Category: Articles

The winter of 2011 found me moderately depressed, barely leaving the house, a recent college graduate with no clue why my life felt so empty. Growing up Black and middle class, it was pounded into my psyche that that piece of paper was my meal-ticket to happiness, prosperity, and social acceptance. As a radical feminist, delving into the world of activism, I was left feeling less than satisfied, to say the least. So I embarked on a journey of self-discovery. I left Ohio, looking for something more, some deeper answer to the lacking I felt. I traveled to New Mexico, land of enchantment, home to where I understood for the first time that the soil contained a spirit unto itself, that this Earth was a living, breathing being. I worked on a biodynamic farm and was introduced to concepts like deep ecology and biocentrism. It was the first time I had lived off the land, being fed, comforted, soulfully nourished by beings that I had overlooked as a suburban kid raised on television screens and shopping malls. And then I met Earth First!

I traveled to Missoula to meet up with some friends. I had never read the EF! Journal and was unfamiliar with the organization, let alone the unspoken tensions between differing ideological stances within the movement, particularly regarding anti-oppression. As a person of color, my experience at my first EF! Rendezvous — EF!’s annual outdoor national gathering called a Rondy — wasn’t too unlike most of my experiences growing up in a predominantly white community. Folks were fond of politely dancing around political correctness, pretending the reality of the situation was not, something is making marginalized folks feel unwelcome. There were some interactions that left a bad taste in my mouth, the most frustrating being repeatedly mistaken for the only other Black female perceived person, amongst a sea of white faces. I called it out, apologies were expressed, I moved on.

I chose instead to focus on the seed planted that would grow into the tools I needed to strike at the very root of the problem. I became alive with the knowledge that I could take into my hands the struggle that I felt so strongly in my heart and mind. For so long, oppression felt like an insurmountable monster that I had no hope of conquering. It is one thing to find words to voice the oppression one feels, to process the hurt, to rage over the injustice. It is another thing entirely to use your hands, your tiring muscles, your strength of will to fight those injustices. It forces the leviathan into reality, the physical plane, where it can be challenged in a tangible way. Now, here I stood among forest-defending warriors and whether or not the revolution was in sight or not, the dramatic sense of power I felt in myself was undeniable. I was hooked. That summer I traveled all over the Northwest, attending various gatherings and action camps. I learned to climb trees, came to love sleeping outside, met plants who soulfully offered healing guidance that I had only digested in written form. I felt more in myself than I had my entire life.

At that time, I didn’t have the words to voice my experience, my awakening, my coming home. In her essay, “Touching the Earth” from the book Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery, cultural theorist bell hooks explores this concept. She states that there is a “modern tendency to see no correlation between the struggle for collective black self-recovery and ecological movements that seek to restore balance to the planet by changing our relationship to nature and to natural resources.” Her statement sums up my approach to the activism and social justice work that had dominated my life. I did not understand my own internalized oppression, my own struggle, my own health as being intricately connected to the oppression of this earth or to the non-human beings that inhabit it. I was blind to understanding that our states of physical, psychological, and emotional health are all connected to one another’s, or put simply, deep ecology. Further, I did not understand this, until I experienced it; The feeling of my hands in frozen soil, understanding that I held seeds of life that would nourish and feed myself and others. Sweat pouring off my body as I climbed higher, staring my fears in the face, and climbing past them. Dark nights spent in the forest being reassured that the wild is not a place to be afraid of, but to revere and cherish. hooks states that it is this disconnect between body and mind that has lead to the estrangement of black folks from nature, allowing white supremacy to inform us of our sense of selves instead. But I couldn’t understand this through words. I had to understand it through action, experience, practice. Similarly, we cannot simply talk about how to challenge oppression — we must take action. We can use words to identify problems, but that is as far as our minds can take us.

To say that I was privileged to attend my first Rondy would be an understatement. To be sure, from the Greyhound bus ticket that was bought for me by the folks at Morning Star Farm, to the education that gave me the ability to consciously understand radical environmental theory, to my middle class background that helped create social connections with friends attending the Rondy, all of these factors made it that much easier for me to attend the gathering and feel comfort in my presence and engagement. Not everyone has access to these privileges. Arguably, most folks don’t have access to them. In her essay, hooks urges us to “bridge gaps and restore broken connections,” and EF! seems primed to do so if it chooses to live up to challenge.

In the article “Thinking Long Term,” Marie Mason articulates the necessity, magnitude, and urgency of this challenge because not only is the planet dying, but so too are thousands of beings, human and otherwise, as a result of the current ecocide happening in urban centers, rural communities, and the ever vanishing wild places across the country. Within the intersecting boundaries of these various groups, we will find the next eco-warriors. The beings that stand testament to the environmental degradation that mar their bodies and minds, laying their spirits to waste at the expense of this white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal machine.

White supremacy is the system of beliefs that devalues all other races, and places whiteness as top dog. Raised in this sort of environment, folks that fall outside of the dominant identity category continually consume cultural cues and messages that devalue their identity, disfiguring their sense of self worth and love for themselves, society, and the planet. These traits mirror those of any being that falls prey to an abusive relationship. The difference being that in the relationship between individual and a globally pervasive hegemonic belief system, there is no out. This is critical. We, as revolutionary fighters on behalf of Mother Earth, must see the essential necessity of connection to the wild. For it is in this relationship, that we unlearn the man-made destruction that lives in our hands and hearts. Because in the wild, we are free from the man-made abuses that we enact upon one another. In the wilderness, reveling in the will of the land, we remember our own wills — free from abuse, free from oppression. We recall, nourish, and strengthen our authentic, wild free selves. This is our struggle, this is our fight: For access, preservation, and protection of the wild so that we can heal the wounds of abuses inflicted upon us and the earth.

When we examine the myriad effects of this oppressive system, from learned patterns of abuse to a general inability to formulate healthy relationships with other beings, we can see how the collective consciousness of folks that fall outside of the dominant paradigm, much like the Earth, is under attack. As a result, we can observe that most people now have destructive relationships with themselves, one another, and this planet. Let’s think about this same concept a different way. Instead of talking about marginalized folks, let’s substitute the Earth. We can understand the various ecosystems within it as the collective consciousness and instead of the ideology of white supremacy, we’ll substitute anthropocentrism. This is easy for most radical environmentalists to comprehend. We can easily see the same destructive cycle of abuse and understand the urgency in healing the trauma we have inflicted on this earth, and therefore with respect to the philosophy of deep ecology, we must appreciate with the same magnitude the grave necessity of healing the collective consciousness of marginalized individuals all over this planet. If that sounds like an unreasonable demand, then “no compromise” has no room for you.

In order to stop our current path of destruction, we need to fight to end further harm, but we also must heal the damage that has already been inflicted. This is of utmost importance, for it is from these spaces of unlearning, wild spaces, that we will create a different way, that we will remember the old ways. Audre Lorde said the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. Earth First! has used the master’s tools for far too long. We have been focusing on the end goal so much that we have forgotten the process. It is in this process that we learn to listen, learn to heal, learn to stop abusing one another. We must examine ourselves, our movement, and our beliefs in order to unhinge the abuse guised as “just the way things are,” manifested in oppressive patterns of language and behavior.

We are codependents in love with a capitalist white supremacist patriarchal addict that exploits, manipulates, and traumatizes us and the planet. A codependent is defined as someone whose identity is undeveloped or unknown due to the maintenance of a false sense of self, built from dependent attachments to external sources. Our sense of self must be recovered from this abusive partner. We must demand a change, live it, breathe it in, let it settle into our bones. We must remember ourselves, our wild feral selves, independent and free, courageously united for the sake of the saving this entire planet. As recovering codependents, it is our inherent responsibility as part of our own healing process to create safety for ourselves. As warriors and revolutionaries on behalf of Mother Earth, it is our fight to ensure this means safety for all, by any means necessary.

Further, making the concept of challenging oppression into a workshop topic is laughable, if not completely ridiculous. We are talking about living, breathing, pervasive systems that we’ve been raised up in, and that live within us, around us, informing and shaping our relationships with ourselves and each other. What does it look like to put this challenge into action? Well, Mason’s proposal seems like a step in the right direction. With the creation of spaces where we with the privilege of feeling, knowing, breathing in the power of a relationship with the land, share with those who are currently strangled under the weight of industrial capitalism, pervasive oppression, and the surmounting traumas unreleased and festering in our collective unconsciousness. We must humble ourselves to the fact that no compromise in the name of Mother Earth means no one left behind. We cannot ignore this monumental task set before us, for the sake of this earth, for the sake of one another, and for the sake of ourselves.

*** I’ve learned to think in a circle instead of a line. My spirit lost its way some time ago between television screens and mini mall super saver Saturdays. But in pine silhouetted black nights I read the moon with my heart and in return she whispered to me resuscitating secrets always had I known.

In between struggle and revolution there is a vital flowing energy. Composing the symphony of tides and flows spirals of life cycles of death. In it, we learn to dance without thinking, feel the rhythm with our hearts hear the notes with our souls. Shedding the skin of our human masks we lose ourselves in caves and waters.

Enamored with the darkness in love with the wild, we are bosomed in the long laborious ecstasy of everything and nothing.

In this we heal. In this we remember. In this we are free.

Throughout my collective organizing experience, most of my closest friends and I have struggled to avoid martyrdom, resentment, and burnout. I have seen many students join my old food co-op with excitement and motivation only to withdraw several months later after working more shifts and washing more dishes than they had actually wanted to. In examining these tendencies towards self-sacrifice, I began to see them as facets of a larger system of codependent beliefs and behaviors that often manifests in radical communities. Moreover, I noticed that these codependent qualities are mutually constitutive with the dynamics of our Western capitalist society. This society is defined by a power structure that alienates children from their needs and feelings, depicts self-sacrifice as loyalty, shapes us into victims, perpetrators, and rescuers, and benefits from the whole process. When individuals work to recover from codependency, they learn to identify their needs, establish healthy boundaries, and resolve childhood traumas. Because my experience with recovery has had such a beneficial impact on my relationship to activism, I believe that the framework of codependency holds great potential not only for our understandings of Western capitalism but also for our approaches to radical struggle.

What is Codependency?

Mental health professionals originally created the term “codependency” to describe common tendencies among partners of alcoholics, but the term was later expanded to include a much broader range of individuals who exhibited similar qualities. Codependent kids often grow up in families where issues such as addictions, illnesses, or abuse are not addressed. These kids learn early to repress their emotions and disregard their needs in order to accommodate the family’s unspoken dysfunction at the cost of their own wellbeing. Much of their self-worth revolves around pleasing others and being needed as a way to derive a sense of control over their surroundings. For many, a negation of their needs and feelings creates a sense of shame and insecurity, which drives them to continue their patterns of validation-seeking and self-denial as they grow into adulthood.

In my experience, codependency is less of a category and more of a network of tendencies whose manifestation ranges wildly among people and transforms over time. Despite this, I have noticed two consistent themes of codependent behavior in my communities.

The first is a pervasive perfectionism, in which an individual’s self-approval is contingent on their performance in a particular arena. For those of us who are social perfectionists, this means people-pleasing in order to receive external validation. Relationships with controlling individuals offer this sort of approval in spades, creating a predictable matrix within which one can “earn” validation by doing the “right” things. I have noticed that even in activist communities which embrace honesty and non-hierarchy, folks often hesitate to assert their boundaries or express disagreement to others who are charismatic, controlling, or (seemingly) essential to the functioning of the collective.

At my former collective, I noticed this sort of behavior happening when one of the well-established core members took actions outside of our consensus system. At one point, they temporarily withdrew from the collective in a way that obviously sidestepped our traditional process, and after their final withdrawal, they refused to return their key to the store. Throughout these experiences, the other members and I remained strangely inactive. For many of us, this was our first experience at a workplace where boundaries were not set for us. We lacked the skills to assert our collective needs and communicate what we considered to be unacceptable. If more of us had been willing to speak up about our initial concerns, we may have been able to address this individual’s behavior in a way that prevented future boundary violations and ensured a culture of mutual respect within the collective.

The second theme of codependency is a violent unselfishness; one’s connection with their needs and feelings is sacrificed in order to address the needs and desires of others. This pattern is characterized by flexible personal boundaries, martyrdom, resentment, and expressed dissatisfaction that never materializes in action. Over time, individuals who consistently disregard their needs and emotions may lose touch with them altogether, and end up struggling to identify what it is they actually want and feel.

In my time living and participating in a radical land project, I felt obligated to assist with more projects, process more feelings, and eat more dumpstered bread than I was actually comfortable with. I heard this sentiment echoed by multiple volunteers, who expressed feelings of guilt around enjoying leisure time. In the end I burned out, became mired in resentment, and developed an intense sensitivity to gluten. Had I been able to set better boundaries for myself earlier on, I might have been able to participate in a way that was productive and sustainable in the long-term, or identify an unsustainable environment from the start.

Codependents often conceptualize interpersonal relationships through the framework of the drama triangle. Within this structure, an individual in a conflict will alternately inhabit “victim”, “perpetrator”, and “rescuer” personas, which distract from a complex and empathetic understanding of the situation. With its overly simplistic, archetypal roles, this structure provides individuals with a familiar framework for their feelings: indignation for the victim, defensiveness for the perpetrator, and salvation for the rescuer.

In their withdrawal, one of the members of the food co-op mentioned having “wounded bird syndrome”. They described their recurring experience of joining struggling collectives (victims of the “system”) and attempting to rescue them. When the collectives would fail to transform, this person would experience great disillusionment, shift from the “rescuer” to the “victim” role, and feel resentful and frustrated with the collective that, in their mind, was no longer a “victim” but a “perpetrator” of their distress. Had they and other members taken time to disabuse themselves of this paradigm, we could have understood our relationships to the collective in more complex, symbiotic terms, while avoiding burnout in the name of that collective’s salvation.

Ultimately, all three of these patterns serve to redirect individuals’ attention towards external sites of validation. Within codependency, the drama of everyday life keeps us from confronting our deeper anxieties and traumas.

Codependency and Society

Many of us are born into a society, which shames us for showing our bodies, our emotions, and our failures. Within mainstream monotheistic religion, we are reminded that because of our inherent sinfulness, we must suppress our natural impulses in order to earn paternalistic approval from an authoritarian god. In communities thoroughly infiltrated by the culture of competition, many of us feel that our value is always relative to those around us and never inherent to us. This sense of competitive insecurity divides us and lays the groundwork for the creation of a malleable, competitive capitalist workforce. Within the framework of codependency, mainstream society is an excellent example of a dysfunctional family which negates the needs and feelings of its members, shames them for their perceived imperfections, and drives them to compete indefinitely for externally-granted validation.

For most individuals in our society, these systems of external validation manifest in our families, in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our relationships to the legal system; these become our arenas for validation and salvation. When we fail to live up to the standards established for us, we are punished by the authorities as well as our own internalized judgments. These punishments victimize us, and since many of us never learn the skills required to define, identify, and satisfy our needs, we rescue ourselves through dissociation. Watching TV, shopping, eating, and drinking become our tools of emotional avoidance. In these patterns, there is an overarching connection to the self-sacrifice, search for validation, and disconnection from oneself that characterize codependence.

Meanwhile, the capitalist market perpetuates and profits from our distress. Advertisements in the media define images of perfection that erode at our sense of inherent self-worth and suggest consumerism as an appropriate solution to our inner defects. The message is clear: capitalism and its byproducts can rescue us from our ineptitude and victimhood. There is a safety in this message; it suggests that we do not have to look inward, to access our vulnerability or humanity, in order to find inner peace. There’s a product for that now.

The logic of the drama triangle dictates how people of color, working-class folks, women, queers, children, elderly, and disabled folks are characterized in mainstream media. Victims of disembodied circumstances and “bad luck,” these communities are framed as “in need of rescuing.” Within the project of “rescuing”, the locus of control is rarely placed in the hands of communities resisting oppression. The majority of professional philanthropists and non-profits descend on these communities with their own tactics, constraints, and agendas. In the process, they often reinscribe the victimhood of the communities that they allege to support by denying them the right to take direction of the aid projects. Similarly, in the realm of gender socialization, themes of martyrdom, self-invalidation, and approval-seeking are coded in the way that many women are instructed to relate to men. At the root of these instructions is the understanding that women are inherently flawed or incapable and need men for guidance.

Finally, the drama triangle plays a significant role in the formation of foreign policy among nation-states, or more precisely, its justification by the mainstream media. We are told that our government intervenes in countries on behalf of the victimized women, children, or ethnic minorities, who are sweet but frankly a little incompetent and need our bravery and machismo to vanquish their oppressors, who are made of pure, uncomplicated evil. This brand of philanthropy, like the domestic variety, recreates the conditions of the drama triangle through the implication that “victims” are incompetent, “perpetrators” are incorrigible, and “rescuers” are infallible. As such, it forecloses on complex understandings of social injustice that implicate imperialism, capitalism, neoliberalism, and any number of other dynamics that are associated with global colonialism.

Resolution and Transformation

The process of breaking out of codependent dynamics is two-fold. Codependents must address the fundamental, wounded parts of themselves with compassion and acceptance in order to heal any deep-seated shame. At the same time, we have to take action, setting and following through on concrete, loving personal boundaries. In this way, codependents can connect to their sense of self-worth and take pride in the actions they have taken.

I believe that it is essential for activists with codependent qualities to engage this process. For me, working to recover from codependency has radically transformed my activism. I figured out that feelings of guilt and inadequacy had been the primary motivators in my social justice work. I realized that I had internalized countless standards for what constituted a “real” radical that left little room for my strengths and my identity. Finally, I understood that I needed to prioritize self-care and communication in a way that transcended the lip service that I had given them before. I learned about what burns me out, what nourishes me, and what inspires me. Recovery from codependency has been a long and vulnerable process but I have already noticed that my collective organizing involvement has become much more sustainable.

In the arena of addressing larger social patterns, the experience of codependency recovery can help individuals frame their ideas of social justice with respect to the basic needs and boundaries of others. For example, I’ve noticed that when speaking to individuals who occupy oppressive roles, I have had greater success when taking great care to avoid the rhetoric of the drama triangle. In appealing to their vulnerability, their humanity, and their strength, I have communicated social justice ideas around consent, respecting indigenous spirituality, and complicating environmentalism in a way that does not put folks on the defensive. On a broader scale, I have noticed that when ally-ship organizations take the time to participate in communities that they are striving to support, familiarize themselves with their needs and feelings, and ask them for instructions on how to support their causes, the resulting activism is more respectful and effective than that of organizations that still see communities as victims in need of rescue.

Codependent dynamics permeate Western capitalist society and undermine many of our anti-capitalist communities. By gaining an awareness of the codependency framework, resolving childhood traumas, and learning to communicate our feelings, needs, and boundaries, we can transform our activism to build resilient movements that sustain, delight, and inspire us.

Coal. The sleek seductress and poison pill. Will humans leave her sleeping or destroy our life support system to fill our addiction?

The struggle to halt coal exploitation is happening on many fronts, and one important nexus is the battle in the Pacific Northwest to stop “The Coal Trains” — a variety of proposals to move unfathomable amounts of coal by train from Montana’s Powder River Basin to Pacific ports so it can be shipped to China. Every leg of this proposal is an unacceptable wound to Mother Earth: from the despicable strip mining in Montana; to the 18 or more daily mile-long trains trailing coal dust through communities in three or more states; to proposed construction of new ports, like one near Bellingham WA in a sensitive herring and salmon habitat; to a giant increase in large ships and the likelihood of an oil spill in the precious Puget Sound (home of the Orca whales) or other waterways; to the shipping of national natural resources all the way across the Pacific to be burned in dirty coal plants in China that put unacceptable levels of CO2 and other pollutants into the atmosphere.

There is so much money to be made that numerous corporations are salivating to get coal trains moving. There at least 6 sites from Coos Bay, Oregon to Canada, including sites along the Columbia River, the Olympic Peninsula and Cherry Point near Bellingham that are under consideration for coal export terminals. The “developers” include the perennially evil Peabody Coal (that hauled away John Prine’s “Paradise”), SSA Marine (who called in the police that shot at Oakland port protesters) and Goldman Sachs. They want to capitalize on China’s interest in cheap coal and the desire of the coal industry to open new markets as natural gas fracking floods the US energy market with artificially cheap gas which is cutting domestic coal consumption. So much for “national energy self sufficiency” arguments.

Its up to regular people in target communities to oppose these devastating energy projects. Fortunately Bellingham, the site of the largest proposed port, is not an easy push over. The public hearings about the Environmental Impact Statements have been packed with articulate citizens pointing out the numerous health, environmental and economic threats of this project. Bellingham also collected double the required signatures to put a “coal transport ban and Community Bill of Rights” initiative on the ballot. It was later blocked by a court order and the local city council. Nonetheless, the campaign galvanized local resistance and underscored the public desire to empower local autonomous decision making over state or federal bureaucracies.

The Bellingham 12 are a group of activists facing legal charges for blocking train tracks to bring attention to the Coal Train as part of Occupy’s West Coast day of action on Dec. 12, 2011. “The Bellingham 12 are working hard to fight our charges in court on the basis of the necessity defense to prevent a greater evil”, explained Andy Ingram, one of the twelve activists. “It’s imperative that we as a community here in the Northwest and across the world try and create a culture where direct action and confrontation of wanton industrial development is socially acceptable and encouraged, so that we have the slightest chance of preserving the health and integrity of the planet as we’ve known it up until now.”

Larry Hildes is an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild in Bellingham who is representing the Bellingham 12. He has also represented front-line coal activists in Montana and Tennessee. “Coal is an evil any place where it’s produced, it has caused suffering… It is the mining, transportation and burning of coal that is the single easiest attackable major cause of climate change. It is one of the most pervasive examples of putting profit ahead of the earth, putting profit ahead of people. They come up with more and more destructive means to pull it out, and the whole process is just flat wrong. It is wonderful that people are standing up against it, putting their bodies on the line all over the world to say no to it. It makes me really, really hopeful, the fact that there are people fighting this in West Virginia, Montana and Wyoming, here in Washington and Oregon, Australia, in China — all of the places where coal is inflicting human and environmental destruction, people are fighting it and are fighting it hard.”

There has also been resistance from the Native Tribal communities, a strong political force in the Pacific Northwest. “We have to say ‘no’ to the coal terminal project,” said Cliff Cultee, Chairman of the Lummi Nation. “It is our Xw’ xalh Xechnging (sacred duty) to preserve and protect all of Xwe’chi’eXen (Cherry Point).” Cherry Point is the location of a 3,500-year-old village site and is “full of sacred sites and burial grounds”. The proposed development is just north of the Lummi reservation and could gravely affect the fishing and gathering rights of numerous tribes. The call to stop the Coal Train was heard at a recent gathering in Seattle in support of “Idle No More” (a growing and exciting movement coming out of indigenous peoples in Canada).

“The fact that people have done civil disobedience on both sides of the border, both ends of the supply line is fabulous. There are people organizing to stop this everywhere. In every town along the route there are people in large numbers organizing. … Helena is mobilized, Bozeman is mobilized, Spokane, every place all along the rail route there is major opposition to this thing, it is enormously hopeful.” says Larry Hildes. “I’ve never seen an environmental movement like this, on this scale… this one is very large, and very broad and yet very radical. That’s fantastic. Which is what we need, that is how we are going to stop this.”

Audrey Goodfriend was an anarchist her entire life. Born to anarchist immigrants in New York, Audrey grew up speaking Yiddish at home and lived in the Sholem Aleichem House; a radical cooperative housing project in the Bronx. She was a girl when Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in Boston in 1927 and their letters were instrumental in shaping her anarchism, continuing to move her throughout her life.

As an adolescent and young adult, Audrey sent care packages to anarchist comrades fighting in Spain, read Living My Life against the express wishes of her parents who felt it was too sexually explicit, and traveled to Toronto with a friend to have tea with Emma Goldman. During World War II, she was part of the Why? Group, a publishing collective that printed an anti-war anarchist periodical at a time when many radicals were choosing to support the state in what they saw as a just war against fascism. Anti-zionist since before there ever was a state of Israel, Audrey and her comrades believed strongly that no state violence was ever justified.

In 1946, after the war, she went on a speaking tour with her partner David Koven and some friends from their circle to raise money for the anti-draft movement. They ended up in San Francisco and decided to stay. They knew Paul Goodman and Kenneth Rexroth and were part of a generation of anarchists who laid the groundwork for the cultural movements that defined San Francisco in the fifties and sixties. Audrey told me once that she was too busy raising children to pay much attention to the beat generation, but followed this by saying she had attended the event where Ginsberg read Howl for the first time. Raising her two daughters directed Audrey’s interests toward anarchist education and the Modern School movement, leading her to help found the Walden School in Berkeley in 1958.

She worked as a teacher at Walden until the early seventies and was the bookkeeper at her friend Moe Moskowitz’s Berkeley bookstore for many years after. In her fifties, she had hip surgery, separated from her partner David, and began swimming at the YMCA every day. At sixty, she started acting with Stagebridge, the country’s oldest senior theater company, and continued to perform with them for over twenty-five years. She was still taking an improv class there this fall and spoke about the power and importance it had for her.

I met Audrey seven and a half years ago when I began attending the Anarchist Study Group at the Long Haul in Berkeley. Thirty to seventy years older than the rest of us, she spoke her mind freely and did not allow others to put her on a pedestal. When many of her peers had lost touch with younger anarchists, Audrey was one of us: engaging with us every week and reading more obscure theory than she ever wanted to.

Audrey always said she did not celebrate holidays; they were too tied up with god and the state for her taste. She did, however, love to celebrate birthdays and New Year’s Day because they were about people and life and making it through another year. I biked over to Audrey’s house a few weeks ago. She showed me some of her books and we talked about her life a lot. She did not seem to romanticize or regret any of it; she spoke of her own death without fear and was able to laugh, listen and be present with me as I spoke about myself. A week and a half later she went to the theater, came home raving about it, went to sleep, and passed away. She never stopped being an active part of our lives until she stopped altogether.

And she never voted and she never married and she never believed in the authority of god or country; and she was happy and present, well loved and a joy to know.

Introduction to Issue #112

Slingshot is an independent radical newspaper published in Berkeley since 1988.

Speaking your truth can be a risk. Sometimes people get pissed at you, or you realize later that what you said wasn’t actually true, or maybe it became untrue with time. How do we build a movement when communication is laden with so much risk? In this issue of Slingshot we printed hella articles about communication. Communication with others, with ourselves, with our environment. Open and honest communication is the only way we can learn and grow. With growth comes pain, but if we never push past our familiar routines, what are we but ghosts of our former selves? Neurologists have recently pointed out what radicals knew all along: the brain starts dying when you don’t take risks.

Recently, some members of the collective have noticed that the world outside the Berkeley vortex seems to be undergoing a cultural shift. Towns that had no counter-culture five years ago are now buzzing with travelers, squatters, info shops, coops, and all sorts of great radical stuff. And there’s been this incredible self-determined Indigenous movement, called “Idle No More,” sprouting up in Canada and around the globe, with native people demanding autonomy over their environment and communities. As we hot-waxed their article to the page, the author of “Keeping Carbon in the Ground” (on pages 10-11) called us from a march in Toronto as helicopters were circling overhead. Folks are up to something! Smashing the state with one hand and creating sustainable communities with the other.

According to the biological definition, a “radical” is the part of a plant’s root structure that is new. A radical is fresh and green, shooting off into new spaces. A radical also must be more aware and sensitive than any other part of the plant’s root structure, so it can make careful decisions based on the availability of nutrients and water. As human radicals, we embody a beautiful, reckless growth. We push towards something new and better. We walk to the very edge of the paths blazed by those who came before and we continue to push forward in the dark, warm soil as the permaculture sprouts in our wake.

Slingshot is always looking for new writers, artists, editors, photographers, translators, distributors, etc. to make this paper. If you send something written, please be open to editing.

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

Thanks to the people who made this: Angie, Darin, enola d!, eggplant, Fern, Fred, Glenn, Gnat, Hayley, Heather, Jared, Jesse, Joey, Joey-2, Jonathon, Julia, Kermit, Lesley, Solomon, Stephski, Vanessa, Xander , and all the authors and artists who came together to make this paper.

Slingshot Technology Meeting

We’ve been putting off dealing with how the internet and other technological details relate to publishing our paper in a comprehensive way for years by putting band aids on top of band aids. On Saturday April 6 at 2 pm, we’re going to have an open discussion of what technology we want to apply and how to do it. If you know about tech stuff and want to help us explore and improve ways of spreading slingshotty-info digitally, join us at this meeting.

Slingshot New Volunteer Meeting

Volunteers interested in getting involved with Slingshot can come to the new volunteer meeting on Sunday March 24, 2013 at 4 p.m. at the Long Haul in Berkeley (see below.)

Article Deadline & Next Issue Date

Submit your articles for issue 113 by April 20, 2013 at 3 p.m.

Volume 1, Number 112, Circulation 20,000

Printed February 1, 2013

Slingshot Newspaper

A publication of Long Haul

Office: 3124 Shattuck Avenue

Mailing: PO Box 3051, Berkeley, CA 94703

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Slingshot will award its ninth annual Award for Lifetime Achievement — the Golden Wingnut — at its 25th birthday party on Sunday, March 10 at 3124 Shattuck in Berkeley (8 pm). Slingshot created the Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize direct action radicals who have dedicated their lives to the struggle for alternatives to the current absurd system. Wingnut is the term some of us use to refer to folks who blend radicalism and a highly individual personal style — more than just another boring radical. Golden Wingnuts mix determination, inspiration and flair. The winner has their biography featured in our next issue, and will receive a wingnut trophy and super-hero outfit.

We’re looking for nominations. To be eligible, an individual has to be currently alive and must have at least 25 years of service to the movement. Please send your nominations by 5 p.m. on March 1 along with why a particular person should be awarded the Golden Wingnut for 2013 to slingshot@tao.ca

On November 30, 2012. the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced implementation of the bipartisan Local Community Radio Act of 2010. The legislation instructs the FCC to license more small, local Low Power FM (LPFM) stations. These stations broadcast on up to 100-watt transmitters, usually with a 3-4 mile signal range. The legislation replaces a 2000 ruling first recognizing LPFM. The 2000 legislation was hailed a groundbreaking victory for unlicensed radio, which had seized the airwaves and refused to be removed. However, the radio industry through inside deals from powerful lobbying arm the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) with the FCC and Congress quickly maneuvered to strategically undermine the process to eliminate even the smallest level of competition for the profiteers.

Over a twelve year period the net result is about 800 small, non-profit corporate LPFM stations nationally. Virtually none have been licensed in major urban areas, including none in the Bay area. The majority are rural stations owned by a well-funded national religious network, most others by schools and emergency responders. The result is a corporate jukebox of songs from the top ten record labels, AP wire service briefs, and government-funded propaganda from NPR.

The current LPFM legislation is again hailed as ground breaking by the media and radio activist organizations that worked hard for passage. It should provide a few more good quality, local stations. But will it help or actually hurt LPFM in the context of the overall goals of the original movement, which started out as “pirate radio”?

Within a week or two after the LPFM announcement, the FCC quietly announced another round of corporate media deregulation, the third attempt in the past decade. This legislation expands and includes radio in recently implemented cross-ownership rules to allow one corporation to own one newspaper, two TV stations, and up to 8 radio stations in any one market. The FCC’s complicity in expansion of corporate license approvals threatens to further limit the amount of dial space left for LPFM licenses.

In two weeks, media activist organizations delivered over 200,000 letters in opposition, minority media organizations protested, and 57 Congress people signed a letter in opposition, reminding the FCC of legal obligations it is ignoring. Yet, this year the FCC marches forward despite similar defeated attempts by organized public action in 2003 and 2007, with the only public support coming from industry profiteers.

Consolidation levels are already ridiculous. In 2003, 50 corporations owned 90% of the media. Now, six corporations own that 90%. People of color control 3.6% of TV stations and 8% of radio stations, and women less than 10% overall. 1996 legislation began the escalating consolidation, broadening radio ownership from about 35 stations nationally per company to about 35% or more in any geographic market. In 4 years, hated conglomerate Clear Channel grew from 35 to over 1200 stations nationally.

Estimates of the number of new LPFM stations that will be licensed are low, completely dependent on implementation. While virtually no LPFM stations were added over 12 years, countless thousands of big corporate applications were rubber-stamped, with estimates of up towards 10,000 of these applications on hold in the pipeline. Most aren’t even new, rather “repeater” or “translator” stations that either expand the signal range of an existing station or rebroadcast existing stations in different markets. An FCC brief last year suggested allowing 1 LPFM station for every 70 new licenses issued.

LPFM started towards the mid-90’s as a civil disobedience “pirate radio” movement. Stations such as Free Radio Berkeley and San Francisco Liberation Radio jumped onto open dial spaces with cheap equipment, as a broadcasting voice for the exploding homeless populations totally shut out of institutional media. At that time, homeless activists involved with Food Not Bombs and Homes Not Jails took over unused buildings, creating space for LPFM broadcasting, and communities for collective living.

The local power structure reacted by jailing activists and criminalizing homeless people while the FCC reacted similarly; criminalizing “illegal broadcasters” for operating without a license despite the fact that no low power licensing process existed. The criminalization included removing stations in armed multi-jurisdictional raids to seize “illegal transmitters.”

Broadcasters were sent civil fine notices in the tens of thousands of dollars, property owners threatened with both civil fines and property seizure for hosting “illegal” activities. The FCC to this day uses it’s limited public resources to spy, infiltrate, harass, threaten, and remove by force unlicensed stations as if an FBI investigating criminals on a most wanted list. This scares away broadcasters, results in frequent evictions, drives stations underground in need of internal security, and makes it really risky to hold public events and interact with the community.

Why didn’t this level of repression end, or even slow down the movement? Negative FCC publicity from armed raids and failed legal challenges dissuade higher profile challenges. How do people react to news reports that a volunteer DJ on air had multiple guns put to his/her head by multi-jurisdictional police forces that burst into the studio space under the direction of an FCC bureaucrat?

More to the point, unlicensed broadcasting isn’t and never was “illegal”. No legalities exist either way. Would the FCC win or lose a court challenge on grounds that it is mandated to provide for things like local, affordable access and diversity in membership and content? LPFM exists and is now legal, because of the brave, unyielding civil disobedience actions of these DJs and supporters.

Free Radio Berkeley pioneer Steven Dunifer recently raised the issue of the radio movement having been formed for much, much more than 800 little private corporate stations. Dunifer has produced for worldwide distribution basic radio starter kits that get a station broadcasting for less than $1,000. Many unlicensed stations broadcast good radio as non-hierarchical collectives on as little as several hundred dollars a month, mostly for cheap rent and utilities. Many are self-financed with small monthly DJ donations, used equipment, and occasional fundraising benefits.

Unlicensed radio and web broadcasting has and can continue to provide much more than songs and talk, namely direct action politics. The web-based independent media center movement started around the “Battle of Seattle”. Internet sites can broadcast audio live on location worldwide and archive shows for free download and rebroadcast at minimal cost. When an FM radio station is willing to link to that live site, it can simulcast live from the studio with a click of a bottom.

San Francisco Liberation Radio (SFLR) was broadcasting good quality radio to central San Francisco in 2003 when bombs started dropping in Iraq, before shutdown by armed FCC raid. At that time, licensed broadcasters were summarily fired for uttering even a word in opposition to this destructive war, resulting in nothing but corporate “cheerleading” and self-censorship.

The SF Bay Independent Media Center (indybay.org) formed a web radio station called Enemy Combatant Radio (ECR). The day after the Iraq war was announced, it broadcast from the studio live call-in reports from the streets on a day the Financial District was completely shut down with anarchist-oriented tactics, costing Wall Street millions. SFLR broadcasted ECR live. Broadcasts from subsequent rally sites and break-away marches were streamed live with SFLR rebroadcast live in public parks. Internet hits were logged from indymedia sites worldwide. Event-specific street broadcasts have been held at major anti-war rallies and anti-globalization events, including live documentation of police-protester clashes in breakaway marches.

Occupy movements created live streams to document activities and for radio re-broadcast. Several years ago, Puerto Rican students and supporters seized public university campus’ over university fee hike/service cuts, with police/protester riots across cities. Part of a worldwide student movement, students set up an LPFM station on the seized campus. A student leader I interviewed while visiting the Bay Area said they’d gotten the idea from reading about Berkeley Liberation Radio.

The current licensing process is led by liberal/progressive organizations with very little advocacy for or involvement from the unlicensed community. Most pirate broadcasters I’ve heard from – including myself – want nothing to do with being a corporation, playing it safe, having a station manager, raising big money, or having anything to do with the FCC. In my opinion, radical, direct action stations have a better chance staying on the air without a license. If licensed and unwilling to self-censor, the first thing to fight will be industry-fueled FCC witch hunts that take back the license. Stations paying tens of thousands of dollars start-up costs are likely to play it safe with non-confrontational liberal politics, and push out socialist, anarchist and other leftist viewpoints.

Why did the 2000 LPFM legislation accomplish virtually nothing? The legislation was flawed in the first place, only allowing for non-profit corporations such as schools and churches. FCC and cheap industry tricks quickly destroyed the rest. Instead of granting licenses to existing unlicensed stations, the FCC implemented a retaliatory “lifetime ban” for anyone having participated in these “illegal activities”. Artificially limiting dial space, unrealistic application costs, hiding a court-mandated study, refusal to open new available spectrums, and not administering the process are some of the implementation blocks. NPR has bought up most small stations, driving the price of a license into the millions and leaving few small local stations left.

In my analysis, the new LPFM movement is needed more than ever just to replace the fast disappearing traditional “non-commercial” radio spectrum. Unlicensed radio activists can look to the roots of pirate radio and current independent media movements to re-invigorate a radical direct action movement for quality radio free of government control.