Category: Organizer Essays

“The earth is not dying, it is being killed, and those who are killing it have names and addresses” – Utah Phillips

 

Who are the corporations and individuals fueling endless war and ecological collapse? The ones who sat and planned to invade Iraq, roadless forests and New Orleans? Many groups are already organizing blockades, street protests, and stockholder meetings targeting these institutions of violence — conducting research to expose their deeds. Why not try an even more dangerous maneuver: talk to and try to understand the people working and living at the point of production and the people who surround them? Below is just a tiny fraction of the corporations and institutions that make up the machine. Are some based in your town? What can you do to expose their activities to public scrutiny? Better yet, can you make your own list of companies in your area?

 

PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTORS

 

Private military contractors, more frankly called mercenaries, provide personnel, security, logistics, and supplies for twenty-first century Western militaries lacking in public support. There are over 100,000 contractors in Iraq who play a substantial role in strategy, tactics, and policy.

BLACKWATER USA-P.O. Box 1029/MOYOCK, NC 27958/252.435.2488, 7,000 acres of land. Erik Prince, Owner. Gary Jackson, President. World’s largest private army, founded in 1997.

DYNCORP 1401 McKinney, Suite 2400/Houston, TX 77010/888.669.3920. President and CEO: Herbert Lanese. Dyncorp Mercenaries have been employed in Bolivia, Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait.

MILITARY PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES INCORPORATED 1201 E Abingdon Dr Ste 425/Alexandria, VA 22314 – Alexandria, VA. Owner: Carl E. Vuono, president. Operating in Iraq and militarizing civilian police.

 

DEFENSE CONTRACTORS AND INVESTORS

 

The defense contractors provide the industrial backbone and financial capital that gives military industrial complex its power.

BECHTEL 50 Beale St/San Francisco, CA 94105/415-768-1234. San Francisco, CA. Riley P. Bechtel, CEO. Construction company involved in Iraq, oil and power plant operation, privatization of water resources, Los Alamos Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore Lab.

CARLYLE GROUP 1001 Pennsylvania Ave Nw/Washington, DC 20004/202-347-2626. Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., Chairman. Huge investment group with major defense and power investments, political clout, and Dunkin Donuts.

HALLIBURTON/KBR 1401 McKinney, Suite 2400/Houston, TX 77010/888-669-3920. DAVID LESAR, Chairman, President and C.E.O. With the Single-source Iraq war contract Halliburton was awarded, this petroleum and construction company is making billions.

ITT CORP. 4 West Red Oak Lane/White Plains, NY 10604/914-641-2000. Steven R. Loranger, Chairman, President and CEO. Involved in arms manufacture and export, and sponsored 1973 coup in Chile.

 

OIL COMPANIES

 

The anti-war movement has marched behind the banner No Blood for Oil since the Gulf War. As oil resources diminish the strategic value of petroleum will only increase, and the major oil companies will continue to drive foreign policy.

BP – St James’s Square/London, SW1Y 4PD/United Kingdom/Phone: 44 20 7496 4000. Tony Hayward, CEO. Former colonial British Plunderer, the sun never sets on B.P.’s oil extraction operations.

CHEVRON 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road/San Ramon, CA 94583/United States. Phone: 925-842-1000. CEO & Chairman David O’Reilley. “Iraq possesses huge reserves of oil and gas — reserves I’d love Chevron to have access to.” – 1998 quote from CEO Kenneth Derr.

EXXONMOBIL- 5959 Las Colinas Boulevard/Irving, TX 75039-2298/United States Phone: 972-444-1000. Rex Tillerson, CEO. Heavily funds global warming denial, supported Indonesian military in East Timor.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL Carel van Bylandtlaan 30/The Hague, 2596 HR/Netherlands Phone: 31 70 377 1365. Jeroen van der Veer, CEO. Another former colonial monopoly, Royal Dutch Shell was directly involved in the 1995 execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and extracts the world’s oil reserves for profit at an alarming rate.

 

EDUCATION & RESEARCH

 

HERITAGE FOUNDATION 214 Massachusetts Ave NE/Washington DC 20002/202.546.4400. Edwin Fuelner, Jr., President. Think tank supported the Reagan Doctrine by funding Contras and anti-communist rebels in Angola and arguing for U.S. dominance in foreign policy.

PROJECT FOR NEW AMERICAN CENTURY William Kristol, Chairman. Non-profit educational organization committed to the proposition that American leadership is good for the world.

 

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS

 

CHRISTIAN COALITION 499 S Capitol St Sw/Washington, DC 20003/ USA /Phone: (202) 479-6900. Pat Robertson, president. In 2003, Robertson called the Iraq War “a righteous cause out of the Bible.” Opposes abortion, gay rights, provides mass support pew by pew for the neoconservative elements of Republican Party.

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF EVANGELICALS 499 S Capitol St Sw/Washington, DC 20003/ USA /Phone: (202) 479-6900. Leith Anderson, President. Evangelical group that is backbone of Christian Right movement that leads to militarism and death, hard at work building a loyal Christian faction in U.S. military.

 

ECO-DESTROYERS

 

MONSANTO /800 North Lindbergh Boulevard/St. Lois, MO 63167/314-694-1000 Monsanto, formerly Dow Chemical, makers of Agent Orange, continue to pump out chemicals and endanger the food supply.

INTERNATIONAL PAPER/ 6400 Poplar Avenue/Memphis, TN 38197. John Faraci, CEO> Mindlessly pulping forests in the Southeast.

 

MEDIA COMPANIES

 

TIME-WARNER – Time Warner Inc./One Time Warner Center/New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-484-8000. Richard D. Parsons, Chairman And C.E.O. CNN must bear responsibility for media that uncritically incorporates U.S. propaganda.

NEWS CORPORATION – 1211 Avenue of the Americas/ New York/New York 10036 New York, NY. Rupert Murdoch, CEO and Chairman. Infamous for taking a strong stance in support of jingoism at the expense of journalism.

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hmovement has marched behind the banner No Blood for Oil since the Gulf War. As oil resources diminish the strategic value of petroleum will only increase, and the major oil companies will continue to drive foreign policy.

BP – St James’s Square/London, SW1Y 4PD/United Kingdom/Phone: 44 20 7496 4000. Tony Hayward, CEO. Former colonial British Plunderer, the sun never sets on B.P.’s oil extraction operations.

 

Good sex, in our opinion, is an act of mutual aid. Every person, regardless of gender, is responsible for contributing to the well-being and pleasure of their partners and themselves. We must explore and know our own desires and learn to speak them. We must hear and respond to the desires of our partners (even if that means accepting refusal gracefully). This means finding the words to express how we like to be touched, spoken to, tied up, and cuddled. Fucking is any raunchy act, and all of it requires consent. Getting explicit permission, however vulnerable and scary it may seem, is a great turn-on. What better than knowing your partner really likes it when you touch them that way, talk in that voice, or use that prop? What is better than knowing you can ask for anything, and it will at least be considered respectfully? There is no way that we or our relationships can grow if we don’t find safe spaces in which to explore.

If you have never spoken during sex, or asked permission, or blurted out your desires, feel free to start small. Most people hear compliments well, and appreciate encouraging suggestions. However, it’s equally important to discover the boundaries of your comfort (often situational) and speak them as well. Starting off with a “this feels so good” or “I love it when you…” or “I’d like you to spend the night if you’re interested” is fantastically brave. If you’re not there, work on moaning—just get yourself vocal. Steady yourself for disappointment (and delight), and enjoy the benefits of good communication. You may find out a lover has fantasies they didn’t share or they may entrust you with a story of trauma that is a gift to know and share the burden of. Often, people’s boundaries are related to past experience, and creating a safer “right now” can help some people open up closed doors. Reading your partners’ nonverbal cues is equally important, as is verbally checking for consent about each different act in which you may engage. There is no implicit consent to touch someone’s genitals because you have kissed them, or to have intercourse because you’ve had oral sex. I once met a couple who’d been together for three years and had never said a word in bed. He didn’t know that she’d never come and she didn’t know how to ask for what she wanted! If your partner tenses up or cries or is unresponsive, it’s really important to stop, check in, and support what they need. Remember, all of us have triggers, and not everyone is capable of communicating when they are reliving trauma. Don’t restrain your partner unless it’s part of consensual play, and check in before you lock the door (this can be a subtle act of power). Be honest about any risk factors you bring, such as Sexually Transmitted Infections, whether you have unprotected sex with other people, and if you have allergies to glycerin or spermicide (in lube) or latex. Details make all the difference.

It’s also important that we take care of our community and help out our friends. Sometimes people are too hurt, distracted or intoxicated to be concerned with their well-being. At the very least, we should directly check in with them about what they want and expect, and possibly act to get them to a place of lower risk. It’s also important to confront people (in a supportive way) who act aggressively, because they may not understand that what they are doing is possibly assault. Rapists in prison admit to an average of 11 acts of assault before they are caught. They are either okay with what they are doing, or don’t believe there’s anything wrong with it. The reality is, it’s a habitual behavior. Better to find out and help before it’s a problem situation. Putting people in prison or exiling them from scenes will not stop sexual assault. We need to find ways to address the behavior without destroying the person.

While being so direct about sex is outside of most norms, it transforms sexual experiences. When we are sure that we agree with our partners about expectation and desire, there is no fear to distract us—only pleasure and humor. The most important part of speaking our desires is realizing they are ours to fulfill—not our partners’. It’s much less pressure to offer someone a choice (“Would you like to come home with me or would you rather hang out here?”) than a request (“Would you come home with me tonight?”). Too often it’s easier to say yes than to explain “Yes, I want to come home with you but I’m nervous because I haven’t been with anyone since…” If we allow for slow and comfortable intimacy, we are likely to experience it more fully and joyfully.

So, if you are often the initiator of your sexual experiences, experiment with patience and let someone else take the lead. Even if it means being alone more often, you may find you enjoy yourself more when you have partners. If you are less likely to initiate sex, think of ways you could safely ask for intimacy. Having the support of friends could make it easier to approach that really great someone.

It’s our responsibility to create new sexual expectations based on good communication that not only reduce the likelihood of sexual assault, but affirm that sex is normal and necessary. This begins with teaching children healthy ideas about their bodies and believing people when they share stories of sexual assault. Consider it turning on the lights. There are endless ways for us to end our internal oppression and explore healthy, better sex.

A call for a spontaneous universal uprising on Leap day

2008 is leap year — a fantastic opportunity to leap into something new. Are you gonna to use your extra day like you use so many other days — toiling away at your job to make the bosses richer? Using up more of the earth’s resources while the forests, the oceans, and free communities are being killed? Watching it all go on around you — an “information consumer” — feeling helpless to do anything to resist it?

Life is far too short to spend days, weeks, years just getting by — getting treated like an object. How much of your life do you really get to control? How often are you really fully alive and free?

If you wish things were different and dream about a better world, you’re not alone. Vast numbers of people from all walks of life realize that life as we know it isn’t satisfying our real needs and has to change. But hoping and dreaming isn’t enough.

Lots of people have developed and articulated ideas for how life could be transformed. We need to love each other, take care of each other, share and cooperate, live with the earth instead of destroying it, and embrace diversity, not hatred and violence. Social structures that promote power and inequality need to be dismantled, and arrangements that promote freedom and sustainability constructed in their place.

So if things are to change, how can each of us be part of creating these changes? Most people feel like they’re too isolated as individuals to really do much of anything effective against a massive, entrenched system. This collective feeling of individual helplessness and inertia is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it isn’t real — it is just a collective illusion.

Those in charge encourage feelings of isolation, helplessness, and passivity in a million ways. They want everyone to individually conclude that nothing very big or important can change — that the big things have to be the way they are. They love cynicism, resignation, and isolation. They fear community and discussion about alternatives. But most of all, they fear action — the moment when individuals take matters into their own hands and stop just hoping for a better world.

Anyone and everyone can take action. Taking action means moving from wishing things would change to changing them — in your family, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, in your school . . . in your own mind. Change in your mind is the most accessible change and yet often the most difficult — we’re all embedded in deep patterns that hold us back from building change out in the world. We’ve learned to feel powerless and take for granted lots of fucked up power relations. Working on changing our internal mental state goes hand and hand with taking action to change the external world. As we take action in the real world, we help liberate the parts of our mind that hold us back. Each new action experience — creating change ourselves — helps open possibilities for even more action and change.

Action in the world can mean living differently yourself in a variety of ways — the way you relate to others, the way you communicate, the way you eat, the work you do, the transportation you use, etc. And it can mean organizing with others to build new ways of living — creating community gardens, cooperative houses, collective businesses, neighborhood councils, and revolutionary organizations. And action also means rising up to fight those who dominate power and try to prevent change — joining protests, sit-ins, riots and strikes. The historical dates in this organizer chronicle all the amazing ways people have taken action through the ages: non-violently and violently; on a local level and on a global level; alone and together, in every year, across every place on earth. When you take action, you are far from alone! The key is for each individual to make the leap from hopelessness to action in as many ways as they can in any particular moment.

This leap day — February 29 — imagine everyone who feels smothered living a mediocre life within the current insane system rising up to resist in whatever way they can. Take leap day off work and live life like it really mattered. Spend the day as a free and whole being. Maybe that means spending time alone, or maybe it means with friends, or with your whole block, or even the whole city. Maybe it means tearing down the forces that seek to crush your dreams and force you back to work on March 1. Maybe living free for a day means spending the day creating new structures, new ideas, new forms of cooperation, and a whole new reality which makes you happier and freer. You don’t have to wait for tomorrow, and you don’t have to ask anyone for permission. Leap for it!

This organizer is a tiny part of a growing resistance — crouched in the shadows but poised to jump into the open unexpectedly, and soon. All around, you can see inclusive, heterogeneous, and fun alternatives to the violence and oppression inherent in the current crazy economic/political system that is destroying the earth’s ability to support life itself. The system seeks to control everything from the top down by selling individual isolation to destroy community. But people are coming together and creating so much do-it-yourself art, music, writing and so many independent alternatives — grassroots forms of expressions that the system can never absorb — that the old centers of power will become irrelevant. Acting, studying, and creating together and outside the system defies the velveeta world and the culture vultures.

The illusion of isolation can be swept away in a moment. Isn’t it better to take our knocks in the head together in the streets than to face the world alone and afraid? To spend all night listening to the fragile voice of rebel low-power FM while plotting liberation than to sit awake fretting — anticipating the nightmare of daily life when the alarm clock goes off? Why not take a walk through what’s left of the woods and the great cities, talk with the people you meet, eat a good meal with friends and see all the pain and pleasure in the world. When we wake up, smell the coffee, and open our eyes, we look forward to an exciting life filled with revolt, creativity and cooperation that will surprise and inspire us.

This is the 14th year we’ve been privileged to publish the Organizer. It raises funds to publish the bimonthly, radical, independent Slingshot Newspaper. We aim to distribute the newspaper for free everywhere in the US. Send us your mailing address to become a local distributor of Slingshot. Thanks to the people who made this year’s Organizer: Aaron, Abigail, Abra, Alexis, Artnoose, Cara, ChelseaLuna, Crow, Crystal, Dia, Eggplant, Emily, Fil, Gregg, Hzl, Jess x 2, Julia, Kathryn, Kenneth, Kermit, Leah, Lew, Mary, Molly, Moxy, Paseo, PB, Rachel, Rubicil, Samantha, Sydney, Taeva, Tomás, Veta, Z!k.

Slingshot Collective

3124 Shattuck Avenue • Berkeley, CA 94705 • 510 540-0751

slingshot@tao.ca • http://www.tao.ca/~slingshot

© Anti-Copyright. Borrow whatever you want. We did.

 

Note on Moon dates: we list the day on which a full moon or new moon occurs for Universal Time (UT) — if you live in the USA, the DAY of the event may be a different day. UT is 4 hours before eastern time and 7 hour before pacific time.

 

printed on recycled paper

All volunteer collective — no bosses, no workers, no pay.

 

Slingshot Tip: to preserve your cover & binding, tape your cover with clear packing tape

 

 

As we build new non-hierarchical projects, businesses, houses and institutions, efficient, clear and open group process can make our work a lot easier. Making decisions as a group shouldn’t have to mean sitting in endless disorganized, frustrating meetings or letting our groups be dominated by those with the loudest voices. Here are some tips on how to create effective, fun, cooperative structures for liberation.

Decision Making Process

• If possible, come to meetings having already thought about concrete things to say and discuss.

• Starting a meeting well sets the tone for what is to come. Make a clear agenda that everyone understands and agrees on. Select people to play roles at the meeting: a facilitator or co-facilitators, a time keeper, someone to take minutes, and maybe a stack-keeper and vibes watcher for bigger meetings. Go around the circle and have everyone introduce themselves and perhaps check-in with how they’re feeling to build a cohesive spirit for the meeting.

• Meetings are more fun when there’s food and drink served.

• It can be helpful to have a brainstorm to generate lots of ideas on a particular agenda item. Everyone throws out ideas and no one comments on them or discusses them at the time. They are written down and organized or discussed later.

• Sometimes people raise their hands to speak to a point. The facilitator or stack-keeper will call on people and keep their comments in order. Other times a “talking stick” gets passed around — only the person holding the stick can speak.

• Sometimes, it is nice to have a “go-round” so that everyone in the circle can speak to a point or say “pass.” That will give quieter people who might not raise their hand a chance to speak.

• During the meeting, after discussing a point on the agenda, one or several people can state specific proposals or counter-proposals for the group to act on. This avoids general discussion that doesn’t lead to a clear decision.

• When a meeting is having a hard time getting to a decision, it can be helpful to take a non-binding “straw poll” to get a sense of how people feel on an issue. It may be that most people already favor one course and a straw poll can move the meeting from discussion to reaching a decision.

• Many groups use consensus to reach a decision — the process of only making a decision when, after thorough discussion, everyone agrees to a proposal or agrees to stand aside and not block it. This can take longer because it requires discussion, hearing others and compromise but avoids a group splitting between winners and losers.

• At the end of the meeting, make sure the date is set for the next meeting. Doing a check-out to state how people thought the meeting went can help heal hard feelings that may have developed during the meeting. It also helps to have people repeat what they agreed to do at the meeting so everyone remembers who will do what later. Write up minutes and distribute them to the group.

Organizational Development

• Groups that grow slowly and organically — starting with small goals and letting the project expand with the group rather than biting off a huge task right from the start — tend to keep going rather than burning out. Avoid endless discussions of abstract structure before you’ve even done anything.

• Collectives work best when they stay pretty small — maybe the size of a band or at most a smaller chamber orchestra. If a project requires more people, several independent collectives can communicate and cooperate on it.

• Having an established welcoming ritual for new members will help the group seem open rather than a closed clique of friends.

• Some collectives are open to anyone who wants to join. Others are closed collectives — new members have to be invited to join by the existing group. Figure out which kind your group wants to be based on the goals and needs of the group. It is okay to decide who you want to work with — being closed can help deal with disruptive people. On the other hand, open groups can include new energy, people and diversity outside your personal friendship network.

• Finances should be open and not mixed with anyone’s personal money.

• Keep a binder with all the minutes of meetings to maintain history as membership changes.

• Avoid an in-group developing by posting meeting times if the group is an open collective.

The Official History of the World gets written by those in power. It functions to support the current power structure by making the way things are seem inevitable and natural — the result of the inexorable flow of time. If you only read Official History, you’ll feel isolated and powerless because you’re just a regular person working a shitty job and living in an anonymous neighborhood, not a great leader like the people in the history books. If you’re invisible — not really a part of history — a different kind of future may seem impossible.

We’ve created this organizer and filled it full of historical dates that aren’t part of the Official History. The dates in our calendar commemorate the generations of regular people just like you who got together with their neighbors and tried to build a different kind of world. People who resisted those in power. We see history not as a static, academic subject, but as an active process that we all participate in every day. At the end of each year, we look back and see what events we can add to our list of historical dates for the next year. We know its been a good year when we can add a whole lot of dates at the end.

Learning the history of resistance helps empower us to struggle today — to participate in the present and to create a different kind of future. It is easy to feel isolated and powerless until you realize that your actions now are connected with millions of people over the eons who all struggled against the same forces and for the same kinds of liberation. The diggers were creating community gardens in England 350 years ago and we’re still talking about them. The luddites were attacking technology 200 years ago, and modern luddites still are. There are countless other examples in this calendar.

History can help us understand our connections with the past and the complex relationships that add up to social change. History gives us perspective about how change happens. It can take a long time. Sometimes people can struggle their whole lives and never see change or liberation. Other times, people happen to live at precisely the right time to see massive shifts in power right before their eyes.

Those in history who struggled for freedom weren’t the end of the process and those of us alive now aren’t the first. We won’t be the last either. Change sometimes happens unexpectedly just when things look hopeless. If you’re feeling hopeless about the greenscare, the war on terror and George Bush, imagine how people felt during the redscare, the cold war or watching the rise of Stalin and Hitler.

Change happens because of a combination of tactics, movements, individuals and communities chipping away over generations, and change can happen all of a sudden because of a single brilliant action or individual. You never know when you go out to a demonstration whether it will be Seattle in 1999 or Tiennamen square in 1989.

The people listed in the organizer who made history were just like us. They got up, ate breakfast, took a shit and then walked out the door and did something that we still remember today long after they are dead. That’s the kind of opportunity each one of us is presented with every day when we wake up. Not everybody can wake up every morning and have the energy to go out and fight the system, but some days all of us can.

It’s sometimes easy to think that history is boring because we’re usually first exposed to history in school and the Official History of great, slave owning, white men is boring. When we think of history, we see our part of it right now — the way today’s present is tomorrow’s history, and the way today’s struggle becomes tomorrow’s future. Being an active, radical and vibrant part of the past, present and future is exciting.

Making your own hygiene products is an easy way to avoid supporting corporate petrochemical giants who test on animals and offer dubious, carcinogenic ingredients. It’s easy, cheaper, and helps you be more self-reliant.

Some recipes:

ALL PURPOSE CLEANER: especially useful for toilets, sinks, countertops

Sprinkle baking powder on the surface you want to clean.

Spray the powdered surface with a mixture of vinegar and lemon juice (there will be some fizzing).

Scrub with a rag or sponge and rinse.

GLASS CLEANER

Water and a little white vinegar with old newspapers or rags instead of paper towels.

TOOTHPASTE

It’s mostly important that you brush and less critical what’s on the brush. Any nontoxic abrasive will work, commonly plain old baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). If you don’t like the powdery feeling, you can mix it with water into a paste, or add a few drops of essential oil for a little extra flavor.

HEALING SALVE/LIP BALM

Herbs for skin healing: calendula flowers, chickweed, plantain, comfrey, lavender, and yarrow

Herbs with antiseptic properties: yarrow, chaparral, usnea, teatree, and lavender

To mix:

Gather herbs from a location that isn’t sprayed with pesticides (many public spaces are).

Dry herbs by hanging or in a paper bag.

Simmer herbs in olive oil over very low heat for several hours or until all water in the plants has evaporated (if your preparation uses fresh herbs).

Strain oil through a fine sieve.

Any water remaining in the salve may cause it to go rancid, so be diligent in boiling off the water!

Adding a little essential oil to the mix can really spiff up your salve.  Teatree or lavender are great for skin salves. For lip balms you can experiment with peppermint, orange, or wintergreen.  Make sure oils are plant derived oils and not synthetic fragrance oils.  They are an investment but still affordable.  A few drops per 1/4 cup is really all you need.

Add beeswax.   The right proportion is about one part beeswax to five parts oil.  Beeswax can be melted in a double boiler (a pot over a pot of boiling water). Add beeswax slowly, testing the consistency by dipping a chopstick or spoon into the mix and then cooling it to room temperature. More beeswax makes a firmer salve. Pour into clean containers (baby food jars or smaller) while the mixture is still warm and let cool. Seal jars for storage. Voila! Share with friends.  It’s best to make a new salve every year, although they do last when stored correctly.

 

As we build new non-hierarchical projects, businesses, houses and institutions, efficient, clear and open group process can make our work a lot easier. Making decisions as a group shouldn’t have to mean sitting in endless disorganized, frustrating meetings or letting our groups be dominated by those with the loudest voices. Here are some tips on how to create effective, fun, cooperative structures for liberation.

Decision Making Process

• If possible, come to meetings having already thought about concrete things to say and discuss.

• Starting a meeting well sets the tone for what is to come. Make a clear agenda that everyone understands and agrees on. Select people to play roles at the meeting: a facilitator or co-facilitators, a time keeper, someone to take minutes, and maybe a stack-keeper and vibes watcher for bigger meetings. Go around the circle and have everyone introduce themselves and perhaps check-in with how they’re feeling to build a cohesive spirit for the meeting.

• Meetings are more fun when there’s food and drink served.

• It can be helpful to have a brainstorm to generate lots of ideas on a particular agenda item. Everyone throws out ideas and no one comments on them or discusses them at the time. They are written down and organized or discussed later.

• Sometimes people raise their hands to speak to a point. The facilitator or stack-keeper will call on people and keep their comments in order. Other times a “talking stick” gets passed around — only the person holding the stick can speak.

• Sometimes, it is nice to have a “go-round” so that everyone in the circle can speak to a point or say “pass.” That will give quieter people who might not raise their hand a chance to speak.

• During the meeting, after discussing a point on the agenda, one or several people can state specific proposals or counter-proposals for the group to act on. This avoids general discussion that doesn’t lead to a clear decision or action.

• When a meeting is having a hard time getting to a decision, it can be helpful to take a non-binding “straw poll” to get a sense of how people feel on an issue. It may be that most people already favor one course and a straw poll can move the meeting from discussion to reaching a decision.

• Many groups use consensus to reach a decision — the process of only making a decision when, after thorough discussion, everyone agrees to a proposal or agrees to stand aside and not block it. This can take longer because it takes time to hear everyone’s point of view and requires people to compromise but avoids a group splitting between winners and losers.

• At the end of the meeting, make sure the date is set for the next meeting. Doing a check-out to state how people thought the meeting went can help heal hard feelings that may have developed during the meeting. It also helps to have people repeat what they agreed to do at the meeting so everyone remembers who will do what later. Write up minutes and distribute them to the group.

Organizational Development

• Groups that grow slowly and organically — starting with small goals and letting the project expand with the group rather than biting off a huge task right from the start — tend to keep going rather than burning out. Avoid endless discussions of abstract structure before you’ve even done anything.

• Collectives work best when they stay pretty small — maybe the size of a band or at most a smaller chamber orchestra. If a project requires more people, several independent collectives can communicate and cooperate on it.

• Having an established welcoming ritual for new members will help the group seem open rather than a closed clique of friends.

• Some collectives are open to anyone who wants to join. Others are closed collectives — new members have to be invited to join by the existing group. Figure out which kind your group wants to be based on the goals and needs of the group. It is okay to decide who you want to work with — being closed can help deal with disruptive people. On the other hand, open groups can include new energy, people and diversity outside your personal friendship network.

• Finances should be open and not mixed with anyone’s personal money.

• Keep a binder with all the minutes of meetings to maintain history as membership changes.

• Avoid development of an “in-group” by rotating tasks, sharing information about how things work, publicly posting meeting times if the group is an open collective.

 

Non-Fiction

On Photography by Susan Sontag

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper by Diablo Cody

You are Here: Exposing the Vital Link Between What We Do and What That Does to Our Planet by Thomas M. Kostigen

Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royle

America, Amerikkka by Rosemary Redford Ruether

Communes: Creating and Managing Collective Life by Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Severing the Ties That Bind: Government Repression of Indigenous Religious Ceremonies on the Prairies by Katherine Pettipas

Time On Two Crosses: Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

Affirmative Acts by June Jordan

Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse by Otto Santa Ana

Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma by Ana Castillo

The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies by Andrea Elizabeth Shaw

Resistance: An Indigenous Response to Neo Liberalism edited by Maria Bargh

Queer Beats: How the Beats Turned America onto Sex by Regina Marier

No Crystal Stair: Visions of Race and Gender in Black Woman’s Fiction by Gloria Wade-Gayles

Science and Liberation edited by Rita Arditti, Pat Brennan, Steve Cavrak

Celluloid Closet by Tito Russo & Rob Epstein

 

Fiction:

The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon by Tom Spanbauer

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

After the Quake by Haruki Murakami

The Sand Pebbles by Richard Mckenna

The Prodigal Daughter by Jeffery Archer

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

The High Cost of Living by Marge Piercy

The Iron Heel by Jack London

This Perfect Day by Ira Levin

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Johnathan Safran Foer

 

Children/Young Adult Fiction:

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Anna of Byzantium by Tracy Barrett

Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby

The Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You by Hanna Jansen

We Shall Not Be Moved: The Women’s Factory Strike of 1909 by Joan Dash

Ties That Break, Ties That Bind by Lensey Namioka

 

Magazines/Zines:

Make/Shift – PO BOX 2697 Venice, CA 90294

Cracks in the Concrete – 101 B Coop St. Westmont, NJ 08108

No Gods, No Mattress – 3088 King St. Berkeley, CA 94703

Short Fast & Loud – 255 Lincoln Ave. Cotati, CA 94931

8 Letters – 1414 Lincoln Pl. Brooklyn, NY 11213

The Match – PO Box 3012 Tucson, AZ 85702

On T’ Road – 14 Hessle Mount, Leeds, England LS6 1EP UK

Give Me Back – PO Box 73691 Washington DC 20056

Cometbus – PO Box 4679 Berkeley, CA 94704

Out Of Time

Poz

Bitch

Eat The State

 

In a number of recent cases, the police have used infiltrators/provocateurs posing as activists to entrap people on charges of conspiracy to set fires or blow things up. People went to jail just for talking about such actions, even though no property was ever damaged. In one case, a young punk woman got to know people over a period of years going to mass protests and radical convergences. She flirted and traveled with people, wrote posts for Indymedia, acted as a medic at mass protests, contributed money and resources to activist projects, and gained lots of people’s trust and respect for how radical she was. All the while, she was giving real-time reports to the police and FBI, wearing a wire to record conversations, and plotting her next move with government handlers and psychological consultants.

In the end, she put a lot of pressure on people to participate in illegal property destruction that she was suggesting, and her victims agreed in large part because they wanted to impress her, maintain her respect, and show her that they were “really radical” and totally devoted to the cause. This dynamic frequently operates even when a government agent is not involved. People get involved in militant actions that they may not feel comfortable with for the wrong reasons — due to peer pressure and out of the sometimes mistaken impression that being more militant always makes us more effective.

It’s important to understand how conspiracy charges work and not get yourself in trouble with a bunch of loose talk that you have no intention of ever acting on. You can be guilty of conspiracy just for agreeing with one other person to commit a crime even if you never go through with it — all that is required is an agreement to do something illegal and a single “overt act” in furtherance of the agreement, which can be a totally legal act like going to a store.

Sometimes activist campaigns involve breaking the law — for example trespassing at a powerplant or clearcut site. And sometimes masked figures disable a bulldozer or engage in other highly illegal property destruction. As you read the historical events in this calendar, you’ll see many times when illegal actions were reasonable, helpful or even necessary to move social change forward. Having said that, deciding to do such direct actions must involve a careful weighing of the risks (to others, to your own freedom, to public opinion about the movement) and the benefits. Actions with minimal risks are easier to consider. Hopefully, actions involving huge risks are considered very calmly and carefully.

You and only you have to determine if you feel comfortable with each particular action. If you feel unsure or uncomfortable with what other people are talking about doing, the brave thing isn’t necessarily to go along with someone else’s idea and suppress your own fear and misgivings. If someone is proposing something that you’re unsure about, it can require a lot of courage to excuse yourself from the situation. Responsible activists considering risky actions will want to respect other people’s boundaries and limits and won’t want to pressure you into doing things you’re not ready for. Doing so is coercive and disrespectful — hardly a good basis on which to build a new society or an effective action.

We shouldn’t be paranoid that everyone advocating militant action is a government agent, but it is reasonable to be suspicious of people in the scene who pressure us, manipulate us, offer to give us money or weapons, or make us feel like we aren’t cool if we don’t feel comfortable with a particular tactic, no matter why they do these things. Sometimes the most radical thing we can do is to be true to our own intuition and take the time to think through each situation.