Category: Articles

Nowhere is the true face of the armed state and its characteristic violence so blatant, the bankruptcy of its ruling class politics so brutally visible, as in the Palestinian West Bank under the Israeli boot. Tristan Anderson’s severe injury in Ni’ilin village on March 13 marked a dark Friday in a long non-violent struggle of resistance to the Israeli matrix of control and oppression, a struggle for dignity and self-determination at the grassroots in Occupied Palestine. Eight days later, many marched in solidarity with Tristan, and the hundreds of other Palestinians, Jewish Israelis and internationals injured or murdered by the Israeli military in Ni’ilin and numerous other villages and towns on the Occupied West Bank over the past nine years, in the vortex and wake of the al-Aqsa intifada.

A chronicle of oppression

Arafat al Khawaje, aged 22, was murdered in Ni’ilin by Israeli bullets, even as the attack on Gaza reached a new peak of ferocity, shot in the back on December 28. Arafat was a third-year student at the Arab-American University Jenin. The AAUJ held special services on January 1, 2009 to mourn his murder (1).

At the same demonstration, Mohammed Sa’adat Fahami Al Khawaje, 20, was shot in the forehead with live ammunition from close range, and died on New Year’s Eve. Mohammed was the fourth youth from Ni’ilin to be murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces. 10-year-old Ahmed Mousa and 18-year-old Youself Amira were shot dead in late July, 2008.

This is a struggle over the uprooting of olive trees, the theft of land and livelihood, the erasure of a people from their homes, villages, soil. And the continuing construction of the Great Wall of Palestine, the Apartheid Barrier.

This village of some five thousand inhabitants had 22.4 square miles of land on the eve of the 1948 war that established the state of Israel. 15 square miles were confiscated at that time, along with some 4.5 square miles slated to be confiscated by the construction of the Separation Wall and other Israeli military barriers, which will leave the village with 2.8 square miles, including its built-up area.

At the forefront of the resistance in Ni’ilin – which has become an icon of the Palestinian struggle at the grassroots across Palestine – has been Anarchists Against the Wall, a direct action group out every week to protest in solidarity with local Palestinians. Nowhere else in the world is a small determined group of non-violent social anarchists facing a heavily armed military on a weekly, and sometimes a daily basis. The work of AATW deserves international support. Tristan stood in solidarity with them, and they stand with him.

Getting free

The ultimate radical vision that should guide Palestinians and Israelis is, in my view, a decentralized socialist commonwealth of ta’ayush (togetherness), cooperating in free association and mutual aid, beyond the abominations of capitalism and its nation-state system. The goal, as James Herod sees it, is to forge a community of communities, countering hierarchy, wage slavery, profit, commodities, social classes, private ownership of the means of production, patriarchy, and much more (2).

Herod argues that if we were already now reorganizing ourselves “into neighborhood, workplace, and household assemblies, and were struggling to seize power there, then we would have a base from which to stop ruling-class offensives.” He stresses that in the three-pronged attack on the System that he envisions, “by focusing not merely on the workplace (seizing the means of production) but also on neighborhoods and households, it anticipates a recapturing of decision-making – that is, its relocation out of state bureaucracies, parliaments, and corporate boards, and into our assemblies. […] It also emphasizes capturing the means of reproduction (and not only production) through household associations. Its guiding principle is free association.”

But that is a future space of radical liberation toward which we can move, down a long road of fightback and transformation. Revolutionary pragmatism knows that today’s work is standing together with those in the daily struggle – rooted in a tough and resilient sumud (steadfastness) — for justice, dignity, and resistance to the matrix of control and urbicide in Ni’ilin and across Occupied Palestine.

Urbicide in action

Integral to Zionist state ideology and matrices of control is a policy of “urbicide,” a form of spatial strangulation, stunting the demographic, physical and economic development of Palestinian communities. Palestinian villages and cities are systematically invaded and destroyed, along with structures of livelihood, health, education, and the surrounding natural landscape and agricultural land. The resistance in Ni’ilin is against this urbicide, and a policy of the “eradication of normalcy” designed to wear down and demoralize the Palestinian population. It is associated with a planning strategy of conquest where “Palestinian urban space is constructed as a pre-modern, formless, almost solid conglomerate of material and human refuse, a treacherous, dangerous place that needs to be cleansed through hygienic practices embodied in the act of ‘design by destruction'” (3).

In the sociopolitical imaginary of the Israeli ruling-class, Palestinian space is demonized and dehumanized, a “cancerous” threat to the purported organic “body” of the modern state of Israel (4). As Abujidi & Verschure stress: “Sovereignty over space is an important element in achieving geopolitical aims intrinsic to the longer-term policy imperative within the geopolitical colonial imaginary that guides the Israeli nation-state” (5).

The construction of the wall and intense violence against civilians throughout Palestine including the attacks in Ni’ilin and many other villages is urbicide in action, an engineering of space and an invasion of local neighborhoods designed to ensure total Israeli control of the Palestinian territories and traumatize the population, undermining all aspects of their infrastructure, and shattering their psychological well-being. In Sari Hanafi’s view, such policies are intended to make it all but impossible for Palestinians to live a normal life, and to induce them to emigrate – a form of “voluntary transfer,” as Israeli documents term it (6).

Resisting the brutality and building a different future deserves the solidarity of the progressive community in Oakland, throughout North America and around the globe. As Anne Feeney reminds us, from the West Bank to Seattle: “It’s a worldwide war. It’s a war on the workers / And it’s time we started calling the shots” (7). Now more than ever. ¡Ya basta! / khalas! is the watchword.

FOOTNOTES

1. The university is here: http://www.aauj.edu

2. James Herod, Getting free: Creating an association of democratic autonomous neighborhoods. Oakland: AK Press, 2007

3. See Nurhan Abujidi & Han Verschure, Military occupation as urbicide by “construction and destruction”: The case of Nablus, Palestine, The Arab World Geographer (2006), vol. 9, no. 2: 126-154.

4. Eyal Weizman, Builders and warriors: Military operations as urban planning, Site (November 2004): 2-4; see also Weizman, Hollow land: Israel’s architecture of occupation. London: Verso, 2007.

5. Abujidi & Verschure, ibid., 143.

6. Sari Hanafi, Targeting space through biopolitics; The Israeli colonial project, Palestine Report, February 18, 2004.

7. Listen to the song “War on the Workers,” http://home.earthlink.net/~unionmaid/id1.html

The Wall

Israel started building its so-called “separation barrier” in mid-2002, at the height of the second Palestinian Intifada, amidst the most violent period of Palestinian resistance to the occupation. Despite the fact that Palestinian violence was not remotely as grave as Israeli violence, it was a rather simple task for Israel to use the smokescreen of security and the collective hysteria of the Israeli public to legitimize a structural manifestation of Israel’s policy of apartheid.

It took time to see through the smokescreen to the scope and meaning of the Wall. Over time things became clearer. By now we understand that its route, penetrating deep into the West Bank, was planned to assure Israeli control over water resources, to grab as much land as possible, to allow the expansion of Israeli settlements, to strategically divide the West Bank into five reservation-like enclaves, and to create a de facto border that would eliminate anything that could be called the State of Palestine.

While the vast majority of Israelis are highly supportive of the Wall, Palestinians immediately understood the disastrous implications. Only a few short months after construction had begun, the people of Jayyous, a small village in the Qalqilya district–men, women and children, accompanied by a few International and Israeli activists–set out to stop the bulldozers pulverizing their fertile lands. Every day for almost three months they went out to confront the army M-16s and armored vehicles with nothing but their bodies and their hearts and the stones their land could offer.

The Wall was eventually built through Jayyous, but the village’s struggle and its spirit established a model for joint-popular resistance. It took time for another village to rise up in a similar way. This happened in the village of Budrus, during the last days of 2003. Waging a truly heroic struggle, villagers managed to push the bulldozers off their lands and force the path of the wall to be rerouted.

Budrus’s often-celebrated success empowered people in dozens of villages to explode with rage in what is probably the most significant popular movement of the second Intifada. For the good part of 2004, daily demonstrations were held in numerous villages at once, extricating the issue of Israel’s Wall from the dark back rooms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, bringing it to the fore.

Oppression intensified as the movement grew. To date, seventeen demonstrators have been killed by the army, ten of them children. Thousands have been jailed and imprisoned, and countless were injured. Collective punishment in the form of movement restrictions, work permit withdrawals and strict curfews were also imposed on revolting villages.

Oppression had taken its toll on the movement. Demonstrations and riots now only take part in a handful of villages, and mostly on a weekly rather than a daily basis. Notable among these villages is Bil’in, where demonstrations have been held every Friday for the past four years, with absolutely no exception. Through their struggle, they have succeeded in getting a court order that re-routes the wall and gives much of their land back.

In May last year, the village of Ni’ilin, was in the fire of an uprising that brought back the intensity of the movement’s most fierce days. Confrontations between villagers and the army occurred almost daily, and despite military violence, often ended in construction halted for the day due to damaged heavy machinery.

In March of this year, Tristan Anderson unfortunately became one of many casualties in the conflict. The brutal attempt to suppress Ni’ilin has cost the village the lives of four of its sons, one of them only ten-years-old. About ten percent of the men between 15 and 50 were at one point or another imprisoned, and hundreds were seriously injured.

If there is one thing that I’ve learned in these years, it is that though their bullets hit hard, our passion is stronger, that our people who are sent to their jails remain freer than their soldiers will ever be, and that we still rise from the pools of our blood, and shout with parched throats– FREEDOM!

So who is Tristan and why would he go almost halfway around the world to stand with Palestinians to protest injustices done against them by the state of Israel?

Tristan was born in 1971 to Quaker parents who made conscious choices not to chase the ‘American Dream’. Tristan grew up in a humble, rural environment. His parents instilled their pacifist and anti-war values in him. He went to his first demonstrations (against the Vietnam War) when he was an infant. In high school he got a lot of grief for his peace punk style and ethos.

In 1991 he moved to the East Bay and took part in protests against the First Gulf War. He started seeing and experiencing first hand the police repression of dissent. He became an active member of East Bay Food Not Bombs (FNB), cooking and sharing vegan food in People’s Park. He helped fight off the volleyball courts that UC Berkeley imposed on the Park in 1991. When the San Francisco police tried to shut down FNB in that city, he was arrested numerous times for sharing food. In the mid-90’s he traveled to El Salvador and met people resisting the brutal U.S. puppet government there. Back in the East Bay, he had a weekly show on Free Radio Berkeley and was a regular at Critical Mass bike rides.

Throughout the ’90s Tristan often traveled with the mobile FNB kitchen, which drew him to environmental, anti-nuclear and indigenous rights camps at the Nevada Test Site, Ward Valley and especially the forests of Northern California with Earth First! He became more dedicated to direct action. After taking part in the ‘Battle of Seattle’, where activists shut down the World Trade Organization meeting, he threw himself into the Global Justice movement as a participant and journalist at many summits worldwide.

In 2006 he went to Oaxaca after hearing his good friend Brad Will had been shot dead. Tristan came back with tales of love, liberation and late nights at the barricade. Brad’s death reminded him, as Tristan’s injury reminds us, of the risks we take when we stand for justice. While sobering, it is so important that these incidents re-energize our commitment to create a better world so we never allow our voices to be silenced.

More recently Tristan was a big part of the Memorial Oak Grove Tree-Sit, a 23-month effort to protect dozens of old trees on University of California Berkeley property. He often brought food, banners, props and gear. He spent many days and nights in the trees and was up there for the harrowing three-day showdown between the sitters and UCPD supervised goons. Though unable to save the trees, this broad-based community effort was wildly successful in inspiring thousands of people around the world, while shining a spotlight on UC’s evil ways.

Tristan traveled across many continents, working two jobs in between to fund his activism. He had already been to the Middle East twice, including Iraq where he toured with a circus cheering up kids in the war-torn country not long after the U.S. invasion. He was eager to go to Palestine for the first time and stand with the people there. When he was shot he was protesting and photographing the Israeli Apartheid Wall being built on Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Tristan is one the most beautiful and dedicated people we have ever met. His courage is immense; he’s usually one of the last to leave a crazy intense scene. He exemplifies thinking and acting both locally and globally. For him action is political AND personal, understanding the importance of coming together with others to challenge a system that exploits the Earth and her people, while also realizing the necessity of treating ourselves and each other with compassion, while building resistance that actualizes at each step the world we are building. Tristan remains in serious condition, and the effects of having part of his brain removed will not be known for some time. He fights for his own life as he has been fighting for all life for the last two decades. We are confident he will make a full recovery, growing in wisdom and bold as ever.

Within days of Tristan Anderson’s critical injury in Palestine on March 13, people were protesting Israel’s brutal policies on the streets of Tel Aviv, Chicago, New York, Miami, New Haven, London and in San Francisco. A large and spirited demonstration and march in SF on March 16 to show solidarity with Tristan and Palestine was pulled together in just a few hours after a meeting over the weekend at the SF Anarchist Book Fair.

Tristan’s almost two decades of intense activism on a diverse variety of issues meant that a broad cross-section of people in the bay area activist scene turned out for the march. This made for quite a festive presence in the heart of downtown San Francisco as black flags, large banners, a marching band and anti-state chants flooded the grid locked rush-hour streets. While the protest was for Tristan and Palestinian solidarity, there were connections made to other aspects of systemic oppression, such as police brutality, state repression, and nation-state borders.

The march made its way from the Israeli consulate on Montgomery Street through downtown, eventually seizing a major intersection on Market Street leading to a brief standoff with police. The march continued on Market until a splinter group broke away and managed to lose the main march’s heavy police escort by running up Montgomery Street into oncoming traffic — back to the consulate. A few ninja-like participants used the cars as their spring boards and leapt on ahead.

After some marchers reached the consulate, the situation seemed calm — the protest was winding down and people were dancing, drumming or drifting away — until a strike team of police arrived and entered the crowd to make an arrest. They forcefully grabbed a woman who began to scream, causing a larger mob of police to advance on the with riot batons swinging wildly. One protestor was clubbed in the head, resulting in a trip to the hospital with an injury that required nine staples. People were shoved, punched, hit with batons and ultimately there were eight arrests. The police charged four people with felonies on a range of bogus charges.

It is sadly ironic that a protest over the horrific state violence visited upon Tristan and Palestinians would itself be subjugated to a smaller dose of police brutality. It is evident that police violence is growing, and is everywhere. For Tristan, Oscar Grant, and so many others: Fuck the Police.

It can be humbling and isolating trying to struggle for social change. Just little you and your tiny circle of friends and comrades against massive and seemingly untouchable foes: global capitalism, industrial consumer culture, the eco-destroying economy and nation states armed to the teeth protecting the status quo.

But even though we may feel small and vulnerable, we are not alone or isolated in our struggle. We’re part of something much larger — we share with people around the world and through history a vision for a different world. Browsing the list of infoshops, radical community centers, alternative libraries and free bike shops, one sees the thread of community coming together in all directions. In each of our towns we may feel like we’re swimming upstream against resignation and apathy, but it helps to realize that people from the Philippines to Bolivia to Toledo are out there swimming with you.

Here are updates to the radical contact list published in the 2009 Slingshot organizer. We’re going to revise and update the list for the 2010 organizer. Let us know if you see any corrections. The deadline is July 31. For updates before then, check our online updates: slingshot.tao.ca. Happy traveling!

Rice, Beans & Revolution Infoshop – McAllen, TX

A new infoshop in deep South Texas just miles from the border wall with a lending library, zine library and bookstore. Open Mon-Fri 10 – 8, Sat/Sun noon – 6. 402 N. Main, McAllen, TX 78501, myspace.com/rice_beans_revolution, 956-212-8753

The Black Cherry – Toledo, OH

A bookstore, for-donation cafe and show space with a lending library, free store and an office for local projects as well as several apartments. 1420 Cherry St. Toledo Ohio 43608 theblackcherrycenter@gmail.com

EarthDiver book Collective – Oshkosh, WI

They have a lending library, show space, band practice space and host events, films and meetings for local projects like Books to Prisoners and a free food project “Relocation of Surplus Vittles Project (RSVP).” They also have a community garden. 949 W. 7th Ave. Oshkosh, WI 54902

CRASH collective infoshop – Burlington, VT

The have the first floor and basement of a house with a lending library, meeting/event room, zine distro and media center with free computer lab and a zine photocopier. They also have a bike tool share and bulk food buyers club. They serve free food and coffee and host a bunch of groups. Check them out at 117 Bank St Burlington VT 05401, infoshopvt@gmail.com.

Firebrand Infoshop – Nashville, TN

A warehouse with space for all-ages shows, a library, zines, computers and a bike co-op. They also have a free skool. Open Mon – Fri 5pm-8:30. 1318 Little Hamilton Road, Nashville, TN 37203 615-673-4153, livefreeordie@riseup.net

Burning River D.I.Y. Collective – Cleveland, OH

Ooops – we listed Burning River in our “RIP” section because a few years ago, there was a collective in Cleveland called Burning River. We think that the old collective did in fact die, but it turns out a new group of folks organized their own collective and picked the same name! The new group is alive and going strong. They have free workshops and continuing classes about “doing things for yourself — growing your own food, mending your own clothes, maintaining your own bikes … anything anyone in the group has to offer, under the premise of fostering personal and community strength through DIY punk ethics.” They host shows and seek to open up a show / zine library space. For now they are based out of a house at 2831 Hampshire Road #2 Cleveland Heights, OH 44118 (216) 577-4211

Joe Hill House – West Lafayette, IN

An alternative living space with an infoshop and community center in the garage: “a hub of radical activity in the Greater Lafayette area.” They have a lending library / zine library and host the IWW. 2108 North Salisbury Street, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906

Confluence Books – Grand Junction, CO

They have zines and host a radical community center for meetings and activities. They are active regarding h2a visa worker abuse in the sheep camps of Colorado. The similarly named Confluence collective currently listed in the organizer is a residential collective house. Find the infoshop at 600 White Ave. Suite 302 Grand Junction, Colorado 81501, 970-245-4442.

Silent City Distro – Ithaca, NY

A zine library and radical distro. 115 E. MLK St. (the commons), Ithaca, NY 14850, www.silentcitydistro.org

Wonderroot Community Arts Center – Atlanta, GA

“A place where artists and activists can come together to build community through art.” They have a darkroom, recording studio, digital media lab, performance space, and a room for classes or meetings available if you pay dues. Open Mon, Tues, Thurs and Friday 10-8 and Sat noon-9. 982 Memorial Dr SE Atlanta, GA 30316 (mail PO Box 89018, Atlanta, GA 30312), 404.254.5955

Coldwater Distro – Floyd, VA

A source for print media in do-it-yourself format about indigenous led resistance to global empire: “the revolution will not be on the internet” Visit 111 Main St. Floyd, VA (mail Box 672, Floyd, VA 24091.)

Bicycle Farm – Portland, OR

A volunteer-run space for learning about building, maintaining, and riding bikes. Open Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon and Tues (every other Tuesday is women/trans only.) 305 NE Wygant St., Portland, OR 97211, (971) 533-7428, bikefarm@bikefarm.org, bikefarm.org

Sibley Bike Depot -St. Paul, MN

A not-for-profit community bike shop that offers classes, tools and a workshop plus a women’s’ and trans’ night. Open Wed 3-9, Sat 10- 6, Sun 12-4. 712 University Ave St. Paul, MN 55104, 651-222-2080 sibleybikedepot.org

Anthology New and Used Books – Scranton, PA

An independent bookstore that carries zines and original art. 515 Center St. Scranton, PA 18503 570-341-1443 www.scranthology.com

Seomra Spraoi – Dublin, Ireland

An radical autonomous social center since 2005 that features shows, art, activist groups, meeting space, films, a vegan café, library, crafts workshop, bike repair tools and computer access. 10 Belvedere Court, Dublin 1 Ireland (off Gardiner St, near Mount Joy Square), seomraspraoi@gmail.com.

Café Victoria – Mexico City

They are a collective coffee roaster and coffeeshop born out of a strike at a cafe that locked them out. Open daily from 8 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. Mercado La Paz. Calle Victoria (entre Plaza de la Constitución y Madero, Centro de Tlalpan) Mexico DF cafe-victoria.blogspot.com

Coyotic: Lugar de Encuentro – Mexico City

A community meeting space that sells locally-made products. Copilco 102, planta alta, local 115. Mexico DF (Closest Metro is Miguel Angel de Quevedo) http://www.myspace.com/coyotic

Red TiNKU – Cochabamba, Bolivia

A radical social movement office always in need of volunteers that has a community house which hosts events, and where travelers can stay for cheap. Visit Esteban Arce 532, 1er Piso, Of. 2, Galería ¨El Nazareno¨, entre Calamo y Cadaislao Cabrera, Phone. 71769493, redtinkubolivia@gmail.com, www.redtinku.com

Espaço Impróprio – Sao Paulo, Brazil

A vegan restaurant with an infoshop, recording studio and open space that hosts documentaries, debates and concerts. Rua Dona Antonia de Queiroz, 40, Consolação, phone (11) 3129.7197, improprio@riseup.net, www.espacoimproprio.org

Kinaiyahan Unahon Collective -Davao, Philippines

They are a radical community center with a garden, theater group and a lending library with zines, videos and other radical media. They are working on anti-pesticide spraying campaigns, working with local farmers, and other ecological struggles. They are working to translate anarchist texts to the local language — send them materials. Dinah B. Canonigo Blk. 24 Lot 4 Phase 2 Ciudad De Esperanza Cabantian, Davao City, Phi
lippines 8000, www.freewebs.com/kinaiyahanunahon

Freedom Shop – Wellington, New Zealand is moving

They are NZ’s longest running anarchist bookshop (since 1995). They are moving out of Cuba Mall and looking for a new space. Until then, they are tabling at festivals and events. If you visit NZ, contact them at: PO Box 9263, Te Aro, Wellington, New Zealand/Aotearoa, the_freedom_shop@yahoo.com

Corrections to 2009 Organizer

• The Rhizome Collective in Austin, TX was evicted in mid-March after the city cited them for building code violations. They had operated a number of community organizing and urban sustainability projects out of a warehouse since 2000.

• The Jack Pine Collective in Minneapolis, MN decided not to renew their lease in March due to a lack of financial and energy sustainability. They wrote in a nice goodbye message noting that they were established in 2006 as a child-friendly and sober radical space set up to be specifically anti-oppression.

• The Phoenix, AZ anarchist library is now located inside of the Conspire gallery at: 901 North 5th street, Phoenix, AZ 85004 (602) 237-5446.

The legal process has begun its slow grind since the Long Haul infoshop in Berkeley filed a lawsuit in federal court on January 14 over the August 27 police raid on the Long Haul by a joint terrorism task force composed of University of California police, sheriffs and the FBI. Since the lawsuit was filed, the defendants have filed a motion to dismiss on sovereign immunity grounds. A hearing is currently scheduled on May 29, 2009, although that date is subject to change. An initial case management conference is set for June 12.

The police seized all computers at Long Haul after breaking in with guns drawn to execute a search warrant as part of an investigation of allegedly threatening emails allegedly sent to UC Berkeley animal researchers from a public-access computer connected to the internet at Long Haul. The police would never have gotten such a broad search warrant to seize every computer at the Berkeley Public Library if the email in question had come from the public library, rather than from a radical Infoshop.

The raid on Long Haul may have been part of the investigation into local animal rights activities that lead to the arrests of Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope, and Adriana Stumpo under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act on February 20 — the “AETA4”. (See related article, pg. 1). The statement of probable cause used to obtain the Long Haul search warrant discusses a January 27, 2008 demonstration, which is one of the “overt acts” listed in the indictment against the AETA4 and one of the AETA4 is specifically discussed in the Long Haul statement of probable cause. However, the indictment filed against the AETA4 doesn’t mention the Long Haul.

While the AETA4 indictment and the raid against Long Haul were both designed to intimidate local activists, these scare tactics haven’t worked.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern California are jointly representing Long Haul in the litigation. For more details about the police raid, see Slingshot #98. For information about the lawsuit, see Slingshot #99. If you want to attend court hearings to support Long Haul, check www.thelonghaul.org for updates.

The recent expansion of radical mental health projects focused on burnout, self-care, mental health, communication, sustainability, and the like are exciting developments in the radical community. This kind of work is vital and these are important areas to focus our attention; I believe they are all a big part of making real change in our lives and in our communities. However, I don’t think these projects are enough. We are missing part of the equation here. We have law collectives, medical collectives, mutual aid collectives, mental health collectives, etc. but what about psychology collectives that could focus on understanding how to make our activism more effective?

The insights and tools of psychology have been used by the advertising industry and mainstream institutions that seek to control people, but most activist efforts don’t take the time to consider how a particular campaign plays psychologically. We fail to ask: how are our actions seen by others, how do we relate to the world outside of the activist community, what outcomes are we envisioning when we engage in particular actions, and what really makes people change?

I don’t mean to suggest we use psychological tools, methods and insights in a creepy way the way an advertiser might – I don’t want to manipulate people. In fact, it seems that activists are too often using manipulative tactics in their campaigns: shame, guilt, and “educational” campaigns without much depth, forethought, or follow-through are regularly employed. I’m tired of those old paradigms. When I was 14 I would go yell “shame” at the old ladies wearing fur coats to the opera. I highly doubt that those ladies stopped wearing their furs and it just made me feel sheepish and indignant, rather than empowered and engaged in making positive change. In more recent years I have dealt with how campaigns of guilt, social pressure, and coercion can turn in on us and eat away at our communities and make people turn away from activism and from activist campaigns. I no longer find these tactics effective or fulfilling.

What would it look like if we used psychology in a positive and genuine way in our activist work? Steve Chase has used the phrase “psychologically-smart activism” and asked questions such as “How can psychological insights and tools be shared to help people develop the capacity to join together in social movements and make the world a better place?” (2007 keynote speech at Psychology-Ecology-Sustainability Conference). I’d like to use this kind of inquiry to come up with new ways of “doing activism”. It might just break us out of the old molds and help us come up with new ways to engage in social change work, ways that have more lasting power, more depth, and more substance.

I don’t know what the “answers” are – what the “right” or most effective way to “do activism” is or precisely which areas of psychology may apply to social change work – but I’d like to bring the discussion to the table in the radical community.

Just as we are re-evaluating the ways we look at our own mental health, we could step back and really look at our activist tactics. We might ask: in what ways are we stuck in a rut? What are new and creative ways to engage people on a different level than we have before? What can be done on the ground to heal the rift between what we aspire to or think about and what we actually do? How can we have meaningful conversation with people about politics and social change who are outside of our usual political community and therefore out of our comfort zone? So often in past work I have felt like I was just yelling at “those people” or an unseen “THEM” – and where has that gotten us? I’m tired of seeing things that way. This kind of “us and them” thinking is part of the split that creates psychological barriers to actually making change.

I’m sure I am not the first person to ask these questions. In my studies of psychology and social change I have seen that there are psychologists and activist who are talking about the joining of psychology and change efforts. Joanna Macy has been doing her powerful Despair and Empowerment Work since the anti-nuclear movement (http://www.joannamacy.net/). Feminist psychologist and ecopsychologists have addressed the connection between society’s problems, psychology, and change efforts. Despite all the above, I don’t see these ideas really permeating activist circles, at least the often younger, often direct-action oriented, often anti-authoritarian groups that I am familiar with.

We are so often in a reactive mode – responding to one tragic occurrence only to find it followed by another and another. It is hard to get perspective when we are constantly witnessing all the horrible occurrences in the world that need attention and work. There is so much for us to do. Thich Nhat Hanh councils, “A student asked me, ‘There are so many urgent problems, what should I do?’ I said, ‘Take one thing and do it very deeply and carefully, and you will be doing everything at the same time.’” It seems we need to find work that we feel good about and that really engages us rather than always jumping from one thing to the next – that seems to be one of the roots of much of the burnout I have seen in the community. We could take a deep breath, step back and look at the bigger picture of our work. Take a moment to get some perspective and allow a vision of what we want to form. Then we can work for what we want, rather than against what we don’t want.

Please contact me to discuss things like this: counterbalance@riseup.net

I was excited to hear that, bundled up with the $700 billion federal bailout bill, there was a tiny provision to give bicyclists a $20 per month commuter reimbursement that some bicycle advocates have been seeking for the last 7 years. While there are tons of incentives, subsidies, and tax deductions for automobile drivers, this is the first federal law that financially recognizes bicycles as a mode of transit. Is this crumb of a provision better than being ignored?

The way this works is that if my employer chooses to participate (entirely optional), I can have up to $20 a month deducted from my pre-tax income, and get a voucher for the deducted amount to spend at a ‘dedicated’ bicycle shop. The $20 benefit is intended to reimburse you for bicycle related expenses like bikes, helmets, repairs, locks, etc. Thus, my pre-tax salary would be $20 less, but I would get a $20 voucher. My employer could instead choose to just give me a voucher as a subsidy, and this would be tax-free for them. It’s up to the employer if they implement the benefit as a pre-tax benefit or a subsidy — the latter is obviously a greater benefit to the employee, but a greater immediate economic cost to the employer.

All of these numbers are a minuscule fraction of the size of tax perks related to driving. These new bike benefits are similar (but smaller and more restricted) to commuter transit benefits and parking benefits. The same tax provision amended by this law already gives up to $230 a month for car parking and up to $120 for transit fares, but only $20 for bicycling expenses.

The anticipated cost of the new bike benefit is a tiny $1 million per year, compared to $4,400 million ($4.4 billion) the government already spends for parking and transit benefits according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation.

I currently get a commuter transit benefit in the form of discounted bus tickets every month — my employer pays for $4 of these a month, so I can get $10 worth of bus tickets and my pre-tax salary is $6 lower than it would have been. If I started getting this bike benefit, I could no longer get the bus tickets. This means folks who do a combined transit and bike commute could only get one of the types of benefits.

The voucher piece seems crappy to me. Employers can provide a cash benefit instead of a voucher, but because they might have to track receipts, most employers are expected to use the vouchers. Why is this little bike benefit so much more restrictive than the much larger benefits for auto-drivers? What does it take for a place to count as a “dedicated bicycle shop”? Could a time-and-money-donation-based non-profit bike co-op count? I cannot imagine you could use such a voucher to buy a second-hand bike or parts on craigslist. What about at a general sports store (which, in some places, might be your only option for buying new shiny bike equipment)?

The voucher system assumes we are now spending money if we need bike maintenance, and offers vouchers which we can instead spend. For those who prefer other economies (like volunteering at a local bike collective in exchange for tool use, or baking some cookies for our friend the bike mechanic), the voucher isn’t as valuable.

I work for a midsized constituent of the nonprofit industrial complex, where a decent amount of people bike to work regularly. When I learned about this benefit, I asked the human resources folks about signing up. It turns out that somebody else had already asked (the day the bill passed!), and they said they were looking into it. A few weeks later I asked again, and they emailed to say they were still looking into it. I have no idea what will come next, but I’m not actually interested in signing up — I’ll keep my transit passes.

The bill is motivated by a nice idea — since there are federal programs to encourage people to drive to work, there should also be incentives for bicycling. Maybe the reason the law falls short is that biking is already so cost effective, and so easy to participate in outside of the capitalist economy that offering bikers vouchers to bike shops doesn’t seems like such a great perk, as many of us bikers don’t regularly spend money at bike shops. Similarly, walking is a great way to get to work, but that has nearly no direct costs, so it’s not clear what sort of benefit the government could provide — new shoes? Affordable centrally-located housing would encourage human-powered transit, but that’s not the sort of thing that can hide in a government bailout bill. Maybe the best way to encourage biking and walking is making them easier, safer and less stressful by having less cars on the roads.

In other bike law news, in Idaho, bikers don’t have to stop at stop signs. Similar bills have been proposed for Oregon and Montana.

The inner processes of the psyche and the outer occurrences in the world connect entirely. Inner psychic pain generally results from our internal thresholds being exceeded. When our thresholds for stimulation, strain, isolation or superficiality are surpassed a subjective ache is experienced. Sensations exceeding our thresholds over too long of a period can result in anxiety, overwhelm, fatigue, apathy, anger or other related sentiments. If a person is reflecting on their inner state from time to time, the process of going from initial discomfort (i.e. feeling scattered) to more intense suffering (i.e. panic) can be witnessed and sometimes an intervening event can occur. However, feeling good is not always a goal as growth is typically correlated with some discomfort. Certainly feeling good is not something to be expected too frequently in a culture as shallow and asinine as ours. Energy and feeling whole are necessary nonetheless to combat the massive inequalities that are becoming more pervasive each day. Protections though, like numbness and indifference (that many in the dominant culture utilize), tend to dissolve when one has seen through to the mind control mechanisms inherent in our society (i.e. fear mongering or the invention of false needs constructed and promulgated by the power elite). When the psyche’s threshold is surpassed, defenses arise.

When defenses are utilized one may become rigid, disconnected, grandiose or irrational. Particularly with the economy in the condition that it is in, people are utilizing more defenses than before the “bubble burst”. Those less unfortunate likely deal with feeling frustrated, helpless and agitated. Those most sensitive or vulnerable deal with much worse (though of course the economy is not the only impetus for intense suffering in this culture). These more unfortunate individuals may experience psychotic breaks (psychosis/hallucinations are one example of defenses not being enough to help one cope), suicidal feelings and/or extreme rage. Many people fall somewhere in between mild frustration and severe suffering. The implications of neoliberal economics are agony and anguish for a great many; and numerous people suffer directly or vicariously because of this. In general our defenses remain erected in order to get through stress – simultaneously causing some additional distress due to the phony nature of defenses (rigidity or numbness is not authentic, but simply a way of coping). It never feels good to not be our true genuine nature, however many involved heavily in dominant culture do not seem to be aware that this is a great source of pain, or are so confused, conditioned and brainwashed that it does not matter to them as long as they can remain asleep, numb or distracted. Essentially our psyches erect defenses because of unfavorable conditions and these secondarily result in disconnected, false, simulated relationships with our self and with others.

Defenses arise to protect us from the emotionally charged contents of the unconscious that the unfavorable conditions of the environment provoked. The unconscious carries great power and paradoxically the unconscious can take control of those who have not explored its contents (many interested in the unconscious have studied the demagogy appealing to German citizens when Hitler was gaining power – the propaganda had a strong appeal to Germans both due to social circumstances and the particular unconscious contents of many Germans during the rise of the Third Reich; anyone interested in the powers latent in the unconscious may want to further explore this topic). Tolerance, respect and self-determination are often sacrificed when there is a heavy focus on the conscious and a repudiation of the unconscious.

When a culture has too heavy a focus on efficiency, rationalism, mathematics (meaning quantifying everything) and materialism, typically the focus has become too much on what is conscious. Unfortunately a highly conscious focus (and subsequent lack of focus on the unconscious) currently dominates the majority of the humans on earth. However, the majority of what drives humans is unconscious processes. Likely 95% or more of human behavior is due to processes of the unconscious (think about how many times your own behavior has surprised you or how many of your thoughts seem to just rise up into your awareness). This means that we as a whole are living in a pretty precarious manner.

Some practices and some psychoactive substances can make a number of unconscious processes known (including LSD, meditation, hypnosis, and dream interpretation). It is important to understand that the ecology of our psyche is in balance only when the unconscious has a voice and is given a chance to connect with our conscious mind. Such a balance has implications for the events of the world (because of the aforementioned connection between the inner and outer worlds). Combating control and inequality is done best when we have internal balance – and sooner or later some internal balance must be struck or we may burn out.

There are many ways of unifying one’s psyche, ways of rounding up the inauthentic fragments it has split into when under too much stress. Meditating and recording dreams are very ancient activities deeply rooted in the psyche that can help re-establish a natural and balanced rhythm for the mind. Meditating in a quiet outdoor location (that doesn’t charge admission) next to trees, water, etc or sitting in grass or dirt is ideal. The internal systems of the body are balanced by meditation. Also lingering emotions can be altered with meditation and general mental discomfort eased. For some people meditation is excruciatingly difficult (especially at first), while this is not the case for others. Some people quickly begin to see their mind differently upon first trying the practice. When one’s mind quiets down it can become apparent that the thoughts and the meditator are not one and the same. Anyone interested in practicing can do so by finding a quiet environment, turning attention inward and concentrating the mind on the breath and then gently returning the focus to the breath each time it drifts to the thoughts that are going by. By calmly accepting the thoughts that arise a natural letting go occurs.

Those who have become highly practiced in meditating sometimes realize in deep meditation that life is by its very nature cyclical, and that currently we are in an epoch of disease, death and destruction. Though these cycles are ebbing and flowing, ultimately we are moving toward a world of awareness and equality – if enough inhabitants of the planet wake up in time that is. If not then of course Earth will die. This belief that planets die when the inhabitants remain buried in too much ignorance for too long is common in many eastern spiritual traditions (and obviously the stage is set for terrible things to happen on this planet between nuclear weapons and fascist agendas). A change in outlook and the audacity to speak the truth are requisite for a new direction to arise. And any meaningful and lasting change must make use of unconscious forces.

Similar to meditative practices, dream interpretation facilitates a relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, and aids in creating a more balanced mindset. If we focus on what is going on in our dreams we can look at which archetypal themes are active in our psyches. Archetypes are symbols that are shared by every psyche. Common items, relationships and events are symbolized by archetypes, for example a mother or a child archetype. If we are feeling quite fearful, stressed or scattered we may dream of an animal or scenario that symbolizes these feelings. Frequently our dreams have nothing to do with our waking experiences, they represent unconscious processes pertaining to much larger, more timeless matters.

When contemplating a dream, consider how the dream felt overall and also how various isolated elements of the dream felt. Consider how you feel in genera
l towards the elements of the dream. For example if you dream of an old roommate consider how you felt in the dream towards that person, how you used to feel about this person, and think about the ways you identify with this person (does this person symbolize your motivated, lazy, grandiose, shy, hyper, side?). Once we document our dreams and contemplate the meanings of the symbols within (even if we do not come to an understanding of what the symbols may mean), energy from the unconscious can be mobilized. This energy can be used to stay balanced and to continue on in the uphill trek.

The relationship with the symbolic grants us permission to acknowledge where we are at in our psyche; and this understanding frequently allows a more peaceful state of mind to arise and stay around. (There are many websites dedicated to identifying meanings for various symbols – these can be helpful for dream interpretation). Keeping a pad and pen next to our sleeping place encourages us to document our dreams as soon as we awaken. Then, interpreting immediately or later works – though immediate is better to keep in mind all of our complex and contradictory feelings towards the dream objects. Much of the time our dreams speak in metaphor and often go in the format of a story or play (when we have a longer dream or a vivid memory of the whole dream at least). There is often an introduction to the elements of the story, then there is a problem or conflict, then an increase in action and then there is often a direction or outcome alluded to. With some very special dreams, this direction that is hinted at can be hugely beneficial in guiding the direction in which our lives are moving. In general, dream themes can give a good hint about what attitude to honor, what action to take, what occurrence to notice in our surroundings or where to go next as the battle continues.

Between meditation and dream interpretation much psychic maintenance occurs. These powerful activities can be done by most people and have produced results for many centuries. Being attentive towards our psyche can help keep us sane long enough to witness and cause transformation. But, practical applications aside, non-ordinary states of consciousness have been of value to humans for ages. It is tough to deny the feelings we have when caught in dreams that seem endless. Our feelings are no less real in these instances than in waking consciousness. This can lead one to wonder if there is a bigger dream going on. And what it actually may mean to wake up.

I keep having moments when I really appreciate the quiet wisdom of my mom. She grew up in modest economic circumstances in the 1940s and 50s as the daughter of a farm manager and so she learned all kinds of do-it-yourself skills and techniques that people now are trying to recapture. Nowadays, many of us are trying to figure out ways to live more simply and use fewer resources in response to a global ecosystem brought to its knees by the over-consumption of advanced industrial capitalism. My mom’s 4-H skills were just her being practical — but they are like a time capsule of hints at how people used to live just fine with a lot less ecological destruction.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been learning to cook with a pressure cooker — something you don’t see much anymore but something my mom always did.

If you want to cook beans, doing so without a pressure cooker uses much more energy. It can take 3-4 hours to adequately cook black beans in a pot — 3-4 hours that your gas or electric stove is spewing emissions into the atmosphere. With a pressure cooker, it takes 20 minutes, i.e. only 20 minutes of emissions. Garbanzo beans — which are notoriously difficult to cook on the stovetop — are an even more dramatic example. Just 25 minutes in the pressure cooker. This is because water boils at a hotter temperature when it is under pressure, so the food cooks significantly faster.

So here’s my rough how-to guide, because when I started using a pressure cooker, I was a bit lost. This is just for beans or vegetables because I’m vegetarian — let me know what you learn about other stuff.

1. First, you have to find one. Check second hand stores — there are a lot of them around not getting used. You need a weight for the top that fits with the one you buy. It has to have a rubber seal around the lid so be careful the rubber still looks good. There is also a pressure relief plug to avoid explosions — make sure it hasn’t blown out. I would suggest testing a new one carefully to make sure it won’t blow up on you — heat it carefully in an empty kitchen and keep hands clear and eyes protected during the test. If it survives the test, you can cook calmly. Or you could buy one new.

2. For beans, you cover them with at least twice the amount of water as beans, if not more. It still helps to pre-soak beans but you don’t have to. It can be fun to first soak, and then sprout the beans for a day for extra-woo woo health benefits. Be careful about putting too many beans in — they expand a lot. I add spices and salt after cooking except that I put in bay leaf, clove and garlic, if applicable, before hand. You can’t add them while you’re cooking because you can’t open the lid once it is under pressure. Salt changes the boiling temperature of water at sea level — it makes sense to me it would change things under pressure, too, which is why I avoid putting it in first.

3. For vegetables, you can put a steamer in and just put water on the bottom of the pressure cooker. It only takes 4-5 minutes to steam whole potatoes in a pressure cooker. For softer veggies, just a minute or two.

4. Put the top on and lock it. Bring it to a boil gradually with the weight not on the top of the pressure cooker. After steam not mixed with water or other matter starts shooting out the top, you know it is boiling and you can put the weight on the top. Some beans like garbanzos make suds so it can take a few moments of sputtering before you get a nice clean flow of steam — you don’t want to put the weight on while it is sputtering.

5. Once you put the weight on, set a timer. Bigger beans take a bit longer but not too much. Experiment.

6. Once the timer goes off, turn off the heat and let the steam out gradually by lifting (but not removing) the weight from the top. You can’t open the lid or you’ll be seriously injured. Once you’ve released the pressure, open the lid and enjoy a faster and lower emissions dinner.