Category: Articles

By Jose Fritz 

InfoShop, 30th Anniversary Zine

16 pages thelonghaul.org/

Only a few weeks ago I heard that NCLT, the landlord of Long Haul community space (and by extension the landlord of all the community groups that use their space), intends to demolish their building to make way for an 8-story, mixed use office building they’ve already branded Woolsey Gardens. So I fear for the future of Long Haul, Info shop, and Slingshot… but also East Bay CoHousing, the Needle Exchange, the Sunrise Movement, the Anarchist Study Group, East Bay Food Not Bombs, and the Reprographixxx Print Room. 

It was only in the Summer of 2022 that a proper real estate joke graced us for this very occasion. “Landlord and landlady are needlessly gendered words. Please be more inclusive by using landbastard instead.” At this point, even former 1960s hippies are vigorously extracting surplus value from whatever assets they control… turfing out community groups, and gentrifying neighborhoods. There seems to be no escape from this late-stage capitalist hellscape. 

But those are my worries. The 30th Anniversary Zine takes a calmer, longer view of the merciless march of change. An anonymous writer described the mood in the space over a few days and describes a busy, beehive-like place with unfinished zines laid out all over tables, screen-printed shirts stacked on every available flat surface — drying, people outside; waiting for the door to be unlocked — for food drop off, and library book returns. The space sounds alive, and vibrant like something with the weed-like persistence to grow back after it’s been cut down.

There are People Destroying the Atlanta Forest and They Have Names and Addresses

Free 18 pages

scenes.noblogs.org/post/2023/08/04/

It’s easy to appreciate a zine written with such an explicit sense of purpose. There is not a single word of poetry or prose here. This review is already more verbose. The front page bears the title and the back page reads “We will make our class enemies tremble and bend to our will.” Below it is the URL srycampaign.org. The 16 pages in between are just names and addresses: the mayor of Atlanta, members of the city council, committee members, executive committee members, young executive board members, boards of trustees, Atlanta police foundation (APF) members, investors, bankers, business association members, realtors, attorneys, insurers, construction companies, architects, project managers and even subcontractors. 

The SRY campaign, Defend the Forest and other civic groups operate under the assumption that the Atlanta Police Foundation cannot build Cop City alone. The related campaigns aim to dissuade those parties who would collude, combine and conspire with APF…. and it’s been working. Multiple subcontractors have dropped the expensive and unpopular project due to mounting public pressure and targeted boycotts. 

A first class stamp costs 63¢. Anyone can participate in this kind of direct democratic action. Long live the USPS. 

Cardigan Punk

Free – 14 pages

instagram.com/julestheonly/

I briefly debated the validity of the term “cardigan punk” but Jules quickly won me over. Librarians can be punk and therefore by extension libraries can also be punk. I apologize for my initial reticence. It’s a strange world we live in where rebellion can take the form of defending basic government services and revolutionaries are driven to write zines in defense of public institutions. But if that is where the Maginot line must be drawn, so be it.

In the last year states like Iowa, Florida, and Montana have been banning books from libraries. The most high-profile event was a tiny town in Michigan which actually defunded their library after failing to ban some books about LGBTQ+ people. Multiple school districts in Tennessee and Missouri banned Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus and other holocaust books. Florida schools banned a whole take-out menu of books including a biography of civil rights icon Rosa Parks. This is driven by white nationalism plain and simple. 

Jules wades into this very serious topic with levity and an adorable level of reverence for libraries. She jumps from 1960s civil rights events to little free libraries with a single flip of the page. Perhaps this zine lacks the gravitas of a Rafael Uzcategui Anarchist communique, but there’s room in the library for both.

1001 Ways To Live Without Working (2023 Edition)

15 £ – 22 pages

moved-by-sound.bandcamp.com/merch/

The original 1961 edition of this pamphlet by Tuli Kupferberg sells on antiquarian book markets for a hefty price tag. One might expect the market to be rife with bootlegs but no such luck. Even scans of his work are scarce so I’m happy to review this gem in its native format printed on fresh crisp 20 lb printer paper from a boutique UK label that actually pays royalties to his estate. 

1962 was an entire boomer ago which stands to reason as we’re going to have to talk about one boomer in particular. Tuli Kupferberg is better known as the co-founder of the rock band the Fugs and perhaps to some as a Beat poet. But Kupferberg also was a prolific self-publisher, a zinester by modern standards. He and his wife Sylvia Topp ran the countercultural Birth Press in the East Village during the early 1960s. Birth Press distributed experimental and anarchist literature and poetry. Kupferberg put the Birth Press label on several of his own works: Rub Ya Out of Omore Diem, Pedantic Pamphlet, Swing, Selected Fruits & Nuts and all 10 issues of Yeah Magazine.

By now you’re wondering what 1001 Ways To Live Without Working is? Is it poetry? Is it prose? Oh, you have no idea. This is a type of zine they just don’t make anymore. The Beats were somewhat influenced by dada and other artistic forms of absurdism. It’s formatted one column per page and what follows is 1001 consecutive rows of ridiculous suggestions and only Kupferberg was disciplined enough to be that absurd. His suggestions range from rolling your own cigarettes to burning down the Reichstag. Somewhere around number 970 he writes “Accept yourself; Love life; Be like a little child; Be loved; Ask forgiveness; Go on the road; Stop reading this book & figure it out for yourself.” I think it’s the one real answer in the list.

Bum Lung #2

$5 – 16 pages etsy.com/shop/BumLung

If you remember issue number 1, our protagonist was last seen living in a van, and vigorously dissociating to cope with our feudal tech hellscape. There is a continuity gap and Issue two starts with the pandemic and the George Floyd uprising. Years have passed and we’re in Minneapolis feeling the weight of dead generations and engaged in open conflict with the police and if it wasn’t clear already… Bum Lung is a fan. 

But the narrative is somewhat less coherent than the first issue. There’s a post-vasectomy mystic experience, and a reptilian brain recovery. The dissociation of the past had given way to a terrible sunrise: a stone-cold sober moment in a boarded up squat. They needed to leave the hobo life. 

In 2016 they started an ABO Comix abolitionist project distributing the art of queer prisoners. Bum Lung added an old graffiti tag to the fundraiser: “Be gay do crime.” Excuse my gender neutral grammaring here but they was perhaps all too familiar with the true origin of this graffiti tag. Please do not misunderstand the phase. They has been crystal clear as to what it means. I’ll quote from the infamous interview on the Gender Reveal podcast:

“It comes from a place of joyful queer militancy. I made it when I was living in abandoned houses and eating trash and going out and fighting Nazis and being very very depressed. Not so that these fuckers can sell it alongside Notorious RBG shirts. It absolutely means crime as a means of survival, joy and revolt.”

The phrase became a motto and a mantra to some. It crossed cultural lines at a time that the definition of the word “gender” itself was truly in question. Consequently, it took off and ended up commercialized, sanitized, exploited, re-branded, bought and sold by hucksters the world over. But it also ended up in the Phineas Fisher manifesto so there’s that. But there the zine ends abruptly, without any closure or resolution. But that’s fitting for a creator actively rejecting structural norms and forms. It’s like IO says on that podcast, “Gender? I never touch the stuff.” 

A Brief and Inconclusive History of Protests on San Francisco’s Market Street

#8 – 20 pages  currenteditions.bigcartel.com/

This is a beautiful piece of Risograph work. It features images, quotes, and text documenting 122 years of protest on this one 4.5-mile long street stretching from Embarcadero Plaza to Portola Drive. On a weedy traffic island there is actually a sign that reads “End Market” facing the intersection with a good view of the bay. It’s good weather and you’re not joined by 10,000 protesters, it’s a solid 90 minute walk.

The images are familiar-looking halftone images of densely packed crowds stretching off into infinity down Market street, raised fists, hand-made signs, and cops dragging limp bodies along the pavement. Each image is paired with a short description, like a tag at an art museum. The descriptions are dry and a bit terse but they’re balanced with quotes from protesters and revolutionaries which have a bit more sizzle. 

If you’ve been to the barricades you already know what it looks, smells and sounds like. Those pictures are all up close, in the crowd; fully embedded. They depict the protesters themselves often cropped so close you can’t see the building facades behind them: fists, faces, raised arms and bared teeth. Everyone has the right to protest but it often falls to the oppressed themselves: the transgendered, African Americans, gays and lesbians, the unemployed, the handicapped, women, farm workers, student groups, AIDS victims, immigrants, and workers on strike— Viva la huelga mis amigos. 

Dan Baker: Essays & Letters

$5 – 60 pages etsy.com/shop/

PoisonedCandyPress

As of this writing, Daniel Alan Baker is being held at the Federal Correctional Institute in Memphis, TN. He had the misfortune of being sentenced by the extremely conservative Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump nominee and member of the radical Federalist Society. Dan Baker was sentenced to 44 months in federal prison for posting on social media. It’s hard to parse the irony, but Baker was calling for people to defend the Capitol against an attack from the actual insurrectionists. Some news outlets get this wrong and describe it as an armed “response” but most of his “call to arms” posts were from the months prior. The bulk of the 25-page criminal complaint just fixates on his politics, which largely validates the idea that Baker is a political prisoner.

There are glimmers of Baker’s core self here, where he advocates for others; for the memory of inmate Patrick Rogers, for the protection of fellow Anarchist Eric King who was beaten by skinheads, prisoners like Bobby Sand, Toby Shone and Jessica Reznicek. He writes out whole paragraphs of names, places to donate, where to send letters of support. There is a selflessness here that’s rare in the wild.

But there’s also a very sad part of the zine, under the April 16th entry, where Dan imagines a utopian world. Instead of being inspirational it feels like escapist science fiction. He wanders deep into a heroic fantasy written in the present-tense. I think it’s a place deep in his mind where he’s free from prison life, as he will be again one day.

Pigeon, Issue 3

$10 – 48 pages sybilpress.org

It was a blazing hot day on the asphalt, I was already sunburnt and my attorney was already three lagers into the day at 11:00 AM. But it was the only way to survive the atrocious heat. In a survival situation you can’t be selective about your beverage options. The flea market vendors cooked inside their tents and tried to protect their vinyl LPs as the available shade shrunk to an island directly under the center of each personal canopy. We were all drying out like fish and chips sat under the heat lamp overnight. 

Somehow Norberto Gomez Jr. from Sybil Press looked calm and unbothered by the sun. His hand was cool and dry when I shook it. He cheerfully explained the joys of risograph, and the backgrounds of the writers while I turned red and splotchy, and dripped sweat on his table. He gave the impression, while we were developing sunstroke, that this was but a mote in his eye. He had already endured all the world had to offer. The rusting, 100-year old Municipal Pier Building #40 loomed behind us inert and enduring nothing but the passage of time itself.

I bought the latest issue of Pigeon, which is what it says on the tin… a radical animal reader. It’s rich in radical writing, with mad risograph experiments splashed across its pages. It’s full of odes to alligators, artistic paeans to veganism and an unexpectedly serious article on Dolphin communications. 

My attorney was unfamiliar with risograph, and Gomez happily explained the logistics of the uncoated paper, the colors and the seething tension of discovering what the drum feels like doing when it rotates for the first time and the ink first passes through the voids. The results are imperfect, uneven, and unpredictable. It has some of the qualities of real magic, as much as any still remains in the world.

Fluke, #20

$4.99 – 64 pages flukefanzine.com

This is by far the best edition of Fluke I’ve read. Though I think I’ve said that before. That’s a bold claim after the 19th issue which was all mail art, and the 18th issue and its Aaron Cometbus interview and that piece on train hopping. The 17th issue was already really good, I liked that interview with Nate Powell. But #16 explained the connection between NXOEED and Fluke, that was like a villain origin story. I remember #15 really spoke to me, it was about aging punk rockers and had a good Ian MacKaye interview. Issue #14 was super obscure; a collection of punk show flyers from Little Rock, Arkansas that was wild. #11 and #13 also had sections about the Little Rock Punk scene, I really dig that. 

I could probably just keep going. Has there been a weak issue of Fluke? As early as 2012, around issue #12 Razor cake wrote that “Fluke never disappoints.” That was probably how I first heard of it. 

So let me rephrase, Issue #20 maintains that legacy of true greatness. The Mike Watt interview is rambling, and borderline incoherent which is really on-brand for him. The story about Marcher Errant sneaking into the catacombs below the streets of Paris was top notch. It goes on: road trips, mixtapes, piss drinkers, skateboarding in the desert… it goes on and stretches out to the horizon. 

Rite or Riot – Issue #31

Naomistine28@gmail.com

I reviewed issues 15 & 17 for Slingshot back in October of 2022. That means in a year Naomi has cranked out at least another 14 issues. I do think Naomi is averaging at least one issue per month. Her level of productivity is pretty notable, and possibly diagnostic. I am reminded of other writers afflicted with hypergraphia. First recognized in the 1970s, some of the more famous and prolific writers with the diagnosis are Isaac Asimov, and Lewis Carroll. A more contemporary example would be Naomi Mitchison who has published 90 books to date. 

The last page of each issue I’ve read has one part of a multi-part interview of Naomi by Kristen M. This issue contains part 27 which appears to bridge two topics in this long conversation with a few “yeah’s” and “IDKs” and consequently reveals very little new information. Though the hypergraphia might drive a need for canonical completeness. The interview with Vinicio is much the same, including a verbatim interaction on call quality. “…Can you hear me now?”

This issue continues the format mixing classical music topics and interviews. That’s how you end up with Bad Religion and Strauss on consecutive pages. But the most interesting and enduring zine topic remains the zinestress herself. But only by reading the other 25 segments of that interview can I learn more. 

Municipal Threat, #3

$5 – 72 pages

fluke.bigcartel.com/category/fluke-publishing

The first time I read Municipal Threat I was struck by the odd combination of indie comics and B-movie reviews. The two topics seem unrelated, so the editorial decision is unusual. Most zines either by design or by default stick to a single theme. But I quickly came to appreciate it and explaining why just requires some exposition… 

A long time ago, in a place far away there was a radio DJ named Dan. He was super into Krishnacore as some metal dudes were at the time. On his radio program he played hours of hardcore, back in an era when “hardcore” exclusively meant punk or metal (not EDM, not porn). But every so many songs, Dan would put on a jazz number. Just one track, something calm and mid-tempo. It was jarring to the metal bros, but it served a purpose.

He explained to me that if everything is hard, heavy and fast then nothing is hard, heavy and fast. You become numb to the intensity, and it loses its effect. Municipal Threat’s comics have the same effect. If everything is violent, sadistic and depraved, then nothing is violent, sadistic and depraved. And what are B movies without violence, sadism and depravity? 

As Municipal Threat often illustrates, the je ne sais quoi of slasher movies is that very sense of transgression: the grotesque disembowelments, the raw artless nudity, the explosive diarrhea. If it causes someone to barf into their popcorn at the drive-in, even better. That is the stuff of legend. The films and comics inspire each to cross boundaries and genres. Artist Javier Hernandez’s comic books became a B-movie. And we see it in the comics as well: Frankenstein’s monster fighting dinosaurs, vampires fighting headless torsos, Bigfoot fighting Kareem Abdul Jabar, am I making any of this up? All things are equally possible.

TinderboxIssue #1 – 16 pages

tinderboxjournal@riseup.net

The subtitle on the top fold is “An offline journal of Combative Anarchy” and it’s everything that it says on the tin. I’m sure there is an FBI field agent sitting at 3000 Flowers Road in South Atlanta tasked with reading each issue of this publication. He’s sipping his bitter GSA-approved coffee blend and sniffing a fresh yellow highlighter. That poor bloke. 

So I’ll extend my condolences, it’s a dense exploration of Anarchist politics, and tales of interplay between various radical groups and their various and sundry websites. It’s genuinely hard to parse for a tourist. But I gather from the articles that some of the authors previously worked on the “Night Owls” pamphlets hosted on the website itsgoingdown.org; the most recent of which was April of 2023. You can feel the continuity. Both publications place an emphasis on reporting actions, smashed windows, superglued ATMs, sand in the gas tank, ACAB graffiti… all the classics. 

But the zine also includes some astrology and tales of failed platypus romance. There is some incongruity, it’s a big tent. But to paraphrase a friend of mine “Anarchists that can’t work in groups are secretly Libertarians.” He was kidding, probably. It’s hard to tell with some people. A zine like this is always a group effort, writers, layout, distribution… teamwork makes the dream work.

By Eco-Thang 2

Climate data is hot, there’s no doubt about it. The ability to pressure politicians into creating precise policy that steers us toward the best possible climate outcome? Oh baby, I’m in.

But did you know there are data-negative people out there trying to yuck the yum of our climate data engagement? Personally, I want to ride that data hard, but supposedly “climate-friendly” liberals in the media are saying stuff like, “Don’t look at data, it might stress you out.” This is puritanical rubbish that has the effect of setting up false expectations that climate data is supposed to be painful, which can thwart people from getting in the mood, if you know what I mean.

Here at the Data-Positivity Alliance, we are promoting the reality that climate data can be sexy and fun, as long as we indulge responsibly.

Here are some tips (just the tip!) for responsible engagement with climate data:

Tip #1 – Do It In a Group

One of the best ways to engage with climate data is in groups, such as a reading group where you all read the data and talk about it together in a safe space kind of way. You might try getting creative with this: Rather than a traditional reading group, what if you try holding an improv dance session in which someone is reading a climate data report out loud with musical accompaniment, and you all move your bodies into shapes depending on how the words make you feel? Or what if you have a group project of making a zine artistically showcasing the latest climate data and each person writes about how it makes them feel in the zine and you give it to all your friends and neighbors? Group play is a wonderful way to make the climate data more fun and engaging, and it can also really help to come together to process your emotions with others. There’s no doubt about it: climate data is better in a group!

Tip #2 – Don’t Forget the Humor

A great comedian once said, “If you don’t have gallows humor, all you are left with is the gallows.” Yikes! But also, there’s maybe something to it? Climate comedy advocate Andrew Boyd has argued that there’s a secret 6^th stage of grief that is often neglected, and the name of that stage: Gallows humor. 

Climate humor can take the edge off, and some folks have a much easier time engaging with climate data with humor, mirth, and even a sprinkling of snark. If humor is not your thing, that’s fine, but don’t rain on someone’s parade if they need to crack jokes and use humor and sarcasm to help them stay engaged. 

Grief is also a totally valid reaction too. There’s no one right way to feel about climate data, and engaging with it can lead to all sorts of reactions. Feeling those reactions, and holding space for them, is the first step. 

A great book to use as a guide for those processing their feelings about climate data is Andrew Boyd’s book, I Want A Better Catastrophe: Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humor (2023). As Boyd argues, learning to crack jokes about climate data can be an important step in shaking off our collective inaction so we can steer towards the best outcome that’s still possible. 

Tip #3 – Climate Data and Sex are sometimes intense. And that’s okay.

In sex, we lose ourselves, which is why the French term for orgasm is “petite mort,” meaning “little death.” 

When we look at climate data or have a really good orgasm, there’s a moment of ego-less-ness, a moment that might be wrapped in pleasure, shame, exhilaration, and the desire to scream out all at the same time. Let it out, baby, let it out! Stay with the feelings as they come.

Tip #4 – Practice Consent, and Stay Data-Positive  

Consent is like a bike lane. You might think you have it, but then quite suddenly, you don’t, and it’s important and slow down or stop if that’s the case. 

It’s important to ask folks if they are in the mood to talk about climate data, and even if they are in the mood, they might need to slow things down or stop mid-conversation, and that’s okay.

It can help to explore with a person how they want to interact with climate data, rather than approaching the situation with your preconceived notions of what you think they want. Instead of listening to the data, they might want to share their feelings on the topic instead, or even rant about some bad experiences they had with climate data in the past. If that happens, it’s good to just listen. Sometimes having someone hear them out can help them feel ready to engage with climate data in the future. When that time comes, they might end up not reaching out to you, but rather to a different data-positive person or group in the area. That’s okay! You can know that you helped them on their journey to reach a more empowered place of data-positivity just by hearing them out and by letting them set a boundary.

Tip #5 – Find the clearest, most accurate data possible 

Not all climate data is communicated equally, and sometimes climate data reports are written by exhausted graduate students with the communication skills of a stump. Don’t get bogged down by the low-quality communication skills in some climate data reports. There’s lots of super clear, sexy climate data out there if you know how to look for it. 

For true climate data connoisseurs, we recommend the 2023 IPCC Synthesis Report’s Summary for Policymakers (also known as the IPCC: SYR: SPM). This report is like a finely aged wine. Seven years in the making, climate scientists and policymakers from across the globe agreed on the language of it line-by-line, meaning many passionate, underpaid interns wasted quality hours of their youth making sure the writing and images are clear and easy to understand. This is the good sh*t. You can find it here https://templatelab.com/ipcc-summary-for-policymakers/

Here is our favorite graph from the SYR:SPM:

^ This graph shows how we have some gaps between implemented policies and climate targets right now. If those policy gaps aren’t closed, this planet’s temperature is going to hit some unmentionable numbers (hee hee, unmentionables…). That’s some pretty hot climate data, babe, don’t you think?

Another rather hot climate data source is the Global Carbon Budget Project, which can be found at globalcarbonproject.org. We recommend the “Summary Highlights” section, where you can see quite clearly the present rate of emissions. (It’s a little silly that this site acts as if there is even a carbon budget left, considering we surpassed the dangerous level of 350 parts per million of atmospheric CO2 back in 1988… but hey, we can still try and lubricate the situation by keeping things below 1.5°C, right? Am I right??)

Tip #6. – Don’t Forget to Finish – with Solutions 

Try finishing off every sexy, radical encounter with climate data with some solutions. Be careful that you avoid solutions that don’t make sense, as this can turn into “toxic positivity” that can ruin the whole encounter. (No one likes to be told that everything will be fine unless there’s good reason to believe that.) That’s why it’s important to talk about solutions. There are lots of smart, pragmatic ways to get to net zero while also keeping sight on all of our social justice goals (Spoiler Alert: this is a positive-sum game — the more equity for everyone, the better the climate outcomes that can be achieved). 

Last year, Slingshot published a step-by-step data-backed plan to get to zero emissions within five years, which can be found here: tinyurl.com/ZeroEmissionsPlan. Our plan isn’t the only way to get to zero emissions, but it’s at least one way, and it’s the best we could come up with in time for our publication deadline. This plan is like a jigsaw puzzle with 15 pieces, and if we can collectively put all the pieces into place, we’ll get to net zero within five years. If you’re struggling to find a good way to finish a hot climate data encounter, try going through the plan and having everyone pick which of the 15 tactics is their favorite. This can be a nice way to acknowledge how all of us have different, unique things we can contribute to the project of getting to net zero, while focusing on solutions — and diversity of tactics — can be a great way to leave things on an upbeat note after a hot, sexy climate data encounter. 

Steering towards climate solutions is going to mean working together to build awareness of what’s going on. And that’s where data positivity comes in.

Remember: Consume that climate data responsibly, cute stuff! 😉

And yeah, in case you were wondering, I’m not an Extrovert, I’m an Ecovert. <3

— This message has been brought to you by the Berkeley Center for Half-Baked Ideas 

By Jesse D. Palmer

In the face of climate collapse, brutal wars, rising fascism and increasing economic inequality — when are we going to walk out on our meaningless rat-race jobs that are killing the Earth, enriching our enemies and crushing our spirits? Let’s stop succumbing to the narrative of doom — that it is too late for everything lovely and wonderful about our lives and the world. Even if it is too late, wouldn’t we rather spend our last days struggling for a world worth living in? We’re still alive now, which means we still have choices about how we’ll spend today. How we direct our energy matters in terms of whether our lives are meaningful, focused and pleasurable — and also because directing energy towards those we love, our communities and the earth is our only shot at making the collapses we’re experiencing less dreadful, and perhaps even positive. When systems no longer serving human happiness are cast into chaos or collapse, better solutions can take their place if we build them. 

Okay — let me confess — I want to see a silver lining in the dark clouds, but it’s a struggle. I feel overwhelmed by the violence in Gaza and the grim climate news. Temperature records keep getting shattered but fossil fuels are still dominant. Why can’t people stop killing each other? I don’t want to make a Slingshot issue without some hope or inspiration that somehow we shall overcome… but am I just pretending?

Life and society don’t have to be like this — we shouldn’t accept this shit. There’s nothing terrible about human beings — rather we are curious, creative, caring, fun-loving and passionate. Without the chains our systems and our technologies have forged, our lives could be full of wonder, pleasure and joy. We gotta avoid sorting people into clumsy boxes — oppressors and oppressed — which objectify both. Dehumanization is what allows us to harm and kill each other. 

What is wrong are systems that ignore human values, desires and the Earth. Black and white thinking over-simplifies complex problems — the solutions we need require admitting we don’t know all the answers and being able to stay present with the gray areas.

Writing articles is a form of self-therapy – working out the things that are bugging me such as this floating sense of doom. I want to be as hopeful as the Slingshotcharacter I channel in my articles — but the past few weeks I’ve been spending way too much time checking the internet stoking my anxiety but not doing much concrete other than publishing this zine. Is this what burnout feels like?

Our psychological standpoint matters – is the glass half empty or half full? Not just in terms of whether we feel happy, but in terms of our perception about the situation we’re in, which informs the solutions that seem possible. If we focus on doom, it can put us in a hopeless, isolated and fearful place where we are unable to imagine solutions or a world of abundance and possibilities. What if we start with love and the connected emotion we get while being part of a community? We can acknowledge suffering that is happening in the world and the possibility that we’re doomed but still see that there are billions of people living lives with a measure of happiness, freedom, pleasure and a future — and fight like hell for that life for as many people as possible — including ourselves. 

And yet — I can’t seem to write this article. It feels futile to keep writing Slingshot articles condemning the system while the world around me gets worse and worse. 

Is this zine its own form of rat race?

Constant exposure to our screens feels like it is pushing more people towards a doom orientation — whereas if we based our mood on our lived experiences that aren’t usually so terrible, we might feel more positive. Violence, crisis and catastrophe get more clicks than day-to-day life. It is impossible for internet algorithms to represent millions of people waking up in peace, eating oatmeal, kissing our loved ones, getting the kids off to school, and breathing sweet air while feeling the warm sun. 

These horrors are not our inevitable destiny. Horrible lives and horrible deaths are pathologies – all of us individually struggle to avoid these terrible outcomes, so let’s struggle together to create social structures that value life and dignity. 

I felt so stuck with this article that I said “fuck it” and took work off to go to the beach at Lands End in San Francisco. I don’t want Slingshot to make me feel trapped in a rut. Maybe I should quit and enjoy myself while I still can? 

As I stood in the icy water, I started thinking how when I’m in a grind, my emotions turn towards hopelessness and doom and writing an inspirational article feels fake.  For a couple of hours, I just watched the waves and let my mind go blank. I started feeling a little better and I laughed at how hard it is for me to just exist. I feel like I have to justify myself by doing stuff, but constantly keeping busy feeds my sense of doom… 

When there’s an earthquake, war, fire, hurricane or flood, people spring to action not only to help themselves but also neighbors and strangers. We’re in that moment now — let’s move beyond social paralysis even though the global scale of climate change, capitalism and war feel overwhelming. It is okay to admit we’re not sure what to do or what will help — but do everything we can anyway. Let’s be on the life team — the joy team — the freedom team. Not just in terms of what we fight for — but the way we live our lives and the feeling in our hearts and heads. There’s a lot of reasons to feel doomed right now, but perhaps the darkest moment is before the dawn.

Maybe I should have titled this article “Don’t read this article! — go to the beach.” Is keeping us busy so we’re psychologically unable to imagine or fight for our liberation part of the way the system maintains itself? The system’s imperatives penetrate our consciousness and our activist projects. Standing on the beach is the opposite of drudgery — it feeds a sense of possibility, energy, tenderness and oneness with other humans and creatures.

To avoid burning out so we can stay engaged and present with radical projects, we have to balance all the work with something beyond ourselves and beyond the rat race — the beach, the sky, love, creativity, fun, life. 

By JP, Animal Cracker & Carrion Baggage

People’s Park in Berkeley is still free — a wild community commons surrounded by a grim, privatized, dying empire — beckoning us to join in its defense this winter and beyond. The University of California (UC) has been trying to destroy the Park since it was created in 1969 when thousands of people seized vacant UC land to build something beautiful outside the system. The Park has never been just a nostalgia trip — it nurtures a living grassroots, DIY counter-culture community.

UC’s latest gambit is to build a 1,100 bed, $312 million dorm on the land. After last year’s police attack during which UC police cut down 47 trees in the 12 hours they controlled the Park, Park defenders got a court stay against further construction through a CEQA lawsuit. In response, UC officials and assembly member Buffy Wicks got the California legislature to pass AB 1307 specifically to overrule the Court’s decision. Governor Newsom signed the law in September — he is auditioning for a presidential run.

According to Park defenders: “With the new CEQA laws created by AB 1307, the stay preventing People’s Park from destruction could be lifted at any time. That means we should be planning and preparing for land defense. There are several affinity groups that have specific tactics for Park support or you can form an affinity group with friends you trust and would like to work with.” UC is most likely to attack when students leave for winter break in December and January. 

Beyond playing cat-and-mouse with UC’s police and tearing down their fences, now’s the time to visit the Park. For however long. If it’s too much to bear being there or your time is strapped then go there anyways even for a few minutes. Bring something positive: a friend, plant life, art, a revolutionary idea. If you can’t be in the Park, bring it up in conversation with a friend, when you plant life, make art or have a revolutionary idea. The Park is both symbolic and a real place where the movement grows the new world.

The City and the University have spent years trying to isolate the Park by framing it as dangerous — filled with the homeless (read people of color), drug dealers, ex-cons — people who should be pushed out of sight. Treating humans like trash and having some containment zone where the wealthy beautiful workers don’t have to see them — or drugs, wealth inequality, bad health, mental illness, bad teeth, alcoholism, bad jokes, bad music choices, death, bad fashion, bad attitudes. All are present at the Park — and in society. The hippies and students created the Park and we have maintained it to engage with these problems. Our oppressors have instead created toxic waste, artificial intelligence and promise a life of meaningless work while they endeavor to get us to fight their fucked up wars against people of color worldwide, the Earth, the Park, Russia, Fentanyl — you name it.

As you navigate the Park these days, it’s important to be respectful of everyone drawn there, and to also think strategically towards building a world other than the current dystopian hellscape. Even then, even with all the suffering that has washed ashore in the Park during these strange times, wacky 1960s-era autonomous zone vibes continue to emanate from the space, reminding us all of those Situationist dreams to “seize the means of leisure,” as Mario Savio once put it, in his lesser known speech about People’s Park, in which he also claimed the space is the starting point of the Age of Aquarius.

Some great ways to help: Text SAVETHEPARK to 41372 to get on the text message bulldozer alert list. You will only be texted if there is an urgent call to defend the Park. Every time they try to come take the Park, we can all show up and fuck shit up. 

You can also follow the Park news at various student-led websites that have sprouted up, including PeopleSpark.org and DefendThePark.org. Have eyes on and in the Park. If you see anything that indicates fencing call 510-229-0527 immediately.

Take heart, Park Defenders! There is much still left to defend. The flag of the Resistance still flies.

Forthcoming Podcast Celebrating Black History of People’s Park

Keep an eye out for Bella Volz-Broughton’s forthcoming podcast, “Black Space: An Unknown Black History of People’s Park,” which she announced the launch of at the UC Berkeley Black Studies Collaboratory in September 2023. Video from this scholarly event in which she spoke alongside Dr. Paul Lee can be viewed here: youtu.be/G662UQwaH3U. It is great to see more attention being directed towards Black-led efforts in the co-creation of People’s Park! (H-Cat)

By Earl Tree

From April to June 2023, I was in Hong Kong for personal reasons, part of a first wave of foreigners able to enter the Special Administrative Region (SAR) without restrictions in the aftermath of the 2019 protests, the following crackdown, and the pandemic. I was curious to see what the city was like now after all these massive social changes. Like many, I had been inspired by Hong Kong in 2019 and its brave attempts to defend democracy and autonomy in the face of repression. My trip’s timing coincidentally seemed to be just right, too: I would be in the city during the first May Day and June 4 Tienanmen Square anniversary since the end of the protests and the pandemic. With all the limitations and privileges as a White American tourist who spoke no Cantonese or Mandarin, I was curious: what might happen and what might resistance now look like? 

Hong Kong is a post-colony. British rule ended and was peacefully transferred to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1997 under a Joint Declaration which mandated that the PRC maintain Hong Kong’s separate economic and political systems until 2047, essentially providing for a gradual incorporation into the Mainland. The result was Hong Kong as a hybrid, semi-autonomous nation-city-state. Politically, the PRC maintained a mostly hands off approach for many years allowing Hongkongers many, many freedoms completely out-of-bounds for Mainlanders. Trouble was always under the surface, however. Year after year, the PRC slowly tried to assert its authority over Hong Kong by changing small things one-by-one, always fearing its lack of control over the SAR. Pressure kept building until it broke. The first major crack was 2014’s Umbrella Revolution, a mass protest movement led by students that successfully defeated PRC proposed anti-democratic reforms. But it was just a prelude to what came next. The 2019 “Revolution of Our Times” centered, at least initially, around a proposed extradition bill with vague language which allowed for extradition from liberal Hong Kong to the authoritarian Mainland. Protests escalated throughout the year into a full-scale uprising by millions that questioned everything about Hong Kong society.

When the 2019 extradition protests started, it seemed like pro-democracy and localist forces could win. But the pandemic emptied the streets and killed the movement and its defenses and the counter-revolution began. Beijing rammed a national security law down Hong Kong’s throat in the summer of 2020. The draconian law established the new, vague crimes of secession, subversion, terrorism, and collusion with foreign forces. Pro-democracy organizations shuttered across the city in fear. Then elections were postponed for over a year under the emergency pretext of the pandemic. Drama within the Legislative Council culminated in the mass resignation of all 19 non-pro-Beijing legislators and the government said it would disqualify nearly 70% of councilors and that they would be held financially responsible for their election. Within days, 217 of the 490 councilors had resigned to avoid million dollar fines. The election process was completely hollowed out to ensure that only “patriots” govern Hong Kong.  Beijing used the national security law to eliminate the free press. Books on sensitive topics are being banned. Schools plan on implementing new “patriotic” curricula, emphasizing the benefits of the PRC, and teachers are losing their jobs for having supported the protests.

I found the mood in Hong Kong to be subdued and depressed. Most individuals from the movement that I talked to felt that everything was lost. Many said that things might as well be the same as on the Mainland. Several were considering leaving the country, especially those with young children. Events on the ground seemed to affirm this perspective. In mid-April, Joe Wong and Denny To, former leaders of the independent, pro-democracy Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (which had disbanded in the wake of the new national security law in October 2021), announced that they had applied legally for a permit from the Hong Kong police for a May Day demonstration in Victoria Park. This was a very bold move considering that earlier in April, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions had bowed to public pressure from Beijing to withdraw their own application for May Day activities! Right up to the last minute, it seemed as if the May Day event might happen. Then, on April 26, Joe Wong was whisked away by police. Five hours later, he tearfully emerged announcing a withdrawal of the permit application and refusing to discuss what had happened, citing the national security law. In a separate statement, Denny To said that Wong had been “emotionally broken.”

The tone was set for the much more controversial June 4 Tienanmen Square anniversary, also commemorated in Victoria Park. With all of the organizations that had sponsored the anniversary disbanded, with the removal of all monuments to the event, and little opportunity for the free press to discuss it, there were few expectations. The government, of course, made sure its hardline perspective was clear in advance. Pressed by the media on the legality of any commemoration of the event, officials would only grimly repeat that, “everyone should act in accordance with the law.” Meanwhile, activists were harassed in advance by police for planning to hand out candles, and a carnival for “patriotic” consumer groups was announced for Victoria Park on June 4 for the first time ever. On June 4 itself, 6,000 police were deployed across the city, with stop-and-frisk and detention for any “suspicious” individuals approaching the park. The city felt like it was crawling with police that day, with small squads around every corner, even in distant neighborhoods like Mong Kok. 

And yet, this past June 4 is a good example of how, despite diminished expectations, under harsh repression, Hongkongers’ still defiantly resist government oppression. Despite the somber mood, many concerned groups are engaged in all kinds of interesting and powerful projects aimed at building an alternative, inclusive, and democratic Hong Kong.¹ Despite the iron fist, people did protest and commemorate Tienanmen Square. Pro-democracy activist Chan Po-ying was detained and eventually released near the park while holding an LED candle and two flowers. The day before, activists Kwan Chun-pong and Lau Ka-yee were detained, but not before announcing a 24 hour hunger strike in honor of the Tienanmen Square victims. And artist Sanmu Chen had to be dragged away while shouting at bystanders: “Do not forget June 4! Do not forget June 4! Hongkongers, don’t be afraid of them! Do not forget tomorrow is June 4!” All told, around 32 people were detained June 3 and June 4, willing to risk everything for the right to publicly protest.

Another bold and creative June 4 action came via a group called the Baak Choi Collective. They felt confident enough to host a silent “tai chi event” via Facebook at a public market! The Baak Choi Collective had established a living space and art studio in the old working class, but gentrifying, neighborhood of To Kwa Wan. They host numerous art events and print their own zines. They also engaged with the local Punjabi immigrant community (Hong Kong is a relatively diverse city with several small, but important minority groups; South Asians are ~1.4% of the population.) It’s worth noting that this neighborhood also had a large, hipster cinema and restaurant that sold mixed-language political books and films; they even screened, to a packed audience, the recent Swiss film Unrest, a period piece on Kropotkin’s travels among the anarchist watchmakers of the Jura Valley! The Baak Choi Collective had also made connections with outlying farms and sold or gave away produce at the local market. Addressing issues at the nexus of land, housing, and space seemed a common, fundamental theme with many organized groups in Hong Kong. 

And for good reason: these are the critical issues of daily life in the SAR. Hong Kong is one of the densest and most expensive places on Earth. Most people live crammed with family in small flats in giant high rises. Hundreds of thousands of heavily exploited Indonesian and Filipina domestic workers in the city are legally forced to live in frequently unlivable and abusive conditions with their employers and are lucky to even get a day off; each weekend they ecstatically take to the sidewalks and parks for a brief reprieve. Street markets and the street as public space are perhaps the most essential elements of Hong Kong culture and identity: mass riots were sparked in Mong Kok in 2016 after police tried to enforce street vendor regulations during the New Year. There is homelessness in Hong Kong and the city is notorious for its “coffin homes” where thirty people might live in stacked bunks in a 45 m² apartment, a fate that often afflicts elderly, single men or those struggling with addiction. Historically, there were powerful squatter movements with entire neighborhoods built from squats. Today, many of these communities have been legally incorporated or were granted public housing, but squatting still exists in many forms despite its supposed nonexistence. I saw many actively squatted homes in rural areas, including in wilderness areas that had supposedly been cleared of squatters years ago. Meanwhile, the city suffers from severe inequality: Hong Kong is home to the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, and the top 10% earns ~40% of all income. These issues affect Hong Kong’s rural New Territories and islands as well. Rapacious real estate forces and corrupt officials have frequently colluded in land grabs from traditional communal village lands, contributing to the suburbanization of the countryside and several notable fights over farm evictions.

I found out about the Baak Choi Collective from another collective, REO Housing Estates. They’re an arts nonprofit that runs an entire multi-story building in the crowded Quarry Bay neighborhood. Each floor hosts art studios and performance spaces or affordable housing for the artists themselves, as well as a top floor with a mixed-language radical bookstore, plus a zine library. I had found REO Housing Estates from yet another bookstore. One morning on rural Lamma Island, I stumbled into the Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow collective, a small, indie non-English bookstore with movement literature. Mei was working that day, and she was very helpful and kind, telling me how they were a group of ex-students who had moved to the quieter, cheaper, and very different space on the island. Lamma Island is a mix of touristy getaway and traditional fishing village, with community gardens and hiking trails; there aren’t even cars on the island. In this atmosphere, things were much more relaxed and private. The island was actually the only place in all of Hong Kong I saw that still had an active Lennon Wall, walls from the protest movement turned into spaces where anyone could post anything, including political slogans and graffiti, often tacked down as a post-it note. 

Another collective that I wish I had been able to spend more time with was the Red Dog Cafe. Located in the working class Kowloon Tong, I had trouble connecting due to the language barrier. But the space was great and doing amazing work: on top of running a coffee shop, they hosted organizing meetings, ran a vast anarchist library, and engaged in land defense and domestic worker outreach. I also had the chance to visit a nearby non-English radical bookstore that had gotten some recent press attention for hosting movement art and a photography exhibition of the successful 2013 independent dockworkers’ strike on its ten year anniversary. I also want to note that there is still a lot of movement prisoner support, often at great risk to those participating, with several cases of prison visitors showing up and being arrested themselves.

I also spent some time staying in the “notorious” Chungking Mansions, a dark, maze-like city within the city of over 4,000 people known for its cheap hostels, vibrant immigrant communities, and gray market activities. It’s said that people from every country on Earth will enter and exit the building every year and that perhaps a fifth of all of Africa’s cellphones pass through this building on the way to market. My hostel was a former family textile factory. Jessie, the owner and management, had wanted to preserve her family’s legacy in the face of aggressive buy-out offers and code enforcement, and had converted it to the current hostel to stay afloat through foreign travelers’ money. She also ran a small art studio and daycare out of the space, and her family would drop in and out frequently. The walls were covered in posters from the protests, the fridge had a ZAD sticker, and the lyrics of Hong Kong’s unofficial national (protest) anthem, “Glory to Hong Kong,” lined our bedroom walls (in July this year, the High Court surprisingly rejected a government attempt to ban the song, but it’s now on appeal.) To me, more than any other space, this place represented Hong Kong’s spirit of resistance, a spirit that has gone deeper than just an expression of politics, down into a vibrant, independent culture constantly recreating itself against all odds. Though the PRC may be able to keep the streets quiet for now, though it seems to hold all the power, it seems to me impossible that it will ever be able to put the genie of freedom back in the bottle.

In the U.S., it might be hard to connect with struggles in China and Hong Kong. The U.S. is a particularly insular culture and American anarchists/activists can be no exception. Meanwhile, stuck between the U.S.’s aggressive, imperialist, and xenophobic anti-PRC propaganda on the one hand, and forced on the other hand to hear fellow leftists’ warmed-over Stalinism, which ignorantly parrots the CCP’s party line, sees a foreign plot in every act of resistance, and somehow finds anything liberatory in a supposedly “Communist” country where billionaires proudly promote the “996” work culture of 12 hour shifts/6 days per week, it can be hard to find a footing. But the left must be critical and it must be internationalist; we ignore China and its social issues and social movements to our own detriment. We must find ways to stand in concrete solidarity despite barriers of borders, languages, and cultures. Especially since there is a vocal, active Chinese diaspora in the U.S. (too often sidelined or dismissed while also facing down anti-Asian violence like the 2021 Atlanta spa shooting or pro-PRC nationalist violence like the 2022 Laguna Woods shooting) and around the world. 

Anarchists have played a key role in the struggles in Hong Kong, a movement that has shaken the PRC to its core. And nowhere was more tactically innovative than Hong Kong during the 2019 global revolutionary wave. With issues of housing, space, and land use in the city and its hinterlands reaching a critical mass in the U.S., too, and facing down our own rising specter of authoritarianism and repression (2024 election, I’m looking at you…), there is much we can learn from Hong Kong’s creative struggles for grassroots democracy and a better way of living. 

Further Resources

-Bonham Tree Aid- UK-based prisoner support organization for Hongkongers. The only one able to take international/monetary donations? 

– gongchao.org- A great resource for information on current struggles in China. Recently published a text available in Spanish, Revueltas en China.

–Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution by Arif Dirlik- Overview of the birth of Chinese anarchism and its surprising influence, including crucial events that led up to Mao’s/the CCP’s victory in the Civil War in 1949.

–Hong Kong Free Press– One of the last critical, independent newspapers in Hong Kong, English language.

–South China Morning Post– Hong Kong’s English language newspaper of record. It has a strong pro-Beijing bias, but it generally reports facts accurately.

–City on Fire: The Fight for Hong Kong by Antony Dapiran- Comprehensive summary of the 2019 upheaval in Hong Kong, though its narrative ends before COVID and the crackdown.

1Due to the harsh nature of repression around the issue of democracy in Hong Kong (or anything related to the PRC), and with Chinese government officials more than willing to pursue and punish opponents even internationally, I’ve anonymized and mixed-and-matched names and details around many of these groups, individuals, events, etc.

By Jack Meeks

I’m helping to organize a union at the non-profit where I work and I think unionized non-profits can play an important part in the transition to a more just, non-exploitative society. Non-profits play an interesting and dual role in capitalist society. They provide social services and lobby for progressive social change, while at the same time allowing rich individuals and corporations to avoid paying the taxes. Non-profits’ role has become more important as the state has slashed social services. Non-profits let entrepreneurs who’ve gotten rich exploiting workers to push their visions of what social change should look like. 

Unions for non-profit workers can help influence the direction of social change that non-profits are advancing. As many people work in the non-profit sector for idealistic reasons, non-profit union drives can not just help workers, but improve the local communities where non-profits are located. Most unions primarily just negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions with employers, but non-profit unions can help make the connection of workplace issues relating to a social agenda which then can possibly advance a broader political struggle. 

I work for a non-profit that answers the phones for 988, the new national suicide phone number. My employer is a good organization and provides a socially needed service. We have a core staff of on-call program associates who answer the phones, however the vast majority of the people who answer the phone are volunteers.

Unions are regarded by those seeking revolutionary change as a way of achieving transformation, improving class consciousness, and of course winning demands. Many non-profits are unionized.

We are in the beginning stages of forming a non-profit union with help from SEIU 1021. Tides.org is a San Francisco Bay Area non-profit that has had a successful union drive and now has a collective bargaining agreement with SEIU 1021. SEIU uses community unionism that pursues change outside the workplace in coalition with other like-minded community groups. 

Organizing a union at my job is a challenge as most workers, including me, work remotely. Organizing communications are usually done by personal emails and to some extent via chat while working, without mentioning the specific subject, just when to be in touch. We are a program of larger non-profit Felton.org, which is hostile to the idea of unions and has hired an anti-union law firm to advise them. Working remote adds a little zest and flavor to the union organizing effort as it requires us to be more creative in making contacts and communicating with them. 

Answering calls from suicidal people can be very stressful and demanding, however there are many times when after a shift, you feel like you have changed the world, come alive, and feel like you are on fire! The work we do is very different than most jobs, however the organ-ization of the non-profit itself is very much on the traditional business model. We provide a valuable service and workers deserve social justice and more control over our work lives. 

There has been an influx of funds to the organization since the 988 suicide hotline was created, leading to promises about raises, new equipment, etc. While a job like this cannot just be about the money one makes by working, there have been no increases in pay for years. The work site moved to a new luxurious office which is really about what management wants and is for them. The top-down work rules for dealing with our clients have more to do with management getting their numbers to look good for the 988 funding rather than making the organization client-centered. I think the important decisions about the workflow should be in the hands of the workers who take the calls. The work schedule is another issue since we are on duty 24/7. On nights where there is a full moon, there is a conscious effort to have more people on staff that night!

The 2022 Univ. of California academic workers’ strike won up to a 50% pay raise. Public school teachers unions have also won big victories recently. In one of the recent Republican presidential debates, one of the candidates claimed teachers unions were the biggest problem in America. Margaret Thatcher when she was British prime minister called unions “the enemy within.” The powers that be do not like it when the workers are organized. 

One of the more interesting slogans in the New School action was: “Labor of love is still Labor  No more unpaid work.” There is the idea that those who work for non-profits ought to have satisfaction and be content in the work that they do. I think we should have the same workers’ rights that those in other parts of the economy have. Some of the non-profits that already have unions are the ACLU, the Groundwork Collaborative, and Ecology Center of Berkeley – Farmer’s Market workers (IWW)

The Berkeley Federation of Teachers told me that they may be able to help with the union formation at my workplace by giving us solidarity and support. There has been a surge in union activity in many sectors of the economy including the service industry — Starbucks, Chipotle, and Peet’s Coffee. The increase in union organizing and strikes isn’t just about pay issues but also work rules and employer practices. 

Unions play a critical role in reducing income inequality. One of the best ways to achieve a more egalitarian society is to make union organizing easier for workers. Unions are a social justice movement that can enlist the help of communities to gain support and publicity for causes like the United Farm Workers (UFW). 

The number of strike actions has been increasing nationwide and this helps workers believe that they can have a successful union drive through organizing and work stoppages. There were 180 work stoppages in the first part of 2022 which is close to the average number of 330 strikes a year during the large social movements years of 1967-1976. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) saw a 57% increase in union election petitions between 2021-2022. 

Capitalism is inherently crisis-prone because the capitalist economy’s relentless drive for accumulation results in its own destabilization. This is why we need worker self-management and changes in how the political power is allocated. We need non-profit unions, cooperatives and Community Unionism as strategies for any future society.

By Dagmar (Slingshot Collective, Class of ’11)

I’m an educator now, and last year I began teaching humanities classes at a college in a supposedly liberal state. Something that shocked me right away: none of my students had the faintest clue how to identify fascism.

Over the year of teaching, I tried different approaches to amend this gap in my students’ knowledge — which seems to be a gap in nearly every American’s knowledge — and honestly, I think this utter lack of education about what fascism actually is explains why we’ve slid so far into fascism in the U.S. 

If folks can’t identify even fascism, how can they resist it? So class is in session! Where does fascism come from? How is it made?

Ingredient #1 – Mass Media

Fascism is an authoritarian mode of governance intertwined with mass media. 

Mass media is a neutral tool, and isn’t necessarily fascistic by its nature. Mass media is also a very powerful tool. Nothing like it has ever existed before in recorded human history, it’s only been around about a hundred years. We are still getting a handle on it. 

Mass media allows a small number of people to control the narratives and imagery that most people encounter in their daily lives.

Mass media is like the force in Star Wars: There’s a light side to it and a dark side. It can be used to humanize others, or it can be used to dehumanize others. 

Ingredient #2 – Capitalists deflecting blame

The next key thing to understand about fascism is that it takes hold when capitalists begin trying to deflect blame from themselves for harm caused by business-as-usual capitalism. Capitalism emerges from and leads to massive forms of harm, and it is also wildly unstable, so capitalists often create allies by promising relatively stable lives to some groups of people. Capitalism leads power and money to be centralized into fewer and fewer people’s hands.

This leads to eras of mass impoverishment, in which even the people whom capitalism promised to protect are thrown into poverty. This can lead people to get mad at the capitalists.

Before mass media, it was common for bankers to be executed during times of economic downturn, such as the global recession of the 1890s, when many bankers were hanged. Eras of pervasive impoverishment are especially dangerous for capitalists. 

Think back to a moment when you were a child and you knew you did something wrong, but you didn’t want to get blamed for it. What did you do? Did you blame a sibling for breaking the vase that you smashed?

Once in second grade, I totally loudly farted while the teacher was talking in class, and the whole class fell quiet. I immediately blamed the kid next to me, but I don’t think they bought it and the whole class laughed. 

Now imagine if, rather than farting, I’d been running a political-economic regime that had led thousands of people to lose their homes, experience food insecurity, or worse. And imagine I’d let things get worse and worse until nearly everyone in society had been impacted by unnecessary forms of economic hardship. What if after years of trying to hide what I was doing, people are starting to figure it out — and they are also hurt, traumatized and angry because of the harm my economic actions have created? What do you think I’m going to do? Own up to my actions? Or blame my fart on someone else? Also, what if I’m so rich that I can hire someone to blame my fart on someone else? That’s more or less what capitalists do in times of rising fascism. They use mass media tools to elevate the voices of those who are pointing fingers and blaming anyone but the capitalists for the problems they have caused.

Ingredient #3 – Dehumanizing Minority Groups 

Fascism arises when capitalists begin deflecting blame for the poor social conditions that they caused onto minority groups — usually immigrants, queer folks, ethnic minorities, disabled people, etc. This approach is similar to “union busting,” in which capitalist bosses will hire undercover provocateurs to enter workplaces and try to pit people against each other. 

In fascism these same types of “divide and conquer” tactics are deployed against the entire populace. Capitalists would rather see society fall apart than give up their power. Their goal is to pit everyone against each other so we don’t all join together and put an end to the capitalist regime. 

Ingredient #4 – Poor Economic Conditions 

The economic doom spiral has been getting worse and worse, with escalating rates of poverty, homelessness and addiction. People in the mainstream are beginning to identify capitalism as the culprit… 

Ingredient #5 – Magical Thinking

Most Americans think fascists are mean, sinister people because we’ve been inundated with dumbed-down Hollywood storytelling that tends to portray fascists, using standard media tropes to make the audience root for the hero. 

The trouble is, fascists can be weirdly charming. In fact, cultivating an “aura” of jolliness and positivity is often part of fascist doctrines. This goes back to Hitler’s favorite philosopher, Nietzsche — Hitler literally wrote an entire book that was a sequel/riff upon Nietzsche’s work. One major thread in Nietzsche’s work is the idea that anyone who doesn’t seem like they are having a good time is fundamentally broken and should be murdered — at least according to Zarathustra, a proto-superhero that Nietzsche invented and claimed was the ultimate human being. 

This bizarre line of thinking can be compared to a relatively new form of American pop spirituality called “the Law of Attraction” that was made popular by the bestselling book The Secret, which was published in 2006. While some may take The Secret lightly, it has sold over 35 million copies, and has profoundly influenced American pop culture. According to the Law of Attraction, bad things only happen to people who “manifest” them. So basically, “Think happy thoughts—or else.” If you are a believer in this pop spiritualist movement, you’ve been trained to believe that those who experience forms of systemic harm “brought it on themselves” by not “manifesting” hard enough.

Fascism often emerges from a regime of self-policing in which people are made to feel as if they must constantly be jolly and/or “manifest” positive vibes, otherwise they will become part of an “undesirable other” category, upon which they project all that is negative about themselves. Eventually, as propaganda against “othered” groups ramps up, fascists get worked into a frenzy in which they feel that groups that have been labelled “undesirable others” need to be eliminated, and murdering a member of an othered group becomes a way that the fascist attempts to affirm their own identity.

#6 – Stir in a heavy dose of Malthusianism

Thomas Robert Malthus was a wildly problematic thinker born in the 1700s who advocated for population control. Fun fact: The supervillain Thanos was inspired by him.

Malthusian thinking has unfortunately become interwoven with Eurocentric environmentalism — that human population control is good for the planet. 

When a person is led to believe that population control must occur, they quickly get pulled into thinking about *which* populations should be controlled. And then suddenly everyone is fighting over who gets to have kids and who doesn’t, who gets to have stable living conditions, and who doesn’t. 

This is something that drives my climate scientist friends crazy. They will be trying to get the conversation going toward ending fossil fuel use — which is what we actually need to focus upon — then some Malthusian asshat will chime in and instead redirects the conversation towards population control. 

This is why decolonial, intersectional, and anti-racist frameworks are so important when we do environmental work. There is likewise a lot of deprogramming that needs to happen among environmentalists who have been subjected to Malthusian thinking and who have succumbed to this dark type of illogic.

#7 – Treating “the nation” as a princess to be rescued 

Another key feature of fascism is that it’s a fantasy roleplay where you’re supposed to rescue the nation-state you’re part of. The purveyors of fascism want you todefend ”the homeland” at all cost, including against its own denizens who have been labeled as others.

#8 – Nostalgia for some mythical past

Things have never been perfect, but fascists tend to point towards some prior era and claim things were better in that era. Better for whom?

#9 – Worship of the father figure 

At its core, fascism is just the latest iteration of an old-ass empire that still lurks among us: colonial patriarchy, a form of organizing power relations around worshipping cis-dudes while firmly enforcing binary gender relations.

#10 –Enforcing binary gender 

Fascism organizes power relations by firmly enforcing binary gender relations, while encouraging everyone to treat cis-dudes as if they are mini-kings of whatever patch of land they’ve stolen by virtue of pledging their allegiance to this nonsense.

#11 – Playing the victim

A major part of the illogic of fascism is to play the victim, while also playing the “hero” who is “rescuing” the nation-princess at the same time. Capitalists use mass media to frame anyone fighting back as the bad guys. 

Fascism always comes from a place of pain — pain that’s been misdirected against minority groups. The good way to disarm that pain can be to listen. The types of pain that tend to fuel fascism often come from a place of privilege — and it can be hard to listen to someone cry about losing access to some privilege they felt entitled to that your family never had access to to begin with. White middle class folks who have never been evicted, who have never been homeless, who have never been denied medical care all started experiencing these things for the first time in living memory, and they have not developed the coping skills and support networks to deal with these things that the rest of us have. So then their former bosses (or people who play bosses on TV) start telling them, “It wasn’t us capitalists, it was actually Minority Group X that hurt you.” That’s how they get tricked.

But at the core there’s still pain, there’s still actual material things that have happened to these people, and they are scared and ashamed and are trying to make sense of everything amidst grief and pain and guilt. They are watching family members die of poverty, they have pain in their teeth they can’t afford to fix. 

I wonder what happens if we take a moment to allow their pain to be real and voiced. Sure, work needs to be done to make sure the more privileged oppressed folks don’t hog all the airtime, but under capitalism we are all fucked. The fascists have pain too — they’ve just been tricked by the capitalists into blaming the wrong people for their pain. 

Breaking the spell – Trick #1: Listening to the experts — former fascists who have been rehabilitated. 

When it comes to breaking the spell of fascism, hearing about it from a recovered former fascist can help. Often, when students want to better understand the features of fascism, I will point them towards the work of Umberto Eco, a professor of literature and novelist who lived under Mussolini’s fascism in his youth. Eco had to write essays to please the fascists in charge at that time, and he learned about fascism in this really intimate way.

Decades later, he wrote an excellent essay, ‘Ur-Fascism,’ in which he really gets into the psychology of fascism. In this essay he goes into a number of other features of fascism beyond what I’ve described here. Even though he’s describing a fascist regime from nearly a century ago, many of the things he describes ring eerily similar to the behaviors and rhetoric of certain contemporary American politicians. 

It’s worthwhile to read Eco’s essay “Ur-Fascism” which can be found online here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism

Breaking the Spell of Fascism #2: Rolling out a vision for a better future.

As you fan away the fart fumes of fascism, the trick is to replace the delusionary vision of a non-existent better past with a real, achievable vision of a better future. For me, that vision is constantly shifting, but looks like a blend of Star Trek, Ecotopia, and Braiding Sweetgrass. But also, maybe we can’t even come up with a good vision until we start listening to everybody, until we work to heal the wounds that everyone is feeling. We have a huge task ahead of us if we are going to get to net zero emissions and heal the trauma everyone is feeling right now, including the capitalists. Honestly, I hope we don’t end up having to eat the rich; violent rebellions rarely seem to ever fix anything, but rather just leave us with different brutes in charge. My hope is that the capitalists will throw off their suits and ties and join us. Let’s build a better world, where we stay within ecological budgets and keep our planet habitable. A world that values consent more than property, where we do better at supporting and caring for each other. I know it’s possible. 

Further reading:

Readings and materials that can be useful in book groups and classrooms exploring and understanding the basic features of fascism:

• The Last Cuentista (2022) YA novel by Donna Barba Higuera
• Jojo Rabbit (2019) film by Taika Waititi. This really gets into the weirdly jolly, seductive nature of fascist thinking. Probably everyone should watch this before it’s too late
• Umberto Eco’s essay “Ur-Fascism”
• https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/umberto-eco-ur-fascism
• Performing Truth: Works of Radical Memory for Times of Social Amnesia by LM Bogad (2022)
• The Book Thief (2005) novel by Markus Zusak.
• On Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt
• Black Mirror s3:e5, “Men Against Fire”
• “Environmental Malthusianism and Demography” by Emily Kalancher Merchant 
• “Open Letter to the Lambda Awards” by Joshua Whitehead 
• When Did Indians Become Straight?: Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty by Mark Rifkin (2011)
• “The many genders of old India” by Gopi Shankar

– My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

– “One Book Destroyed Western Civilization. No, It’s Not The Bible” by Jessica Wildfire (OK Doomer)

By P. Wingnut

February 29, 2024 is Leap Day — how come it is not a holiday with the day off? Since it’s an extra day and only comes along every four years, shouldn’t we get to do something special and exciting — better than all the other days? The answer is yes — you can do something exceptional for Leap Day, but strictly on a DIY basis. The bosses, the government and other forces of wretchedness hope you won’t hear that since 2000, Slingshot has declared a universal general strike, jamboree, street party and be-in each Leap Day everywhere. If you’re reading this, you are part of the organizing committee / conspiracy and all you have to do between now and Leap Day is to talk with your friends and community, figure out a time and place to meet and what you want to do with your extra day — be it carouse, rebel, redecorate, enhance, promenade, engage, shindig, dissent or soirée.

The system is unsustainable — it’s crumbling around us while the environment teeters on the brink of collapse. It’s easy to feel gloomy and fearful. A lot of people are wallowing in doom, denial or resignation — which only decreases our chances for survival. Some of us yearn for a different world based on cooperation, pleasure, love, and harmony with the Earth, but it’s hard to know how to fight back or how to make a difference. You can’t revolt alone — the structures of oppression and destruction are designed to feel inevitable, unavoidable and overwhelmingly powerful. 

Someone or a small group of people has to take the first terrifying step off the sidewalk and into the streets to create change. The right time to revolt is right now, but the precise day is arbitrary. Revolt transforms those who make it. We were not put here to passively go along with the end of the world nor to aid and abet those who profit from murdering the Earth. 

In 2000, in the wake of the huge protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle, some of us in Berkeley created what we think was the first Leap Day Action Night.  One tiny meeting organized to a night of mobile disruptive tactics with music blaring from a bike mounted sound system in front of banks and chainstores throughout downtown Berkeley. We carried finger puppets, not the huge puppets you sometimes see at tamer protests, because you can run while wearing a finger puppet. Confused businesses just shut down and the police didn’t know how to react. 

Leap Day 2004 saw decentralized protests in Berkeley, Houston, New York, and Manchester, England. In Berkeley, black clad marchers carrying a “closing” sign threw glitter, foam “bricks” and popcorn at dozens of chainstores and banks while using a pretty red bow to tie doors shut. The action was festive yet determined with no arrests. 

In 2012, right in the wake of the Occupy Movement, we had a funeral for capitalism in Oakland, complete with a real coffin and a brass band leading a procession through the streets to a dance party. The police had taken our camps, but they couldn’t make us love our bosses or the 1%. The 2016 Leap Night coincided with San Francisco Critical Mass bike ride — it’s hard to improve on critical mass. 

The 2020 Leap Day action in Berkeley unfolded right before the pandemic shut down all public events…. A rowdy downtown march with a brass band led by a giant paper mâché frog invaded banks that are funding climate change and left piles of compost. The march also handed out heart-shaped “climate solution” awards at cooperatives and Berkeley’s Bike station bicycle parking garage. 

We refuse to be consumers, viewers and objects to be managed. Let’s build a world that’s awake and engaged — shifting the focus from things and entertainment to firsthand experience. Life is too short and the world too beautiful to waste more time muddling through tedious jobs, polluted air, swaggering billionaires and endless wars.

Leap day offers an extra day and invites us to shake off our routine. The capitalist system, its technology and its distractions are fragile. Alternatives exist. February 29 offers an invitation. How do you really want to live? What would you do if you were living life like it really mattered? What will you do with your extra day? Plan ahead. Leap for it!

Email slingshotcollective@protonmail.com and we’ll send you free copies of a 23 x 35 inch Leap Day Action Night poster. 

If you want to help organize an East Bay leap day action on Thursday Feb. 29, 2024, email leapdayaction2020@protonmail.com. 

By TANC

Formed in 2016, Tenant and Neighborhood Councils (TANC) is a member-run, member-funded tenant union in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our area-based Locals organize tenants of particular landlords into councils or associations, and as a union we pressure landlords directly to meet our demands. We are an anticapitalist organization aligned with abolitionist and internationalist struggles, and a founding member of the country-wide Autonomous Tenant Union Network (ATUN). Since the pandemic, membership has grown to more than 600, and our councils have organized rent strikes and other direct-actions against slumlords to win rent reductions and repairs. Recently, local politicians lifted pandemic-era eviction restrictions, prompting a union action in Berkeley. 

On Tuesday, September 12, TANC mobilized more than 100 tenants to disrupt an obscene celebration, where Berkeley landlords organized through the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) gathered to celebrate the end of the local eviction moratorium and thus the renewal of their rights to evict people from their homes in order to profit.

With less than a day’s notice, TANC members rallied with banners and signs outside Freehouse pub, where the BPOA hoped to celebrate. We carried into the party a cake decorated with the words, “Hey landlords! Get a real job!” and chanted, among other things, “Eat the cake.”

As widely reported in local and international news, BPOA members were quick to anger, attacking tenants unprovoked. We stand with our members who were assaulted by landlords, just as we stand with any tenant facing eviction. 

We are not surprised by BPOA’s behavior. The landlords’ cocktail party was a celebration of the violent process of eviction. Systematic violence and interpersonal violence go hand in hand. This is why TANC intervened.

As a Bay Area-wide tenant union building power through tenant organizing, we are preparing for a long-haul fight. 

The Bay Area’s double crises of extreme rent profiteering and homelessness stem from the landlords’ business model. Landlords are structurally invested in skyrocketing rents, extracting money from working-class people under threat of eviction. Real-estate capital’s unchecked profits have corroded the Bay Area’s culture and life. It must be stopped.

We reject the notion that landlords have a right to a return on their investment. Rents should be immediately rolled back regardless of how this impacts landlords’ balance sheets. Tenants deserve a high quality of life, dignity in our housing, and a life free from landlord exploitation and harassment.

By disrupting the Berkeley landlord group’s cruel party, we have proved that tenants aren’t passive. Tenants will fight back! We call on tenants across the Bay Area to join the tenant union. We will beat back the forces of gentrification together. The union makes us strong!

Evictions spike as politicians lift ‘moratorium’

Summer of 2023 saw COVID cases rising across the East Bay, yet the pandemic-era eviction restrictions began ending all across the region. 

These restrictions started during an increase in tenant militancy in 2020, which dramatically changed our organizing terrain, including increasing the viability of the rent strike. To stabilize tenant-landlord relations, politicians then implemented the massive landlord bailout known as “rent relief.” This was government money that helped landlords pay their mortgages while tenants were out of work, but offered nothing to tenants beyond the ability to (temporarily) stay in their homes.

While the restrictions lasted longer in the East Bay than most of the country, politicians are now bending to the will of landlords and actively facilitating the resumption of mass evictions. 

After county restrictions lapsed, evictions skyrocketed to more than 500 in May, followed by more than 700 in June — more than twice the monthly average pre-pandemic. Now, with restrictions ending in Oakland and Berkeley, the number is expected to continue climbing. 

What this means is landlords and landlord lawyers and landlord associations are preparing their legal notices and scary letters in the hopes of pressuring tenants to self-evict. A little rights knowledge goes a long way for tenants facing these threats. While it is important to respond promptly and formally to initial notices, everyone should know that eviction is a long legal process. 

Don’t move, fight! If you think you’re facing eviction, or you have issues with your landlord, find an affiliate of the Autonomous Tenant Union Network in your area (atun-rsia.org), and get in touch! 

We look towards the end of rent, a time when categories of ‘landlord’ and ‘tenant’ recede into historical memory. We move forward as an organized base of militant tenants. Our organizing develops the collective power we need in order to take control of our own homes and neighborhoods. 

Slingshot collective has made all of its publications in a cozy loft at Long Haul — a radical community center in Berkeley — since 1992. Now, our future here is uncertain after Long Haul’s landlord, the Northern California Land Trust (NCLT), announced plans to demolish the building in 2024 and replace it with an 8-story apartment building. NCLT has received $2 million in grants — against a $40-$50 million price tag — and they are actively seeking loans and investments.

In April, NCLT offered to rent Long Haul a “comparable” space at the new building with terms “comparable” to the current lease — but the offer lacks details and says it “does not create a binding agreement between the Parties and will not be enforceable.” The current rent is below market and some of us are skeptical that rent at the new building will be cheap enough for Long Haul to afford. 

In May, Long Haul responded to the offer by writing “Long Haul has more to lose than it has to gain from the proposed redevelopment. Long Haul is happy in the current building, which meets Long Haul’s needs…. Being displaced for months during construction is not in Long Haul’s interest.  While Long Haul does not support destruction of the existing building, it agrees that returning to the new building … is preferable to being displaced.”

So far NCLT has ignored the May email and hasn’t provided any updates on whether the mid-2024 date is still on or delayed. Long Haul doesn’t have any idea when it may get a six-month notice to move. 

Long Haul is the perfect place to make Slingshot. It has been a radical center since 1979 and it has a funky, underground vibe — murals, radical posters and shelves stuffed with zines and books line the walls. Everything is handmade and DIY — it has a feeling you don’t get in a sterile new building. Besides Slingshot, Long Haul hosts a needle exchange, a community printing press, grassroots organizations, a weekly anarchist study group and meetings and events. It is open to the public 5 days a week, operated collectively by volunteers and welcomes all types of freaks rather than being devoted to soulless consumerism like everywhere else. 

The precious thing about Long haul isn’t just the old building — it’s the community and the continuity with radical struggles that have taken place here over the last 44 years. 

If the building gets torn down, Long Haul will need help moving its radical historical archive that contains thousands of publications dating back to the 1960s. Email longhaulinfoshop@protonmail.com if you can help.  Slingshot will find a new place if we have to — until then we’re enjoying every minute of the sweet afternoon sun streaming through the skylights onto the crazy artwork jigsaw puzzle going into the zine — while we still can.