Author Archive
June 9, 2009 at 4:39 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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Once again, despite ourselves, we are thrust onto the front lines of history. In the midst of an economic crisis, the leaders of the wealthiest nations on earth are meeting in Pittsburgh to discuss how to preserve global capitalism and reform the loathsome International Monetary Fund—and we are hosting our convergence in Pittsburgh a mere two months earlier.
We hadn’t planned on this—perhaps we’d forgotten that we are in a war that is constantly unfolding, that doesn’t permit truce or respite. It’s hard to bear in mind at all times how much depends on us, to remember that we are responsible for making the kind of resistance we want to participate in come about in our lifetime. At the same time, we can’t only react to our enemies, even when they are constantly provoking us—we must also take the time to develop long-term relationships and projects, or else we’ll never be able to take the initiative.
So what will the convergence in Pittsburgh look like?
Reflections, Solicitations, and Announcements after the jump!
April 25, 2009 at 1:23 pm · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by ret marut
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Over the past three decades, Earth First! has waged a life-or-death campaign to halt the destruction of the natural environment. Right now, the Earth First! Roadshow is halfway through a five month revival tour across the United States, sharing direct action skills, ecodefense history, and opportunities to get involved in protecting the wilderness. Consult their schedule here to see if they’ll be passing through your bioregion before the tour ends at this summer’s Earth First! rendezvous in Cascadia.
One of the acts on the roadshow, a puppet show teaching basic security culture skills, is especially timely in view of recent government efforts to entrap and frame environmental activists. We’ve obtained the script and an audio file, and are sharing them here to equip you to put on the puppet show yourself if you so desire. If your community could use a refresher in protecting your privacy and safety against snooping, evil-intentioned G-men, just build some puppets and adjust the show to your local needs! You can even use the audio recording if you prefer not to memorize the script yourself.
It’s all after the jump!
March 28, 2009 at 11:49 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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Over the past decade, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty—SHAC—has waged an international direct action campaign against Huntingdon Life Sciences, Europe’s largest contract animal testing corporation. By targeting investors and business partners of HLS, SHAC repeatedly brought HLS to the brink of collapse; it took direct assistance from the British government and an international counter-campaign of severe legal repression to keep the corporation afloat.
In the wake of this campaign, there has been talk of applying the SHAC model in other contexts, such as environmental defense and anti-war organizing. But what is the SHAC model, precisely? What are its strengths and limitations? Is it, in fact, an effective model? If so, for what?
This analysis explores these questions in depth, charting the history of anti-HLS organizing and reviewing subsequent attempts to utilize the same tactics.
Read full piece here.
December 20, 2008 at 10:25 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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From December 6, when police murdered 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in downtown Athens, to the time of this writing, Greece has seen unprecedented rioting. Anarchists and students, supported and often joined by significant swaths of the population, have clashed with police, destroyed corporate and government property, and occupied government buildings, trade union offices, and media outlets, not to mention the usual universities. By December 12, police had used over 4600 capsules of tear gas, and were seeking more from Israel and Germany—an ominous pair of nations, when it comes to repression.
What’s going on in Greece? Is it simply a matter of disenfranchised youth protesting a discouraging job market, or is there something more afoot?
Photos, questions, and a preliminary analysis after the jump.
November 29, 2008 at 3:49 pm · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
Here’s a new poster on the economic crisis, perfect for wheatpasting in neighborhoods with a lot of foreclosures.
Everybody knows that you’ve got to have money to make money, and never is that more true than in a speculation-driven economy. As the stock market reached unprecedented heights, its connection to the nuts and bolts of the economy became more and more illusory, making a “correction” inevitable–and profitable, for some. Gambling on the correction became a money-making scheme in its own right, and continues now after the collapse, without regard for the fact that such late-game betting assures that the recession will be all the more severe. Institutional investors can afford to play this game because, for them, a collapse of the stock market just means an opportunity to gamble on bonds or currency or whatever other financial product which might benefit from the disappearance of trillions of dollars in artificial value.
But if the value lost in the stock market is artificial, the consequences for human beings are very real. The ranks of the unemployed are rising by the hundreds of thousands every month. Inflated prices for consumers goods will largely stay inflated, even as earnings decline and homes are repossessed. And while the ultra-wealthy will ride out the recession in a riot of luxury and consumption, everyone else will be faced with a new, harsh reality—one in which the means of subsistence are increasing hard to achieve.
So for all the media’s obsession with stunned stockbrokers and disgraced corporate tycoons, their suffering is distinctly abstract: paper losses to be pondered during a long and comfortable early retirement. The rest of us will be forced to wonder why the most basic needs of our lives—food, shelter, medicine—are tied to the whims of a marketplace designed for collapse.
Further reading links after the jump.
November 15, 2008 at 10:16 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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An analysis of the political climate following the election of 2008; a plea for anarchists to maintain vibrant networks and confrontational organizing even as Obama takes office; a discussion of what it takes for such networks and organizing to succeed; and a brief review of actions around the election, with a glimpse of what is to come.
Featuring a revision of our earlier Obama poster, and a PDF [6.2 MB] of a paper used to satirize corporate media the day after the election . . .
It’s all after the jump!
October 11, 2008 at 10:22 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
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Nowadays, entirely apart from the question of whether you’re engaging in illegal activity, it can be important to protect your privacy while participating in public protests. Local and federal law enforcement agencies are compiling extensive files on everyone they deem suspect; if you don’t want them invading your privacy, it may be appropriate for you to remain anonymous while exercising your supposed right to free speech. The same goes double if you lack the privileges of citizenship or you fear your employer may discriminate against you for your political beliefs. In the light of the felony charges resulting from the recent RNC protests, it is especially important for activists to be aware of this.
We’ve already published extensively on this topic, most notably in the guide Blocs, Black and Otherwise. The following is largely a refresher for anyone who needs it before hitting the streets again.
Full text after the jump.
September 27, 2008 at 8:42 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
We’ve just finished a new poster, as a humble effort to support those who were caught up in the repression that accompanied the Republican National Convention earlier this month. Please print these out and put them up wherever people might see them. Better yet, organize benefits to raise funds and awareness for the organizers being charged with felony “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism” and others facing serious charges.
Download Poster PDF [335 KB]
Poster text after the jump.
September 7, 2008 at 8:19 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
Rolling Thunder, the biannual journal covering anarchist activity and direct action in North America, is seeking submissions for our coverage of the protests at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. If you have access to photos or other documentation, or can write an account of your experiences, please contact us: rollingthunder@crimethinc.com.
Please make an effort to help us get good material on these events, so we can pass on an accurate picture to others around the world (and to posterity). It’s especially important that we get a broad sense of what occurred at the DNC and RNC protests so our community can learn from these experiences in order to act strategically in the future.
PHOTOS: Please send the original full-size camera files, so they will look good in high-resolution printing.
ACCOUNTS: We’re interested in practically everything—anecdotes from jail, narratives from lockdowns and black bloc actions, first timers’ first impressions, perspectives from within infrastructural organizing groups (medics, convergence center, etc.), descriptions of police raids, everything.
If you are concerned for your privacy, just go to an internet cafe and open a new email address from which to write us. Rolling Thunder is a no-profit project, but we can at least provide free copies of the issue to contributors. Thanks so much everyone!
August 5, 2008 at 7:39 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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A selection of updates from the organizing to disrupt the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, including:
– A brand new Unconventional Action paper!
– National day of action against electoral politics August 10!
– Calls to action in Denver for the DNC!
It’s all after the jump!
July 25, 2008 at 9:17 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
Today anarcho-punk maniacs From the Depths are embarking on their summer tour, taking with them tremendous quantities of books and free literature. They’ll be presenting a range of direct action, self-defense, and health care workshops, and are traveling in a truck that runs on vegetable oil so as to be able to play as many benefit shows for local grassroots projects as possible. To reach them for further information about any of these shows, or to invite them to your town, email booking@fromthedepths.info.
Lyrics, downloadable artwork, and tour updates are all available at www.fromthedepths.info.
June 27, 2008 at 10:44 am · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by ret marut
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A century ago, unwitting CrimethInc. agent Winsor McCay sketched a political cartoon lambasting the waste of human life in overseas imperialism. Back in 1991, we updated it for the first Iraq invasion, but never got around to releasing it. Finally, over five years into the latest occupation, we are giving up and presenting it to the public. All along, we hoped that the poster design was about to become dated and irrelevant; unfortunately, we now fear that it will remain timely for years to come.
In hopes of shortening those years, please print these out and post them everywhere potential recruits and deserters might see them. In a couple months or so, we’ll have the two-color version printed and ready to include in orders.
A fairly comprehensive list of resources and groups related to conscientious objection, G.I. rights, and anti-recruitment resistance can be found at Objector.org.
Disclaimer after the jump.
May 19, 2008 at 8:00 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
At the invitation of Team Colors, who are coordinating the publication In the Middle of a Whirlwind: 2008 Convention Protests, Movement and Movements, we present a full analysis of the strategic opportunities and challenges presented by the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. We hope this will contribute to ongoing discussions about whether and how anarchists should participate in them.
For internet casualties who don’t have the attention span to read an actual text, here are the basic points:
Read the rest of this entry »
April 22, 2008 at 9:45 pm · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by ret marut
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This month, as every month, I tromped over to Borders to purchase the new issue of Elle magazine. I was delighted to see that the May 2008 Elle is their third Green Issue; thanks to funding from Aveeno®, it’s even printed on 10 percent post-consumer recycled paper. But when I opened the magazine, I discovered a sticker pasted across one of the articles, as pictured here.
The article in question details the recent case in which an FBI employee infiltrated a group of young radicals, pressured them to carry out illegal activity, and lured them to a bugged cabin, at which they were arrested when it appeared that they were not going to go through with her plan. Eric McDavid, one of the arrestees, was recently convicted by a conflicted jury and faces up to 20 years in prison.
Read the rest of this entry »
March 13, 2008 at 7:27 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by ret marut
Last week, a lone bicyclist left an explosive device at an army recruiting center in New York City’s Times Square, damaging the windows and entryway. It is widely suspected that this is the same bicyclist who targeted the Mexican consulate with an explosive device last year on the anniversary of Brad Will’s murder by Mexican government officials. No one was injured in either event.
Despite maintaining an extensive network of security cameras and a police force that is among the biggest standing armies fielded by any nation, the NYPD faces serious challenges in identifying the alleged bomber. At first, the press reported that a communiqué (“We Did It”) and “rambling political manifesto” had been sent to Capitol Hill claiming credit for the bombing. This proved to be a false lead; in fact, it was simply an unluckily-timed letter from a California liberal. Officials are now pointing to alleged anarchist involvement.
A funny joke and a PDF of a funny sticker after the jump.
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