserating workers both here and abroad. Across the US and around the world, the days leading up to May 1 will feature a rich quilt of anarchist and workers picnics, forums, gatherings and the like.

Every year, May Day, known as International Workers Day in many countries, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world for liberation and justice. Ironically, in its place of origin, the United States, May Day has little or no significance to people in their everyday lives.

Many think May Day has something to do with the changing of the seasons and can conjure up vague visions of Maypole celebrations happening in a pasture somewhere in Europe. Some think it has to do with celebrating a season of fertility and rebirth. (This is Beltane the festival of fertility in many earth-centered religions). For others, it brings to mind extravagant military parades past the Kremlin celebrating Red power-a Communist holiday.

Most of us educated in state run schools have never heard a word about May Day and its origins. Even a chapter devoted to labor history and the labor unions is a rare occurrence. In fact, the events of May Day and the execution of the Chicago anarchists, spokespeople of the movement for the eight hour workday, mobilized many generations of radicals and continues to reverberate today. Emma Goldman, in her autobiography, Living My Life points to the Haymarket massacre as her political birth.

It all began over a century ago when the American Federation of Labor adopted a resolution that “eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s labor from and after May 1st 1886.” With workers forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly. In the months prior to May 1st, thousands of organized and unorganized workers, members of the Knights of Labor and of the American Federation of Labor, were drawn into the struggle.

In Chicago, the main center of agitation where the anarchists were in the forefront of the labor movement, 400,000 alone went out on strike for the 8 hour day. In the months leading up to May 1, two anarchist labor organizers, Albert Parsons and August Spies addressed crowds of thousands, making themselves the targets of the newspapers who called for “a communist carcass for every lamp post”.

Seeing class struggle and the strike as its most powerful weapons, the AFofL demanded an eight hour work day as a means of organizing the nation’s workers into a fighting force. Despite fierce resistance by industrialists, the press, and other contending forces within the labor movement, most working people supported the eight-hour day and were prepared to walk out for it.

On the morning of May 1, 1886, armed Pinkertons, militia and national guard were ready to put down what they thought would be a workers insurrection. However, all this preparation for violence was a waste of time -a parade and festivities took place without any trouble.

Two days later, at another meeting of striking workers outside the McCormick harvester plant, things were just breaking up with about 200 people remaining when police charged in and started shooting workers in the back as they tried to flee. Outraged by this vicious police attack, Albert Parsons circulated a flyer calling for a meeting at Haymarket Square in Chicago.

The crowd for the demonstration was larger than expected. After beginning to disband because of a storm that was brewing, the police started marching on the crowd. Suddenly somebody in the crowd threw a bomb at the police, killing seven.

Although it was never determined who threw the bomb, the incident was used as an excuse to attack and scapegoat anarchists and the labor movement in general. In the middle of a police reign of terror, union leaders and suspected radicals were randomly arrested without charge-“make the raids first and look up the law afterwards.” Anarchists in particular were harassed and eight of Chicago’s most active were charged with conspiracy to murder in connection with the Haymarket bombing. The martyrs, all anarchists-Albert Parsons, August Spies, Samuel Fielden, Michael Schwab, George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Louis Lingg, and Oscar Neebe-were found guilty despite a lack of evidence connecting any of them to the bombing. Neebe received 15 years while the others were sentenced to die. The day before the execution date, Fielden and Schwabs’ sentences were commuted while 21 year old Lingg committed suicide by using a dynamite cartridge which he placed in his mouth before lighting the fuse. As an anarchist, he did not recognize the right of the state to take his life and therefore decided to take it on his own.

On November 11, 1887, known the world over as “Black Friday” by anarchists, Parsons, Spies, Fischer, and Engels stood on the gallows. Under his hood, Spies spoke his final words, “The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voice you strangle today.”

In 1888, the AFL set May 1st, 1889 as a day of action for the eight-hour day. The following year, the newly formed International Association of Working People voted their support, and workers all over Europe and America demonstrated by holding meetings and parades to celebrate the eight hour workday. This was the birth of the International May Day, still celebrated all over the world.

Despite its setbacks in the U.S., May Day is still embraced by millions of workers in every country of the world as a day to raise class demands and show the strength of the working class as a whole. Why not reclaim May Day as our own, and reject the government milk sop “Labor Day” way off in September, with which workers have no connection.

It’s hardly a shock that the state, capitalist leaders and media would want to keep the true history of May Day hidden from the people. After all, it is an opportunity to show that the conscious organization of the working classes is a potent revolutionary force, the thought of which has haunted bosses and the ruling classes the world over. By reclaiming May Day for the workers of today we are reminding the ruling elite just how very vulnerable they really are.

Today more than ever, there is a need for a universal day of rage and hope and solidarity. May Day is that day.

Folks are still getting things organized, so this list will expand and get more detailed . . .

United Kingdom

Massive action in London to celebrate diverse struggles against capitalism, exploitation, and destruction of the planet, preceded by a four-day gathering starting April 28th, including workshops, speakers, discussions, a bookfair, a film festival, Critical Mass, plans for a permanent social center, etc

Manchester and Sheffield are also organizing events.

New York City

May Day parade, including actions and celebration.

San Francisco

Action in downtown against capitalist targets; celebration and a picnic. sfmayday2000@yahoo.com

Washington, DC

After the city gets shut down on April 16 when the IMF and the World Bank are in town, DC will be ready for a cool May Day celebration including: music, food, speakers, workshops, tables from liberatory organizations, etc.

Chicago

Marches and unified protest downtown, with actions, shut-downs and anti-capitalist carnival. Possible targets include major corporations, the Board of Trade, maybe the whole city.

New Orleans

Rally and march in Congo Park including an autonomous anarchist section.

Eugene, Oregon

May Day action and celebration.

Gainsville, Florida

Camp-out in the Everglades, labor video festival, parade/dance/cavort event, a speak-out and celebration to be held on pirate radio, and a workday to make puppets and other crafty displays.

Olympia, Washington

May Day celebration.

Phoenix, Arizona

Carnival against capitalism.

Dostoyevski said “The degree of civilization in a sociey can be judged by entering its prisons”.

In a couple of more months we will enter the year 2000. Everyone is expecting or hoping for some kind of change in universal awareness. What I hope to change is society’s ignorance concering rape inside of prisons.

This type of rape is largely unknown or overlooked by thr general public. Most government, state and prison officials that are in authority to do something about it either approach it with a lack of emotional responce, or ignore it in hopes that it will go away, therefore leaving the problem unsolved. It then continues and increases and becomes more (rigid.) (entrenched?)

The exact number of rapes in the prison system is unknown due to most not being reported because of great fear of retaliation. The number is believed to be very high.

Rapes are done by other prisoners as well as the guards hired to watch over the prisoners. It is accomplished by use of physical force, verbal threats or promises of rewards. Threats and rewards that would br viewed as petty or taken for granted (not taken seriously?) by those in the free world.

Prisoners have been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced for a crime that was committed, then sent to prison as punishment. Not sent to prison to become another victim in the world. Even though some people may think that the prisoner deserves whar s/he gets. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.

A group of French women made a statement against rape at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women in 1976, “Legally, rape is recognized as a crime with physical aspects only; namely the penetration of the vagina by the penis against the will of the victim. In effect, however, the real crime is the annihilation

In his latest effort to militarize Oakland, after having given the police a green light to police in the War on Crime and inviting the Marines to town to do exercises, Jerry Brown is now pushing for the creation of an Oakland Military Academy that will put youth on the fast track to military service as an alternative to normal middle school and high school.

The proposed public charter school Academy, which could open as soon as this Fall, would be run by the California National Guard and would have students wear uniforms, run through military drills, and even take field trips to the rifle range. The old Oakland army base has been mentioned as a possible location.

The idea is being pushed heavily by Mayor Brown and by City Manager Robert Bobb who has said it will provide “educational choices to students and parents.”

“It would instill discipline and leadership,” says Brown.

The idea is patterned after the Virginia Military Institute in Richmond, Virginia, the first city in the country with a public military academy. Bobb was city manager in Richmond before being brought to Oakland, so it must have been his idea. One of his sons attended the Virginia Institute.

The idea already has $1.3 million in seed money from Governor Gray Davis and may have close to $10 million since Brown lobbied federal officials in Washington D.C. in January.

The military school is part of a “specialized schools” proposal by Brown and Bobb which includes a selective admissions “academic” high school for math and science, and a music and arts school. The Academy would be co-ed and include students from 6th grade through high school. One hundred and sixty 7th graders would make up the first class.

Brown who is probably using this as his latest stunt in plans to run for senator or president has said the Academy “will be a place of high achievement.” The School Board has not yet considered the proposal.

Police invaded the National Autonomous University of Mexico and arrested more than 700 students on February 7, 2000. University and high school students and faculty have been striking since August 20, 1999, when they occupied all 36 campuses. Protestors had six demands, principally: continued free education and repeal od the Reforms of 1997 that limit the time a student has to complete a degree.

The engineering school wanted to do their part in the struggle so they borrowed a transmitter, bought some equipment and went on the air. On April 28th La Que Huelga was born. With 30 watts they covered southern Mexico City. They organized democratically with as much community participation as possible. After two months the government began to interfere, especially during critical news. Police shut down the radio during the February 7 attack; those found inside the station are still in jail since radios fall under the jurisdiction of the army and operation is a serious crime.

During the occupation, students taught classes, held forums and congresses and lead huge marches of tens of thousands. The students tried to negotiate with the government but the government would not do so in good faith. Mass protests continue in support of the 173 still in jail.

Everybody knows something that other people would like to learn. Want to share your skills and learn about automechanics, beekeeping, and making soap out of waste fryer grease? Want to learn about electronics repair but can’t sit through a lecture course at your community college? Come to Berkeley May 18-21 for a hands-on free DIY Skillshare! Over 50 workshops have been confirmed, and more will come, on topics ranging from welding to seed saving to knife throwing to raising activist kids without fear!

The basic vision for the gathering is to bring together techniques, ideas, and examples of locally based, human-focused, accessible alternatives to the current corporate consumerism-oriented culture. A special emphasis is being placed on empowering women in the trades, in hopes that other women trying to break into the trades won’t have to go through all the bullshit experienced by some of the organizers. Modeled after previous skillshares like Born of Fire, the gathering will continue the expansion of the punk DIY ethic beyond zines, shows and bands.

There will be a secure shop space with carpentry and metalworking tools; the organizers are looking for donations of additional equipment. A lot of materials will be salvaged to keep the conference low-cost. There will be a display and plans available for DIY hardware and tools. Some of the equipment made on site will be donated to local community groups.

Workshop topics range from utterly wacky to the extremely practical. Think about what you can share! A zine made will be made of all the literature available during the workshops, to send to folks who can’t come.

Get in touch!

DIY Skillshare Gathering

PO Box 4934

Berkeley, CA 94704

Voicemail: (510) 496-2740 x 3957

Skillshare@onebox.com

When the SF Chronicle erroneously reported that UC Berkeley was considering building an \”urban village\” on People\’s Park in Berkeley, which was supposedly discussed in a secret working paper on UC Berkeley\’s \”New Century Plan\”, it got us thinking. People\’s Park has been a pain in the University\’s side since students, radicals and community members took it away from the University in 1969 and planted as a park.

The park is a living monument to one of the University\’s greatest defeats. It proves that although powerful, the University can\’t get away with anything it wants in Berkeley. Although in 1969 police shot fleeing demonstrators in the back with shotguns, although the National Guard was called out to occupy Berkeley, and despite the passage of 31 years since these events, the Park remains and the University is no closer to being physically capable of building a dorm there than it was in 1969. The People put their bodies on the line and beat the University and the cold-hearted system it represents.

Every few years the University or the city float some idea to \”reclaim\” the Park by building dorms or something else there. In 1991, when the University anted to turn the park into volleyball courts, police again fired at fleeing crowds, that time with rubber and wooden bullets, and a few short years later, the volleyball courts had to be removed due to total disuse and constant vandalism.

Proposing an \”urban village\” is the latest great idea. Slingshot doesn\’t know what an \”urban village\” is, but it sure sounds nifty, doesn\’t it? A lot better than proposing a regular old \”dorm.\” We envision mud and grass huts-the newest straw bale construction technology-around a central village square where natives play simple computerized instruments and care for genetically engineered farm animals.

In celebration of the 31st anniversary of People\’s Park, to be celebrated on April 30 with a street fair, concert and educational events, Slingshot presents the following history of People\’s Park for your enjoyment and education.

At the start of 1969, the site that is now People\’s Park was a dirt parking lot. The university had bought the property for new dorms in the mid-60s but then after demolishing the wood frame houses that had been on the lot (which had, coincidentally, formed a home base for many radicals which the UC Regents wanted out of Berkeley) the university never built the dorms. In the spring of 1969m after it had sat empty for some time and become an eyesore, community members decided to build a park on the lot.

Building the park mobilized and energized many of the hippies, street people, activists and regular Berkeley citizens who participated. They were doing something for themselves, not for profit or for bosses. Hundreds of people worked hard putting down sod, building a children\’s play ground and planting trees. From the beginning the ideal was \”user development\”-the people building a park for themselves without university approval, planners, etc. Seizing the land from the university for legitimate public use was and is the spirit of the park.

After the initial construction on April 20, negotiations with the university over control of the park continued for about three weeks. For a while it looked like a settlement could be reached but suddenly the university stopped negotiating and in the early morning on May 15 moved police into the park. A rally protesting the fence was quickly organized in Sproul Plaza on the UC campus. In the middle of the rally, after a student leader said \”lets go down and take the park,\” police turned off the sound system. 6,000 people spontaneously began to march down Telegraph Avenue toward the park. They were met by 250 police with rifles and flack-jackets. Someone opened a fire hydrant. When the police moved into the crowd to shut off the hydrant, some rocks were thrown and the police retaliated by firing tear gas to disperse the crowd.

An afternoon of chaos and violence followed. Sheriff\’s deputies walked through the streets firing into crowds and at individuals with shotguns. 128 people were admitted to hospitals that day, mostly with gunshot wounds. James Rector, a spectator on a roof on Telegraph Avenue, was shot and died of his wounds a few days later.

The day after the shootings, 3000 National Guard troops were sent by then Governor Reagan to occupy Berkeley. A curfew was imposed and a ban on public assembly was put into force. Mass demonstrations continued and were met with teargas and violence by the police. 15 days after the park was fenced, 30,000 people marched peacefully to the park, and active rebellion against the fence subsided. The fence stayed up until it was finally ripped down during demonstrations in 1972.

The prison population in the United States reached two million people in February, and it continues to expand rapidly, seemingly unrelated to and disconnected from any effective crime control goals. The US has the world\’s highest incarceration rate per capita and also has the largest prison population in absolute terms. With less than 5 percent of the world\’s population, the US now has one quarter of the world\’s prisoners.

The expansion of the US prison population is not due to violent offenders being locked up, although every politician justifies \”get tough on crime\” policies as a solution to the threat of random criminal violence. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the thousands of new people imprisoned each year are either drug offenders-dealers and even those busted for simple possession-or drug users committing property crimes to support their expensive habits. Approximately 85 percent of arrests in Baltimore, for instance, are either directly or indirectly attributable to drugs. Eighty-five percent of the increase in federal prisoners from 1985 to 1995 were drug offenders. Police arrest more than 1.5 million people per year for drug offences, including 700,000 per year for marijuana possession or sale. Mandatory sentencing laws have all contributed to the rise in incarceration.

Spiraling incarceration rates are disproportionately and unfairly targeting racial minority populations-almost one in three African-American males born today will be sent to prison. Although only fifteen percent of the nation\’s cocaine users are African-American, approximately proportional to the Black population in the US, African Americans comprise 40 percent of the people criminally charged with powdered cocaine violations, and 90 percent of those convicted on crack charges. 74 percent of those receiving prison sentences for drug-possession are non-white, although whites use far more drugs than minorities.

The War on Drugs has completely failed to stop drugs from being used and traded in the United States, despite enormous costs both in human lives and money wasted in prisons. According to Drug Enforcement Agency estimates, less than 10 percent of drugs are seized by government officials, despite $50 billion per year spent on the War on Drugs.

Despite the War on Drugs, illegal drugs are easier for kids to get than alcohol. Almost 90 percent of high school seniors, for instance, have consistently reported that marijuana was \”very easy\” or \”fairly easy\” to obtain in annual studies from 1975 to 1998.

And the War on Drugs hasn\’t even made drugs more expensive. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, heroin and cocaine prices have consistently dropped since 1980, as the Drug War has intensified. At the same time, drug purity, along with overdoses, injuries and death, have increased.

As the incarceration crisis intensifies, it\’s time to consider alternatives: getting rid of inflexible mandatory sentencing laws and implementing harm reduction to replace the War on Drugs. Harm reduction, including needle exchange programs, drug treatment, and alternatives to incarceration which breaks up families and communities, aims to deal with drug use and abuse by attacking the harms drug use causes, rather than attacking people who use drugs. A California Department of Health study found that for each dollar spent on treatment saves 7 dollars in other social costs. Yet despite this calculus, there isn\’t enough spending to give meaningful access to treatment programs. Drug addicts need access to treatment on demand, without waiting lists.

Hypocritical politicians want to continue locking up non-violent drug offenders for a long period of time hoping it will somehow accomplish what an 80 year war on drugs, with trillions of dollars spent and millions of people imprisoned, has failed to do. Does George Bush, widely reputed to have used cocaine and other drugs and a fierce advocate of the War on Drugs, really believe that he would have been better off if he had been thrown into prison a few years back when he was \”young and irresponsible\”?

I\’ve written this article for many reasons, but the most important reason of all is to make contact with the outside world. I\’m incarcerated, therefore, I\’m being denied many of the liberties that you outside the place take for granted, specifically freedom and the right to uncensored communication with the outside world. People in this country continually tout the virtues of living in this, so called, \”free society,\” but they don\’t really understand what freedom is until it is taken away. Since freedom is one of the most important God given rights we have, I felt it necessary to write this article so that I can begin an uncensored dialogue with you on the outside.

Why this dialogue is necessary is because many people all over the world think that they are free from all the repressive actions that their governments take against those citizens that they incarcerate, particularly here in the United States of America, and just because the incarcerated persons are supposed to be what the government calls \”criminals,\” society thinks its okay whatever the government does to them. But those of you who feel that way better take a look at what is going on around you because what they do to those of us who are incarcerated, they will soon be doing to you. I\’d like to share both my personal experiences with being incarcerated as well as occasional soliloquies on what is happening in the world and how it parallels the repressive measures the politicians continue to impose both on its incarcerated and free citizens.

I know there will be many of you who feel that whatever happens to me I deserve because I\’m incarcerated, but if you feel that way, the you should, at the least, have the nerve to investigate my claims and find out for yourself what kind of person I am so that you can make your own determination of whether or not I\’m a \”fellow human being\” or a \”menace to society\” like the politicians try to make me and all other persons incarcerated out to be. Don\’t simply rely on a politician to tell you that I should be here, or that I shouldn\’t be treated like a \”human being\” wile I\’m here just because I\’m incarcerated. If you do just a little research on the last several political campaigns that you happen to hear about or participated in, you will find that the politicians always play on the fears of people about crime whether it was real or imagined simply to win an election. Most politicians use crime as a political issue because it is \”politically correct\” to do so. It is a win-win situation because all the candidates can chant the same mantra (get tough on crime) and have a winning issue. The politician will take one incident of a crime and make everyone in society think that crime is running rampant, but in reality it was only an isolated incident. Since society rewards politicians by electing and re-electing them because of the crime issue, then people like myself suffer because that politician then begins to implement more repressive measures. One thing society doesn\’t understand is that the more they reward politicians for making repressive laws, the more all free people\’s liberties will eventually be trampled on.

Here is one example of how the repressive laws that the politicians make for prisoners affect your liberty. When DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid or Genetic Fingerprinting) was found to be more unique than fingerprints to positively identify individual people, the politicians began to require all prisoners to have their genetic fingerprints placed on record so that if any prisoner\’s DNA was found at an old crime scene or future ones, then that prisoner can be charged with that crime, and that seemed like a good law, but son after that law was implemented many politicians began to examine how else that DNA fingerprinting could be used.

The mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, in the beginning of 1999 ordered his police force to start taking DNA samples from anyone who was arrested. This move certainly will open the doors soon enough for everyone to be tested because if a person who is just arrested can have DNA taken from them, then what will stop them from taking it from people that they just stop for minor traffic violations? Whatever happened to the person being arrested declared \”innocent until proven guilty?\” If the New York police department can get away with taking DNA from people they suspect of committing a crime, then how much longer will it be before they just take it under general traffic stops? Once society accepts people being DNA fingerprinted without even being convicted of a crime, then what will stop them from requiring it from everyone? Certainly these tactics could sound like something that could only have existed in Nazi Germany. However, this is going on in the United States of America right now!

Since society doesn\’t think DNA fingerprinting is a problem for people who haven\’t been convicted of a crime, then wouldn\’t it make sense to test everyone in the United States of America? Wouldn\’t that help to solve all the unsolved murders and rapes, or at least the guilty person or persons wouldn\’t be able to stay in this country because of the fear of being tested. Better yet, why don\’t the governments of the world test the whole world\’s population and then all unsolved murders and rapes would be solved. But don\’t think DNA fingerprinting use would stop there.

What about using it to detect genetic flaws so that parents could abort their \”genetically flawed children\” before they are born, or the knowledge can be used to cut medical care cost by detecting who will have expensive diseases at they age, then they can be charged accordingly while they are healthy enough to pay for it. Don\’t think these actions won\’t come about. The government doesn\’t have any problem implementing any of these scenarios if you sit back and allow them to do it. The things I\’ve mentioned may seem extreme or even far fetched, but the DNA fingerprinting Pandora\’s box has been opened, and it started with a law politicians introduced solely to affect prisoners, but now it is affecting society as a whole. The more politicians get rewarded (getting elected and re-elected) by society for making repressive laws, the more all free peoples\’ liberties will eventually be trampled on.

Freedom in this country and around the world is becoming less of a reality simply because the people are giving them up for the illusion of being safe from crime. This crime issue is a \”false issue\” created by politicians. The more they make society think crime is running rampant, the more of your freedoms are taken away. Since people are so willing to give up many of their personal freedoms just because of a politician claiming that that is what is necessary to prevent crime, then I have to do my best to sound the alarm because I know first hand that the politician is a liar and will do anything to get what he/she wants. This article was written in order to show you how what they do to me affects the rights you think you have as a free person in society. Since I\’m incarcerated, I can tell you how the repressive laws they create for me parallel the ones they are creating for you, but to stop them you must become actively involved with groups that oppose the politicians that are creating the repressive laws.

Feel free to correspond with me. Any correspondence will be appreciated and promptly answered.

Tyronne Glenn #AM-6697

Drawer – K

Dallas, Pennsylvania 18612-0286